A state of disobedience

Qui Nhon Province, Republic of Vietnam, 1966

"We should be safe here for a while, Jack," Jorge lied, as he gently laid Schmidt down on the base of a muddy ditch.

Montoya, even carrying Schmidt, reached the PZ before the helicopters. So, apparently, did the Viet Cong. So, for that matter, did Sergeant Tri. It was this, seen as if close up through the lieutenant's binoculars, that caused the sergeant to whisper, "Christ have mercy."

Tri's head was perched atop a red stained pole, his eyes still closed as Jorge had left them.

"Wha'? What is it, Jorge?"

"Nothing, Jack. Nothing. Just relax and wait for the choppers to come."

Montoya searched through his own pouches for ammunition. Finding a bare three magazines—those only courtesy of looting the dead, previously—he began to rummage through Schmidt's own harness.

Call it . . . ninety rounds. Five frags—fragmentation grenades. One claymore. Couple smoke; one colored. Jack's .45 and twenty-one rounds for that.

As he coolly set up the claymore to fire down a likely trail that led onto the PZ, Montoya began whistling something, a faintly Arabic sounding tune. "Deguello," it was called. It seemed appropriate.

As he worked, Montoya heard the sound—indistinct, faint—of a brace of Hueys.

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