Shadows of War

Which kind of pissed him off.

“Put a frickin’ grenade into the bastard,” yelled Kerfer. He pulled on his radio and began running forward, his Mk 17 ready under his left arm. The SCAR fired 7.62 mm rounds, nice fat slugs that could stop something rather than just whizzing through it as an M-4’s or even an MP-5’s bullets sometimes did.

“They’re landing!” yelled Eric, up ahead on Kerfer’s right.

“Ger-nay-dez, goddamn it!”

The words were no sooner out of Kerfer’s mouth than a 40 mm grenade exploded near the landing zone.

“About frickin’ time,” said the lieutenant, throwing himself down as a heavy machine gun began playing through the field.

* * *

Jing Yo leapt from the helicopter as the door gunner went to work, pounding the far side of the field with his machine gun. The rest of the commandos were down already, having landed in the first helicopter.

A grenade exploded on the ground nearby. The commandos were returning fire.

Jing Yo tasted the dirt as he hit the ground, tripping on something in the darkness. Tracers ripped from the helicopter’s.50-caliber door gun, toward muzzle flashes maybe thirty yards away.

A grenade exploded so close its concussion pushed his head down.

This is hell, thought the lieutenant, zeroing his rifle on a shadow and pressing the trigger.

* * *

Mara reached back and grabbed Josh as the gunfire intensified. Bullets crashed into the jungle behind them, but the firefight itself was off to their left, nearly a half kilometer away. If they kept moving, they would be okay

“Come on,” she told Josh. “We can get to the rendezvous point.”

“Are those the guys that are helping us?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe we should help them.”

“Just keep moving,” said Mara. “They can take care of themselves.”

“Okay.”

She pushed through the brush. Josh’s wanting to help spoke eloquently about who he was, but the impulse was also foolish — their real job was to get away.

The SEALs would have fallen over laughing if they’d heard him. Not that Mara didn’t feel the same impulse.

“This is just getting too thick,” said Josh. “We have to get closer to the road.”

“You’re right,” said Mara, changing direction. “We can go right to the road — the SEALs have them tied down.”

* * *

If the world were perfect, Kerfer would have been able to swing two or three of his men around the flank of his enemy while his main force engaged them in the field. They’d squeeze and the bad guys would go bye-bye.

But the world wasn’t perfect. The Chinese helicopters and their machine guns made it hard to move up through the field. And the bastards on the ground weren’t exactly looking the other way either.

The first order of business was to get rid of the helos.

“Little Joe, I want you to put a grenade into that helo’s door. You got that, Joey? Just like you were trying to do to that whore you bought last weekend.”

Little Joe — the SEAL’s real name was actually Riccardo Joseph Crabtree — cursed in response, telling his lieutenant that he could put the grenade in there himself.

Music to Kerfer’s ears.

Three seconds later, as the helicopter pivoted around the southern side of the field, the petty officer rose and pumped a 40 mm grenade from his EGLM launcher into the open hatchway of the chopper.

“Pretty!” shouted Stevens over the squad radio.

“I thought you were pinned down, point,” barked Kerfer in reply.

“I am.”

“Well stop gawkin’ and get your ass unpinned. Little Joe ain’t doin’ all the work.”

The SEAL responded with a burst of gunfire.

“Jenkins, time for your end around,” said Kerfer. “Run to the left. I’m going to be right behind you.”

“Good. Copy.’’

“Any of you assholes frag me, I’m comin’ back as your girlfriend in my next life and giving you the clap,” said Kerfer, jumping to his feet and running to flank their enemy.

* * *

Jing Yo saw the flames shoot from the helicopter as the grenade exploded, and knew instantly that the crew was lost. The helo disappeared into a fireball, sailing over the trees behind them.

The second helicopter immediately backed off, leaving them alone in the field.

These were definitely not Vietnamese soldiers they were fighting; they had to be Americans, come to fetch the scientist. There weren’t very many of them — a dozen maybe, or perhaps twenty. But they had his small squad outnumbered and outgunned.

A foe this good would try to hold him in place while they sent men to attack the flanks. He had to withdraw temporarily, pick better terms for battle.

Moving back in the face of a superior foe was not dishonorable, but it nonetheless stung to give the order.

* * *

Josh nearly lost his balance as the thick branches gave way to the shoulder of the road. He jogged a few steps, swaying left and right as he struggled to stay upright. When he stopped, M? slipped down from his arms but continued to cling to his leg.

She was sobbing.

“Come on now,” he told her. “We’re going.”

“This way,” said Mara, a few feet away. “Come on.”

Something exploded in the distance, louder than the grenades they’d heard just a few minutes before. M? clung tighter to his leg.

“One of the helicopters went down,” said Mara.

“We’re going to be all right,” he told M?. “Come on.”

Mara picked up the girl. M? tried to clutch him tighter, but Josh gently pried off her fingers. Then he put his arm around Mara’s back, holding M?’s neck gently as they began trotting along the road.

“It’s beginning to rain,” said Josh, feeling the first drops.

“Let’s hope it does. It will make it harder for them to find us.”

“It’ll also make us wet.”

Mara laughed.

“I didn’t mean it as a joke,” said Josh. “People are trying to kill us, and you’re laughing.”

“Crying isn’t going to help,” she said, laughing even harder.

* * *

Kerfer was almost to the road when he realized that the Chinese had decided to withdraw.

Ordinarily, that would have pissed him off — how dare the mothers run away before he had a chance to properly kick their butts?

But given that his job was to grab the spook and the dweeb with a minimum of fuss, he was almost happy to let them go. He told his men to hold their positions while he and Jenkins looked for stragglers or snipers.

“Where the hell are our bicycles?” he asked.