Free Tiger the Lurp Dog: A Novel by Kenn Miller Page A

the trees, dappling the bramble bushes and the sleeping Lurps.

Chapter NINE
    A FTER GLANCING OVER TO make sure Wolverine was still asleep, Mopar took the headset from Marvel. Cupping his hand around a whisper, he asked Marvel how much of J. D.’s situation report he’d been able to hear. Marvel tilted his head back and looked up into the shadows and the moonlight. He smiled, his teeth flashing in the moonlight coming through the canopy, then stared at the trees as he answered.
    “Movement all around. J. D.’s set up between two trails, and he’s got heavy traffic on both of them at the same time. He’s got motorcycle traffic on the lower trail.”
    Mopar couldn’t decide if Marvel sounded like he was trying to be blasé, or if he was talking through his dreams. At any rate, he sounded goofy with all this talk of motorcycles on the lower trail. But Mopar let him go on without interruption.
    “There’s no way to say ‘motorcycle’ in CAR code, you know, so J. D. reported a run of Hell’s Angels—right out in the open: ‘Hell’s Angels, Sonny Barger’s boys’—just like that, as plain as day to us, but incomprehensible to any gooks listening on the push. J. D.’s got a real gift for exclusionary thinking.”
    Marvel giggled and slid over a little closer to Mopar so he could whisper up next to his ear and not have to worry about waking Wolverine. By now, he too was certain that there were no enemy troops in the vicinity—they were all in J. D.’s Recon Zone or hustling down the streams and trails to link up with the main force under cover of darkness. There were no streams or trails anywhere near the bramble thicket, but even if there had been a platoon of NVA encamped fifty meters away, they wouldn’t have been able to hear his whispers through such thick jungle.
    “Now get this, Mopar—this is out of sight! Not only can the relay team hear motorcycles almost every time J. D. transmits, but we can hear them too sometimes, when J. D. holds his headset next to the trail and just squeezes the transmit button! I tell you, Mopar, J. D.’s the type of guy who can make his own luck in this life.”
    Mopar shrugged. He wondered what in the fuck had gotten into Marvel to make him start gushing over J. D. with all this weirdo nonsense about “exclusionary thinking” and making his own luck. Marvel got to gushing over people sometimes when they acted the way he expected them to act, but he’d never had much good to say about J. D. before now. Mopar just couldn’t imagine why Marvel was so impressed. It was only good sense for J. D. to transmit when the motorcycles were going past his position. That way he wouldn’t have to worry about the gooks hearing him transmit—not over the noise a motorcycle could kick up, sliding and spinning on one of these muddy trails! And even more important, nobody hearing the engine sounds that came over the horn could doubt he was telling the truth. J. D. was very touchy about his credibility.
    Mopar hoped that if he ever found himself in J. D.’s situation he’d have enough sense to sit tight and lay dog, quiet and still as humanly possible, all night and all the next day if necessary, until the gooks were gone or until the gunships came on station.
    “What about calling in an air strike or some artillery? Has he made any requests?”
    Marvel shook his head. “Requested? Yeah—but just for gunships to circle off station. It was denied. Not by our Six, but by that major from the Two Shop.”
    Mopar sighed unhappily. J. D. was too impatient. He was nowhere near as reluctant to swap lead as a good recon man should be, and that was why Mopar had left his team for Farley’s. But even though Mopar wouldn’t have trusted J. D. to keep the gunships circling off station until they were really needed, he was outraged that the major had denied support to a team in a potentially tight spot.
    “I know what you’re thinking,” Marvel said. “This major isn’t playing by the