by Eric Meyer
A small town, and they wouldn't have to look too far. Although the more I thought about it, the more I reasoned they wouldn't need to know we'd gone up there. Always assuming Ray’s CIA Air America contacts could be relied on to keep their mouths shut, and if anyone should know how to keep their mouth shut, surely it would be a CIA operative. I didn't expect him back any time soon, needed sleep, and I was exhausted. First I looked at Le, and she was drifting in and out of sleep. She'd had a harder time than I'd realized, and I worried about internal damage to her vital organs. But getting her to hospital to be checked out was out of the question. The Saigon cops knew what state she was in after the beating they'd given her, and the hospitals would be the first places they'd stake out. Especially if they were worried about her passing on what she knew about the plot to kill the President.
Lam was sitting next to her, trying to comfort her, and she looked up at me. "She needs rest, that's all. I'm sure she'll recover after a few days."
I told her I’d stretch out on the floor, and she said she'd call me if anything happened. I lay down on the threadbare carpet, trying to ignore the stench of stale sweat and spilled booze. I was asleep in seconds, and when I awoke, to my astonishment it was almost dark. I'd been out for the rest of the day, and now it was early evening. I’d come awake when the door had opened and slammed shut. Ray Massey was back.
"I fixed it."
"They'll take us?"
"Sure, they've agreed." He paused for a few seconds, "Only, there is one small problem. They have to make a stop on the way. The aircraft in question is a Fairchild Provider XC-123A. It's perfect for operating from rough strips. Short takeoff and land, the pilot said he could put it down on a baseball diamond."
I ignored the typical hotshot bravado, and I was already beginning to sense the small problem was about to prove much bigger. "This stop on the way, where is it?"
He kept his voice casual. "It's the Central Highlands, hill country, Montagnard territory, close to the Laotian border. They're dropping off arms and supplies to some of the locals who're helping us, but it’s just a minor diversion."
"They're planning to land up in the mountains? Do they have an airstrip up there?"
He waved the question away. "Kind of, they've leveled a field, and they've used it before for this kind of operation."
"Isn't the Fairchild Provider a large aircraft to put down in a field on top of the mountain?"
"They say it shouldn't be a problem. Once they've unloaded the Agent Orange the aircraft will be much lighter. Besides, it’s a jet. They say it can take off from your front lawn. Or a small field on top of a mountain.”
“What’s this about Agent Orange?"
A shrug. "They use this Provider to drop the chemical on unsuspected Vietcong positions. It’s just routine."
I nodded. "Okay, let me get this straight. Somehow we have to break into Tan Son Nhut to reach this aircraft. Which will be loaded with arms and supplies for the Montagnards, with a tank full of Agent Orange to unload on the way. When we reach the Central Highlands, we’ll be landing in a field on top of the mountain. After that, we have a clear run to Dong Ha."
He grinned. “You got it. Piece of cake.”
“She will have to come with us.”
I looked at Lam, who was holding her sister’s hand. “She’s in no fit state to go anywhere.”
Abruptly, Le raised herself on the bed and propped herself on one elbow. “Mr. Yeager, I don’t have any choice. How long do we have this room for?”
“Well, uh, twenty-four hours.”
“And after that? With every cop in the city hunting me down, where do I go?”
“You’re really are in no fit state to make the trip, Le.”
“You’d let them recapture me, and subject me to another beating? Before they decide to kill me?”
“You’re not fit…”
“I am a Sub-Inspector of the National Police Field Force, and this is my duty.”
Lam looked at me. “You won’t change her mind, not when she is like this.”
There’re times when you wish you’d never opened your eyes in the morning to face the shitstorm that awaits you, and this was one of those times. We argued back and forth, and the atmosphere in the room became heated. At one stage she even threatened to arrest us all, although the moment the words were out of her mouth, we fell into laughter. But she had a point, we couldn’t leave her in this stinking room at the rear of a brothel, and if she tried to hide anywhere in Saigon she’d be fair game. Sooner or later they’d find her, and they’d give her a hard time.
“Ray, how do we get to this aircraft? We’re not exactly welcome inside Tan Son Nhut.”
He frowned. “We’ll talk to Brett Barnes, he’s the pilot. He’s very resourceful, and he’s sure to have an idea. I’ll go and give him a call.”
He came back almost an hour later, but he didn’t look happy. “I got through to him.”
“Good. And?”
“He’s drunk. I can’t make any sense of what he’s saying. We’ll have to wait until he’s sober.”
“We can’t wait, half the cops in Saigon are chasing us.”
“We may not have a choice.”
“Then we’re screwed.”
Chapter Six
We found Brett Barnes seated at a table in a dimly lit bar, drinking heavily, and he gave Ray a lopsided grin as he threw out a hand and almost overbalanced off the chair. He was lean and lanky, and unlike most men in Vietnam who served in the military, he wore his hair long in a ponytail, like a hippy. Ray introduced us.
“Guys, this is Brett Barnes. He flies for Air America. Brett, this is Carl Yeager, and two good friends of mine, Van Le and Van Lam. They’re cops.”
A shrug. “It takes all sorts.” He smiled at the girls and winced when he made out the marks on Le’s face. “Damn, it looks like they give you a hard time in the Saigon police. I can promise you a much better time, and I have all night to show you.”
I decided it was time to get some sense through his alcohol sodden skull. “It’s about that ride to Dong Ha, Ray called earlier.”
He was knocking back a large glass of what looked like whiskey, and he choked and sprayed booze over the table. “What business do you have in Dong Ha?”
“Our business.”
“It always is. Okay, I’m due to take off at 07.00. If you want a ride, I’m always glad of some extra company. Usually, it’s just me and Vince, and he doesn’t speak much English.”
“Vince?”
“He’s a Montagnard, works for the agency.” He chuckled, “His name isn’t Vince. It’s some weird Montagnard thing, but it sounds like Vince, so that’s what I call him. He’s a good guy, handy with a gun. You never know when you land somewhere out in the boonies who’s gonna be waiting for you.”
“So he’s a bodyguard.”
“Kind of. He kills people. Usually the people I tell him to kill, but not always.”
“He sounds like a piece of work.”
“He’s fine, just so long as you stay on the right side of him. These Montagnards can be touchy, but they’re useful people to know. They hate the Communists.”
“That must appeal to the brass, a ready-made army.”
“It does, and that’s why I’m ferrying weapons and equipment up there, a gift from Uncle Sam, and an orange shower for Charlie. I take it you can’t show yourselves at the gate to the airfield?”
“Me and Le are on the immediate arrest list.”
“I guessed it’d be something like that. I can call a cab and pay the driver a few bucks to hide you in the trunk. Lam can go in openly as a bargirl. Ray, are you kosher with the cops?”
“So far, yeah.”
“Okay, I’ll call the cab for 05.00, so be ready to leave.”
The bar seemed as good a place as any. “We’ll stay here. It’s better than showing ourselves outside. What about you, where will you be?”
“Right here. Flying these missions can be dicey, you never know
when the next flight could be your last, and so I like to get in as much drinking as I can. If you’re staying, I’ll order another bottle of whiskey.”
We declined the whiskey and spent the rest of the night watching him get more and more drunk. When the cab arrived at 05.00, he staggered outside and spoke to the driver, who nodded his agreement. I guessed it was SOP, smuggling people, usually girls, onto the base. Me and Le curled into the trunk, and they closed the lid. A minute later the car drove away, and for the next half-hour we suffered carbon monoxide poisoning from the leaking muffler.
We stopped several times which I assumed was for checkpoints, and then I heard American voices, sentries on the gate, but they didn’t bother to search the cab, and we drove inside and stopped after a few minutes. They opened the trunk lid, and I helped Le climb out. We were staring at Barnes’ aircraft, the Fairchild Provider, and I didn’t know how to react. The first thing I noticed was the bullet holes, most unrepaired.
Barnes saw the direction of my gaze and shrugged. “They shoot so many holes into the aircraft it doesn’t seem worth fixing them. Besides, it’s good ventilation.”
The second thing I noticed was the overall state of the fuselage. It looked like it had been to hell and back, battered aluminum panels, and the paintwork had mostly flaked off. All except for Air America that had once been proudly painted on the side, and hastily removed, leaving the faint outline of the letters.
It was a short, stubby aircraft with a bulky fuselage obviously designed to carry a substantial amount of cargo, and wings that didn’t look capable of getting off the ground. Barnes gestured to the open door below the cockpit. “Get aboard and make yourselves comfortable. As soon as we have a slot, I’ll get us off the ground.”
We stepped into the cabin, a cavernous space half-filled with wooden crates and the other half with what appeared to be a huge rubber bladder.
He pointed to it. “Agent Orange, a present for Charlie. We’ll take off overloaded, and it will fly like a pig, but once we’ve dumped the chemical, it should be a straightforward journey to the Central Highlands. We offload the cargo and take the next leg to Dong Ha. You have to find a way to leave the aircraft when we land, or they may ask questions.”
“We’ll find a way,” I said grimly, “Just get us there.”
A man climbed down from the flight deck, his skin dark and weathered, his hair hanging long and lank, and his dark eyes as expressionless as two lumps of granite. He looked tough, the kind of toughness a man acquires after living a hard life and fighting his way through most of it.
“This is Vince,” Brett breezed. “Vince, we have some passengers.” He nodded and pushed past without speaking, going to the rear of the aircraft. He gave Ray and me a quick glance, but stared intently at the two girls, and I saw Lam shiver. Barnes shrugged, “Vince doesn’t say much. He’s the strong silent type.”
I could see him through the dim light afforded by a low wattage bulb fastened to the bulkhead. He was securing the wooden crates to the floor, a task I was all in favor of. I’d always had visions of cargo aircraft in a war zone taking evasive action like a steep dive, and a heavy and unsecured load smashing through the thin aluminum fuselage. I guess he had the same vision, or maybe he was just thorough. Barnes gestured for us to climb to the flight deck, and we followed him up the short ladder, two seats for the pilot and co-pilot, and a small amount of space behind them.
“The ladies can travel in here with me and Vince. I have a couple of mattresses they can use to make themselves comfortable. You guys will have to fly coach down in the cargo hold.”
“I’ll be fine in the hold,” Lam said quickly, and her sister nodded her agreement. “Show us where the mattresses are stowed, and we’ll be fine.”
“You’re sure.”
At that moment Vince loomed from behind and pushed his way onto the flight deck. I noticed his hand linger over Lam’s breasts, and I guessed he was sizing up the merchandise. “We’re sure.”
We climbed back down the ladder, found the mattresses, and laid them on the metal floor. The ramp was up, and Brett shouted down. “Someone close the damn door. When we start engines, we won’t be able to hear ourselves think.”
Ray closed and latched the door, and we waited while the turbines screamed as the engines started up one by one. The noise from four jet engines was incredible, especially in an aircraft with more holes in the fuselage than a politician’s promises. After a few minutes to warm up, we started to move, taxiing off the stand toward the end of the strip. A short wait while a large cargo aircraft thundered along the runway for a takeoff, and the engines went to full power, the brakes came off, and we were accelerating along the tarmac. It was a long takeoff roll for an aircraft I understood to be capable of short takeoff and landing, and I remembered what the pilot had said. We were overloaded, and until we’d ditched the Agent Orange, we were way past the safe limits for a takeoff.
I remembered something else. Barnes hadn’t bothered to pre-flight check the aircraft, and although I was no pilot, I knew no sane flyer took off without at least a basic set of preliminary checks. Which led me to a conclusion I’d already come to when I watched him spend all night drinking before he was due to fly a mission. He wasn’t a sane flyer. He was an insane flyer.
After what seemed like forever the wheels left the tarmac, and we wobbled into the air. I’d been sitting on the floor, but I walked to the tiny window in the side of the fuselage, and I was staring at the control tower. Not down at the control tower, but across the airfield to the control tower, and after what seemed an age the Fairchild managed to gain a little height, and the rooftops and highways of Saigon began to drop away beneath us. I couldn’t make up my mind if the unconventional takeoff had been because of the overloading with cargo, or the overloading with booze until shortly before takeoff. I concluded it was probably a combination of both.
We flew north-west, over the Iron Triangle, and the unending jungle that concealed an unknown number of Vietcong guerrillas was dark and ominous beneath us. Barnes appeared at the top of the ladder. “Vince will be coming back in a minute or two to open the valves on the tanks. We can dump the stuff any time now. Good riddance, we’ll be able to gain some height, and boy are we gonna need it.”
“Why’s that, Brett?”
“You will find out.” The aircraft lurched and tilted over, and he shouted, “I left Vince at the controls, and the silly bastard couldn’t fly a paper airplane. I’d better get back.”
We all appreciated him going back on the flight deck, and a moment later the unsmiling Montagnard climbed down into the hold. He went to the wheel valve fitted to the side of the rubber bladder that filled half of the hold and turned it to release the contents. I can imagine the chemical spraying out behind us, and the theory was it would deny the enemy their hiding places. Although as many of the Vietcong in the Triangle spent their lives in tunnels, I wasn’t convinced it was an effective strategy.
What followed was curious. Vince walked past us to the door beneath the flight deck and opened it. We were flying at around one thousand meters, and the slipstream rushed into the hold like a powerful blizzard. He didn’t seem to notice. He just stood in the doorway balancing himself, unzipped his fly, and stood pissing down to the jungle beneath. We watched him open-mouthed until he finished, zipped up his fly, closed the door, and reached the ladder to the flight deck.
He looked back at us and pointed downward. “Cong.”
Yeah, right. So the guy pissed on his enemies, and maybe it was as effective as Agent Orange. I didn’t get a chance to develop that line of thinking. The aircraft suddenly bucked and reared, and a line of holes appeared in the floor. Barnes threw the Provider over on one wing, and we were flying sideways, the nose tilted down, and he’d increased power to maximum. I got it, taking evasive action, and it was all very well flying low so your Montagnard buddy could piss all over his enemies, but not so clever when they shot back. I didn’t blame them. If some hill tribesman pissed down
over me and my folks, I’d have shot back. Preferably shot his balls off, teach him a lesson.
More bullet holes appeared in the side of the fuselage, and whatever evasive action he was taking, it wasn’t enough. I staggered to the foot of the ladder and climbed up to the flight deck, which was like a vision of hell. Vince was sitting calmly in the co-pilot seat, staring through the windshield as if he was admiring a flight of birds. Barnes was wrestling with the control column, shouting at the Montagnard to help, but the guy was ignoring him.
He looked around and saw me. “Can you fly this fucking thing?”
“Nope.”
“You’ll have to do. Get up here and take over from that silly bastard. I need help. We’re going down. Something damaged the electrical system, and the only way to fly this thing is with brute strength. Vince, get out of that seat and let him take over.”
Without acknowledging, he climbed out and shinned down the ladder into the hold. I seated myself behind the control column, and he was already shouting instructions.
“Grab the control horns and help return her to starboard. If we can’t get her back straight and level, we’re going in.”
“You mean we’re gonna crash?”
“Yep. And I could have stayed in the bar for another hour, at least I’d die happy.”
“Why don’t we delay that for a bit?”
I grabbed the column and we both heaved. It was like trying to move a stalled truck, but when you’re inside an aircraft doing its best to plunge into the ground so hard it digs another tunnel for the VC, it gives a man all the motivation he needs. I heaved and heaved again, one boot planted on the side of the cockpit to give me leverage and the other rooted to the floor. I put every ounce of strength I possessed into trying to save that aircraft, to save our skins, to save my skin.
Slowly, gradually, the angle of descent eased, and Barnes juggled with the rudder and ailerons, adjusting the power of the engines to help get us out of the dive. The Provider returned to flying straight and level. We’d still been spraying Agent Orange while we were plunging to eternity, and the aircraft was lighter, easier to control, and he began to gain height. An RPG came up at us from the ground, but by now we were too high, and we watched it fall away and explode somewhere in the thick jungle. Maybe it exploded on top of a Vietcong unit, a few less AK-47s shooting at our guys.