Men in Green Faces by Gene Wentz, B. Abell Jurus Page A

breeze from the fans ruffled the edges of the papers under the PL’s tanned hand.
    Jim frowned, a look of concern on his face. “Gene?”
    “Jim, we were too late.” He tried to swallow. Couldn’t. He took a deep breath and said it fast. “Prior to our arrival, the NVA advisor, Colonel Nguyen, returned to the village with the NVA forces under his command. The village was completely destroyed. Burned to the ground. The indigenous population were annihilated. No one…” His voice shook. He stopped, fought for control. “The indigenous are all dead.”
    Jim stood. “Tong’s family?”
    “Raped, mutilated, then shot.” In his mind, the children, Tong holding his wife, the sound of his heartbroken weeping. He felt his chin tremble and focused intently on the table. Brown…hard…doesn’t bend…two inches thick…
    “Tong?”
    “At the KCS camp.”
    “Anybody hurt?”
    “No. No casualties.”
    “Can you estimate how many NVA?”
    “About fifty. At least.”
    Jim nodded. “You look beat. Why don’t you try and get some sleep? Couple of hours, maybe.”
    “Soon as I see Johnny, over at NILO, I will.” He turned away. Jim might look like a kid, but there was a lot of man behind that boy’s face. A hard man, but a good one. He took three Pabst Blue Ribbon beers out of the refrigerator and went to report to Johnny.
    Later, he rejoined Jim, the feelings of deep weariness, of unwellness, put aside again. “We’ve got another op. You want to be my assistant PL?”
    “Be glad to,” Jim said. “What do you have?”
    “Intel reports,” Gene said, “indicate a weapons factory down one of the Twin Rivers about four miles from here. The factory is guarded by NVA and Viet Cong. They send out B-40 rocket teams to protect the rivers from Navy riverboats going up and reconning. We’ve inherited the problem.”
    Jim lit a cigarette. “What’s happened so far?”
    “Nothing good. The riverboat people have been taking a real beating. They’ve sent boats down numerous times, only to have them blown out of the water or, if they do get back to base, they come in crippled and smoking, with high casualty rates.”
    “Bad.”
    “Real bad. On one riverboat attack, trying to get farther down the rivers, they sent a zippo, a mike boat with a flamethrower, down with the Swift boats and PBRs. The plan was to have the Swifts and the PBRs draw fire, at which point the zippo would come in on step and barbecue the enemy doing the firing. This is how bad it is. Not only did the Swifts and PBRs draw fire, but the zippo was blown to hell. High-order.”
    “Obviously their tactics aren’t working.”
    He watched as Jim drew long and carefully on his smoke. He had a contest going with himself over how much of a cigarette he could smoke without the ash dropping off. It was a little over an inch long now. Gene eyed it. “Not going to make two inches.”
    “A PBR it does.”
    “Patrol Boat, River, or can of?”
    “Can of.”
    “Done. Anyway, Twin Rivers is ours to deal with now.”
    “What do you have in mind?” The ash fell off. “Damn.”
    “Told you so.” Gene grinned. “Hand it over.”
    Jim took a can from the three he had left and gave it to Gene, who opened it and took a long drink.
    “Good stuff,” he pronounced. “Okay. We need, first, to cut off all food and medical supplies to the Twin Rivers area. I’ve got info that they’re crossing from the smaller river on one side of the Son Ku Lon, directly across it into Twin Rivers on the other side. Means we have to watch both banks of the little river where it forks, because we don’t know which waterway they use.”
    “First thing is to monitor what the sensors show.”
    “UDT personnel placed sensors on the north side of the Son Ku Lon weeks ago, so we have that intel.”
    “Right.” Jim dropped his cigarette butt in an empty can. “With the sensors, we’ll know if anybody tries to enter Twin Rivers by land or water. Have to cut them off from the