by Tom Wilson
Manny radioed that the flights hadn't gained enough separation and were still crowded too closely together. Max called for his flight to accelerate and for the others to drop farther behind.
Abeam Thai Nguyen the second flight called a SAM launch, and by the time they'd dodged the missiles, they'd scattered almost as badly as the flak-suppression flight had.
Two pilots had punched off their bombs so they'd have better maneuvering energy. Which was shitty, because when you jettisoned your stores, you were wasting a planeload of bombs. Those two were now just along for the ride, thought Manny. Dropping the bombs and tanks was not necessary if you dodged the SAMs properly, as Major Lucky had taught C-Flight, and Manny decided to talk to the other guys about that.
"Red Dog three's got a MiG-17 in sight at our ten o'clock low, going away."
Billy Bowes, with his magical eyes.
"Roger three," replied Manny. "Keep your eye on him in case he turns back."
"Wilco."
He saw the target area up ahead. First the wide Red River, then the river Y and the smaller branch to the north, and finally the bridge that had been giving them such a hard time.
Max and his crew were there already, looking small in the sky as they hurtled earthward in their dive-bomb attacks.
"Red Dog four has a SAM activity light," called Smitty in a shaky voice.
No need to respond. If it changed to a LAUNCH light, he might worry about it.
Spouts of smoke and debris in the target area. Then great geysers where other bombs hit the water. He looked closer.
No hits by Max Foley's flight. The bridge appeared insolent down there, mocking them, impervious to their attempts.
The two aircraft of the second flight with bombs remaining were in the dive, each tracked by flurries of dark flak bursts. They missed the bridge, and so did the third flight. By then there was a lot of smoke lingering around the target, and from eyeballing the direction it blew, he'd judged the wind to be fifteen knots, east to west.
"Red Dog lead's in the dive," he announced, and rolled in.
A little shy of forty-five degrees. Which meant he'd adjust his sight picture just a bit, right?
Yeah.
He aimed thirty feet east of the bridge to compensate for the wind, added a couple more feet for the adjustment, and glanced back and forth from altimeter to his sight picture.
He did not jink, although they were shooting well and the flak was too damn close. He wanted very badly to knock down the bridge, and then he wanted never to return.
Steady, steady . . . now.
He released at 6,500 feet, smoothly stroked in the afterburner and jinked left as he waited, sinking lower until the afterburner kicked in and the aircraft began to accelerate and climb.
He raced toward the hills for a few seconds, then turned hard right and looked back.
Great spouts of water and debris from his bombs were still hanging in the air.
The bridge was down in its center!
Henry's bombs hit as he watched and went off just beside the bridge, so close that the fallen section from his own hit was blown sideward. The arch rocked and swayed, and then a second span fell.
C-Flight had knocked down two spans of the toughest bridge in North Vietnam.
He reversed his course and sped for the ridge, feeling jubilant.
1650 Local—Plans & Programs, HQ Seventh AF, Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Saigon
Lieutenant Colonel Pearly Gates
"General Moss wants to see you ASAP" the female staff sergeant called in to Pearly.
Pearly rose wearily and began to prepare himself mentally. For the past three weeks, following his revelation about the leak coming from his own office, his meetings with Moss had been strained. He trudged toward the general's office thinking of the good news he was bearing. The Takhli strike force had radioed a success code on the bridge at the Canales des Rapides. If the BDA photos confirmed it, that was very good.
If Moss fired him, at least he'd go out on a high note.
He entered the general's outer office and the secretary motioned.
"He's inside with Mr. Smith," she whispered, meaning he was with a CIA agent.
"Should I wait?" he asked.
"He wants you to go right in," she said.
He rapped once on the door, military style, and peered inside.
Moss waved vaguely at him. He was talking to a man wearing a short-sleeved bush jacket.
"You have any idea who it might be?" Moss was asking.
"Not yet. We'll find them, but they're elusive," said Mr. Smith.
Moss glanced at Pearly. "Mr. Smith thinks the information leak may still be open."
Pearly grew a heavy feeling in his chest. "Is classified information still getting out?"
Mr. Smith looked at him without expression.
Moss spoke to Smith. "You can talk in front of him. Go back over it again."
The agent's face remained impassive as he recounted his story. "For a while now we've had an API reporter under surveillance. Three months back he began sending in releases containing information he could only have gotten from the Cong, so we took a look. Couple of days ago we went through his apartment and found some interesting notes."
Pearly's heart began to pound. "You think he's the leak?" He prayed it was so.
"Probably part of it. He's been visited regularly by a known VC agent. A cabbie we used as a source from time to time until we learned we were being trick-fucked by the commies."
"Jesus," said Pearly, shaking his head.
"But the reporter doesn't have access to anything classified, so he's getting his information from someone inside the system. When we went into his apartment, we found notes written in two different hands. A few were written on notebook paper, with some drawings showing the perimeter defenses around the embassy compound. Then there were a bunch of old napkins with North Vietnamese coordinates."
Pearly tried to remain calm. "Could I get the coordinates?"
Mr. Smith glanced at the general.
Moss nodded.
The agent handed over a typewritten page, which Pearly examined. He went to the map on Moss's wall and moved his finger from one set of coordinates to the next.
Power plants, barracks, and rail sidings.
"Are those new targets?" asked Mr. Smith.
"Old ones," said Pearly. "We haven't hit most of them for months."
"You sure?" The agent looked discouraged.
Pearly nodded. He looked over at General Moss, wondering if he shouldn't tell the agent that someone in his office had copied target coordinates, that he'd run his own scam, and the North Vietnamese had moved their defenses accordingly.
Moss's face was neutral.
He'd told Pearly to handle the problem, and to do what's right.
Pearly withheld his secret.
The agent sighed. "Perhaps the ARVN major was the source of the leak after all. The time frame's right. Maybe he gave the coordinates to the reporter. Maybe. We're still wary. We can't find out how the major could have gotten access to targeting data. Can't figure out why he wouldn't have just gone directly to the VC. And it was the VC cabbie who gave the tip on him to the OSI."
Moss said, "Pick him up and question him."
"Killed himself, remember?"
"The reporter I mean."
"We've probably already overstepped ourselves by searching his place. The word's been passed straight from the State Department: Don't fuck with the press."
"Not even on something as serious as this?"
"No matter what."
"How about the VC cab driver?"
"Went underground. We can't locate him."
Moss pursed his lips. "So where do you go from here?"
"Keep the reporter under surveillance. See where he goes, who he meets with. Next time the Vietnamese kick reporters out of the country, we'll make sure he's on the list."
The CIA agent turned to Pearly then, as if he'd remembered something. "You got a guy
named Slye working for you? A staff sergeant?"
Pearly nodded, trying not to betray his excitement. Slye, the Arkansas farm boy turned barracks lawyer, was the one he'd come to suspect. He sorely wanted the CIA, or someone, to take over the problem and do the right thing for him.
"Slye was on our original long list of possibles. Then he was reported to be hanging around in Cholon at a couple of the off-limits bars, so we took a look."
Pearly waited expectantly.
"He's clean. Slye gets taken by the whores downtown, but the only crime he's committing is inflating the prices for the other guys. He made no contacts with anyone, including the API reporter. When we planted a bar-girl, he paid her double the going rate for a short time and wouldn't tell her anything when she pressed him. Said he was a cook and didn't know any secrets and paid her double for another hour. I think the poor bastard fell in love. Keeps going back to the same sleazy bar looking for her."
Pearly frowned. With Slye out of the picture, that left O'Neil, and he could not believe the serious-minded airman would do anything to betray his country. Gates had all but cleared him of suspicion and even now had doubts.
Moss thanked the CIA agent. He shook hands and left.
When they were alone, Moss took a paper from his desk drawer and looked at the two names Pearly had given him.
"Eliminates one of your suspects, doesn't it?"
"It would appear to, sir."
"Don't take much longer deciding, Pearly."
"No, sir."
Moss's voice changed tone. "Anything new?"
"Takhli reported a success code against the Canales bridge."
"Finally."
They talked about the CROSSFIRE ZULU campaign, and Moss was almost back to his old self, interjecting philosophies and war stories here and there.
"Any news about Lucky Anderson?" Moss finally asked.
"A couple of radio calls, but they still don't have his location. Intell thinks he's either on Thud Ridge or out in the Red River Valley, but they're not sure."
"He's still evading?"
"Yes, sir. As of yesterday anyway. They picked up a weak radio transmission."
"Damn near a month now since he went down."
"Almost."
"Anything you find out, make sure you pass to me."
"Yes, sir, I will." Pearly rose to his feet.
"Call B. J. Parker and congratulate his wing on knocking down the Canales bridge," said Moss as Pearly was leaving. "That was good work."
As Pearly returned to his floor, his mind was flooded with thoughts of doing "the right thing," to appease both General Moss and his own wounded soul.
Forty men had been shot down because of the security leak. If the normal rate was applied, that meant ten men were dead, fifteen captured and in prison, and fifteen rescued. And if the normal rate applied, more than half of those rescued had been injured during ejection.
Do the right thing.
"Sir?" asked a voice.
He raised his eyes and focused through the thick lenses.
Airman O'Neil was before him, his uniform and bearing correct as usual, his look more serious than normal.
"Sorry. Caught me deep in thought," Pearly muttered apologetically.
"I just wanted you to know, sir, that I've changed my mind about the commissioning program that Master Sergeant Turner talked to me about earlier. I plan to go to personnel and apply first thing in the morning, if I can get the time off."
Pearly swallowed and tried to smile, tried not to look the least bit suspicious. "If you can qualify, it'll mean the Air Force will send you to your last two years of school."
"I've thought about it a lot recently. I like the Air Force and believe I'd like to make it a career."
"I'm . . . ah . . . very pleased."
"I respect both you and Sergeant Turner for working with me like you have. It'll make me work harder in the program, to prove that neither of you have misplaced your trust."
"I appreciate that."
"By the way, sir. Sergeant Slye and I have just about finished the project Sergeant Turner gave us. Going over the outdated amendments, I mean."
"And what do you think of working with Staff Sergeant Slye?"
O'Neil hesitated. "The truth, sir?"
"The truth."
"Sometimes he's a little too sloppy with classified material, and he asks too many questions about things he should have no interest in. Other than that and coming in hung over every morning, I guess he's okay."
"What kind of questions does he ask?"
"Oh, about targets, things like that."
"But you didn't tell him anything, did you?"
"Of course not, sir. He has no need to know, but he seemed to have a lot of information about them already. He's sort of spooky."
"Thanks for the information."
"I've said too much, Colonel. I certainly don't mean to get Sergeant Slye in trouble."
"Don't worry about it. I'm not the kind to act rashly. But keep me advised if you see anything else out of the ordinary, okay?"
"Yes, sir. I will."
Pearly continued toward his office, his mind busy with what he'd just heard.
Was what O'Neil told him about Sergeant Slye true? Could the CIA have erred about Slye? Or was O'Neil aware they were closing in and trying to cast doubts about others?
Do the right thing.
What the hell was the right thing?
1945 Local—Officers' Club Stag Bar, Takhli RTAFB, Thailand
Captain Billy Bowes
"Scratch one gomer bridge," Manny DeVera said proudly.
"Not bad," said Billy with a wry look, "if we don't count all the times we went there."
"Two spans down," crowed Manny, ignoring him.
"I'd've hit the damn bridge too, if you guys hadn't hid the thing in the water," joked Billy. Which was right, because his bombs had hit in the void where the two spans had stood.
"God I wish Major Lucky and Turk Tatro were here," said Henry Horn.
"An Bob Lieb . . . Liebermann," added Joe Walker.
Joe was more inebriated than Billy could ever remember seeing him, and it wasn't yet eight o'clock. Joe's bombs had destroyed the southern approach to the bridge.
"The thing is totally, fucking unusable," said Manny. "They're gonna play hell fixing that sucker like they do the Doumer bridge."
Joe Walker looked at Billy just a little cross-eyed. "Nex' time we go back to the Doumer, le's fix that bastard too."
"You do it by yourself, Joe," said Billy. "I'm tired of going there."
Joe looked hurt that Billy didn't want to join him.
"Hey, man," said Horn. "You want to go there again, let me know."
Joe turned to Henry, who'd been his friend since their first year at the Academy.
"You'll go with me, won' you, Henry?" asked Joe.
"Fuck no," said Horn with an amazed look, "but I'll wave when you take off."
They all laughed, especially when Joe Walker poured his beer over Henry Horn's head. Henry sputtered and blew, and said Manny DeVera was laughing too hard and poured his glass of whiskey on his head. Then Manny doused Billy with his sticky Scotch and Drambuie MiG-15, and not to be outdone, Billy poured his whiskey on Joe, who was laughing so hard that he hardly noticed.
"You started it, Joe. You buy the next round," said Manny.
"That's not fair," said Joe. "Hell, I'm the one who missed the fucking bridge."
"Then you sure as hell ought to buy," said Henry, "just for the privilege of drinking with your betters."
"Look here, honkie boy," said Joe Walker, "you keep it up and I'll personally teach you about war."
"What the fuck's a honkie?" asked Billy suspiciously.
"You don't know?" asked Joe.
"No. Something new?"
Joe Walker looked amazed that anyone could be so dumb. "Honkie's what the blacks are calling white boys back in the States," he said.
Billy was more than a bit drunk himself. He dre
w himself up and glared. "So what are they calling Indians?" he demanded.
A pilot turned to them from the bar, offering a sad look. "I heard about the Bad Injin," he said. "Too bad."
"I'm confused," said Henry. "Who said anything about the Bad Injin?"
Joe and Henry looked at one another, shaking their heads.
"Who gives a fuck about the Bad Injin?" growled Billy Bowes to the pilot who'd offered his condolence.
The pilot gave them a mean look, as if they'd committed sacrilege.
Joe and Henry began to laugh.
"Silly fucker should've got himself killed earlier, giving Indians a bad name like that," Billy muttered darkly.
That started the C-Flight lieutenants laughing harder. Everything seemed hilarious to the two. If someone had told them the Russians had nuked Washington, they'd have laughed.
Billy looked disgustedly at them, then turned to Manny. "I heard you sweet-talking and spouting bullshit on the phone. Was that your Peace Corps dolly?"
"Maybe," said Manny, looking innocent.
"Everybody's sure getting tired of seeing Lyons hustling her," said Billy. "About time you took her back."
Manny shrugged, but a smile was growing.
"You headed up to her camp?"
"No."
"You oughta. We're not on the morning schedule."
"She's coming here," said Manny.
Billy nodded, feeling better about it. Lyons was a true asshole. With him skulking around trying to catch someone bombing a restricted target, everyone was worried he might settle on them. He didn't deserve to be squiring a pretty girl around as he was doing.
2320 Local—Guest Trailer
Captain Manny DeVera
Although they'd been in the trailer for no more than an hour, she'd already demonstrated her ankle-grabbing trick twice. Now she was on top, rocking ever so slightly, and he was just beginning to grow to the occasion when she decided it was time to discuss things between them.
"Let's talk later," he said in a gravel voice.
She rocked and worked the muscles, and made him groan.
"Damn," he hissed. "That's wonderful."
She pushed and squirmed until she had him fully inside, into the hot center of her, and then shuddered and cried out for a while before she slowly began to milk him again.
When he'd finished, she became very still.