Eagles Cry Blood Read online

  Eagles

  Cry Blood

  Eagles

  Cry Blood

  A Novel of the Vietnam War

  Donald E. Zlotnik

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, scanning or any information storage retrieval system, without explicit permission in writing from the Author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locals or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  © Copyright 1986 by Donald E. Zlotnik

  First e-reads publication 1999

  www.e-reads.com

  ISBN 0-7592-2743-8

  Eagles

  Cry Blood

  Book One

  Donald E. Zlotnik—Eagles Cry Blood

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  1

  The rain beat down hard against the female spider monkey’s face, making her instinctively lick the water accumulating around her mouth. She sat curled up in the nook of the giant mahogany tree holding her week-old baby tightly against her chest and making a worried clicking sound that made her infant shift his position against her warm breast and snuggle even closer to the secure sound of her heartbeat.

  The young mother wasn’t afraid of the loud sound coming from the rain but of the large green boa constrictor she had sighted only moments before the heavy monsoon storm had appeared above her tree. The large snake was too slow-moving to catch her when she could see it, but the solid sheet of water obstructed her view and was making her very nervous.

  The monsoon stopped as suddenly as it had started, leaving the shiny leaves dripping tons of water down to the ground. She reached up to push the branch in front of her to one side as she tried locating the green monster. A loud noise below her on the animal path drew her attention away from her search. She saw the human fall down and regain his feet by grabbing hold of a clump of young bamboo. The soft whimper from her baby brought her attention back to her perch on the tree limb just in time for her to see the ten-foot 2

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  tree boa coil the front half of its body for a strike. She bared her fangs and screamed at the tree villain, jumping off the limb and reaching out for a serendipitously located branch that bent under her weight like a fishing rod and then sprang back, hitting the snake when its load was released.

  Paul looked up in the large tree and saw the snake, but could only hear the screaming mother scold the boa as she scampered for safety through the trees.

  He stopped on the trail, breathing hard as his body fought for oxygen from the difficult climb up the trail from the valley floor below. The noise of gear rattling against metal and high-strung voices chattering to each other through the thick undergrowth reached his trained ears where he stood exhausted and dripping wet. He looked up the hill, trying to locate the only other remaining survivor from the North Vietnamese ambush, but he couldn’t see ten feet up the trail.

  A loud voice called down the trail from only a few feet below him and was answered by one of the enemy’s comrades farther down the path. Paul whirled around too fast on the mud and felt himself falling down on the trail.

  He felt the air escape from his lungs and wondered to himself if he had the strength left to draw it back into his body. Finger-wide rivulets of brown colored water created by the recent monsoon downpour rushed past his cheek, forming up with more of its kind into a decent jungle stream in the valley.

  Releasing a pain-filled groan, Paul rolled over onto his stomach and pressed his mouth against one of the brown runnels; he sucked the cool water mixed with mud into his dehydrated body.

  The three other members from his reconnaissance team had been killed down in the valley in a well-executed North Vietnamese ambush just minutes before, and Paul had escaped, covering his team mate’s trail up the hill. The North Vietnamese had screwed up when they had stopped to strip the Americans of their watches and clothes. The barbaric act had given the two survivors time to gain a respectable lead on the enemy patrol.

  Paul knew that he couldn’t stay ahead of the enemy soldiers too much longer if he kept Bill on the trail—and breaking through the thick jungle growth lining the path would be impossible considering his condition and the wounds Bill was suffering from the ambush. Paul had to find a good hiding place and hope that the Vietnamese would either pass them by in their haste or allow him to conduct a counterambush.

  Paul listened to the NVA calling to each other as they followed the mud spoor. He started climbing again using both his hands and feet to claw up the hillside. The fresh monsoon mud clung to the sides and bottoms of his green mesh jungle boots, building up layers on top of each other until the weight became so heavy that the mud broke its hold against the hard rubber soles and fell off in huge chunks that made it easy for the enemy trackers to follow his trail.

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  Bill staggered twenty meters ahead of Paul on the trail. He was falling regularly and was regaining his feet by using the reserve strength only those who are fighting against certain death can muster from somewhere inside their inner souls. A field of small boulders and slabs of vine-covered rocks replaced the mud on the trail for the next hundred meters of the gradual incline leading to the top of the ridge and a possible helicopter extraction. Bill struggled over the slippery rocks and collapsed along the side of the animal path, too exhausted to move any farther.

  Paul found Bill on the trail and stopped to see if his partner was dead. He leaned over the man’s chest and could hear a faint heartbeat. Paul sighed. He knew that he couldn’t carry him. The voices coming up the trail gave Paul the strength he was searching for, and he grabbed his buddy by his web gear and pulled him off the trail into a thick stand of bamboo. The thin strip of thick vegetation that separated them from the path sprang back into its haphazard pattern as soon as Paul had passed through, making it difficult for the trackers to spot the exit off the trail by the Americans. Using all of his strength, Paul dragged Bill over to the bombed-down tree and tucked him against the rotting, sweet-smelling wood. He scooped up handfuls of the brown bamboo leaves and covered Bill with a two-foot-thick layer of camouflage before he took up a defensive position near his hidden buddy.

  The first powerful strike created so much instant pain that Paul bit through his lower lip rather than release the scream that had rushed up through his throat from his lungs. Blood seeped between his teeth and covered the taste buds on his tongue. Pain flashed up his leg in violent ripples, forcing him to involuntarily tense his leg muscles tight as a stone. The huge, four-inch-long black jungle scorpion spread its legs on his camouflaged trouser leg and curled its tail for a second strike. Paul slowly shoved the warm barrel of his CAR-15 submachine gun over until he poked the monster, forcing it back into its hiding place under the loose tree bark.

  Bill moaned.

  Paul pushed the heel of his dirty hand against his friend’s mouth; any sound that they made now would cause their instant deaths at the hands of the enemy patrol. Paul knew that the North Vietnamese wouldn’t take an American paratrooper prisoner.

  The enemy patrol passed their location and paused on the trail twenty-five meters past their hiding place. Paul kept his hand pressed against Bill’s mouth and held his own breath in order to partially control the pain that was wracking his own body. For the first time in his life Paul wanted to die and end his suffering. A loud command reached Paul through the thick brush and the patrol moved on. Paul kept glancing at the spo
t on the tree trunk where the scorpion had scurried, and then he looked up at the wall of green vegeta-4

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  tion bordering the trail. He didn’t know what he feared most: the NVA or the black monster returning to sting him again.

  A light machine gun broke the jungle silence to the left of Paul’s hiding place, sending a troop of monkeys chattering through the trees. Bill jerked upright and then lay back on the leaves when he heard the cyclic sound. Paul reached over and pulled his delirious buddy back down behind the protective rotting tree. A growing roar of rifle fire joined the machine gun, forming a death symphony that was interrupted occasionally by the loud boom of exploding grenades that gave a bass melody to the battle sounds and changed the tempo. Paul’s trained ear separated the different modulations coming from the different types of weapons. The NVA patrol had walked into one of the companies from Paul’s battalion.

  The slapping sounds of Ho Chi Minh sandals impacting against the mud path alerted Paul to the retreating enemy soldiers approaching his hiding place on the trail, and his warrior’s instincts surfaced through his pain. The trained reconnaissance man pushed Bill aside and forced his pain-wracked body to stand up.

  Bill felt the wet leaves brushing his face as Paul scooped more leaves over the top of his head. The wounded soldier could see his partner standing above him favoring one leg. He watched as Paul staggered over to the trail and took up a crouch, placing the steel butt of his CAR-15 against his upper thigh and waiting. Paul’s leg began to throb and shake from the poison the scorpion had delivered to his flesh. He started to remove his finger from the trigger and reach for the wound when a running khaki-clad North Vietnamese slid around the curve just up the trail. Paul could plainly see the red enamel star centered on the man’s sun helmet and the sweat covering the tanned yellow face just as he squeezed the steel trigger. The short burst sent the enemy soldier dancing backward against the rain-washed dark green leaves. Paul stepped out onto the center of the trail and looked both ways. He saw a pair of NVA break out of the jungle onto the trail fifty meters below him, and he sent a volley of death pellets across their backs.

  A scattering of armor-piercing bullets bounced off the packed mud on the trail around Paul. He shifted the muzzle of his weapon in the direction the rounds had come from and squeezed the trigger on his compact submachine gun, sending the enemy soldier to join his comrades in the happy rice bowl of the afterlife. Paul’s CAR-15 made a familiar popping sound that told his alert ears that the magazine was empty and the bolt locked in its rear position. He didn’t look down at the weapon as he reached over and ejected the empty magazine and removed a full one from his ammo pouch surrounding his waist.

  The sound of a breaking branch reached him as he crouched reloading his machine gun. Paul’s useless CAR-15 automatically swung around following 5

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  his eyes. The brush parted and the shiny sweat-covered face of a black soldier smiled through the jungle growth at the recon man.

  Bill drove the borrowed dark-blue AC Ford Cobra with time-conditioned skill along the familiar graceful curves on California’s Highway 1. The ride down from the Malibu beach to Los Angeles International Airport was a short drive by California standards, but beautiful with the expensive ocean beach houses lining the right side of the road and the golden hills touching the highway on the left as he headed south down the black strip of asphalt.

  Lieutenant Bourne took off his green beret and rolled the coveted piece of green cloth up before he tucked it under his leg when Bill accelerated the powerful convertible along one of the rare stretches of road. The speedome-ter registered a hundred and twenty-five miles an hour before Bill eased up on the pedal and tapped the brakes. Paul relaxed his head against the leather seat and allowed the salt air to slap his hair from side to side. Paul forced his mind back to the present, leaving the battles that the two of them had fought locked in the secret chambers of his most guarded thoughts.

  The two weeks Paul had spent with Bill in his canyon cabin were well worth the special effort that he had taken to spend some time with his old war buddy. They had gone down to the beach every day to surf, and they had spent their nights at parties with the local girls. The relaxing time Paul had spent on the beach had removed most of the tension that had been beaten into his senses from the hellish six months he had spent at the Army’s Infantry Officer’s Candidate School. Paul had developed an instant love for Malibu and its free-living people. He could understand why his friend had chosen the beach sands as the place he wanted to live after his stint in the war.

  The blue car’s nose dipped slightly when Bill downshifted the oversized engine. The Cobra obeyed and shot forward around the curve when Bill’s hand automatically shifted back to fourth and his foot softly massaged the accelerator. Topanga Canyon road signs dashed past the duo without being read. Lieutenant Bourne turned on his seat to see if Bill’s mind was still with him in the car or was riding a wave on some beach.

  “I have to stop and get some gas.” Bill turned into an Exxon station where a group of bikers had stopped to gas up and buy beer.

  Paul shifted uneasily, expecting trouble. One of the bikers pointed at the car and grinned, showing all of the rotten teeth in the front of his mouth.

  “Man, that’s a car!” The Levi-jacketed man reached into his back pocket and removed a pint of vodka. He held the bottle to his lips and drained a third of the contents before he stopped.

  Bill nodded his head at the mass of chrome and waxed machines and spoke to Paul. “They spend a lot of time on their bikes and do a lot of dope, 6

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  but they pretty much leave people alone.” Bill jumped over the door and slipped down on the warm seat.

  “You take care of that car, honey!” a cute blonde attached to the rear seat of one of the bikes spoke just as Bill popped the clutch and left the gas station.

  Bill had told Paul earlier that there weren’t more than a dozen AC Cobras in California, and with all of the attention the car had been getting, Paul believed him. A lot of very good-looking women had paid Bill’s price for a ride with him in the beautiful hand-finished car. Bill slowed the car down when they reached the outskirts around Santa Monica pier. Surfers were hot-dogging around the pilings with the ever-present seagulls crying down to the fishermen on the point of the pier for morsels of fish bait. Bourne relaxed again when Bill stopped for a red light at the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard and Highway 1.

  “Man, I sure don’t envy you going back there.” Bill spoke to Paul, but had his attention on two very good-looking women who sat smiling at him from one of the park benches. Bill locked their exact location in his mind for his return trip back to his cabin from the airport. Bill ran his fingers through the tangles of his thick ocean-bleached hair and gave the girls a slow wink. Since he had returned from Vietnam, he felt that it was his duty to service every girl in California, and his solid build and good looks definitely made the task an easy one.

  “Hell, it’s a way of making a living.” Bourne closed his eyes.

  Bill and Paul had first met in Vietnam Ranger training, and had served together as enlisted scouts for a year, sharing some very tough times running reconnaissance missions for the 173d Airborne Brigade. The mutual spilling of blood and sharing of the horrors found in war had welded an unbreakable friendship between the two men of the kind that could only be understood by other combat soldiers.

  “Personally, I’d rather stay here screwing a few good-looking ladies and surfing during the day.” Bill accented each word. “You know I’ll hide you if you want to stay . . . Hell, they’ll never find you back in the canyon, and my fellow growers will blow away any strangers messing around their gardens.”

  Paul smiled a rejection of his friend’s offer. He didn’t like Bill’
s heavy use of marijuana but he understood the offer that was written between his friend’s words. The year they had spent together in Vietnam had almost ruined the beautiful, free-spirited surfer boy from California. There had been too much killing on both sides that had placed a heavily barred door in Bill’s brain that he was constantly fighting to keep locked. Bill played the free-spirit game with him, but Bourne knew his friend better than to fall for the exterior mold being presented to the civilian world. His friend’s carefree attitude masked a very sensitive soul that had been scorched by the very fires of hell.

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  Donald E. Zlotnik—Eagles Cry Blood

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  The AC Cobra burnt rubber turning into the main entrance of the Los Angeles International Airport, skidding slightly when Bill tapped the gas pedal with the wheels still turned hard to the right. Passenger heads turned as the dark blue car pulled to a rough stop in front of the VIP entrance.

  “I’ll let you out here. You deserve first-rate treatment for wanting to go back there again.” Bill’s laugh was forced out between his teeth. He could feel that old feeling of not ever seeing a friend again enter his stomach and move to the muscles surrounding his heart.

  A uniformed attendant started walking toward the sports car, giving Bill just the distraction that he needed. He scooted up and sat on the top edge of his low seat and waved at the approaching man.

  “Get the hell away from us!” The evil look in Bill’s eyes was worse than the spoken warning and the man stopped near the doors.

  “Thanks for the lift, brother.” Bourne locked fingers with Bill over the low windshield. “Later, here!” Paul’s throat tightened and he choked on the last word.

  “Yeah, I’d go with you to the planes, but you know . . . those foxes back there need some looking after before some sly devil coaxes them into his apartment.” Bill slid back down onto his seat and gunned the oversized engine. “Besides, I haven’t dressed for the occasion!” Bill glanced down at his faded pair of yellow surfing shorts, the only item of clothing he was wearing.