Fortunate Sons

Chapter 15: The Cobras Awaken

Three days had passed but the grief had not. It became apparent that the wounds had been cut deep in Than Ahn, bleeding the town white. Some feared that the city would never heal from the turmoil of the Tet Offensive.

Funerals were held at the Than Ahn Temple with hundreds of dead being interred at the Buddhist cemetery, the air thick and heavy with the strong scent of thousands of joss sticks and coils being burned in honor of the dead. The slow chant of the monks and the nuns who called the temple home filled the air and echoed down the streets, promising that those who had perished would find peace when they came back to live their next life.

Christians were buried in the St. Andrew's church cemetery, the oldest Catholic Church in the city. Father Chu, the parish priest, presided over the Mass and blessed the dead, hoping that they too would find peace in the afterlife. Assisted by the American army chaplain, Father Chu prayed for the American, South Vietnamese, Australian and Thai soldiers whose final resting place was far now from home.

Uncle was found alive and unhurt in the basement of his shop along with nine other people, mostly women and young children. Shaken but unhurt, he was relieved to find that Taylor, Sue and the others had survived the fight and had lived to tell the tale. His wife, Lin Phan, had been more than twelve-hundred miles away in Hue with another group of SVA nurses and had caught the first ride out on a huey.

"Thank God you're safe Li Ahn," she said, full of relief when she had arrived at the house. "Thank God all of you are safe."

"How were things in Hue?" Sue asked her aunt.

"Terrible," Auntie Lin replied, dabbing her eyes with the red handkerchief she kept in her pocket. "Absolutely horrible."

Taylor and Sue felt worse than they had four days ago. The heavy set little woman told them of everything that had happened when she was up in Hue, sparing no details of what she had witnessed. "I honestly though some brain dead idiot had set fireworks off in the middle of the road." Auntie Lin had told them. "Really, I felt so stupid not realizing what had happened. I should've been able to tell the difference by now."

"Nobody could've seen it coming Lin," Taylor told her.

"I know, I know," she said, still a bit tearful. "It still makes me angry that it happened and during Tet of all days."

As awful as they felt, all of them had decided that the best thing for them to do was rest and regroup. All of them knew full well that there would be plenty of time to mourn and grieve for the fallen. All any of them wanted now was rest.

The day wore on into late evening with Taylor and his team being called back to headquarters for a briefing on what was to come in the days ahead.

Colonel Paulsson's office was dimly lit with all of them crowded around the cluttered desk full of maps and paperwork along with photographs of high ranking VC and North Vietnamese Army operatives with the words "Wanted" printed in large, inky black letters above them. Not only were Ma Ahn and Thom present but several other plain clothed officials were as well. To ordinary eyes, they may as well have been civilians, but Taylor and the others knew these men were not. Their skills made them employees of none other than the Central Intelligence Agency.

"Intelligence tells us that the wave of attacks on Than Ahn was orchestrated by Hoang Xuan Cao and his soldiers," Paulsson explained. "He must've figured that if he sent as many goons in as possible he'd be able to take the town and everybody in it."

"So he blows shit up and kills over two thousand people in a town of twenty thousand? What an asshole," Taylor said.

"Yeah well unfortunately that asshole is still out there," Paulsson replied. "Our best guess is that he's been jumping the border between here and Cambodia."

"Where he knows he'll be sheltered by the Khmer Rouge," Mitch added.

"You got it," Paulsson said. "Cambodia's a safe haven for communists. He knows that if he jumps the border after an attack he'll be safe."

"So what do you want us to do?" Taylor enquired.

"Obviously you guys are going to have to sneak behind enemy lines if you want to catch him," the Colonel answered. "I don't care how you guys do it or what tactics you use, orthodox or unorthodox it doesn't matter. Just don't break the rules of the Geneva Convention, because we'll all get our asses handed to us on a silver platter."

Now there's a pleasant thought.....Taylor thought with a smirk.

"Colonel," one of the plain clothed men said. "Do you really think it's a good idea to be sending these troops behind enemy lines? I mean after what happened a few days ago it sounds like suicide."

"Suicide missions are something that this unit had perfected over the years Mr. Gershwin," Colonel Paulsson said. "Without Bob Swyft's tutelage I don't think they would stand a chance."

Taylor noted the slight smirk on Mr. Gershwin's face. He had seen him before the very first time he had met the Colonel when they arrived in Than Ahn. He didn't like him. Underneath that suave and spotless appearance of neatly combed silver-grey hair and proud green eyes, something didn't feel right. The longer Taylor was around him, the more he felt uneasy almost as though a black aura were hanging around Gershwin, clinging to him as though its miserable existence depended on it.

"Yes but sir," Gershwin said. "The odds of them surviving the mission are still....."

"There's no question about it," Paulsson said to Gershwin. "Given what's happened lately I think we ought to take action now and catch this son of a bitch before the body count hits the roof." He turned his gaze to the five and gave them the final word. "You boys have the go-ahead to start your mission as soon as humanly possible."

The teammates thanked Colonel Paulsson after he had dismissed them and left, still put off by Gershwin's presence. Maybe it was still the lingering memory of the Tet attacks or the thought of the dangerous mission ahead of them. But something felt completely wrong.

"Hey man," Mitch said as they walked towards their quarters. "Is it just me or did something not feel right about Gershwin?"

"No," Taylor replied. "You're not the only one who's feeling it."

"Oh you too?" Dix asked.

"Something just seems a little off about him," Taylor said. "Not sure what, but he definitely hides it well from everyone except us."

"You know we can try something that Miss Etta taught us but I don't know if it'll work," Dix informed him.

"No, we are not doing that," Taylor said. "The last time we did I wound up with a weird growth on my foot."

"No I didn't mean that, stupid," Dix replied. "I'm talking about the other thing."

"Oh, oh you mean.....?"

"That's exactly what I mean."

Taylor didn't think it was such a good idea. In a place where all eyes were on them, he hated to think what would have happened if they got caught. "We'll save it for another day Dix," he said. "For now let's just focus on what's ahead."

"Should we at least make sure you-know-what is safe?"

"I'll keep it under lock and key."

Dix trusted his friend's word, but still he wondered if he could trust him with such an important task.