Nightfall. It had been a dreary day for everyone at sender green except for Kelly. The parade ground was mush, with fetid puddles, large and small. The soldiers had spent most of the day trying to keep dry. Those in the towers had adjusted their position to the shifting winds. Weather like this did things to people. Most humans didn't like being wet. It made them irritable and dull of mind, all the more so if their duty was also boring, as it was here. In North Vietnam, weather like this meant fewer air attacks, yet another reason for the men down below to relax. The increasing heat of the day had energized the clouds, adding moisture to them which the clouds just as quickly gave back to the ground.
What a shitty day, all the guards would be saying to one another over their dinner. All would nod and concentrate on their meals, looking down, not up, looking inward, not outward. The woods would be damp. It was far quieter to walk on wet leaves than dry ones. No dry twigs to snap. The humid air would muffle sound, not transmit it. It was, in a word, perfect.
Kelly took the opportunity of the darkness to move around some, stiff from the inactivity. He sat up under his bush, brushing off his skin and eating more of his ration concentrates. He drained down a full canteen, then stretched his arms and legs. He could see the LZ, and had already selected his path to it, hoping the Marines wouldn't be trigger-happy when he ran down towards them. At twenty-one hundred he made his final radio transmission.
Light Green, the technician wrote on his pad. Activity Normal.
'That's it. That's the last thing we need.' Maxwell looked at the others. Everyone nodded.
'Operation boxwood green, Phase Four, commences at twenty-two hundred. Captain Franks, make signal to Newport News.'
'Aye aye, sir.'
On Ogden, flight crews dressed in their fire-protective suits, then walked aft to preflight their aircraft. They found sailors wiping all the windows. In the troop spaces, the Marines were donning their striped utilities. Weapons were clean. Magazines were full with fresh ammo just taken from airtight containers. The individual grunts paired off, each man applying camouflage paint to his counterpart. No smiles or joking now. They were as serious as actors on opening night, and the delicacy of the makeup work gave a strange counterpoint to the nature of the evening's performance. Except for one of their number.
'Easy on the eye shadow, sir,' Irvin told a somewhat jumpy Captain Albie, who had the usual commander's jitters and needed a sergeant to steady him down.
In the squadron ready room aboard USS Constellation, a diminutive and young squadron commander named Joshua Painter led the briefing. He had eight F-4 Phantoms loaded for bear.
'We're covering a special operation tonight. Our targets are SAM sites south of Haiphong,' he went on, not knowing what it was all about, hoping that it was worth the risk of the fifteen officers who would fly with him tonight, and that was just his squadron. Ten A-6 Intruders were also flying Iron Hand, and most of the rest of Connie 's air wing would trail their coats up the coast, throwing as much electronic noise into the air as they could. He hoped it was all as important as Admiral Podulski had said. Playing games with SAM sites wasn't exactly fun.
Newport News was twenty-five miles off the coast now, approaching a point that would put her exactly between Ogden and the beach. Her radars were off, and the shore stations probably didn't know quite where she was. After the last few days the NVA were getting a little more circumspect about using their coastal surveillance systems. The Captain was sitting in his bridge chair. He checked his watch and opened a sealed manila envelope, reading quickly through the action orders he'd had in his safe for two weeks.
'Hmm,' he said to himself. Then: 'Mr Shoeman, have engineering bring boilers one and four fully on line. I want full power available as soon as possible. We're doing some more surfing tonight. My compliments to the XO, gunnery officer, and his chiefs. I want them in my at-sea cabin at once.'
'Aye, sir.' The officer of the deck made the necessary notifications. With all four of her boilers on line, Newport News could make thirty-four knots, the quicker to close the beach, and the quicker to depart from it.
'Surf City, here we come!' the petty officer at the wheel sang out loud as soon as the Captain was off the bridge. It was the official ship's joke - because the Captain liked it - actually made up several months before by a seaman first-class. It meant going inshore, right into the surf, for some shooting. 'Goin' to Surf City, where it's two- to-one!'
'Mark your head, Baker,' the OOD called to end the chorus.
'Steady on one-eight-five, Mr Shoeman.' His body moved to the beat. Surf City, here we come!
'Gentlemen, in case you're wondering what we've done to deserve the fun of the past few days, this is it,' the Captain said in his cabin just off the bridge. He explained on for several minutes. On his desk was a map of the coastal area, with every triple-A battery marked from data on aerial and satellite photographs. His gunnery department looked things over. There were plenty of hilltops for good radar references.
'Oh, yeah!' the master chief firecontrolman breathed. 'Sir, everything? Five-inchers, too?'
The skipper nodded. 'Chief Skelley, if we bring any ammo back to Subic, I'm going to be very disappointed with you.'
'Sir, I propose we use number-three five-inch mount for star shell and shoot visually as much as we can.'
It was an exercise in geometry, really. The gunnery experts - that included the commanding officer - leaned across the map and decided quickly how it would be done. Already briefed on the mission, the only change was that they had expected to do it in daylight.
'There won't be anybody left alive to fire on those helos, sir.'
The growler phone on the CO's desk rang. He grabbed it. 'Captain speaking.'
'All four boilers are now on line, sir. Full-speed bell is thirty, flank is thirty-three.'
'Nice to know the ChEng is all awake. Very well. Sound General Quarters.' He hung up the phone as the ship's gong started sounding. 'Gentlemen, we have some Marines to protect,' he said confidently. His cruiser's gunnery department was as fine as Mississippi's had ever been. Two minutes later he was back on the bridge.
'Mr Shoeman, I have the conn.'
'Captain has the conn,' the OOD agreed.
'Right- standard rudder, come to new course two-six-five.'
'Right- standard rudder, aye, come to new course two-six-five, aye.' Petty Officer Sam Baker rotated the wheel. 'Sir, my rudder is right-standard.'
'Very well,' the Captain acknowledged, adding, 'Surf City, here we come!'
'Aye aye, sir!' the helmsman hooted back. The skipper was really with it for an old fart.
It was the time for nerves now. What could go wrong? Kelly asked himself atop his hill. Lots of things. The helicopters might collide in midair. They might come right over an unknown flak site and be blotted from the sky. Some little widget or seal could let go, crashing them to the ground. What if the local National Guard was having a training exercise tonight? Something was always left to chance. He'd seen missions go wrong for any number of dumb and unpredictable reasons. But not tonight, he promised himself. Not with all this preparation. The helo crews had trained intensively for three weeks, as had the Marines. The birds had been lovingly maintained. The sailors on Ogden had invented helpful things to do. You could never eliminate risk, but preparation and training could attenuate it. Kelly made sure his weapon was in proper shape and stayed in a tight sitting position. This wasn't sitting in a corner house in west Baltimore. This was real. This would enable him to put it all behind. His attempt to save Pam had ended in failure due to his error, but perhaps it had had a purpose after all. He'd made no mistakes for this mission. Nobody had. He wasn't rescuing one person. He was rescuing twenty. He checked the illuminated dial of his watch. The sweep hand was moving so slowly now. Kelly closed his eyes, hoping that when he opened them it would move more quickly. It didn't. He knew better. The former Chief of SEALs commanded himself to take a deep breath and continue the mission. For him that meant laying the carbine across his lap and concentrating on his binoculars. His reconnaissance had to continue right to the moment the first M-79 grenades were fired at the guard towers. The Marines were counting on him.
Well, maybe this would show the guys from Philly how important he was. Henry's operation breaks down and I handle things. Eddie Morello is important, he thought, stoking the fires of his own ego as he drove up Route 40 towards Aberdeen.
Idiot can't run his own operation, can't get dependable people. I told Tony he was too smart for his own good, too clever, not really a serious businessman - Oh, no. he's serious. He's more serious than you are, Eddie. Henry is going to be the first niggerto get'made.' You watch. Tony is going to do it. Can't do it for you. Your own cousin
