Marine Sniper (22 page)

"Perhaps there," Land thought, "I'll find out what's so special about this man."

Skimming the treetops and hugging the terrain's contour, the single-engine helicopter beat its way across miles of dark jungle, rushing the snipers to their ambush site. The moonless, black sky merged imperceptibly with the treetops and ridges, and Carlos wondered how the pilot kept from crashing into them. Unobtrusively, he bowed his head and prayed.

The flight lasted less than half an hour, giving Hathcock and Burke an hour and a half to steal their way five kilometers, unseen, and hide in a position that would allow a clear, five hundred-yard shot.

Carlos had no idea where he was. His captain had marked the route to the hide on a small, plastic-covered map that someone had cut from a larger section. It made him feel uncomfortable, not knowing which direction he should retreat toward should things go sour. If something happened, he hoped that the Huey would stay long enough for him to get aboard.

The moonless night left the jungle so black that the two snipers had to feel their way down the gentle slope from the landing zone to a small stream that flowed down a long, wooded draw, or gully, that would lead them to their hide. It was a simple route, but the darkness made it a dangerous one. Charlie could be hiding, waiting.

Neither Marine spoke. Every move they made was slow and deliberate; every action, thought out and mentally rehearsed. "Where's Charlie?" Carlos silently asked himself. "Where do we escape if he discovers us now." Every night sound seemed amplified in the darkness. The air. The moisture. The taste and smell. All became part of Carlos's world as he moved silently-one step, then the next.

At 5:30 A.M., the sky began to show the orange streaks of sunrise. The two snipers crawled on their stomachs as they left the cover of the trees and ferns growing along the stream and moved toward a hump of earth covered with tall grass. It was their objective, and beyond it the wooded draw opened into a grassy valley.

A trail, easily visible from the hide, crossed the clearing. Here, Hathcock thought, this Frenchman on a morning stroll would meet his end. What had he done? How had he helped Charlie? What act closed his account with life?

The wait began.

On a hilltop two kilometers away, Captain Land joined a cluster of cammy-clad men who sat in an outcropping of rocks, peering through binoculars, watching the clearing and the trail.

A man with a bushy mustache and long sideburns, wearing tigerstriped camouflage utilities typically worn by ARVN soldiers, sat with his ranger hat's brim turned up in Gabby Hayes fashion and concentrated his vigil on one spot of the valley far below him.

"Either your man is real good, or dead, back in the woods. I never saw a sign of life from the time it was light enough to see down there. He's well hidden or not there," the man said in a cold tone.

"He's there," Land said. "When that Frenchman heads down that path, you'll see. The bastard's good as dead."

"You better hope so. Otherwise a couple of pilots will be wishing they were dead."

"What are you talking about?"

"This Frenchman. He's a professional interrogator for Charlie. One of the best. I think he's a little funny too. You know, sadistic sex, likes little boys. They say the bastard gets his rocks off fuckin' up people."

"Where you get all this?"

"Just take my word for it. That son-of-a-bitch is bad. Charlie has a couple of our pilots down there waitin' to meet ole Jacques. We don't want ole Jacques to get there-he knows too much about these guys."

"Why don't you go in and take them? You know where they arc?"

"Can't. Your man is the key to this. He has to kill the cat."

"Spooks," Land thought to himself. The sun turned the countryside yellow as it now cleared the hilltops. Hathcock rested on his stomach, his heart beating rhythmically against the earth causing his rifle to pulse with each surge of blood that pumped through him. Burke hid to the right and trained his watch to their rear, looking at the jungle's edge and the slopes that surrounded their escape route.

Patiently, the two Marines waited: Watching the air. Smelling and tasting. Hearing the birds distantly call. Hearing the bushes and grass rustle from the breeze that grew stronger as the sun climbed.

Three hours passed.

"Here he comes," the man in the tiger stripes said, as he saw a distant figure wearing tan trousers and a white shirt enter the clearing, far to the left of where the snipers hid. "Shit! There's Charlie, coming to greet him."

Far to the right of the sniper hide, below the base of the hill from where the observers watched, a Viet Cong patrol emerged from the forest and now walked casually into the clearing, toward the Frenchman.

"Gonna be a ruckus," Hathcock thought to himself as the seven Viet Cong appeared on the right. Far to his left, he also saw the Frenchman, hands in his pockets and a pipe in his mouth.

"Well, I hate to shoot and run, but you know how it is," Hathcock said, amusing himself with the situation. He tapped Burke with the toe of his boot. Burke tapped back. Ready.

It was an easy shot. Hathcock placed the reticle on the man's shoulders and squeezed the trigger. The crack of the rifle shot sent the Viet Cong diving for cover. Hathcock did not waste a second round. The man went down hard. The explosive impact of the bullet, which is the real killing factor with a .30-06, would almost certainly have destroyed his heart and lungs.

Before the Viet Cong patrol could react, Hathcock and Burke had turned from the hide and now low-crawled through the grass, toward the narrow stream and the trees that stood on the other side.

"We're gonna have to jump and run," Hathcock told his partner. "They might get a couple of shots off at us, but we got no choice. I'm not gonna get boxed in up that draw."

"Say when," Burke replied, snuggling his rifle across his back and crouching like a sprinter in starting blocks.

"Now!" Hathcock grunted, leaping to his feet and bounding across the stream with Burke at his side.

Both Marines dashed to the trees, and as they disappeared behind die forest's green curtain, a shower of bullets riddled the grass.

"Up the hill!" Hathcock ordered. "They'll look for us to follow that draw. But we'll go straight to the top and follow the ridge back to the LZ."

"Good job," the man in tiger stripes told Land, giving him a congratulatory slap on the shoulder.

"It's not over yet. My guys still have to get back to the LZ."

"Nothing you can do about that, Captain. They'll make it."

The Viet Cong continued chewing the forest's edge with their automatic fire. Meanwhile, the two fleeing snipers charged up the hill. At five hundred yards, it was easy to recognize that the snipers were Americans. They saw both men well-even the white feather in one man's hat.

"Christ sake!" Burke heaved in horse breaths. "This hill ... didn't seem... this high from down... there."

"Just..." Carlos gulped, trying to talk, "think about... Charlie! You know... he got a... pretty good look at us! Better keep running! Don't... stop!"

The two Marines ran the five kilometers back to the helicopter in twenty minutes-it would have been a major accomplishment on flat ground and without the added burden of rifles.

As they charged into the clearing where the helicopter sat, they saw the rotor blades start turning. The Huey's crew had heard the gunfire and now anxiously waited, ready.

The chopper was lifting from the landing zone as the two snipers fell into the doorway, where the crew chief grabbed bod) men by their collars and pulled hard, dragging them aboard as die treetops began rushing beneath the aircraft's skids.

Hathcock rolled on his back, blinking sweat from his eyes as it streaked tfirough the green greasepaint diat covered his face. His chest heaved and his head pounded. With his hand, he felt Burke's shoulder and arm at his side, and smiled triumphandy. All was well.

Sniper on the Loose

MID-AFTERNOON HEAT kept the comfort level at "unbearable" for many who worked on the dozens of helicopters on the flight line beyond the row of green Quonset huts, where Carlos Hathcock and John Burke slept. Yet for the two snipers, the comfort level had reached a mark that they had not experienced for months-"wonderful." The two Marines rested atop cotton- and spring-filled mattresses mounted on metal bed frames-real beds. They were nothing fancy, the same type of racks that had graced their barracks back Stateside, yet their comfort was indescribable after months of sleeping on wooden-and-canvas cots or on the ground.

After cleaning their rifles, both Marines had scouted the area and found the shower and head facilities, behind the Quonset huts. There they took full advantage, washing their bodies and clothes.

Also during their tour of the air facility, they discovered the hut that housed the service club. Inside, an American civilian wearing khakis and a St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap took a six-pack of cold beer from the old, LP, gas-operated Survel refrigerator, which stood in the comer, hooked to a squatty, silver fuel cylinder. It was covered with decals ranging from Flying Tigers Airways to the Dallas Cowboys. And in the center of the rust-stained and chipped cooler, fastened with two-inch-wide masking tape, hung the centerfold photograph

of Playboy Magazine's "Playmate of the Year."

"Drink up," the man said, pitching the cardboard package to Hathcock and slamming the refrigerator door shut, leaving the old monster rocking on the unlevel floor.

"Ain't got no cash,'* Hathcock said, ready to hand back the beers; they were so cold that in the moment he held them they already began to condense water on their sides.

"You the Marines who got ol' Frenchy?"

Hathcock looked at the man suspiciously, "Yes, Sir. We shot a fellow that they told us was a Frenchman. You involved in the operation, too?"

"Not really. I do some flying around here. Let's say you did a lot of folks a big favor by zapping that frog. I owe you at least a cold beer or two."

The man walked back to the formica-covered, plywood bar where Hathcock and Burke now sat, tearing open the six-pack. He slapped Burke on the back and threw down what was left of his beer.

"You boys enjoy. I've got a date down south."

"Thanks for the beer, it's my favorite kind," Hathcock said, with a broad smile.

"That right?" the man said as he hooked a pair of gold-framed sunglasses on his ears, their large, dark green, teardrop-shaped lenses hiding much of his expression. "Yes, sir. Yellow beer."

Burke yucked and chuckled and shot his elbow into his sergeant's shoulder. He waved at the man, "Thanks a lot, Sir. You ever get to Hill 55, look us up."

Hathcock followed with the invitation, "We ain't quite got the luxury up there, but we'll make do with something. We're down on finger four, if you ever get up that way."

The man waved back, as he closed the screen door.

For the next hour, the two Marines sipped the cold beer and played on a pinball machine that blinked multicolored lights behind a glass painting of scantily dressed women with ray guns shooting wart-covered monsters.

By 3:00 P.M., both men had returned to the Quonset hut and lay snoring on the racks, wearing only their utility trousers.

Outside, helicopters flew nonstop, with the sound of their blades rhythmically pulsing-whomp, whomp, whomp.

Monsoon rains drenched Hill 263, as a single Huey helicopter skimmed the treetops and raced toward the landing zone. Inside, Hathcock sat, belted to a web seat, looking at die dark green jungle blur past, while he clung to the rifle that he rested, butt first, between his feet.

The crew chief stiffly leaned out the open doorway, a gunner's belt strapped around his waist, and pushed his shoulder into an M-60 machine gun,* which he had suspended on thick, nylon-shrouded, rubber cords that he anchored to the helicopter's upper framework. He laid into the gun with the full weight of his body, jutting out of the doorway at a thirty-degree angle, suspended by the cords like a marionette dangling in the rotor blades' down-wash.