Page 130 of Cry Havoc
How much of a head start did they have? Had they hit the trail before nightfall and pushed onward?
Or had they set up in the jungle near the crash site and then patrolled on in the morning?
Tom would know soon. The sign would tell him.
And it did.
They had gone for the Trail.
Tom pulled out his map and made a notation of the helo crash site and the location of where the enemy tracks hit the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Those tracks continued north. The trail would allow them to move quickly. Tom knew from his map study that he was about to leave the SOG operational area.
Now, did he stay off the trail and slog through the jungle? Or did he risk it and use the trail to make better time?
Stay off the trail. You know to stay off the trails, especially this one.
“Trail” was a bit of a misnomer. Though it had started as a centuries-old networked system of dirt footpaths weaving through the mountains and rainforests connecting villages for trading purposes, it was expanded rapidly by the Viet Minh during the First Indochina War and had continued to expand over the course of the war against the Americans. Parts of the trail were still dirt footpaths, while others were paved to support the movement of heavy trucks and machinery south. It was hidden from aerial reconnaissance by the thick triple canopy and an additional intricate layered camouflage netting and bamboo trellis system.
As it was mid-May, the dry season was giving way to the southwest monsoon season, a time when the dirt sections of the trail would be more difficult to travel, especially for trucks. This particular section was not yetwide enough to support anything much larger than a small jeep. With the rain coming, perhaps traffic south would have slowed.
This segment of the trail is at the edge of your operational box. No one in SOG knows what’s just to the north.
If you take the trail looking like an American, you are a dead man.
If the rains come and wash away the spoor, you will lose them. That decision will sentence Quinn and Hiep to death or years of imprisonment in North Vietnam.
Think, Tom.
His answer came in the form of two men on bicycles. They rounded the corner ahead traveling south.
Could they be a point element?
It did not appear so. They were both clad in black clothing and had slung AKs and beige chest rigs along with slung green canvas satchels. They wore black boonie hats now faded gray by the sun. One had a green-and-white-checkered cravat around his neck, while the other had one of brown. They were chatting as they pedaled south as though they hadn’t a care in the world.
Viet Cong? Tom had read reports of VC operating in Laos, using the trail to move supplies to their units in the South, but had not yet encountered any, though he had extensive experience fighting them in the Mekong Delta. Were they prepping for another Tet-type offensive as Gaston had predicted? Or were they NVA? It was hard to tell.
Let them pass.
Instead, Tom raised the pistol.
CHAPTER 46
TOM’S FIRST AND ONLYbullet entered just below the cheek of the man closest to his side of the trail, blowing through his upper jaw. That soldier’s hands immediately left the handlebars and went to the source of the pain, a movement that caused the front tire to catch a rut and turn sharply to the right. The sudden shift in direction and balance brought the bicycle and its rider to the ground.
His partner on the other bike turned his head to the right in time to see a demon emerge from the tree line at a full sprint mere feet away. He opened his mouth to scream but was taken out of his saddle by a shoulder that caught him just under his arm. They landed on the ground in a heap with Tom on top of the smaller man.
Kill him before his friend can unsling his AK.
Tom saw the man he shot out of his peripheral vision writhing in pain in the dirt, blood flowing freely through his fingertips pressed to the right side of his face.
You just have a few seconds before he realizes he needs to get on his gun.
Tom held the High Standard by its integral suppressor, bringing it down again and again, smashing the heel of the pistol into the temple of the man beneath him, his own ribs crying out in agony from the repeated battering.
This was a bad idea.
You are committed now.
