Read Online Mad Dogs by James Grady - Free Book Online Page B

Observations Group/spy unit Quonset hut in Da Nang, but he barely got the commanders with ice eyes and Hawaiian shirts to listen because: “He’s just a kid.”
    Then Sergeant-Major Jodrey said: “Out of the mouths of babes.”
    â€œIt’s a great idea!” Zane had argued to officers who shared his Army Green Beret as men in Hawaiian shirts watched.
    â€œWashington sent us to Vietnam to fight the good fight,” said Zane. “Right?”
    No one answered the young man.
    So Zane figured they were on the same page as him. Enthusiasm bubbled through his logic. “So let’s fight it smart. The North Vietnamese have miles of phone lines through the trees along the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos. What if instead of bombing or cutting those phone lines, we tap into them?”
    Zane’s spy idea infected the Quonset hut. Compounded itself when the pocket protector whiz from NSA told them about new toys. Spread its wings after Sgt. Major Jodrey told the bosses that if the plan was a GO, so was he.
    If.
    â€œThat’s the life word,” Sgt. Major Jodrey told Zane during a stroll inside the barbed-wire/claymore mined perimeter of Da Nang where they couldn’t be heard by the brass and spooks who would say GO or NO.
    â€œBut it’s your word to call, isn’t it Sgt. Major?” said the younger soldier.
    â€œâ€™Xactly,” said Jodrey. “That’s my word: Exactly . What a thing is down to its bones, Troop. That’s what I need to know about you.”
    Helicopters chopped the muggy sunset air above them and made it bleed.
    â€œI do what has to be done,” said Zane. “And I’m tough enough to take it.”
    Marines jogged past them. Zane felt himself fall into Sgt. Major Jodrey’s gaze.
    â€œâ€™Xactly right,” said Jodrey. “But not completely true.”
    â€œSgt. Major, I would never lie to you.”
    â€œYou didn’t lie, young’n. You just don’t know the whole truth.”
    â€œWhat whole truth?”
    â€œThe whole truth is everything you shovel into this hole called your life. And one thing you better shovel is that a man needs to be more than what he has to do.”
    Jodrey walked away.
    Zane ran after him. Didn’t ask and didn’t care where .
    Four weeks of training in Okinawa later, Zane, Jodrey and four Hmong volunteers stood waiting to be strapped in amidst coffin sized bombs in the belly of a B-52.
    â€œLast thing I gotta know,” Jodrey told Zane: “How come you’re still a virgin?”
    â€œWha-what?”
    â€œYou heard me. A virgin.”
    â€œI was raised strict Catholic.”
    â€œYeah, but you got over it. We’re talking now. How come you ain’t got laid?”
    A fighter plane took off to air cover Marines out of the shit in a jungle firefight.
    As that jet whine faded, Zane said: “If we’re more than animals, sex can be special. That’s what I got to be. Want it to be.”
    Before he pulled on the two Halloween thermal stocking-cap like hoods and the visored helmet fitted with a breathing apparatus, Jodrey shook his head at Zane:
    â€œSpecial is what gets done special. When we get back, you need to talk with a nurse who reminds me of my second ex-wife. But here and now, you being a virgin is your mojo . And your mojo is ’xactly what’s going to bring you home alive and true.”
    Now here I sit, thought Zane as B-52 engines droned. With somebody who sees ’xactly who I am. And with four stone soldiers who’d follow us into Hell.
    Being this heavily dressed on the ground would make him feel as hot as Hell. Two layers of thermal underwear and socks under Russian army paratrooper boots. Triple gloves. Double hoods and jungle fatigues under a winter jump suit that’s zipped to the fishbowl helmet. Canvas bags strapped on Zane’s team held an NSA tap/transmit system. Strapped to each man’s chest was a brand