Ortega, Coletta, Danforth and Jorgenson had come down the mountain and were inside the empty base, by then.
In the middle of the vast terrain, Barry and Krakauer were waiting for them with their arms still at the ready.
There was nothing but rubble, smoke and corpses all around them.
The stench of burnt skin ran rampant.
Ortega, who was by that point, completely out of breath, stopped for a second to take in the results of Jorgenson's rockets but had to turn away from such a horrible sight.
He was really struggling to catch his breath. The fighting had taken its toll.
Looking over at Krakauer, Ortega noticed his incredibly worried expression as well.
Something was definitely wrong.
Really, unequivocally wrong.
“Is everyone accounted for?” asked Ortega.
“Yeah. Where's Sniper?” replied Krakauer.
“He stayed outside to cover our backs. Vuong?”
“Never seen any trace of him. If you ask me, he was never here in the first place”
“Okay. Sit-rep, Tiger”
“Ok, man.... Doc is with the prisoners inside the west hut. There are four of them and they are all Americans. They can walk but one of them has got a wounded arm”
Ortega's expression became worrisome.
A wounded hostage. getting him to the nearest LZ may prove to be difficult.
Really difficult.
Ortega swallowed.
Let's hope it's not – he thought to himself.
“Will he walk?” he said.
“You have to ask Doc that”
Ortega looked around and saw that most of the team was there.
“I can't see no Raven here”
“Raven is covering the South main gate. He’s injured too. Nothing serious, but he’s got an injured foot.
Ortega sighed again.
Shit – he thought to himself.
Another one that may not be able to walk.
Accordingly, there were two of them already.
“Any other good news?”
“Oh yes. There's more boss, and it’s the best of all. Fasten your seat belt, man...”
“God damn it, just say it”
“The radio-pack, boss. It's gone. It was hit and it’s all fucked up”
“What the fuck are you saying, soldier?”
“Hole right through it. Must’ve been hit by a damn bullet or something, I don't know, boss. A bullet, or a fragment or something along that line”
Fucked, that’s what we are, fucked.
Ortega shut his eyes.
Now we are absolutely, definitely and unquestionably fucked.
“We left it outside the base, and it was, well hidden. It got hit by a stray bullet. I really don’t have any idea how it could have happened. We do have short-range pocket radios though and emergency beepers too. Even though we’ll have to try using those ones at regular time intervals and in the right zones.”
Did he say short range radios? – Ortega thought keeping his eyes closed and blocking out Krakauer's words.
In Laos?
We are all going to die for Christ's sake.
Without any means of communication, we are all going to die out here.
Jorgenson – who had joined the two together with Danforth – started bouncing from one foot to the other.
“... We could turn the beeper on and use the short-range radios too while moving forward to one of our LZs, couldn’t we? Trautman knows the three possible LZs for this mission, am I right? Or not?”
Not exactly.
It didn’t work like that at all, but Krakauer was no navigator and trying to explain it to him would have been a waste of energy. Lord knows that was neither the time nor the place to do it.
You guys are practically dead already– said a voice in Ortega's head.
You are hungry, tired and in sleep withdrawal. You have two wounded and haven’t got an LZ.
You are dead, that’s it.
No.
No.
He needed time to think, and he had to do it with Coletta.
Yeah, that’s it.
Ortega then opened his eyes up back again, and abruptly stopped Krakauer's from going on.
“Shut up” he said and then added:
“Search the base for intel then place C4 everywhere. I want timers set up at thirty minutes”
“The death cards*, boss” said Danforth.
Ortega glanced up at the sky.
“Exactly. Put those damn cards and then let's head westward. I don’t want a single word about this mess to the POWs, or I swear to God I’ll waste you all myself”
“Yessir”
Ortega looked at his wristwatch.
“We’ve been engaged for seventeen minutes and I want to get out of here before touching twenty five. Is that clear? Now move, move, move!”
Jorgenson and Krakauer left.
“Thank you, Eagle”
“For what?”
Danforth turned his AK sling round over his shoulder and then even dared to light himself a cigarette. All things considered, they had killed everyone on that damn base.
“Take this. Have a drag” he said.
Ortega had a drag of smoke as he considered the grounds around them further. His mind was whirling.
He had to find a way to ask for an emergency LZ without a long-range radio but that was impossible.
Yet, he had to find a way to do it, or they were all going to die, and fast.
“Take five minutes for yourself, Scorpio. Think carefully and calmly about it. In the meantime, I will get you Coletta”
* The death cards were the ace of spades – usually with some kind of skull in the middle – that the SOG used to leave over the bodies of the enemy they killed beyond the border. For the Vietnamese people, the aces of spades were omens of bad luck. So called 'experts' in psychological warfare believed that leaving those cards on the bodiesserved to lower enemy morale.