Chapter 17

Friday, the 2nd of January, 1970, started out just as cold as the previous day had. After sending the daily report to the B-Detachment last night, I had returned to bed for another two hours of sleep before relieving Starling just after midnight. I re-tuned my radio to the 20 meter shortwave band and listened for any signals that could be originating here in the Shan States, as I believed this was the most likely wavelength that an agent here would be using to contact his superiors in China.

I had switched on our number two AN / VCR 47 after sending my report to Desk Jockey for Starling to use if there were any messages. I sat there and went over the logs for the past month while listening for anything coming in on either radio. Later I tuned around on the 20 meter band from 14.0 MHz to 14.4 MHz, but didn’t pick up anything that I could identify as local. I had been doing this for several nights in hopes of picking up any enemy agents contacting their headquarters. So far it hadn’t netted any results. Tweed came in around 0700 hrs.

“Anything?” he asked, hopefully.

“No, nothing,” I answered.

“Go ahead and eat,” he told me. “I’ll watch things here till you get back.”

“Okay,” I agreed, if for no other reason than to have something to do, and switched off my radio.

I passed Starling going to breakfast on my return from the mess hall to Operations. There I checked the number two generator for oil and gas before starting it. It had been ready. I closed out the current radio, shut off the current generator and then switched to the one that I had just started. I turned on the morning radio and went on the air with it. I also fired up the PRC-77 to have it ready. Everything was set for Starling when he reported at 0800 hrs.

“Anything last night?” he asked when he came in.

“Nothing!” I told him disgustedly. “I’m going to sack out for a while. Call me if anything important comes up,” I told him.

Tweed woke me around noon, and we went to chow after I shaved again. Williams was talking to Starling when Tweed and I returned to Operations following lunch.

“It was a waste of time, man,” he was saying as we entered. “There weren’t any women available, and all that they had was local booze, although the local beer isn’t that expensive. How did you do?” Williams asked.

“I met a real nice girl through Sergeant Baker’s wife. Her name is Noon, and she is a real sweet girl. She showed me some of the local Wats in Chiang Rai, and we went to dinner in a local restaurant,” Starling told him.

“That sounds terribly exciting!” Williams said, but sounded far from impressed. “Where did you spend the night? The guys at the company said they hadn’t seen you after you got to town.”

“I spent the night with Noon,” Starling told him quietly.

“Well, then you did better than most of the rest of us,” Williams said in a disgusted voice before he left for his bunk.

Things continued very quiet for the next week plus. There were only the regular delivery flights, work on the bunkers, and the usual cooking and laundry actives. In other words, it was ‘BOR-ING’!

It wasn’t until the night of 12 - 13 January that I picked up anything suspicious on the 20 meter band. I had rearranged my antennas and now had two antennas at right angles to each other. They were strung above the tents and out of the way, as they were half wave antennas and each was 10 meters or just over 33 feet long. At around 0230 hrs that morning, I began picking up what sounded like Morse code, but didn’t appear to make any sense to me.

I started copying it down in hopes that someone could make sense out of it. After it started repeating itself for the third time, I switched antennas to check on what direction it might be coming from. The antenna running east-west picked up very little of the signal, where the one running north-south picked up a very strong signal. So strong a signal, in fact, that I had to believe that the transmitter had to be located somewhere in our area.

I kept listening after he stopped, but there was no reply that I could detect. I sat there for some time looking at what I had copied down but could make no sense of any of it. Tweed came in just after 0700 as usual.

“Anything?” he asked, as usual.

“Yes!” I answered, as I turned off my radio. “But I can’t make heads or tails out of it.” He came over and looked at the sheet where I had the message written out, and stared at it for several minutes.

“Doesn’t make any sense!” he said after a time.

“It must be a code of some kind,” I told him, and got up to switch generators and radios for the morning shift. Broyles was on that morning, and I left the sheet with him when I went to breakfast. When I returned from breakfast everyone in operations was looking at the sheet with the message on it.

“It definitely appears to be in code,” SFC Lee was saying as I came in to the tent.

“And without the code key, there is no way to decipher it,” MSG Sorenson said in disgust.

“Do you have any idea where it was sent from?” the Major asked on seeing me return from breakfast.

“I think that it came from nearby from the strength of the signal and the fact that one antenna picked up the signal much better than the other one did,” I told him.

“How distant is nearby?” the Major asked. “Was it from Nawngh Kam or from somewhere farther afield?”

“If it originated in Nawngh Kam, both antennas would have picked it up from ground effect,” I told him. “It had to be someplace more distant.”

“Let’s look at the map,” the Major suggested. We all moved over to the map board. There are a number of small towns within fifteen to forty kilometers of Nawngh Kam shown on the map. I spent some time looking at each of them after drawing my antennas on the map at our position. After a bit of thinking and detective work, I turned back to the others.

“Nawngleng and Tanggan are out as the east-west antenna would have picked up a better signal from a station in either of them. To a lesser extent, the same goes for Mong Na. However, Mong Keng exactly fits the results obtained with the antennas. It is almost due west of us, and would cause very little propagation on the east-west antenna, but would give a very strong signal on the north-south antenna,” I told them pointing at Mong Keng on the map.

“What about Hpangpai?” the Major asked pointing at a village on the far side of the river.

“It’s east of us across the river. An observer there wouldn’t be able to see us because of the intervening mountains. Bur Mong Keng is west of us and it wouldn’t be unusual for someone from there to be in Nawngh Kam on business, such as buying fish for instance, or delivering something,” I told them, as my amulet warmed up.

“Yes, you could be right,” the Major agreed, and looked thoughtful for a time.

“Could you spot their antenna?” he finally asked.

“That will depend, sir,” I answered. “If it is strung up outside, like over their roof, possibly. If it is inside, or in the trees, there isn’t any way. Of course, they would need more power for the same signal strength in that case,” I told him.

“Let’s take a ride!” the Major suggested, and then looked at my appearance. “After you shave and change uniforms,” he amended.

I was ready in a short time, and drew my weapon and ammunition after rigging my ruck for the portable radio. Tweed, the Major, and I boarded the Huey a few minutes later and took off going west toward Mong Keng. It was a very short flight as the town is only sixteen kilometers away by air, across the rugged local terrain. By road, it was much longer trip.

Mong Keng was about the same size as Nawngh Kam and we circled the town from high altitude several times, but couldn’t spot anything.

“We’re going to have to get lower,” I told the Major, who had the intercom connection to the pilot. “We’re only looking for a wire. It would be better to look for the masts that support it.”

The pilot eased us down to a lower altitude, and we circled the town and its surrounding area several more times. Suddenly my amulet warmed up as I was looking at a particular building on the town’s main street. I could just make out two collapsed sticks lying on the roof, and there was a glint of sunlight off of the wire between them.

“Right there!” I said excitedly and pointed very quickly. “See the collapsed masts and the wire between them.”

“No,” the Major said. “We’ll come around again to get a better look at it.” My amulet went cold at those words.

“No, that could give us away. Let’s go back to camp and get some men to check out that place on the ground,” I suggested.

“Are you sure about what you saw?” the Major asked.

“Yes sir, and my amulet went hot on seeing it,” I told him.

“Okay,” the Major agreed reluctantly, and we headed back to camp. During the short trip, I contacted Hand 5 to have them get two squads ready to go. We proceeded to the 2nd Company’s Operations tent on landing. There were two squads of Rangers sitting outside when we arrived there.

“We believe that we know where at least one of the enemy agents is located,” Major Del Vecchio told Captain Paribetra. “Baker intercepted one of their messages last night, and we spotted what we believe to be their antenna just a short time ago. We need to go in there and make sure,” he finished.

“What is the location of this suspected enemy agent?” Captain Paribetra asked.

“He is in the town of Mong Keng about 16 Km. by air from here,” The Major informed him.

“And two squads will be enough?” the Captain asked to be certain.

“Yes, I would think so,” I answered. “I don’t believe they have any enemy soldiers there.”

“All right. 2nd Platoon has two squads ready to go. I will go with you, as will Sergeant Stills,” Captain Paribetra told us. Ken Stills was just smiling.

“We should land a mile or so out of town and move in as carefully as possible,” he told us.

“All right, let’s do it,” the Major told us.

“If I might say something, sir,” Tweed injected.

“Yes, what is it, Sergeant Tweed?” the Major asked, concerned.

“I do have a little experience at this, if you’ll remember my little adventure in Luang Phrabang, sir. We were successful because we landed outside the town in the evening, and I sent some men in to recon the town. They could do that because they were dressed like the civilians and were from a nearby area. They looked and sounded like the locals. We got a lot of help because of that and pulled the operation off without any trouble, or losing anyone,” Tweed finished.

“So you are suggesting - what?” the Major asked.

“That we wait and go in late this afternoon, but before dark. I’ve noticed that the wind always blows from the west this time of year in the late afternoon, and then down the river.

“That should keep the noise from the choppers down, especially if we go in about three miles or five kilometers from the town in this little valley,” he said pointing at the map. “That will put this ridge between us and the town, and reduce the noise even more.”

“Yes, I noticed that valley when we flew over it. It’s full of trees,” the Major pointed out.

“We go in on strings,” Tweed stated, calmly.

“Rappel in?” the Major asked, doubtfully.

“Yes sir! Can your Rangers do that, Captain Paribetra?” Tweed asked.

“Yes, my men are trained to do that, and in fact it was one of the last things that we practiced before joining you,” he told us.

“And do you have some people that can pass for locals?” Tweed asked.

“Yes, I have a number of very capable men that can do that,” the Captain assured him.

“We send the scouts in to check out the town, and get an idea of where their sympathies lie. The main body waits for their report, and then moves in under cover of darkness - fast and hard, but with as little shooting as possible. However, don’t take any chances. Shoot where necessary.

“After we have the area secured, we call the choppers back in. We’ll need ground flares for them to be able see the landing site,” Tweed finished.

“All right,” the Major agreed. “How many should be in the reconnaissance party?”

“No more than three, and they should only carry pistols, but keep them out of sight,” Tweed told him.

“Yes, that sounds good,” Captain Paribetra and SFC Stills both agreed.

“Sounds like a plan to me. Beside it will give dead-eye here a chance to get some rest - seeing as how he was up all night,” Tweed said smiling at me.

While Tweed and MSG Sorenson readied the helicopters for rappelling, I went to get some sleep. I no more than hit the cot, than I was asleep.

“Rise and shine, Troop,” Tweed said shaking my shoulder after what seemed like no more than a few minutes. “It’s 1600 hrs, and we need to get on the road.”

I put on my shirt and boots, grabbed my gear and weapon before following him out of the tent, and over to the helicopter landing area. The Major, eight Rangers and I were in one helicopter with MSG Sorenson riding as belly-man. Captain Paribetra, SFC Stills, the 2nd Platoon Leader and seven Rangers were in the other helicopter with SFC Tweed as belly-man.