The next morning Tâm cleaned her knife and attached it to her belt. Then she stole two grenades from the cache of weapons and armaments. She went to the kitchen and told the cooks she was going on a mission and needed food for twenty-four hours. Equipped with her canteen, food, and weapons, she slung her AK-47 over her shoulder, then climbed up to the highest level of the tunnel, just beneath the ground.
She stalked the tunnel entrances looking for a spot to stake out. She needed enough room to survive an exploding grenade. Thanks to Bảo, she now was familiar enough with the traps to identify them on ceilings, behind doors, or sometimes at the bottom of steps. Along the way she collected a couple of handfuls of small rocks and pebbles and dropped them in her rucksack.
After tramping a kilometer, she found a location that would work. The tunnel entrance was on the ceiling at one end of a passageway that dead-ended about forty meters in the opposite direction. The only way out of it, apart from the ceiling entrance, was a hidden trapdoor at the other end of the passageway that led down to a fishhook, which could seriously injure whoever fell or was pushed into it. She reached up to the ceiling of the tunnel and lifted the cover of the concealed entrance. The lid was a square of grass that fit snugly against the rest of the grass in the field. Grass was one of the most common covers for tunnels. Instead of moving it back in place, she left it slightly askew. Any tunnel rat looking to climb in would notice it. That man would be her target. Hopefully, it would be the rat who killed Bảo. She settled down to wait.
There was a tight ache between her shoulder blades. An hour went by. Then another. Her head drooped. She hadn’t slept since Bảo was killed. She forced herself to sit up, to pay attention. Did she hear something outside? Or was it just a Huey overhead? She waited. No NVA soldier would dare to approach the tunnels in broad daylight. The sound died away, and there was silence again. A shaft of sunlight poured in from the slightly askew tunnel lid, but it was enough to take stock of her bearings.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she heard it. A quiet bark. From a distance. A dog was scenting on top of the tunnels. Her pulse quickened, throbbing in her ears. She took her knife out of the makeshift sheath she’d cobbled together and placed one grenade at her side. Then she took out the stones and pebbles and put them on the floor within easy reach. A few minutes passed. The dog’s bark was louder, more insistent. She hadn’t been bathing with American soap recently; she hadn’t been bathing at all. She knew the dog was scenting her.
Soon, the barking dog was close. She thought she heard him snuffle, followed by the sound of a man praising the dog. “Good boy. Good boy.”
Tâm straightened up. She waited. Tried to hear what was going on outside. Was there a conversation? She wasn’t sure, but the dog was going crazy. She sat still, not moving a muscle, taking short silent breaths, watching the shaft of light from the tunnel lid. As soon as it changed, she would launch her plan.
Suddenly the shaft of light widened. Someone was moving the cover of the tunnel entrance. Tâm squeezed against the phony dead end of the tunnel. The sunlight was so bright it temporarily blinded her. All she could see was the outline of a man. Grasping something in his hand. Probably a revolver. Slowly, quietly, he lowered his legs into the tunnel. He was so quiet that her own breathing sounded like the engine of a truck. Every few inches he stopped as if he was scenting the air. The dog still snarled and whined, but she couldn’t see it. Someone must have it on a leash. Still, the dog knew there was something foreign in the tunnel.
Tâm watched every movement the man made as he lowered himself into the tunnel. When she was sure he couldn’t easily get out again, she threw a handful of pebbles against the trapdoor. The man flicked his revolver up and fired three shots in quick succession. The deafening shots, exploding like firecrackers in a small space, must have alerted the soldiers below, but Tâm couldn’t wait. She hit the ground, picked up the grenade, and pulled out the pin. The tunnel rat dropped down into the tunnel and quickly realized he was facing the wrong direction and his shots had gone nowhere. He whipped around, crouched, and aimed his revolver in Tâm’s direction. Tâm tossed the grenade at him. Folding herself up to make herself as small as possible, she pulled her head down and waited for the explosion.
Nothing happened. She looked up. The tunnel rat had caught the grenade in his free hand. How had he done that? Tâm recoiled. This was not the plan. The tunnel rat, his eyes now adjusted to the light, advanced toward Tâm, the grenade in one hand, revolver in the other. He aimed and fired. The shot went wide. Tâm pulled out her knife and dove for his feet. She came up short. But he was clutching something in both hands. If she could reach him before he flung the grenade back or fired again, she had a chance. Adrenaline flooded her system. Her heart hammered in her chest. She lunged at him and sliced her knife through the air, aiming for his leg. The knife connected. She pulled it across his shin, trying to deepen the wound.
He roared in pain and dropped the gun. His other arm, the arm holding the grenade, instinctively flew up to protect his face. She jumped up, grabbed the grenade out of his hand and leopard-crawled to the trap door. She opened it, spun around, and lobbed the grenade back in his direction.
The explosion lifted his body into the air, and the tunnel rat disappeared in a haze of smoke, dirt, bone, gristle, and blood. The blowback pushed Tâm through the trapdoor, and she fell onto the fishhook below. The spikes, sharp as tigers’ teeth, gouged and penetrated her legs. Blood spurted through her pants and sprayed the walls of the tunnel. So much blood. She was bleeding out. The pain was excruciating.
The blood turned gray and the tunnel walls darkened. Tâm felt herself slipping away. The last thing she heard was the faint bark of a dog. Then everything went black.