"Do you fly F-105s?" Jake asked Frank Allen.
"Nope, A-is. Skyraiders. You navy boys call them Spads. I do a bit of search and rescue work when we're not bombing with a FAC. "
"We're taking him on a tanker hop tomorrow," said Parker. "Gonna get him a cat shot and a trap so he can join the Tailhook Association and go to the next convention in Las Vegas." Almost all the navy airmen belonged, and they considered the Las Vegas weekend one whale of a blowout.
After dinner the four of them retreated to Cowboy's stateroom. In the course of a game of penny-ante poker, Jake mentioned the trip Big had taken to Thailand and his stories of goodtime houses and their effect on Box. After some discussion the Boxman was invited down. When he had won fifty cents or so in the game, the conversation turned to the city near the air force base where Allen was stationed.
Frank Allen shook his head. "They have the biggest whorehouse east of Port Said," he confided. "It's really something. Over a hundred women, just girls really, little brown fucking machines, and for five bucks American you can spend the night. You can have as many girls as you want, no extra charge." Box tossed his hand on the table and stared at Allen.
"The thing I like the best," Allen continued, leaning forward, "is when you strip stark naked and lay down on this table. These girls lick you all over until you have a hard on, then they lower a girl in a stirrup device right onto your crank. You are in her but the only contact is the sexual one." Allen shuddered as he appeared to recall the ecstasy. Grafton casually picked up Box's discarded hand; Box had thrown away a pair of kings.
"Are these girls clean?" Box wanted to know, gulping down the last of his drink and holding his glass out for a refill. Jake couldn't imagine why he asked, since he was now being treated for his third dose on this cruise.
"Oh, yeah," Allen assured him. "They all wear white socks. That's how you can tell." The other. men laughed. Box grinned ruefully.
Early the next morning Box wrote out yet another request to visit the sin capital of the Orient. The skipper denied the request by burning it in the ready room with Box looking on.
Frank Allen flew his tanker flight, got his trap, then gave a presentation on search-and-rescue techniques and equipment at a specially called all-officers meeting. He was invited by the CAG to repeat it for the other ready rooms. When Allen was ready to leave the ship, Cowboy and the others arranged for Boxman to escort him to the cargo plane and wish him bon voyage.
At three o'clock one morning Jake Grafton was in his flight suit alone in the dirty-shirt wardroom. He held
the coffee cup with both hands to prevent the liquid from slopping onto the tablecloth. He was staring at the crumbs and stains on the cloth.
"Ah, Mister Grafton. May I join you?" Les Rucic sat down on the other side of the table. He sipped his
coffee and lit a cigarette. "Been flying?"
"Hmmm." "A strike?" " Uh-huh."
"Too bad a man can't get a drink around here," Rucic commented.
Jake kept his eyes on his coffee cup. Does he know about the Hanoi raid? Is that why he's here? The pilot
felt his muscles tense.
"Looks like I'll be leaving tomorrow."
Jake let his gaze wander over the reporter's features.
The man hadn't trimmed his nose hairs since the pilot had last seen him.
"I'll probably spend a week or so in Saigon, get the feel of the place if you know what I mean, then go on
back to the States. Is there anybody back home I can call for you?"
Yes, Mrs. Grafton, I met your son on the Shiloh.
He's doing just fine and asked me to call to wish you a Merry Christmas. How do you feel about what he's doing in Vietnam? Do you think America should be over there? Grafton wondered if his disgust for Rucic showed on his face.
"Are we winning or losing?" Rucic pressed. "What?"
"Winning or losing the war?"
"Damned if I know."
"Come on. Give a little. I've interviewed some of the other pilots and naval flight officers, and they've given me some pretty good stuff." He waved his notebook.
Jake felt the tension leaving his muscles. Surely if Rucic knew about the National Assembly he would be after it by now. Feeling relieved, Jake asked, "What'd they say?"
Rucic thumbed through several pages of his notebook. "We're buying time for the South Vietnamese," he read. "Whether the time is worth the cost will depend on what they-the South Vietnamese-do with it.... Freedom is the most expensive commodity on earth...."
"Putting that in the paper would be a waste, Rucic," Grafton sneered. "Why don't you save it for a Fourth of July speech?"
Rucic sipped his coffee. "I wonder if you could tell me anything about the flight on which your bombardier was killed?" He looked at the notebook again. "Morgan McPherson."
So the sonuvabitch had been looking for him.
"Can you tell me anything about it? I wasn't aware you had lost your bombardier when I interviewed you the other day."
Jake just stared.
"Listen, Grafton. I have a right to be here and to ask these questions. If you don't cooperate I'll have to say as much to your superiors." Rucic's eyes reminded Jake of the eyes in dead fish he had seen in Hong Kong alleys.
The pilot stood up. He put his fists on the table and leaned toward the reporter. "I don't have to talk to you, motherfucker. If you use my name in your stories, I'll sue your rag-and you-for invasion of privaci." The pitch of his voice rose but he couldn't help it "Your papers sell better when you mix a little blood with the ink, don't they?"
Realizing he was losing control, Jake walked away.
NINETEEN
Jake Grafton was strapping himself into the cockpit one cloudless morning when Cowboy Parker ran across the flight deck toward the aircraft. Grafton and Tiger Cole had briefed a strike on a suspected fuel dump with Little Augie and Big Augie, who were manning the machine next to Grafton's. They planned to set this target afire with the sixteen Rockeyes each plane carried. Boxman and his pilot, Corey Ford, were manning the spare, armed with sixteen Mark 82 500pounders, which would go only if one of the other bombers had a mechanical problem before launch. Grafton watched Parker with a sinking feeling. Not a hurry-up target!
Cowboy climbed the boarding ladder. "You got a new target, Jake. Forget the fuel dump." Holding up a piece of a chart, he pointed to a crude triangle drawn in pencil. Jake saw it was a North Vietnamese airfield.
"What's there?"
"MiGs," Parker said. "One or two, maybe three. They landed less than two hours ago and the decision's been made to try to bag them before they sortie again. You have the lead. We're going to launch the spare so there'll be three of you. Brief on squadron tactical after you rendezvous." Cowboy handed him the strip of chart and several aerial recon photos of the airfield. He took one step down the ladder, paused, and looks d back at Grafton "This'll be a tough one. It's heavily defended."
"Tell the other guys to meet me at ten grand over head."
Cowboy nodded and disappeared down the ladder.
Jake examined the chart with Tiger. "Shit," Cole muttered. "The son-of-a-bitch is in Laos." The target airfield lay five or six miles across the Laotian border oa.), the far side of Barthelemy Pass, which the chart showed at 3937 feet above sea level. Jake remembered from the weather brief that low clouds covered the mountains.
How should they approach? If they flew all the way to Hue, then west to Laos and north to the airfieldwhat was the name? -Nong Het, the trip would be long and the bad guys would have a lot of warning. Fuei would run low only if they elected to return by the same route. If they flew straight in, across North Vietnam, they'd attract flak en route, but there would be less time for the North Vietnamese to prepare a reception at the airfield. If the MiGs were bait to lure the lion, the less warning the better.
Jake Grafton rubbed his chin and stared at the swells on the sea. He thought about the flak and the airfield in the bottom of a valley. Maybe they should go straight in.
"What do you think, Tiger? Straight in?"
"Yep.”
The plane captain signaled for a start. Jake gave the chart and pictures to the bombardier and busied limp self with the starting procedure. He was too preoccupied to enjoy the cat shot when it came.
They rendezvoused over the ship at 10,000 feet. When all three planes had joined, Jake took the lead, and Corey Ford flanked him on the left with Little Augie on the right. Jake then used his hand to signal the switch to the squadron tactical frequency and began a gentle climb to altitude.
"Two's up." Little's voice.
"Three's up." That was Corey.
"Let's go covered voice." All three turned on their scramblers, which encrypted the voice transmissions. To a listener without a scrambler with the daily code properly set, the conversation would be merely an incomprehensible buzz. "Okay, guys. We're going straight at it. Coast in north of Vinh, find the right valley, get under the clouds, go through the pass, and drop down on that airfield like the angel of doom. Any gripes?"
When all he heard was silence, Jake continued, "This field will no doubt be oriented east and west, up and down the valley." Cole was looking at the photos and concurred with a thumbs up. "Little, you take the right side of the field, and Corey and I'll take the left. Put the ordnance just inside the tree lines. They'll park those MiGs under cover. I'm willing to bet they'll be in the trees. But if you see them out on the airfield, you'll know what to do. Okay so far?"
Mikes clicked in response. "As I read this chart, the target will be in a valley that curves around to the left. High mountains on both sides. The mountains on the right peak at more than sixty-two hundred feet. After we drop, Little, you're on your own. Just to be safe, I want you to make a right turn off target and get out the best way you can. Corey, you stick with me and we'll turn left off target. They may try to put a SAM up somebody's ass as we leave. Everybody's to avoid flying into one of those granite clouds. Any questions?"
There were none. The flight switched back to the Strike frequency.
"Think we'll surprise them?" Jake asked Tiger.
The bombardier shook his head.
"Me neither," Jake grunted. "I have a sneaking suspicion we're trying to steal the cheese out of a mousetrap."
They had only two practical choices on the method of attack: go in high above the mountains and the cloud tops, or go in low on the deck below the clouds. If Rockeyes were released too high, the clamshell opened too soon and the bomblets would disperse so widely that the pattern density was unacceptably low. So they really had no choice at all. Jake thought about these matters as he followed the computer steering for the coast-in point Cole had chosen twenty miles north of Vinh. They would approach the coast from the southeast. He leveled at 20,000 feet and scanned the distant horizon. He could see the land obliquely on his left and the clouds on the mountains that rose beyond the coastal plain.
Jake instructed the other crews to reengage the scramblers. "Devil Three, since you have GP bombs, you may have to pop up high enough for the fuses to arm." Corey Ford clicked his mike. "Just don't get so wrapped up in the attack that you hit a ridge."
"Roger that"
"After you drop your load, climb over the ridges and beat feet. No rendezvous."
"I gotcha."
"Boxinan, how's your radar?" Since Grafton was the leader, he let his concerns show.
"It's fine, Jake. A sweet system.
"You may have to S-turn or slow down a little to let me move ahead a bit before you drop." Corey clicked his mike. Jake wanted to make sure that Corey would delay his release so that Jake, down low, would not be struck by his bombs or caught in their blast. A second or two delay would be enough.
Jake thought of one more point. "This hole's probably heavily defended, So if anyone takes a hit and goes down, he's on his own. Don't stay and watch for chutes or any of that crap. Everybody else haul ass out of there." Mike clicks were his reply.
They flew on in silence. Jake's mouth was so dry he took a swig from his water bottle. He offered the bottle to Cole, who took his mask off, tilted the bottle, then passed it back.
Jake eased the nose over and trimmed for a descent Each crew worked through the combat checklist. Passing 10,000 feet, fifteen miles from the coast, Jake reported to the airborne controller that he was strangling the parrot and secured the IFF. They were on their own. He checked his wingmen and told them to spread out some more. When each plane was about one hundred feet away he turned his attention to the land ahead. Rice paddies reflected the afternoon sun.
Frank Camparelli and Cowboy Parker huddled over a chart in Mission Planning. The skipper had three aircraft on their way to a well-defended target, in daytime, without adequate planning, and the possibilities for disaster ate at him.
"How do you think Grafton will go in?"
"Jake'll go straight at 'em, Skipper. He thinks feints and deceptions in a theatre this small just give the enemy more time to alert their defenses."
"That's true." Camparelli went to the flak chart on the wall. Pins bristled around the airfield. "I think they're waiting for us in that valley."
"Maybe so, but they've baited the trap with real MiGs." Parker joined Camparelli at the wall chart. "The MiGs are there," he said, thinking of the electronic intelligence report that described MiG-19 radar signals as emanating from the Nong Hot airfield for the last two hours. "The hard fact is we can afford to trade plane for plane.”
Camparelli turned slowly and looked over Cowboy from head to toe. "You'll make a good admiral someday, Parker.
Cowboy reddened. "Skipper, I didn't mean-"
"I know, I know." Camparelli cut him off with k gesture and scanned the charts and tables as he ran his, hand over his hair. Six men, three airplanes. Six lives and eighteen million dollars worth of hardware at risk for one or two fifteen-year-old single-seat day fighters that in the air would be mincemeat for Phantom. "Why don't you go to Combat and listen in on the Strike frequency."
"Aye, aye, sir." Parker left immediately.
The skipper wandered from chart to chart. He stopped at the SAM-threat display and examined it with interest. From the long Het airfield his gaze meandered north toward Hanoi. Because Grafton was on his mind he looked at the area around the power plant at Bac Giang.
"Steiger!" The commander strode to the door of the photorecon space. "Steiger! Where's Steiger?"
Thirty seconds later a flushed Abe Steiger stood before the SAM-threat chart staring through his glasses at Camparelli's finger, which tapped imperiously on the black dot on the railroad labeled Bac Giang. ”Why
aren't there SAM sites here? Where are those sites that shot at Grafton the other night?"
The air intelligence officer opened and closed his mouth several times.
"I told you I wanted those sites that shot at Grafton spotted on these charts. I told you specifically to make sure they were in the intelligence report." The finger pointed. "Get me that report, Mister Steiger. Now. I want to see it."
"The sites aren't in the reports, sir." Abe couldn't lift his eyes. The hand on the table was absolutely still.
"I think you had better come down to my stateroom, Mister Steiger, and we'll have a little chat."
The Intruders crossed the coast at 480 knots at 6000 feet, still descending. "Devil flight, feet dry," Jake told the Hawkeye circling somewhere in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Be received the usual reply. "Good hunting."
The cloud base seemed to be at about 2500 feet, but Jake kept descending. If they were going in low in the daytime, they had better skim the trees to give the gunners the toughest shots. And the lower they were, the fewer the people who could see them.
They passed directly over a crossroads village at 1000 feet descending. Flashes in the air revealed flak, so all three planes jinked slightly while holding their formation. When they leveled at 50 feet, just above the trees, there was no room left for jinking. All they had was speed. Jake advanced the throttles to the stops, expectbig to be tol
d if someone could not keep up. In less than a minute, Corey's voice came over the radio: "Gimme a couple, Jake."
Grafton pulled two percent RPM off the engines and tightened the fraction lock that would prevent him from inadvertently advancing the throttles. He concentrated on the Usk of threading the machine over the occasional tree lines. The warplanes rushed over acres of rice paddies, a road, shacks, more rice paddies, another road, a tree line, and more paddies, The sensationn of speed was sublime.
"We're in the valley," Cole told him.
He saw the powerline almost as he crossed over it, missing by inches.
A flock of birds burst from a tree right under his nose. Jake saw them flash beneath and knew the birds would be slammed back into the trees by the downwash from his machine.
Guns on the road ahead. Muzzle flashes. A row of them, like flash bulbs popping. The Intruders rocketed toward the road and in an instant it lay behind.
The valley floor was rising. There were more trees now. The sensation of speed was lessening. Unconsciously he pushed the throttles, then remembered the friction lock and checked that he still had the proper power setting. I'll die of old age before we get there, he thought.
Within half a minute the walls began closing in and the planes picked their way up the valley. Thick tropical foilage covered the flanks of the hills, whose ridges reached higher and higher until they touched the clouds. Jake checked the altimeter. They were 1700 feet above sea level.
Back in the States, Jake Grafton had taken great pleasure in flights like this along training routes over stretches of wilderness where the legal altitude was a minimum of 500 feet above the ground. Being young and full of himself, he often flew as low as his nerves allowed just for the sheer hell of it. In those days, when military planes were still permitted to fly under visual flight rules, he would occasionally return to NAS Whidbey Island over the Cascade Range at 200 or 300 feet above the floor of the craggy valleys, shoot through the passes at full throttle and snake his way down between the cliffs, following the streams until they emptied into rivers that flowed into Puget Sound. He had wondered what the hikers had thought of the man-made eagle that split the solitude with a roar, then disappeared as quickly as it had come. Higher authority had finally stopped the illegal flights. Now he was glad he had had the experience.
Flight of the Intruder Page 27