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To stifle his scream of rage and fear, he shoved a fist in his mouth until his teeth cut into the skin and drops of blood oozed from his knuckles.
Once Ethan was in the Da Nang brig, there would be no chance to fight Ortega or save Tuyen. Images of his lover mutilated and suffering in the torture chambers of South Vietnam's notorious China Beach prison horrified him.
He couldn't let anything happen to her. He had an idea—something that might save her. It was risky as hell and a long shot but it was worth a try. If he failed, he was dead for sure then nothing would bother him.
The sleeping Marines around him had grenades and other weapons and although he had been forced to turn in all the weapons issued to him, Ethan still had the unauthorized forty-five under his pillow with five-full clips filled with lethal hollow points—a total of 35 rounds, and he had a box with another fifty. It wouldn't replace his beloved Greaser submachine gun, but it was better than nothing.
***
Hours later when dawn arrived, the throb of a UH-34's piston engine silenced Ethan's three-ring circus of thoughts. Hearing the familiar thumping sound of the helicopter landing inside the perimeter gave him hope.
However, because of the nose-mounted piston engine and the driveshaft passing through the cockpit, it was difficult for anyone in the cargo compartment of the UH-34 to reach the pilot and copilot. The small space that allowed access was a tight fit.
Once Ethan squeezed his way into the cockpit, it would be easy to keep the rest of the flight crew and any armed passengers out, but he suspected Ortega might place someone on the flight in anticipation of Ethan doing exactly what he was planning. In a few minutes, he would either be dead or on his way to rescue Tuyen.
He couldn't have asked for a better aircraft. When he had thought of the escape plan, he had hoped they would fly him to Da Nang on a HUS—what most Marines called the UH-34 Seahorse.
With the arrival of the early-morning sun, murky light seeped through cracks and holes in the canvas of the tent. Ethan hadn't slept and his body and throat ached. He was exhausted. He leaned over his gear and continued putting items into the duffel bag.
"Get a-fucking-move-on, Card," Lieutenant Brant said from outside the tent. "Get your ass aboard that HUS before it leaves." Ethan hugged his duffel bag and felt the grenades he'd hidden under his clothing. He left the tent surrounded by a wall of sandbags and walked the short distance to the landing pad where the bulbous nosed Sikorsky UH-34 waited with its rotors spinning. He noticed that the ground crew had topped off its fuel tank—a good thing. To escape Vietnam, he needed every precious drop.
He walked by friends and fellow Marines that would not look him in the eyes and that bothered him causing him to feel self-conscious and guilty as charged.
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§ “Running with the Enemy” was awarded an Honorable Mention in General Fiction at the 2103 San Francisco Book Festival
§ Discover a new world of Publishing–-the 2013 San Francisco Book Festival Event held on May 18 at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in SF.
