Tango Uniform (Vietnam Air War Book 3)

by Tom Wilson

  "You damned right it is," muttered Colonel Hough, the base commander.

  Mack, the light colonel commanding the 357th, agreed, "An example had to be made."

  "Now," said Buster Leska, "read what Colonel Hough, Colonel Armaugh, and I put on the paper you're holding. I want everyone to hear."

  Max glanced at the wing commander, then cleared his throat. "You sure, sir?"

  "Read it, dammit!"

  Max tried to maintain a straight face. "It says . . . 'From this date, the twentieth day of the tenth month, of the nineteen hundred sixty-seventh year of our Lord, and forever hence, the official words to the ballad of the lovely lady called Mary Ann Burns are as follows. . . ."

  Muttering filled the room. "Mary Ann Burns" was the name of a favorite fighter-pilot song.

  "Well?" asked Leska.

  "Sir?" Max was grinning from ear to ugly ear.

  Colonel Armaugh, the Deputy for Operations, pointed his finger directly at Max's nose. "Sing the damn thing! And I don't want you to get any of the words wrong and embarrass me in front of our new wing commander."

  "Animal!" said Mack, motioning to Hamlin. "Give us some notes." Hamlin hastily pulled up his Day-Glo orange guitar to render the musical background. Max led off in a terrible, nasal voice, then Colonel Leska joined in, his voice deep, loud, and sonorous. Soon the thunder of fifty-odd fighter-jock voices filled the confines of the barroom.

  The song was rendered to the tune of "Reuben, Reuben, I've Been Thinking," but the words were:

  Mary Ann Burns, queen of all the acrobats,

  She can do tricks that can give a man the shits,

  Roll green peas through her fundamental orifice,

  Do a double back flip and catch 'em on her tits.

  She can shit, fart, fight, fuck!

  Fly a jet! Drive a truck!

  Mary Ann Burns is the girrrl for me.

  The gathered voices boomed as they chanted the finale:

  She's a great big son of a bitch! Twice the size of me!

  The hairs on her ass are like the branches on a tree!

  She can shit, fart, fight, fuck!

  Fly a jet! Drive a truck!

  Mary Ann Burns is the girl for meeeee.

  Whoops and catcalls filled the bar. "Shit hot!" a pilot yelled in exuberance.

  Leska raised his hands high and the noise dwindled. "I want everyone here to remember. If you're ugly as sin, kill two MiGs, and know the official words to 'Mary Ann Burns,' you can fuck up a flyby and get away with it. If you aren't ugly, haven't killed two MiGs, and can't remember the words, don't even try, or your ass is grass and you better be ready to pay the bill."

  Max Foley was laughing too loudly to conceal his relief.

  "Wipe that smile off your face, Major," growled Colonel Mack, "and get ready to do some serious drinking."

  "Congratulations," said Leska, shaking Foley's hand and admiring the bright red, white, and blue hundred-mission patch on his shoulder. A few minutes later, after a single drink, the colonels slipped quietly out the side door and left the pilots to enjoy themselves without the hindrance of brass.

  Manny DeVera grinned at Animal Hamlin and Dusty Fields. "Now tell me what you think of our new wing commander." No one disagreed that Buster Leska had established himself as a shit-hot fighter-jock commander. One of them.

  An hour later Manny also left the party, to go to his newly assigned room at the 333rd squadron's Ponderosa and get a good night's sleep. He decided to go on foot, to clear his head from the effects of the alcohol and do some private thinking. He walked briskly. The Supersonic Wetback felt reborn, and there was a happy lift to his step as he started to walk the half mile.

  He intended to take his new job seriously, to show Leska his faith wasn't misplaced. The next morning he'd finish clearing onto base, then fly a combat mission in the afternoon. In a couple of days he'd begin giving Buster Leska his combat checkout, and he wanted to be damned well prepared.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sunday, October 22nd 1255 Local—Nellis AFB, Nevada

  The day was bright and sunny, and the temperature hovered above the seventy mark. Sol, relentless in the summer months, swept the sky in gentler arcs during the late fall. October and November were the best weather months in the low desert city of Las Vegas.

  On this balmy Sunday local rock hounds, picnickers, campers, and four-wheeler enthusiasts swarmed over the desert. In those families who'd decided to stay in the city, a goodly number of females were badgering their men to take them to the strip to catch one of the several matinee shows featuring America's top entertainers. A similar number of males used delaying tactics so they could watch the Packers-Colts game.

  TFWC, Commander's Quarters

  Major General Gordon S. White

  "Gordie, it's for you," called his wife.

  The Baltimore Colts, his favorite team, had lost the toss and were about to kick off. The odds were even up, and he didn't want to miss a minute of the game.

  "Tell 'em I'm out," he yelled back. If it was something life threatening, he'd have been called over his hand-held Motorola radio, which they called "the brick." His never-ending penance was to lug the thing around with him as if it were handcuffed in place.

  "It's the message center," she said, "and they say it's important."

  He couldn't think of anything short of a declaration of general war that should warrant the people at the message center to his call his home in the middle of a big football game.

  "I'll call back," he tried, forlornly eyeing the television.

  "Gordon?" His wife had assumed that tone.

  He started, glanced over his shoulder, watched the kick . . . the Packer receiver took it on his five, then ran straight ahead into Baltimore tacklers the size of Kenworth semis.

  "Way to go!" he yelled gleefully, watching the pileup.

  "Gordon!"

  He sighed and went into the living room, where he picked up the receiver. Two minutes later he was out the door, not hurrying as he might in response to an aircraft accident, but not dawdling either. It was not often that a two-star general received a couriered message from the Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

  It was only five blocks to the large, box-like concrete headquarters building of the Tactical Fighter Weapons Center. The officer courier was supposed to meet him at his office with the message, which was to be placed in his hands—only . . . and to be read by his eyes—only.

  As Gordon White turned into the circular drive in front of the headquarters building, he noted that a few vehicles were parked at the south entrance to the basement, where the Fighter Tactics branch was located. Working on Sundays and holidays was not uncommon for that group while the air war was burning hot in Southeast Asia.

  The pilots there were a sort of conduit to introduce new weapons and new tactics, which they tested in the deserts of Nevada, into the war effort. They were led by Major Benny Lewis, whom White considered to be one of the finest young leaders in the Air Force.

  It was a good football game. In the second quarter Johnny Unitas's relentless passing game pushed Baltimore ahead fourteen to seven, but the world-champion Green Bay team, coached by Vince Lombardi, bounced back after halftime and was doggedly chewing up the field. Bart Starr alternately passed to Paul Hornung in the flat and gave the ball to Jimmy Taylor for short yardages, all the way down to the nine-yard line, where the Colt defense stiffened for three straight plays. On fourth and goal Taylor battered his way straight ahead through the Colts' formidable line and dragged three men into the end zone. After a short runback on the ensuing kick, with the game tied at fourteen-all, Unitas took the field to the wild cheers of Baltimore fans.

  Gordie White missed all of that.

  1340L—Fighter Tactics Branch

  Major Benny Lewis

  In the basement of the Fighter Weapons Center building, the four military members of the air-to-ground team had seen neither the clear sky nor a glimpse of a football game since they'd arrived at eight o'clo
ck that morning to catch up on work. Since it was a nonduty day, they wore civvies, toiling in a large underground vault that had been sectioned into small offices, hurrying so they might at least catch the final quarter of the big game.

  Lewis, chief of the team, was in a melancholy mood that was hard to shake. He'd been like that since Friday, when he'd been told by the flight surgeon, a fellow officer he'd once thought a friend, that his request for a review of his flying status had been denied.

  Six months earlier he'd ejected from a jet and received a compression fracture of the spine. Not a break, he'd emphasized in his request, merely the compression of a couple of spinal disks. In his formal letter he'd told the flight-surgeon buddy that he was healed, that he felt fine, that there was no reason to further delay being placed back onto flight status. The answer had been simple and direct; he'd have to wait three more months until his case would be reviewed, and first reviews were seldom encouraging. Most likely it would then be another three months and another review before they seriously considered his request.

  Six more months!

  The flight surgeon "buddy" had told him he might be looked at more favorably if he'd taken better care of himself and had not insisted on returning to work so early.

  He'd promised to take better care in the future if the flight surgeon would just please forward the request. He'd been told to resubmit in three months, after he took all that good care. The full-colonel hospital commander had made up his mind about the matter and wouldn't relent.

  Damn! Benny Lewis missed flying like a ballerina might miss her toe shoes, a painter his easel, a plumber his pipe wrenches. Flying fighters was what he did, what he was good at. His back still pained him a bit, but he could cope with the periodic twinges that came mainly when he failed to wear the back brace.

  Benny was out of the bulky brace they'd initially given him, and the one he now wore, usually anyway, was much lighter and limited only sideward movements, which he had to admit were not pleasant. But he was better—much better—than he'd been before. Doctors, he'd decided, were among the least understanding people alive.

  He'd reluctantly started work on an officers' evaluation report for one of his men when Moods Diller, the young captain he shared his office with, caught his attention by repeatedly clearing his throat.

  "You got a cold or something?" Benny grumbled.

  Diller was working on refining his two "smart weapons" concepts. It presently took an average of forty fighter-bomber sorties to destroy a point target, one that required a direct hit. His smart weapons held out the promise to destroy the same target with a single bomb. The laser project, which the Pentagon assigned the preliminary code name of Pave Dagger, involved a laser illuminator that radiated a pinpoint of bright light onto a target, and a 2,000-pound bomb equipped with a sensor to detect the light, and electronics to move the bomb's fins and steer it into the target.

  "I'd like to fly down to Dallas tomorrow," Moods said. "Meet with the Texas team and watch a demo they've put together. If it works, we're going to get new lasers for the target illuminators, and new transducer material for the bomb sensors."

  Benny grunted and went back to reading from his in-basket.

  Moods worked with a Texas team and a California team, both consisting of top engineer-scientists. The California team was working on TV-guided missiles called Mavericks, while the Texas team worked on the laser-guided bombs: Pave Dagger. Neither project was "quite there" yet, but the Texas team was closest. Both guidance methods entailed extremely technical concepts, and Benny glazed over and responded in incomprehensible grunts when Moods started talking about pixels, pulse rates, photons, and auto edge tracking.

  "The trip okay with you?" Diller asked cautiously. They'd been told to curtail unnecessary travel.

  That part Benny understood. "How're you going to get there?" he asked.

  "Commercial. There's no military flights going to Fort Worth tomorrow."

  "No way. We're already low on travel funds for the quarter, and we've got a month and a half to go. Tell your engineers to come here if they want to talk."

  "Dammit, Benny, they can't bring their lab here. Pave Dagger's the most important project in the Center, probably in the whole Air Force, and I can't even go to Dallas for a demo?"

  "What's the subject again?" Benny awaited the answer, which he doubted he'd understand.

  Moods sighed and started over again. "The Texas team found a new source for lasers and a completely new transducer material for the bomb kit, and they think they've solved the modulation problems. They want me to help them get it approved with the guys from the Armament Lab. I've gotta see it if I'm going to help 'em, and we don't have much time."

  "No way." Benny lowered his eyes to the AF Form 77 he was working on and began to fill in the rating blocks.

  "Just this one trip, Benny?" Moods was pleading. His project was important to him.

  "How many trips have you been on so far this month?"

  Moods thought. "Three or four, I guess."

  Benny fished around in the clutter of his in-basket and found the paper he was looking for. He added the numbers. "Nine trips in five weeks, six of 'em on commercial airlines. You're spending more travel funds than the rest of us combined."

  "That many?" Moods was genuinely surprised. His mind worked in another stratum from the mundane.

  "You've got to start cutting back, beginning right now."

  "Benny, this one's important."

  Lewis glared, wanting to get back to the captain's OER, which was overdue.

  "The Texas team says this is the breakthrough they've been after. The material we've been using has been unstable. They found this little company in Germany, and the pulse rate is dead on. Perfect for what we're doing."

  "Germany?"

  "Yeah. They've got the new laser and seeker set up on a test bench in Texas, and it's operating right on frequency, Benny. No more screwing around, varying the bias voltages on each individual seeker to try to compensate for pulse-rate anomalies."

  Benny stared.

  "It's the anomalies that have been slewing the results. The rate changes from seeker to seeker, and there's no reliable way to compensate."

  Benny was getting a headache. He grunted.

  Moods recognized the sound. He slowed his machine-gun speech rate. "What I'm saying is the new material will make it work the same way, every time. The bombs will all have the same error, so once we adjust for it, they'll be dead on."

  Benny smiled at something he understood.

  "I won't ask for any more travel before I leave for Danang."

  Benny sighed. Moods wanted to conduct a combat test, which he was against until Moods had achieved better results on the test ranges.

  "Benny, we've got the circular error down to less than sixty feet, and all of that's in the anomaly. They also break lock because they drift off frequency, and that would be fixed too. I told the Texas team it was unacceptable, that if they couldn't find the solution, the whole project may have to go back to step one. They listened, and they've put half a million dollars into a materials study, looking at everything produced by man in the free world. Now they think they've found it, the breakthrough we've been looking for."

  Benny brooded for a moment, then sighed again. "Sorry, Moods. We just don't have the funds."

  One of the captains from the room next door peeked in. "Unitas just threw a pass for a touchdown. Score's twenty-one to fourteen. I'm taking off, boss."

  "You caught up?" Benny growled. Moods Diller's wheedling hadn't helped his temper.

  "Pretty much. I'll be in late tomorrow, because I'm flying on a weapons test in the morning. Dropping thousand-pounders with the new time-delay fuzes."

  Two weeks earlier a similar test had ended in airborne disaster when a TD fuze had inexplicably armed and set off the bomb load while it was still on the F-4. The Phantom as well as the aircraft commander and pilot-systems officer had been vaporized. There'd not been enough of anything scatt
ered across the desert floor to investigate the problem properly.

  "They've found the problem?" asked Benny.

  "Mercury corrosion in the fuze . . . they think." The captain looked anxious to depart.

  Benny waved him out. "See you after you land. We've got a U.S. senator and a couple staffers coming in Wednesday on a boondoggle, and you'll be doing the briefing."

  Politicians liked to visit Nellis Air Force Base, located beside the fun capital of the world. The hotel-casinos vied for their business. Most preferred to stay at suites in Caesar's Palace or the Desert Inn, which were not shabby digs for a "working" trip, and their tabs were either comped or picked up by American taxpayers.

  "I'll be prepared." The captain was already hurrying out before Benny had a chance to ask how he'd learned about the latest developments in the big game.

  Moods scribbled on a notepad, examined what he'd written, then tapped his pencil methodically on the paper. The sound was increasingly irritating. The second captain from the adjacent room poked his head into the doorway. "I'm done for the day, Major."

  "Sure you are," Benny said caustically. He knew the captain wasn't caught up. He was working on changes to the Three Dash One manual, the tactics bible for fighter aircraft, and they were never done making changes to the mammoth-sized tomes. Fighter tactics were changing weekly with all the lessons being learned in Southeast Asia. They had an impossible deadline, two weeks hence, to make the newest updates.

  "Hornung opened up the fourth quarter with a twenty-yard run. The Pack's on the fifty-yard line."

  "How the hell do you know that?"

  The captain grinned and looked about to see if anyone was listening. "We snuck a radio in this morning. It's mostly static down here, but you can hear if you listen close." For some ridiculous reason—something to do with security—radios were prohibited in the vault.

  "The Packers are on the fifty?" Benny asked. He was a Green Bay fan.

  "Yes, sir. Taylor's running good today, dammit." The captain favored Baltimore, and they had a two-dollar bet on the game.