The Special Forces contingent that made up the interdiction force under Colonel Berry had now crossed the border into Laos, reaching the “fan stem” where two trails coming out of Laos converged. There, the IFOR contingent split up into three columns: Echo, commanded by SAS Major Leigh-Hastings; Foxtrot, U.S. Colonel Berry’s men; and Delta, led by U.S. Ranger Captain Walter Roscoe.
The plan was for two columns, Echo and Foxtrot, to go farther in along the two trails that eventually spread out to make a fan, or smaller trails, and lie in ambush waiting for any enemy main force en route to Vietnam’s western flank.
The remaining column of thirty men, Delta, under Roscoe, would wait back at the border in order to net any enemy survivors of an ambuscade or any smaller patrols that either Echo or Foxtrot would let pass rather than fire upon, and so betray its presence to an oncoming enemy force.
Normally, such ambushes would consist of no more than ten men, but intelligence, both from aerial pix and ground movement sensors dropped by air, indicated company-sized enemy activity, and the point of Freeman’s three Special Forces interdiction columns was not simply to verify such activity and then call in air strikes, but to engage the enemy on the spot and wipe them out. However, as Echo’s and Foxtrot’s security teams, a pair of soldiers from each column, went uptrail and downtrail about seventy yards from the selected ambush site, the fact of their general presence in the area was already known to Salt and Pepper Two — the incursion into the fan-shaped jungle area of about thirty square miles west of the Vietnamese-Laotian border was already on page one of Paris Match, under the byline of Pierre LaSalle.
Immediately, General Wang ordered a six-hundred-man battalion of the elite Chengdu-based paratroop commandos south from Mengzi to Dien Bien Phu. Anticipating such a response, and despite the international uproar over his having ordered the Special Forces contingent into Laos, Freeman nevertheless asked Jorgensen in Hanoi to authorize interdiction by U.S. fighters aboard Enterprise. Jorgensen refused — point-blank. Now his career was on the line as well as Douglas Freeman’s.
Normally a placid man, Jorgensen, with visions of a court-martial foremost in his mind, was trying to control himself. “General,” he said, gripping the phone so hard his knuckles were white, “you don’t seem to grasp the seriousness of the situation.”
“Sir,” Freeman cut in, “I understand it very well. The position of ninety of my best men has been compromised by a goddamn frog, and I want to give them air interdiction and TACAIR support.”
“I don’t mean the military situation,” Jorgensen shot back. “I’m talking about the political fallout. Everybody in Washington and at the U.N. in New York is up in arms about you widening the war. It’s the nightmare of ‘Nam again. Kennedy, Nixon, LBJ — all widening the war in the belief they were going to end it.”
“End it?” Freeman riposted. “By God, I’ll end it easy enough. You give me an A-bomb — which I know we have on the Enterprise—and I’ll end it in half an hour. Drop that baby on Ningming and we’ll have peace talks within twenty-four hours, guaranteed. I’ll turn Ningming into the world’s biggest fishpond.”
The moment he said it, Freeman wished he hadn’t. But before he could retract it, his normally calm-spoken superior had blown a fuse. “You’re mad. You’re insane. I’m relieving you of command of Second Army as of now. You hear me?”
“General—”
“You hear me?”
“I hear you, sir.”
The phone line went dead.
Cline had heard enough of the conversation — Jorgensen yelling — to know it was very bad news. Freeman, who had put the phone down slowly, left his aide in no doubt. “I’ve been relieved. By God, I—” He didn’t finish the sentence.
Cline, though shocked, had pressing business at hand. But with his boss no longer in command, it was confusing all around.
“What is it?” Freeman asked.
“Sir, we’ve got Arty pouring fire down on Disney’s south side. You want our boys to wait for the Airborne?”
“Hell, no. Soon as Arty clears a sector, I want us and the other USVUN troops to occupy it. Soon as we have high ground cleared, we take it. That way the Airborne with my mortars will have LZs for the choppers. Besides, the more dirt we can stir up with Arty, the better. Tricky for the helo jockeys, I know, but it’s as good as smoke cover. Hell, our boys should be using smoke anyway.”
“Wind’s blowing north, General. It’s taking smoke away from us. Covering the enemy.”
“Well, hell, we can’t have everything. Anyway, maybe it’ll hide the upcoming choppers.” Freeman paused. “What time you make it, Major?”
“Fifteen twenty hours, General.”
“Then I suggest you record receiving my order at fifteen hundred.”
Cline looked at him, nonplussed.
“Before I got fired,” Freeman explained. “Might as well cover your ass.”
“Yes, sir. But what about the press conference in Phu Lang Thuong? There must be near a hundred reporters waiting there.”
“What about them?”
“Well, sir, I mean are you going to tell them you’ve been relieved?”
Freeman shrugged, thinking it over. He sighed, shaking his head. “Hell, no. I want to try to help my boys in those IFOR columns. I sent them in there, and now, with that prick LaSalle telling the whole world where they are, least I can do is try to help ‘em — shift world opinion.”
“Beg pardon, General, but how in hell are you going to do that?”
“Watch me,” Freeman said.
“Yes, General, but what if Jorgensen finds out about this press conference you’re about to give?”
“We tried to contact him for permission, didn’t we?”
“Lines down?” Cline suggested.
“Whatever you like, Major.”
It was amazing, Cline thought. Freeman had just been fired, and the son of a bitch was back on the attack.
The general noticed Cline’s astonishment as the major opened the tent flap on the way to the Hummer that would take them to the press conference center in Phu Lang Thuong. As they got aboard the high-clearance Hummer, which had a bad time of it bouncing over the potholed road, the general glanced at Cline. “Bob, I want your computer boys to dig up State Department policy memos vis-à-vis ‘Hot Pursuit.’ “
“Across borders?” Cline asked.
“Specifically across borders,” Freeman said. “Those fairies in Washington think I’m a grunt general. Well, I am — damn proud of it too — but I do my homework, Major. By God, I do. Remember what Frederick the Great said. ‘L’audace, I’audace, toujours I’audace!” “ Audacity, audacity, always audacity!
Freeman knew that once he mounted the press center’s improvised podium — a wooden slat tent base — he would see a phalanx of hands shoot up. One of them would belong to Marte Price, and another to Pierre La Prick Salle. Both reporters, he knew by now, were politically left. And after blowing the Special Forces contingent in Laos, La Prick Salle probably wouldn’t think he’d take any questions from him.
Echo and Foxtrot column’s two pairs of security teams made several listening, halts along the site chosen by Major Leigh-Hastings for a possible ambush. The job of these four soldiers was to alert the rest of their columns as to the size of any enemy force coming either way. Everyone expected any enemy columns to come from deeper in Laos, to the west, but the possibility of an enemy force returning from the east, from action in Vietnam, also had to be considered.
The security teams for Foxtrot column were in position within another quarter hour, with the Echo security teams three miles south of Foxtrot. About twenty-five minutes later both Echo’s and Foxtrot’s leaders moved in their assault teams of twenty-five men each into their positions along each trail of the fan, setting it up for ambush. The remaining man in each of the two columns of thirty men was now free to command. It would be these two men who, staying still for the next twenty hours, like the rest of their column, would take up the best ambush position for overall command of their respective columns. It would be their order, and theirs alone, that would unleash fire should the Khmer Rouge-led columns come their way.
Crescent-shaped, two-and-a-half-pound claymore mines, each loaded with over six hundred explosive embedded steel balls, were set up in the undergrowth of the triple canopy jungle along one side of the trail. The camouflaged twenty-five-man assault team sat behind the protective sixty-degree arcs of the mines, the assault teams making “damn sure,” as Commander Berry ordered, that each convex side of each claymore embossed with front, toward enemy, was pointing away from the ambush column, each column’s leader in radio link with both security teams at the two ends of the 250-yard stretch of trail.
If a man defecated, he did so by squatting over a Glad bag — no paper was to be used — and the bag would not be buried, lest it be found and dug up by wild animals, creating the possibility of revealing the column’s presence. The excrement, like everything packed in, would have to be packed out, for if the hoped-for ambush did not happen for either Echo or Foxtrot, USVUN might want to return to the already scouted sites — if Freeman had his way. Because of the radio silence imposed outside their local radio link, neither Echo, Foxtrot, nor Delta columns had any information about the outside world in general, or Freeman in particular.
The men in Delta column under U.S. Captain Roscoe were waiting in the marsh area around Ban Cong Deng, six miles south-southwest of Dien Bien Phu. Without exception, every one of the thirty-man Special Forces column was covered in leeches sucking the blood out of them. With no smoking allowed, there was no way to burn them off, and the difficulty with using insect repellent was that it had an odor the Khmer Rouge guerrillas could detect amid all the other smells of the fetid swamps.
“Mr. LaSalle,” Freeman said, smiling, pointing at the French correspondent.
LaSalle was caught off guard, but after an initial “Ah” and a pause to collect himself, he asked, “General, is it true that USVUN Special Forces under your command are now in action against elements of the Khmer Rouge — across the border in Laos?”
“No, Mr. LaSalle, that’s not true,” Freeman replied. “We’ve been patrolling close to the border, that’s certainly true, but we’re under strict orders from the U.S. State Department and the President not to engage the enemy in Laos, Cambodia, or anywhere else unless such action comes under the explicit conditions of the State Department’s policy of ‘Hot Pursuit.’ “
“What’s that, General?” yelled another correspondent, an Australian.
“Policy of hot pursuit, sir, is the policy whereby if American troops are on border patrol — which they are, to protect the USVUN left flank — and are fired upon by Khmer Rouge-led guerrillas, for example, or by anyone else, we are free to pursue the attackers until we establish what we consider a ‘safety margin’ at the border.”
“How come we haven’t heard about this before, General?”
Freeman seemed astonished by what he was clearly indicating was the naïveté of the question. “No one’s asked me!” he said.
There was a smattering of laughter. Pierre LaSalle was waving his hand frantically. Freeman let him wave and took another question from a television reporter. “General, are you denying there are USVUN Special Forces in Laos?”
“Yes. But if they are there, then they’ve clearly crossed the border because of the increasing concern we have about Khmer Rouge-led forces violating the neutrality and environment of Laos.”
The assembled correspondents knew well enough what Laotian neutrality was, but this was the first time they’d heard about U.S. military action to help the environment. Freeman answered with such audacity that it even sounded logical to Cline, who knew damn well the general was making it up as he went along.
“The environment, ladies and gentlemen, as Mr. LaSalle rightly stated in his report for Paris Match, is of prime concern to us all. We, meaning the U.S., committed, in my opinion, a disastrous mistake when we used Agent Orange here during that unhappy war. As well as defoliating large tracts of rain forest and jungle, it killed much other flora and fauna. Now of course we realize the acute dangers to flora and fauna all around the world. In Laos the Khmer Rouge-led guerrillas are stripping—stripping, ladies and gentlemen — by slash and burn the valuable and ancient teak forests to smuggle the teak across the border to sell to Chinese traders who, quite frankly, don’t care how much slash and burn goes on or how much damage is done to these precious virgin forests.”
The general paused. “By God, I’m proud of any American — and any USVUN member — who is prepared to do battle with these marauders who think they can plunder the rain forests of Southeast Asia. The Chinese are voracious, ladies and gentlemen, voracious in their appetite — offshore as well as inland. The Southeast Asian nations want to share ocean resources, for example, but what does Beijing want? It demands all the resources of the South China Sea. It wants all the resources it can lay its hands on.” He paused, again taking everyone into his gaze. “And quite frankly, ladies and gentlemen, the United States, so long as I’ve got anything to say about it, is not going to stand idly by and let Chinese run rampant over its neighbors’ environmental concerns.”
There was applause. Then he hit them with what he would later describe to Cline as his “Daisy Cutter,” a fifteen-thousand-pound bomb, the biggest conventional bomb in the world.
“Another thing, ladies and gentlemen. We now have proof positive that at least two of our MIAs from ‘Nam are in the border areas of Laos. Thank you.” And he was gone.
Within minutes CNN was beaming Freeman’s press conference all over the world. Within hours MIA groups via Internet throughout the United States were clamoring for the President to authorize General Freeman to follow up all MIA information — to go into Laos, Cambodia, wherever it was necessary. And it was the first time since its inception that Greenpeace worldwide applauded and loudly supported the efforts of a member of the American military to protect the “delicate ecosystems of Southeast Asia from environmental rape!”
“Bruce,” the President asked his aide, Bruce Ellman, “what’s your view on Freeman?”
“Fire him, Mr. President — as General Jorgensen recommended. And make Jorgensen’s relieving Freeman of command official.”
“Chiefs?” The President looked around at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was a two-two split, Navy and Air Force tending to agree with Ellman, albeit with some reservations, “given the heat of battle.” The Army and Marines, declaring their bias for the man on the ground, argued that perhaps “Douglas has acted somewhat hastily in sending a recon force on the border.”
“It wasn’t on any border,” Ellman chipped in. “It was a striker force sent over the border into Laos, violating Laotian neutrality.” Ellman paused. “With all due respect, gentlemen, doesn’t anybody remember the uproar when Nixon secretly sent bombers into Cambodia?”
“He sent them for good reason,” the Army chief said. “To destroy enemy staging areas in what’s supposedly a neutral country. Douglas is doing the same thing. It’s outrageous that Khmer Rouge-led brigands can carry out hit-and-run raids on USVUN’s left flank and can then slip safely across the border in Laos and be untouchable.”
“He’s violated policy,” Bruce Ellman said. “He’s got to understand that Washington directs this war, not Douglas Freeman. He’s just like MacArthur in Korea — he wanted to go across the Yalu and hit the PLA in their staging areas. We could’ve had an all-out war with China!” It was an uncomfortable choice of analogies for Ellman, as there were still people in Washington who believed the PLA’s staging areas across the Yalu should have been attacked and that had MacArthur done so, he would have won the war. They believed that the U.S. would then have not had to put up with an unsatisfactory armistice — not peace — along the 38th parallel between what was now North and South Korea.
“Well,” Admiral Reese commented, “at least Jorgensen’s decision to relieve him has only been conveyed to Freeman. It hasn’t been announced publicly yet, even though The New York Times and others are demanding he be fired. You can rescind Jorgensen’s order, Mr. President.”
“And what would that do for Jorgensen?” the President asked rhetorically. “It’d hardly be a measure of confidence in my C in C.”
“I agree,” Ellman said. “It’s certainly not what chain of command is all about.”
Up till now CIA Director David Noyer had said nothing, but Ellman’s last heated comment evoked a response.
“Mr. President,” Noyer began. “As of now, General Jorgensen’s decision to relieve Freeman isn’t public knowledge, and so if you were to rescind the order, you’re not going to cause Jorgensen any great harm. Yes, his professional pride’ll be ruffled a bit, but God knows everyone’s suffered that from time to time. It’s nothing compared to what will happen if the American people perceive that the White House is not responding to a clear and present danger to our boys in Vietnam. And I’m willing to bet that sanctimonious editorials from the Times and others notwithstanding, the public in all the USVUN countries will support Freeman’s decision of making a preemptive strike in Laos — if it in any way gives more protection for their troops in the USVUN force.”
“Mr. President!” Ellman cut in impatiently. “May I speak my mind?”
The President swiveled his chair away from his desk to face his aide. “I thought you were, Bruce.”
“I mean, lay it on the line.”
“Go on.”
“Sir, Freeman’s an insubordinate son of a bitch who needs to know, just like MacArthur did, that you’re the supreme commander. Fire him like Truman fired MacArthur.”
David Noyer shook his head. “Mr. Ellman, you ever seen the ticker-tape parade that MacArthur got in San Francisco and New York after Truman fired him? If it had been an election year then, as it is now, Doug MacArthur could have been elected God Almighty. Anyway, quite apart from that—” With this, Noyer turned back to the President. “—I think Freeman is right, quite apart from trying to protect his left flank. He—”
“Protect his left flank?” Ellman cut in, looking about at the Joint Chiefs. “I’m no military strategist, but the Laotian border near Dien Bien Phu seems a hell of a long way from the fighting around—” He had forgotten the name momentarily.
“Loc Binh — Disney Hill,” David Noyer put in. “About 250 miles away.”
“Well, there you are,” Ellman replied as if the distance had put an end to any argument about an attack on the left flank.
“I suppose,” the Air Force chief added, “if they carved out an airfield on the Laotian side or at Dien Bien Phu, Freeman’s western forces could be in real trouble. ‘Course, we have the airpower from Enterprise. We could rule the roost.”
CIA chief Noyer tried not to sound exasperated, but it was an effort. “Gentlemen, you’re thinking like good military men but—” He almost said “Doug Freeman,” but sensed that would be interpreted as first-name bias. “—but Freeman is thinking like a Chinese political officer. He’s not only concerned about an attack on his left flank drawing too many troops away from him later on, he knows that while Dien Bien Phu is 250 miles away from the action around Loc Binh, it’s only 150 miles away from Hanoi.
“If the probes by the PLA and their bosom buddies, the Khmer Rouge, over the border are successful, go unchallenged, they could come en masse and take Hanoi — just like the Viet Cong took old Saigon. Then we’d be in deep manure. Remember, they won’t come by plane, they’ll march as the NVA and VC did, down the Ho Chi Minh trails and south into old Saigon. And the distance between Freeman’s enemies in Laos and Hanoi is a damn sight less than it was between Hanoi and old Saigon. And no amount of U.S. air superiority will stop them, as we found out in ‘Nam. If Freeman doesn’t make it clear that he won’t tolerate incursions from ‘safe’ havens across the border, we could have a Khmer-guided PLA army around Hanoi in a matter of weeks. Then we would have a two-front war.” Noyer paused, breathed deeply. There was a long silence.
“And then,” the President said, tapping the blotter thoughtfully with his letter opener, “there’s the problem of the MIAs Freeman mentioned at his press conference.”
“Only two of them,” Ellman said.
The President nodded. “I know, but it might as well be the two thousand we have missing. Have you seen the faxes?” He meant the messages sent to the White House asking, demanding, begging the White House to let Freeman cross the border if that’s what it took to find a single MIA.
“But sir,” Ellman cut in, “from what I’ve heard, these two reported MIAs might have been turncoats.”
“Perhaps,” the President said, “but there’s always the possibility that they might know about other MIAs — at least, that’s a recurring theme of many of the faxes I’m getting.”
“Exactly,” Noyer said. “If we’re seen as not doing anything about the MIAs, we look pretty hard and nasty. No matter where they are, we always try to get our people back.”
“We’re not talking here about one of your ‘company’ men,” Ellman told the CIA chief. “We’re talking about turncoats.”
“Yes, we are talking about one of the company’s men. His name is — correction, was—Raymond Baker, and he had his throat cut in a flea-bitten hotel in Dalat, in the central highlands, because he was trying to track down a lead to Salt and Pepper Two.”
“Who the hell are—” the Marine commander began.
“Salt and Pepper,” the President explained. “Apparently one’s white, the other black.”
“Oh.. ”
“Look,” the President said, “I’m going to tell Jorgensen to sit on his order to relieve Freeman — at least for twenty-four hours — before we decide. This will give me time to weigh all the facts.”
Ellman’s beeper sounded. He immediately clicked it off and excused himself. Two minutes later he was back, telling the President and assembled Chiefs of Staff that Larry King’s producer was on the line. “They want someone to interview about Freeman’s decision to cross over into Laos.”
No one volunteered.
The President gave Ellman the nod. “Tell them you’ll do it, Bruce. And before you go on, make sure we’ve monitored public reaction, not only the MIA business, but the public’s reaction to USVUN troops being in Laos, or anything else connected with this business.”
Noyer was appalled—government by Gallup poll—but he said nothing. Hopefully, most of the public would be for it.
Ellman went to the fax office and started going through the piles of faxes with another aide. He shook his head disgustedly, commenting to the aide, “ ‘Course, Rush Limbaugh’s for it. He’d like Freeman to invade Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand as well. Might as well throw in Singapore and Malaysia while he’s at it too.”
“What are you going to tell them?” another aide asked. “On the ‘Larry King Show,’ I mean?”
“I don’t know,” Ellman replied curtly. “That other pile of faxes over there — what are they about?”
“They’re concerns about deforestation in Southeast Asia, applauding Freeman’s concern about the natural habitat. Greenpeace faxes, most of them.”
“Greenpeace!” Ellman said in a tone of disgust. “They’re more worried about animals and plants than they are people.” Ellman was still mumbling about Freeman and the “goddamn mess” he’d gotten them all into when more Greenpeace faxes arrived.