Its cabin smells of exhaust. The sound of its rotor varies from whine to bone-jolting bass chord. Hot wind blasts through open portholes. South and west it flies, across Vietnam's slender waist, leaving behind the coast's paved roads and electricity, its running water and tourists, for country seen by few Americans in 30 years. A narrowing valley.
Trees draw close, borne by rising ground.
A Vietnamese crewman unlatches the chopper's door, opening the cabin to a shock of wind, and peers over the side as the engine guns. The helicopter trembles, yaws in place over a small clearing hacked from the woods. The chopper hits the ground, skips, hovers, slaps down a second time. The pilot kills the engine. Tribesmen swarm the landing zone.