Double Down by Max Allan Collins

Author:Max Allan Collins [Collins, Max Allan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781789091427
Publisher: Titan Books
Published: 2021-05-15T05:00:00+00:00

2

His name was Steven Bruce McCracken, but nobody called him any of those names. His friends called him Mac. His sister called him Stevie. His mother, when she was alive, called him Steve. His father, when he was alive, called him Butch. His crew had called him Sarge. The VC had called him a lot of things.

His reputation, it was said, was considerable among the Vietcong. That was what he’d heard from ARVN personnel, who themselves seemed a little in awe of him. To his own way of thinking, he’d never done anything so out of the ordinary; he was just one of many gunners, just another crew chief doing his job. As crew chief one of his responsibilities was to provide cover fire as men (usually wounded, since the bulk of his missions were Medivacs) were hustled aboard the helicopter. He would stand in the doorway, or outside of it, firing his contraband Thompson submachine gun (which he’d latched onto early in the game, picking it off a Cong corpse) and shouting obscenities in three languages at the usually unseen enemy, unflinching as return fire was sent his way, as if daring those gooks to hit him. Personally, he didn’t see how any of that could build him any special reputation among the enemy or anyone else. He always suspected those damn ARVN were putting him on about it—he had trouble understanding them half the time anyway, his Vietnamese lingo consisting mostly of bar talk and their English being no better—but later G-2 had confirmed that he did indeed have a name in Charlie’s camp. He supposed his appearance must’ve had something to do with whatever reputation he may have had. He stood out among the Americans, who, to the gooks, all looked alike, and he made a bigger target than most, which must’ve been frustrating as hell to the little bastards, missing a target so big. He was six-two and powerfully built—his body strung with holstered handguns and belts of ammunition and hand grenades—his white-blond hair and white-blond mustache (a slight, military-trim mustache that still managed a gunfighter’s droop on either side), showing up vividly against his deeply tanned skin.

His appearance today, a month out of service, was little different, even if he wasn’t wearing guns and ammo and grenades. True, the hair was already longer than the Marines would have liked, but other than that he looked much the same. His physical condition was outstanding; even his limp had lessened, seemed almost to have disappeared. A chunk of flesh along the inside of his right thigh had been blown away in the helicopter crash, just some fat and some not particularly valuable meat, leaving a hole six inches long by three inches wide, a purplish canyon that at its greatest depth was two inches. There was still some shrapnel in that hole, and pieces worked their way out now and then; he could feel them moving. Nothing to be worried about, really. He’d never look good in a bathing suit again, but what the hell? He was lucky.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.