The Cold Six Thousand - James Ellroy [154]
Pete rotated. Pete hit Saigon. Pete met Stanton’s CIA crew. Six men plus Stanton—all Cubafied.
They talked Cuba. They talked ops. They talked polygraph tests. They’d be mandatory and random. They’d go kadre-wide. Let’s ID and whack traitors. Let’s uproot thieves. Let’s assure loyalty.
Stanton flew to Laos. Stanton brought his poly machine. Pete tested. Pete tested clean. Tran tested. Tran tested clean.
Stanton stayed for a visit. Stanton watched the spring burn.
Guards unshackled slaves. Slaves piled brush. Guards formed a fire brigade. They stacked the piles. They positioned them—one per stalk row.
Slaves filled drums with propane gas. Guards dipped torches. Guards whooped. Guards lit torches. Guards torched brush.
The fields burned. The sky flared. The fields burned all night. Guards cheered. Slaves cheered. Tiger Kamp cinderized.
Ash blew. Ash settled. Ash nourished kamp-wide.
Stanton loved it. Stanton stayed. Stanton stayed for the Clay-Liston fight. Chuck rigged a hookup—closed-circuit shit—a feed off MACV in Saigon.
Sonny lost. The fight vibed nonclimax. Sportswriter stupes yelled, “Fix!”
Pete laughed. Fuck it—Pete knew:
Sonny was old. Sonny was slow. Sonny was tigerfried.
70
(Las Vegas, Saigon, Saravan, Bao Loc
3/21/65–6/15/65)
Let’s escalate. Let’s watch.
Khanh is in. Khanh is out. Premier Ky kreams Premier Khanh. Don’t blink—koups and kream-outs kome kwick.
“Escalate”—a verb—LBJ’s word: “To increase, enlarge or intensify.”
The war escalated. Wayne watched.
More troops came in. More troops got pledged. Provocation meant response. More Marines came in. More Marines got pledged. More Airborne came in. More Airborne got pledged in response.
More dead:
More bomb attacks in mid-Saigon. More mid-range dead. The Brinks Hotel/the embassy—more Yankee dead.
More VC. More night patrols. More sabotage.
Pleiku—much aircraft blow—nice U.S. fleet. VC attack—most bold and sincere. VC use pole-and-satchel bombs—homemade/très VC. TNT/palm leaves/bamboo.
Many planes blow. One VC die.
Provocation meant response. Response meant bomb runs. More pilots. More troops. More artillery.
Stanton ran numbers. Provocation meets response—thus fervor meets weight. Stanton predicted two hundred K troops—in by ’66.
Big numbers. Big ordnance. Big weight.
Wayne watched. Wayne dug it. Wayne missed the point. Vietnam was a shithole. The Cong couldn’t lose. The Cong lived to die.
A Cong walked in the Go-Go. Said Cong wore Cong drag—black pj’s deluxe. A spec-4 shot him. A chest bomb blew. Oops—Cong booby-trapped.
Six dead—all U.S.—Cong reigns six-to-one.
Stanton loved the war. Pete loved the war. Stanton and Pete loved Cuba. Cuba was a shithole. Cuba was Saigon with sand.
The kadre loved the war. The kadre kame for Kuba. Wayne came to watch.
He stayed in Saigon. He cooked dope. He watched. GIs hit the Go-Go. GIs bought whores. GIs fucked whores on floor planks.
He watched.
The O-heads decomped. Quicklime ate bone. Marvs made fertilizer. Marvs sold it discount.
He watched.
The Cong burned pylons. Saigon went dark. Pilots dropped psychedelic-tint flares.
He watched. He worked. He lived in Saigon. He cabbed to Bao Loc. He bought weapons. Said weapons were dope cover. Said weapons were donation stock.
He jeeped up and back. He tailed patrols. His standard procedure was watch.
4/8/65—near Dinh Quan. Rice field firefight—jarheads and VC.
A road mine popped. Wayne’s jeep flew. The windshield blew up. The driver ate glass. The driver died. Wayne crouched by his stiff.
Bushes—off the road. They’re moving now. They’re bush-wrapped VC.
They charged. The jarheads proned out. Fair fight/no cover.
Wayne rolled free. Wayne pulled his piece. Wayne shot three VC. His shots dinged. He hit tin vests—fucking trashcan lids.
The VC fired. The jarheads fired. The jarheads aimed high and low. They shot feet. They shot legs. They shot faces. They hit vest-free zones.
The VC went down. Rounds dinged off the jeep. A medic went down with one in the neck. Wayne rolled and fired free.
He hit six