That was when he heard the crack of ice on the wings.
There was no sound like it; no one could mistake it for anything else. He read the outside-temperature gauge: twenty-nine degrees, if the gauge could be relied on.
The gooney bird ran in and out of thick clouds. It slammed around in the air, unsettling him; he heard a splintering racket, a rending crack. It stretched through time like the magnified noise of a long sliver being pulled slowly away from a dry wooden board. The plane rocked. Flying ice banged against the fuselage like the sound of empty metal drums falling down a long cement stair. The plane lurched as it lost the weight of ice chunks; he felt the slow, hard pull of the controls that came from a thickness of ice blunting the leading edges of the wings.
And he was afraid.
Ice could coat the propellers. It could weigh down the wings. It could form on the windshield and blind him. It could fill the engine airscoops, blocking the flow of air to the carburetors and killing the engines. It could coat the ailerons and elevators, the vital control surfaces by which he guided his flight. It could do any of these things; it could do several of them; it could conceivably do all of them. That was ice. And he was afraid.
He sought clear air, but there was no open sky without wet, ice-forming clouds. It was a murky sky, and he flew alone with a shuddering, ox-like airplane and a dead companion and a sky full of ice. The weight of it was pulling him down toward the mountains; he had lost at least six hundred feet of altitude in ten minutes. He could not climb above the clouds—the gooney bird’s engines ran flat-out and only just kept it in the air at all.
He reached for the controls that operated the leading-edge ice bladders; they expanded slowly and contracted, breaking slabs of ice away from the wings. Enormous pieces of ice spun away. He heard them bang against the airplane, jarring his ears. The compass steadied, and he discovered he was pointed due north—north over China. To the west and south-west stood even higher mountains between him and the neutral safety of Laos. He knew, with a sudden calm certainty, that he would never make it to Laos. He would reach the end of his flight somewhere in the course of the next half-hour, hard against a mountain peak, driven down by a crucifix of ice.
At lower altitudes, the air would be warmer. He had to cross the shortest axis of the mountains and head down toward the lowlands—that would melt the plane free. He looked at the fuel gauges—maybe another hour’s gas. In any event, it was not enough to reach Laos even in good weather. He had spent too much time fighting ice and tired engines.
“Back we go, Mister.” He banked around and pointed the craft southeast. It flew sluggishly, ponderously, awkwardly; but it flew. Rocks of ice banged hollowly along the fuselage. His face prickled with cold; there was no feeling left in his hands. He had a strange involuntary daydream: an eternity of waxen dolls smiling with sadistic courtesy. He awoke with a start. A blade of ice ripped away from the groin of left wing and fuselage. It rattled back along the plane, and when it broke against the tailplane the gooney bird bucked and started to sideslip. He fought back on course, headed back the way he had come, toward the interior and, beyond that, the sea. He watched the altimeter closely, and he prayed.
Chapter Twenty-seven
1115 Hours
THE sky was cloudy still; there was no sun. Rain was a halfhearted trickle of droplets. The hum of an airplane was just audible, and Saville uttered a brief comment: “Think that’s McKuen?”
Nothing stirred in sight of the garage doorway; the city seemed a grave. There was a thin, distant rattle of gunfire, but it ended quickly. The city’s lights were out, all of them. J. D. Hooker uttered a short, dry laugh. “Captain, don’t worry about the puking flyer. With a thousand guns within a mile of us and we ain’t got a chance in a million of getting out of here.”
Saville said mildly, “Things are better than you think they are, Hooker.”
Corporal Smith sat by the truck. His head dropped back to rest against the tire. Sergeant Sun stood with a restless frown behind Saville and Hooker. Silence thickened, and then they heard the muffled tramp of quiet footsteps coming down the alley.
Tyreen turned into the garage. His mouth was clenched into a grim line. He crouched down, and Sergeant Khang came right behind him. Saville and Hooker and Sun completed the hunkered-down circle of men, and Tyreen spoke:
“It doesn’t look good.”
J. D. Hooker said, “What’d you expect, Colonel? A puking red carpet?”
Tyreen pointed to Sergeant Sun. “Close those doors.”
The light went down and out; they crouched in absolute darkness. “Parking lights,” said Tyreen. He heard someone picking a path across the floor. When the truck lights came on, he was surprised to see Corporal Smith getting out of the truck cab. Smith looked terrified. He came around and sat down directly beneath one of the softly glowing lights.
Tyreen drew a quick diagram on the floor. “This is the compound. Motor-pool buildings up on the hill here.” He ticked off locations on the square: “Barracks, supply sheds, artillery storage, ammunition dump outside here, weapons company set up alongside with mortars and mobile guns, more barracks over here, mess hall and kitchens. The whole east side of the compound looks like offices—headquarters, and things like that. Big parade ground in the middle, and the jail right down here, There’s a little shed inside with some noise coming out of it, probably a diesel generator to power the electric alarm fence. Any questions?”
J. D. Hooker said, “How many gooks we going to have to fight, Colonel?”
“Too many.”
“I’ll hold your coat,” Hooker said.
“We’ll have to divert them. The first job’s to find out where Captain Kreizler is right now. Sergeant Khang, that’s your assignment.”
Khang said, “I suppose I just walk down there and ask, huh?”
The floor was dirt. Tyreen said, “Mix some mud and smear it over the bullet holes in that jacket. You’re a guerrilla officer. A dai-uy in the Vietminh army. Did you find any papers in those clothes?”
“Not much. Guerrillas don’t monkey around much with written orders.” Khang took a small oilskin pouch from one pocket. It was scabbed with dry blood. “His name was Kao. Blood type, height and weight, description, fingerprints, all that jazz. I guess I can pass for him if they don’t take my prints. It doesn’t say anything about his mustache. But suppose I run into somebody that knew the cat?”
“Doubtful,” said Theodore Saville. “Long odds against that.”
“The papers say he came from Na Ranh. That’s twenty miles from here, no more than that.”
“That’s enough, in this jungle,” said Tyreen. “It will take you ten minutes to walk down there. You’ve got thirty-five minutes to get back here.”
“Then what?”
“We’ll move without you,” Tyreen said. “On the run, Sergeant.”
“More power to you,” Khang said, “as the fellow said to the cat on his way to the electric chair.” He walked to the door and lifted a hand. “See you guys around,” he said, and slipped outside.
“Now what?” said Theodore Saville.
Tyreen tried to blink tiredness out of his eyes. He said, “We clean our guns.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
1120 Hours
THE heat of the oil lamp burned against his face, and Eddie Kreizler sat half alive in the chair. The room moved crazily around him. He tossed his head back, throwing hair back from his eyes; he met the Vietnamese Colonel’s amused glance with unvanquished eyes.
Bruises were stiff all over his body. His nose was crushed against his face. Both arms throbbed, unwelcome parts of him. His right eye was half closed; his scalp was cut open, soft and sticky to the touch of a knuckle-crushed finger. His lips were squashed raw and stinging against his teeth. Dull red flames pulsed, coloring his vision.
The Colonel said, “My methods have been crude, wouldn’t you say, Captain?”
“Fuck yourself.” Kreizler could hardly talk.
“Be calm,” the Colonel purred. “My friend, you are letting the misguided blindness of your stupid loyalties lead you around like a trained bear. I would suggest for your consideration that the only way to preserve your own self-respect and freshness of character is to act impulsively. When a man stops to think about whether it is prudent, then he loses his dignity—he loses it to the dictates of caution and public opinion. Like most children, you have been trained to think in certain rigid patterns, and you have a dyspeptic terror of anything out of the ordinary—exactly like a spoiled child’s fear of new foods. I had hoped you were more imaginative.”
The Colonel chuckled politely. “Of course, you feel that I am not part of your world, that I have no business advising you. But the truth is that we all live in the same world. It’s easy enough to despise it, to be sure. But find yourself another one. The trick, my friend, is to make something of life as you find it. It’s no good hiding behind illusions—that’s a treadmill. The values that meant something in America mean nothing here. No one will condemn you for speaking up. I can promise you the greatest comforts. A soft bed, Captain. Medical attention, a pliable nurse perhaps. Good food and drink.”
Kreizler sat in his own pain as if it were excrement. His eyes were not focused. The Colonel leaned forward and slapped his face. “Please pay attention, Captain.” The voice was effeminate, soft, cajoling. “My methods of persuasion will become less subtle as the hours wear on. Do you honestly believe yourself capable of withstanding me?”
Kreizler purposefully concentrated on a haze of swaying recollected visions, colors dimmed by pain. He slumped. The lamp’s dusty shafts of chalk light fell on the Vietnamese Colonel’s complacent face, the uniform meticulously pressed, the black bill of his cap polished with wax, the hollows of the eyes glowing. The Colonel’s high-pitched voice suddenly thrashed at him:
“I lose patience with you, Captain! Resistance will gain you only unbearable pain. You must talk now.”
“Come ahead, then,” Kreizler said drunkenly. “Try me.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
1125 Hours
GRAVEN-FACED, Sergeant Khang squatted on the hill behind the battalion motor pool, fingering his jaw. The big truck park was almost deserted. A few soldiers moved around near the big repair garage, shifting in aimless patterns. Beyond and below, he had a vista of the garrison compound: drab, low buildings surrounding the muddy parade ground. The city climbed its slopes behind the garrison, sprawling across the hills; that was the way they had come, and the way they would have to leave.
He began to make his way down the mountain. His only weapon was an old Nambu automatic pistol, liberated from the dead North Vietnamese officer whose uniform he wore. He did not lift the Nambu from its brush-scarred leather scabbard. He walked boldly until he stood directly above the parking lot; across the tops of silent trucks he watched the soporific activity around the garage. He dropped onto the tarmac and threaded a path between rows of trucks and halftracks, jeeps and tanks. A vague plan of action took form in his mind. He circled the back of the garage and approached the front with a careless, mild air. Behind him he heard a side door latch open; he glanced around casually.
A stocky lieutenant emerged from the doorway, stiff and correct in a starched uniform. The Lieutenant lifted his hand to salute—an automatic gesture; then his hand became still, and his mouth twisted.
“Nguyen Khang!”
Sergeant Khang’s head rocked back. Panic froze him. He felt the hammer of his pulse; the crazy awareness of one thing seized his attention: it had stopped raining. He stood that way, baffled, and his mind grappled with a search of his memory, trying to recall when the rain had stopped.
The Lieutenant’s pistol came up. “So.”
“Luc Chau,” Khang said. His mouth clapped shut.
“I am.”
“Why do you put the gun on me?”
“Do you think I am a fool?” the Lieutenant demanded. “Where did you get that uniform?”
Sergeant Khang moved with care, turning his body around to face the man. “It is my uniform. I am a—”
“You are a liar,” said Lieutenant Chau. “Take out your pistol and drop it here.”
The Lieutenant walked forward. Nguyen Khang slowly withdrew the Nambu with thumb and forefinger and dropped it in front of him. All his Special Warfare training came back to him in a rush, and suddenly his greatest concern became the uncertainty whether one of the motor-pool soldiers might suddenly appear around the corner. No one was in sight. Lieutenant Chau said, “Colonel Trung will be very interested to see you. He will be pleased with my work.”
“You would sell your mother to Colonel Trung for a pat on the back from him. So Colonel Trung is here still?”
“He is our chief of intelligence.” Lieutenant Chau’s smile was a hard glisten of teeth. He held the gun steady on Khang’s chest while he stooped slowly to pick up the Nambu automatic.
The Lieutenant’s fingers touched the Nambu, and Sergeant Khang’s boot lashed forward. The heavy metal-soled jump boot cracked against Lieutenant Chau’s wrist. The pistol dropped. Chau shot upright; Sergeant Khang gripped the soft bill of the Lieutenant’s fatigue cap and jerked it savagely down over his eyes. Khang drove his bladed hand into Chau’s stomach, and when the man coughed, Khang wheeled behind him and took a precise grip on the back of his neck. It was an academic matter, then, the product of careful training—a few seconds of pressure on the carotid artery, behind the ear, produced immediate unconsciousness and quick death. There was not a sound.
Khang gathered the two pistols, slung the dead man across his back, and made a quick sprint for the nearest parked truck on the lot. He wasted no effort looking behind. If anyone caught sight of him, that would be the end of it. Looking around would not save him.
He dumped Lieutenant Chau into the back of the truck, climbed in, and gave himself a moment to breathe and sweat and calm himself.
He exchanged uniforms with the dead man, replacing Chau’s buttons with the captain’s insignia taken from the guerrilla officer; he emerged from the truck dressed in a fresh-pressed uniform. It was not even damp from the rain.
When he left the truck park, he walked with long strides directly across the compound. He hardly glanced at the wirefenced guardhouse.
He answered the transportation officer’s salute vaguely and glanced around the dingy office with the air of a man unconcerned and mild. “I prefer duty in Haiphong,” he said. “A man must become bored here.”
“I envy you,” said the transportation officer. “But one serves where one is needed.”
“Of course.”
“Our duty is to the state. One does not question the wisdom of the state.”
“Certainly,” said Sergeant Khang. He brushed imaginary lint from his jacket. “I have only stopped here to ask that you make ready a staff car. My orders are to escort Colonel Trung and the American prisoner to Hanoi for presentation to the intelligence officer of the Lao Dong.”
The transportation officer was a nervous little man with a small smear of a mustache. His eyes bulged like a hyperthyroid’s. “The Lao Dong? The American will be questioned by the Lao Dong?”
“By comrade Dinh himself,” said Khang, tossing off the statement.
“The American must be very valuable.”
“I suppose so,” said Khang. “I only obey my orders, you understand. You will have the staff car brought to the headquarters door at twenty minutes past noon precisely.”
“Not one minute later,” the transportation officer agreed eagerly.
Khang drew on his gloves and turned toward the door. He said casually, “Do you happen to know where the American prisoner is to be found?”
“I believe he is still being interrogated. By Colonel Trung himself.”
Khang nodded. His knees felt weak. “Thank you,” he said. “Twenty minutes past noon,” he added, and went out. The transportation officer’s voice followed him:
“Rely on me, Dai-uy.”
&n
bsp; Chapter Thirty
1135 Hours
MCKUEN eased the control yoke back. A yard-long chunk of ice broke off the port wing’s leading edge and clanged against some part of the fuselage. The plane dragged wearily against the air; ice, blunting the wings, reduced their lift, and he was burning fuel at a frightening rate. On its rubber mountings the panel of instruments vibrated, blurring the dials. A faint luminescence bloomed through the clouds—the sun trying to break through. He suffered an intense moment of heavy vibration, and then calm, with the engines throbbing in low-pitched struggle. The airspeed needle wavered between a hundred fifteen and a hundred twenty-five. Number two’s head-temperature had gone up fifteen degrees in as many minutes—indication enough that ice had begun to clog the airscoop. His mixtures were far too rich as it was; he dared not increase them. Slicing through the heavy sky, the props were barely visible; the exhausts were faint orange blossoms of light.
The plane lurched and righted itself. In a little while he would have to backfire number two to get rid of the ice in the air intake. He tightened his seat belt until he could feel its steady pressure on his belly. His lips were pressed together too tightly. He peered down through the window, trying to make out the ground, trying to find landmarks; but the ground was fogged in. All he could see was a secondary cloudbank unrolling beneath him.
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