Chapter 14

  Li Tang was lying prone just below the crest of the small hill eleven hundred yards away from his target. It was well within the range of his Dragunov SVD-63 Soviet-made sniper rifle, and Li had often made shots at that distance. After reading the wind and distance, he checked his book and adjusted for a thirty-degree slope angle. Li had finished his troop and defense assessment and was now looking to inflict some pain on the enemy. Twilight was approaching, and it would be dark very soon. The south monsoon season would start in a few weeks, but the sky was crystal clear in the pre-sunset hour. A light fog was beginning to rise on the hills around Xuan Loc from a brief passing shower earlier in the day. Like Casper and his friends, long whiffs of vapor materialize for the jungle canopy as menacing apparitions. Li was running out of time. He had no spotter; an AVRN recon unit had wiped out his entire scouting team the previous night in an ambush. Li had fallen back to relieve himself when the firefight started, only to return and find that all his men were dead. Li was a professional soldier who had seen a lot of death, but upon seeing the lifeless body of his best friend Wong Fung, Li became enraged with hate that he had not experienced before in his short twenty-four years of life. He knew he should gather the intel and return to his lines. But not tonight; he wanted to kill someone. After nearly thirty years of fighting, the war was all but over. They had first fought the French and now the Americans. Xuan Loc was the last defense before Saigon. After it fell, nothing would stop them from reaching their goal: the taking of Saigon and the utter destruction of the South Vietnamese Army.

  *****

  The PSO-1 scope moved back and forth, looking for military officers or other high-value targets. Time was slipping away. Li had passed on several ARVN soldiers but was looking for officers. Then he found one looking over a map on the hood of a Jeep. He scanned left, then right, and was about to place the crosshairs on the officer when he saw movement on the outside edge of his scope. Another Jeep had pulled up, and two people casually stepped out and moved to join the officer. Li couldn’t believe his luck. They were U.S. soldiers. But what he didn’t know was they were MACV-SOG CIA observers. The ARVN officer, standing on the right side front fender facing Li, moved to the front grill when the two walked up. A tall man wearing an M1 helmet, camouflage pants, and jacket came up to the right side of the ARVN officer with his right face to Li. Next to him stood a smaller soldier dressed the same way, but instead of a helmet, he wore a boonie hat that partially hid his face. After only a few seconds, the smaller man moved to the right fender facing Li where the AVRN officer had previously been standing. Something about this soldier didn’t register right away. When it finally did, he snorted unconsciously and placed the crosshairs on the center of the woman’s forehead.

  *****

  Li started to squeeze the trigger and then hesitated. He had never killed a woman before, although that didn’t necessarily bother him. He decided to take out the taller man because he appeared to be in command and was now standing erect in front of the Jeep’s grill. He placed the crosshairs on the side of the big man’s head and held his breath. He waited for a full second before he squeezed the trigger ever so lightly just as the man turned. A millisecond after the slide that held the firing pin at bay released, the rifle kicked and sent the 181-grain full metal jacket bullet on its long but very quick journey to its intended target. It only took one point two six seconds to travel the eleven hundred yards, and Li was sure that he had missed when he saw the man move, but he had only turned sideways, turning his back toward Li. The bullet struck Dave Sanders in the back and exited his chest, then continued on to strike Captain Long in the shoulder, shattering his humerus. The rifle report took a little under three seconds to catch up, and Sanders and Long were both on the ground when the report finally arrived.

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  Li quickly reacquired his target and observed the outcome. He watched the woman grab the ARVN officer by the shirt collar and start to pull him around the side of the Jeep that provided cover. Li held his breath and squeezed the trigger again, but the woman proved too quick. As she pulled the officer to safety, her head just cleared the front of the Jeep when the bullet flew by and struck the earth a short distance away. Li felt no emotions about killing the U.S. Advisor, soldier or whoever he was. “That was for Wong Fung,” he said as he gathered his gear to head north. Seconds later, Li spotted a helicopter approaching his position.

  *****

  At Eighteen Hundred Hours, Jesse and Shawn ducked their heads and held onto their boonie hats as they approached the Huey UH-1D troop transport that was powered up and ready for takeoff. The chopper was equipped with 20mm Cannons, two 2.75 inch seven tube rocket launchers, and twin 7.62mm Mini Guns. They squinted their eyes to protect them from the powerful prop wash blowing dirt and debris into the air and made their way to the chopper’s side door. When they climbed in, they were met by Captain Hung and his three-man tiger team. They took their seats and gave Hung the thumbs-up sign. Within seconds, they were airborne and heading north. Jesse just hoped the Huey was better maintained than the Jeep he was driving. As they passed over a small hill just north of the city, Captain Hung, who was sitting on the left side door, spotted a reflection three-quarters of the way up the hill. Mentally marking the spot, he spoke into this headset and directed the pilot to circle back. He then looked at Shawn and Jesse and pointed at his eyes with two fingers, then pointed to the ground and made a looping motion. The pilot banked the bird and slowly made a pass around the hill. Hung moved to the gun door and motioned for the door gunner to move to the other side of the Huey. Then Hung grabbed the M60 and waited for the pilot to reach the spot.

  Just before they lifted off the pad, Hung had been given intel that some advanced NVA troops might be coming into the area. He knew the hill they were now circling was not secured by ARVN troops and that someone was glassing their bird as it passed to the side. Hung’s keen eyes spotted movement as they approached the location, and he shouted into his mic for the pilot to hover. As the chopper slowed to a crawl, Hung put the barrel of the M60 into play and let loose with the machine gun. He blanketed the area for just over thirty seconds, sending three hundred 7.62mm NATO rounds into the hill while two of the Tigers fired grenades from their thumpers. After the firing stopped, Hung instructed the pilot to pass over the spot slowly. Everyone on board scanned the ground as they slowly flew over the target area. Whoever was up there was nowhere in sight or blown to bits. Everyone looked at Hung, who clicked his mic and told the pilot to continue to the drop site.