Marine Sniper (19 page)

By noon, nothing had crossed their line of sight. The patrol that lay hidden far to their rear along a low ridge remained silent, too.

When the Viet Cong sniper reached the network of tunnels and underground chambers that housed his unit's headquarters, his commander-the woman who hunted Marines at Hill 55-met him at the door. He told her of the two enemy soldiers whom he saw fighting at the edge of the clearing and urged her to hurry back and get them. The woman was hesitant. Where there were two Marines, there could be many more. She had planned an ambush for that evening and to reach the place where it would be set up, she would need to go over or around the hill in front of which the two Marines had shown themselves. After some thought, she decided not to cancel the evening's ambush. She would decide whether they would go over or around the hill when they reached it.

Gnats and other flying, biting insects swarmed in the shade beneath the low plants and palms as the sun heated the humid afternoon. The air hung still in a hot house doldrums that left the two Marines stewing beneath the foliage, helplessly suffering from the bites of the hungry bugs that swarmed over them. Sweat seeped into Hathcock s eyes and dripped from the tip of his nose, while an army of tiny pests crawled around his neck, inside his ears, and on his eyelids and nostrils. Hathcock remembered hearing that the Japanese in World War n had a word for days like this-it translated as "buggy-hot." He lay motionless. Any sudden motion could draw attention from an unseen enemy.

"Sir," Hathcock whispered to his captain, who lay next to him suffering similarly. "You okay?"

"No," came the captain's sharply whispered retort. "I've just about had it. We don't pick up a sign by sixteen-hundred and we're gone."

Hathcock didn't want to complain, but the bugs were getting to him, too. He felt certain that an army of black ants had found then- way into his trouser leg and now waged battle on his loins. The reassuring comment from the captain made their stinging more tolerable.

Just then, Hathcock saw a sudden motion among the broken tree trunks at the crest of the hill. "Skipper. Look. Just at the top."

The captain shifted his spotting scope slightly to his left and immediately saw the black-clad man, crawling on his knees through the maze of dead wood with an AK-47 in his hand.

"Don't shoot, Carlos. He ain't alone."

"Sir"

"Look at the rifle. If he was a sniper, he would be carrying a long stick, not an assault rifle. Bet you money that he's a scout."

"Reckon he belongs to that woman?"

"Odds look promising. We're in the middle of her stomping grounds."

"I keep thinking how good a whole lot of folks would feel if we nailed her. After that night back at Hill 55, I haven't been able to get the idea of her out of my head."

"Don't go gettin' your hopes up. It's likely we won't get a clear shot at her, even if we see her. And, don't forget, she hit An Hoa last night, and that is way over the other side of Hill 55 from where we are now. She could just as likely be laying back mere now, looking to catch herself another young boy to skin."

"I know. Still, it don't hurt none, wishin'."

"While you're wishin', just keep your sights on old Nguyen Schwartz out there a snoopin' and a poopin'."

Land had guessed correctly, die Viet Cong soldier was a scout. He had left the tunnels two hours ahead of his patrol in order to disclose any enemy ambushes on, or around, the hill. If the hill was clear, he would wait just below die crest and signal his comrades to approach.

The little man spent more than an hour crawling on his knees and elbows through the heavy fall of splintered tree trunks that lay criss-crossed and tangled, like a heap of gigantic pick-up sticks.

"He's definitely scouting," Land concluded in a soft wbis-per to Hathcock. "Probably looking for us. Let him look."

The black-clad man moved back to the hill's crest and disappeared on the other side.

"Sir," Hathcock said. "We either let another one get away, or we've got ourselves a whole stringer full of fish fixing to strike the bait."

"He'll be back," Land said.

Hathcock looked at his watch. It was nearly 5:30 P.M., an hour and a half beyond the time they had planned to leave this blind. He wondered how long his captain would persist in the wait. He only hoped he wouldn't give it up prematurely.

The November sun now stood just above the mountaintops that rose along the western horizon. It had turned from bright white to yellow and now deepened to a burning orange ball. Long shadows stretched below the trees.

"We're losing our light, Carlos," the captain said. "It's time w£ pulled in our lines."

"Sir, ten more minutes. I got this feeling that any second. .."

"Carlos," the captain said, but the sight of a dim silhouette emerging at the hilltop stopped him. 'The hilltop. Something's coming."

Hathcock looked through his scope and saw the outline of several figures emerging over the hill's crest. "I can't tell, Sir."

"I can, Carlos," Land said, looking through the more powerful spotting scope. "They're VC. Check out the one that just squatted off to the left, just below the rise from the others."

"It's a woman! She's pulling at her britches leg."

"She's taking a piss, Carlos."

"Is that her? Is that the ApacneT'

"It's her," the captain said, now certain from his recollection of the photos and sketches that an intelligence officer at the division command post had shown him. "Carlos, hand me that radio handset. I think that our best chance of hitting them is with artillery. Read me the coordinates off your map."

The answer to their radio call came quickly. The first shell exploded directly at the junction of the trail and the road, killing three of the seven Viet Cong there. Two ran down the trail away from where Hathcock and Land lay hidden. The woman, who was still squatting when the first shell exploded, fell on her face. Two shells exploded behind the first, and a VC soldier ran down the trail, toward the two Marines. The sound of more incoming artillery sent him leaping for shelter among a jam of logs.

The woman scrambled to her feet and, in sudden panic, ran down the trail, and down the hill, directly toward the two snipers hiding in the low palms and grass. She remembered how trouble always seemed to plague her on this hill. It was where her unit had had its headquarters before the bombers had laid it flat. She was running hard in panic, her heart pounding, and tears streaming from her eyes.

Hathcock tightened his grip around the stock of his Winchester rifle and centered the scope's reticle on the woman's chest. "Hold it. Don't rush the shot," he reminded himself. "Keep the cross hairs centered. Wait. Wait. Get her at the turn."

Higher up the hill, the soldier who took cover jumped from the logs and began to sprint down the trail, trying to catch his leader. He realized that she ran, not away from the danger, but straight toward it. This was where he had seen the two Marines wrestling, near the turn in the trail that his commander now approached.

He screamed for the woman to stop, but she kept running. Her temples throbbed with blood, and the shouts of her comrade seemed muffled and unintelligible, as though they came from a drowning man, pleading with his last breath beneath the water's surface.

She looked back and, as she did so, Carlos, coming to his natural respiratory pause, let his finger complete the roll of the rifle's trigger. The recoil sent the Unertl scope sliding forward in its mounts as the bullet cracked across the open land, crossed the narrow stream, and shattered the woman's collarbones and spine, sending blood and gristle spraying over the low, green ferns that lined either side of the trail.

The Marine sniper pulled the scope back to the rear position, cycled his bolt and centered his sights on the woman's body heaped in the center of the trail. The next bullet ripped through her shoulder and into both lungs, scrambling vital organs to a pulp.

The man who followed her reeled on his toes when the first shot blew the woman off her feet a few yards ahead of him. In leaping steps, he sprinted back up the hill. A single shot that Carios aimed squarely between the man's shoulders killed him instantly.

An enormous smiled passed across Hathcock's face. Land threw his arms around his sergeant's shoulders and shook him hard, "You got her, Carlos! You did it!"

Hathcock laughed in jubilation and then, suddenly, he pounded his fist angrily on the hard-packed earth, and said, "Ya, we did it. We got that dirty bitch. She ain't gonna torture nobody no more!"

Rio Blanco and the Frenchman

AT THE NVA compound far to the west of Hill 55, the squat, stockily built old commander rose early. He had not slept well. The forces that he commanded had not enjoyed the success that he had anticipated, and the tension this caused gave him a grizzly's disposition.

Today he hoped for good news.

When the old man walked into his office and sat behind a table covered with papers, a soldier stepped through his door carrying a leather pouch containing intelligence reports and dispatches from the regiments under his command. As the soldier left, an officer came to attention before the general and informed him that the commander of the guerrillas who had so successfully harassed the enemy near Da Nang had been killed, with four of her men, by snipers. The same snipers about whom she voiced concern a month before.

Her death was a sharp loss. Guerrillas of the National Liberation Army were now reluctant to go on patrol in the country where they encountered these snipers, one of whom was gaining recognition for the white feather he wore in his hat, as well as for his marksmanship.

This woman, who had begun as a Lao Dong party worker in the north, meant much to the old warrior. He had the determination, and he believed he had the means, to see to it that her assassins did not go unpunished.

Far to the east of where the NVA commander sat brooding, Hathcock walked briskly into the sniper school's command hut.

"Sir," he said, "me and Burke, we want to go back out."

"Funny you should come waltzing up here so chipper," Land said. "You get wind of something?"

"Could be, Sir. You tell me."

"You ever hear of Rio Blanco?"

Hathcock had. He constantly kept attuned to all the operations throughout southern and central I Corps, and he knew that Rio Blanco was big. But he liked to antagonize his captain.

"John Wayne movie. Right, Sir?"

"John Wayne my ass, Carlos. That was Rio Bravo, and you probably know more about Rio Blanco than I do."

"Oh, no, Sir! I just heard the name, that's all," Hathcock said, trying to sound innocent.

Land rested his arms across the desk and cleared his throat, "Rio Blanco is a major operation that will clear out a wide valley over by Hill 263. The river Song Tro Khuc runs right through the middle of it, and word is that Charlie has a reinforced regiment, or larger, down there.

"Division is massing Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and Mike companies out of 7th Marines, plus two and a half batteries from llth Marines-a MAU-sized outfit. They will link up with the ROK Marines' Dragon Eye Regiment and the Lien Ket 70 Division from the ARVN. They aim to kick ass."

Wilson, who had been sitting at the table with Land, looked at Hathcock and rolled his eyes. The sniper smiled and said nothing.

"Gunny Wilson and I have been putting together a roster of twelve snipers to take down there. The four we leave back here will check in with Top Reinke over at his hooch and operate with 1st Battalion, 26th Marines while we're gone."

Hathcock stood at the doorway, with a long expression on his face. He knew they wouldn't leave him behind, but he needed to hear it.

"We leave at zero six, day after tomorrow," Wilson said firmly. "You be sure the troops are up and packed, Sergeant Hathcock."