Listening to the conversation, Captain Fenn thought that Lieutenant Ellis had a lot of nerve (Ellis told Parker that he was having trouble getting a ride back, and could Parker come pick him up?), and that Parker was what he had heard he was, a nice guy, maybe a little too nice for his own good. (Parker, his reluctance evident in his voice even over the frequency clipped circuit, agreed to come get him at the airstrip in Kontum.) "I don't know if this is going to work, Captain," Ellis said when he got off the radio. "The odds are that it won't. But have you got a spare map on which you could mark where you think this guy might be?

"He could be in any one of a dozen places," Fenn said. "What are you up to?"

"Mark every place you think he might be." "What the hell are you up to, Ellis?"

"If I'm not back tonight," Ellis said, "it will have been wishful thinking." "What, goddamn it?"

"I think maybe Parker can find this bastard for us," Ellis said. "How?"

"He has a very interesting airplane," Ellis said, "and that, no shit, is all I can tell you about it. It's classified top SECRET Eyes of God Only."

"And you think he'll help?"

"I don't know," Ellis said. "If he does, he'll be sticking his neck out. But he might. I'm going to throw the altar boys with the bullets in their ears at him."

(Four) U.S. Army OV-1 Aircraft Tail Number 92521 Heading: 030" True Altitude: 3500 Feet indicated Airspeed: 270 Knots (Kontum Province. Republic of South Vietnam) 2035 Hours, 19 January 1962 "Spanish Harlem," the pilot said to his microphone, "Spanish Harlem, this is Father Divine. How do you read? Over?"

"Read you loud and clear, Father Divine, and God bless you," Spanish Harlem replied.

"Got a match, Spanish Harlem?" Father Divine asked.

"Roger, lighting match at this time," Spanish Harlem replied.

Spanish Harlem was sitting with his back against the enormous roots of a banyan tree. An AN PRC-9 radio was on the foul-smelling rotted vegetation of the forest floor before him.

Lieutenant Tom Ellis was wearing a bulletproof vest, a pair of fatigue pants, and (because he had them, and nobody had his size to loan him), a pair of Corcoran jump boots, the gloss of which he'd now concealed beneath a layer of muck. Over the shoulder straps of the bulletproof vest was the canvas strapping of web gear. Suspended from the web gear were two canteens, two amino pouches, and a.45 Colt pistol in a leather holster. Taped to the canvas straps of the harness were a canvas pouch holding two spare clips for the.45 and a first-aid kit. The pockets of the bulletproof vest each held a fragmentation grenade. Leaning against the tree was an M-14 rifle, an updated version of the M-l Garand rifle of World War II and Korea. It fired the same bullet a.3 8-inch-diameter l86-grain boat tailed projectile at just about the same ballistics as the venerable.30 06; but improvements in powder had permitted a smaller cartridge case. The Garand had fired its cartridges from an eight-shot clip. The M-14 had a twenty-shot magazine, which fed through the bottom. Ellis's M-14 had two clips taped to each other. There was another taped-together magazine in each of his ammo pouches. He had in all 120 rounds of 7.62millimeter NATO (which is how the shortened.30-06 case was identified) for his M-14 There was a dagger in a scabbard taped to his right boot. It was a British weapon, designed by a Shanghai policeman named Bruce Fairbaim for the commandos in World War II. It was made of high-quality steel, sharp-pointed and thin-bladed, long enough to penetrate vital organs and sharpened on both sides. It belonged to Captain Howard G. Fenn, and it had been something of an olive branch on Fenn's part to Ellis following a heated argument following Ellis's announcement that he, not Fenn, was going to take the hike in the woods.

"It's as simple as this," Ellis had said. "If you go and somebody hears about this, they'll know I told you about what the airplane can do. And my ass would really be in a jam. Either you and Crossman stay, or I call the whole thing off."

There had been heated words, but in the end Fenn had given in. The first priority was the elimination of Captain Van Lee Due. He would just have to swallow the humiliation that somebody else was leading half his team and a half-dozen reliable ARVNs into the woods to do it.

When he saw that the knife Ellis intended to take on the walk in the woods was a nasty-looking switchblade, Fenn broke a long standing vow ("My toothbrush, sure; my wife, possibly; my limey sticker, never!") and pressed the Fairbairn on him.

Spanish Harlem took what looked like a stainless-steel mechanical pencil from one of the ammo pouches.

"Close your eyes," he ordered. "Here goes the match."

He closed his eyes, held what looked like a mechanical pencil over his head at arm's length, and lit it.

There was a hissing, and immediately a white light of terrible white brilliance at the tip of what looked like a mechanical pencil.

The light revealed the three other Americans of the patrol, Ellis's people from Cuba, and the half-dozen ARVNs. All were dressed like Ellis. All had their faces blackened with a nonreflecting paste. All sat with their eyes tightly closed, shielding them against the terrible brilliance of the burning thermite.

Ellis counted: "One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand, five thousand." Then he quickly jabbed the tip of the match into the muck between his legs. There was a hissing, and a smell of burning vegetation, and the white light disappeared. But not the red glow on his eyeballs, even though he had very carefully averted his eyes from the light.

There it is," the co-pilot of the Mohawk said to Phil Parker. He was not looking out the window, but at a device mounted on the Mohawk's instrument panel. It was feeding a sheet of thin, slimy-feeling photosensitive paper to him. A small red light on a flexible steel mount gave him enough light to read it.

"Got you. Spanish Harlem," Phil Parker said and waited for the device to spew enough paper out so that he could tear it off. Then he studied it carefully. The Mohawk, on three axis plus air-speed automatic flight stabilization, kept flying at precisely 3,500 feet at 270 knots on a course of thirty degrees true.

The Mohawk was equipped with several black boxes. One of them was a navigation device that determined the present location of the aircraft relative to the point of activation in other words, relative to the airfield from which it had taken off. Another had in its electronic memory a map of the area over which the Mohawk was flying and the capability of locating the Mohawk's location on this map. Another black box, and its associated antennae and sensors, was capable of receiving thermal radiation and determining the location of the source of the radiation, its strength, and its frequency. Another black box electronically compared this data against known data, such as the known radiation patterns of various thermal radiation sources, and determined with remarkable accuracy whether the source of the thermal radiation was, for example, the exhaust of a truck, a campfire, or a thermite match. Finally, an cation of other black box assembled all the data, the lo airplane the sources of thermal radiation, and its probable cause, and caused the on-board printing device to print a map on which was located the location of the airerafi and the sources of the radiation There were little symbols identifying the thermal radiation sources. In this case, an asterisk identified Spanish Harlem's thermite match and the letters WF the source of other thermal radiation, most probably wood fires. The slimy printout in Parker's hands showed the letters WF twice in an area identified on the map as forest. There should have been no wood fire at all in that area, much less two of them close together.

"Let's make sure," Parker said to his co-pilot. "Set it up again at 2,500 feet."

The co-pilot disengaged the flight stabilization system, stood the Mohawk on its wing, and lowered the nose as he headed back toward where they had begun the run.

"Spanish Harlem, I'm going to need another light. I'll say when," Parker said to his microphone.

"Standing by," Spanish Harlem replied.

The only difference between the run at 3,500 and the run at 2,500 was that the slimy printout now identified four WF's in the forest. At the greater distance the four fires had appeared as two.

"Spanish Harlem, I have you at Dog Four-Three Oscar Niner-One. Niner Father Divine said. "Copy?"

"Dog Four-Three Oscar Niner-One. Niner Ellis replied.

"Affirmative," Parker replied. "And I have four wood fires at position Dog Three-Niner. One Mike Zero-Zero Three, do you copy?"

"Dog Three-Niner. One Mike Zero-Zero" Ellis's voice came back.

"Affirmative," Parker said. "God bless you and good night, Father Divine."

"Call collect if you find work," Parker said. "Father Divine clear."

"Now what?" the co-pilot said. "Home?"

Parker made a vague gesture towani the softly glowing instrument panel.

"I have just noticed an intermittent warning light, and I think we had better sit down at Kontum and check it out."

"Major, whatever those guys get themselves into, we won't be able to help."

"I like to be the first to know," Parker said. "Kontum, Lieutenant."

(Five) With his flashlight held in his mouth like an oversize cigar, Tom Ellis, with Dessler, Lopez, Talbott, and Franz looking over his shoulder, very carefully marked their location, and then that of the four wood fires, on his map.

"That really works, Lieutenant?" Staff Sergeant Franz asked dubiously.

"I hope so," Ellis said.

According to his map, the fires were about a hundred yards off a path through the forest. There were four fires, which suggested at least eight or ten men, but possibly many more than that. He could think of no reason why eight or more men would be in the forest unless they were in fact Viet Cong.

He said aloud what he was thinking. "Let's go get the bastards," Master Sergeant Dessler said.

"What do we do, Dessler?" Ellis asked. Just walk down the path?"

"They don't know we can locate them," Dessler said. "They probably move every night. So I don't think they're going to spend a lot of time setting up traps."

"You want to take the point?" Ellis asked.

"Why not?" Dessler said, after a barely perceptible hesitation.

It was four and a half klicks from Position Dog Four-Three Six Oscar Niner-One-Niner to the four wood fires at Position Dog Three-Niner-One, Mike Zero-Zero-Three. The army was in the process of discarding miles, yards, and feet for the metric system of its NATO allies. Kilometer had stuck on the army tongue and become klicks.

A klick from their destination, Dessler held up his hand for the patrol to stop. When Ellis moved up to him, Dessler sniffed. Ellis sniffed, and he smelled it too. Wood smoke.

"I guess the canopy," Dessler said, pointing upward to where the interlocking branches of the trees blocked out the sky, "keeps it from getting away."

Dessler then took his M-14 from his shoulder and clicked the safety off. The others followed his example. Dessler started down the trail again.

Three hundred meters farther down the path, Ellis felt himself falling, and then a moment later a sharp tearing pain in his left leg and foot. He managed to bite off the scream that came to his lips by clenching his jaws, but he was not entirely successful in maintaining the absolute silence that he considered essential to their staying alive.

A strange sound, half moan, half pained yelp, escaped his lips.

"Whoa!" Dessler called.

Ellis tried to move his left leg. The leg was excruciatingly painful, and it would not move.

"Shit!" Dessler said over him, and then, "Christ, I'm soriy, Tom."

The apology was for his error in judgment. The Viet Cong had indeed set a trap, even though he was sure they wouldn't bother. Ellis had fallen into a punji-stick trap. Dessler had apparently just walked right over it.

"Franz!" Dessler called.

The medic appeared, and Dessler softly warned him to be careful: "Punji.

Franz carefully stepped around Ellis and dropped to his knees.

"Shit!" he said.

"Now what?" Ellis said. He felt faint and sick to his stomach.

Franz felt in the hole and then sat up.

"You've got one in your foot," he said matter of factly "And another one in your calf."

"Goddamn it, I know that!" Ellis said. "You're lucky you fell in it where you did." "You only got two," Franz said.

"God damn it, do something about it!"

"I can go two ways, Lieutenant," Franz said. "I can put you out, which is Probably the best. Or I can give you a local, just put the leg and foot to sleep. That may not work."

"If you put me out, how long would I be out?" "Couple of hours," Franz said. Then give me the local," Ellis ordered That might not work," Franz said. "Give me the goddamn local," Ellis said.

"Okay," Franz said, after a moment. Ellis realized with fury that Franz had made that decision. Franz was going to do what he thought could be done, and Ellis could not order him otherwise.

Franz took a hypodermic syringe from his kit, attached a very large stainless-steel needle to it, and then jabbed the needle through the rubber covering of a small glass vial.

"Hold a light, Dessler," he ordered.

Dessler held a flashlight with a red len se cover close enough so that Franz could see enough of the vial to make sure he was draining it.

"Before I give you this, Lieutenant," Franz said, holding the hypodermic up to get the air out of it, "I want you to understand that it's going to make you a little flaky. It'll numb the leg, but it will also affect your head. You understand that?" "Give me the goddamned stuff!" Ellis ordered. He wanted to scream.

Franz leaned over the hole and shoved the needle into Ellis's calf, just where the calf muscle swelled below the knee. He was not at all gentle, and there was another blaze of pain. "Somebody, I hope, brought cutters?" Franz asked. Ellis was aware of Dessler moving down the path. The first sensation Ellis felt was a coolness in his leg, as if it had suddenly been immersed in cold water. It moved quickly down his leg. The pain was still there, but the coolness seemed to temper it somewhat. Then he felt suddenly very sleepy.

When he had fallen, he had thrown his arms out in front of him. Then he had collapsed. Next he had propped himself up on his elbows, because the pain seemed less excruciating in that position. Now he wanted to lie down again, and there seemed to be no good reason he should not. He rested his head on his arm. Master Sergeant Dessler appeared with a large pair of commercial bolt cutters. They were the sort of tool you expected to see in a machine shop, not in the middle of the Vietnamese jungle. The more Ellis thought about that, the funnier it seemed. He giggled. The pain in his leg was down to toothache level.

"I'm going to have to cut all of those fuckers out of the way before I can get under his boot," Franz said. "And after I do that, you're going to have to hold him upright so I can get the one in his call."

"I can pick him up," Dessler said.

"I'm perfectly capable of picking myself up, thank you just the same, Sergeant Dessler," Ellis said. Dessler chuckled "Sure you are, Tom," he said.

"You really shouldn't call me Tom when the others can hear you," Ellis said.

"I beg your pardon, sir," Dessler said. "It won't happen again, sir." "I don't mean to be chickenshit, you understand" Ellis said. "I understand perfectly, sir," Dessler said. "Are you still in much pain?"Nothing I can't handle; thank you for your concern, Sergeant Dessler."

"Christ, I'd like to know what kind of fucking wood they use," Franz said. "It's all I can do to cut the bastards"

"I'm perfectly all right now, Sergeant Franz," Ellis said. Thank you very much."

"If he starts to move, hold him," Franz said. "I'm just about clear to get the cutter under his boot." I told you," Ellis said sternly, "that I am perfectly all right keep that up, I'm going to have to put him out." "If you put him out, we'll have to carry him." "I know."

Sergeant Franz grunted. Ellis felt a tickle in his foot, and it made him giggle.

"Got it!" Franz said, and then called, "Lopez!" "Yeah?"

"What I have to do is get the bolt cutter between the wall of the hole and the stake, you understand?"

"But if the punji pulls back out, it'll really fuck up his muscle. It's got barbs."

"So what do you want me to do?"

"While Dessler picks him up, I want you to put your hand on the back of his calf, so it don't move. Can you reach him?"

"Yeah," Lopez said after a moment. "He's bleeding pretty bad."

That's good," Franz said. "That's a hell of a thing to say!" Ellis said indignantly. "Pick him up, Dessler," Franz ordered.

"Why, Sergeant Dessler," Ellis said, when he found himself in Dessler's tight embrace, "I didn't know you cared!" Lopez laughed. Something bit Ellis's leg and he yelped in pain.

"Okay," Franz said. "Now pull him out of there and lay him on his back."

Ellis was aware that he was lying on his back and that Dessler, Lopez and Franz were on their knees by his leg.

"Whenever two or three are gathered together in my name Ellis quoted.

"Lieutenant, if you don't shut up," Franz said, "I'm going to have to put you out."