by Tom Wilson
He heard a distant whump-whump-whump, then much louder sounds as some of the nearer guns began firing.
The noise became deafening.
Lucky almost looked up to see what they were shooting at, but returned to his senses. He clapped on the gomer hat and held it in place as he ran toward the highway. He couldn't think of a better time to cross the highway.
He hurried faster.
A tremendous roar and a crack so loud it made him stumble and clutch his ears. Jesus! Then a second SAM passed overhead, and he regained his composure and was again running hard when the third one created its sonic boom.
He crossed the road, heard loud yelling coming from the nearest gun position as the men worked, then an ear-shattering BA-BOOM, BA-BOOM, BA-BOOM as their gun fired in concert with the others.
He almost fell into a gun pit filled with two soldiers manning one of the smaller guns, changed directions and intercepted a farm road and ran even harder down it, continued until the sounds of the guns stopped. He ran on until he saw people on the road in the distance. That was when he finally slowed to a walk.
He adjusted his hat so it would perch in place and stalked off the road, past a farmhouse toward a raised dike, hoping it held a reservoir or canal to serve as his bedroom.
Dumb shit, he started to grumble at himself as he climbed the dike and examined the reservoir there. Then he revised his estimate. He was full of gomer chicken, felt almost human, and he'd crossed the big, busy highway.
He found a suitable patch of reeds and peered back over the dike. He was far enough from the farmhouses. While he continued to watch for people, he fieldstripped the Phoenix Special and placed it and the matches into the plastic pouch.
Five minutes later he saw a second strike force in the distance. He pulled out his radio, selected 243.0, ensured the volume was very low, and transmitted.
"F-105's, this is Barracuda lead, transmitting in the blind," he radioed.
After a couple of tries he contacted them and told them he was still evading. He ended his transmission by telling them, "It won't be much longer now until I'm ready."
His contact asked something, but he was through, and he carefully shut off his final radio to conserve its battery.
1500 Local—MAC-SOG Liaison Office, Danang Air Base, South Vietnam
Sergeant First Class David Bowes
Bowes worked as an administrative NCO at the MAC-SOG liaison office at Danang, a three-man group formed to coordinate air support for Special Forces A- and B-Team operations. The previous week he'd received a call on the scrambled, secure phone from his cousin at Takhli, and this morning he'd received another, and both times he'd told Billy there was nothing his group could do about the problem.
"I don't think there's any way we can find out where he is," he'd told Billy, and he'd told the truth. He had tried to get the people at the Monkey Mountain communications site to help, but they'd told him they had other priorities.
"If we can find out where he is, you think there's any chance your people could go in and get him out?" Billy had asked.
"We don't operate up there," David had told him for the third or fourth time, "because of an executive order against offensive ground operations inside North Vietnam."
Billy had sounded discouraged.
David hated that, for he'd liked Billy ever since he'd been a cocky young kid. He and Mal Stewart, another cousin, who'd been only a year younger than David, had agreed that Billy had the intelligence and drive to get a college education.
Before he'd enlisted in the Army, David had talked to Billy's high-school teachers and asked them to keep encouraging him, and he'd told Mal to keep him advised on Billy's progress. Later, when Billy won his scholarship to Oke U, both he and Mal, who'd enlisted in the Air Force by then, had helped with letters of encouragement and whatever meager amounts of money they could spare. Then Billy had been enrolled in Air Force ROTC, and the U.S. government had taken over the financial load of Billy's education.
It had been a proud day when he and Mal—Mal not long out of OCS and wearing lieutenant's bars, and he the stripes of a Spec-4—had attended the graduation at the Norman campus. It had surprised no one when Billy announced his intent to attend pilot training.
Theirs was a close-knit family. When Billy's brother and then Mal had been killed in action, flurries of letters and telephone calls of anger, compassion, and support had been circulated. Certain things had been instilled in each of the clan members. Among them were dictums always to honor blood ties and never to lie to one another.
But now it had been necessary to lie to his younger cousin, for it was closely held that Special Ops aircraft based at Nha Trang periodically did insert long range recon patrols into North Vietnam. The missions of the groups, called India Teams by the Air Force and by their recon-team code names by the Special Forces coordinators were so closely held that David seldom knew what was going on. The fact that the teams even existed was classified, but he did know a few of the members.
Special Forces recon teams were normally inserted to operate in the sparsely populated southern regions of North Vietnam. Farther north there were supposedly only the indigenous teams, meaning NVA soldiers who were at least thought to have been turned, but neither the brass nor anyone else trusted them. And of course that was where they'd have to operate if they were to find Billy's flight commander.
There was one team leader he mentally zeroed in on. A shadowy fellow called Black, who he'd heard led a unique recon team named Hotdog, and who was presently on temporary duty at Danang.
Sergeant Black was not the man's real name and possibly not his rank. David Bowes did not even know if Sergeant Black was in the military or was perhaps some kind of civilian spook agent. He did know that he was considered capable, one of the best at whatever he did, and that his team had been dropped into and extracted from somewhere on previous occasions. The locations were so closely held that David hadn't known where they'd operated, but from the security level alone he felt it must have been an interesting locale.
Shooting in the blind, David called over to the Special Forces camp, dubbed the NCC, for Sergeant Black.
Half an hour later a man wearing civilian clothing came into his office and dropped into a chair. He looked at David Bowes with dark and expressionless eyes.
"You wanted to see me?"
Hell, thought David, I don't even know if the bastard's an American. He looked a bit Japanese, but he was too stocky and thick-chested. He had a Caucasian's nose, but his face was round and his eyes Asian. He looked a little Negroid, but his hair was straight as a shock of black wheat.
Sergeant Black
Sergeant Black was all-American. Not only did his eyes get misty when he heard "The Star Spangled Banner," he knew every word of his anthem. He could quote the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address verbatim, and felt honored to be accorded the privilege of fighting for the finest country ever to appear on planet earth.
He had royalty in his bloodline, in murky but traceable lineage back to King Kamehameha I, the most resolute and capable leader to emerge from a long line of tough Polynesian warrior kings. He also had a smattering of Portuguese and Japanese blood, from ancestors brought in to work the huge Hawaiian plantations on Lanai and the big island, as well as a dash from an early-American missionary who had dallied too long with a convert.
He'd joined the military as a young man in trouble with the Honolulu law, told either to enlist or face charges for the beating of a haole tourist who'd tried to force himself on his sister. No choice at all there, so he'd dropped out of his first year at the University of Hawaii and said hello to a grinning Army recruiter.
He loved the United States Army as much as he loved America, for to him they were inseparable, so it turned out not a marriage of convenience but one of love. He liked to think he was the best in the world at what he did, which was to covertly find out what the enemy was up to without getting his team compromised. So far he had been pro
moted, awarded a Silver Star Medal, and put in for a Distinguished Service Cross, so someone up there agreed.
He lounged in the chair as he heard what SFC Bowes had to say, and felt his interest grow.
"This guy's got a badly burned face, you say?"
"From an aircraft fire of some kind," said David Bowes. "I met him once and he looks like shit, but he doesn't seem to let it bother him."
"And now he's trying to make his way across the Hong Valley?"
"They think he's somewhere there. He's been on the run for two weeks, and the North Vietnamese don't have a good fix on him, but we don't know exactly where he is either, because he's smart enough not to give his location over the radio."
"So what do you want from me?" asked the man called Sergeant Black.
David Bowes looked at him squarely. "I can't ask for a damn thing except your interest."
"You got it. I admire this Anderson guy's balls." He stood up to leave. "Keep me informed, Sarge."
"Will do." Then Bowes looked askance at him. "Tell me what the fuck your rank is, Black, so I'll know how to talk to you."
"You already know. Shit, man, you called me sergeant, didn't you?"
"Yeah, but are you a fucking E-4 or an E-7 or what? Hell, maybe I'm overstepping myself by even talking to you like this."
"I think you're doing just fine, Sarge." He nodded pleasantly. The United States Army captain called Sergeant Black quietly left, thinking it might be interesting to find out more about Major Lucky Anderson.
Black's bunch of renegades, the recon team code-named Hotdog, was being prepared for insertion on a very interesting mission up north, but it might be several weeks before they'd be given the green light. Timing was everything in the world of Special Operations, and they didn't dare rush things.
Too bad, he thought. By the time they were dropped in, Anderson would likely be captured.
He tried to push the matter from his mind, but the image of the faceless American pilot came back to him. While it was highly unlikely he would make it across the Red River Valley, it would sure feel good to help him get out if he did.
Before returning to the NCC and his men, Black looked up his contact at Monkey Mountain, the hill at one side of the big base from which bristled hundreds of camouflaged antennae. From Monkey Mountain the Army Security Agency, Air Force Communications Service, and National Security Agency people monitored radio transmissions from South and North Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and southern China.
Sergeant Black asked his ASA contact for a private favor, to advise him of any radio transmissions to or from a downed pilot, call sign "Barracuda lead," on the survival-radio frequencies. He wanted a position and anything else they could give him.
The Monkey Mountain spook said he'd try to work it in, but he doubted they could spare the receiver time to scan the five frequencies and try to get a positive position. Priorities already had them working overtime, he said.
"When can you spare the receiver time?" asked Sergeant Black.
All he received was a slow shake of the head and a raised eyebrow.
They bartered.
Black promised him ten watermelons from the bunch they were flying in from the Special Forces camp at Nakhon Phanom, Thailand. The watermelons from NKP were especially sweet and juicy and were treasured by Americans throughout Southeast Asia.
The spook said his men would make time for Black's request.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Friday, September 8th, 1350 Local—Route Pack Six, North Vietnam
Captain Billy Bowes
They were Red Dog flight, and again they were going after the damned bridge over the Canales des Rapides, which still hadn't been knocked down. Takhli had been sicced on the thing six times, Korat five times, Ubon once, and the Navy a couple of times, but no one had hit it.
In the meantime they'd gone back to destroy another span of the Doumer bridge, which must have been frustrating to the gomers who'd worked like dogged machines to repair it. They had also successfully bombed two other bridges. But the damned Canales bridge was small, elusive, and tough.
The saying went around that the world was hinged by the Canales bridge, and if they destroyed it, the world would come apart, and that was why the gomers had about 200 big guns protecting it.
They'd laughed, and then they'd gone out and lost another pilot and missed again.
Today they would succeed. Billy Bowes felt it, even though he was nursing an engine that refused to develop sufficient thrust. It was a bird that had just been assigned to Sergeant Hughes to replace 820, and Hughes hadn't yet had time to perform his magic. The crew chief had told him he didn't trust the damned airplane, that he just didn't have a good feel for it yet. He'd wanted Bowes to take a spare aircraft instead, but Billy had insisted. He liked flying his own airplane, with his and Hughes's names painted on the canopy rail.
After start-up Billy had seriously considered aborting when his engine-pressure ratio had been low. Also the engine decay—the rate of RPM drop-off when he chopped the throttle to idle—had been poor. But the outside temperature had been cooler than normal, and he'd talked himself into making the takeoff since it shouldn't take quite as much runway as usual.
He'd regretted the decision during takeoff roll, when the Thud accelerated slowly and he'd kept rolling and rolling down the runway. He'd lifted off when he could see only green and no more concrete before him, and then had trouble keeping the damned Thud airborne.
Too close, he'd nagged himself as he finally joined up with lead five miles north of Takhli. But since then, except for the fact that it didn't want to develop enough power, he'd not had trouble with the engine.
They crossed the muddy Red River, with Red Dog at the tail end of the gaggle, and listened to the Weasel flight as they started to work the SAMs in the valley ahead. The Wild Weasel pilot reported that two sites were active between the Red River and Thud Ridge.
The strike force commander was John Encinos, their squadron commander whom the guys called Bad Injin, a nickname that made Billy bristle and think of his Cherokee blood whenever he heard it. Encinos was very quiet. Probably, Billy thought, because he was scared shitless.
It was one of the few times they'd seen him fly this far north, and certainly the first time he'd led a mission in pack six. Normally he'd put himself on the pack-six schedule only when the weather was so shitty over Hanoi, he knew they weren't really going to be bombing there. This time he'd been on the schedule for an easy flight to pack two, but the target had been changed and he'd been trapped, because B. J. Parker had been in the command post watching.
One of the pilots had snickered about it, and said it was going to be hard for the Bad Injin to fake it with the North Vietnamese shooting at him.
So far Encinos had remained very quiet, providing neither leadership nor interference with the flight leads' calls.
The two Fansong SAM radars began flickering their strobes on the RHAW scope, and Billy found himself getting edgy. Dodging SAMs took a lot of maneuvering energy, and with the reduced power he was getting, he wondered if it wasn't time to call Manny and tell him about his Thud's marginal engine. But if he told him, Manny would send him back with Smitty, and that would reduce their chances for a successful mission by that much. After thinking about it, he decided he could make it okay.
Someone up ahead in the flak-suppression flight, led by Colonel Encinos, called that they had a valid SAM launch.
Billy kept his eyes peeled forward for a moment, looking for the SAMs and for the flight up there. He found the Thuds in the distance, four winged specks on the horizon approaching the midpoint of Thud Ridge. Then the dots begin to scatter like startled quail.
No orderly calls and maneuvering, just three aircraft breaking away from one of them who just continued jinking wildly from side to side but not changing his flight pattern.
Break! Billy started to call, because he could see the first SAM coming up, darting toward the lone Thud at great speed.
Some
one beat him to it. "SAM, Falcon lead. Break!"
But by the time the words were out, the first SAM explosion had momentarily engulfed the Thud. The airplane emerged and flew on, now straight ahead and not jinking at all. Then two more SAMs hit the bird, one after the other. John Encinos's aircraft was torched by the second SAM, and the third one burst it into a thousand pieces.
The SAM operator had scored three hits with three SAMs, all on the same target.
Overkill, thought Billy.
The largest chunks were visible, burning and tumbling earthward. There were no sounds of an emergency beeper, so one of the falling pieces was the Bad Injin in his seat.
The remaining three ships of the flak-suppression flight turned for home, for they'd jettisoned their CBUs and tanks when they'd dodged the SAMs.
Billy Bowes looked about the sky, scanning for MiGs. His gaze finally settled on his wingman, Smitty.
"Move it out a little farther, Red Dog four," he called tersely.
Captain Manny DeVera
Manny was horrified by the scene played out by Bad Injin and the SAMs, but did not dare let his mind ponder it.
Remember what Lucky told you, he thought. Concentrate on what you'll do.
Today the damned bridge was going down, period.
They flew past the Ridge, and then five miles farther before the flights, one by one, turned southward.
They would bomb the bridge from east to west, pause to rejoin over the ridge, then skedaddle back across the Red. Manny's Red Dogs would be the last strike flight on target, and last out of the valley.
The Bad Injin hadn't briefed it that way. He'd just kept asking the flight leaders how they intended to do things, and even Lieutenant DeWalt had been embarrassed by his indecision. Finally Max Foley and Manny had stood up and taken over, and had gotten a plan together. Max was leading the first strike flight, he the last, so they figured they could keep a good watch over the two flights in between and get it all to come out reasonably well.