Once he was out of sight, Gil stopped for a moment to look at the map, just to make sure of where he was. It was only about half a mile out to the south road, so rather than wind around the trees the way they had come, he broke off and headed on the best direction for the road. Although he'd long been away from Special Forces, Gil had tried to stay at least partly in shape. He got in at least a couple miles running each day, but he knew this wasn't the time to get hot and sweaty, so he avoided running, but headed southwest at a very fast walk.

It only took him a few minutes to make it out to the south road. He kicked a quick marker in the berm on the side of the road, and took a look at his surroundings, then headed off quickly for the base camp. When he got there, he discovered that Binky's contact team had returned, along with Mark, Ryan, Bud and Nhu Lap. "Where's Steve?" Mike asked as Gil came storming into camp.

"Out there, way east of Target One," Gil replied. "We've been trying to go over the route that Henry must have taken. He wants to try re-creating the route he must have tried to go to the fire base. By himself."

Binky gasped. "You're not going to let him wander around at night out there by himself, are you?"

"Hell, no," Gil said, heading for his tent and digging in his clothes bag. "I'm just going to let him think he's by himself. He may be the best guy to try to figure out what Henry may have done, but I'm the best one to tail him without being noticed. Look, I've got to hurry if I'm going to get back out there and in position before it gets dark."

"What can we do?" Mark asked.

"Get me a radio and the GPS," Gil said, pulling out a dark red and black checked flannel shirt, meant originally for wearing while sitting around the camp on cool evenings. "It ain't camo, but it ought to do," he said. "Never thought we'd need camo paint."

"Maybe some mud?" Bud suggested as Mark headed off for his tent.

"Have to do," Gil grunted as he unbuttoned his shirt. "I better have a couple canteens, too. Look, when they get back with the Toyota, take a radio and some spare batteries and head down, oh, about a mile north of Pham Dong. I'll try to check in once in a while, but just give me two clicks to acknowledge unless you really have to talk to me. These things are only good for a couple miles, but I ought to be able to keep you in range."

"I better be with the Toyota," Ryan agreed. "I'll have the first aid bag."

"Shouldn't need it, but you never know," Gil nodded as he pulled on the flannel and Mark came up with several items from the carry-on stashed in his tent.

"Here, Gil, take this," he said, showing Gil a small black plastic unit about the size of a soft drink can, with a lens on each end.

"What's that?" Gil said, starting to button his shirt.

"Russian version of a starlight scope," Mark said. "Just came on the astronomy market, and I ordered one. It showed up the day before we left. I thought I might want to play with it some."

"How does it work?"

"Not as well as the real thing, but not that bad," Mark said, and quickly explained how to use it. "The batteries are fresh," he finished. "Just use it for a few seconds every now and then, and it should make it through the night."

"That'll help," Gil said, taking it and sticking it in his shirt pocket, and taking the GPS from Mark as well.

"You're going to want to record the route, right?"

"Hadn't thought about it. I just wanted to be able to tell where you where to go if we get into trouble."

'It'll record your route," Mark said. "That might be useful later. The batteries won't last all night, and you'll lose the waypoints if they go flat. You know how to record a waypoint, right? Turn it on for a few minutes every now and then, give it time to pick up some satellites, enter a waypoint, then turn it off. Here's some spare batteries. They'll work in either the GPS, the scope, or the radio."

"OK, fine," Gil said, still hurrying. "Binky, tell Nhu Lap to get the Renault started. He can drive me out there a mile or so, and that'll save some time."

"Will do, Gil," Binky said, then turned and talked in Vietnamese to the driver as Bud came up carrying Gil's small backpack, a couple canteens and a plastic lunch packet.

"You want a canteen on your belt, right?" Bud asked, stuffing the rest in the daypack.

'"Yeah, first aid kit, map, compass. Flashlight, I guess. Mark, you got a red one?"

"Here's a white one for emergencies, and a little red astronomical job," he said, holding them up. "You want the white one in the backpack?"

"Yeah," Gil said. "Give me the red one for my pocket. Anybody think of anything else?"

"Guess not," Mark said. "Good luck, Gil, and be careful."

"I know this is crazy," Gil said. "But Steve may be on to something, and I think it's worth the trouble."

"Well, good luck," Ryan added. "We'll go spot the Toyota as soon as they get back."

"You've got a little while, yet," Gil said. "I'll try to check in once he gets moving. Nhu Lap, you ready?"

The Renault was already running, and Gil hopped in the right side. "Good luck," Mike, Bud and Binky added as they drove off.

Mike hadn't said much of anything as he watched Gil race to get ready, but there hadn't been much to say. He stood a little away from everyone as he watched the Renault head up the road, thinking hard.

Although Mike had often used the term "Henry's Ghost" to describe the more or less unwanted presence in his life, he didn't really believe in ghosts. But now, whether he did or not, he decided to hedge his bet. "Go with Steve," he whispered to the presence. "It may be the last good chance for both of us."

Once Nhu Lap had left him at the spot along the berm of the road that he'd marked earlier, Gil slowed down. He now knew that he had plenty of time, and before long he'd have to be thinking stealth and concealment, so he deliberately took his time hiking back over the route he'd taken from where he'd left Steve earlier. He knew he'd have to be especially careful on the last leg, since he'd be coming in from the west, the direction of the now nearly setting sun, and Steve would probably be looking in that direction at the sunset, waiting to get dark. He wanted to be as close as he could be when Steve started moving, but that wasn't real close and if he got sloppy, he might miss him.

As Gil got around to the back side of the woods where he'd left Steve, he started to get very stealthy, staying in the edge of the woods. This whole deal hinged on Steve more or less staying in place until he was in position to follow, and if he'd moved, even a little, it'd make things a lot more difficult. The sun was just setting as Gil crept very carefully around the edge of the woods, and was relieved to see Steve sitting under the tree where he'd left him. That was good enough for now; quietly, Gil edged into the woods just far enough to be out of Steve's view, probably seventy or eighty yards away. When he got up to move, he'd move back into Gil's field of view.

There probably would be a few minutes to wait. Gil pulled out the GPS, turned it on long enough to get a position, and marked the waypoint. He spent a few minutes getting familiar with the device. Although he'd carried it in the field several days going out on the search team, he hadn't been using it much. It was an amazing little gadget, maybe twice the size of a pack of cigarettes, but Gil knew from watching TV before he'd left that it was revolutionizing the war that seemed to be brewing in the Persian Gulf. Typically, the Army couldn't get the gadget into the troops hands fast enough, and there had been reports of people buying them at their local sporting goods stores and mailing them to relatives in the gulf. Gil thought back to the number of times he'd been out in the field, on night patrols and night exercises, not being totally sure of where he was, and now, even this little civilian version was accurate to within a few yards. To have had one back when he'd been in-country over twenty years before would have made life a whole lot easier.

Comfortable with the thought that he could get a position and take a waypoint in the dark, Gil crept to the edge of the woods again, to confirm that Steve was still in position in the gathering darkness. Pulling back just a little to where he was out of sight again, Gil pulled out the little portable CB radio. It only had a single channel, but in days past had proven to have good range. Now, he turned it on, pulled out the antenna, and spoke softly into it, "In position."

Almost immediately, he heard two brief bursts of static. No telling where the other station was at this point -- it could still have been back at camp, or perhaps they'd gone out to the place where he'd told them to wait. With that out of the way, Gil settled back down to wait, keeping an eye on the field to the north of Steve, waiting for him to get on the move.

Now, there was finally a little time to think, to reflect. This wasn't a section of woods that the search team had gone through, but he made up his mind that they were going to go through it carefully at the first opportunity.

There was no way of telling if Steve had been right in his suppositions of the way Henry and the patrol had to have moved, they at least made sense. Gil had often been in thick patches of cover and jungle in Vietnam where a man that got fifty yards from his buddy could be turned around and lost forever, so over the years hadn't really thought all that much about how Henry must have gotten separated from the rest of the platoon. But, since he'd actually been on the ground here, he'd had problems understanding how a brief separation could become permanent. In country as relatively open as this was, it didn't really make sense, which was probably why Dennis and Bob and Henry's unit had concentrated on Target One in the past. But, now Steve had proven that it was possible, given the right conditions. This night exercise of Steve's might not prove anything, and probably wouldn't, Gil thought, but it could well be interesting to see where Steve wound up.

Mostly, though Gil tried to get himself mentally prepared. He'd done plenty of night exercises, of course, plenty of night covert maneuvers, but this was going to be a little different. First, it had been a long time since he'd actually done one; it had been over twenty years since he'd last done something like this, monitoring night exercises in Germany without letting the troops know that someone was monitoring them. Gil once had been pretty good at that sort of thing, and the skills lasted, to some degree, but it had been a long time. Gil was mostly hoping that Steve would be concentrating on what Henry had done and wouldn't think to see if someone was watching.

The light fades quickly in the tropics, and it was getting fairly dark when Gil saw Steve get up and start across the field in front of him. Once he'd pulled out a little distance, Gil got up, pulled out the CB and reported, "Moving out," to a response of two clicks again, and tried to follow behind as quietly as he could.

Gil had no more than gotten around the edge of the woods to where Steve had been than he saw the moon hanging low in the eastern sky. He hadn't been paying a lot of attention to the moon phase, but it was nearly full. So long as it stayed clear, they'd have a bright moon all night.

It can get amazingly bright under a nearly full moon, especially out in the country where there isn't ground lighting to interfere, and this was clearly going to be a brighter night than Gil had imagined. Had Henry been aware of the fact that he was going to be facing a bright night? It might have had something to do with a decision to strike out for the fire base, like they'd long suspected that he must have done.

While in some respects it would make the going easier, it would also make them harder, especially for Gil. If Steve tried to stay more or less near the edge of the woods, he'd be hard to pick up out of the darkness. On the other hand, so long as Gil stayed in the shadows, it would be real hard for Steve to pick him up, especially if he didn't suspect he was following.

The first obstacle was the fairly small field that Steve had started across. There really wasn't much Gil could do but follow at the greatest distance he dared and hope that Steve didn't check six too carefully. He soon saw that Steve wasn't walking directly for the tall bunch of trees that he'd pointed out earlier, but to a tree line somewhat to the right of course. To Gil, it looked like a good balance between the direct route across the field and the shortest route to get into the shadows on the far side. He stayed a respectable distance behind, waiting until Steve got into the dark shadows on the far side and vanished.

There was a clump of taller grass and low brush, and Gil crouched down in it, trying to hide. If Steve were going to look back across the field and see if someone were following, it would be a logical place to do it. While he crouched there, Gil pulled out the Russian starlight scope, pointed it at the tree line, and turned it on.

He could see a green image of Steve slowly walking through the shadows at the edge of the trees, and Gil breathed a silent sigh of relief for Mark's bringing the gadget. This was going to make the evening duck soup.

Gil had worked with night vision gear years before. The old starlight scope had been pretty good, but it was a bit on the bulky side, where this was a lot smaller and lighter, and better on batteries, if Mark was right. It may or may not have been every bit as good as the old gear -- Gil was willing to defer to Mark's astronomical eye on that one -- but it was more than good enough to do the job. Gil knew, both from TV and from some of the professional magazines he read from time to time, that the Army had a lot better gear out in the Persian Gulf, twenty years and several generations newer, and that must really be hot stuff, he thought. But, who said the Russians had to build gear that was heavy and bad? The Russians must either have needed the green currency bad, or have come along several generations themselves, he thought as he stood up and got moving again.

With Steve trying to pick his way through the darkness at the edge of the tree line, Gil reasoned that he'd be unlikely to look behind him too much, so Gil set a straighter route for the end of the tree line that Steve was following.

Steve was only fifty yards or so ahead of Gil when he came to the end of the tree line. He stopped there for a while, with Gil watching from the shadows, as he tried to make up his mind about which way to go. Gil took the opportunity to flip on the GPS and take a waypoint, but he had it off before Steve had moved out again.

It went like that most of the night. At first, Gil had to concentrate pretty hard on staying stealthy, but a lot of the old skills came back fairly quickly, and there never seemed to be a hint of suspicion that he was there. Steve wasn't moving quickly -- Henry probably wouldn't have, Gil knew, partly because of the fact that the ground would have been softer, and partly because Henry would have been working at least as hard as Steve to stay covert, which didn't allow for a lot of running or noisemaking.

At a number of different times, when Steve seemed to be moving in a direction where Gil was unlikely to lose him for a while, Gil ducked into the edge of some cover, checked the GPS for a position, and occasionally checked the map in the red flashlight. He was just a little surprised at the route that Steve was taking. It was soon clear that Steve was indeed drifting left of course, but less because of following the drift of the stars, at least Gil suspected, than to follow obvious routes in the shadows at the edge of the tree line. The direct line from the starting point would have taken him right of Puk Me, but Steve came abreast of the village about on the old direct line route from Target One, a little to the left of the village. To Gil, it seemed that Steve was aware that he was drifting left, for on several occasions when woods lines going in the right direction were available he made radical turns to the right, obviously in an attempt to get back on course. Past Puk Me, Steve moved to the right, back across the old direct line course, but drifted back across it again, obviously to the left of his course.

It was hard to say how much the stars were affecting Steve's navigation, and Gil once thought that it would be interesting to hear Steve and Mark talk about it in a critique. What with it being a bright, moonlit evening, the star field was washed out, and the North Star was hidden down in the haze. The Big Dipper hung high in front of them, moving to the left like Mark had said it would, but the pointer stars still showed roughly where it would have been. But, it only gave a general idea to the course, and the route tended to follow the tree lines more than it did the stars.

Steve was still moving along slowly, but steadily, and after a while the distance began to accumulate. Gil briefly contacted the cover team in the Toyota three different times, first to tell them to move north of Puk Me, then to the fire base, and then finally, to the west road a couple miles from the intersection. By that time, it was clear that Steve was going to miss the fire base, and miss it by a margin of a mile or more to the left, and Gil was beginning to realize that Henry could well have gotten farther away from Target One than they'd thought.

By the time that there was the first hint of light in the eastern sky, they were well past the fire base, out in the middle of the left side of the wedge, and still moving along. Only a couple miles more would bring them to the river that they'd always figured was the outer limit of the wedge; it had seemed unlikely that Henry would cross a landmark like that having not crossed it on the way out from the fire base the day before.

By then, Gil was starting to wonder how he was going to play out the rest of the exercise. All night long, there had been no sign that Steve had detected his presence, but the coming of the light would end that. Gil wasn't sure that the exercise would contribute anything to actually finding Henry, but it had proven that he could have covered a considerable amount of ground from Target One after being separated from the patrol.

Gil was still wondering how to handle the coming of the light while Steve followed the edge of a tree line to his right, and finally it came to a point in front of a large, open field. It was getting light now, light enough to be picked up easily if Steve turned around.

Steve stood there at the end of the woods for a moment, then started across the field. Gil followed him to the end of the woods, but hung there, wondering if he should follow. From there, he could see that it was a long way, a half mile or more, to the far side of the opening, which broke wide to either side, as well -- nearly as far as going ahead, if not farther. The sun would be up by the time Steve could reach a tree line in either direction.

A little undecided about what to do, Gil just stood there watching Steve. A hundred yards or more away, he came to a stop, and Gil could see that he was wondering what to do, too. It seemed likely that Steve was going to think about turning around, and with the nightlong habit of stealth upon him, Gil backed into the trees, got behind a thick section of bushes, and hunkered down trying to get out of sight. He turned an looked, just in time to see Steve turn around and head back toward where he was hidden.

Steve walked slowly back toward the point of woods, looking around, obviously thinking hard. He came to a stop a few feet to one side of Gil, and looked hard into the woods, and stood there and stared for the longest time before he said out loud in a questioning voice, "Somewhere right around here."

Gil decided the time had come to end the exercise. In a conversational voice, he replied, "Yeah, that's what I think, too."

Gil had the pleasure of watching Steve just about jump out of his skin at the surprise. Clearly, he hadn't even suspected Gil's presence. "What the fuck are you doing here?" he half shouted when he got over his start.

"You didn't think I was going to let you do this by yourself, did you?" Gil said, standing up. "I've been following you all night."

Steve shook his head. "Once or twice I thought there had to be something behind me, but I thought it was just my imagination."

"Guess I haven't lost the touch," Gil said, walking out into the open. "And, yeah, I think you may be right. Dawn was coming, there isn't much in cover for a long way, and he wouldn't have had any idea where he was. If he came this way, he would have thought this was a good place to hide out for the day."

Steve nodded. "That'd give him a chance to get a new hack on where the fire base was. There might have been helicopters coming or going, maybe some artillery, something to give him a clue. I don't even know where we are, but we've got to be a long way down range."

"Yeah," Gil agreed, pulling out a map. "In fact, we're past the fire base. It's back over that way a couple miles," he said, pointing in the general direction of the southeast, somewhat behind him.

Steve shook his head. "I knew the tree lines were drifting me left of course, but I thought I compensated for them."

"Not enough," Gil said. "But I can see how you could make that mistake easy enough with no map, and no real knowledge of the area. In fact, on a direct route you'd have gone right of Puk Me, but you went left. You got back on course pretty good for a while, but drifted left again and stayed that way. I think it was understandable, the way the tree lines ran."

Steve shrugged. "It was sort of guesswork. We can't be sure that Henry would have made the same moves."

"I don't know," Gil said. "The first part of the trip, up till you were past Puk Me, I thought you made just about the same route decisions I would have made. After that, well, there were some places I think I might have done different, but they all sort of balance out."

"I don't follow you."

"Let me show you something," Gil said, holding the map so Steve could see it. "OK, we're right here. You go back, oh, a mile or more, and if you're following the tree lines, well, this is sort of a funnel. There's an area here, oh hell, a close to a couple clicks wide, if you're following the tree lines, well, you're going to come out right here. You were actually a little farther left, but the tree line pulled you back to the right, here. If you'd been farther right, you still would have come here, except you'd have up the other side of the woods."

Steve stared at the map for a few moments. "Yeah, I see what you mean," he said finally. "Let's go get the gang, at least Rod and Ryan. I want to have a real good look around here."

"That's what I think, too," Gil said, pulling out the CB.

.oOo.

It had been a sleepless night for everyone in the Toyota. Gil hadn't called in often, and only a few words when he did, but Ryan, Mark, Binky and Kien Thanh had tried to stay awake for the few soft words to come through the handset. They were all yawning and headachy sitting outside the old fire base in the very small hours of the morning, when Gil had called and told them to move over onto the east road.

"If he wants us over there," Mark commented as Kien Thanh started the engine. "He's going to miss the fire base entirely."

"Looks like it to me," Ryan said. "My guess is that they're past us already."

"I can't believe that they're going to cross the west road," Mark said, looking at the map. "It's a long haul."

"They seem to be moving right along, though," Ryan said. "I guess everything is all right, or Gil would have said something."

"Yeah, I'm looking forward to the debrief on this one," Mark said. There wasn't a lot to say after that; they drove over to the west road, found a place to pull off, and tried to sleep a little in shifts of two, while the other two tried to stay awake to listen for the radio, as they had done much of the night..

They were sitting on the west road not a mile from where Gil and Steve had stopped after the sun rose. All of them were awake by now, and the radio was turned up all the way so they wouldn't miss anything. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, they heard Gil's voice. "Toyota, this is Gil. Exercise complete. What's your 20?"

"West road, about five clicks south of the intersection," Mark replied. "You guys OK?"

"Fine," came the word. "Go back to base camp, get Rod, and bring him back. We've got a patch of woods we want to go through with the search team."

"You find something?" Mark asked.

"Just a spot that looks interesting," Gil said, not trying to get hopes up. "It may be nothing. When you come back, head down to about half a mile south of where the west road knuckles down to the south from the southwest, and we'll meet you. I can give you coordinates, but I'll have to stop to work them out."

"That ought to get us close," Mark said. "If you're not out to the road when we get back, we'll drive up and down looking for you."

When the Toyota made it back from base camp, Steve and Gil were sitting under a tree alongside the road, munching on some of the lunch items from Gil's daypack. Nhu Lap found a good place to pull off the road, and the four of them that had been together for the night got out of the Toyota. "Rod'll be along in a few," Ryan announced. "He was still getting around. Bud had some coffee ready sent it out for us, and he's throwing together some breakfast. Now, what's this place you want to search?"

"No real evidence," Gil said. "Just a real likely spot. He unfolded the map and gave a brief summary of the night, and the way the tree lines funneled down to a point. "We figure that if he wanted to hole up for the day, well, it's a fairly likely spot and worth a look."

"Yeah, well, maybe," Ryan said as Binky handed out coffee cups and began to pour coffee -- Bud had sent the coffee pot and all, straight from the stove. "It's got to be at least as good as any other ideas we've had recently."

"It might be," Gil said, the exhaustion of a sleepless night beginning to catch up with him. They gathered around the Toyota, drinking coffee while waiting for the rest of the group.

As they sat there talking, an old Vietnamese came walking up the road, carrying a hoe over his shoulder. "Wonder if he knows anything?" Mark asked. "We haven't gotten this far with the contact teams yet."

"One way to find out," Binky said, getting to her feet to greet the man as he walked past. As he got closer, they could see that he was not merely old, but an ancient of days. Binky greeted him, going through the routine that they'd practiced for so long down toward Target One. There was a long exchange in Vietnamese between Binky and the old man, with a great deal of talking on either side -- so much so that it got their interest. Finally, the old man turned toward the field that Gil and Steve had just crossed, and motioned to them to follow. Binky started after him.

"Got something, Binky?" Gil asked.

She looked back over her shoulder and in one word said all they needed to hear: "Bingo!"

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To be continued . . .

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TO ABSENT FRIEND ARCHIVES

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