The Darque Side

The crickets knew the secret, but they only revealed it if one really listened. It was not the first time the two men had found themselves alone in a world of hidden dangers. Each movement they made, and every piece of debris they encountered, posed a problem … whether real or imagined. Slithering through the high weeds like snakes made their trip slow, but it also provided the best chance they had for safely reaching their destination. The wind and rain brought on by the monsoon helped to cover the sounds made by the two as they maneuvered their way through the dense, jungle vegetation, but it also covered the sounds made by anything that may have joined them on their journey or might meet during it. When the downpour stopped, so the clouds could refill with water in preparation for the next deluge, the sounds of the jungle became more apparent. It was the chirping of the crickets that became the most listened for sound. Crickets don’t lie. Their song offered a comforting sound that meant everything was OK nearby; absence of the sound meant they had been disturbed. Those listening for the sound who heard only silence knew one thing for sure … they were not alone. As the last of the rain drops slid down the backs and noses of the two men lying quietly beneath a bush, the stars began to appear from their hiding places behind the clouds. Given the circumstances, it was almost pretty. When the insect serenade almost reached a crescendo, one of the men irreverently broke the silence. “I don’t like him,” whispered the man looking through a spotting scope at what was supposed to be a target, but had so far turned out to be an empty hut in a clearing about half the size of a football field. The spotter’s name was Carl Henderson, and he had been given the nickname ‘Casper’ (of the friendly ghost fame) by his partner, the shooter on the sniper team who was now searching for its missing target. “Who?” asked his companion in a lowered voice. The shooter’s name was John Darque, and his sobriquet, as administered by Casper, was ‘Chadeaux’ (shăd’ō), loosely based on the Dark Shadow character. Theater wide, the sniper team of Chadeaux and Casper was not widely known, but word-of-mouth exploits about the pair were looked upon as acts of an avenging angel who took out the worst of the combatants – both foreign and domestic. In truth, most people doubted the team’s existence and looked upon it as a ‘bogeyman’ type tale because they never saw it, but that’s the way it was supposed to be. “The arrogant little prick who briefed us on this mission,” said Casper. “Would that be Curt Smith of the CIA?” he asked. “You like that schmuck?” Darque thought about the question a moment before answering. “Not at all,” said Darque. “I don’t trust him. I don’t know what happened to the guy who used to brief us, and I really don’t know where this guy came from, but there was something different about him; he really didn’t seem all that interested in talking about the goal or reason for the mission. He tried his best to be intimidating, but for the most part, he was just obnoxious. Just forget about him.” Silence returned as the two men once again concentrated on trying to interpret the sounds that accompanied the darkness. “Did you notice the way he was looking at you during the briefing?” Darque thought about the meeting and realized Smith seemed to have been more watchful and tense than their usual briefer, but hadn’t given it much thought. “Yeah, I did,” he said. “Do you think it meant something?” “Yes, I do,” said Casper. “You need to watch your back around him, John. He’s bad news. I was observing him very closely while he was talking to you, and I don’t like what I saw. I think he has a different agenda than ours.” “Since when did you take up psychology as a hobby?” asked Darque. “The only job we have is to take out bad guys; who wouldn’t think that was a good idea?” “You don’t have to be a psychologist to analyze people’s behavior, and I’ve been a people watcher for quite a while.” “And what did you determine from your observations?” Darque asked. Casper was quiet as he finished scanning the area around the hut, but then continued the conversation. “He doesn’t like you.” “A lot of people don’t like me,” said Darque. “I don’t mean like as in let’s be friends, I mean like as in loathes. He feels superior to you, but he’s also afraid of you. You’re unpredictable and that worries him … predictable people can be controlled.” Darque remained silent as he listened to the analysis, but he believed Casper to be accurate in his assessment. What he didn’t understand was why the situation seemed to bother his partner so much. “If what you say is true, Smith’s animosity appears to be directed toward me. Why does that upset you as much as your voice seems to indicate?” Casper was once again silent as he weighed his response. “As you know,” he began, “you’re the closest thing I have to a family. I don’t know exactly how many of these missions we’ve been on together, but in addition to being good at what we do, we’ve also been lucky. I have a bad feeling about this one.” For some unknown reason, a large reward had been offered by someone in China for the death of the pair, but the two had never detected any attempt to collect it. In reality, the reward had been made in an effort to eliminate the two men who were responsible for killing a Chinese advisor. The North Vietnamese had identified the dead individual as a doctor who had volunteered his services to help treat those wounded by American troops, but who was, in fact, a specialist in interrogation and torture techniques. As the sniper team concentrated again on the song of the insects, the noise in one sector to their front seemed to lessen a bit, and both men immediately began to search that area through their scopes for any sign of what may have caused the sound to diminish. The change in volume only lasted a few minutes before returning to its original level, but the secret had been disclosed. They were not alone. “Where’s our extraction site?” Darque whispered. “I marked it on this map with an ‘X’,” Casper responded, as he handed it over. Darque tucked his head inside his camouflage suit, and studied the drawing in the light of a red-lensed flashlight. “Are you sure this is correct?” Darque asked. “It corresponds with the coordinates Smith gave me,” Casper said. “He was adamant about us using it as the pick-up point.” Darque studied the map more closely before becoming concerned. “This can’t be right,” Darque said. “There’s a river between us and the site, and there’s no way we can cross it during the monsoon season with the equipment we have because it’s too fast and wide to swim across.” As the last word left his mouth, both men noticed the level of insect noise had once again lessened in an area closer to their location than the first incident. “Start backing out of here,” said Darque. “We’ve been set up.” When they started to retreat, they heard a sound like the firing of a large tube-launched aerial firework and watched as a red trail began to arc through the sky. As the projectile exploded, the brilliant white light of a parachute flare lit up the area, and both men instinctively hugged the ground with their faces buried in the grass to conceal anything that might reflect the light and mark them as targets. “They know we’re here,” said Darque. It was said as a matter of fact, and not a panicked outburst. The situation was one possibility both men were aware of, and the matter was frequently discussed between them. “Run as fast as you can for the tree line we came through at the edge of the clearing, and I’ll be right behind you.” As both men stood to run, a man using a pair of binoculars inside the hut watched their every move and gave the order to ‘fire’. The night was suddenly filled with the sound of mortar rounds being fired from their tubes into the area where Darque and Casper were sprinting toward the woods. When the rounds began to impact, large clods of dirt, chunks of trees and shrapnel began to fill the air, and those were followed by large and small pieces of Casper that became imbedded in Darque as he laid in one of the shell craters covered with debris. He was barely conscious as he looked at what was left of his friend, but alert enough to identify the man who approached what was left of Casper as he kicked a few of the bigger pieces around. It was Smith. The man walked around the area looking for proof that both of his targets were dead, and although he couldn’t be positive, there seemed to be enough body parts lying around and hanging from tree limbs to account for two people, so he was satisfied that the results of his effort to eliminate the two men had been successful. “I’m not going to pick through this mess for positive IDs, but there seems to be enough left to claim the reward from the c******n for both men,” Smith said out loud. As Smith started to depart the area, he stopped long enough to kick Casper’s head like a soccer ball as he laughed and yelled ‘tor!’ as it sailed through the air. With the departure of the intruders from their domain, the crickets once again began to sing their song, and their serenade increased in volume and intensity into the otherwise quiet night. Those were the last sounds Darque heard as he struggled with his thoughts and pain before becoming unconscious, but his hatred toward Smith, and desire for revenge, would prove to be instrumental in his eventual recovery. There would be a day of reckoning.