Ghost War (20 page)

He strode through the great entrance hall and down the long corridors as guard after guard snapped to attention. But Dong was not thinking about the impressive array of crack troops that secured this place. Rather he was contemplating how he would have to first endure a demeaning harangue from the chairman of CapCom about his lack of success in conquering the enemy’s base at Khe Sanh, before he got down to the real purpose of his visit.

Dong wondered if he had the stomach for it.

He reached the board room’s outer offices and was ushered to a small waiting area lined with uncomfortable seats. For twenty minutes he cooled his heels, knowing that this too was all part of the board’s little game. Finally, an officer entered and announced that they were ready to see him.

Two great oaken doors were swung open and Dong was led inside.

The room reeked of cheap cologne and cigarette smoke. Curtains blocked the sunlight from streaming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and the room’s half dozen giant, crystal chandeliers were dark. Instead, the chamber was lit by an impressive array of audiovisual equipment, which were continually projecting charts and graphs of annual growth percentages, operating costs, and profit margins onto more than a dozen huge TV wall screens.

Dong crossed the heavily carpeted floor and stood before the chairman and the twelve members of the board. Sitting behind a highly polished mahogany table lined with bottles of imported scotch and American whiskey, these men were all in their late fifties, all of oriental descent. Their oily hair glistened and their hands sparkled with jeweled pinky rings. Each was bursting out of his custom-made Italian suit. Dong considered them all disgusting. He was certain that not one of them had ever seen a day of combat.

Dong was not offered a chair. Rather, he had to stand as the chairman commenced to humiliate him.

“I don’t understand why you have not yet captured this tiny insignificant
nothing
of an enemy base!” the Chairman suddenly erupted. “A base that has been standing in the way of our entire northern campaign! Why have you not used the resources at your disposal effectively? We were under the impression that you were a great warrior, a professional, a military man. But now we see you are still the lowly truck driver you were when you first came to us. You are worse than a corporal, even worse than a civilian!”

The other twelve members of the board burst out laughing, but the chairman silenced them with a quick wave of his hand.

“Why have you not succeeded in your duty?” the chairman continued, his voice echoing in the large room. “Why have you shamed us, your family, and yourself with this failure?”

Dong opened his mouth to reply, but was instantly cut off.

“How dare you try to contradict your superiors!” the Chairman screamed.

Dong could feel the anger begin to boil inside him. But he had no choice but to endure this tirade—and not just to save face.

Two full minutes of absolute silence passed. Finally the Chairman spoke again.

“Well?” he asked. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Dong cleared his throat. “I wish to make another major purchase.”

The chairman’s demeanor changed instantly.

“Really?” he asked, his eyes suddenly growing wide. “How much?”

“About double my most previous purchase,” Dong replied.

“Excellent!” the Chairman said, laughing. The twelve board members nodded in gleeful agreement. Dong saw nothing now but smiles. The magic word of money had been spoken. An aide appeared out of nowhere and handed the chairman an inventory printout and price list. They got right down to business.

“OK, my friend, what do you need?” the chairman asked.

He and the members of the board were now absolutely silent in rapt anticipation. Dong paused for a long moment, then began to tick off his shopping list.

“Two hundred magnesium flares, ten thousand AK-47s and fifteen thousand rounds of ammo, two hundred .81-mm mortars and three thousand mortar rounds, fifty crates of rocket-propelled grenades …”

The chairman was making notes and working his calculator as fast as Dong could mention the items.

“And five thousand more troops,” Dong added.

The chairman looked up.
“Five thousand troops?”

“That’s correct,” Dong answered. The Chairman’s shock turned to absolute delight when he realized that Dong was serious. He had reason to be happy—everyone knew that CapCom’s profit margin was far greater for human flesh than equipment.

“Exactly what are you proposing to do?” the Chairman quietly asked after he regained his composure.

“I am planning a final push—a large bombardment followed by a huge ground attack. It should solve all our problems,” Dong replied.

After a flurry of additional calculations, the chairman arrived at a price.

“Five hundred bags of gold.”

Dong just stared back at him. “Too much,” he said.

The Chairman looked Dong squarely in the eye. “Then why don’t you go somewhere else.”

Capitalist pigs!
Dong thought to himself. But now it was time to play the game—a game that he despised. He sent word to summon for his two aides who had been waiting outside. Within seconds, they entered the huge room, carrying the iron chest.

Dong opened up the chest and quickly counted out four hundred bags of gold, just about all that was left of his magnificent gold find on the Pathet readjust a few months before. He laid the pile of precious ore on the table in front of the Chairman. He could see the man’s mouth literally begin to water.

“This is my final offer, gentlemen.” Dong said, then added, “And I expect delivery of the weapons this very afternoon. The soldiers over the next twenty-four hours—their transportation at no extra charge.”

There was a burst of grumbling from the board, but it was obvious that Dong was standing fast. Finally, the men began nodding their heads. Then the thirteen smiles reappeared.

They had a deal.

The chairman himself walked Dong back to his helicopter, presenting him with a small gift for being such a valued customer.

The chopper lifted off. From the air, Dong could see a convoy of supply trucks already on their way from the estate’s underground supply depots to the dozen cargo helicopters parked on the tarmac below. But Dong was far from happy with the situation.

“Bastards,” he whispered once they had turned south and started back to his base. “Rob me blind with your prices, and
then
you ask me why I have failed?”

An hour later, when the helicopter was passing over a boulder strewn ravine, Dong took the Chairman’s “small gift” and tossed it out the open door. With great joy, he watched the toaster oven drop five thousand feet and smash to pieces on the rocks below.

E
XCEPT FOR THE CONTINUOUS
sniper fire and mortar shelling, the next day passed in relative peace at Khe Sanh. The rains came, but there was no attack. No one knew why. But many had already given up trying to figure out the very unorthodox enemy in the hills.

Geraci’s engineers took advantage of the situation and worked furiously on the two Galaxy transports. Using hundreds of sandbags and as many corrugated sheets of tin they could scavenge from the dozens of battered and useless Legion bunkers, fifty of Geraci’s men began work on erecting a giant wall encircling
NJ104.

The other half of the 104th’s engineers concentrated on
Bozo.
Using jury-rigged jacks and counterweights, the wrecked C-5’s right wing was lifted out of the mud. Then the entire plane was righted on the runway.

Bozo
was then shored up on all sides. Pieces of corrugated tin were welded together and erected over key areas of the once great airship. Several shoulder-high walls of sandbags—the first barriers of defense—were built all around the perimeter at distances from ten to thirty yards out.

Now jokingly rechristened “Fort Bozo,” serious work had been undertaken inside the C-5 as well. A number of defensive plans against the human wave assaults were worked out. The gun crews practiced in the spacious hold of the huge cargo plane to make the directing, loading, and firing the big guns more efficient, more accurate. They also drilled extensively on swinging the guns from one side of the plane to the other, using newly installed makeshift rails designed for that purpose. Additional ladders were rigged to the upper gun port stations and to the flight deck for quicker access. Any extra time was spent diligently cleaning and oiling personal weapons as well as the big guns of the ship. The crew took their MRE chow once every twelve hours, and slept in shifts—those that could sleep. Soon, like anything else, the little things became routine.

Trapped as they were, the crew of
Bozo
had become well-oiled cogs within a well-oiled, if improvised, killing machine.

Hunter and Ben arrived at No. 6 gunpost ten minutes after getting the urgent call.

Located about 75 yards off the tail of
NJ104,
the reconstructed mortar pit was now the furthermost American position facing the enemy held hills. The One Hundred and Fourth’s General Tom McCaffrey, a man who had come out of retirement to join the great airfleet mission, greeted them. Behind him was the reason for his request that Hunter and Ben come up immediately.

Held at gunpoint by three other engineers was an elderly man, wearing nothing but a ragged loincloth and a tooth-gaped smile.

“This guy just showed up out of nowhere,” McCaffrey explained. “One minute, everything was clear, the next minute—there he was.”

Hunter and Ben looked at each other, then back at the intruder.

Hunter recognized the man right away as a member of the famous Montagnards.

The Montagnards were the tribal people who once lived in the mountainous region of the Central Highlands, an area that straddled the political boundaries of three countries: Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. As part of the “Hearts and Minds” program during the last Vietnam war, the Montagnards joined forces with the U. S. Army’s Green Berets, trading jungle survival knowledge and local support for military protection against the hated Viet Cong. But when the war ended, and they found themselves on the losing side, the tribe had to scatter far and wide to escape certain extermination by the Communists.

“I have no idea how he did it,” McCaffrey went on. “We’ve got this whole area covered with razor wire, claymores—even old hydro-fluid cans hanging from string. Anybody out there would have been blown to bits. Or at least made
some
kind of noise. But this guy got through in one piece—and without a peep, in broad daylight.”

Certain that Hunter was this odd white tribe’s Chief, the old Montagnard increased his near-toothless smile even wider.

“Do you speak English?” Hunter asked him.

The old native continued to grin. Then he pointed at McCaffrey, uttered a few words that were unintelligible, and indicated with his hands that something had been taken away from him.

“He means this, Hawk,” McCaffrey said. He handed Hunter a walking stick.

The Montagnard shook his head in agreement and pointed to the top end of the shaft.

Hunter looked and saw it was a carving of an airplane.

“Hey, not bad,” Hunter said, studying the workmanship. “Looks like a Phantom.”

That’s when the old man indicated to Hunter that he wanted to take him somewhere—somewhere far out into the dark jungle.

And that it had something to do with the carved image.

Hunter knew that many years ago, when this native was younger, the Montagnards had been a great ally to the U. S. forces in Vietnam. He wondered if that was still the case. His gut feeling was telling him that this old man—or whoever sent him—were still sympathetic. He decided to take a chance.

Hunter handed the intricately carved walking stick back to the old Montagnard.

“We will go,” Hunter said, indicating with his hands that he would follow. The Montagnard smiled even wider, turned, and started to make his way back through the perimeter.

Ben grabbed Hunter’s arm. “You’re not going alone, are you, Hawk?”

“Nope,” Hunter replied, “You’re coming with me.”

With that, the two of them climbed out of the gunpost and caught up with the willing guide.

McCaffrey watched as they stealthily zigged and zagged through the trip wires of the base’s defense, following the old man’s lead.

“Either they’re very brave or very crazy,” McCaffrey said to the other engineers. “Or both.”

It took them almost three hours to reach the cave.

Getting past the Minx lines proved easier than Hunter thought. There were dozens of enemy positions just inside the extended treeline from which they launched the vicious assaults, with hundreds of Minx snipers and mortar men manning them. But the spry Montagnard had led them to a dry stream bed which cut right through the Minx lines. Using the bank overhang as cover, they were able to slip past several lightly manned sniper positions, finally coming to a large river on which they floated away from the Minx forward positions and into a small mountain river valley, a place even more isolated than Khe Sanh. Though still controlled by the Viet Minx, the area was lightly occupied. At a turn in the river, right before a series of cascading falls, they crawled up onto the bank and, without a rest, started up a steep ravine. Thirty minutes of nonstop climbing led them to the mouth of a cave. At this point, the Montagnard bid them a silent, smiling farewell.

Correctly guessing this is where they were supposed to go, Hunter and Ben slipped into the cool, dark cave.

It smelled musty and damp, but oddly, they also detected the distinct odor of electrical gear, a burnt rubber scent. Hunter spotted a wiring conduit, running along the cave’s inner wall. They followed it through several winding passages, finally coming to a small chamber packed to the ceiling with various electronic devices, acoustical gear, and oscilloscopes. A small generator was humming in the corner, keeping the gear up and running and providing the telltale electrical smell.

“What the hell is this?” Ben asked. “The local phone company?”