BAT-21 (23 page)

"Umm," said Ott. "You know Sam, for
an intelligence officer you ain't too stupid."

Piccard grinned. "I read a lot. I used to
read everything I could get my hands on dealing with war. Hoped I
might be able to understand it, make some kind of sense out of it.
But it's like wading in quicksand. The deeper you get into it, the
worse it gets."

"That's for sure."

"Now I read to try to forget the war. Ever
read Hercule Poirot?"

"James Bond man, myself."

Colonel Walker approached the two men. With him
was a tall, husky Marine lieutenant colonel. Walker introduced the
Marine to the two men as Colonel Andrews, commander of a Marine
Ranger detachment. Going up to the map, Walker pointed out
Hambleton's present position to the Marine.

"He seems to be making good time," said
Andrews, "for a man who's been suffering ten days of exposure."

"Hambleton," said Ott, "was never
much for throwing in the towel."

Walker addressed the Marine. "Got your men in
place, Andrews?"

"Soon will be, sir. They've already started."

"It's going to be a rough mission."

"Don't forget, Colonel Walker," said
Andrews, grinning, "these men are Marines "

Walker snorted. "Marines or no Marines,
they've got a damned dangerous mission."

Sam Piccard studied the face of the Marine. "War
is a tricky damned business, and messy as hell when you come right
down to it. Here we are, purposely parachuting two more men into an
area we're busting a gut to get one downed man out of."

"Please, Sam," Walker growled, "no
more of that. Especially not from you. I get enough of it from
headquarters. If Andrews here hadn't gone to bat with me topside,
we'd never have gotten approval for this mission."

"No argument, Colonel."

"I'm not making many points with
headquarters. Not that I don't understand their rationale—they have
their reasons. They make sense. They're looking at the big
picture—losses, body counts, how many green sacks to order.
Understandably, they want to keep our losses down, but sometimes
generals forget how it is at the fighting level. When you are a
Mother Superior to a flock of fly- boys you just don't let them down.
Christ Almighty! How a stinking war can put a guy's nuts in a vise! I
wish to hell we'd quit having them."

Andrews tactfully cleared his throat. "Don't
worry about our men going in, gentlemen. They can take care of
themselves. No sweat."

Walker turned to the Marine. "There will be
sweat, Andrews. Marines or no Marines, there will be sweat."

"Granted, sir. But these are Rangers.
Especially trained for escape and evasion. They know their stuff. All
volunteers. Hand- picked."

A tired grin tugged the corners of Walker's mouth.
"That's why I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the
Marines. Only branch of the services that handpicks their
volunteers."

Through high cirrus clouds a waxing moon was
beginning to bathe the landscape in soft shadows.

With an effort Hambleton relaxed his grip on the
log. Ignore the leeches on your legs. Forget about the snakes that
slither across the fairway. When would it be better to have a case of
diarrhea from drinking polluted water than while floating down a
river? Look at the bright side. Think upbeat. Five more holes and
you'll be finished. Uncle Sam's paying you just to play golf. Only
the big pros get paid for playing golf.

His eyes closed. When he opened them again he was
not surprised to see Gwen sitting on the front of the log, pert as a
peony, wearing her sexy new yellow bathing suit. God, she did look
lovely in the moonlight. And desirable.

As he reached out his hand, she dissolved into the
charcoaled end of the railroad tie. He shook his head and wiped his
eyes. Got to knock it off! Got to stop these hallucinations. Second
time tonight.

He splashed some water on his face. Three hundred
and sixty- five, three hundred and sixty-six, three hundred and
sixty-seven...

He stared vacuously ahead, silently floating on
the lazy current, his legs moving in slow, rhythmic strides, his feet
sometimes touching bottom—sometimes not—as he subconsciously
counted the yards to the green. Three hundred and eighty. There. A
tiny flag went up in his brain. Three hundred and eighty yards. This
should be the end of the fourteenth hole, a little grassy spot up
ahead.

Grasping the bushes of the overhang, he maneuvered
himself and his log over to the bank. Then, pulling and shoving with
what little strength he could marshal, he finally got the log far
enough

up on the bank to secure it. Then he covered it
with branches from the overhang, clucking over it like it really was
a ten-thousand- dollar golf cart. Maybe it didn't have a wet bar,
stereo, and color television like Bob Hope's, but it had something
else. It was here and it just might be responsible for saving his
life.

The energy spent in covering his tracks left him
weak. He crawled a few yards away and disappeared into the
undergrowth. He had to rest. He would take a thirty-minute nap, then
check in with Birddog.

He stretched out on his back, trying to get
comfortable. It was difficult to do; his shoulder was giving him a
bad time. It had been acting up ever since his roll down the cliff,
and now it was getting worse. He squirmed down into the brush,
nesting, favoring his shoulder.

A prickling sensation in his leg brought him back
into a sitting position. He had almost forgotten. His hands flew to
his ankles, and he zipped open the left leg of his flying suit. There
it was. His skin crawled with revulsion. A fat leech had attached
itself to his lower calf. Its small sawlike teeth were making the
incision in his flesh. Through this it would soon draw the blood for
its ugly, sucking mouth. Goddamn, how he hated the miserable, slimy
things.

Grimacing, he picked the loathsome creature off
his flesh, pulling hard before the flat mouth finally released its
suction. With an oath he flung it far away into the bushes. He
squeezed the wound making the blood rinse out the hole. As if he had
any blood to spare—that free-lunching obscenity! He shuddered. How
in hell had Humphrey Bogart ever gotten the African Queen down that
river? Of all the things in the jungle, he despised leeches most,
more even than the great snakes that slithered along the riverbank,
and the mind-shattering clouds of ravenous mosquitoes.

He cleaned the wound as best he could with his
handkerchief, and zipped up his pants leg. Too bad he couldn't have
brought his first-aid kit; at least he could stem the infection. He
leaned back again, endeavoring to get comfortable. He tried not to
think of his physical condition. Slowly but surely he was becoming
one hell of a mess. He would make a great training aid for a medical
school. Some of his little flak wounds were festering on various
parts of his body. His finger, thank God, was knitting. The stab
wound in his shoulder didn't bother him too much either. But his
other shoulder nagged like hell.

Not that any of it was able to compete for his
attention very often against the cramps in his stomach. It had not
been too wise to fill his empty gut with river water. The diarrhea
now almost doubled him up at times.

Four holes. Could he make it? Doubt again invaded
his mind. Could he possibly make four more holes? Over fifteen
hundred yards? Didn't sound like much—not even a mile. But when
each step took a concerted effort of will, when each movement
required an agonized appraisal, it might as well be from here to the
moon. If he had any sense at all he would just roll over right now
and cash it in. Find respite from his misery. He closed his eyes and
tried to push the crazy thoughts from his brain.

After a moment his lids flicked open. What was
that? He had heard something. There it was again, coming from the
river. A splashing. Sound really carried along the stretch of water.
He recognized the noise and cautiously rose to a sitting position. It
was a paddle splashing, no mistake.

He leaned forward until he could peer through the
brush. Then he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Fifty
yards upstream was a sampan.

He sucked in his breath and held it. Luck was not
with him. There were no clouds to block the moon, and in its eerie
light he could see the large eyeball painted on the prow of the
sampan. It came closer, like some weird, silent monster from the
depths. As it approached he could make out half a dozen soldiers
sitting in the longboat, facing both sides of the river, their guns
resting in their laps. Now and then beams from flashlights flicked
out, exploring the banks.

Closer it came, the oarsmen stationed at the prow
and the stern quietly propelling the boat with synchronized dips of
their paddles. Would they see his log, pulled partway up on the bank?
A railroad tie would look out of place on the banks of a Vietnamese
river, and it was bound to raise suspicion.

The sampan was now abreast of him. His heart
stopped as he saw the beam of a flashlight fall upon his log. One of
the soldiers in the prow of the boat said something in a low voice,
and pointed at the railroad tie with his rifle. The oarsman in the
prow brought the boat around, aiming its bow directly at the log.
Hambleton froze, not daring to breathe as the sampan nosed toward the
bank. Dear God, were they going to get out? Search the place?
Instinctively he reached for his knife.

The paddler punched the railroad tie with his oar
as the soldiers in the boat watched. More flashlights flicked on, and
Hambleton recoiled into his hiding place as the beams swept the
undergrowth around him. As the fingers of light probed the darkness,
an eternity limped by.

The oarsman in the prow stepped out of the boat
and waded over to examine the log with his flashlight. He swept the
beam up and down its length, then reached down to touch the charred
end. He brought back his hand, examining it. Seeing the charred black
on his fingers, he went back to the boat and said something to the
soldiers. Hambleton could see him pointing upstream, in the direction
of the bombed-out bridge. There were several more words in whispered
Vietnamese, then the oarsman made one last sweep of the underbrush
with his flashlight. He shoved the beached boat off the bank, jumped
in, and resumed his position in the prow.

The sampan continued downstream like a ghostly
spectre, its paddles quietly dipping into the water.

Hambleton exhaled. He was a dishrag. He lay back,
collapsing. He closed his eyes as his morale yo-yo hit the
bottom of its string, broke, and went spinning off into the river.

Dawn was just touching the sky when Captain Clark
set the wheels of his 0-2 onto the landing strip. He automatically
went through the abbreviated postlanding checklist as he taxied to
his revetment on the flight line. He spun the little plane around and
chopped the power. Making a quick notation in the plane's Form 781,
he climbed out, stretching the stiffness from his body. Then he
noticed a tall, lone figure ambling up to him.

"Morning, Clark."

Clark recognized Hambleton's old friend. "Good
morning, Colonel Ott. You're up very early. Or very late."

"Ain't it the truth. I know you've been
flying all night and are ready to hit the sack. But I thought I might
help you unwind with a cup of coffee first."

"You're on. How about we patronize the
exclusive flight-line lounge? There's always a hot pot brewing there.
Hydraulic fluid, but it's hot."

"Good. Just want to chat a minute."

Clark picked up his flight bag and threw his
parachute over his shoulder. In silence the two men walked the short
distance to the maintenance shack. Clark threw his gear into a chair
and drew coffee from the urn. Then, sitting himself on the decrepit
divan, he hiked his cowboy boots up on the coffee table.

"So, Colonel, what do we chat about."

"It's Hambleton. I wanted to get the latest,
firsthand."

"Our friend Hambleton just crawled into the
sixteenth hole. And I mean crawled."

"That bad?"

"That bad. Frankly, Colonel, I'm worried.
Very worried. Naturally his physical condition has been deteriorating
bit by bit. But his stamina's way down and for the first time I think
his rationality is beginning to slip. The old fire has gone out of
his voice. Some of his messages are incoherent—have to be repeated.
And tonight he had a real scare. Some gooks cruising in a sampan
stopped not ten yards away and inspected his golf cart."

"So they have taken to the river, have they?"

"It appears that way. And it raises a helluva
lot of problems."

"Did you see any on your cap last night?"

"No. But that doesn't mean they aren't there.
When they hear my plane they must just pull over near the bank.
Impossible to spot them under all that vegetation. If they could be
spotted, we'd bring in the Sandys."

"How about bringing in the Specters? The
C-130's could drop flares and light up the place."

Clark shook his head. "Thought of that too.
No dice. Hambleton has to travel at night. Lighting up the river
would expose the gooks, but it would also expose him. We'd defeat our
purpose."

"See what you mean."

"That could be a lone sampan he saw, or there
could be a dozen cruising the river. No way of knowing."

"Did Ham see any others besides the one that
pulled up by his log?"

"That's all he reported."

"Then we are dealing with an unknown. He's
still got six hundred yards to go to the eighteenth hole. And you say
he's crawling."

"He's crawling. Takes him longer and longer
between holes.

He had to rest two hours before he had the
strength to tackle the last one. To be honest, I don't know how the
hell he's hung on this long. Eleven days with a couple ears of corn.
I miss one meal and I think I'm going to die. And he's been forced to
drink the river water. Jesus! That river's a sewer."