Lucky’s Bridge (Vietnam Air War Book 2)

by Tom Wilson

  Pearly nodded, impressed with his efficiency.

  "Sergeant Slye and Airman O'Neil."

  Pearly frowned. Both O'Neil and Slye were good men. Slye liked to go downtown a bit too much for Turner's liking, and he'd kept the peace symbol on his desk after Turner had suggested he remove it, but he did his job well. And aside from Sergeant Turner himself, Airman First Class O'Neil was the steadiest man in Documentation.

  "I didn't want to get too excited about it until I knew more. I mean, I didn't want to bring it to you if someone was just doing something harmless. Hell, sometimes we all cheat a little bit and use the machines for personal use. Like sometimes I write one letter and copy it so I can send it out to several friends and relatives. So I felt that first I should find out what was being copied."

  Pearly pulled on the glasses and blinked as the room came into focus. He wished he didn't have to listen.

  "There's a second-image capability on both of the copiers in the vault, where duplicate copies are made and stored in a secure bin underneath. Normally we keep that function turned off because it's a pain to work with and just creates that much more classified waste. You've got to get into the bin to turn it on and off and to take out the extra copies, and if the bin gets full, it'll make the machine jam."

  "I forgot we even had that capability."

  "I don't think either Slye or O'Neil even know about it. Anyway, the last few nights before I left, I've been switching them both on and then checking in the morning what was in the bins against what was written down on the copier logs."

  Pearly nodded, hoping . . .

  "Mind if I smoke, sir?"

  "Go ahead." Pearly's voice came out strained.

  Turner lit up a cigarette and pondered. "When I checked this morning, I got a surprise."

  "What did you find?"

  "Our summary of next week's air tasking order. There was no mention on the copier log, but there it was."

  "Jesus! The entire summary?"

  "Just the first two pages. Dates, times, and target coordinates, Colonel."

  Pearly closed his eyes and his head sank into his hands.

  "Last night two guys worked late. Sergeant Slye and Airman O'Neil again. Unless someone else came in while they were working, one of them ran it off on the machine."

  Pearly raised his head. "And you're sure that neither had good reason to copy it?"

  "Positive. Neither has anything to do with targeting documents. O'Neil files changes and amendments to the OPlans, and Slye keeps track of the Top Secret documents."

  "Jesus," Pearly said again, for both positions gave the men access to highly classified documents.

  "You want me to go to the OSI with it, sir?"

  Pearly thought, then shook his head. "Not yet. I'll take it from here, Sergeant."

  Master Sergeant Turner looked relieved. "Anything else I can do to help?"

  Pearly gave him a wan smile. "Tell me none of this happened. That'll help."

  "I don't like it either, sir. I hope to hell it's something harmless."

  "You've done a good job, finding out what you have."

  "Both of those men work for me, and I feel like I've let you down by letting it happen, Colonel. I should've been more alert."

  Pearly pressed his glasses back firmly into place, thinking.

  "It won't happen again, I can assure you of that. I plan on being the last one out of the office from now on, and I won't let another ATO summary out of my sight."

  "Where do you keep them?"

  "Safe number two in the vault, sir. Second drawer."

  Pearly nodded, still thinking. Finally he said, "Well, we're going to play a little game before I turn this thing over to the spooks, Sarge."

  Turner raised an eyebrow.

  "I want you to type up a fake amendment to the tasking order, changing the targets, and put it into the file. Right in front where it can't be missed."

  Turner nodded.

  "Use these target coordinates." Pearly studied a wall map and determined the coordinates for first Phuc Yen and then Kien An air bases in North Vietnam, which he wrote down for Turner. Next he briefed the sergeant on further security precautions they'd take. When Turner left to type up the fake air tasking order amendment, the look on Pearly's face remained drawn.

  He'd keep the real ATO summaries in his own safe, to which only he had the combination. If the fake target coordinates were being provided to the enemy, there should be a hasty buildup of defenses around Phuc Yen and Kien An.

  If. . .

  He thought of the two men Turner had mentioned and found it hard to believe that either would do anything detrimental to their country like turn secrets over to an enemy.

  Sergeant Slye was a gangling farm boy from Arkansas who'd wanted to cross-train into a flight-crew job, but couldn't qualify because he couldn't swim. Since his rejection he'd become dejected and somewhat of an eight ball, but Pearly couldn't imagine his being conniving enough to steal secrets. He was just too naive and open.

  Airman First Class O'Neil was a hard worker, a Bostonian who'd told Pearly he wanted to return to school and finish his degree as soon he got out of the Air Force. Twice he'd saved his section from security write-ups by finding classified documents that others had left out.

  It had to be someone else. Perhaps it was just a mistake. God, but he hoped it was a mistake.

  But if the North Vietnamese started bringing in guns and SAMs and positioning them around their MiG bases at Phuc Yen and Kien An . . .

  1945 Local—Officers' Club Dining Room

  Captain Billy Bowes

  DeVera had asked him to join him for dinner. He seemed unhappy, not only about missing the target that morning, but about things in general. It was the first time Manny had confided his troubles, and Billy didn't feel good about being dumped on with all those woes. But he listened because Manny was a friend and because they were together in C-Flight. Lucky Anderson had built that into them, that they had to be able to rely upon and lean on one another. They missed his unique leadership style, glaring and gruff when they screwed up the essentials, giving encouragement when they needed it, understanding their faults on the ground but pressing for perfection in the air. "Like Major Lucky said . . . ," was uttered often within the group.

  "Remember when Major Lucky said he didn't like surprises?" Manny said. "Well, I've sure as hell learned what he meant."

  "He liked things to go smoothly," agreed Billy.

  "Standard mission was what he called the good ones," said Manny. "Meaning everything's covered in the flight briefing, and we perform according to the plan."

  Billy nodded.

  "Well, we didn't do that today," said DeVera with a discouraged look.

  "Don't beat on yourself," said Billy. "There's no way to dive-bomb a target when the weather's shitty and you can hardly see the thing. Like Major Foley said, it was a bad call even to try it. We shouldn't have pressed the weather."

  Manny was looking at him evenly, sort of hanging on to his words as if he needed them, which made Billy feel even more uneasy.

  Not far from them, seated at the colonels' reserved table, were Colonel Lyons and the blond Peace Corps administrator. Billy tried to remember her name . . . Jackie something? Lyons was acting especially possessive, which was likely for Manny's benefit. DeVera refused to look in their direction, like they weren't there.

  "You're assistant flight commander now, Billy," Manny was saying, "and I'm going to need all the help you can provide."

  "We'll all help. You know that."

  "But you in particular, Billy."

  Which made him feel uncomfortable again.

  "How're you with paperwork?" asked DeVera.

  "I hate the shit. We were swamped with it in Air Training Command, and I hoped it would be better once I got here. Henry Horn is the only one of the bunch who can write well."

  "Henry's got a lot more missions than the rest of us. He's at seventy-six now. Another few weeks and he'll be gone. You're
the one I'm gonna have to lean on for help."

  There was no way out of it. He paused before he said, "I'll help you get it done. But I gotta tell you, my spelling's not much better than Major Lucky's."

  DeVera forced a grin. Lucky was an atrocious wordsmith, and his spelling was worse.

  Billy stared down at his half-eaten hamburger. "Before you place too much trust, Manny, there's something else you should know."

  DeVera waited.

  "A couple months ago I bombed a target I shouldn't have."

  "The warehouses?"

  Billy lifted his vision and pinned him. "You knew?"

  "All of us knew. Henry, Joe Walker, Turk, all of us."

  Some secret, thought Billy. "I also hit what I thought was a weapons area near the docks at Thanh Hoa harbor."

  "I only knew about the warehouse. You're too good to miss that badly on a clear day."

  Billy felt defensive. "I can have a bad day with the best of 'em."

  "I haven't seen many. Major Lucky said you were the steadiest he'd ever seen under fire. None of us gave a shit about your private war, so long as no one else got the blame. Anyway, Henry told us you'd stopped it."

  Billy furrowed his brow, but he knew he had to say the words. "That last day, before Major Lucky was shot down . . . ?"

  "Yeah?"

  "He was all pissed off because I bombed a SAM site that may have been in the buffer zone. He said I was grounded, and I think he was about to turn me in."

  "He told the rest of us he was putting you in for a medal for it. He even asked Henry to help write it up, because he was along on the mission. He said he'd asked that you meet us when we landed, so Henry could get with you for the write-up."

  Billy Bowes thought about that. "I thought Henry was just covering for me in front of the colonel."

  "Henry thinks you're a shit-hot hero, and so does Smitty. Hell, especially Smitty. It was his ass you saved."

  Billy rubbed at his jaw. "Well, that does change things."

  "I told Henry to go ahead and submit the write-up. I think we can justify a Silver Star."

  "Forget the medal," Billy said. "Just knowing everything's okay is good enough."

  Manny DeVera paused, and when he spoke, his voice was very quiet. "You're cool as hell under fire, Billy. I'm not. In fact, there's something you should know about me."

  Billy Bowes sat back and observed Manny for a long moment, and somehow he knew that Manny DeVera was about to tell him he was a coward. He didn't believe it. Like the others in C-Flight, he knew Manny had a confidence problem, but he was no coward.

  Joe Walker had told him he thought it was worse for Manny than it would be with someone else, because he'd always been so macho confident and pushed himself so hard. Joe thought he was probably just having the same fears as most rational men but refused to accept it. Billy wasn't prepared to deal with anything as heavy as Manny was about to lay on him. There were too many crosses of his own to bear.

  He shook his head and said in a low voice, "Manny, I don't want to hear what you're trying to tell me."

  DeVera released a pent-up breath, looking relieved. "You're right. Some things are best left unsaid."

  "It's not that . . ."

  Smitty approached the table with a grin on his cherub's face.

  "The other guys and I are in the stag bar," he said. "You two want to join us?"

  "Sure," said Billy, happy to escape the conversation.

  Manny shook his head. "You guys go on. I'm going over to the squadron and do some catching up. The Bad Injin's turning out memos faster than I can file them."

  Colonel Lyons led Jackie Bell toward the door. She was laughing in a low voice, but she paused to cast a bold glance at their table. Manny pretended not to notice.

  1800 Local—San Francisco, California

  Julie Stewart

  When she turned off the water, she heard the telephone ringing in the next room. As she hurried out of the shower, she made the mistake of glancing at her pregnant body in the mirror. She shuddered, then quickly cloaked herself in the terry-cloth robe that hung beside the bathroom door.

  God, but she was obese.

  The telephone rang again, and she hurried, leaving a wet path.

  It was her mother, calling from her home in New Jersey. It was nine P.M. there, and she said she'd wanted to call before Julie went to bed.

  "The child's going to be a giant," her mother said. She'd examined the photograph Julie had sent with her last letter along with an airline ticket.

  "Just a second, Mom. I just crawled out of the shower and I've gotta dry off."

  She laid down the telephone and went, still dripping, into the bathroom and grabbed a towel, refusing to look in the mirror again. When she'd blotted off most of the water, she returned to the living room and picked up.

  "Sorry."

  "I was saying the child is going to be a giant."

  "Don't say 'child,' say 'he.' I want a boy, and I want him to be big and look just like his father. He was so handsome . . . I wish you could have met him, Mom."

  "His photos show he has big ears. I hope the child doesn't have big ears like that."

  "Mom!"

  "And you say he has bad vision."

  "One eye was nearsighted just enough to keep him out of pilot training. He didn't wear glasses unless he was driving or flying."

  She didn't tell her that Mal Stewart had been too vain to wear them.

  "Have you received any more word about him?"

  "They've still got him listed as missing in action."

  "Well, don't give up hope."

  Oh, God! Here it was again. "I told you, Mom. His friends who were there say he was killed."

  After the short pause she always gave, her mother said, "Sometimes they know things they can't tell the men. I'm sure if the Air Force was all that sure, they'd declare him dead. One thing I learned in my years as a military wife was that the Air Force takes care of their own. It would be cruel to let you go on hoping for no good reason."

  Julie's heart leapt again, as it often did when they talked. Was what her mother said true? But the men who'd been there said it wasn't, that he was dead.

  "I don't want you to give up hope, Julie. Not so long as they say he might be alive."

  "Mom, I know the Air Force says he's MIA, but his friends say he was killed, and they wouldn't lie to me." She paused, then cried out, "I just don't know, Mom!"

  Her mother changed the subject. She thanked Julie for the airline tickets she'd sent, and said she looked forward to coming out to stay with her during the delivery and to help take care of the infant.

  They talked for ten more minutes, but although she spoke words, Julie understood very little. She was too busy trying to keep the horrors about Mal Bear from her mind.

  After she hung up, Julie pulled off the robe and shower cap and finished drying herself. Then she powdered her pudgy body, careful to get under her breasts where a rash threatened to form. She examined herself and watched in fascination as the baby moved. She pulled on maternity pajamas, her fluffy pink mules, and an old, comfortable housecoat that tied at the throat and gaped at the belly because of her roundness.

  And all the while she tried hard not to think about what her mother had said.

  But the horrors won, as they always did.

  Could he be alive?

  They'd seen him surrounded by enemy soldiers, being mutilated, so they'd angrily bombed and strafed and killed everything down there.

  Had Mal somehow survived?

  Could he have escaped and be trying to get back to her? If he had, he was surely horribly maimed and in constant pain.

  She sobbed once, but caught herself.

  What was truth, when you just didn't know? It was . . . anything at all, whatever your imagination told you. She wished Benny would call so she could talk to him and hear his sure voice, but he was away in Saigon or somewhere, helping conduct the war.

  Wonderful, square, always pleasant Benny.

/>   He'd promised to be there when the baby came. That was good, for she'd need his strength. As much as she loved her mother, she wanted Benny to be there even more.

  One month to go, and it could not pass quickly enough. But what then? She wondered what kind of mother she would be, and that set her to worrying. Then she wondered what it would be like raising a boy without a father.

  If Mal was alive . . .

  But Colonel Mack and Major Sam Hall had written her and said he was not, and Benny had also said he could not possibly have lived through it.

  What was truth? You don't know. She cried, as she did every time after talking with her mother.

  The downstairs doorbell rang, and she wondered who it could be, since she wasn't expecting company. After a long moment of trying to pull herself together, she went to the door and pressed the intercom button.

  "Yes?" Her voice quavered.

  "It's Benny Lewis," said a pleasant male voice. "How do I work this thing so I can come up to visit?"

  She was still sniffing. "Benny?"

  "Yeah. How do I get in?"

  His voice thrilled her. "Benny!"

  She caught her breath, her heart bouncing around inside her like a Ping-Pong ball.

  "Just push the latch when you hear the buzzer," she cried out, then depressed the door-opener button as she looked wildly about the apartment.

  While he was coming upstairs, she busied around the room, picking up magazines and other signs of her sloppiness, wondering how her prayers had been answered so quickly. Staid, wonderful Benny, who was always there on the phone when she'd needed him.

  Mal Bear had called him square, but he'd done so with great fondness.

  She heard knocking at the door. She threw it open and grabbed him in a hug, then just as quickly released him. "Oh, damn! Did I hurt you?"

  He was grinning. "Hurt me again."

  "Silly." She showed him in.

  After a few steps he stopped and frowned. "Hey. What's wrong with your eyes?"

  "Nothing is wrong with my eyes. Now you go over to that couch and sit. How long have you been on your feet?"

  "Not long. I got a med-evac flight from Saigon to Travis, and they had me strapped to a mobile torture bed, just like at the hospital. I got to be miserable the entire trip."