Double Naughts

Stateside, Slim Wiley stayed busy at his work station at American Ball Bearing Supplies on North Main Street in Fort Worth, Texas. It wasn’t spoken, but most everyone in the factory was employed here as cover for yet another government job, which they each knew nothing about. Once in awhile, someone would be missing in the workforce for a few days, and then would be back, and nothing was ever said about the absences. Sometimes, someone would go to their mail slot and turn up missing in the middle of the day. This type of absence was normal; no-one questioned them. Not even the supervisor.

Slim clocked out at the end of the day then went to his pickup to go home. The thirty minute drive west would calm him down. He passed several farm trucks on County roads until he finally came to cattle guard which served as his gate, then turned in and saw his horse Dusty about 200 yards from the road. He had two other horses but Dusty was an old friend. He was twenty years old and waited at the corral gate every day at about the same time for Slim to come in from work. Then Slim would jump on him and ride him bareback for an hour or so just like he had as a teen.

Those were good days! Today would be different. He walked up to Dusty and said, “Sorry boy, no ride today. I’ve got work to do.” he rubbed him behind the ear a few minutes and went into the house.

The ranch style house wasn’t much, 1,000 square feet or so, but it did have a wraparound porch covered with roof. The porch itself was wood which didn’t add much to the value of the house, but it added to the color as far as Slim was concerned. Slim figured the cedar wood can hold up a chair as well as cement, so that’s how he built it. Once inside, he went to his hidden gun safe and pulled out a nice .308 scoped rifle and several shells. Then he stepped out the back door and shuffled about seventy five yards down a dusty hill to the creek bed, where he had a rifle range set up.

The nearest ranch to his was a mile in any direction. He owned property across the county road and behind his house and to each side of him. This was the way he wanted to live, so he could have some seclusion in order to get practice in any time he needed it; night or day. Once he got to his location, he walked downrange and placed a target at 300 yards. The target had a three inch white bull’s eye, and a six inch black surrounding area around the bull. At 300 yards, he couldn’t even see the target with his bare eyes, man it hurts to get old, but he could make out the plywood target stand.

He sat down and began his routine of scoped shooting, load-sight-breathe in-exhale slowly- squeeze until fire, again, and again, and again. He repeated this five times and then checked his target. He was pleasantly surprised, one hole, four dents around the hole. He was still ready. It was getting dark by the time he was reaching his shooting table, and he–

“Hey meester, jou got to geev me jou money now.”

He was caught off guard by two Mexicans crossing his property, and now they were armed with his rifle pointed right at his gut. “Hey there, hold on now… I ain’t gonna hurt you none, point that thang somewhere else. I’ll get my billfold. Okay? Just point it somewhere else.”

“Meester, geev it to me now.”

Slim reached into his pocket to retrieve a billfold holstered gun, “Okay, I’m getting it… I’m getting it…” He pulled the small pistol and started firing, placing three .380 bullets into the Mexican holding the rifle, at the same time other Mexican jumped at him with a knife, he side stepped and placed three .380 bullets into this one also. The first man raised the rifle, and squeezed the trigger which snapped on an empty chamber. He didn’t even pick up ammo from the table and load it.

Slim reached out and took the rifle barrel as he slipped into another world, his friend had already passed. Slim searched their pockets for identification, and found none, “no way to find out who they were. I need to move them away from here.”

Then he heard horses galloping and ran up out of the creek bed. All he could see was three horses running south, he had a feeling that one of the horses was Dusty, and later he would prove that right.

Slim retrieved his tractor with front end loader from the equipment barn; he had work to do. He drove it back to the two men he’d just had to kill and picked them up with the bucket, then began to drive northeast through the creek bed past his target stand about a quarter mile, then out of the creek bed and north another quarter mile. This was a desert like area of his farm, he placed the men on the ground, dug them a grave and put them inside, then covered the grave. This would save the County Sheriff a lot of paperwork and the County Morgue also, since there wasn’t any way to identify them. Now, he had to see what he could do about his horses.

Back at his corral he found that he had two horses still in the barn, they were saddled and ready to ride but they had been left behind. This must mean that someone had stolen two other horses elsewhere, and these two horses had been intended for the two that he had killed.

It was dusk, about 9pm now and Slim saw a small car approaching the ranch. Slim watched it as it pulled up to his mailbox, then drove off. Well, it looks like someone is ready for him. Once the car is out of sight…

Slim fetched the envelope. The instructions were simple. Report to Carswell AFB at 0500 tomorrow. Further instructions will follow. Carswell was the Base location known as Strategic Air Command Headquarters for the B52 bomber squadron. These were pretty sketchy instructions but he’d had worse. They didn’t say anything about bringing a weapon or clothing, so everything would be provided.

0500-3 March, 1968, Carswell AFB Raining like a son of a gun. Slim reported to the East gate for entrance, and to his surprise was waved through to a second guard. This second guard pointed to a jeep which had a sign on the rear which said “Follow Me.” After what seemed like ten minutes, but was actually only about two, the jeep pulled into an extremely large hanger. Here Slim was met by a person he knew only as Herbert. Herbert pointed to some clothing in a chair and said there is your flight suit, dress up quickly, I’ll fill you in while you are changing. In the meantime, the remainder of the men in the hanger disappeared.

Herbert spoke, “Your assignment is to kill one General Chu-Lei, or Charlie for short. Here is an envelope for you to study containing photos while you are in route. Charlie has been kidnapping and torturing South Vietnamese women from Cambodia for information, whether the information is true or false, then raping and killing them. We want him to be put away now before he actually finds someone who might know something, or before he kills someone important. Understand?”

“Yes sir. No Problem sir. Now I have a little problem to share with you.”

“Oh?”

“I had to touch two Mexicans on my property last night. They came at me and tried to rob me with my own rifle, and they didn’t have any identification. So… I took care of them so they wouldn’t be found. But, some of their friends stole one of my horses. I’m going to be looking for that horse when I get back from this assignment.”

“You mean IF you get back.”

“Oh… I’ll be back.”

“It sounds like there isn’t a problem any longer. If, you get back from this assignment, we’ll discuss this further.”

“Yes sir. So, What’s my transportation, a C130?”

“No, you are going in that F16 right there.”

“An F16–?“

The F16 pilot was on his way up the ladder into the rear seat of the F16 trainer, “All aboard!” he shouted.

Slim did a double take back to Herbert, and started walking to the F16. A couple minutes later he was strapped in and hooked up. And, eXperimental Foxtrot Delta X-ray Zero Three One was cleared for takeoff. In a matter of minutes the F16 was flying at Mach-plus to its destination and it flew extremely fast the entire way. Two times it converged with airborne fuel tanker and took on fuel to complete its mission and in much too short a time Slim was landing in Cambodia. He kept thinking that this was impossible, and truly, it almost was.

As soon as they rolled out on the runway, the A-man was there to greet him. “Hey B-boy you ready to work? I sure hope it rains tonight… It’d be much better if we had rain to work in.”

Slim knew this was true. The jungle was a despot of mosquitoes and biting insects unless it was raining and they all carried malaria, so if it would rain things would be much better. So now Slim and his A-man sat down alone and went over the plan with a map and sequenced it with times as things normally happened. The problem with the General was that he had a new girl every single day, and he took a leak during a certain twenty minute period every single day, so this is what they were timing their attack to. Hopefully it would work.

Four o’clock the following morning ‘A’ and ‘B’ were on the move. Their jeep cutting through the jungle and the rain, thank God for the rain. Slims .308 rifle had been given to him the night before and had a special scope which was a rangefinder, plus night and daylight scope. ‘A’ thought that the shot would be about 400 yards. Finally they came to a predetermined spot and stashed the jeep, then began working their way through the jungle on foot. It took them about one hour to get to the ambush location and set up shop. Slim, ‘B’, couldn’t see the shack that Charlie occupied, but ‘A’ had pointed through the bush which way it would be and so he set up an approximate location and waited for sunrise.

Then it happened. ‘A’ turned and smiled at Slim and pointed his pistol at him. Slim was about to throw his knife and kill ‘A’ when a large snake head slid down beside him. Slim quickly jabbed the snake in the throat just under the jaw line and sent the blade through the top of his head. It soon went limp. This snake’s head was almost as large as Slims fist.

Daylight came slowly but the hut came into view. It wasn’t as far as ‘A’ thought, but there would be a little bit of a problem shooting in this rain. He would have to shoot, and then follow it up with another round as soon as possible to make sure Charlie was dead, unless he saw Charlies head explode. Then their plan of escape would be different than the approach because of common traffic in the daylight. The time slot they were looking for was between 6:20 and 6:40am. But, Slim was all over the scope at 6:00am. Charlie might just fool them one day and come out a little early.

Then they heard it. Loud screams from a woman, and slaps, then shouts of questions, utterances from a female, confessions and pleas for life and finally one gunshot. Charlie appeared at the door shouting orders at guards in Vietnamese, to get the little bitch out of his bedroom and change his sheets. Then he walked to the rail of the porch and unzipped his pants.

This’ll be the last time you unzip your pants you bas–

The .308 sounded off at 374 yards away. The bullet went through Charlies nose, into his skull and blew out the back side of his head.

‘A’ and ‘B’ were on the move. Shouting was coming from all around the hut. Someone was wondering where the shot came from. Another was saying look in the jungle. Yet another was yelling to get in the jeeps to give chase. There was mass confusion around the camp.

As they disembarked, ‘A’ started disassembling the .308 to discard it a piece at a time in the jungle. First the scope was tossed into a deep stream as they passed it by. He hated throwing away such a nice piece of weaponry. Then the bi-pod was tossed into some heavy grass as they passed, then the stock was ditched in two pieces. The bolt was thrown away in another water source and the rifle barrel and breech was slung into a bamboo growth. Then ‘A’ furnished him with an AR15 which they were both now carrying along with .9mm pistols. After they had run about twenty five minutes, they heard vehicles coming up behind them. They still had several minutes before they could get to their jeep, so they chose to hide in the bush before the group closed in on them.

The vehicles crept by looking and plowing down jungle a little at a time as they traveled. These were NVA and how they got their vehicles to go through this undergrowth was a mystery to them both. They stopped four vehicles with eight men and began a walking search of the area. They walked around and looked for twenty minutes and found nothing. Then the leader walked over to Slim and stood six inches from his boot looking into the jungle. Slim had his knife in his hand but chose to wait. The officer undid his pants and started to urinate. He was urinating on Slims pants but he could do nothing but sit and wait. If he jumped up the VC would shit his pants and then Slim would shove the knife into the VC’s throat. But this would blow cover and there would be a lot of killing, and maybe no escape. After what seemed like five minutes, the VC finished, got back in his vehicle and they drove off. To think he had that VC’s life in his hands like that and he never knew it. They stayed still for five minutes after the vehicles left the area before they came out of the brush. Finally they made it back out and back to base. It had been a hair raising touch.

After a shower and a shave, Slim was back in his flight suit and in the front seat of the F16 going home. Now all he could think about was getting Dusty back, and the look that his A-man had when he pointed that pistol at him. Was he pointing at that snake, or was he making a gesture of something he meant to do in the future?

After Slims return to Fort Worth, there was a short debrief with Herbert. “Yep, I’m sure he’s dead, the back of his head went flying across the porch.” Herbert made some sly remark that the interrogation and rapes were still happening and all Slim could say to that was maybe the General wasn’t the one doing it. Maybe it was someone else, and the General was just there watching. Herbert didn’t like that comment but he took it in stride.

Slim did what he said he was going to do. He got a friend, and started out to look for Dusty. There were only a few ways people could travel from Weatherford way down to Mexico and not be seen. So he got out his map and began to check out the routes most likely. His friend Matt was going to help see what he could do about getting the horse back. They worked their way through Texas pulling a two horse trailer, stopping and talking with people who said that they had seen the three Mexican’s and found out that the other two horses were also stolen, until they came to Eagle Pass. Then it was time to make some plans. They were both armed with Winchester 30-30’s and a pair of .45 revolvers and they would have to cross the river at night in order to get across with the weapons. So they took a nap and rested until dark.

After dark, they loaded up and crossed the river under the new moon and located Dusty and the two other horses around a little bar near Piedras Negras. Of course they hadn’t seen the thieves but they knew they were around, and may be close. Slim slid up behind one man and busted his head real good with the butt of his pistol, then traded hats with him. Now he had a right smart sombrero. Matt thought that was a great idea and did the same. The music from the bar wasn’t all that good, but it was loud. An out of tune piano and a guitar in the same condition played for a senora who was singing as loud as she could off key. She was tapping and slapping the castanet’s as fast as she could to try and draw tips from the drunkards.

Matt and Slim walked more in the open now, in the dark, lighted only by the hurricane lanterns on the front of the bar, and along the boardwalk. They placed themselves near the horses they were after and relaxed, and soon found themselves ordering “un Cerveza por favor.” The waitress had come outside to see if anyone had wanted a drink. As the night wore on, many drinks went down the Mexicans throats, which favored them, or so they figured. Then, one of the Mexicans came and tried to get on one of the horses to leave, but he was too drunk. Well… we can’t wait forever. “Okay Matt!”

Slim grabbed the drunk, and threw him to the ground. He did not expect him to have a knife, for when he got up, Slim felt it slip into his side. Slim dispatched the Mexican with his revolver immediately; then all hell broke loose. After that first shot, gunshots came from everywhere. Slim raised his rifle, and began to return fire, Matt right beside him. Soon every Mexican at the place was inside ducking and covering. While Slim mounted Dusty, Matt kept everyone busy… Then while Matt mounted, Slim kept them busy.

They made their exit with about twenty horses toward the Rio Grande, if it be known; they were probably all stolen from Texas anyway. Now they drove this herd of horses toward the river and picked up their other two horses on the way. Then they were water bound and crossing it and getting into Texas with a few bits of lead still flying around them.

It was 4:00am when they crossed into Texas, and 4:30am when they reached the truck and trailer. It was then that Matt noticed that Slim was bleeding.
“Hey, what happened to you?” asked Matt.

“Oh, that first Mexican I shot with my revolver stuck me with his pig sticker. I don’t think it’s too bad though. I mean, I’ve hurt a lot worse when I hit my thumb with a hammer.”
“Yea, but you didn’t bleed that much when you hit your thumb… Lemme take a look at that.”

“Okay…”

“Whooee… there’s four inches of blade inside you pardner. You’d better hope that didn’t hit no vitals.”

“Naw, if it had’ve I’d of been down before now. Help me over to this first aid kit.” Slim slid a large military first aid kit from the back of his truck and opened it. Matt was shocked, there was everything inside from sterilizing wash to sewing needles to syringes with Lydocaine. Slim gave Matt a couple of four inch gauze pads and told him to put pressure on the blade where it went into the skin. When pressure was applied, Slim removed the blade. “Wow, that blade went right between the fat tissue and the muscle. That smarts. Hold that for a minute.”

After a few minutes Slim had Matt let the gauze go, the blood was barely oozing out of the cut. Then he took some peroxide and cleaned up the area. “Okay, we’ll tape this shut with that wide paper tape. Grab that 2 inch paper tape, put it above the cut about two inches away, then pull the cut closed and tape it about two inches below. I’ll be fine. Ready?” Matt taped the wound while Slim grunted and groaned.

“Okay,” Slim said, “we’ve got some horses to return. I’ll ride Dusty and you drive the truck. I don’t think this wound will take too much to leaning against a seat.”

Matt smiled, “Some cowboy, Slim, you’re some cowboy. How many them Mexicans do you figure we killed back there in Mexico?”

“Well, there wasn’t time to count, but there were five laid out the last time I saw them. I don’t think we’ll be held accountable for that tirade, do you?”

“No, reckon not since we’re here in Texas… I reckon not.”