_______________

"Reporting as ordered, sir," Ethan said, as he stood at attention inside the entrance to the command bunker. Sandbags and heavy timbers made up the walls. His clean fatigues felt strange against his fresh-scrubbed skin. The hiss of lanterns and the husky sound of voices filled the room while dust floated in the gloomy light. Ethan looked from one blurred face to another, relieved not to see Ortega among them. 

Colonel Price turned a rigid, expressionless face to Ethan. The Colonel and a group of ARVN and U.S. Army officers stood around a table with a map of the Kon Tum area on it. The old man sucked hard on the stem of a pipe, and the embers glowed red. Exhaling a gray, aromatic smoke through his nose, he nodded once, and then waved at the others to continue what they were doing without him.

He took the pipe out of his mouth and studied Ethan. "Card, I see you were wounded again." Price touched the fresh stitches on Ethan's face and looked at the back of his hands. "You look like hell. I heard you carried Gunny back and refused help from the others."

"Yes, sir." Ethan started to tremble. It was difficult standing at attention. He hadn't slept for three days, and his legs felt waterlogged and didn't want to hold him up. Not to mention Ortega hanging like a noose inside his head, and what might happen to Tuyen scared him shitless.

The hardness of the Colonel's dark face softened, and he looked tired. "Come on, Card, let's go to my tent and talk."

Ethan followed the Colonel up the stairs and out of the buried command bunker. The Colonel's tent sat between two massive boulders and was protected from mortar rounds by the long trunks of several palm trees embe dded in blasted notches at the top of the large rocks. Sandbags were piled around the narrow slot of an entrance.

The clouds had drifted away, and the full moon cast an eerie light over the battle-scarred landscape. Sandbags surrounded the tents all over the camp. A tunnel led from each tent to dusty, cramped, underground bunkers. Trees had once covered the hill but had been used as firewood or destroyed in the constant mortar attacks.

The Colonel glanced at the moon and pulled back the sleeve of his shirt to check the luminous dial of his wristwatch. "The midnight express is due in a few minutes."

Ethan watched a squad of ARVN rangers trot toward the perimeter.

"We know the bastards are planning to hit us hard any night. Intel says there's a fresh NVA regiment in these hills, and they're going to want to bloody themselves on us." The Colonel held back the flap of his tent and indicated Ethan should enter first.

The air inside smelled stale and tobacco-sweet. Ethan groped through the dark and sidestepped away from the entrance.

§ “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.