Just before sunset, the Hueys touched down on an airstrip that looked to have been slashed out of the landscape with machetes. It didn’t look nearly big enough to Lincoln; as they were dropping toward it, he was sure they’d wind up tangled in the trees beyond the cleared space.
But the first one landed with room to spare. Its passengers jumped out, ducking under the propellers, almost lost in the whirlwind of dust. Then it was airborne again, and Lincoln’s angled to the ground.
He’d learned the names of a few of the men on the flight—he was sandwiched between Spearman and Blair, with Kuykendall and Steinberg sitting across from them. They had all earned their berets the old-fashioned way, so Lincoln kept mum about his accelerated course. Once the chopper had settled on the strip, the door opened and the men charged out, weapons at the ready in case of attack. Finally, the blond CIA agent strolled out, hands in his hip pockets, still as cool as if he’d been taking a walk in a city park.
As soon as the men were clear, the engine roared and the propellers picked up speed and the aircraft rose off the ground, tilted, and flew off.
They were alone, somewhere in the middle of Laos.
A first lieutenant named Kirwan was nominally in charge of the mission. He huddled over a map with the CIA guy for a few minutes, consulting a compass as he did. Then he rolled up the map and stuffed it into his pack, shrugged into it, and picked up his M14. Lincoln noticed that the CIA agent had an M14 now, too, as well as a holstered Colt Commander.
Lieutenant Kirwan spoke a few words to the men and then started off into the brush. If he was following a trail, Lincoln could hardly see it, but they weren’t hacking their way through, so he figured someone had come this way before.
Night fell while they hiked ever northward. Under the canopy of vegetation, moonlight penetrated only sparsely. Lincoln wasn’t sure how Kirwan knew where he was going. The nameless CIA guy had fallen to the back of the pack, but whenever Lincoln looked around, he was there, often visible only as the glowing tip of a cigarette in the darkness.
Finally, they came to a halt in a small clearing near the top of a hill, and everyone gathered around Kirwan and the agent. “Okay,” Kirwan began. “The camp’s in the valley, at the base of this hill. We have to assume that anyone we find there is a hostile. Consider this a search-and-clear mission. We don’t know exactly where the prisoners are—hell, for that matter, they could have been taken from the camp any time since we landed. So keep your eyes peeled for them.”
“How will we know who’s a prisoner and who’s not?” Spearman asked.
The agent chuckled. “You’ll know.”
“We also don’t know what else is in the camp. We think it’s lightly guarded—we’re thinking a patrol, not a company. We’ll be searching for anything that might provide actionable intelligence, anything like weapons storage—you know, the usual. We believe the VC use this camp—with the full knowledge and cooperation of the Pathet Lao—as a base to run missions into South Vietnam. So anything that’ll tell us what they’re up to would be good to find. But our main objective is to get those prisoners out. In one piece, please.”
Lincoln didn’t remember seeing any mortars or other heavy armament, just automatic rifles and the like. He had a few grenades, but that was all. “We gonna soften them up with some grenades first?” he asked.
The CIA agent spun around and fixed him with a poisonous stare. “Fuck no. You want to let them know we’re here? Give them time to spirit away those prisoners? No, we go in shooting and wrap this up before they know what fucking hit them.”
Lincoln wasn’t sure how that would work. Chances were, there were sentries around the camp who had already seen them. Even if there weren’t, when they got close, there would be trip wires, and probably concertina wire they’d have to cross. He was pretty sure nobody simply walked into an enemy camp anymore, not since the invention of barbed wire. He hoped the agent’s impatience didn’t get them all killed.
But these men were all Green Berets or CIA-trained killers, and each one, like Lincoln, thought himself practically immortal. They moved soundlessly down the hill. Soon Lincoln could hear snatches of Vietnamese coming from the camp—a couple of guards, smoking and shooting the shit. Lieutenant Kirwan and another guy drew suppressed MK 22 Mod 0s from their holsters—semiautomatic handguns that Lincoln had thought only Navy SEALs used—and closed in on the guards. With two perfectly timed shots, both the sentries went down, almost noiselessly except that one of them raked a hand across the chain link fence as he collapsed.
Lincoln tensed, worried that that sound would alert the rest of the camp. It wasn’t much, nothing that a stiff breeze might not have caused. But in close combat, relying on luck could get a man killed.
Two of the Green Berets rushed forward with wire cutters, snipping through the fence in seconds. Peeling it back made a little more noise, but the rest hustled through the gaps and were inside the wire seconds before they were seen.
Those seconds weren’t enough to accomplish much. Vietcong soldiers—some in traditional black pajama–type attire, others in their underwear—burst from their huts, guns blazing. Lincoln and the others took cover and returned fire. Lincoln was on his belly behind a jeep wheel—scant protection against the rounds slamming into the vehicle’s body. One tore through the tire’s edge, almost hitting him and spewing rubber fragments into his face. Blinded for the moment, he blinked and rubbed at his eyes until he could see again.
The first wave of defenders was small. Lincoln picked off a couple more, and the bursts of fire from that direction became more and more sporadic. Finally, quiet returned to the camp. He and his comrades had cut through the first wave of defenders quickly, but he knew there were more to come.
“Spread out!” the CIA man ordered. “Find those goddamn prisoners.”
Lincoln, Spearman, Blair, and Steinberg took off toward the east side of the camp. The place was mostly comprised of thatched huts, but Lincoln saw a few buildings that had been reinforced with corrugated steel, concrete, or both. A machine gun barrel emerged from a hole in one of those and sprayed a poorly aimed burst toward them. The rounds went high. Lincoln yanked the pin on a grenade and tossed it under the shack; then he and the other guys dropped and clapped their hands over their ears. The concussive wave rattled him and earth rained down, but the fire from inside stopped.
He got back up and kept going on his course, the other men just behind. Reaching the last hut before the fence, Lincoln slowed down, pressed himself to the wall, listened, then took a careful look around the corner. Two VC guerillas were hunkered down behind a metal frame of some kind, and they opened fire with semiautomatic rifles. Lincoln backed away from the corner as their rounds chewed through the hut. He motioned the other guys back.
Using hand signals, Steinberg and Blair indicated that they would go around a hut two back from the end. Lincoln and Spearman stayed where they were, to keep the attention of the soldiers focused on them. Lincoln edged close to the corner again, then slid his M14 past it and opened fire, blindly. Answering bursts told him the men were still in the same area. He waited until he couldn’t see Steinberg and Blair anymore, then did the same thing, blind-firing toward where he thought the enemy soldiers were. This time, when their response came, it was cut short by the blast of a grenade. He peeked around the corner to confirm that both men were down.
“All clear!” he called to his comrades. “Move out!”
The four of them cleared that corner, checking each hut, then heard what sounded like a major firefight under way closer to the center of the camp. Lincoln pointed that way, and the others nodded their agreement. Before he had taken three steps, he felt a tug on his right sleeve. Thinking one of the guys was trying to get his attention, he started to turn his head that way.
Blair shouted, “Sniper!” and shoved him to the ground. The next shot whizzed past where Lincoln’s head would have been, without Blair’s push.
That was when his upper arm started to burn. He raised it as high as he could, angling so he could see the back of his sleeve. It was wet with blood.
“You’re hit,” Blair said.
Lincoln shook his head. “Just grazed me.”
“Let me take a look.”
“No time,” Lincoln said. He clenched his teeth together, biting back the pain. It was, he feared, worse than he was letting on. But his point about the time was true. He could still move, still fight. And they weren’t going to rescue those prisoners if they didn’t wrap this up in a hurry. “Anybody see where the shot came from?”
“I didn’t even hear it,” Blair replied. “I just saw a spray of blood when it hit your arm.”
Lincoln eyeballed where he’d been standing, before Blair pushed him. They were essentially at the far eastern edge of the camp, heading south-southwest. “Nobody there,” he said.
“It must have come from outside the fence,” Spearman said. All four men were hunched down now, blocked from the sniper’s position by the same metal framework—part of an ancient automobile, Lincoln realized now—that the NVA soldiers had used for cover.
“Somebody stand up,” Lincoln said.
“Are you crazy?” Steinberg asked. “That’s what he’s waiting for.”
“Just for a second. Show him a target, then duck back down.”
“Man, you’re fuckin’ nuts.”
“One second,” Lincoln said. With a tight grin, he added, “Maybe two.”
“I’ll do it,” Spearman said. “You ready, Lincoln?”
Lincoln shook his right arm a couple of times, trying to keep it from freezing up. It was starting to really hurt now. “Ready.”
Spearman nodded once and rose to his full height. He held the position for almost two full seconds, then dropped again. As soon as he started down, Lincoln shot up, M14 pointed toward the dark jungle outside the fence.
The sniper took the bait, firing a single shot at where Spearman had been a moment earlier. Lincoln pinpointed the muzzle burst and opened up on that spot, raking his fire a few feet in either direction.
There was no response, but there was no return fire, either. “I think you got him,” Steinberg said.
“Got him or not, he’s not shootin’ at us anymore,” Blair added. “Good enough for me.”
The firefight was still under way in the center of the camp. “We’re missing the action,” Lincoln said. “Come on.”
“You should really dress that arm,” Blair said.
“Worry about that when there’s nobody left to kill,” Lincoln countered. He took off first, trusting that his companions would follow.
When they reached the site of the pitched battle, they found Kirwan and four other men pinned down fire from a tripod-mounted machine gun set up behind a wall of sandbags. Other VC troops were positioned in nearby bunkers and behind concrete walls. If Kirwan or the others so much as raised a helmet, a volley would follow.
Lincoln waved his group down before they could be seen. “We got to knock out that nest,” he said. “Anyone comes up behind Kirwan and them, they’re dead meat.”
Steinberg pointed to a line of huts. “Same as with those other guys,” he said. “If we stay behind those we can get in back of the gun, toss a grenade on it.”
“They’ve got covering fire,” Blair pointed out.
“Chance we have to take,” Lincoln said. “Stay low and move fast.”
They ran at a crouch, Lincoln in the lead, his gaze shifting constantly from the path ahead over to where enemy fire would come from if they were seen. Somehow, they reached a position about thirty feet to the rear of the machine gun pit without drawing any attention. A four-foot-high concrete wall offered some cover. In the east, the sky was beginning to lighten, allowing for greater visibility. Lincoln didn’t mind, except it meant the bad guys would be able to see better, too.
Steinberg palmed a hand grenade. “I played center field in high school. Always had a pretty good arm.”
“Go for it,” Lincoln said.
Steinberg tugged the pin and hurled the grenade. It arced through the air and exploded just as it landed beside the gun.
“Good shot!” Blair said.
But the effort had turned them into targets. Instantly, fire from the VC soldiers turned their way. Steinberg, still standing tall after his dead-on throw, took three rounds to his chest and shoulder. The others ducked in time, rising above the wall only to return fire. Lincoln moved to the corner and peered around to take aim, only to see a VC pointing an RPG launcher directly at the wall.
“Grenade!” he cried, even as he heard it fire. He twisted away from the wall and covered his head with his arms, hoping the others were doing the same. At seemingly the same moment, the grenade hit with a boom, sending jagged shards of concrete slicing into him. Ears ringing, almost deafened, he spun around and opened fire, dropping the guy with the grenade launcher before he could follow up with a second.
Their cover was gone, and the enemy forces were taking advantage of it, sending round after round their way. Steinberg was finished—his wounds had slowed his reaction to the grenade, and the blast had ripped open his throat and chest. Blair and Spearman were dazed and bloody but alive. None of them would be for long, though, if Lincoln couldn’t get them to safety.
He felt a stinging heat on the back of his thigh and looked down to see his fatigue pants torn and bloody. Flesh wound, he thought. But he had to get the others out in a hurry, and himself as well—the longer they stayed, the more likely they would end up like Steinberg.
He reached down with both hands and lifted Spearman, the smaller of the two, onto his left shoulder. Hoisting Blair one-handed was considerably more awkward, but he got a grip on the man. Carrying both, he half-jogged, half-limped from his spot by the collapsed wall. The impact of a round slamming into Spearman almost knocked him off balance, but it had hit only an edge of the man’s boot and hadn’t done any damage.
When he had a small concrete-and-steel structure between himself and the worst of the firefight, he lowered the other men as gently as he could. “You guys will be okay here,” he said. “Stay put.”
Blair tried to say something, but his gaze was unfocused, his words slurred. Spearman was in worse shape. They both needed a medic, but that would have to wait.