Rambo and Ortega pulled out their 1911s from their backs as they walked along the roadside and now at the ready.
The shots in the distance became fewer and fewer and although Rambo and Ortega worried about snipers popping out of the building windows, in the end, there weren’t any.
They got to the bar entrance and went in with their guns still at the ready.
A wall had collapsed leaving dust everywhere and most of the lights had blown.
They could hear survivors coughing, others whispering but what they heard most were laments.
“We need to call the base,” Ortega said as Rambo rushed up the stairs.
“Easy, Johnny”
-
Rambo climbed the stairs two by two, while Ortega stayed downstairs keeping cover.
Once he reached the next floor, his gun hand was trembling.
He wandered the corridors glancing hastily into the rooms when a sudden dizziness came over him and the corridor turned into an abyss.
Rambo leaned against a wall to catch his breath.
Impatient with himself, he climbed yet another flight and swiftly moved towards her room.
There was light from the street beaming in through where a wall had once been, the floor under it was hanging in mid-air ready to collapse without any given notice, while in another corner, there was something burning slowly.
There was a female body lying flat on her back on the floor.
Although Rambo recognized her build and hair instantly, it was impossible to see her face in the dark.
He couldn’t be sure if it was actually her.
The face in front of him was covered in blood on one side, while the other was torn to shreds by the explosion.
Rambo took another step forward in an attempt to see better.
Some of her hair had been torn out, as though she’d been scalped by a redskin.
She was missing an eye, and all that was left was an obscene, black cavity, while the other eye was wide open staring blankly into mid-air.
Rambo lost his breath.
Thinking it couldn’t possibly get any worse her blood stained mouth twitched.
She was alive.
She was taking quick short breaths, but she was still alive.
Rambo felt a stabbing pain in his stomach as he pointed his 1911 at her.
He couldn't leave her like that.
His mind was whirling. He couldn't get her of his head.
His gun hand was shaking.
Where the fuck was Ortega?
She would never make it with such serious injuries.
He knew he had to finish her off but once you crossed that line, there was no turning back.
He could hear the gunfire getting louder and closer so there wasn’t much time left.
A battle was unfolding out there and they were about to find themselves right in the middle of it.
Rambo’s mind flashed back remembering the first night he’d spent simply holding her in his arms but he blocked it as quickly as it had started.
His time was up.
Lowering his gun, he shot her in the head.
A rush of blood shot into the air, then poured onto floor.
Only after a few seconds did it lighten up.
Rambo felt something in him end.
Along with gun shots from outside he heard voices hollering in Vietnamese but couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Apparently something was wrong but he was still in shock over what he’d just done.
He was unable to move and even had trouble breathing, let alone think.
Still paralysed by the shock he suddenly noticed something moving in the dark and it almost frightened him to death.
He couldn’t make out what, but there was something that had been cut somehow and was now bleeding on its own in the corner.
Rambo moved hesitatingly forward and watched whatever that thing was emerge slowly from the dust.
A child wearing blood-soaked rags came forward almost in slow motion.
His eyes were tightly closed but his mouth was wide open as he continued to scream silently and lose blood all around him.
The explosion had torn both him and his mother to pieces.
It was too traumatizing for Rambo to stand. The image itself faded out of his mind until it was nothing more than a dark shapeless unrecognizable stain.
His head was throbbing in such excruciating pain that he wanted to scream.
Horrified, he slowly backed out of the room. It was too much, even for the likes of someone like him.
He wanted to throw away his gun, scream at the top of his lungs and flee. He was well aware however, that he would only have got himself killed doing so, and not a single thing more. What it all came down to was that he couldn't scream, flee or anything else for that matter.
All there was to do was tell off the exceptional training itself because it kept him from screaming even at a time like this, therefore not giving him any possible relief.
He had to swallow it up and get over it, tasting every damn shade of it as he did, feeling damned to the core by it, probably forever. He could barely understand where he was or what he was even doing anymore
In what seemed a different world, Ortega was calling out to him in a loud voice, but the sound was dreamlike and remote by the time it got to him.
The shots coming from the street were practically below them.
Rambo slowly went back down the stairs to the first floor.
“What the fuck just happened here, Johnny? Why didn’t you answer? Are you okay?”
“Yeah”
“I heard shots”
“You mean one shot...”
“No, no I heard you fire twice and...” but then Ortega stopped mid-sentence. Something at the window had caught his eye.
“They’ve found us, Johnny. They must know we’re Americans”
Rambo was trying to think straight again, but a rush of adrenaline shot though him.
He was in danger, and he knew it.
He took the last rounds he had out of his pocket.
He had three, so twenty-one bullets of which one already shot.
He then unloaded his gun looking carefully at the cartridge it was clear that a shot was missing. Ortega was right, he had fired twice.
“There they are - Ortega said-, fucking assholes. Do you see them?”
“Yeah”
“They are coming to finish the job Johnny, trust me. They’re deciding how to take us out. What do you wanna do Johnny?”
Ortega turned to look at Rambo, but the guy standing in front of him wasn’t the same Rambo. He was different. He had a look on his face that Ortega had never seen before.
He’d suddenly become another, a complete stranger almost, and it unsettled Ortega.
His eyes were locked and lacked any kind of expression, like a snakes.
He was huffing and puffing, practically growling like a dog with each exhale almost tasting the blood.
“I’ve got three rounds too Johnny, but with this fucked up hand I don’t even know if I'll be able to reload”
Rambo kept staring out the window.
“What do we do?”
“You distract them and I’ll kill them”
Ortega looked at his friend somewhat startled, and then replied
“What the fuck are you saying? You don’t know what the hell might be out there, and there’s shots coming from all over the city”
“I’m going,” he said.
Rambo disappeared into the dark as he proceeded down the stairs.
Ortega looked out of the window again back down at the street below and spotted Vietcong eyes right around the corner,
Their eyes met, but neither of them were interested in only exchanging glances.
Jesus fucking Christ – thought Ortega.
Now that Rambo had left, Ortega had no choice but to go ahead and do it the way he’d told him to, which meant creating a distraction and backing him up as best as he could.
“Come and get me you fucking assholes!” he shouted as he fired a few shots down at the street.
-
Rambo was in the building standing in the dark where could see them from where he was standing in the dark without being seen.
There were five of them all armed with AK47s. They were getting ready to cross the street and come into where he was. Being indoors, he knew the AK firepower advantage wasn’t going to be as good as if they’d battled it out outside.
In any case, we were talking about five AKs against two 1911s and no element of surprise.
It was then that Rambo realized he’d probably not only made a mistake but quite possibly his last. There was no point trying to deny it because he had unquestionably fucked up. His anger had got the best of him.
Damn it – he thought.
It had been a mistake, that was true, but it wasn’t over yet. Like hell it was, and he didn’t intend to simply give up.
So he started looking around for a corridor where he could hide out in the dark while he kept an eye on the main entrance without being seen. Once he found one, he went in and waited in the dark, with his pistol at the ready.
When the first Vietcong turned up he popped his head in and took a quick look without actually coming through the doorway. The Vietcong were known for this little trick and always did it to make sure no one was waiting for them inside.
Rambo however didn’t shoot. He would never dream of shooting first if he wasn’t sure to get the job done right.
Anyhow, Trautman taught that trick too and it served to unnerve any potential enemy waiting inside.
Once satisfied with that initial check, the Vietcong carefully ventured past the doorway.
He moved along the entrance hall so slowly and cautiously that it almost seemed to be in slow motion.
He couldn’t have been over twenty and had a hollowed out face most likely caused by hunger.
Rambo's heart started pumping harder.
The Vietnamese probed the entire room using the barrel of his rifle the same way you would a radar antenna. As he moved forward, he slowly pointed it towards where Rambo was hiding.
The muzzle at this point was aiming right at him but Rambo keep perfectly still nevertheless.
Rambo knew how shadows worked. He’d done more than a year of training in the dark learning how to use them.
He can't see you – said a voicein his head.
Trust me he can't see you.
His heart was beating so hard though that it almosthurt. Rambo was laying his life on the line in hopes that the training would suffice but it really wasn’t easy.
Don't move – said the voice again.
Despite his inner voice’s better judgement however, he simply couldn’t abide.
Rambo bent down in slow motion exactly at the same time the Vietcong soldier was deciding to leave.
He crouched down so slowly in fact, that it almost took him thirty seconds to do it.
In the meantime, two other Vietcong soldiers had come in, and they were barely older than the first was.
The young ones die first – Rambo thought to himself.
The young ones then the old ones, is not that right, you fucking assholes?
Rambo could tell by their textbook entrance that they’d been trained well, but he also knew there wasn’t anything else to do but wait.
He watched the last two come in, but it was still too early to make his move.
The Vietcong had to believe that Ortega, who was on the floor above them, was the only threat there or they wouldn’t ease up. A fake sense of security meant they’d stop checking their backs, and at that point, Rambo would make his move.
The first two wouldn’t be hard to hit once they dropped their guards but the other three, well, he would have to wait and see about them.
He was uneasy and had the impression they could hear his heart pounding. After a few very long moments however, the last two soldiers seemed to lose any and all interest in his hiding spot as well.
It was then that they finally moved into position and tactically proceeded up the stairs to do away with Ortega. They considered the ground floor safe, precisely as Rambo had foreseen, and, as expected, their guards dropped.
When the first three tactically made their way up the stairs, Rambo knew it was time to do business.
-
Ortega, who was still on the first floor, was so scared he was sweating.
There wasn’t anyone left on the street any more, and his first clip only had one bullet left.
“Come and get me, you dickheads!” he shouted while reloading.
“I’m right here you fucking assholes! Come On!”
-
As the first soldier vanished up the stairs, Rambo decided that the time had come.
He didn’t even have to aim.
He looked right at the soldier who was covering their backs, pulled the trigger and the shot that fired was as deafening as a bomb.
It was as though a firecracker had exploded in the Vietnamese soldier’s face. Blood squirted all over the place and the wall behind him got covered with bits of his skull.
In the meantime, Rambo’s gun had already moved onto the second target.
The second Vietcong was caught off guard unexpectedly, and once he realized what was happening, he instinctively turned towards Rambo rather than moving to take cover.
The time it took him to spin around was far more than what Rambo needed to aim.
The bullet shot a hole right in the centre of his chest making it impossible to breath and he was instantly paralysed exactly where he was standing.
Rambo fired again and this time he shot him right in the middle of the forehead.
The soldier fell onto his rifle face down on the ground.
The other three Vietcong hastily disappeared up the stairs.
“Fuck you, motherfuckers, go fuck yourselves!” Ortega shouted.
Rambo changed positions moving to the staircase wall and tried having a look up the stairs but was immediately greeted by a shower of AK bullets. As he quickly stepped back into the corner he was taking cover in, the bullets triggered splinters of plaster and fragments to go everywhere while the sound beat on his eardrums.
Rambo stretched out his pistol hand around what was left of the corner and, without aiming, randomly fired a couple of shots up the stairwell.
-
The floor shook under Ortega as the curtain of fire kept flying everywhere.
He tried to get around the stairs too but a shower of bullets came right at him, so he went straight back to his cover.
Ortega and Rambo continued to cover each other’s backs as they tried to get up those stairs. They shot at the Vietcong keeping them from doing anything tactical, without even wasting too much ammo while they did it. They were good, very good.
Ortega looked out the window conscious of the fact he had to get out of there and somehow find a way to escape.
Darkness covered the city not unlike when the lights go off during a power grid failure. Apart from the occasional flash coming from firearms which were visible sporadically along the horizon, not much else could be seen.
Right below the window, there was a small but thick ledge which Ortega knew solely happened to go all around the building. That was when using it as a potential escape route came to him.
I probably shouldn’t – he thought to himself.
Ortega moved away from the stairwell for a second to scan the other rooms. Not only were there no escape routes there weren’t any fire extinguishers, propane tanks or anything else either which he may have helped him get away. In other words, he was seriously fucked.
He figured the best thing to do at that point therefore was to shoot another couple of bullets down the stairwell, solely to remind the Vietcong that he was still there.
Then he went back to the initial window and looked out onto the street again.
He noticed a thick powerline cable which extended from the brothel to the building on the other side of the road. You could say it connected them somewhat, but just barely. Maybe, --and I really mean just maybe-- it may be able to stand Ortega's weight.
Ortega put his 1911 behind his back and climbed out of the window.
“Fuck” he said looking down.
He climbed out onto the ledge as the city below him was still pitch black.
The ledge seemed to stand his weight, but it was so small it could barely fit his feet.
“Fuck, Fuck, Fuck”
He shifted slowly covering a few yards until he was right under the power cable that linked the two buildings together.
With a stern flick of the wrist, Ortega opened up his butterfly knife.
What the fuck am I doing? I can't believe it.
Despite obvious reservations, Ortega went ahead and cut the cable, praying in the meanwhile that the power really was down on the entire city.
What the fuck am I doing?
In spite of all doubts, once he’d managed to cut through it, nothing had happened after all.
Next, he wrapped it around his good hand, gave it a hard tug checking to see if it was sturdy enough to hold. Using his wounded right hand would have been painful, but he couldn’t see any other way out.
A second later, he heard Vietnamese voices confirming their arrival, on his very same floor.
<< He has to be here... Somewhere >> they said about him in Vietnamese.
Ortega looked down.
I’m going to fucking kill myself.
He pulled the cable as hard as he could, and then jumped into the dark abyss between the two buildings.
He hung there in that emptiness for what seemed like an eternity before he finally began falling towards the building directly in front of him. Despite all odds, the cable held tight.
God please, make it hold!
He was three storeys high, but the cable was holding him up acting like a stiff bungee jumping cord or something.
Unfuckingbelievable – he thought.
I’m flying.
I’m flying like a fucking Tarzan motherfucker.
When he finally reached the building he smashed against it feet first, and it hurt so much that he felt it all the way up to his groin.
Suddenly he heard an awful sound, as if something pertaining to the cable had just broken
CRACK!
One of the hooks which fastened the cable to the wall had cracked and Ortega freefell for about a meter.
Not a moment later, he heard another CRACK! and dropped yet another meter.
Then one CRACK! after another and another... CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
All of the hooks were giving way and Ortega was freefalling at a faster speed than before.
Leaning towards the other wall, he tried desperately to grab onto a window using his injured hand (since the other one was still wrapped inside the cable). No matter how hard he tried though, he honestly couldn’t because it was too painful.
He was practically freefalling by then.
He glanced down and saw a terrace right below him.
The impact was painstaking.
He somehow managed to protect his head and spine albeit just barely. Unsure exactly how, but in some way he’d kept from screaming despite the severity of the impact. He was certain however, that it had been equivalent being run over by a semi-truck.
He found himself lying in the middle of the terrace in so much pain he couldn’t move.
He bent over clenching his teeth in a feeble attempt to supress it.
He’d never felt anything like that before, not even during the selection process.
Dust got into his eyes and he heard the crackling of a shot and then another, and still another.
The Vietcong were yelling and shooting wildly against his terrace from the other building.
With one hand Ortega reached for the handle and opened the door behind him. With great difficulty he managed to drag himself into the dark apartment groaning in pain as he did. Once he was half way in, he pulled his legs in off the terrace and collapsed from exhaustion.
It was dark and quiet in there and appeared almost abandoned. That was definitely good news.
As he caught his breath, he suddenly realized his gun was gone.
He must have lost his pistol when he fell.
People were shouting outside as they continued to fire shots, so he dragged himself further away from the door and accidentally bumped into something, making it fall.
-
The Vietcong who had just shot at Ortega's terrace cursed about missing him. He and his two squad members couldn’t do anything at that point except go and get the American.
Upon further consideration however, the one that had just killed two of his men, that asshole, may still be inside the brothel so he ordered the others to get back down to join the rest of his team.
The Vietcong in charge knew they all had to be excruciatingly careful because the American soldier could still be there waiting for them.
Once they reached the last stairwell, the three Vietcong stopped together mid-staircase and stood still to listen.
There was a sound, an odd sound, like the humming of an engine with its gears in neutral, but he was certain it hadn’t been there before.
The senior Vietcong gestured to the others to move on and two of them cautiously proceeded down the steps.
Almost straightaway however, the senior Vietcong had second thoughts.
He patted the youngest on the shoulder to get his attention, and the young soldier stopped.
He had a feeling that something was wrong, so he knew the best place for him now was up front.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs the senior took a vigilant step into the entrance hall. As soon as he put his foot down he realized that the floor right under him was wet. Once again, he was certain however that the water in which he was standing hadn’t been there before.
-
Rambo was patiently lying on the top of a wardrobe like a spider awaiting its prey. He was right there in front of them, ready to ambush but no one had the slightest idea.
In one hand he was holding his AK while in the other a severed cable from an internal combustion generator that he’d found. That generator, which was a large, portable emergency generator contained enough power to light up a hotel.
Rambo didn’t even shoot.
He let the cable drop at their feet and on impact, the wet surface created a blue ball effect and an explosion bellowed in their ears. The discharge from the generator was so strong that the three Vietcong were immediately electrocuted lighting up like candles.
The electric current paralysed them so quickly that they didn’t even have enough time to scream.
While their bodies twisted and caught fire, Rambo opened fire using his AK.
He shot fast, and in no time the generator in the other room caught fire and the power supply finally stopped.
When the last of them fell to the ground, Rambo jumped down from the wardrobe.
He moved up to the three of them and looked down.
Their faces were swollen, chock-full of blisters and there was a stench of burnt flesh lingering in the air. Rambo didn’t feel guilty about killing the youngest one but no one at fifteen deserved to die, not even a filthy Vietcong trying to do him in.
The time had come to find Ortega so he went outside onto the street.
-
Ortega was still in the apartment where he’d 'landed', when out of nowhere, a light broke the darkness and he realized that three people were standing right in front of him There was a woman holding a frightened little girl tightly in her arms and a man holding a handgun just as tight.
Seeing the handgun pointed directly at him made Ortega swallow and the man holding the gun glared into Ortega's eyes.
< I am unarmed > Ortega said in Vietnamese.
< You are American >
< Yes, I am American >
< Go away > the man said to his wife and daughter, who obediently disappeared.
“What you doing here?” said the man now speaking in English.
“I got out... I was...”
“Why you in my home?”
“I was running for it”
The man didn’t move or say anything for a moment, but then slowly lowered his gun.
“And how the fuck you runaway all the way in here? By flying?”
Ortega was speechless.
“This is my house”
“I mean no harm”
“I work for the South Vietnamese police, and this is my house”
“Oh God, thank you” Ortega said finally lowering his head in agony.
The Vietnamese police officer rolled his eyes and then sighed.
“Let me take a look at this leg” he said.