Four more mortar rounds walked across the top of the ridgeline. A quick check on Mackay’s hand-held radio confirmed the rounds had impacted harmlessly. But no one had zeroed in on the source of the rounds. Overhead, he could hear the drone of the AC-130 as it circled above them in the clouds. The rain pounded down—hard. “Spectre,” he radioed. “We’re taking incoming mortar fire. No joy on the source.”
“We’re pop eye in the weather,” the Beezer replied. His breathing was labored and sweat was pouring down his face as he tried to bring his fire control systems to bear. But the jagged terrain and weather were defeating him.
“Beezer,” E-Squared transmitted from the command MC-130, “lay your fire on the lower part of the slope. If nothing else, you’ll keep their heads down.”
“A short round will hit the top,” the Beezer said. The possibility of his friendly fire causing casualties among the men on top of the small plateau was very real.
“Do it,” Mackay ordered as two more mortar rounds slammed into the plateau. “I’ll call you off if you get too close.” The drone of the AC-130’s turboprop engines grew closer as the Beezer set up a firing orbit. Mackay ordered everyone to take cover and to immediately shout if any friendly rounds came their way.
The dull whomps of Spectre’s forty-millimeter Bofors cannon echoed over them as the high-explosive shells chewed up the jungle below their position. The radio silence indicated that the Beezer had not hit the Americans. Again, the Beezer circled the ridge, pouring down a hail of twenty-millimeter cannon fire. Now the radios came alive as three fire teams reported movement coming up the slope toward them. Mackay keyed his radio and told Spectre and Hammer that an assault was starting.
Gillespie sprinted across to Mackay and flopped down beside him. “We got the blades off,” he panted. The incoming mortar rounds had spurred on the flight engineer and he had finished the job in less than ten minutes. “I’m going to start engines and see what happens. We’ll fire a flare and use the radios to tell you to board.” Heavy gunfire came from the far side of the plateau.
“Make it quick,” Mackay growled. “Get the girl and Chiang on board now. If you have to, take off without us. We can E and E out of here.”
“I don’t think escape and evasion is the answer,” Gillespie shot back. He pushed himself to his feet and sprinted back to the helicopter. He shouted at his gunners to get the two on board as he ran through the cargo deck to the cockpit. Within seconds, the high-pitched whine of the number two engine split the air as it wound up and came on line. Then the left engine came to life. With both engines running, he unlocked the rotor brake to the turbines and the three blades started to turn. Gingerly, he tested the controls.
“Throttles one hundred three percent,” Gillespie ordered. Again, he tested the controls.
“Any lift?” his copilot shouted.
Was there lift? Every rational thought told him no. But his instincts said yes. “Fire a flare,” he shouted over the intercom. “It’s time to get the hell out of Dodge.”
Heather stared at Chiang as he fumbled for the seat belts on the parachute jump seat that were rigged alongside the cargo deck. She reached under her poncho and felt the knife she had found in a survival kit. The handle felt as if it belonged in her hand. Her face was expressionless as she stood and took the four steps across the cargo compartment to reach Chiang. Without emotion, she jabbed the knife into his throat. Astonishment flashed in his eyes. She was surprised that the knife penetrated less than an inch. With a hard push, she drove it deep into his neck. Heather made no attempt to pull it out and walked calmly back to her seat, leaving the knife protruding from his neck as blood gushed around the hilt.
“Captain!” one of the gunners screamed over the intercom. “The broad cut the old guy’s throat!”
“What!” Gillespie yelled back as Delta pulled in and streamed on board. The helicopter shook as the men ran up the ramp.
“The girl jammed a Gerber into Chiang’s throat. He’s deader than a fuckin’ doornail.”
“Christ,” Gillespie groaned. “Tie her down and make sure she doesn’t hurt anyone else.”
“She’s just sitting there smiling,” the gunner replied. Then the word came that all were aboard. The captain’s left hand reached up to the throttle quadrant and moved the controls full forward. “Come on, baby,” he said, pulling on the collective.
The blades cut into the air as he changed the pitch. He was certain the goat wanted to fly. “Come on,” he urged, gritting his teeth. But they were still too heavy. “Damn,” he shouted, wishing they didn’t have so much fuel. Then it came to him—he could jettison the external fuel tanks on the ground. He hoped they would fall free and not rupture, spilling fuel and creating the makings for a huge inferno. His left hand flashed over the center control console and he flipped the guarded jettison switches open and flicked the toggle switches forward.
“The tanks are clear,” a gunner yelled over the intercom.
He pulled on the collective, taking a bite out of the air. The goat was willing to hover-taxi but did not want to fly. From the rear, Gillespie could hear the sound of submachine-gun fire. The first of the soldiers had reached the top of the plateau and were rushing the helicopter. “Captain!” his rear gunner shouted. “GO!”
Gillespie hit the rudder pedals and cyclic, turning the goat toward the edge of the cliff. Over the side was an instant five hundred feet of altitude. He inched up the collective and the big helicopter moved toward the edge. Behind him he could hear loud popping sounds and the grinding of metal as round after round tore into the fuselage. Sweat streamed down his face. He was gambling that they could clear the edge of the plateau and the rotor would gain life as he traded altitude for airspeed.
Kamigami had a death grip on the alloy frame of the webbed bench he was sitting on. He squinted through the smoke and dust at Mackay who was clamping his headset against his ears, trying to talk into the boom mike. The helicopter bounced over the ground and banged him against the side of the fuselage. He sensed that they only had moments before Chiang’s men would be in a position to bring effective fire to bear and might even nail them with another Grail. His actions blurred in the smoke and din as he released his lap belt and ran out the back of the helicopter. The sudden loss of 260 pounds combined with its increasing momentum and the helicopter leapt into the air, this time sustaining flight for a few seconds before bumping back down.
A burst of gunfire ripped the air above Kamigami’s head and he sprinted for a discarded pile of equipment that had been stripped out of the helicopter. He rolled behind the small mound of equipment, taking a little cover and found what he wanted—an M-203 rifle and grenade launcher. He grabbed a bag of the forty-millimeter grenade cartridges that fired from the single-shot grenade launcher grafted under the barrel of an M-16, and jammed a fresh clip into the rifle. He fired off a short burst and lobbed a grenade in the direction of the gunfire. A satisfying scream followed the grenade’s detonation and he bobbed his head up in time to see two men working around him. One was carrying a shoulder-held Grail. The helicopter would be an easy target for the antiaircraft missile.
Kamigami came to his feet, a yell filling his throat. What came out bore no resemblance to his normal soft voice. It was a war cry, a rage that could fill a football stadium, and it was the stuff of warriors, a samurai. It froze the enemy as he charged.
“It ain’t gonna fly!” Gillespie’s copilot shouted.
But Gillespie had the measure of the goat and knew that if he could clear the cliff’s edge, and go through the translational lift point, the goat would fly. “Come on!” he urged and they half-floated, half-taxied over the edge of the cliff.
Kamigami saw the helicopter clear the edge and disappear below the rim as the man in front of him fired his Grail. His head twisted around as he followed the deadly missile streaking after the helicopter. But it went ballistic, its seeker head not able to find the heat signature of the MH-53 that had now disappeared below the rim of
the plateau. He jammed another grenade into the launcher and fired on the run.
“Rascal’s airborne,” Gillespie radioed.
“SAM! SAM!” Gillespie’s rear gunner yelled, carrying over the pilot’s hot mike and going out over the radio. “Six o’clock! Coming from the LZ!”
“Roger,” the Beezer said, drawing out the word. The top of the plateau exploded as he raked the plateau with high-explosive twenty-millimeter fire from the AC-130’s two gatling guns.
“We ain’t gonna make it,” Gillespie’s copilot rasped as they lost altitude. They were still too heavy and dropping slowly onto the heavy jungle canopy below them.
“Jettison anything you can,” Gillespie shouted over the intercom He could feel the men move about through the controls as they raced to throw what was left of their personal equipment overboard. “Dump fuel,” he ordered. The copilot did not hesitate and hit the fuel dump switches on center console. Fuel streamed out the fuel dump tubes near the helicopter’s tail.
“Sweet Jesus,” the flight engineer gasped as their rate of descent slowed, “we’re gonna do it.” The three men could not wrench their eyes free of the altimeter as it stabilized with maddening slowness.
“Stop dumping fuel,” Gillespie ordered when he was sure they could maintain their altitude. They were barely two hundred feet above the thick treetops. “We need to find a place to put her down,” he said.
“Make it quick, Captain,” the flight engineer told him. “The fuel gauges are showing empty.”
Gillespie keyed his radio and relayed their situation to Hammer. “We’re close to flameout,” he told the command ship.
“Turn on your IFF,” E-Squared said.
“Roger,” Gillespie said. They had forgotten to turn on their radar transponder. At least the MC-130 could get a fix on them. Not that he had much hope of them surviving a crash landing into the trees. “At least they’ll know where to look for the bodies,” he told his copilot and flight engineer.
“We got to be flying on fumes,” the flight engineer said.
“Everyone strap in and prepare for a crash landing,” Gillespie ordered as he locked the inertial reel controlling his shoulder straps. All he could see below him was an unbroken expanse of treetops. Just great, he thought.
“Gotcha in sight,” E-Squared radioed.
“What the…” Gillespie gasped. The MC-130 had dropped out of the heavy overcast above them and was joining on their right. “What the fuck you doing?” he radioed. E-Squared should not have chased them down when they were so close to the ground. He had put his crew and the command element on board at risk. Gillespie knew the answer when he saw Mallard’s familiar face studying him from the left side cockpit window as E-Squared flew past and jockeyed the MC-130 into a refueling position ahead and slightly above him. The big Hercules had its flaps full down and landing gear extended so it could match the helicopter’s slow airspeed. The refueling line played out from the tank on the left pylon and the basket drifted toward the helicopter. Now Gillespie had to maneuver to hook up.
The copilot glanced at their radar before he turned it to standby while they refueled. He saw a bright ground return three miles ahead of them that formed the point of a dark triangle on the upper part of the screen. The top of the triangle was pointed at them. The bright radar return was the near side of a mountain that was bounding the radar beam back to the helicopter. The deep shadow behind it meant the radar was not “seeing” over the mountain. They were flying directly into the side of a mountain. “Rascal’s painting high terrain ahead,” the copilot radioed.
Gillespie’s left hand gently pressured the collective, sensing if he could get more lift. It wasn’t there. “No way can we climb,” he transmitted.
“Our radar,” E-Squared radioed, “shows a break in the terrain to the left. We’ll head for that. Make the hookup.”
Gillespie concentrated on the visual reference points he had picked out on the Hercules during countless air-to-air refuelings as he closed on the drogue. The two aircraft moved in formation as they flew in and out of heavy mist and rain. The MC-130 would momentarily fade before popping back out into full view. His problem was compounded as E-Squared gently arced to the left, heading for the break in the high terrain ahead of them. Gillespie’s hands and feet did not move as he maneuvered. His commands to the flight controls were little more than slight variances in pressure, a gentle contraction of his grip, a tensing of muscles. His breathing slowed as he concentrated on the drogue. He was balancing on a pinpoint, making the unstable helicopter respond to his will. The refueling probe eased into the basket on the first attempt.
“Contact,” Gillespie radioed. “We can’t take much,” he said as fuel started to flow into their empty tanks.
“So we pump a little and you draft a little,” E-Squared answered. He was playing with the throttles and had discovered that he could drag the helicopter along in his draft, or was he pulling it with the refueling drogue? Slowly, the two aircraft gained five knots of airspeed and fifty feet of altitude as they entered the high terrain and E-Squared’s navigator guided them through a low canyon.
Mackay came forward and plugged his headset into the extension cord the flight engineer handed him. “Well done, Captain,” he said. “Let me talk to Hammer.” His face was impassive as he spoke rate the boom mike and they headed out of Burma.
The White House, Washington, D.C.
Only Pontowski’s fingers revealed his emotions, slowly contracting and then relaxing, only to clamp down again, as he listened to the voice on the telephone. He glanced at the clocks on the far wall of the Situation Room as he listened—9:14 P.M. local time, 0314 GMT, Greenwich mean time. How long had the mission been going on? One part of his mind calculated the answer—over thirty-seven hours—while he listened to Dr. Smithson. “Mr. President, your wife is failing very rapidly. I think your presence is needed…” His voice trailed off, choked with emotion.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Pontowski said. “I’ll be there shortly.” He returned the phone to its cradle and sank back into his chair. God, I’m tired, he thought. But not as tired as the men out there. That thought rallied him and he shook off his fatigue, making his body respond to his will once more. Again, he split his attention, concentrating on the problem at hand while thinking about Tosh. You’re tougher than they know, he told himself. You’ll wait for me.
The big monitor screen beeped and flashed a WAIT—MESSAGE COMING signal to the occupants in the room. A jolt of anticipation flashed through Pontowski—every instinct shouted this was it, success or failure. “Where’s Mazie?” he asked.
Cox looked up from the stack of papers he was working. “Getting something to eat, Mr. President. And probably freshening up. She’s been here since the mission started.”
The big monitor screen flashed and a message scrolled up.
OPERATION JERICHO SITREP
RASCAL ONE AIRBORNE FROM BLUE FOUR AT 0308Z.
Smiles and congratulations from the men washed over him as he read the second part of the message that now flashed on the screen. Then it was finished. “Please find Miss Kamigami,” he said. “I’ll tell her.”
Three minutes later, Mazie was ushered in through the door. Fatigue etched her round face and her short dumpy body shook with each breath. The President of the United States was alone in the room. And she knew. Slowly, Pontowski came to his feet and took a step toward her. “Mazie,” he began. “Your father…thanks to him the mission was a success. But there’s bad news.” He took a breath, studying the young woman who had served him so well. Whatever gave me the right to demand so much of these people? he asked himself. “Your father is missing in action. He fought off an attacking force and followed the helicopter to take off…. He was the rear guard.”
Mazie slumped into a chair, her knees too weak to support her. She looked up, her eyes dry. At first the words wouldn’t come. “That’s the way he would have wanted it,” she whispered. Then, more strongly: “Thank you for telling me, si
r. I know…”
Pontowski reached out and touched her cheek. “I’m sorry.”
“Sir, your wife…”
The President nodded and left the room, hurrying for the waiting helicopter that would take him to Tosh.
1944
Amiens, France
The flight had been a welcome return to sanity for Generalmajor Adolf Galland and for the first time in months, he was reaffirming his credo that a leader, above all else, be first in combat. It was not a virtue practiced among the high command of the Luftwaffe and Goering had forbidden him to fly in combat. But the chance to actually take off in one of Kurt Tank’s Focke-Wulf 190s with Josef “Fips” Priller, the Kommodore of Jagdgeschwader 26, on his wing had been too much of a temptation for the thirty-two-year-old general to turn down.
The two men had launched on a routine patrol and Galland had easily fallen back into the routine of flying in a rotte, a two-plane formation. For a few brief minutes, he stopped thinking about his chief adversary and counterpart across the Channel, Major General James H. Doolittle, the commander of the Eighth U.S. Army Air Force. Galland knew that as soon as the abysmal, winter weather broke, an aluminum cloud of aircraft would launch out of England to rain a hail of explosive death on his country, and that unless he could employ his own fighters properly, he could not stop it. Galland’s problem was compounded because Doolittle knew how to use fighter aircraft in combat and his superiors had the intelligence and resolve to let Doolittle do it. How many times had he raged in fruitless anger for Goering to let him do the same and let his pilots seek out and destroy enemy fighters before going after the bombers? But his superiors dithered in their incompetence and tied his hands, ordering him to go only after the bombers and ignore the fighters. It was an order that ensured the ultimate destruction of his Luftwaffe.
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