"We must go. Very dangerous here too."
"Then we walk. You say your name is Lan?"
"Yes, Lan. And you?"
"What about me?"
"Not know your own name?"
"Of course I do. I thought you said you knew me. I wish you'd get your story straight."
"Do know you," Lan said firmly. "You rescue me from camp. Not know your name."
"Remo. U.S. Marines."
"Ah," Lan said. "Marines number one!"
Remo laughed. "Yeah. We're number one, all right. Come on."
They followed the dirt road until it spilled into a blacktop highway. Remo took off his shoes and socks and carried them. The morning sun would dry them off quickly. For now, he was better off walking barefoot. The heat of the day warmed the road. Rainwater steamed off it like water on a skillet.
They walked for miles, encountering no traffic. Then, out of the north came a familiar sound.
"Helicopter," Remo said.
Lan grabbed his belt and tried to pull him off the road.
"Hey! Cut it out," Remo snapped, breaking free. Lan grabbed his wrists this time and strained against him.
"Out of sight," she begged. "Hide. Helicopter come."
"That's the idea. They'll pick us up."
"No. Not American helicopter. Vietnamese."
"Crap. The Vietnamese don't have helicopters. Sounds like an American Huey."
The rotor noise grew louder. Lan pulled harder. "Look," Remo yelled. "Don't make me get rough. Run if you want. I'm staying in the open."
Remo stripped off his T-shirt and faced the direction of the approaching helicopter clatter. Lan broke for the roadside trees and hunkered down fearfully.
The helicopter lifted into sight up ahead. It was a wide-bodied craft with stub wings heavy with rockets.
It seemed to be following the road carefully, as if searching.
"Great," Remo muttered. "They can't miss me." He started waving his shirt.
"Hey! American on the ground," he shouted. "I need a dustoff "
The helicopter skimmed over Remo as if it hadn't noticed him. Remo jumped around to face it, still waving his shirt and shouting.
"Hey, come back."
The helicopter did just that. It flashed around in a tight circle. And as it turned, Remo saw the yellow star in a red field that told him he was trying to flag down the wrong side.
"Oh, shit," he said. "The Vietnamese have helicopters now."
"I tell you!" Lan called. "Now you hurry."
Remo dived off the road. He took a position between two tall trees, well away from Lan. He brought his rifle up. He waited.
The helicopter hovered ominously above, searching. Remo held his fire. The helicopter began to settle and he knew they'd spotted him.
Then Lan dashed across the highway under the gunship and to the other side of the road. She shouted at the top of her voice.
The helicopter suddenly rose in the air and peeled off after her. A chin-mounted Gatling gun opened up. It blasted the rubber trees until they stood like broken milkweeds.
"Dammit!" Remo shouted. He came out of cover and emptied his rifle after the helicopter, firing single shots. The big tail rotor suddenly made a pinging sound and began wobbling wildly on its axis. A lucky shot had clipped it. The rotor stopped dead, and without its stabilizing influence, the helicopter began a slow pirouette in place, like a ridiculous Christmas-tree ornament spinning on a thread.
The helicopter pilot had no other option and he knew it. He let the chopper settle. It sank into the trees steadily until the main rotor encountered the treetops. Then all hell broke loose. Breaking branches flew like shrapnel. Someone screamed.
"Lan!" Remo yelled.
The helicopter suddenly stopped, its main rotor banged into a tangle of metal. The gunship hung in a net of foliage several feet off the ground. Men started jumping out of the open doors.
Remo saw that they carried rifles. He ran toward them. Unless he hit them first, while they were shaken up, the advantage would be theirs.
Dashing across the road, he plunged into the bush. He moved in a low crouch, the AK-47 feeling strange in his hands. He was used to an M-16. The helicopter hung like an enormous rotting fruit among tangled trees. A Vietnamese soldier was clambering out of the gun door, his rifle slung over his shoulder. Remo lifted his own assault rifle and squeezed off a single shot.
The gun clicked. He tried again. Nothing. Remo dropped into the grass and pulled the clip. Empty. The Vietnamese soldier was hanging by both hands from the chopper skid. He dangled momentarily, then dropped to the ground.
Remo dropped his useless weapon and eased forward. The Vietnamese was standing with his back toward him, unlimbering his rifle from his shoulder. Remo made a fist and came up like a ghost rising from a grave. The Vietnamese picked that moment to turn around. He saw Remo's fist and screeched in fright.
It was too late for Remo to pull his punch. It flew past the soldier's shoulder. Remo felt his legs being kicked out from under him. The two men landed in a tangle, Remo on the bottom.
Furiously Remo tried to fend off the soldier's flailing blows, but his hands wouldn't do what he willed them to. Every time he made a fist, it felt wrong. He found himself warding off the blows with quick, openhanded thrusts. What the hell was happening to him?
Remo grabbed the man's wrists. The two of them struggled. Then the soldier collapsed on top of Remo. Remo shoved him off and found Lan standing beside him, the soldier's AK-47 in her hands. It was pointing at him. This is it, he thought. I'm dead. But, wild-eyed, Lan tossed the weapon to him.
Remo caught it and spun on the sounds of approaching soldiers. There were two of them. They yelled like Indians as they charged through the grass. Remo set the fire selector to automatic and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. "Damn!" he said.
"What wrong? Why you not shoot?"
Remo looked at the breech. It was fouled with mud. "Damn!" he said again. He threw the rifle away. "Run, Lan!"
"No!"