But Arizona-Six-Zulu got a callback.
'Arizona-Six-Zulu, this is Lima-Niner-Mike at Outpost Hickory. Is that you, Puller? Can hardly read your signal, over.'
'Lima-Niner-Mike, my big rig took a hit and I'm on the Prick-77. I have big trouble. I have bad guys all over the place hitting me front ally and I hear from scouts a main force unit is moving in to take my base camp out. I need air or arty, over.'
'Arizona-Six-Zulu, neg on the air. We are souped in and everything has been grounded. Let me check on arty, over.'
'I am Team Arizona base camp, grid square Whiskey Delta 5120-1802.1 need Hotel Echo in the worst possible way, over.'
'Shit, neg to that, Arizona-Six-Zulu. I have no, repeat no, fire support bases close enough to get shells to your area. They closed down Mary Jane and Suzie Q last week, and the Marines at Dodge are too far, over.'
'Over, Lima-Niner-Mike, I am out here on my lonesome with eleven Americans and four hundred in digs and we are in heavy shit and I am running down on ammo, food, and water. I need support ASAP, over.'
'I have your coordinates, Arizona-Six-Zulu, but I have no artillery fire bases operational within range. I will go to Navy to see if we can get naval gunfire in range and I will call up tac air ASAP when weather clears. You must hang on until weather breaks, Arizona-Six-Zulu, over.'
'Lima-Niner-Mike, if that main force unit gets here before the weather breaks, I am dog food, over.'
'Hang tight, Arizona-Six-Zulu, the weather is supposed to break by noon tomorrow. I will get through to Charlie-Charlie-November and we will get Phantoms airborne fastest then, over.'
'Roger, Lima-Niner-Mike,' said Arizona-Six-Zulu, 'and out.'
'God bless and good luck, Arizona-Six-Zulu, out,' said Lima, and the freak crackled into nothingness.
'Man, those guys are going to get roasted,' said Donny.
'This weather ain't lifting for days.'
'You got that map case?' said Swagger.
'Let me see that thing. What were those coordinates?'
'Shit, I don't remember,' said Donny.
'Well, then,' said Bob, 'it's a good thing I do.'
He opened the case that Donny shoved over, went through the plastic-wrapped sheaves of operational territory 1 :50,000s, and at last came to the one he wanted. He studied hard, then looked over.
'You know, goddamn, if I ain't a fool at map reading, I do believe you and I are the closest unit to them Special Forces fellows. They are west of us, at Kham Due, ten klicks out of Laos. We are in grid square Whiskey Charlie 155-005, they are up in Whiskey Delta 5120-1802. As I make it, that's about twenty klicks to the west.-' Donny squinted. His sergeant indeed had located the proper square, and the Special Forces camp would therefore have been, yes, about twenty klicks. But--there were foothills, a wide brown snake of river and a mountain range between here and there, all of it Indian Territory.
'I'm figuring,' Bob said, 'one man, moving fast, he might just make it before the main force unit. And those boys would have to move up through this here An Loc valley. You got into those hills, you'd have a hell of a lot of targets.'
'Christ,' said Donny.
'You just might slow 'em up enough so that air could make it in when the weather broke.'
A cold drop of rain deposited itself on Donny's neck and plummeted down his back. A shiver rose from his bones.
'Raise Dodge again, Pork. Tell 'em I'm going on a little trip.'
'I'm going too,' said Donny.
Bob paused. Then he said, 'My ass you are. I won't have no short-timer with me. You hunker here, call in extraction when the weather clears. Don't you worry none about me. I'll get into that camp and extract with Arizona.'
'Bob, I--' 'No! You're too short. You'd be too worried about getting whacked with three and days till DEROS. And if you weren't, I would be. Plus, I can move a lot faster on my own. This is a one-man job or it's no job at all. That's an order.'
'Sergeant, I--' 'No, goddammit. I told you. This ain't no goddamned game. I can't be worrying about you.'
'Goddammit, I'm not sitting here in the fucking rain waiting for extract. You made us a team. You shoot, I spot targets, I handle security. Suppose you have to work at night? Who throws flares? Suppose it's hot and somebody has to call in air? Who works the map for the coordinates and the radio? Suppose you're bounced from behind?
Who takes out the fast movers? Who rigs the Claymores?'
'You are fixing to git yourself killed, Lance Corporal.
And, much worse, you are pissing me off beaucoup.'
'I am not bugging out. I will not bug out!'
Bob's eyes narrowed. He suspected all heroism and self-sacrifice because his own survival wasn't based on any sense of them, but rather on shrewd professional combat skills, even shrewder calculation of odds and, shrewdest of all, a sense that to be aggressive in battle was the key to coming out alive on the other side.
