by Ed Nelson
The Richard Jackson Saga
Book 13: Regicide
By Ed Nelson
Other books by Ed Nelson
The Richard Jackson Saga
Book 1 The Beginning
Book 2 Schooldays.
Book 3 Hollywood!
Book 4 In the Movies
Book 5 Star to Deckhand
Book 6 Surfing Dude
Book 7 Third Time is a Charm
Book 8: Oxford University
Book 9: Cold War
Book 10: Taking Care of Business
Book 11: Interesting Times
Book 12: Escape From Siberia
Book 13: Regicide
Stand Alone Stories
Ever and Always
Dedication
This is dedicated to my wife Carol for her support and help as my first reader and editor.
Thanks to my Editors, Ernest Bywater, Lonelydad57, Old Rotorhead, Lon, and Antti.
Also, the Bellefontaine High School Class of 1962, just because.
Quotation
“That’s the way it happened, give or take a lie or two.”
James Garner as Wyatt Earp describing the gunfight at the OK Corral in the movie Sunset.
Copyright © 2021
E. E. Nelson
All rights reserved.
Eastern Shore Publishing
2331 Del Webb Blvd. W.
Sun City Center, FL 33573
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage retrieval systems without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
ISBN 978-1953395-26-9
Table of Contents
The Richard Jackson Saga
Other books by Ed Nelson
Dedication
Quotation
Copyright © 2021
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 1
On the first Wednesday of the new year, 1963 I had a call from the White House. The President would like to speak with me, would I please take the call.
I had received a lot of calls from the White House, but that was the first time the word, “Please,” was used, and wanting to know if I would take the call. It was usually, “Stand by for the President.”
“Most certainly.”
While I said this I was puckering up, the Kennedys and my family and I were not on the best of terms, it would be more accurate to say we were on the outs.
“Rick, this is John, I need a favor.”
Before I was tightening up waiting for a punch, now it was getting ready for a car crash.
“What sort of favor?”
“We need your influence in South Vietnam.”
“What for?”
“There is a warlord in the Golden Triangle that is getting out of hand. He is close to unifying the whole area. As you may know, this area is where most of the world's heroin comes from. The only thing that has limited their production has been the infighting there. If this guy controls the entire area the cost of heroin would go down, and our problems would multiply.
“We need to get a SEAL element of four men there quietly and quickly. That is where you come in. If you could have them flown in and get them upcountry it would be a tremendous help.”
“I’ll do it. Who is my contact? The CIA?”
“Yes, the CIA for now but I can see a time when they will be part of a special warfare command. I don’t like the idea of the CIA having their own army; they cause enough problems as it is. At this time, I retain approval on all missions. You will be contacted by a SEAL Commander from Team 2 in Little River, Va. In the meantime, could you get things set up with the South Vietnamese?”
“I can, Mister President.”
“Rick, I have told my father and Bobbie to lay off, this feud between our families is getting us nowhere.”
“That is good to hear.”
“Knowing that will you put new products in the US.”
“No promises, let's see how things go for a while.”
“I will keep a tight rein on them.”
“Time will tell.”
“You have gotten cynical since I first met you.”
“Thank you for the education, Mister President, I will be waiting for a call from the SEALs.”
At that, I hung up. Wow, I just hung up on the President of the United States. How many nineteen-year-olds can say that?
I placed a call to South Vietnam. It only took the long-distance operator two hours to make the connection. I got through to the President’s Chief of Staff.
I told him that I would be flying to South Vietnam shortly and would like to arrange the rental of an aircraft to fly up the country. A DC3 would be perfect.
He told me he could and asked if I could share why I was doing this. I told him that I would update him and the President when I got there, this was an open line.
Even saying that may be giving information away.
An hour later I had a call from Commander Steve Wallace from SEAL Team 2.
“I was told to give you a call about our trip upcountry.”
“Yeah, a guy who lives in a vanilla house asked me to give some of your guys a lift.”
“When can you do it?”
“As soon as you want to. My plane is staged at Ontario Airport so it could be there in six or seven hours, make that ten as I have to round the crew up.”
“So late afternoon tomorrow?”
“Yeah, we can take off at o’dark thirty and be there.”
Can you fly into Norfolk?”
“Can it take a 707?”
“No, we better meet at Pax River.”
“Okay, we can do that, but we will need advance landing permission.”
“I’ll arrange it, use the call sign Hollywood.”
“That works. We will land around two p.m.”
“See you then.”
I went in search of my parents. Dad was at work, with Mum at some charity planning meeting, so I had to wait until they got home.
/> I told them that JFK had called and asked a favor while declaring his family would back off. Mum was cynical about the whole thing, but she decided that wait and see was the best choice.
As far as the favor they saw no problems with flying a team of SEALs into South Vietnam and providing them a DC3 to get upcountry to carry out their mission.
While it hadn’t been discussed all three of us thought it would be best if I waited around to give them a ride out.
I had called my Chief Pilot in the afternoon, and he assured me the plane would be ready to go. Its engines had just had a three thousand flight hour rebuild and were good to go. In this case, the engines had been pulled and rebuilt engines hung. That lessened the aircraft downtime. At the same time, the airframe was inspected.
It was nice to know the plane would probably stay up in the air.
This flight had a full service on board. That meant two flight crews to relieve each other in the air and extra stewardess for the same purpose. Food was on board for ten passengers. I requested that enough food for the trip out and back be on board.
I didn’t want to depend on some catering service in South Vietnam. I had done that once, and that would be the only time.
It was a good thing we weren’t like the commercial airlines. We had both refrigerators and freezers on board.
The flight east didn’t seem to last long, at least to me. I went right back to bed as soon as we took off. Another four hours of sleep did wonders. Also, a shower and shave didn’t hurt.
I debated on what to wear. The ever-present Harold had me in what I called California casual, slacks, polo shirt, and sport coat. No bright colors.
Landing at Patuxent River was beautiful. It is located on the Chesapeake Bay. Even though it was the middle of the winter with ice on the river and edges of the bay it was still a striking view.
During the landing, I sat up front with the cockpit crew. There were no hassles with our landing call sign. As we were landing two Phantom F4s were taking off, side by side.
Our copilot had gone through the test pilot school there and had been stationed there for a while until he got the urge to make more money. Dusty told us the F4’s would make a racetrack circle around the bay for six hours and land, new pilots would take over and keep flying the planes.
Each change to a Navy aircraft had to have fifteen hundred hours flight time before they could be introduced to the fleet. This included everything from a change in the seat upholstery to new weapon systems.
To keep costs down they would test many purposed changes at the same time. The test pilots would make notes during their circles.
That sounded boring to me. Dusty agreed, he said it had been known for a pilot to swing wide and leave a sonic boom across the Eastern Shore that woke all the chickens. That was when I found out that was a major industry there. Talk about things you don’t need to know.
After landing we followed a jeep to a pad outside of a hangar. The hangar was out of sight of anyone driving the perimeter road. At soon as the engines were shut down armed Marines surrounded the aircraft.
Stairs were wheeled out and four men came up the steps, each lugging a seabag full of gear. As soon as they crossed the threshold the door was closed, and we taxied out for a quick turnaround.
Since the trip was about nine thousand miles, we couldn’t do it non-stop by taking the great polar route. The flight plan called for us to refuel in Alaska, then Japan before going to Saigon City.
This would make the trip around twenty-four hours with refueling stops.
Chapter 2
During the flight, I got to know a little about the SEAL team members and what was required to be a SEAL. It was simple, be able to jump out of airplanes, swim forever, and be a ghost on land. Those abilities got you a ticket to play the game. Once in you had to show that you hadn’t “and give up in you.”
I thought I was in good shape, when they described their initial BUD/S requirements I now knew that I am a wimp. They had to explain that BUD/S stood for Basic Underwater Demolition/ SEAL training. And what took place.
One of the guys was a little fellow, he stood five feet in his stocking feet. I towered over him. When he described having his hands and feet tied together and being thrown into fifteen feet of water and then having to retrieve a facemask. He used his teeth to bring it up.
They did have the grace to ask me about my escape from Siberia and I appeared to meet their requirements for being a ghost on land, and they approved of my hang glider tactics to get away from the tracking dogs.
Mostly they slept on the flight, as they explained once they hit the ground, they might not get any sleep for days. That and they went over their equipment.
I knew enough about classified operations not to ask for any details. My job was to get them into South Vietnam and arrange for the government to allow them to transit to the north so they could get into the Shan State of Burma. They intended to go through Laos to get there.
I did ask if they were going by air or walk-in. They told me that it would be good if I could arrange them a ride by air to the Laos border and they would walk from there.
That did sound like a time-sensitive journey to me. I asked if they could parachute in. They could but would need the proper aircraft and someone crazy enough to fly into the area.
When we landed at Saigon I was whisked away in a new limo, which was bought with my money, to see the President.
He wanted to know what was so sensitive that I couldn’t talk on the phone. I explained the outline of the mission. He thought the goal was good but agreed with me that they could never hike that far in the country without getting caught.
He then shared with me that South Vietnam had several agents living in a village near where the SEALs need to go. They could establish a drop zone for the SEALs if they could get flown in.
I asked if the DC3 that I had requested was available. He told me that one leftover from World War II had just been reconditioned and they would be glad to sell it to me.
Bless their little capitalist hearts.
The price was reasonable, now all I needed was a flight crew. My next stop was the US Embassy to ask for the local CIA contact. Of course, no such person existed. I was allowed to talk to an agricultural attaché, as he might know someone that could help me.
I didn’t know his name, but he was one of the guys that I had seen being outed by the Russians in LA. He recognized me and chose not to play any games which I appreciated.
I told him I need a pilot, copilot, and a jumpmaster. He knew of a pilot and even a jumpmaster in the area that could be hired quickly but not a second person qualified on the DC3.
Making an executive decision I decided I could go as the copilot since I was qualified on twin engines. The pilot could teach me what the differences were while we were in the air.
Okay, I’m not always the sharpest tool in the shed.
The SEAL team had been waiting on my 707 while I was in my meetings. When I returned there was a South Vietnamese Air Force Major waiting with the keys and logbook to my newly purchased DC3.
It took another day to find the pilot and jumpmaster, both retired French Air Force. I thought all the French had been kicked out of the South but a lot who lived with native wives were still there.
After a long walk around and discussion about the aircraft, I decided that I could fly safely with them. My Chief Pilot on the 707 told me I was crazy and none of the 707 crew would go with me.
That is the little guy, Harry Beal almost had one of the stewardesses talked into it, but she backed down at the last minute. Harry told Marge that he forgave her and would see her when he got back.
While we were waiting on our French crewmen, I got a message that two nights from now at a given set of coordinates, gasoline drums would be lit to outline a drop zone. The SEALs would have to jump in.
It would be a long walk out. Still, that was better than having to walk both ways.
I had made some phone calls and g
ot permission for us to refuel in Hanoi so we would be in good shape fuel-wise.
The SEALs had several radio sets with them. They decided to leave one and take two with them as the chance of failure while walking in had dropped. They left it with me with a list of frequencies they could use. We didn’t see where it would be needed but they believed in over preparation.
For parachutes, they had the newest type that acted as an airfoil instead of the type used by army paratroopers. With those, they could land within feet of their target zone.
I didn’t know it was possible to carry as many weapons as they unloaded from their duffle bags. After cleaning and checking each weapon and making sure that it had a magazine in the well and the safety was on, they were ready to jump.
Their gear in the duffle bags would be pushed out the door first with a line attached to their waist so they wouldn’t get crushed by their gear when hitting the ground.
They had a simple plan, jump into the area, and then what they called snoop and poop around until they found the warlord. Kill him with a sniper shot and walk back home.
They had maps of the area which showed where the warlord stayed. They planned on hitting him when he came out of his mansion. They even had pictures of his house and him.
It was a mansion. I suspect a Frenchman built it. He looked Chinese to me, and when I asked if he was, they shrugged.
On the flight to Hanoi, I made a pest of myself asking the pilot questions about the aircraft. He got a little surly the third hour into the flight, so I laid off for a while.
One thing I found interesting was that the plane required 232 quarts of oil, more than the fuel load of a single-engine plane.
Taking off was supposed to be strange. You had to bring the tail up so the aircraft was flying level. This was to bring the tail seven feet off the ground.
When landing he did share that enriching the mixture before landing was backward to most planes. Pushing them forward makes for a very underpowered plane.