He reacted like lightning and threw himself to one side as a bullet spat from the muzzle. He’d left his rifle on the bridge, and he clawed out his Colt. Aimed and missed. The Viet fired again, fired twice more, and ducked away as Heller’s bullets whistled past him. He ran toward a ventilator and crouched behind it. He rolled to the deck just as he popped out and another bullet whined toward him.

  How the fuck did this guy get on the ship? We were supposed to be home and dry.

  They wouldn’t be home and dry until he’d eliminated him, and the bastard was crafty. More than crafty, the look that blazed in his eyes served as a warning. He was beyond pissed. Determined to kill him. Two more bullets whistled past his head, and he rolled again to shelter beneath a coil of thick rope.

  He had to finish this fast. Had to draw him out so he could put a bullet in his ugly mug. The rope gave him the idea. He picked up the end and swung it around like a cowboy on a cattle drive. Let it go, and it thumped over the top of the ventilator. The guy was rattled, jumping at shadows. He must’ve assumed he’d climbed over to jump him, and he snapped off a couple of shots that targeted the end of the thick rope.

  Heller catapulted to his feet, made a running dive past the ventilator, tripped on an oil slick and slid along the slippery deck. He was still sliding when the Viet came into view. Staring at him, eyes wide. He made a feeble effort to swing his gun around, too late. He pumped four .45 caliber ACP bullets into him, and he fell backward like he’d been poleaxed. Lay on the deck, his head inclined to look at the blood pumping from his chest.

  He looked up at Heller. “You…”

  “Yeah, me. You lose, motherfucker.”

  “You’re wrong.” Those were his last two words. Commissar General Khiem flopped back and was still.

  What the hell did those last two words mean? ‘You lose,’ what was that all about?

  He got his feet and swayed as the reaction of the past few days swept over him. He was beyond tired. He walked slowly back to the rail where he’d left Vien. He didn’t find her at first, not until he searched and found her in a huddle behind a wooden shipping crate. His first thought was he wished it had been his blood that had spilled onto the deck. She’d been hit by at least two bullets, one in the belly and the other slightly higher. It must’ve been that second bullet that’d done the serious damage. It looked like it’d sliced through a vein or even a main artery.

  She wasn’t dead, but it wouldn’t be long. She looked up at him. “Heller.”

  “Yeah, it’s me. Stay with me, Vien, I’ll get help.”

  She hadn’t heard him, or maybe she hadn’t listened. “You were right.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You said they all die.”

  He shook his head vehemently. “No, you’re not gonna die. You can’t die!”

  She didn’t hear him. He felt tears well in his eyes. Heard somebody coming toward him. Akulov, the Alaskan. He didn’t say anything, not that he ever said much, but he put a comforting hand on Heller’s shoulder. He stayed with her until the helicopters arrived from the Forrestal and took them on board. All of them, including the Ukrainians. They left the Russian, the engineer on the ship. He was welcome to it, although it would be a short voyage, and for anyone else they’d left behind. Water was flooding into the hull after the Ukrainian crew opened the seacocks and smashed them beyond repair.

  Several days later, they arrived back at Tan Son Nhut. He hadn’t joined in the party to celebrate the homecoming of the MIAs. He wanted to be alone. Ripley tried to keep him company to try to assuage the black cloud that’d descended over him since they’d left the Godunov. He’d carried Vien aboard the helicopter until a corpsman insisted on taking over. He made a final check on her vital signs, found none, and zipped her into a body bag. There was never any shortage of body bags in Vietnam.

  They wouldn’t allow him to be alone. They were ordered to a debriefing, where a fleshy, red-faced intelligence officer lounged on the rostrum. He glanced up, saw they were all present, stifled a yawn, and nodded to the NCO standing next to him.

  “Okay, okay, you can get the show on the road. Make it quick, I have other things to attend to.” He looked up and glanced at the men seated before him, “Before we start, I want to introduce myself. The name’s Monaghan.”

  Heads jerked up. Monaghan, the intelligence officer who’d failed to validate their identities while they were on the ship, crying out for help.

  “I want to congratulate you on a successful mission. Our casualties were light, and you bumped off plenty of gooks.” He failed to stifle a sly grin, “Don’t they say, ‘The only good gook is a dead gook.’ Well done.”

  “What did you say?”

  He looked at Heller. “I said well done.”

  “Before that.”

  “I said ‘The only good gook is a dead gook.’”

  He was up on the rostrum so fast that nobody reacted. He bunched a fist and hammered it into Monaghan’s face. Hit him again, and again. Got in a half-dozen solid punches that turned his features into red mush before they dragged him off.

  Afterward, they could’ve thrown the book at him, but they didn’t. Heller had effectively led the men who located and brought back the MIAs. Monaghan was under a cloud, still under investigation for his failure to confirm their identities while they were on the ship. Going after Heller could only tarnish the image of an already tarnished military.

  Just ten days were left before his tour was up. A man can do a lot in ten days.

  * * *

  He’d volunteered for one last mission. A mission to fulfill a promise he’d made to a girl who’d died at the last moment before they got away from North Vietnam. The airwaves were buzzing with reports of a high-level South Vietnamese defector. The nephew of the President of the Republic of South Vietnam, no less. Touring the villages of North Vietnam, giving rousing speeches to the peasants about the terrible conditions people like them endured in the South. The Communists trumpeted their mouthpiece, coercing every man, woman, and child to attend and listen to Quan’s rabble-rousing. They even triumphantly announced each venue in advance, so people would be sure to attend.

  MACV heard about the visit to Cua Lo, just north of the DMZ, and the buzz went around they were considering taking him out. There was talk about an airstrike by B-52s, quickly dismissed. They were sure to get Quan, but they could also take out a couple of hundred civilian noncombatants. If they wanted Quan dead, they’d need to do something different. Heller was different. He wanted revenge, in spades. To honor a promise.

  * * *

  Watched, and they waited. He and Akulov, because the Alaskan had a special skill. He was a marksman and happened to have the Springfield rifle his father had gifted to him. The rifle he’d used to shoot wolves, and polar bears for meat, across the desolate, Arctic tundra of Alaska. A Springfield, more than fifty-years-old, the wooden stock scratched and battered, the blue of the barrel faded, but it wasn’t lacking in other places. Like the business end, where bullets came out. Precision, fine engineering, combined with loving care over the decades, a superb telescopic sight his father had taken from a German soldier during World War II, and a marksman pulling it all together.

  Akulov had learned everything from his father, and he carried that knowledge with him into South Vietnam. And when required, across the DMZ into North Vietnam. They’d hitched a ride on a supply aircraft flying up to Bien Hoa, where Heller called in a few favors to head north on a Huey carrying supplies to a firebase just south of the demilitarized zone.

  From there, they sneaked across the heavily defended border into North Vietnam. Another good reason to leave the military when his tour was up. The DMZ was dangerous, the North lethal. If a man was going to risk his neck, he needed a lot more money than the miserly few bucks the Pentagon paid two men like him.

  They lay up on a low hill, overlooking the target village. The range was long, about two klicks. Akulov had returned a solemn look when he questioned his ability to hit the target with any degree of accuracy at such a long range. He never replied, but Heller got the message.

  There was nothing left to do but wait. Quan was due to give one of his pep talks the following day, and they observed NVA troops moving into the village to spruce the place up, to make it look like a success story for the Hanoi regime instead of the squalid shithole it was.

  They spent a miserable night on the hilltop. Rain cascaded down in torrents, nothing unusual for these parts, but it made sleep almost impossible. When dawn broke the rain stopped, the clouds cleared, and the sun beat down on them. Steam rose from the ground, creating a mist that hid much of the surrounding area, including the village. Quan was due to talk to the inhabitants at 1400. Still time for the mist to clear, but it didn’t.

  By midday, the jungle still steaming, shrouding everything in mist, and they had to face the distinct possibility the mission was a bust. Another hour passed, and everything changed. The mist cleared, and they saw signs of activity down below. More troops moving into the village, riding in trucks, escorting a Russian jeep. Heller was watching through binoculars, and he identified Quan right away. Remembered him from that night when the Communists invaded the Presidential Palace in Saigon. The night he and Cruz had squared up to each other and almost come to blows. It was him, and if anything, his time in North Vietnam had been kind to him. He looked fitter, sleeker. Wearing a kind of military uniform, immaculately tailored. He looked less like a senior North Vietnamese officer and more like a safari hunter, the kind who used to run around Africa slaughtering the wildlife.

  “You see him?” Akulov had been peering through his scope, and he gave a faint nod, “I want this to look good. Wait until he starts talking. The people watching will see him go down, and they’ll learn the way things are in this shithole of a country, not the way Hanoi tells them.”

  He gave another faint nod. People were assembling in the village square, and they’d prepared a small platform for Quan to start his rant. Just before 1400, he climbed onto the platform and gazed at the audience. He shot a glance at the soldiers who ringed the square, rifles held ready in case they had to deal with hecklers. Nobody heckled. He opened his mouth to speak. Akulov squeezed the trigger. Quan’s head disintegrated, spraying a red cloud of blood and tissue over the nearest onlookers.

  They ran. Following a route they’d worked out on the way in, pushing into a nearby patch of jungle, worming their way through trees and vines. Kept running. Speed was life. Get clear before the Viets worked out what was happening. They were close to the DMZ, and they crossed into South Vietnam two hours later. Another twenty minutes and they walked into the firebase they’d left the day before.

  Every man knew what they’d been up to, and they were waiting for them when they entered. The officer in command of the firebase blurted out the question.

  “Did you get him?”

  Heller put him out of his misery. “Yeah.”

  He grinned. “Good work. They’ll give you promotion and a medal for what you did.”

  “Fuck ‘em.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Fuck ‘em.”

  “You’re a senior NCO. What about your men and your officer?”

  “Fuck ‘em.”

  He didn’t get it, so Heller gave it to him straight.

  “I’m finished with officers. Finished with the kind of men who’re more likely to put a bullet in my back than fight the enemy. Finished.”

  “Finished? What about the Army?”

  “I’m out.”

 

 

  Eric Meyer, Missing in Action Part 2

 

 

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