“What do we do next? If we can’t contact Tran, what else is there?”

  There was a long pause before she replied. “Nothing.”

  * * *

  Khiem reported to General Le Than, charged with the defense of Haiphong. Than gave him a less than effusive welcome, although General Khiem was close to the Politburo in Hanoi and should be treated with respect.

  “You are most welcome, Commissar General. I understand you’re hunting the escaped prisoners. Have you had much success?” he asked in an oily tone.

  He grimaced. “We’ll find them. It’s just a matter of time.”

  Than nodded slowly. “A slow process, yes?”

  “Yes!” He felt like snapping this officer’s neck for his insolence.

  The other man’s smile broadened. “Perhaps not as slow as you think. We have them.”

  “You what!”

  “My men captured the enemy soldiers. They’re bringing them in now.”

  “How? Where?”

  Than shrugged. “I will have fuller details when they arrive. Perhaps you would care to be present for the interrogation?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  He was about to question him for more information about the capture when the phone on General Than’s desk rang. He spoke briefly, listened for almost a minute, and hung up. Looked at Khiem. “They’re here now. I ordered my men to take them immediately to an interrogation cell. I’m going down there right now if you wish to come with me.”

  He did wish and followed him out of the office, down two flights of stairs into a dimly lit basement. Two guards stiffened to attention, their rifles presented in salute.

  Than nodded in acknowledgment. “Open it.”

  One man unlocked the door and pushed it open. The two officers entered the cell and confronted the captives. Four guards stood with rifles pointed at five American soldiers standing against the wall, holding their manacled hands above their heads, their faces covered in bruises. Khiem gave a thin smile. They’d have given them a hard time when they arrested them. Than gestured for him to go ahead, and he went to the nearest man. He was also the biggest.

  “Name?”

  “Fuck you!”

  He nodded to a guard, who raised his rifle and rammed it into the man’s belly. He flinched but shrugged it off. Looked like he was about to rush at the guard, but like the rest of the prisoners, his ankles were also manacled, and all he could do was hobble. Too slow, the guard rammed his rifle into his belly a second time and a third. The blows weren’t enough, so he reversed his rifle and slammed the hardwood butt against his head. Tripped him, and when he lay on the floor, another guard joined him, and they went for him with their boots.

  Khiem held up a hand for them to stop. He wanted these men alive to answer his questions, so he ordered them to leave the big man on the floor while he moved to the next. He correctly identified the man as an officer, a second lieutenant. He also correctly identified him as the weak link.

  Strange, why didn’t they place a stronger man in command?

  He didn’t give the reason too much thought. Stood so close their faces were inches apart. Locked his gaze onto the other man’s eyes. “Who are you? Name!”

  “Second Lieutenant Samuel Cruz, United States Army.” He mumbled his Army number, “That’s all I can tell you. Under the terms of the Geneva Convention, I’m a prisoner of war, and…”

  Khiem nodded to the guard who’d beaten the first man. He shoved the muzzle of his rifle into the prisoner’s belly so hard his eyes nearly popped out of his head. He wrapped his arms around his body to favor the wound and protect himself from another blow. He was wasting his time. The guard had been waiting for it. Was experienced with getting confessions from reluctant prisoners, and he brought up his knee, smashing it into the man’s groin.

  He groaned with pain, and his eyes watered, filled with tears. “Please, no more. I’ll tell you what you want.”

  “Yes, you will. Where are they?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The prisoners you freed. Where did they go?”

  “Mister, we didn’t free any prisoners, I swear. Please, no, argh…”

  He collapsed beneath another flurry of blows. Khiem shouted for the guard to stop, but too late, he’d lapsed into unconsciousness.

  He turned to the next man, who was black. “Name!”

  “Whatever you want. The name’s Reggie Lynch, and I don’t know anything about any prisoners. Anything else you want to know, I’m your man. This isn’t my fight, I never wanted to come here in the first place.”

  He questioned him for several minutes and got nowhere, even after the guard had used his rifle to give him several hard blows on the head. He went to the fourth man, got nowhere, and moved on to the next. He spent an hour questioning them, until all five men lay on the floor, bruised and bleeding, and he satisfied himself they didn’t know anything about the prisoners.

  It didn’t make sense, not until the officer recovered consciousness and he questioned him further. Discovered they’d separated from the rest of the group, two Americans and two South Vietnamese, and he didn’t know where they were. It had to be them who’d helped the prisoners to escape the camp, and that meant they were still running loose inside North Vietnam. Probably trying to reach the coast to call in rescue helicopters to escape.

  His gloating at the capture of the Americans faded, to be replaced by the previous suspicion his long and illustrious career was about to collapse into ignominy. Unless they caught up with those men.

  He swung around and looked at General Than.

  “We have to find them before they get away. You are in command of the air defenses, and I want you to call in every mobile battery to relocate to guard the coastline. That’s where they’ll be heading, most likely waiting for helicopters to take them off. Do it now. There’s not a moment to waste.”

  Than raised his eyebrows. “Those mobile batteries are a vital part of our defenses to protect us against the nightly bombing raids. I cannot relocate them without a direct order from Hanoi.”

  “I have the authority to issue the orders, General.”

  “You take full responsibility?”

  A brief pause. He didn’t want to commit himself that far, but unless they found those escapers, he was ruined anyway. “Full responsibility.”

  “Very well, I will issue the orders.”

  * * *

  They’d waited all day, all through the night, and the next day. There was no sign of the two Vietnamese. But during the late afternoon of the second day, things started to happen. The area had been quiet so far, with occasional passing traffic, bicycles, motorcycles, military trucks, and a few civilian vehicles. Including the occasional bullock cart that trundled past. No Vien and Dao.

  They had to face the possibility they wouldn’t come back. Several of the freed prisoners also expressed doubts about their reliability and suggested they could’ve gone over to the enemy, like Vien’s husband. He doubted it. They were both fervent supporters of the Saigon regime, with a strong hatred of everything Communist. It didn’t mean something hadn’t gone wrong. They could’ve been captured, or killed, or there could be some other reason. Whatever it was, they hadn’t come back, and now they had other problems.

  More vehicles began moving along the highway, many more vehicles. Truckloads of troops, towing mobile anti-aircraft guns, trucks with mounted missile batteries.

  Anderson summed it up. “They’re bringing a shitload of anti-aircraft defenses, and that can only mean one thing. They believe we’ll be calling in helicopters to take us off, and they’re gonna shoot the crap out of them the moment they appear.”

  “I agree, but we’re not calling in helicopters, the plan is to steal a boat.”

  He nodded. “Sure, but do you think they haven’t thought of that? They’ll have every boat in the harbor heavily guarded, locked up so tight we can’t get close.”

  He couldn’t argue that, but they couldn’t sit and do nothing. “You got any other ideas?”

  “I have. I was thinking about those anti-aircraft batteries they’re moving to the coast. Me and the boys were talking about knocking some of them out before they shoot down more of our guys.”

  He stared back at him in surprise. “Colonel, we’re talking about bringing the North Vietnamese military down on our heads. They’d know what was going on right from the start, and they’d flood the area with troops to find us and kill us. There’s no way any of us would get away.”

  He returned a somber look. “You think we don’t know that. The way we figure it, we’re not getting out of here anyway, and not one of us plans to spend what remains of his life in some squalid camp or carried off to Russia for the Soviets to play games with our minds. We’d sooner fight.”

  “And die?”

  His jaw jutted forward. “If it comes to it.”

  “Let me think about it.”

  “Sergeant Heller, you don’t need to think about it. We’ve decided to go ahead. As soon as it gets dark, we’re gonna attack the nearest battery and destroy it. When we’re done, we’ll move on to the next. Keep going, until they stop us.”

  “I hear you.”

  He walked away, thinking furiously. He hadn’t given up on Vien and Dao, not entirely, although he admitted the chances of them coming back were low and diminishing with every minute that went past. The best way would be to strike out for Haiphong and try for a boat, but without the kind of help the two Vietnamese had gone to arrange, it didn’t look possible. There were no other possibilities. Attack the anti-aircraft batteries and destroy as many as they could before they went down fighting. Or strike out for the docks, and the probability was it would all be for nothing, they wouldn’t even get close.

  He chatted to Ripley about the options, and he didn’t have anything to offer. On balance, he was in favor of going for the batteries rather than getting cornered inside Haiphong and shot down like dogs. There were no alternatives, and he agreed. It wasn’t a good way forward. He’d undertaken this mission to free the prisoners, to bring home the MIAs. Not get them involved in some epic last stand. But now, every other route was closed to them.

  He looked for Anderson and found him chatting quietly with several aircrew. “Colonel, I want a word.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Where do we start?”

  Chapter Ten

  They waited out the rest of the day, and he felt nervous. Who wouldn’t feel nervous? They were about to embark on what amounted to a kamikaze mission. Prepared to sell their lives to whittle down at least some of the formidable anti-aircraft defenses that took such a huge toll on American aircraft. It wasn’t what he’d come for, and committing suicide wasn’t what he’d signed up for. But what they were planning was righteous. It would spare the lives of at least a few aircrews, and those aircraft that could’ve been shot down would get through and bomb the crap out of the Viets. Not a bad result.

  The flyers wanted to go in and take out the first target, but he persuaded them to hold back. To leave it to him and Ripley, Recon, ground pounders, soldiers whose job it was to sneak up on the enemy without being seen. As soon as darkness fell, they made a start. The road was empty of people and traffic, and they used it to make better time. It didn’t take long to locate the first battery, about one klick from where they were hiding. It wasn’t going to be easy, as well as the quad barrel heavy caliber anti-aircraft gun mounted on a trailer, the Viets had brought up a platoon of soldiers.

  As long as they held the advantage of surprise, he considered it feasible they could take it. What happened afterward was something else, but they’d worry about that later. They scouted around, not getting too close in case they were spotted, and it wasn’t going to be so easy. They returned to tell them what they’d found, and they were waiting for them, bunched around. Waiting for them to describe what they were up against.

  “Any real problems?” Kowalski asked, “I mean, anything we need to know.”

  “Yeah. For starters, a platoon of NVA infantry and a four-man crew for the gun battery.”

  “We outnumber them two to one. Well, almost two to one.”

  “Captain, with all due respect, you men aren’t trained in ground attack tactics. If anything goes wrong, we’d be fucked. And I mean anything.”

  He shrugged. “We’re fucked anyway, so what’s the difference?”

  He couldn’t argue with that. “There’s something else. Another battery five or six hundred meters north. If there’s any shooting, they’re sure to hear us. We need to do this without making any noise.”

  “Knives,” he grunted, “No sweat. There’s nothing I like better than sticking it to the bastards.”

  Heller looked at each man in turn. “Have any of you ever killed a man with a knife?” Plenty of heads shook to reply in the negative. There were no positive replies, “I can tell you it’s not so easy, but if it has to be done, we’ll show you how. First, we split into two-man teams.”

  “Two men?”

  “One to hold the target down and stop him thrashing around and shouting a warning. The other sticks the knife in. Preferably cut across the throat. Me and Ripley will take care of the sentries and tell you when it’s clear to go in. Remember, anybody makes a sound, and we’re screwed. Okay, guys, pair off, and we’ll go through it.”

  They were willing students. He asked for volunteers to play the victim, and they practiced their technique. One man grabbed the ‘victim,’ while the others did the business. When they’d all taken a turn, he made them do it again. Hoping to Christ when it came to the real thing, they’d handle the blood and the gore. They had all the enthusiasm, but these were men who fought the war in the air. A pushbutton war, where the results of their attacks were several thousand meters below them.

  The war they were about to fight was different. A war where you were inches away from the man you plan to kill. You could smell his sweat, smell the stale odor of his body, and the stink of his most recent meal on his breath. A living, breathing human being you were about to snatch the life from. Not every man could deal with it, although he believed these men were different. Trapped in a hostile and cruel foreign land. Not expecting to survive any longer than a few more hours, or if they were lucky, a few days.

  When it was dark, they set off, following a narrow path that ran adjacent to the road. Walking silently. If any man spoke, it was in a muted murmur, impossible to be heard more than a couple of meters away. The night was dark, the moon and stars partly covered by clouds. Just enough light shone down for them to keep on the path, but not so much that they could be seen from any distance.

  He worked out they were near enough, and he held up a hand for them to stop. They knew what to do. Stay low, keep out of sight, and if anybody happened along, eliminate them before they had a chance to cry out.

  “Me and Ripley will take care of the sentries first. When we’re done, one of us will come back and give the all-clear for you to move in. Don’t forget. One man to hold down the victim and clamp a hand over his mouth, the other the other to cut his throat. No noise, and no shooting.”

  They murmured their understanding. The two Recon men melted into the shadows and slid away into the undergrowth. They’d spotted six sentries, each wide awake. Constantly looking around, investigating the slightest noise, the rustle of leaves in the wind, the stealthy sounds of a small animal, the fluttering wings as a bird fell victim to a predator. The sentries would know of the escaped prisoners. They’d know they were heading this way. Would know what was at stake, including their lives if they failed to spot intruders.

  They selected the first two targets and began working their way toward them. Inching across the ground flat on their bellies, reaching forward to remove any obstacle from their path, anything that could make a sound and alert the sentry. Like fallen branches, loose stones, and dry leaves. If it was near enough, even a single leaf could be enough for a man to investigate.

  Heller gently pushed aside everything in his path. He held aside a bunch of hanging vines while he squeezed past, slowly releasing them when he was through. It took him an hour to cross one hundred meters to his target, but his patience and care were rewarded when he came up behind the pacing man and slid behind a nearby tree after he’d walked past. Waiting for him to come back. He held the bayonet he’d taken from the Viet he’d killed, after first wiping his hand on his shirt to make sure it wasn’t damp with sweat, so he’d lose his grip. The sentry walked past the tree, and Heller stepped out behind him. The guy must’ve sensed something wrong, or maybe heard the faint rustle of his clothes, for he started to turn. Too late, he guided the bayonet beneath his chin and pressed hard, slicing across. His left hand clamped over the guy’s mouth, holding him still to stop him causing a commotion as the lifeblood poured from the gaping wound.

  He lowered him to the ground and left him where he was. He couldn’t risk dragging the body into the bushes because the others might hear him. He went to find Ripley, who had just completed a similar task. Successfully.

  They were too close to the other sentries to risk even a low murmur, so they used hand signals to indicate their next move. The two men they planned to kill were walking a random route, making an ambush that much more difficult. Unlike the first two, their routes met in the middle. Each time they stopped to murmur a few words to each other. He decided that was the best place to take them. Where they met was a low wall that was all that remained of a stone building. The rest of it had gone, probably carted away by peasants to use for building materials, and now it offered them good cover.

  When the soldiers had moved away on the outward leg of their patrol, they sneaked forward and slid behind the wall. It should’ve been easy, wait for them to meet and start chatting, and take them both in a surprise attack from behind.

  Like most things in battle, those that should’ve been easy were inevitably anything but, and so it proved this time. As the sentries met and averted their eyes to look at each other, they struck. Heller’s blade slashed down in a lightning move, and it was under the guy’s chin before he’d noticed anything wrong. He ripped the blade across to cut through his throat, but the guy had a thick leather collar wrapped around his neck, probably while he was recovering from some injury. The blade sliced through the leather, but only cut into his skin, leaving the vital organs undamaged.