Arc Riders (5 page)

The President turned abruptly and walked away from the lectern. Several of his aides, shaken by what they had just heard,
were taken by surprise. They had to jump to get out of the way.

The press was in bedlam. The camera continued to roll, focused on the empty lectern.

Timeline B: April 17, 1968

T
he men in the mechanized company could hear the Command-and-Control helicopter circling above them, but they couldn’t sec
the bird through the jungle’s triple canopies. The ten vehicles below were ACAVs—armored personnel carriers converted from
transport to combat duties by the addition of M60 machine guns behind gunshields on the right and left flanks, and a steel
cupola around the .50-caliber machine gun mounted forward. At Table of Organization strength, there would have been seven
more tracks.

The captain in the fourth vehicle finished giving his orders. He took his commo helmet off to rub his forehead. His platoon
leaders were a lieutenant, a platoon sergeant, and a staff sergeant. Personnel were as short as equipment. Both had been tight
even before the Tet Offensive.

“We’ll be lucky if we get a hundred yards into that shit,” said the soldier manning the cal fifty. The vehicle lurched beneath
them as the driver began to back ten meters to the closest thing the company had found to a trail on this heading. “If he
wants us to break trail, he ought to give us Rome Plows, not ACAVs.”

The captain put his helmet back on. The man in the cupola had been his track commander when he was a lieutenant leading a
platoon. With promotion and company command, he’d brought the man along. They went back seven months together; a lifetime
in Southeast Asia, and much longer than some lives lasted in the theater.

“The colonel says there’s a blue line”—stream—“half a klick north,” the captain explained. “He says there’s a major trail
along it—if it’s the right blue line. Ours is not to reason why.”

The driver was an experienced man. He turned the vehicle cautiously, clutching partial reverse power to the right track while
braking the left track lightly.

“When we find more fucking empty jungle,” the TC said, shouting over the engine noise, “what do we do? Laager here for the
night? Intelligence couldn’t find their ass with both hands.”

The captain shrugged.

By applying full reverse power to one track and full forward power to the other, an ACAV could spin on its central axis—until
it threw one or both tracks. As worn as the equipment was, and as badly overloaded as they were on running gear designed for
the weight of an APC without the additional weapons and ammo, both tracks would slide off the road wheels in a matter of seconds.

The captain didn’t want to be riding a thirteen-ton aluminum box down a trail that was probably worn by pigs. He wanted even
less to be standing on that vehicle while the crew tried to make it mobile again. He wished he was in the CnC bird and the
colonel was down here in the bush.

That wasn’t fair. The colonel was being pushed by people who had
no
idea of conditions. Going after sanctuaries was well and good, but you don’t order an invasion off the top of your head,
which was what had been done this time. Everybody was still bleeding from Tet, and if intelligence had a clue as to where
these wonderful sanctuaries were, it sure hadn’t filtered down to the line companies.

The ACAV rocked slowly along the trail, its engine howling in low gear. Branches grabbed at the barrel of the right-side wing
gun and spun it back. The gunner lost his steel pot as he tried to realign the gun with his sector of responsibility. The
captain tried to catch the helmet, but it went over the side.

He thought of calling the driver to stop, but if the dinks
were
in the neighborhood that’d be handing it to them on a plate. He shook his head at the gunner, who shrugged and nodded.

Normally the company commander wouldn’t be on point, but trying to reorder the line of march in this jungle would make things
a worse ratfuck than they were already. Even now the three vehicles that had been in the lead would need to reverse as much
as a hundred meters. The captain was waiting to hear that one or more of them had thrown a track.

The commo helmet crackled, the preliminary to the colonel putting his oar in again. The captain grimaced, composing his situation
report—“Proceeding north as ordered,
sir
”—when the first B-40 rocket laid a smokey trail out of the bush and struck the ACAV’s bow.

The anti-tank warhead burst with a sharp crack. The splash-board and the two duffle bags secured behind it blew apart. The
vehicle itself was undamaged, but the startled driver stalled the engine. The cal fifty and the right-side M60 began slashing
the jungle forward. There were no targets, only green and black and the rocket’s gray exhaust trail.

The captain leaned forward to aim his M16 between the cupola and the right gunshield. The second B-40 hit the cupola. The
track commander screamed as gaseous metal disemboweled him. Smoke grenades hung on a wire inside the cupola. Six of them went
off simultaneously, pluming their varied colors in the still jungle air. AK-47s opened fire from both sides of the trail.

This time intelligence had been right about the presence of the enemy.

TROOP STRENGTH IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

TO RISE BY 250,000

Student, Other Deferments Canceled

Cleveland
Plain Dealer

Timeline B: September 24, 1968

Timeline B: September 25, 1968

T
here were over three thousand people in the Quadrangle framed on three sides by pseudo-Gothic buildings constructed when the
university expanded in the 1930s. The fourth side was Chapel Boulevard, stone-railed and level on a causeway above the sloping
ground. A few cars, trapped in the Quadrangle parking area by the start of the demonstration, provided seating for scores
of students.

The leaders were on the steps of the chapel, a cathedral-styled building with tall spires and a rose window. The banner drooping
across the triple archways read
END THE WAR
!, the legend framed by peace signs.

An extension cord into the chapel powered a portable PA system. The amp was cranked up so high that electronic howls punctuated
the phrases of anyone using the microphone.

One of the student leaders, wearing a denim jacket over a checked shirt, had a bullhorn and knew how to use it. When he saw
the four olive-drab trucks pass through the police cordon at the head of Chapel Boulevard, he pointed with his right arm and
hand and began the chant: “Hell no! We won’t go! Hell no! We won’t go!”

The trucks stopped some fifty yards from the back of the crowd. Troops got out, wearing steel helmets and carrying World War
II–vintage Garand rifles. They were National Guardsmen, nearly 150 of them. One of the trucks wouldn’t start at the armory
where the unit assembled, so the men were packed into the remaining vehicles.

The demonstators turned by stages. Those in the back and—guided by the pointing arm—the front of the crowd were aware of the
presence of the troops sooner than those in the middle.

“Hell no! We won’t go!”

Campus administrative buildings were locked. Banners and a Viet Cong flag hung from windows of the dormitories farther from
the Quadrangle. Some of the professors who had been supporting the demonstration discreetly from the sidelines drifted away
as the Guardsmen deployed.

People standing at what had been the back of the crowd were the less committed. Many of them were sightseers rather than real
demonstrators. Some edged to the side and started to walk away by their only practical route—up the sidewalks flanking Chapel
Boulevard.

A young student pushed out of the center of the crowd and screamed “Kill the pigs!” as he hurled an empty beer bottle at the
troops almost eighty yards away from him.

Two Guardsmen fired simultaneously. A woman screamed, though no one had been hurt by the shots.

At least a dozen more Guardsmen fired in a ripping volley. Demonstrators surged away as if flung by the muzzle blasts of the
powerful rifles.

There was a score of bodies on the ground. A lieutenant ran forward and turned, trying to shout something to his troops. A
Guardsman shot him from fifteen feet away. The lieutenant slammed to the pavement with a look of agony on his face. Blood
pooled beneath him as his body thrashed.

“Fucking Commies!” screamed one of the Guardsmen as he raised his reloaded Garand to his shoulder again. “Fucking Commies!”

He shot off the eight-round magazine as quickly as he could pull the trigger. His eyes were closed in terror. Two of his bullets
blasted stone from the chapel tower, forty feet in the air.

Timeline B: July 12, 1969

T
he usual anchorman was not at his desk when the CBS logo dissolved. The presenter who replaced him had been an assistant producer
until a few hours earlier. He looked nervous, perhaps because he had very little experience in front of a camera.

“Good evening,” he said. He cleared his throat. “The following report is made in accordance with the Emergency Censorship
Regulations as issued by the White House this afternoon.”

The presenter cleared his throat again. He continued, reading the words off a TelePrompTer, “By authority of the Constitution,
the President has today assumed full responsibility for the administration of the country during the present emergency. The
President has authorized the call-up of military reserves in all categories. National Guard units in all states have been
transferred to federal control. All National Guard personnel are ordered to report to their normal—”

The presenter began to cough. He tried to drink from a glass of water that had been out of line with the camera. Another cough
sprayed part of it across his shirt front.

He gripped his desk with both hands for a moment, wincing. When the spasm passed, he continued, “That is, to their normal
assembly points, where they will receive further orders.”

The wall behind the presenter had been showing a view of the Earth from space since the beginning of the broadcast. Now it
shifted momentarily to the words
FBI RAIDS
in red block letters against a white background; went blank; and returned to the image of the cloud-swept planet, all within
ten seconds.

“I am instructed to inform you,” the presenter continued, “that although the rumors that congressional leaders are under house
arrest are untrue, the new emergency regulations give the President sweeping powers to detain persons acting against the interests
of the United States and the safety of American personnel serving in Southeast Asia. The President will not hesitate to use
these powers if the cause of freedom demands it.”

For a moment the presenter was silent. His eyes were open but focused a thousand yards away. Then he smiled as brightly as
a plaster mannequin and continued, “In other news today…”

Timeline B: December 13, 1969

A
fter the third knock, the brunette girl called “Who is it?” from beside the hall door. Her blond apartment mate stood in the
curtained doorway of her separate bedroom. Both girls wore knee-length white nightgowns.

“Jane Marie LaBrett?” a male voice called from the hallway.

“I’m Jane LaBrett,” the blond girl said, stepping gingerly into the living/dining room. The illuminated display of the clock
beside the television read 3:12. “What is this, please?”

She was trying to keep her tone cool and superior, but there was a quaver in her voice as it reached the “please.”

Voices murmured in the hall. The door bulged inward and split with a loud crash. The sliding bolt at the top of the panel
still held, though the latch had sprung when one of the men outside kicked the doorknob.

A Boston policeman slammed his shoulder through the broken door and entered the apartment. Another policeman, two soldiers,
and a man in civilian clothes followed him. The soldiers carried rifles. They grabbed the brunette with their free hands.

The civilian held a flashlight in one hand and a sheaf of 8 × 10 photos in the other. He shined the flashlight in the face
of the brunette, then down to the top photograph. It was a grainy blowup of the blond girl’s head. The lower edge of the sign
she’d been carrying was visible at the top of the frame. Her mouth was open as she shouted.

“No,” said the civilian, pointing his flashlight at the blonde. “The other one.”

The blonde clutched at the doorjamb and began to scream. The policemen moved to her. The curtain tore away in her hands as
they dragged her out into the front room.

The brunette shouted, “What are you doing? What are you—”

She tried to grab the photographs out of the civilian’s hand. He fended her off with his elbow. A soldier raised the butt
of his rifle to strike her. She cringed. The soldier wiped his face with his left sleeve. He looked sick.

“Jane Marie LaBrett,” the civilian said. “By authority of Section 3, Part 79(b) of the Federal Emergency Regulations, you
are hereby inducted into a penal company of the armed forces of the United States, to serve at the pleasure of the government
for the duration of the emergency.”

The civilian stepped out of the doorway so that the policemen could pass with the blond girl. She was weeping uncontrollably.
Though she did not resist, her feet hung limp as the men dragged her.

The civilian started to follow them. The brunette shrieked, “Who do you think you are, you bastard? What do you think you
are
?”

The civilian turned and looked at her. He was in his late twenties. Seven years before, CIA had recruited him from the same
Ivy League university the girls attended.

“Take this one, too,” he ordered the soldiers. The brunette tried to lunge away, but one of them caught the nightgown. It
held long enough before tearing that both men got good grips on her arms.