Tango Uniform (Vietnam Air War Book 3)

by Tom Wilson

  As he passed through 12,000 feet, a surface-to-air missile launched from a site half a mile beyond the target. Then another, and yet another.

  Without hesitation he shallowed his attack, pulling harshly on the stick to level out some, jinked left and right again, again pushed over, and . . . the smoke from the SAM firings was dead ahead. He concentrated on the center of the site, where the control van should be located.

  "Wolf lead's attacking the missile site at our twelve o'clock," he announced. SAM batteries were fair game. The storage complex was already well bombed. The deadly SAM site needed attention.

  "Wolf two, same."

  "Wolf three's with you."

  "Wolf four."

  Flak began to track him, but the dark bursts were grouped low and to his left. He readjusted his flight path until the pipper was crawling toward the aim point. Smoke from the missile firings drifted in his direction, so he'd bomb a bit long to compensate for wind.

  At 7,500 feet Buster pressed the pickle button and felt the aircraft grow lighter. He eased back on the stick, still thundering earthward but at a shallower attitude. He pushed the throttle forward and outboard into afterburner, no longer restricted by the poor aerodynamics of the bombs, and a few seconds later felt the kick in his seat as the burner lit.

  The remainder of Wolf flight would turn right and climb to rejoin the rest of the force southwest of the target. He continued to descend, jinking straight ahead toward the coast, passing over the thousand streamlets of the Red River delta.

  Nose twenty degrees down, going fast, 690 knots and accelerating, randomly jinking back and forth. He descended through 3,000 feet and continued down. Eased up some as he passed through 2,000, and more at 1,000. When he was low enough, 500 feet or less, he began a lazy turn to the right, back in the direction of Hanoi. He eased out of afterburner and dropped a couple of hundred feet lower yet, then rolled out on a westerly heading, racing across the lowlands in the direction he'd just come from.

  He was doing 720 knots as he approached the southern part of the sprawling city. Low and supersonic. Too low to be seen on radar screens, too fast to be tracked by guns. By the time they heard the sonic boom, he'd be long gone—a very noisy blur. Ahead of him were hundreds of twinkles and flashes from guns, and he noted six different SAM launches in the course of a few seconds—formidable defenses now concentrating on Donovans sixteen-ship strike force, which should be beginning their dive-bomb attacks.

  Just before he recrossed the Red River, Buster manually switched on the camera, which would traverse from forward to rear and get fish-eye images of the earth beneath. Then he began a slight climb, reengaged afterburner, and kept the camera running as he leveled at a thousand feet.

  This was the most dangerous part of the flight. He didn't jink, held the airplane straight and level, still going very fast—supersonic plus. They might have time to get off snapshots, but he'd surprise most of the gunners and was surely creating pain in more than a few eardrums.

  He felt tiny aircraft shudders, imagined they were from flak bursting behind and about him, but didn't take his eyes from the flight path straight ahead. When there was no more city in front of the nose, he began to jink and again dropped down to hug the dirt, staying in afterburner.

  Twenty seconds later he pulled out of the A/B detent and eased back on the throttle. He'd used a lot of jet petroleum on the ultra-high-speed pass—burned down to 6,000 pounds—so he'd have to conserve for the rest of the trip home. As he began his climb to clear the mountains west of the Red River Valley, Buster scanned the sky for Bear Force.

  1814L

  He was back at his desk in his office when the NCOIC of the photo lab delivered the film strips in a long envelope. "How'd they turn out?" he asked.

  "We did as you said, sir. We didn't look."

  "Thanks."

  As soon as the sergeant departed, Buster pulled out the long, four-inch-wide photo strips and spread them out on his desktop. It took five minutes of getting down close and staring before he got the knack of it, fifteen minutes before he fully realized what he had.

  He couldn't tell if he'd hit the SAM site with his bombs, but it had been squarely before him when he'd released, and at debriefing, the other pilots of Wolf flight said it had been left a smoking ruin. He used a magnifying glass on the next strips, which he numbered one, two, and three with a black marker.

  The first panoramic view showed the river and the southeastern side of Hanoi. The film was fuzzy in places, but he found what he was looking for on that first one. Artillery pieces of all descriptions were clearly shown, hundreds, perhaps thousands of the things, some positions set into gutted homes and camouflaged by sheets of wicker, which had been pulled aside for action.

  Everywhere he scanned, in every street and alley, there was a profusion of carts and motorized vehicles, and every one was heavily laden. The next two strips showed the same thing; trucks and vehicles of all descriptions loaded with mounds of supplies and weapons. There was a row of tanks, he counted thirty-four of the things, and those also were piled high.

  He'd doubted Manny's version, but no more. The North Vietnamese were preparing for something big. Buster wondered if the headquarters people in Saigon were aware of what was happening. He'd seen no message traffic on the buildup.

  He knew he must get the information to them, but what was the smartest route? He couldn't release the photos through normal channels unless he was willing to face punishment for what he'd done. It was obvious he'd purposefully taken the photos from low level, deep within the restricted area declared by the President of the United States.

  Could he say, as Manny had, that he'd taken them while coming off the authorized target? Buster pondered that for a long moment before deciding it was unlikely he'd get away with it. If he released the photos through normal channels, they would probably go to the top, and there were men there who wouldn't flinch at sacrificing a mere colonel. His career would be jeopardized, and the importance of the message stated by the photos might be lost in the furor. He had too much left to accomplish to throw it all away without good reason.

  Buster wanted to get the photo strips into the proper hands for closer study and analysis, but there appeared to be no easy way to do it. Should he ignore the film, perhaps burn the strips and act as if he'd never taken or seen them, then try to convince headquarters they needed to take low-level recce photos there themselves?

  Send RF-4C Phantoms low level over Hanoi in the face of the defenses he now knew were there? One might make it through, as he'd done. It would be suicide for the rest.

  What rationale could he use? I've got this gut feeling something's going on there?

  You gotta be shitting me.

  Buster drove to the O' Club and ate dinner. George Armaugh, also late to eat, joined him. George told him how it was dumb, the strike force going all the way to Hanoi like that and risking so many lives, and then finding that Korat had already taken out the target. They should've delayed and gotten the results before sending in Takhli. He began complaining about the shitty status of the airplanes they were getting and paused only when Jerry Trimble, the Deputy for Maintenance, came and sat with them and complained about the needless damage the pilots were doing to his airplanes. Then men were bickering when Buster stood abruptly and said he had something heavy on his mind and wanted to go think it over without listening to two grown men acting like five-year-olds. They were slack-jawed when he walked away.

  He went into the stag bar, found it too crowded, then proceeded outside and to his trailer.

  Maybe the generals in Saigon are aware of the buildup.

  What if they're not?

  When he'd poured two fingers of Chivas Regal and was settled into his easy chair, he knew there was no way he could just forget about the photo strips.

  He wondered if he shouldn't forward the photo strips as a part of the JACKPOT project. It didn't precisely fit in with what they were trying to do, but it might serve the purpose.

&nbs
p; No, If someone gets hold of them and relates them to JACKPOT, the chief might lose the whole ball game because of the stupid, illegal photos.

  He decided to take the film personally and immediately to Saigon, then remembered that a brigadier general and a covey of colonels were arriving the next morning from PACAF headquarters on yet another fact-finding mission.

  He sipped his drink and wondered, then went outside and returned to the O' Club stag bar. As he'd expected he might, he found his man. Manny DeVera was standing beside Animal Hamlin, waving his arms and talking as Animal studiously picked a sad tune on his bright-orange guitar. As Buster approached, the Supersonic Wetback was regaling a group of fellow pilots about his shoot-down experience, describing how the rudder pedal had melted off before he'd ejected, using his fighter jock's prerogative to embellish a good story.

  Buster interrupted and called him outside.

  "Yes, sir?" Manny asked when Buster closed the door to the noisy bar.

  "You got anything going tomorrow?"

  "Just office work, sir. The flight surgeons say I'm supposed to cool it for a few days, 'cause of my shoulder and a bruise on my butt. No flying and no heavy duty. I tried to tell 'em I'm okay, but they say it's standard procedure."

  "Can you sit okay?"

  "Yes, sir. It hurts just the same if I'm standing or sitting. I'm taking APCs for the pain."

  "Good. How about doing something for me?"

  "You name it, sir." DeVera didn't hesitate. That's what Buster liked about the Supersonic Wetback. Once he made up his mind about something or someone, his loyalties were complete.

  Buster told Manny to see him first thing in the morning. He had a package he wanted him to take to Saigon.

  Tuesday, November 7th, 1100 Local—Saigon, Republic of Vietnam

  Captain Manny DeVera

  Colonel Leska had arranged for the midmorning T-39 flight, called Scatback, to take him from Takhli direct to Tan Son Nhut, but nothing coming back. He'd told him to get hops on military birds, and to take all the time he wanted. Manny was happy to get a few days away from Takhli, regardless of all the work to be accomplished in his new job. He'd never been to Saigon, and be was curious about the place.

  After Manny delivered the package to General Moss's office, placing it in General Moss's hands as he'd promised, he'd called base ops and found that all the flights to Thailand were filled. He'd have to spend the night. He'd checked into the VOQ, gone to the gate, and taken a taxi for a tour of Saigon. The vehicle was an old, late-thirties-vintage Renault, and they rode with the windows down. It didn't look like rain.

  A strange city, he decided as he gawked and the driver did his tour-guide bit. Vibrant and alive, and, except for multitudes of military vehicles and uniformed men, undefiled by the obscenities of war. The big streets, like Le Loi and Pasteur, were wide and nice in a very French colonial way. When he'd been stationed in Libya, he'd taken embassy flights to Morocco and had seen similar construction. Lots of white stucco and ornate, almost delicate, architecture. There the French had brought a bit of Paris to the African desert. Here the transplant was different, set into profusions of lush, tropical plants. The flower-sweet smells along Le Loi were almost masked by a heavy pall of exhaust fumes that permeated the air. The driver took him to John F. Kennedy Park, where he walked about putting-green lawns and examined a statue of President Jack, who had, following Ike's hesitation, pledged American support to the South Vietnamese.

  He continued his tour, taking a late lunch of café au lait and crusty sweetbread on the veranda of the Caravelle Hotel, as he'd been advised to do by Lucky Anderson, who knew the city. There a small combo played quiet music, and he eyed the most strikingly beautiful girl, a Eurasian, he'd ever seen. She spoke French to her escort, a distinguished-looking man who remained very quiet. Manny imagined him to be a spook. Maybe a double agent who was walking some tightrope? Or . . . how about an international jewel thief, with his beautiful mistress? Both of those fit well with the hotel's mysterious flavor. Then two obnoxious GIs brought their girlfriends in and raised hell with a snobby waiter, breaking the spell.

  Back to the waiting taxi. The driver drove slowly past the presidential palace, to parks dedicated to past Vietnamese heros, before Manny finally told him to take him back to the base. The driver leered and suggested a trip down Tu Do Street, and Manny said, Why not? He'd heard of Saigon's infamous red-light district. It was a letdown, like boys' towns everywhere—GIs in and out of uniform, mixing with pretty but sullen whores. It could have been Reynosa or Nuevo Laredo, except the females were smaller. They were better dressed and obviously more streetwise than the farm girls in the Ta Khli boys' town, but he was willing to bet they fucked with the same wooden lack of enthusiasm.

  The cabbie asked if he wanted to stop off at one of the bars.

  Manny declined, but saw a yellow Kodak sign on the front of a store and told him to stop. Inside he found a smiling Chinese owner who reminded him of shop owners in Matamoros and Cuidad Juarez. They ignored prices shown on tags and haggled with straight faces. Manny started with a small 35mm, half-frame Olympus camera that he could carry in the cockpit and operate with one hand, thinking he might get a photo of a MiG or maybe a SAM explosion. After they agreed on a price, he asked to see a monocular. It was difficult to pick out targets on the ground through binoculars, but he'd heard it was much easier using one eye. He settled on a Nikon single-lens monocular, and a price. Finally he added a new Seiko Sportsmatic watch, since his previous one had been lost during the ejection, and haggled for a package deal. He spent a total of twenty minutes in the store and paid sixty bucks for everything. The store owner's eyes glittered when he received greenbacks instead of the colorful MPC script with Miss Americas printed in place of Presidents that U.S. servicemen were ordered to use under penalty of excommunication.

  Back in the old Renault cab then, and the thing didn't want to start. When the cabbie began shouting, slapping the dash, and cursing, Manny decided he was getting to see the vehicle's final gasps. But he figured some French fighter jock had probably thought the same thing a dozen years earlier, because the ancient engine sputtered and caught, and the cabbie patted and soothed the dash in forgiveness.

  "Back to the base," Manny said. He had seen enough.

  They took a detour on the way, since the main streets were now blocked off for some visiting dignitary, and drove past shanties with woven rattan walls and mustard-colored tin roofs. The odors there were acrid sweet and more typical of the far east.

  He had dinner at the Tan Son Nhut O' Club and almost picked up a nurse, a major visiting from the Philippines. She said her name was Marty, and asked if he knew a guy named Mal Stewart who'd been stationed at Takhli the previous year.

  He told her he'd heard of him—that he'd been killed in action just before he'd arrived. She bit her lip and grew misty-eyed and wanted to know more. He told her what he knew, that the guy had been killed at the place they now called Termite Hill.

  Marty was hefty, with legs that belonged on a Dallas Cowboy lineman and a florid face, but she was obviously horny and the only free woman in the bar. There'd been times Manny DeVera would've chatted up a reptile for a chance to clear his pipes, but he faithfully remembered his resolution about cooling it with round-eye women, who were the source of his problems. After three drinks he excused himself.

  She wore a sad expression as he started toward his VOQ room alone.

  Manny trudged out of the club, grumbling to himself that there was definitely something unnatural about self-restraint. He slowed and decided that the timing of resolutions should be more carefully considered. It had been a long while since he'd had a roll in the hay, and the nurse had intimated it was the same for her. He paused longer, argued his case to himself, and finally sighed as he went back into the bar.

  When he motioned, Marty gave him a look of pleased triumph. No reason to be ridiculous about things, he told himself. In the morning, he'd get serious about the promise to quit his dealings wit
h round-eye females until the combat tour was completed.

  He grinned at the approaching nurse, who'd brought her purse and half-filled glass of gin.

  "Whyncha come over to my room for a drink?" she asked demurely. "It's quieter there."

  Thursday, November 9th, 1830 Local—Takhli RTAFB, Thailand

  Tuesday's trip had ended up a nuisance, for he'd had trouble getting back to Takhli. After the session with the nurse, Manny had caught a C-130 going to Udorn Air Base, got another hop to Bangkok, then waited around Don Muang airport for four hours in vain. He'd spent Wednesday night in the transient barracks there, missed out on a cargo-filled C-130, and took the morning C-47 round-robin flight to Takhli. The short trip had taken him two full days.

  After stopping by Colonel Leska's office to tell him the mission to Saigon was completed as ordered, he'd gone to his office and dug into the waiting paperwork.

  The 354th squadron had suffered yet another combat loss, and in the early afternoon Lieutenant Colonel Yank Donovan dropped by his office to ask a few questions.

  Manny was surprised that Donovan would do that, considering what had gone before. They hadn't spoken since his shoot-down, and Manny'd had trouble keeping his anger in check, wondering if Yank had learned anything about keeping up his airspeed. Yet while the atmosphere was difficult throughout the conversation, he'd felt that the squadron commander with the huge ego and darting eyes seemed interested in what he'd had to say.

  The previous day a surface-to-air missile had shot down one of Donovan's pilots, and he wanted to know more about Soviet SAM systems, so Manny had described the SA-2 SAM system in detail. While Yank had listened, he'd not been all that attentive. Several times he'd interrupted and said yeah, he already knew this or that. When he'd finished, Donovan asked in a quieter voice if his squadron pilots were doing something wrong, since they'd been taking the brunt of the wing's recent losses.

  Manny had said no, he hadn't noticed the 354th pilots doing anything different from the others. He'd been at Takhli for seven months, he'd told Donovan, and the losses seemed to go in cycles. First it would be one squadron, then another. It was just the 354th's turn.