Read Vietnam II: A War Novel Episode 2 (V2) for Free Online Page A

expression changed.  I must have had a guilty look on my face.
    “Giving away all our secrets?”
    “I told them I was American.”
    “Well I don’t think that is a big stretch to figure that out.  Keep your fucking mouth shut in the future though.”  Todd said.
    “Ask them where the POWs were taken.”  Scott ordered.
    “I already did.”  I told him.
    “Ask them again.  Look menacing.”  Jeff said.
    I asked.
    “They are gone.  Long ago.”
    “Use your war face!”  Jeff yelled.  “Look like we’re going to smoke them because we are.”
    “Where are they?  Speak up?  They’re going to kill you.”  I said trying to sound tough.
    “Gone.  Everyone gone.  They left us here to keep the snakes out.”
    “That’s no war face.  You look like you’re trying to squeeze out a growler.”  Jeff interrupted.
    I looked at the other one to see if he would have a different story.
    “He’s telling the truth.  The jungle will eat buildings if they are unkempt.  I have seen whole villages that were left to rot during the American War.  After a few years people could not find them again.”
    “Are they going to break?”  Scott asked.
    “I don’t think they know anything.”  I told them.
    “Oh I bet they know something.  Tell them that the first one to talk gets to live.”
    “What?”  I said not wanting to lie.
    “Tell them.”
    I did.
    “Is he serious?”  The big guard asks me like we are all friends and the white guys are the enemy.
    “I wouldn’t mess with him.”  I told him honestly.
    “Did they tell you anything?”
    “No,”
    “Mike.  The little one.”
    Mike grabs the smaller guy by his feet and drags him away.  They both start screaming.
    “Talk,”
    “There are no prisoners.”
    “Talk,”
    “Please no!”
    “TALK!”
    Mike took the other one behind a shed.  As soon as they were out of sight a gunshot rang out.
    I just about shit myself.  I am thinking Geneva Convention.  I am thinking that if I start making a fit about this I might be next.  I am thinking I might be next anyway.  I really didn’t know who the fuck these guys were to begin with.
    Scott turns to the remaining guard and gives him a hard look.
    “Kilo Site.  They took everything to the Kilo Site.”  The guard told me.
    “What did he say?”  Scott demanded.
    “He said they are gone.  Something about Kilo Site.”
    “Do you want to kill this one?”  Scott asked me in broken Vietnamese.
    I ran.
    I ran over to the shed.  I needed to see what happened.  I needed to know.
    When I round the corner I find Mike, Judge and Jeff all crouched in a corner.  Billy is gagging the not dead guard with his hands.
    “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”  Mike said.
    They all laughed at me.
    “You’re an asshole!”
    “Now that’s a war face!”  Jeff said.
     
     

Major Mike Lewis
    Air Force Reconnaissance Pilot
    FL700 over Vietnam
     
    Flying on the edge of space in the U2, Vietnam looked brown.  I was a little surprised because I guess I was expecting dense jungle covering the entire country.
    Bob, the autopilot, was flying the plane on the predetermined course and all I had to do was monitor the lights and gauges to make sure that we stayed in the air.  The tech guys were running the cameras in the belly of the plane.  They were taking pictures of current and former prisons as well as other suspicious sites.  The targets were all fed to them by our intel guys back in the states.
    I had nothing to do really except take off and land.  There was the danger of an attack, but the Vietnamese did not have an inkling we were here.  At least that is what the brief said.  Still I kept an eye on the warning lights for any sort of missile lock.  The PNAF, the Vietnamese Air Force, had SA-2s.  Those were huge anti-aircraft missiles the size of telephone poles.  Most surface to air missiles could not reach up to the U-2’s altitude but SA-2s and SA-10s were a problem.  An SA-2 was what