The Cover of War (24 page)

Chaske saw
something glint in the undergrowth. It glinted again. 'What is it?'

'A tin.' Blue
said. 'Good ole Yankee chow can I reckon.'

Now that Blue
had pointed it out, Chaske saw it easily. The can was nailed to the base of the
tree.

'Zip
booby-trap,' Blue said. 'They take the pin out of a grenade and put it in a
can. Trip-wire pulls out the grenade and Bob's-ya-uncle.'

'What'd you
think?'

'This far in,'
Blue said. 'I'd say it's an early-warning device.'

Chaske said: 'We
need to get to the top of this ridge-' he froze. Experience told him something
was wrong.

We're being
watched.

50

D
anny woke and the truth hit him. He refused to believe it, but it
made no difference. He was incased in dirt.

He was in hell.

Panic took him
and he thrashed the clay. Then someone was dragging him by his feet, out
through the small door and into the main tunnel. He looked up. It was Triet's
stoat-faced cohort. In the tunnel, Danny felt incredible relief; the tunnel
that had initially terrified him, now felt spacious. 

Triet squatted
beside him holding a lantern. Danny would never forget the look of violence in
his eyes.

Stoatface locked
Danny's right arm under his and wrenched Danny's right shoulder out of its
socket.

Pain screamed
inside Danny’s head and he writhed as agony wracked his body.

Christ,
he thought.
Why?
'Why?' Then he saw the satisfied look on
Triet's face and felt terrific fear.

Stoatface's
hands grabbed his other arm. 

'Please NO!'

The crack and
the pain came together.

Danny heard
their laughter through the ringing in his ears.

With both
shoulders dislocated, they dragged Danny back into his cell. Every movement
caused agony. The cell door jammed on part of the dead baboon. Triet kicked the
carcass into the cell, and then kicked Danny in the groin.

Pain exploded
through Danny's body.

A black aperture
closed around him and Triet's face telescoped away.

Just before he
blacked out, Danny heard Triet say: 'When we come back - it'll be worse.'

* * *

Amai heard everything.

The cruelty was
for her benefit.

It's my
fault,
she thought.
But Danny
is
alive.

The sound of
Danny's suffering strengthened her determination.

I will get
out of here,
she swore to herself.
I will get to
him.

Triet dragged
her back to her cell, where she could no longer hear Danny's mournful groaning.

The poor
soul,
she thought.
The poor, poor soul.

She looked up at
Triet from the dirt. Reptilian eyes had replaced his once zealous gaze. He was
no longer the revolutionary she had met on the Ho Chi Minh Trail; that man was
dead.

'I hate you,'
she said through clenched teeth.

'Shut up you
double-crossing bitch?'

She backed into
the wall. 'What's wrong with you?' She said. 'Why are you doing this?'

He lit one of
his foreign cigarettes, drew back, and then exhaled. 'I know all about your
traitorous plans.'

Her jaw dropped
and she tasted his smoke.

'Deny it.' He
jerked his thumb in Danny's direction. 'You were going to run away with
him
.'  

How could he
know?
She thought.

Over Triet's
left shoulder, the lantern light showed clear evidence of her digging; the
small hole perfectly aligned with the lock-bolt. She looked away, fearing his
eyes would follow hers.

'Well?' he said.

'I just wanted
to get away from the war. Don't you understand?'

Triet was still,
but the threat of violence surrounded him. 'Did you ever notice that
I
was in love with you?'

. . . 'Yes,' she
whispered. 'I just never felt the same way.' She felt a terrible guilt - all of
this was her fault. 'But that is no reason to torture me. To kill me. Look what
you've become, Triet. A monster.'

Triet leaned
into her cell. 'Danny will go to Ha Noi. To Hoa Lo prison. He will never leave
Vietnam
.'

Amai shook.

'What awaits him
there will be far worse than death.'

'You creep.'

'He will beg for
death, every single day, for the rest of his natural life.'

She hit the
ground with her hands.

'And you,' Triet
said. 'You will suffer alongside him.'

51

G
reen eyes the size billiard balls returned Chaske's gaze.

The powerful
form of a male tiger stood motionless, not forty feet away. Chaske had seen
several tigers in the Asian jungles, but this was by far the biggest. Chaske
adjusted his position under the log and raised his MP-5. He did not want to
fire and give away their position; but he would if he had to.

The tiger broke
eye contact and turned. Chaske relaxed and the tiger began to slink away. Then
Chaske went rigid.

Blue said: 'Oh
fuck.'

In disbelief,
Chaske watched the tiger pad toward the tripwire. He wanted desperately to stop
what was about to happen, but he could only watch.

The explosion
shattered the silence.

The blast-force
threw the four hundred pound animal into the air like stuffed toy. Debris
rained down on the log-hide. The thin tree which had held the grenade had gone.

The forest
reclaimed its quiet, as leaf-litter, dust, and fur hovered in the air.

Blue said:
'Every ear within ten-klicks would've heard that.'

Golota pointed
to the top of the ridgeline and Chaske saw the silhouetted forms of NVA
soldiers, descending the slope toward them. Chaske got everyone under the log,
and watched the silhouettes get steadily bigger.

A platoon,
he thought.

The soldiers
stopped and disarmed another booby-trap before advancing.

Chaske's eyes
found the tiger's, thirty feet away. It let out a low growl. The once
magnificent apex predator was too injured to move.

The NVA didn't
hear the tiger. They continued down through the trees, looking for human
infiltrators. Chaske willed them to stop and turn around, but they didn't. At
the point where the grenade had felled the tree, they stopped. Chaske could see
the grave looks on their faces. Then they came toward the log.

Chaske held his
breath.
Will they see us?

They got within
yards. He saw sandaled feet, dirty toenails, and stocky calves. Chaske's
muscles tightened, anticipating the fight.
Two more steps and I'll pull the
trigger.

Then someone
started laughing and the NVA relaxed. One of them had found the tiger.

Chaske stayed
tense. He looked into the tiger's eyes as an NVA soldier took its life; 
the single shot echoing down the plateau.

Happy that the tiger
had triggered their alarm, the NVA skinned and butchered the animal, and then
continued on down hill.

They all crawled
out from under the log.

Cam
said: 'They spoke of our chopper.'

Golota rose up
to his full height, glaring at her. 'If you're psychic, why didn't you know
that was going to happen?'

Chaske watched
Cam
's face; she stayed calm and impassive.

'It doesn't work
like that.'

Golota snarled.
'If you're leading us on a goddamn goose chase, I'll cut your throat.'

Chaske stepped
between them and
Cam
stopped
him with her arm. 'The visions,' she said to Golota. 'Come in bits-and-pieces.
It takes time - days sometimes-' She stopped.

Golota wasn't
listening. He had scored his point and was staring into the jungle.

Golota said:
'Would be good to know if there're anymore ambushes out there.' He rounded on
Chaske. 'Pity she's full-of-shit.'

'C'mon,' Chaske
said. 'Let's go.' He led them the several hundred yards to the ridgeline, lay
on his stomach, and surveyed the landscape below. The crest of the heavily
forested hill ran down into a large basin. A dark river cut through its center,
flowing swiftly from right to left. A mountain range of rock and bluffs
dominated the right, and across the river, a dome shaped hill stood in thick
jungle. As he watched, a light mist began sifting up the valley from his left,
carrying the haunting calls of strange animals.

'There.'
Cam
said pointing to a flat on the river's
far bank. Amai and Danny are down there-'

'Where?' Chaske
said peering down. 'Give me a reference.'

'I see them in
my mind.'

Forgot about
that,
Chaske thought.

'They're
underground,'
Cam
said.
'They're in pain.'

Golota pointed
to a break in the jungle, several hundred yards across the river. Chaske went
cold; an army of NVA soldiers was marching away from them to the north.

Blue said:
'Where's that lot off to?'

'If we knew
where
we
were, I'd tell you,' Golota said.

Chaske said:
'Ashau, probably. That's an invasion force.'

Blue said: 'I
reckon we're further south than that.'

Golota shook his
head.

Blue looked at
Chaske. 'We gotta warn Command A-SAP.'

Golota
sniggered. 'How? We've got no radio.'

Chaske watched
the enemy force melt into the jungle like they had never existed.

Cam
said: 'We have to get down there.'

'It'll be
suicide,' Golota said.

'The troops are
all gone.'
Cam
said. 'They're
going to battle. I've seen it.' She looked frightened. 'It will cover all of
Vietnam
in death.'

Golota
sniggered.

Cam
ignored Golota. 'There'll be less than a-hundred troops left here.
We've chosen the right time.'

Chaske felt like
he was about to make a fool of himself. 'I won't think less of anyone for not
coming,' he said. 'But
I'm
going down. I trust
Cam
's judgment.'

Blue said: 'I'm
keen-as-mustard.'

52

T
riet's words hung over Amai's head like a guillotine blade:
He
will beg for death, every single day, for the rest of his natural life.

Amai hadn't
stopped shaking. The sorrow she felt was unbearable. 

She imagined
life in
Hanoi
's dehumanizing
prison: the years of misery, where one
longed
for death to free them from
the endless torture.

Her arms were
heavy from boring into the clay. Her tears dripped into the spoil, turning the
dust into tiny beads of mud. Her hands were shaking almost uncontrollably. She
stopped digging.

There's no
use,
she thought.
It's over.

'No.' she
screamed into the clay. 'I won't give up.'

She steadied her
hands and inhaled through her nose.
You're better than this,
she told
herself.
She kept digging.

The going was
painfully slow. Sense of time had long since abandoned her. She dug and scraped
and cried with no idea of how long she had been clawing at the doorframe.

Then the shale
hit something hard.

Metal?
She thought.

She dug around
it.

The bolt.

She felt a rush
of elation and furiously enlarged the hole until it could take her thumb and forefinger.

She pinched the
bolt and tried to work it backwards. It moved a fraction, and then stopped.

She clenched her
teeth and tried to focus all of her strength into her fingers. Sweat dripped
through her hair. Her fingers felt like they would snap.

The bolt moved a
fraction, and then came free.

She pushed the
door and it swung open. She felt totally astonished; then she felt triumphant.

I've done it
, she thought.
Now what?

She crawled into
the dark, quiet tunnel. Her legs ached, but for the first time in days she felt
in control.

Danny.

The blackness
was total. She felt along the wall, searching for the light cord. Amazingly,
she found it. She pulled the chord and the bulb flashed on and blew with a pop.
The flash of light imprinted fuzzy circles on the black background.

But she had seen
Danny's door.

She crawled
toward it, running her hand along the hard packed clay. Then she heard Danny.
He was moaning in pain. She searched frantically for his door, but all she
could feel was dirt. Then her fingers hit wood. She felt up the door's face and
found the bolt. She gripped the handle and tried to pull it open, but it
refused to move.

I'm too weak,
she thought.
It's not going to open.

She hauled on it
with desperation. Then it came free with a crack, skinning her knuckles on the
stay. She looked around pointlessly.

Did anyone
hear?

Acutely
conscious of noise, she feared that Triet would return at any moment.

Amai opened the
door. 'Danny?' She whispered.

Quickly,
she thought.

She crawled into
Danny's cell. 'Danny, it's Amai.' 

* * *

The blackness rolled in dark curves like
molten glass, slowly taking the shape of Amai's body.

Then she called
his name.

He opened his
eyes. The blackness flooded in. The reality was too much to take. He felt like
he was drowning in oil.

Panic choked
him.

'Danny, can you
hear me?'

He recognized
her voice instantly.

Amai
, he thought. 'Is it really you?'

'Ssshh. It's me,
Danny. I love you.'

Then he
remembered what
she
had done to him. In his mind it was Amai who had
tricked him; Amai who had kidnapped him; Amai who had tortured him.

This is a
trick
, he thought.
Another torture.

'Danny, can you
move?'

'Are you here to
gloat?'

'Danny listen-'

'You people made
a mistake-'

'Danny listen.
We don't have time. We must get out of here.'

* * *

Something stiff and bristly blocked her
path. Amai remembered the baboon. She groped for its legs, found them, dragged
it clear, and crawled back to Danny. He lay on his back, feet first. She put a
hand on his leg and he groaned. He was
too
loud.

'Quiet
,
'
she whispered. 'What's wrong?'

'My shoulders.
They're dislocated.'

She squeezed up
beside him. 'It's me. Everything's okay.' She knew it wasn't.

Her hand found
his deformed left shoulder. 'Whatever Triet told you were lies, Danny.'

She clasped his
hand in hers, took his elbow with the other, and said: 'Say quiet if you want
to get out of here.'

She pulled his
arm and felt the joint thump back into place. His body jerked, but he made no
sound.

The fear of
capture fizzed through her blood.
When will Triet come back?

She pictured the
tunnel, zigzagging up to the surface. That was the direction Triet would come
from - and it was the direction of escape.

She took Danny's
right arm in the same manner as she had taken his left. 'You were tricked by a
jealous man,' she said. 'Triet's insane. He thinks he owns me, Danny.'

She pulled.
Danny's shoulder relocated. He groaned.

'I've broken out
of my cell,' she said. 'I heard everything they did to you.  We have to
hurry. They
will
come back.'

Amai's senses were
primal; bat like; sensing every change in sound, smell, temperature, and taste.

Something's
wrong.

She stopped. She
could smell tobacco smoke, drifting down the tunnel.

No,
she thought. 'He's coming.'

Paralysis
attacked her limbs.
What do I do? 
She felt like a caged animal.
He
can't catch us.

Danny spoke in a
semi whispered shriek: 'What do we do?'

'Follow me,' she
said. 'We have to go deeper.'

* * *

When Triet saw Amai's door ajar, he was
struck with disbelief.

How?

He swung the
lantern light to Danny's cell and saw that his door was also open; the baboon's
carcass lying stiff legged in the tunnel.

Triet could not
believe it. Pointlessly, he looked inside the cells.

They're gone.

Thanh, his
Lieutenant said: 'Where could they go?'

Triet stopped.
He tried to think. He had to assume that they had gone back up the tunnel to
the trapdoor, seeking freedom in the jungle above.

They will be
on the surface
, he thought with a shot of fright.
They
could get away.

He guessed that
even if they did escape, the Laotian jungle was too remote to survive for long;
and anyway, his soldiers would easily find them.
He illuminated Thanh's
face. 'Get as many men as we have above. They
must
be found.'

Thanh went back
up the tunnel.

Triet followed
at a slower pace. He felt like he was missing something.   

* * *

Amai led Danny down further down the
tunnel; deeper into the labyrinth.

She felt several
narrow side-tunnels, but kept going straight, favoring the larger main tunnel
for speed. Behind her, Danny's hand gripped the bottom of her pajama top. To
navigate, she held one hand up in front of her face, and kept the other flat
against the wall. She had no idea where the passage led. She just wanted to put
as much distance between them and Triet as possible. She had not yet heard
sounds of pursuit, and hoped that Triet had gone back to the surface.

She wondered how
long it would take Triet to realize his mistake
.
He would search
relentlessly; he would not stop until he either found or killed them.

How will we
get out of here?
She thought.

It felt like she
was leading Danny into the bowels of the earth, but there was no other choice.
She hit a T intersection.

'Which way?' She
said.

'You choose.'

'Let's go right,
the air smells slightly fresher.'

The tunnel was
larger and the walls more worn. She was able to almost stand, and they
quickened their pace.

The tunnel began
to curve left in a smooth arc.

Something made
Amai stop. She listened. She could hear sounds. Soldiers were coming towards
them.

Triet?
She thought.
No wrong direction.

She remembered
feeling a small opening on the left wall, a few yards back. She turned around
and pulled Danny toward it. She had no idea where it led, but the voices were
getting closer. She whispered: 'In here,' and pushed into the opening, finding
herself in a tight, steeply descending tunnel.

What is this?
She thought.

She slid down a
few yards and realized that Danny was no longer behind her. She looked back up
but couldn't see. She wanted to yell out to him, but couldn't take the risk of
being heard.

She let the
gradient take her, and hoped Danny would follow.

* * *

The opening into which Amai had gone was
barely shoulder width.

Danny put his
head in.
I can't
.
It's too small.

He pulled back
and knelt in front of the hole, fighting his fear. The soldiers were nearly on
him. He could hear their speech clearly.

Either I stay
here and get caught,
he thought.
Or I follow the
woman I love down that hole.

He was exhausted
and dehydrated, but there was a new kind of energy flowing through his body.
Everything had changed.
 

Amai loves
me.

Her love gave
him strength, and his love for her boosted his courage; a courage that he had
not known until now; a courage that he needed to survive.

He pushed his
head back into the tiny hole. His shoulders jammed and pain shot into each
joint. He gritted his teeth and wriggled inside. It went against everything his
mind and body was telling him. It felt awful. But he
was
doing it.

He felt a dizzy
sensation and realized that he was sliding. Blood rushed to his head. His hands
slipped on the smooth clay.

This is
steep.

Then he realized
that the only thing stopping him from sliding out of control were his aching
shoulders, pushing against the hard walls.

Where the
hell does this go?

* * *

Amai felt a bump and realized she had hit
flat ground.

The space around
her felt roomy and the air tasted a little fresher.

She stood and
her head hit the ceiling.

Where's
Danny? Did he follow?

He landed at her
feet and she felt relief. She reached for him in the dark, found his hands, and
pulled him to her. She wrapped her arms around his chest. His familiar scent
comforted her. She meshed her fingers into his hair and searched for his lips
with hers. His mouth tasted wonderful, and images of their romance rushed
through her mind.

Danny groaned.
She couldn't tell if it was his shoulders or her kiss. She sucked his lips and
kissed what felt like an eyebrow. Her eyes longed to see him.

Voice fragments
echoed down from the tunnel above. Amai held her finger to Danny's mouth. 

The voices moved
on. Their presence had gone unnoticed.

She whispered:
'We have to find a way out.'

Danny's hands
gripped her waist and she could feel his hot breath on her neck.

He said: 'Where
are we?'

'No idea. Let's
keep moving.'

She took three
steps and felt the ground wobble. 'Hatch.'

She dropped to
her knees and groped for the handle. She found it and lifted the door. 'I'll
see where it goes.'

In Cu Chi, a
hatch like this could have been booby-trapped, but such a precaution wasn't
necessary here, as the NVA didn't expect enemy infiltration.

She gripped the
frame and lowered herself down. As she dangled in space her heart leapt - it
wasn't as dark. Then the rotten timber crumbled in her grip and she fell.

Her mind raced:
Is
this a well shaft? How far-?

She landed on
her backside.