The water and the mud at the bottom of the rice field not only softened Rambo's landing, but muffled it as well, almost making it silent.
He was rolling his parachute up into a ball by its straps when, out of nowhere, he heard something.
Rambo stopped dead in his tracks while his eyes stared blankly into space and focused instead entirely on his sense of hearing.
Not a sound.
He went back to rolling his parachute up into a ball again.
Once he was done, he put the bundle under his arm.
Uzi in hand, he dragged himself through the water moving towards the north-east corner of the rice field, which was the rally point for all of them.
He couldn't see a thing.
Nothing except the reflection of the moon on the water, that is.
Traps – he thought.
Yes… They may have looked like branches sticking out of the water, but they weren't.
Those were sharp iron bars, specifically designed to stab parachutists.
The water level must have dropped a little so when you were close enough you could see the tips pointing upwards.
Those weren’t a problem as far as Rambo was concerned.
What did actually worry him was the dark. It was too dark.
Fighting like that, under those circumstances was absurd at best. It was non-sense. There could be anything in that damn rice field for fuck’s sake. If spotted, the Vietcong could have easily ambushed them just outside it. Rambo and the others wouldn’t have a way out.
He continued moving through in the water, with his parachute in one hand and the Uzi in the other.
He couldn't wait to get rid of the parachute.
“Johnny,” whispered a voice.
It was Ortega.
Once they were arm distance, Rambo realized Ortega was incredibly pale and his face was tense yet his eyes were wide and his mouth was open.
Something was wrong.
“There’s something moving Johnny.”
“Where?”
“Back there, behind us. I heard them. I’m sure of it.”
“Let's round up the team,” Rambo said.
“Yeah, I got that. You stay in the water though, and I’ll cover the bank from above.”
The two continued together along the bank with Rambo knee-deep water while Ortega moved on top. Both had their Uzis at the ready as they moved towards their meeting point.
They hadn’t moved more than a few meters when Rambo heard something for himself in the distance, behind them too. He may not have been able to see anything, but at any rate, Ortega was right.
The problem was that it was pitch-black out there that night.
There was no moonlight that night and the light coming from the stars was faint, at best. The sounds they’d heard however were there, and were exactly where Ortega had said.
Rambo saw a couple of red lights flicker in the dark, but they were too close to belong to the enemy as far as he was concerned. It had to be the rest of the team.
Yet what the fuck were they doing, and why had they turned on their red flash lights?
Ortega had disappeared ahead of him by then.
Where the hell is he going? The team is here.
Slow down Ortega, for Christ’s sake.
Rambo heard some leaves moving, and then shortly after, other rustling.
His team mates where making too much fucking noise.
“Johnny” a voice whispered in the dark.
Messner appeared out of nowhere on the bank, and was gesturing Rambo to follow him, and fast.
“Messner,” replied Rambo.
“Come here, Johnny. Quick.”
Rambo climbed onto the embankment, therefore getting out of the water to follow wherever they were going into the jungle.
It was even darker in there than the rice field.
Rambo opted for his small red-beam flash light too (which the young man was partially covering, in order to soften the light even more).
Under Messner, lying on the ground was Krakauer and there was an iron bar sticking out of his eye.
The traps...
Those Goddamn fucking traps.
One of those Goddamn traps had done its job.
It certainly had.
Messner was busy holding Krakauer down while he tried to take the cap off a shot of morphine at the same time.
Rambo threw himself onto Krakauer to help Messner keep him down.
“Well done, Raven,” said Messner to him.
He instantly gave Krakauer two shots, one right after the other.
Only seconds later, Ortega appeared behind them again.
“They’re heading towards us in two directions, God damn it! The VCs are…” and Ortega stopped point blank in mid-sentence.
“Oh shit. Jesus fucking Christ.”
Ortega stooped down on Krakauer and took him by the hand.
“Hold on, Krack. Hold on for God's sake. Don't fucking play games with me!”
“Hold him still!”
“I’m fucking trying!”
“Shit.”
“We have to get out of here.”
“The others are still missing.”
“NNNNNFFFFFF.”
“I know it hurts Krack, but you have to grit your teeth and shut the fuck up. Not a fucking sound!”
“No, not like that!”
“Keep your head still Krack – intervened Rambo – or you'll end up fucking killing yourself!”
“NNNNGH! NNNNNNGH!”
“How many?” Rambo asked to Ortega.
“A shitload John, and they’re serious too.”
“How serious?”
“Dead serious”
“Fuck.”
“The rest of the team is still missing.”
“No we ain’t,” said Jorgenson.
He’d snuck up on them without any of them even noticing him.
“Sniper stayed behind with his NVD and the others are all over there.”
Then he lowered his head looking down at their friend.
“Hang on, Krack. You’ll make it. We'll get you out of here.”
That wasn’t what Jorgenson was really thinking though. Neither was anyone else.
Nobody was sure about anything, not at that moment anyway.
They had ‘crossed enemy lines’. No one with serious injuries had ever made it back alive from there. Not ever.
Maybe on board a helicopter he would have had a chance. Yes, maybe if a Huey came to pick them up not too far from there. Then yes, maybe he’d have a chance but that was impossible, of course.
There weren’t any helicopters coming to pick them up. Not there anyways, or probably not anywhere actually.
No fucking chance.
They were alone.
They were alone and Krakauer was going to have to walk.
What’s more, he’d have to do so after completing the mission, if the entire mission hadn't already gone straight to hell considering those VCs looked like their mission was to find the Baker Team.
“We need to cut the bar,” exclaimed Messner.
“There’s no way we can move him otherwise. We need to cut it without moving it!”
Only then, at that point had the morphine finally hit Krakauer. It instantly calmed him down when it did so Rambo could let go of him and touch his forehead instead.
“Messner,” said Ortega.
The team leader pulled Messner aside, but Rambo managed to hear them anyway.
“It all depends on the haemorrhage,” whispered Messner.
“If we manage to stop it somehow and not give him too much morphine, he may be able to walk. At any rate whatever happens, the best-case scenario is he survives one or two days max with that kind of injury. We need to get him to a LZ in less than two days.”
“We can do it,” said Ortega, calculating klicks, routes and potential LZs as they spoke. It may not have been what their original plan called for, but with a few minor changes and by using LZ3 instead, they could actually make it.
“Yeah, that’ll work,” concluded Ortega.
“If we use LZ3 it’s feasible.”
As Ortega was finishing his sentence however, out of nowhere, a single shot fired in the distant jungle, broke the silence.
A 5.56 NATO shot.
“Coletta,” Ortega whispered.
The whole team froze instantly and looked up at the leafy treetops.
That meant that they’d been spotted, Goddamn it.
Well, at least that means the mission’s gone to pot then – thought Ortega to himself.
Trautman had been very clear about that case scenario. If, for whatever reason, the VCs identified or spotted them before completing the mission, they were to abort immediately, and that was an order.
Another shot echoed.
Then another only seconds after, and it was clearly Coletta's M16, that had.
It's over – thought Ortega.
Apparently, we landed in the rice field just as some enemy patrol happened to be moving in or out of the tunnels. It was plain bad luck and nothing else.
We knew there was a chance it could happen right from the start.
Even if we had talked about it endlessly while we’d planned. We’d even come to the conclusion that there was no way of ruling that particular risk out, Goddamn it.
Now, the worst case scenario had just become a reality.
It was over. The mission had failed.
Game over.
The only thing we had to worry about now was saving our asses.
“TAKE KRAKAUER AWAY!” cried Ortega.
“I WANT A BARRAGE FIRE TOWARD THE RICE FIELD,” he added, then went on to say:
“Messner, stop the bombing, for God's sake”
“But boss...”
“There’s a chance we’ll get stuck here, Doc. Don't you get that?”
Messner nodded reluctantly.
Ortega jumped out of the jungle and stepped into the water, pulling a flare gun out of his jacket.
The reflection on the water was still pitch-black and the only visible thing, albeit barely, was the ghost of the moon's reflection on top of it.
“You’re not seriously thinking about shooting that thing right now, are you?” said Jorgenson.
Ortega didn't even hear him. He lifted his gun up in the air and shot the flare straight to the sky.
The flare shot up into the air first, then, when it got more or less about a hundred feet above the ground, it suddenly went off and like magic a red, almost blinding light spread across the entire area for them, exposing one section at a time.
When their rice-field was finally within the light’s range, they couldn’t believe their eyes. There were dozens and dozens of Vietcong combing forward almost in a line.
The almost magical red light twinkled above them exposing the entire field, along with every VC position, from one side to the other.
They ploughed forward not stopping for anything.
In fact, they weren’t afraid of anything or anyone, because after all, they were home.
Holy mother of God – thought Jorgenson who, as dumbfounded as Ortega, stood paralysed and neither could believe what was going on.
Danforth and Delmore found themselves several meters behind Krakauer and the others and surrounded by thick vegetation. As such, without a moment’s delay, they opened fire on the VCs right out in the open.
Ortega heard an Uzi crackle right under him. It must have been Berry’s Uzi covering him.
Then again, what about Rambo? Where had Rambo been this whole fucking time? He had no idea of his whereabouts.
The time had come for Ortega to make a new plan.
He had to figure out how to get them the fuck out of there.