Bangkok File

Also by Dale Dye

SEA HUNT

AZTEC FILE

HAVANA FILE

CONTRA FILE

BEIRUT FILE

CHOSIN FILE

PELELIU FILE

LAOS FILE

RUN BETWEEN THE RAINDROPS

PLATOON

OUTRAGE

CONDUCT UNBECOMING

DUTY AND DISHONOR

BANGKOK FILE

DALE DYE

WARRIORS PUBLISHING GROUP

NORTH HILLS, CALIFORNIA

BANGKOK FILE

A Warriors Publishing Group book/published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY

Warriors Publishing Group edition/May 2019

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2019 by Dale A. Dye

Cover art copyright © 2019 by Gerry Kissell

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without permission. For information address:

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ISBN: 978-1-944353-24-7

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are trademarks belonging to Warriors Publishing Group

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A long overdue salute to Lance Corporal Joseph Hargrove, Lance Corporal Ashton Loney, PFC Gary Hall, and Private Danny Marshall who were left behind on Koh Tang Island back in 1975.

They lived and died as Marines, fighting to the bitter end.

Texas Hill Country

L

ocked to his body, the big infantry rifle felt solid, firm, and reassuring, kind of like a handshake with a good buddy in hard times. He squinted through the rear peep-sight aperture, ignoring the front-sight blade for the moment and trying to focus tired eyes on a paper target precisely 600 yards away from where he lay prone and sweaty with the M-1 Garand tucked tightly into his shoulder. He wasn’t ready for precision sight alignment just yet. Before he dealt with the mechanics of squeezing off a shot, he had to be sure that little black smudge on the horizon really was the target and not some boulder or mesquite shrub. At this long range, staring through heat shimmers that rose from the sunbaked ground like a horde of advancing specters, it was hard to tell. And it got harder as a blinding sun in a cloudless blue sky advanced overhead, casting shadows all along the tortilla-flat terrain between his muzzle and the target.

This time, he thought as he tightened the loop sling into a painful tourniquet just above his support arm bicep, I just might have let my battleship mouth override my rowboat ass. The doctor told him during a recent check-up that a pair of eyeglasses might bring things into sharper focus, but he was having trouble admitting that his always excellent distance vision wasn’t what it used to be. Strap on a pair of glasses and it’s all downhill from there. Next thing you know, you’re doddering around on a walker.

It was shortly after that appointment that he wandered into a downtown pub just off the square in Lockhart—his new hometown—where he ran into a local guy who was just home on leave after deploying as a sniper assigned to the 10th Mountain Division. As it was destined to among a couple of veterans, the conversation turned to combat shooting. The soldier was full of techno-jargon about precision optics, finely-tuned weapons, and ballistic specs. The old Leatherneck at his elbow thought it was more about the shooter’s skill and indicated he’d made plenty of long-range shots with bog-standard infantry weapons using iron sights. Three beers later, they had a bet and an appointment to prove it or lose it with a case of beer on the line.

Retired Marine Gunner Shake Davis took a deep breath, inhaling the tang of linseed oil sweating out of the rifle’s walnut stock, and cut a glance to his right where the Army sniper was staring downrange through a spotter-scope. Anytime today would be good… The young soldier grinned around a lip full of Copenhagen and pointed into the shimmering distance. Wind’s no factor, and that target ain’t gonna shoot back. He spit into the sand and turned back to his scope. I’m getting thirsty.

The shooter squirmed into the hot sand and studied the horizon again until he found the white slab of rock he’d planted to the left of the target as a marker and then shifted his gaze to the right. That should be it, he decided, trying to bring the fuzzy image into sharper focus. At 600 yards—100 yards more than the book said was the M-1’s max effective range—the 40-inch-by-20-inch silhouette just looked like a greasy smudge, no detail at all. He cranked another click of elevation onto the rear sight and then began the practiced ritual of taking a precision shot. All he had to do was cut black, any hit on the target would win the bet, so he had a little wiggle room. He brought the front sight blade into the precise center of the peep-sight and made miniscule movements to bring that alignment onto the smudge for what he hoped was a good sight picture. Taking a deep breath and exhaling half of that into the sand, he took up the slack on the trigger, careful not to disturb the sight alignment and letting the fine motor muscles of his hands work in concert.

The shot broke unexpectedly, as it was supposed to do, but he was so locked into his shooting position that the recoil from the .30-06 round rocketing downrange at 2,800 feet per second barely phased him. He watched the front sight blade settle back in where it had been when he fired and then closed his eyes. There was nobody out there to wave Maggie’s Drawers, the time-honored red flag signal for a miss on military rifle ranges, but the spotter would let him know soon enough if he was buying the beer or drinking it.

Shit! The Army sniper swiveled on his stool and shook his head. I swore there was no damn way that was gonna happen. M-1 rifle, ball ammo, 600 yards, iron sights—and you put one in the ten-ring.

Bet’s a bet, the Marine said, uncoiling from the prone and using the rifle as a crutch to assist in the effort. Let’s police up that target and then we can drink the beer you just bought.

They sat in the shade of the pick-up’s tailgate with a cooler between them and examined the target. The shot had been good, better than the shooter thought it would be. The round of ball ammo holed the paper target about throat level, closer to the left shoulder than to the right if the silhouette had been human rather than a black outline on stiff cardboard. The Army sniper shook his head, still marveling at the results of the shot made without benefit of the high-power optics he was used to using and shouldered the M-1. It’s heavy, ain’t it?

Just ten pounds, the Marine said cracking a beer. Probably a damn sight lighter than one of your tricked-out sniper rifles with all the bells and whistles attached. I’ve fired a few rounds through the .50s you guys use, and that old Garand is a featherweight compared to a Barrett.

Gizmos make it reliable. The soldier squinted through the peep-sight aperture and swept the M-1’s muzzle across a patch of gently waving blue bonnets. And with optics you can…you know…watch the shot go home… He trailed off, having trouble saying much more about the business of long-range killing. The Marine traded him the M-1 for a cold beer can.

Gizmos break, he said. And usually at the worst possible time. He patted the old rifle fondly. A man doesn’t have to worry about Murphy’s Law or have a degree in rocket science if he can shoot well enough to hit at long-range with open sights.

I worked with plenty of Marine snipers, the soldier responded. They’re just as big on the bells and whistles as we are.

Yeah, I know—and they’re a hell of an asset when they’re around to observe and take the shot. But my experience is that when you really need to take a long-range shot at a target of opportunity, there’s never a sniper with all his gear anywhere around. In my outfits we spent a lot of time on the range. I wanted every swinging dick to be able to nail a target out at max ranges.

Every Marine is a rifleman, right?

A rifleman…a well-trained shooter that can reliably hit targets using standard issue gear when and where a target needs hitting…that’s the key. Not everyone can be a sniper—and if you train right, not everyone needs to be.

The soldier digested that and ran his pinky finger through the bullet hole in the target. Funny about optics, he said after a few silent seconds. You know you’re looking at a guy out there maybe a mile or so, but through the scope…he looks close…you can see details.

That’s important, the Marine admitted, especially if you’re picking up order of battle intel or ID’ing a specific high-value individual. If you’re just taking another asshole out of the fight…not so much.

The soldier picked up one of the M-1 clips and ran his fingers across the tips of the eight rounds it contained. We had this old dude came to talk to us at Fort Drum one time. He carried an M-1 in Korea. He said the commies used to wait to hear the ping when the clip ejected and then make their move.

I’ve heard that tale before. The Marine jammed the clip into the M-1’s receiver and then racked the bolt, ejecting rounds until the empty clip popped out with a distinctive metallic ping. Hear that? Now imagine trying to hear it in the middle of a firefight with machineguns ripping, rifles firing on both sides, and HE is detonating all around you.

So you think it’s bullshit?

Maybe if a guy is just trading rounds with another guy and no one else is shooting and there’s no incoming mortars or anything like that—but how often does that happen in combat? Most of the infantry fights I’ve been in you couldn’t hear shit…not when the weapons are firing and not for a good while after that. Most guys who go through all that for any length of time wind up deaf as a damn post.

Those were the days before hearing protection and all that, I guess.

I guess, said the Marine as he stood to brush sand and burrs from his jeans. So just talk real loud if you want me to buy you lunch at Black’s barbecue joint. After that we can go by the house and I’ll teach you how to clean this old hog.

Liberty Crossing, McLean, Virginia

T

he news from official agencies and covert intelligence operatives in Southeast Asia was—as usual—a mixed bag. There was a good side that said authorities were finally getting a handle on pirates raiding commerce in the Straits of Malacca. And then there was the bad side contained in reports that the raiders had moved their operations into the Gulf of Thailand where seagoing commerce—particularly oil shipments—was getting hammered to the tune of about ten billion dollars yearly at last estimate. And that decidedly unwelcome news was causing ominous rumbles in Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The red flags were flying at the Pentagon and catching the attention of White House officials who were more than a little concerned about world oil supply and America’s ongoing struggle for independence in the turbulent energy markets. The last thing the current administration needed was another turd in the oil-market punchbowl, and the pirates operating in Southeast Asia were increasingly focused on ripping off oil tankers traversing the Gulf of Thailand.

The man who calls himself Bayer shrank the compilation of field reports from the 16 Federal intelligence agencies who shared information with his boss, the Director of National Intelligence, and called up the memo he was writing on the subject. As a veteran of service in one capacity or another with most of those agencies before he landed the consultant gig at ODNI, he was less constrained than most beltway bureaucrats and relatively free to speak truth to power. That was likely the main reason the piracy basket of crap got dumped in his lap for an opinion on appropriate action.

He read through the statistics that indicated nearly half—41% to be precise—of all the world’s pirate attacks were now suffered by shipping outfits working into or out of Thailand, Vietnam, or Cambodia. Somali pirates operating in the Arabian Sea were suddenly the five-and-dimers in the rip-offs at sea game. He highlighted the information about 15 oil-siphoning attacks on tanker vessels in the Gulf of Thailand in the last month. Then he scrolled down to the conclusions area where he’d stopped writing earlier.

These bastards are like cockroaches. You stomp on one and see three more in another corner of the room. It’s bad, getting worse, and not likely to stop unless we—read the U.S. in one capacity or another—do something to put a stop to it. And I don’t mean filing official complaints or sending more money to locals which will promptly be siphoned off as bribes or skimmed by bureaucrats. And I don’t mean upping the pressure on the Thais or Cambodians to do something about what’s happening in their own backyards. We’ve tried that to no avail. I mean we need to convince POTUS to do a little gunboat diplomacy and send in some warships…assuming the Navy has got one or two that can sink pirates instead of each other…

He highlighted that last snarky comment and deleted it. Whipping on the Navy and their rash of collisions at sea or poor seamanship in general wouldn’t be helpful at this point. They were up to their Navy-blue asses in alligators already and trying to retain a little dignity in the face of various scandals.

He kicked back in his chair and stared out a window at a batch of dark summer rainclouds gathering in the east. Even if the President ordered American warships into the Gulf of Thailand on freedom of navigation voyages or ordered up a couple of the Coast Guard’s vaunted high-endurance cutters into the area with their anti-piracy expertise—something he so far seemed loathe to do—they’d need direction. The Gulf of Thailand that spilled into the South China Sea was at least 120,000 square miles of open water. To fight this infestation, they’d need to locate the cockroach nests. The Thais had some success raiding around their own offshore islands, but they were just playing whack-a-mole—too little and too late. And the piracy scourge now extended well beyond Thailand’s territorial waters.

Somehow, at some crucial point below international radars, the Cambodians were complicit in all this. The man who calls himself Bayer was sure about that, he sensed it with the instincts he’d honed during a lifetime of intelligence work. They were touchy as hell about any type of military or para-military operations off their coast, and with the big Chinese hammer backing them, no one was eager to transgress, especially the sob-sisters at the State Department. They pitched a massive bitch every time the National Security Council urged POTUS to act in the Gulf. It was Korea and Vietnam all over again. Whatever else you do, don’t do anything that might piss off Beijing and bring the great yellow hordes into the situation.

Of course, this oil-thievery thing was a new twist and might provide some useful leverage. The last time the DNI briefed the President and the NSC some of the Wobblies had gone soft on direct action. What was needed as a spur was some kind of direct physical threat to the U.S. Maybe something like kidnapping American citizens or shooting up a U.S.-flagged ship…but there were damn few of those operating in gulf waters. The damage pirates were doing to American interests in the international oil flow was just too tenuous.

He turned back to his laptop and pulled up a report from a classified CIA asset operating out of Phnom Penh that he’d skimmed earlier. The source was a senior bureaucrat on the Royal Cambodian Navy staff who claimed the five patrol boats the Chinese gave the Cambodians with much fanfare as a deterrent to piracy, remained tied up at docks near Sihanoukville. The report said only two of the boats had ever left the pier and that was just for a press cruise around the harbor. Why was that if the wheel-horses in Phnom Penh weren’t giving the pirates an intentional pass?

The man who calls himself Bayer reached for his phone, opened the contact list and selected the one that simply said SHAKE.

Lockhart

A

curious white-tail fawn, barely a yearling from the look of his spindly legs and spotted pelt, was lapping fresh water from the artesian stream that ran through the Shake Davis spread on the edge of town. Shake sat watching, silent and motionless on the old wooden bench under the sprawling limbs of the two live oaks that were a centerpiece on the property. The bench was his favorite little patch of serenity, and he often sat there in the early morning or just before sunset to see how close the deer that lived in the surrounding woods would come to the house. They tended to steer clear when Shake was accompanied by Bear, his Golden Pyrenees, but the big dog was at the vet for vaccinations this evening. And the deer were being bold. He could see the fawn’s parents poking curious noses out of the tree line across the creek.

From atop a stump near his bench, Shake’s mobile phone burbled with a series of tones that sounded like sonar returns. It was an incoming text message. It was also unnatural enough to send the fawn and its folks high-tailing for the deep woods.

Call ASAP. Mission pending. Need you on it.

He was contemplating making the call when Chan Dwyer Davis rolled into the driveway at the wheel of his pick-up. Bear was halfway out the open window by the time she hit the brakes. He’d smelled the deer and headed directly for the stream to investigate.

Pretty little fawn was up here having a drink, he said, giving his wife a quick kiss.

Figured it might have been the deer, she said, plopping down on the bench next to her husband. Mr. Bear is in full bloodhound mode. Their big dog was ranging from one side of the little creek to the other with his sensitive nose scraping the ground.

How’d he do with the check-up?

Better than you did. His vision is fine…yours, not so much. I’m gonna call the optometrist tomorrow.

Shake reached for the target he’d dropped next to the bench and showed it to her. I can still see well enough to drop a round on target at six hundred.

That’s just muscle memory. You didn’t see it, you sensed it.

Anxious to change the subject, Shake whistled for Bear and watched him lope easily up the slope toward the house. Did he get his shots?

Yep…whined like a little sissy when the vet stuck him with the needle. Then he forgot about it and made a leap for the treat jar. Milk-Bones and shattered glass everywhere. I need you to go by the office tomorrow and reimburse him for that.

While Shake gave Bear a vigorous back scratching, Chan picked up his phone and read the text message.

Guess I knew this was coming, she said. At least I’m on hiatus so Bear won’t need a babysitter.

I haven’t returned the call, Shake said, noting the resignation in her voice. No idea what ‘mission pending’ means. Might just be something they want me to investigate, you know. Might just be a bunch of reports they want me to read and give my opinion.

Uh-huh… Chan rose and patted her thigh, leading Bear to the house for his supper. What’s that you used to say, Shake? Analysts sit in the dark and read reports. Operators go dark and give them something to read.

Shake checked his watch and reached for the phone. I’ll call him back after chow. We can talk it over then.

Shake Davis punched off the call and sat staring at his iPhone screen for a moment. The mission would take him back to a part of the world where he’d spent several turbulent years in uniform. And he had to admit the area had always held a fascination for him. Even now, nearly half a century after his time in Vietnam and long past the time when he’d learned how ugly life could be in Southeast Asia, those old ceiling-fan countries still spurred his imagination, still prompted romantic images. He hadn’t said yes. There was his wife’s opinion to deal with before he committed. On the other hand, he