For Dale and the heroic boys of MACV-SOG.
Chapter One
Elephant Grass
Vietnam, 1968, somewhere near the Laotian border
The Iroquois’ blades pound like a war drum as Kick looks past his combat boots at the grassy hilltop coming up fast. Hand signs. Jumping. Crouching. Running low for the tree line. Huey sounds fading and North Vietnam invading his senses. The reek of damp rot. Heat like a furnace. Babbler birds chattering all at once. Ears straining for clicks of metal, foreign voices, or shifting feet. Fuck it’s hot.
If the jungle’s not trying to kill him with weather, it’s sending snakes, rock apes, tigers, or the Viet Cong. Kick looks at the other camouflaged faces, panting in the heat. His boys are focused. He tells them with his hands to lay dog for thirty minutes. See if Charlie comes calling. Near the end of basic training his drill sergeant used to softly drop nuggets of military wisdom into their ears. “Be swift as the wind, gentle as the forest, fierce as fire, unshakable as the mountain.”
Kick and his five boys keep this in mind as they wind through the elephant grass like snakes, slow and quiet. Pivot right, slide leg and shoulder through the blades. Pivot left, slide through. Pivot. Slide. Pivot. Slide. They’re whispers on the sticky breeze. Not seeing much, but not being seen. Their other senses compensate. All the M16 muzzles are down, the safeties off. The wet hairs on Kick’s arms stand straight up, desperately trying to wick away the heat. A cluster of sweat hangs on his face for a moment, before racing down into his open tiger-striped camo shirt. His spartan body is soaking wet. He looks much older than his twenty young years. At only five-foot-seven he’s strong like steel cable, flexible like rubber, and completely fat free. He’s a Canadian-born, American-made killing machine on his second tour, and he’s leading a crack team of soldiers. He’s living his dream.
The air is still. Kick listens hard for anything to give away his prey. The Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. Armed, trained, and supplied by China and Russia. They’re out there in the grass. Above in the hills. Dug deep into tunnels. Waiting. Squatting. Listening. Ready.
Kick catches a glimpse of Hollywood McCormick’s muscular form on point. The Crazy Canuck loves point. Seeping adrenaline and heart-thumping rhythm are recreation to him. He’s a spring loaded, six-foot-two beast. But he’s silent. Hollywood’s gear doesn’t make a sound as he slides along. Not a tinkle. Not the smoke grenades, or the regulars. Not his knife, his M16, or the unconventional sawed-off shotgun. Not even the cheap sunglasses stowed in his shirt pocket that gave him his nickname. Hollywood’s shit is tight. He varies the time between steps to something close to random, and everyone follows with broken cadence. Simpson, the Black kid from Chicago, calls it white boy rhythm.
Before they left this morning, Hollywood said what he always says for good luck. “Looks like a badass mother of a day.” He’s sweating profusely as he looks back at Kick, and smiles before popping a salt pill. Kick and the rest follow suit. Running low on salt can really fuck up your day in ’Nam.
Looking behind, Kick checks in with Simpson. He’s still green, but solid in a fight. Next comes Frosty the Australian from Brisbane, who’s cool under fire, and reliable. Watt is next with the radio. Kick likes the attitude on this smart-assed New Yorker, who takes pride in his job and makes sure no one forgets how important he is. In the rear is Beach, with seven kills now. He’s West Texas to the core, from cattle country around Marfa, and he’s a badass piece of work.
They haven’t had an officer with them for weeks, since the last second lieutenant caught a round in his skull being John Wayne. The Lt sparked up a smoke on patrol which is like hoisting a flag that says, “Kill me.” He was warned, but he knew everything, and it was only dumb luck he was the only casualty. Now Kick’s the sarge in charge and everything’s working great because his boys ain’t broke. The team is dialed in like one animal. From any angle they are the jungle, hunting in perfect silence.
It takes thirty minutes of sliding through the elephant grass like this to get to a hilltop. They’ll go to ground for the night and wait for signs of fires, movement, chatter, and Charlie’s favorite, nuoc mam. Kick loves that nasty fermented fish sauce. It drifts through the jungle like death and has helped them notch more kills than anything else.
When they find a VC camp, they call the nearest firebase for an artillery strike. Arty. Hollywood calls it arty arty boom boom. Once they direct the fire mission, they call for an EVAC and di di mao. Local for run like a hell. They never want to meet the enemy face to face. Not in Chuck’s back yard.
They are ghosts floating through the bush. A long range recon patrol. As Frosty puts it, “They fuckin’ find it, fuck it up, and fuck the fuck off.”
There’s a pull in the pit of Kick’s stomach. Shit. He stops cold. A second later Hollywood’s arm shoots up at ninety degrees and forms a hard fist. They all freeze and their M16s quietly rise. He opens his mouth to breathe silently. After twenty seconds Vietnamese voices grow loud enough to hear.
A patrol is moving past on a high-speed trail at their three o’clock. There’s the unmistakable metallic sound of weapons. Now yelling. Still frozen. More yelling. Hollywood slowly gets low, and the rest follow him down on one knee. He directs four of them to aim in a pattern toward the voices, with Beach looking 180 degrees the other way, watching their six. They kneel in silence, glistening in the grass.
