Jackson stretched out on the sandbags and tried to push the war out of his mind by concentrating on the beautiful vision of colors he had begun to see, hoping they would twist and flow into the shape of Loretta.
Suddenly without warning the fear took hold of him, sucking the air out of his lungs. He saw Tom Light walking through the jungle and a squad of NVA crouched in ambush on both sides of a trail preparing to catch Light in a crossfire from which there was no possibility of escape. Then the dinks sprang the ambush.
“Run! Run!” he screamed, and he was in the forest too, running toward the sound of the firing, his feet becoming tangled in vines, running and falling, running and falling.
He reached the ambush, but there was no more firing. Tom Light stood on the trail with a smile on his face, the rifle with the starlight scope in his hands.
“You ain’t never gonna be short,” Light said.
“Loretta! Loretta!” Jackson shouted, suddenly feeling the sticky tar of the sandbags beneath his hands instead of the wet litter of the jungle floor.
CHAPTER
11
The replacement finally arrived for the communications specialist killed while serving as Hale’s RTO.
“There’s a new radio operator coming in today,” Hale said. “Name’s Labouf. What kind of goddamn name is that?”
“Don’t know, sir,” Jackson replied.
“You meet him at the pad. Help him get squared away. Don’t get him fucking around with Light, Jackson.”
“Yes sir,” Jackson said.
Jackson went to the pad and found a soldier sitting on a footlocker which had chain wrapped around it secured with padlocks.
“Labouf?” Jackson asked.
“Yo,” the dark-skinned man said and grinned. “We’re all going to die up here, right?”
Labouf was a short man with curly black hair. Maybe a Greek.
“It’s not that bad,” Jackson said.
Jackson liked playing the role of a veteran. But he noticed Labouf’s uniform was not new.
“That’s not what I heard. If it wasn’t bad, I wouldn’t be here,” Labouf said.
He knelt down and began examining the footlocker, running his fingers along a small crack along one side.
“Those dickheads threw it out of the chopper,” he complained. “Didn’t even give me a chance to help them with it. Fucked it up.”
Jackson had never seen a replacement arrive with a footlocker before. Soldiers in Saigon or one of the big base camps had foot-lockers but not at Desolation Row.
“What you got in there?” Jackson asked.
Labouf smiled. “Personal stuff. The army lets you keep personal stuff in a footlocker,” he replied.
Labouf lifted the footlocker to his shoulder. Whatever was in it was not that heavy and did not make noise.
“Where’s the radio?” Labouf asked.
Jackson led him to the TOC where they found Major Hale working at his map tripod.
“What the hell have you got in that footlocker, soldier?” Hale asked.
“Personal stuff, Sir,” Labouf said. “Like to keep it down here.”
“Go ahead,” Hale said. “Jackson here is buddies with Tom Light. Those that hang around with Light get blown away.”
“He’s still alive. Must be lucky,” Labouf said.
Jackson liked the sound of that. Someone considered him lucky.
“No one’s lucky enough to get close to Light,” Hale said and left the TOC.
Labouf shoved his footlocker under a cot. Jackson learned Labouf was a first-generation American whose family was from Lebanon and now lived in Philadelphia. He had been drafted and sent to Vietnam where he had gotten into some sort of difficulty while working in Saigon at American headquarters.
“Hey, I got some good stuff,” Labouf said. “Want to smoke.”
“Sure,” Jackson said.
The found an empty bunker. Labouf had cigarettes, the tobacco taken out and replaced with marijuana, the ends twisted to hold it in.
Jackson filled his lungs with smoke. Soon he was feeling good. He saw Labouf smiling at him.
“I’m going home rich,” Labouf said. “You want to make some money?”
Jackson remembered Savitch.
“You running drugs back to the States?”
“Shit, no. Too risky. I had a buddy. The fucking FBI delivered his stuff to his house after he went home. They got dogs sniffing every package, all the hold baggage. I ain’t stupid.” Labouf continued, “I was playing the black market money game, doubling my paycheck every month and then doubling that. The CID got on to me, but I made a deal with them, put the finger on the guys that’s really cleaning up. They promised I was going home. Next thing I know I get orders to come up here. They’re trying to kill me. Nobody’s going to be killing Ernest Labouf. All I had time to do was grab my stash. No chance to get it home. Couldn’t walk into the Bank of America and deposit fifty thousand dollars. The CID guys were probably waiting for me.”
Why was Labouf telling him what was in the locker, Jackson thought.
“I heard about Tom Light,” Labouf said. “No one is going to fuck with his friends. This locker will be safe in here. Help me guard it. Keep your mouth shut. You can have a cut for your trouble, a couple of thousand. We’ll smuggle this out in our baggage when we go home. Maybe I can get back to Saigon. I got this contact at the Bank of America who maybe can get it out of the country for us. But not right now. Too hot to risk it.”
“Hale will never let us go to Saigon,” Jackson said.
“I’ll think of a way,” Labouf said. “I don’t want to get blown away fucking around with Light.”
“Don’t worry about Light. He’s covering my ass,” Jackson said.
“What can he do for you from out in the bush?”
“I go out there. With him,” Jackson said.
Labouf laughed and said, “I’m not going out.” He paused before he continued, “Any asshole fucks with this footlocker I’ll kill ’em.”
“The guard at the TOC won’t let an enlisted man near the entrance,” Jackson said. “Hale’s afraid of getting fragged.”
“They sure better not fuck with my footlocker,” Labouf said.
After that, Jackson occasionally wondered if Labouf was lying and considered prying open the locker to have a look. But he was afraid it might be booby-trapped, and he believed Labouf’s threat.
Then Jackson noticed Reynolds & Raymond began to shadow Labouf. Jackson stood at the entrance to the TOC and watched Labouf walk across the compound. Reynolds walked in front, playing his M-16, and Raymond behind. They reached the TOC and Labouf turned on Raymond.
“Keep the fuck away from me,” Labouf said.
Reynolds sang, “Take anything you want from me, anything/Fly on little wing.”
“Hey, money man, we’re watching out after you,” Raymond said.
“Quit calling me that,” Labouf said.
“It’s the truth ain’t it. Ain’t you the money man. Got his foot-locker filled with money.”
Reynolds giggled.
“You better not be out here when I get off duty,” Labouf said.
Reynolds put his M-16 behind his head and played it.
“You hear me,” Labouf continued. “Keep the fuck away.”
Jackson followed Labouf into the TOC.
“What do those two fuckers want?” Labouf asked. “You didn’t tell ’em about my money?”
“Hell, no. Those two are so fucked up on speed they’ll never come down. When they do, the crash’ll sound like an arclight,” Jackson said.
Labouf continued to threaten them, but Reynolds & Raymond paid no attention to him. Wherever Labouf went in the camp, Reynolds & Raymond were with him, one walking in front and one behind.