Hour of the Assassins by Andrew Kaplan

the head to Dao. Dao crunched noisily and sucked out the brain before he finally answered.
    â€œThe child has lost her mind. There is nothing to be done, Tan Caine.”
    â€œDamn it, I want to know what happened,” Caine said, his voice soft and cold.
    â€œWhy?” Dao demanded. “It will not make you any happier to know.”
    â€œWhat are you afraid of, Dao?”—his voice challenging, mocking.
    â€œLim and the child were in Muong Ngom. She is such a pretty child, that was the problem.”
    â€œSo what?” Caine put in.
    â€œMuong Ngom was one of our villages. The Pathet Lao held it for over three months until we pushed them out. Some officer must have taken a fancy to her. For three months she was kept naked in a small cage for the use of all the troops. She was raped hundreds of times in the most brutal fashion. You see,” he sighed. “There is nothing to be done.”
    â€œWhere are the guerrillas who occupied Muong Ngom now?”
    â€œWe think they’ve moved north, near Nong Het.”
    â€œWell, there’s still some killing to be done,” Caine said quietly.
    â€œThere are NVA in that area as well. It’s too dangerous. And besides, that won’t help the girl. Nothing will, except perhaps death.”
    â€œWe won’t be doing it for the girl. We’ll be doing it for ourselves,” Caine replied.
    As it turned out, it took them over a year of fighting before they reached Nong Het. Lim was pregnant then, with a son, she assured Caine proudly. And so that the son-to-be would be strong, she continued to labor in the poppy fields despite Caine’s objections. Throughout the long hot days the women worked in the fields that were bright red patches in the sun, like splashes of blood on the green hills, harvesting the opium for shipment to the heroin factories in Vientiane, Bangkok, and Saigon.
    That last night Caine came back to his hut from the radio shack to find Chong playing his khene , his thin oriental face almost drowsy, like that of an opium smoker. Caine had just been arguing with Cunningham, demanding a flight of B-52’s from Thailand to hit Nong Het once the trap was sprung. The plan itself was quite simple. Chong would take Nong Het with a Meo company and, acting as bait, would draw the Pathet Lao into an attack on the village, while Caine and Dao would take the rest of the Meo force and seal the valley. Chong would dig in and the bombers would then saturate-bomb the valley, leaving Caine and Dao to move in and mop up. Caine also wanted some bombing in the neighborhood of the camp in order to protect their base, which would be defenseless once he moved out. Cunningham, of course, was furious.
    â€œDamn it, Caine. How in hell am I supposed to get you a flight of bombers when officially we don’t exist in Laos?”
    â€œThe flight is checked out for a strike in Nam. They just hit the wrong target Accidents happen all the time in war,” he said.
    â€œNo go, buddy. You’re not only exceeding orders, you’re blowing us wide open.”
    â€œBullshit, Cunningham. Stupidity is being unable to do anything other than follow orders,” he had retorted angrily. “Fuck orders, because I’m going in and unless you support me, the Meo force will cease to exist.”
    He went back to his hut confident that Cunningham would come through. People will do anything in the name of military expediency. The one great advantage they had in Laos was that officially they didn’t exist. Cunningham more than anyone else should appreciate that, he thought. Not like those poor bastards in Nam who had politicians running the army, fucking things up all the way down to the company level. When he got back to the hut, he was disquieted by Chong’s fatalistic calm.
    â€œYou’re sure you’ll be able to handle it, Uncle Chong? We only have this one chance to trap them,” he said as Chong finished playing.