"Victor Tango told me why you"re here and I want to tell you, I"m d.a.m.n glad to see you. I get the feeling we are, if not abandoned, at least forgotten out here. Victor Tango only thinks we are well defended."

"What about the Hmoung soldiers up here? The ones you met us with?"

Wolf asked. "Who do they belong to?"

Pearson nodded at Mister Sam. He looked to be in his late thirties and had dark, sad eyes rimmed by many lines. Mister Sam spoke quietly.

"This peak has two layers. The one 600 feet below where the airstrip and my command post are located, and the Hmoung garrison up on this level, where the radar and Tacan equipment is situated. This level is not sawed-off and flat. It has many ups and downs and is like a piece of jungle elevated straight up, although without the triple canopy. It has many trees and a lot of bushes, vines, and huge plants. There are maybe 200 people up here, and only sixty do I consider as good fighting men. Their boss is Major Hak. If he thinks he"ll win, he"ll fight.

Otherwise, the phi is bad and no one goes out. Phi means spirit.

They are animists and believe there is a spirit in everything rocks, trees, streams, everything. My job is to run the airstrip and keep Major Hak informed of what the big boys at Victor Tango want. I can"t force him to do anything. All I can do is gently hint he might not get any more American supplies and weapons if he doesn"t perform."

Pearson brought out a 1:50,000 map and handed it to Mister Sam, who spread it out. He showed them where the Site 85 karst mountain, with Major Hak"s village, Poo Pah Tee, and Eagle Station, was located. He pointed to the tiny village of Muong Yat at the base of the karst. "This is where the LAD-C is," he said. "The Local Area Defense Commander, Colonel Bunth. Hak supposedly works for him. Bunth is a Hmoung who works for, after a fashion, General Vang Pao. He has about 800 people, of which maybe 200 are good fighters. He is supposed to get from one to twenty-four Hours" notice of an enemy concentration or buildup, and he is supposed to tell us and Victor Tango what he sees. Then we call in air strikes under what we are told is our "Self-Defense Plan." If the enemy get past him and try to climb this mountain, then it"s up to Major Hak"s boys to fight them off."

Mister Sam pointed to a spot on the map where a piece of the topography of Site 85 showed a graduated descent instead of the sheer cliffs that marked all the other sides. "This is the climbing side. The only way you can get up here. Bunth has the overall responsibility for this wedge of territory from the base of the climbing side out to his village and beyond. It is his job to see no enemy gets in that wedge to make an attack." He swept his hand in a wide circle around Site 85. "We want to keep the PL and the NVA out of this twelve-kilometer perimeter. That way, even if they don"t attack, they can"t lob mortars or use artillery.

If they do, Bunth spots them and calls us for air strikes."

In a surprise move, Pearson snorted and smashed his fist down on the map. "It"s a useless crock of s.h.i.t! Call in air strikes? Do you know the only way we can put in an air strike is to use secure radio? Neither the strike birds nor the FACs have them. That means we have to talk to an ABCCC, who will relay to the FAC, who will talk to the fighters.

Not only that, we have yet to talk to the LAD-C, Colonel Bunth. We don"t even know what frequency he is on. So how the h.e.l.l can he tell us there is a problem and how the h.e.l.l can we call in air strikes? And these guys up here, they"re kids. Kids, maybe twelve, fourteen years old. All they do is play kato."

Wolf studied the maps, then spoke in a soothing tone. "I"ll go down there and find out what they have going for themselves.

Radios, weapons, experience, plans. I"ll find out and come back up here and help you work out a plan."

"We"re technicians, not soldiers. Just find me a way to know if there is going to be an attack, then we"ll work out an evacuation plan,"

Pearson said, "because we sure as h.e.l.l can"t defend this place!"

"No evac plan?" Court said.

Pearson shook his head. "Not much more than walk to the nearest corner and whistle for a taxi," he said with disgust.

"Okay, we"ll work on that too," Wolf said. "Let me have a couple of your kid soldiers to show me the way and I"ll get going."

"When will you be back?" Court asked.

Wolf looked again at the map and at his watch. "Tomorrow before dark or I"ll call in."

"We"ve got an inspector down there right now," Mister Sam said. "A DEA guy." DEA, the Drug Enforcement Agency, had men in the field trying to track and stop the flow of drugs through Cambodia and Laos into South Vietnam.

Wolf"s eyebrows went up. "Powers never told me that."

"Powers is not too swift sometimes. Not always up on things.

That"s why he"s an a.s.sistant."

"Well, Powers is in charge now, his boss is in Bangkok on leave," Wolf said. "Where is the DEA guy?"

"Here, at Bunth"s place." Mister Sam pointed to Muong Yat, eight kilometers southwest of Site 85.

"What is he inspecting?"

"Opium traffic."

"Does he know I"m coming?" Wolf asked.

"Not yet. I"ll tell him on the Agency"s net," Mister Sam said.

"Did Jim Polter know he was there?" Wolf asked.

"The AID guy? No reason for him to know," Mister Sam said.

"I"ll get started then," Wolf said. Jim Polter in Vientiane had helped him get new gear before this trip: jungle fatigues, a harness, and the necessary weapons and equipment for a jungle trek. Polter had also scrounged up a survival radio from the a.s.sistant Air Attach6. Wolf stripped and, clad only in combat boots, heavy wool socks, Randall knife, and Mauser, he put on the heavy fatigues, webbed belt with two canteens he had filled in Vientiane, harness, grenades, flashlight, K-Bar knife taped upside down. Court handed him his floppy jungle hat.

"Got a p.r.i.c.k-25 so we can stay in touch?" Wolf asked. The battery-powered radio was about the size of five cigarette cartons stacked on top of each other. Pearson found one for him.

They established working and backup frequencies, and tactical call signs of "Wolf,"

"Eagle" for Pearson, and "Maple" for Mister Sam.

"What kind of a leader is Bunth?" Wolf asked Mister Sam.

"Far below what Vang Pao usually has working for him. But he has been the chief in this area a long time and refused to let any but his locals do the defending, so VP had to put him in charge. We sent him out for a lot of training. Some of it took. But I think he has been on the take from smugglers and maybe even the PL. He does like his gifts of money and booze. I don"t really trust him but what can you do?"

"Kill him."

Mister Sam made a dry laugh. "He has no good number two and his people would never accept a new leader supplied by VP from another tribe."

"Why haven"t you found and developed a good number two?"

"I should tell you it"s above my pay grade, but the fact is any young man that looks good down there sooner or later mysteriously doesn"t return from a patrol."

"Anyone in particular that Bunth always sends on those types of patrols?"

"Matter of fact, yes," Mister Sam said with approval. "A shifty-eye named Touby. He"s a brother of one of Bunth"s wives. Big scar on left cheek. He is the village Curer." The Hmoung believed a Curer was a man or woman given magical powers by spirits living within them. Curers had the power to heal, to determine the meaning of signs, to communicate with spirits. They were paid fees by their clients.

"Does Bunth send out many patrols?" "Not as many as I"d like."

"Pearson said you don"t have radio contact with him."

"We gave him three PRC-25s, but he always says he loses the frequency card. We try to change the numbers every day but it doesn"t work out.

Probably sold the radios."

Wolf looked at Pearson. "Can you spare another "25? With half a dozen batteries?"

Pearson said he could and brought them out.

"I"ll see what I can do," Wolf said.

"What about frequencies?" Mister Sam asked.

"I"ll see what I can do there, too. What can I promise him if he cooperates? Money? Weapons?"

"No, we don"t want to give him any more weapons. He doesn"t deserve or use what he"s got. Maybe he sells them.

But I can get him more rice. Lots of rice."

"An extra ten or twenty kilos per day?"

"Sure."

They walked out and Pearson called Lee and Loo. Wolf spoke to them in pidgin Hmoung and they both made wide grins and bobbed their heads.

Mister Sam nodded approvingly.

"What did you say?" Court asked.

"I said we were only going down to inspect, not to fight, and that at the appropriate time I would provide a roast pig party."

Wolf said goodbye to the three men, picked up his AK, and with a nod he and the two Hmoung disappeared down the back trail. Pearson shook his head. "Hey," he said to Court, "when that Wolf changed clothes, you notice he didn"t wear any underwear? How come?"

Court laughed. He remembered his few days the year before in the Laotian wilds after he had been shot down, and the incredible humidity.

His own skivvies had disintegrated in less than forty-eight Hours.

"Because it rots off."

Mister Sam said he was going back to his CP by the runway, and walked off.

Pearson led the way back into his combination office and sleeping quarters in the van. He pulled two sodas from the tiny refrigerator.

"So," he said to Court, "tell me how you and the United States Air Force are going to save the world."

It was an hour before dark when Wolf and the two Hmoung reached the bottom of the karst ridge. Going down, Wolf was glad he had had extensive mountain-climbing experience with the Special Forces. He was bulky and had trouble keeping up with the nimble Loo and Lee, who skipped from rock to rock and ledge to ledge like mountain goats. At the bottom, he stopped and looked back up the steep sides. Before they had landed, he had had the Porter pilot make a few turns around the karst, and his descent now confirmed his belief that the near-vertical sides made for a rough a.s.sault. The trail they had just descended was easy enough to b.o.o.by-trap and defend. They stood at the bottom in a well-trampled clearing that extended out the length of a football field to the two-canopy jungle.

Wolf studied his map, took a bearing with his compa.s.s toward the road numbered 602 by the French two decades before, and struck out across the clearing. At the jungle edge he saw several paths, one leading in the general direction of 602.

He motioned to Lee and Loo and plunged down that path.

For the rest of that day and until past noon of the next, Wolf Lochert roamed the perimeter defenses of Site 85 in general and the Eagle Station karst mountain in particular. He met several patrols, was stopped by two command posts, and radioed his location to Eagle and Maple. Then he headed toward the village of Muong Yat. Muong meant village in Hmoung. As was customary, Lee and Loo went ahead to arrange the protocol of the visit with the village chieftain. He was the LAD-C that Pearson had called Colonel Bunth. Wolf was squatting under a tree, rifle at the ready, when they returned.

"Wolf not go village Yat," said Lee.

Wolf stood up. "Why not?"

Lee looked uncomfortable. "Bunth he say nothing why."

"Do you know why?"

"Bangpee." Maybe.

"What bad happen Wolf go village now?"

Lee giggled nervously and dug a bare toe into the dirt. Loo spoke up.

"Mercan. Bunth say no another Mercan in village."

"The American there told Bunth to keep other Americans out? Is that it?"

Lee nodded.

Wolf sat down and turned on the PRC-25. Mister Sam had said he would maintain a listening watch, and in five minutes Wolf had contact with him. He had to be careful how he talked in the clear.

"Did you tell the inspector I would visit his location?" he asked.

"Affirmative."

"He say anything about not wanting me to visit his location?"

"Negative."

"I"ll be out one more night. Copy?"

"Copy.

"Maple, Wolf, thanks. Out."

Wolf stowed the radio and stood up. He pulled out a roll of kip and handed several of the thin bills to Lee. "You go village Yat, buy pig, pay old woman to start roast over fire. Make peace with local phi. Buy palm beer. Set it all out. Tell people man who make party will arrive later. Understand?"

Both men bobbed their heads and grinned.

"Most important," Wolf continued, "listen well, ask questions. I want to know if anything unusual is happening. Not just information on Pathet Lao or North Vietnamese Army, but anything else unusual or different. Can you do that for me?"

"Can do," Loo said, proud of his English, and made a thumbsup sign.

The two Hmoung went back up the trail to Muong Yat. When they were out of sight, Wolf found a concealed spot well off the trail and sat with his back against a tree. He loosened his gear, drank from his canteen, and reviewed what he was going to do.

That DEA dope-hunter doesn"t want me in his turf Why? Ifhe he is in the middle of delicate negotiations, why didn"t he walk back and tell me?

It"s not that for. What is he scared of? That I might find out something he doesn"t want me to know? Wolf looked at his watch. Two Hours until dark. Once the boon gets going and there is a lot of noise, I"ll just recce some. He sharpened his stiletto until he heard village sounds grow louder. The boon was beginning. He stood up, adjusted his gear, checked his map and compa.s.s, and began to circle the village.

He found the paths that led to water and to other villages.

He saw the small open areas where the tribesman slashed, then burned the gra.s.s so they could plant crops and edible tubers. He saw no poppy fields. From a hidden vantage point he watched the village and movement of the people. Unlike Laotian villagers, who raised their houses on stilts, the Hmoung did not. He saw the village chieftain"s longhouse.