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Kerry nodded. “You’re goddamn right I am. Now, get yourselves squared away and back to your posts.”

As the men resumed their watch, Bush passed around the wakey-wakeys and handed Cheney another nitro pill, just in case.

“Skipper’s gonna get us killed,” O’Reilly whispered to Ashcroft.

But Ashcroft was staring intently into the jungle. “Ssssshhh. Did you hear that?”

Barely a hundred yards away, Ted Williams was leading Stoner directly toward the waiting boat. Suddenly, Stoner stopped in his tracks as the Red Sox slugger vanished and abruptly turned into Bertrand Russell, the distinguished British philosopher. Stoner screamed.

Later, it seemed to Ashcroft that he had squeezed the trigger even before the scream had begun. And that he had fired off the full clip before it had ended. The night erupted as the other men joined in a frenzy of lead and gunpowder. The foliage along the starboard side was shredded by the onslaught.

“Cease fire! Cease fire! Dammit!” Kerry shouted in vain over the furious barrage.

Task Force Brave Eagle may not have been the finest soldiers in the American Army, but they knew enough to lie flat on the ground when someone was shooting at them. All except for Bertrand Russell, who bravely marched into the line of fire despite the frantic entreaties of Stoner Will.

Gingrich was the first to return fire, aiming in the general direction of the canal. Astonished by his own boldness, he yelled at the others to do the same. Buchanan struggled to set up a mortar, as Gramm hurled a grenade from which he had neglected to pull the pin. It landed in the river with a satisfying plop. For the first time, Brave Eagle was fighting as a unit. Except for Limbaugh, whose weapon had become inoperable after being fouled repeatedly. And Stoner, startled by Bertrand Russell’s transformation into a giant talking postage stamp.

Twelve feet directly below Gingrich, Colonel Binh Cao Nguyen of the People’s Liberation Front was just beginning his nightly indoctrination class when the tunnel began to shake. Grabbing his AK-47, he ran down a short passageway, climbed a ladder, and stuck his head out of a well-concealed spider hole. There in front of him was a scene he could hardly have dared wish for. American soldiers shooting at American sailors. It was too good to be true. Silently, he led his platoon to a position directly behind the soldiers and gave the order to fire.

Red and white tracers crisscrossed over Gingrich’s head. He looked behind him to see the shadowy outline of the VC as they fired from the trees. “Shit! We’re in a crossfire!”

By now Gramm had caught sight of the Swift Boat. “Hey, I think those are our guys!”

“What?” said Buchanan as he fired a mortar round, which bounced off the tree canopy directly over his head and then ricocheted into the pilothouse of the Swift Boat.

The pilothouse was in flames. Gore grabbed the fire extinguisher only to find that Bush had used it to store several gallons of the highly flammable native liquor known as Mekong Moonshine.

“Medic!” yelled Bush, standing over Cheney, whose fragile heart was under attack as well. Bush reached into his own pocket and in the chaos fed Cheney a wakey-wakey instead of a nitro tablet. Cheney sat up, gave Bush a wink, and died.

“Noooooo!!!!” Bush poured the nitroglycerine tablets into Cheney’s slack mouth. But it was too late.

The moment the mortar round exploded, Kerry knew it was American ordnance. They were taking friendly fire. But he also knew he had no choice but to shoot back with everything they had. He looked up to the gun tub, where O’Reilly stood frozen at the twin .50s. Kerry leapt up, shouldered O’Reilly aside, and unleashed the full fury of the machine gun in the direction of the incoming fire.

Gingrich sized up the situation: behind them, an entire platoon of crafty, dedicated Viet Cong; in front of them, a withering barrage of increasingly accurate fire that had them pinned down. Only a miracle could save them now.

Limbaugh stood up and turned around,