Lost Lake

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

NORTH VIETNAM/ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA-1971

The pony team had been double-timing since the river, hours before, slowing only where the jungle was too dense to permit the pace. They stopped every hour for five minutes to rest and rehydrate; even with their superior conditioning the men could not go on forever in the heavy humidity of the monsoon season.

A few days earlier, Carl had been at Fort Bragg when a sergeant roused him from a deep sleep. He’d been loaded into a jet and flown to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where he had joined up with Neil Carpenter, an electronics expert, and boarded a plane bound for Nha Ha, the Special Forces base in Okinawa. Carl had never been on a real mission, and he was buzzing with energy by the time they landed. At Nha Ha, he learned that he was going to be part of a team that would be inserted into North Vietnam to recover special electronics equipment from a downed navy plane. The plane they were searching for had been located by heat-seeking radar in a low, undulating, sparsely populated section of the North Vietnamese jungle fifteen miles from the nearest navigable entry route, a river tributary. Visual reconnaissance had been impossible because the canopy was triple-thick and fifty to sixty feet high. Not even the sun penetrated in many spots.

There were eight men on the team: Carl, Carpenter, five Green Berets they had picked up in Da Nang, and Captain Molineaux, the team leader. All the men except Carl had combat experience and were experts in jungle warfare, but Molineaux stood out. He was a little taller than Carl but seemed to tower over him. Where Carl was a bundle of nerves, Molineaux showed none. He spoke softly when he briefed the team in a Quonset hut in Da Nang shortly before the choppers lifted them out, and his calm demeanor never changed during the mission.

The choppers dropped the team as close to the river as the helicopter pilots dared. There was a mad dash through the jungle, then a silent vigil at the river until a navy gunboat materialized out of the mist. The boat ferried the team upriver to the opposite shore, then they were moving again, double-time. By the time the gunboat disappeared around a bend in the narrow tributary the team was lost in the thick undergrowth.

They had to move fast. The flybys that had located the downed plane had also recorded heavy troop movement in the area. For all they knew, the Vietnamese were looking for the same plane at the same time. Molineaux said that it was imperative to retrieve or destroy the electronics gear. No one asked why, and Carl never learned what the equipment did, though he wondered about it from time to time.

The team had one advantage over the enemy troops. Before bailing out, the pilot had set off a homing device that broadcast a signal over a top-secret band. Molineaux carried a triangulation device that picked up the signal. They could use it to make a beeline to the plane while the North Vietnamese would have to comb the entire area.

There were no trails leading from the river, and the men were forced to hack their way through the jungle with machetes. No one spoke. All communication was carried on with hand signals. The humidity sapped their strength. Sudden downpours were often thick enough to drench them and hide the nearby forest behind a curtain of water.

The ground rose gradually from the river. After two hours, the undergrowth began to thin. During the hour that followed, the team skirted small bands of Montagnard tribesmen who lived on the hillsides in bamboo huts. In these areas game trails made travel easier, but the men had to be on the lookout for booby traps and ambush sites.

The last rest period had been almost an hour before. Carl knew that it was counterproductive to think about resting, but he couldn’t help it. The pace was grueling and the rest periods didn’t produce much rest. The need to be constantly alert kept everyone tense. Carl had drawn the job of babysitting the electronics expert, the only person on the mission who was not expendable. They were moving forward in a blinding downpour that made Carpenter appear to be jogging behind a shower curtain, and Carl had to speed up to keep him in sight. Almost as soon as he did, Carpenter stopped and dropped to one knee. Carl stepped in front of his charge, M-16 at the ready, and one of the other men moved in behind Carpenter.

Senders, the Green Beret in front of Carpenter, materialized out of the rain and jogged up the trail coming back to join them. McFee, the point man, and Captain Molineaux soon followed him. Molineaux signaled them off the trail and knelt under cover of a sky-high tree’s thick foliage. The rain still fell but the roof of leaves thinned the downpour. Settles, Morales, and Shartel, who was bringing up the rear, joined the others.

“McFee spotted the pilot,” Molineaux whispered. Carl thought they could shout at the top of their lungs without anyone hearing them in this deluge, but he noticed that Molineaux never took chances. “We’re close, so stay on your toes. We’ll regroup at our last rest point if we get split up. You’ll wait fifteen minutes and no more before going straight back to the river. You all know the primary and secondary pickup points. If you miss the boat you’re on your own. Understood?”

Everyone nodded. Molineaux stood and they followed. He hadn’t said another word about the pilot, and Carl found out why a few minutes later. The rain had not let up and he was concentrating on the trail, the trees, and the brush ahead when Carpenter slowed and looked up. Carl followed his gaze through the dark green foliage until he spotted the pilot swaying back and forth in the upper branches like a marionette. His parachute had snagged on the numerous thick limbs. A sharp-tipped branch had speared through his armpit, puncturing an artery. As he passed under the body, Carl thought about the man hanging far above the ground, bleeding to death. He hoped that the shock of the fall had killed him. He didn’t look back after he was past the body. The need to be alert focused all his energy on staying alive, and the pilot was soon forgotten.

They found the plane half an hour later. It had skidded along the ground for a few hundred yards after crashing, creating a small clearing. Parts of the plane were strewn through the trees, but the fuselage was on the ground, tilted at an angle with the nose embedded in the foliage.

“We’re going to do this very quietly and very quickly,” Molineaux ordered before sending four men into the jungle to establish observation posts. Senders set up his M-79 grenade launcher near the plane. Carpenter climbed inside and Molineaux followed him. Carl and Senders watched the jungle.

Carl could hear Carpenter working inside the plane. He worried that anyone close by would also hear the electronics expert and he wondered how long it would take Carpenter to accomplish his task. Carl caught himself. He could not think about anything but the jungle. He had to concentrate-only he was so tired.

They had not yet encountered the enemy, so the mission was no different from the many exhausting training exercises. Carl hoped things would stay that way: fast in, fast out, and no casualties. Still, a part of him wanted to meet the enemy so he could test himself in combat. He knew that was stupid. Action was glamorous in the movies. In real life, men lost arms, legs, or their lives. The men on this team were combat veterans who had been involved in the personal combat peculiar to the Special Forces. They had killed hand to hand. Yet none of them had told a war story. Maybe their war was too grim and provided the stuff of deep, unsettling dreams instead of the romanticized war stories that a man might talk about stateside over a beer. Even so, a part of Carl wanted to know how he would stack up.

Fifteen minutes after Carpenter and Molineaux had entered the fuselage Settles whistled a prearranged signal and appeared in the clearing. Molineaux stepped down from the plane and conferred with Settles in whispers. Settles disappeared into the jungle, and Molineaux walked back to the plane and told Carpenter to speed it up. Then he began attaching booby traps and thermite grenades with timing devices to the plane. Moments before Carpenter jumped down from the fuselage, Settles reappeared with the other guards. Molineaux told them that there were enemy soldiers in the vicinity. They started double-timing toward the river.

The sun was setting, and Molineaux wanted to cover as much ground as he could before it got dark. Occasionally, Carl heard Vietnamese soldiers calling to each other in the jungle. That worried him. If he could hear the soldiers, they were close; and if they weren’t bothering to keep their presence hidden, the force was probably large.

An hour out, they heard a series of dull whumps. The dense forest had muffled the sound of the plane exploding. No one broke pace. The Vietnamese now knew that enemy soldiers were in the area. Once they found the plane, they would find the team’s trail.

The seventeen-year-old Vietnamese soldier was hungry and tired of tramping through the soggy jungle, and his bladder was bursting. When Carl rounded the bend, the boy was standing with one foot on the narrow game trail and the other still in the undergrowth. His fly was unbuttoned and he was holding his penis as he prepared to pee. Carl and the soldier stared at each other, eyes wide and openmouthed. It seemed that time had stopped in this ridiculous situation.

Carl knew that it was out of the question to let the soldier scream, but he couldn’t shoot the man without revealing their position, so he thrust the butt of his rifle into the soldier’s solar plexus, driving the air out of his lungs, then broke his windpipe. Settles rounded the bend and instantly figured out what had happened. He covered Carl while Morales raced by to tell Molineaux. Moments later, the team was grouped around the dead man. Molineaux ordered Carl and Settles to move the body off the trail.

“Empty your packs of everything except water and ammo,” Molineaux said as Carl and Settles concealed the soldier in the underbrush. “Morales, you hump the radio. McFee just told me that there are enemy troops between here and the river.

“This man will be missed soon. Then we’re in for it. We have to move through the enemy in the dark. It’s five now, and the first pickup is at midnight. You know the routine.”

No one said anything. No one even nodded. They knew what Molineaux meant by “the routine.” There would be no way they could take a wounded brother with them if he couldn’t keep up, and no one was to be taken alive. That was Molineaux’s job.

“Let’s go,” the captain said. The men emptied their packs of food, dry clothes, and first aid kits. Then they concealed the dead man in the undergrowth and took off.

The sniper got Carpenter just before twilight. Carl saw the electronics expert sag and stumble. If he had not seen the red stain on Carpenter’s neck he might have thought that Carpenter had tripped over a root. The red stain saved Carl’s life. He dived behind a tree and the bullet meant for him only grazed his side. Carl waited awhile before peeking from behind the tree to try to locate the sniper. As soon as he moved, a bullet chipped the bark inches from his eye. Carl knew that time was on the side of the Vietnamese. If the sniper stayed where he was, Carl would have to move back into the jungle and hope he wasn’t seen. Circling around the sniper without giving away his own position would take a long time. He might miss the pickup. But staying put was out of the question because the gunfire would draw the sniper’s troops. Carl might even run into them while he was trying to get away.

Several gunshots broke the silence.

“Rice,” Molineaux shouted. “Get your ass out here.”

Carl was back on the trail in an instant. Molineaux handed him Carpenter’s pack, which held the electronics gear Carpenter had taken from the plane. The sniper lay crumpled on the trail a few yards ahead of him.

“Go,” Molineaux said. As Carl sprinted ahead he heard voices shouting in Vietnamese behind them. The enemy knew where they were.

Darkness descended and the pursuit stopped. The Vietnamese were content to surround the Americans, putting a wall between them and the river until daybreak. The hours after sunset were filled with fear and confusion, and the team did not reach the river until four in the morning, well past the first pickup time. Molineaux pulled the men into a star perimeter as close to the river as he dared. All the men lay flat on their stomachs with their feet touching. Carl was exhausted, but he was too well trained and too keyed up to sleep.

Ten minutes before the gunboat was due Molineaux moved them out. A fog bank covered the river, and tendrils of mist curled through the jungle. Molineaux saw movement in front of them and called a halt. The Vietnamese were facing away from the river because they thought the team was deeper in the jungle. The sound of a motor brought the troops around. Molineaux raced into a clearing near the riverbank and opened fire just as the gunboat appeared. The boat crew laid down fifty-caliber covering fire. When he dived into the river, Carl saw a face flying away and a slender boy split in two. Strong hands jerked him onboard as bullets smacked into the side of the boat. As Carl flopped over the side of the boat he saw the other men clambering onboard. Then Settles jerked back and fell toward the water. Carl started for him but was pulled away from the rail just as Settles disappeared in the foaming wake. Someone pushed him down and he lay with his face pressed against the deck, smelling death and deafened by the firefight until the jungle muffled the noise and the gunfire faded away.

During his debriefing in Okinawa, Carl was ordered to discuss his mission with no one, not even his commanding officer. As far as anyone was concerned, the last few days had never happened. After the debriefing, Carl flew back to Fort Bragg, where he remained for a few weeks before being sent to Washington, D.C., on courier duty.

When Carl landed, Morris Wingate’s driver was waiting to take him to the Pentagon so he could drop off the documents he was carrying and then take him to meet the General. Carl’s orders had not mentioned Wingate, and he wondered how the General knew that he would be on assignment in D.C. Carl had not thought about Morris Wingate much during his time in the army, but he experienced childish feelings of insecurity at the thought of meeting him again.

Wingate’s car stopped in front of a three-story redbrick town house that was squeezed between two similar homes on a quiet side street in a wealthy residential area of Alexandria, Virginia. Carl walked up a short flight of stone steps to the front door. Before he could ring the bell Enrique opened the door.

“Nice to see you again,” Enrique said before leading Carl down a dimly lit hall to a spacious dining room that was brightly illuminated by a crystal chandelier. A long antique dining table covered with white linen dominated the room. Twelve antique high-backed chairs were arranged around the table, but there were only two table settings.

Carl walked around the room, studying it as he had been trained to study any environment in which he found himself. He stopped when he got to an oak sideboard, above which hung a portrait of a somber, bewigged eighteenth-century male. A door opened behind him, and he turned to find Morris Wingate striding toward him dressed in a charcoal-gray pinstripe suit, white silk shirt, and wine-red tie. Wingate’s shoes were polished and his skin was deeply tanned.

“You look great, Carl. I was right, the military agrees with you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Sit down. I’m glad you could come.”

Carl hadn’t realized that he had a choice. “How did you know I’d be in D.C.?” he asked.

Wingate smiled enigmatically. “Being the head of an intelligence agency has its uses.”

A servant entered and ladled lobster bisque from a silver tureen.

“How is Vanessa?” Carl asked as soon as the servant left.

“Fine,” Wingate answered. “She’s near the top of her class and she’s made the tennis team.”

Carl sensed that he was not getting the full story. “Will she be home for the summer?”

“I’m not sure. She’s been talking about Europe. Some program the university has in Paris. But tell me what you’ve been up to.”

Carl gave the General a sanitized version of his army experience.

“I’ve been to Airborne and Special Forces training and I’m at Fort Bragg now,” he concluded as the servant entered wheeling a dining cart. The servant cleared the soup plates and placed a serving of beef Wellington in front of Carl and his host. Carl had never eaten lobster bisque or beef Wellington before, and the meal was delicious, but a simple home-cooked meal would have been fabulous after months of army chow.

“The last time we talked, you were reluctant to join the army. How do you feel now?” Wingate asked.

The truth was that Carl’s training and his experiences made him feel special. He could do things that none of his classmates at St. Martin’s could do and he’d had experiences that few St. Martin’s boys would ever have. He was confident that he could survive anywhere and could kill if he had to. That was heady stuff for someone still in his teens.

“I’m satisfied with my choice, sir,” Carl answered.

“Have you been in combat yet?”

“No, sir,” Carl answered without hesitation. He had anticipated the question.

“I heard that you’ve been in North Vietnam,” the General stated quietly.

“You’ve been misinformed,” Carl answered, looking the General in the eye and holding the older man’s gaze until Wingate smiled and looked away.

Wingate took an object out of his pocket and laid it on the table. He pushed it over to Carl. It was Carpenter’s dog tags. Carl felt himself choke up with emotion but his features did not betray his feelings for his fallen comrade.

“You’ve done very well, Carl. Far better than even I anticipated.”

Carl ran his thumb across the raised lettering and remembered Carpenter falling and the red stain that had spread across his neck.

“I’m afraid I…” Carl started, a catch in his voice betraying the lie. Wingate cut him off with a raised hand.

“Your target was a downed navy plane carrying top-secret electronic equipment. The team leader was Paul Molineaux. You had two casualties. Do I have to go on or are you convinced that I know all about your mission?”

Carl didn’t answer.

“I’ve been in the military for a good part of my life and I’ve served with many men. As young as you are, as new as you are, you are among the finest soldiers that I have ever known.”

Carl’s chest swelled with pride.

“I have a proposition for you,” the General went on. “I don’t want you to feel any pressure to accept my offer. However, I do need your promise that you will never repeat what we discuss to anyone, under any circumstances.

“Good,” Wingate said as soon as Carl nodded. “You know that I’m the head of the Agency for Intelligence Data Coordination. My agency has as its documented function the collection and coordination of intelligence data from other intelligence agencies. The AIDC charter does not include a provision for active intelligence gathering. On paper, the AIDC has no operatives.”

Wingate paused to make sure that Carl was following him.

“What I have told you so far is public knowledge, but there are aspects of the agency that neither the public nor the vast majority of the government, including employees of the agency, knows about. Working within the agency under my direction are a small group of highly trained individuals who perform services for this country of highly unusual and, on occasion, officially illegal nature.”

“I’m sorry, sir. What does ‘officially illegal’ mean?”

“Against the laws of the United States,” Wingate answered firmly. “The Unit operates internationally and domestically. No records are kept of our operations and all orders are verbal. The members of the Unit don’t know the identity of the other members, and they usually carry out missions as individuals. If a mission requires support personnel we use Special Forces with the Unit member representing himself to be Special Forces.”

“I’m confused, sir. Are these men CIA or military intelligence or…”

“These men do not exist, Carl.”

Carl cocked his head and stared at Wingate. “Where do their orders come from?”

“You don’t need to know that, but I can assure you that all orders are legitimate and decisions are made at the highest levels of government. I will also tell you that neither the CIA nor any branch of the military knows of the existence of this Unit.”

“Then how do you get the support of Special Forces?”

“I speak of the CIA and the military as organizations. These organizations are not aware of the existence of the Unit. However, there are a few-a very few-individuals within these organizations who are in positions of command and know that we exist. These individuals are able to supply our needs.”

Wingate waited a beat. Then he looked Carl in the eye. “I want you to join us. Your professional skills are exceptional; you have high intelligence and strength of character. I spotted your potential soon after I met you. I take a certain amount of pride in the fact that you have far exceeded my expectations, a pride that could be no greater if you were my son.”

Carl was stunned. He had always been a loner, and the sense of mystery surrounding this invisible team of elite soldiers appealed to him. He was also overcome by Wingate’s praise. What worried him was that he only had Wingate’s assurance that the actions of the Unit were legitimate, even when its members violated the law.

“What if I decline, sir?”

“The work we perform is too sensitive to entrust to any but volunteers.”

“Can I have some time to think this over?”

“Of course.” Wingate took a business card out of his pocket. “Call me when you’ve reached a decision. If you accept, simply tell me that you’ll be in town soon and would like to have dinner. I’ll arrange for weekend leave.”

The General changed the topic of conversation and called for an after-dinner drink. Carl declined but accepted a cup of coffee. He wanted to be clearheaded. Half an hour later he was in the backseat of the General’s town car on the way to the airport. Carl did not sleep during the flight back to Fort Bragg.