by Tom Wilson
At the urging of General Dung, Xuan had moved four SAM battalions, each equipped with three firing batteries complete with radars and missiles, south of Hanoi to protect the critical supplies gathered in the southern suburbs. At night long convoys would depart southward, but new ones gathered in their places, and there were many more to go. General Dung had ordered the mobilization of every available vehicle, motorized and otherwise, in the Democratic Republic that wasn't essential to the military. The idle defenses south of the city were frustrating for Xuan Nha, for the Mee bombing attacks were centered around north Hanoi, Haiphong, and the interconnecting bridges, and none were made on the well-hidden convoys.
Anyway, Li Binh had told him, the American politicians had made no indications that they might change their no-bombing-of-Hanoi policy.
After a long day of work that had begun well before sunrise, Xuan Nha trudged wearily down the hall and into a small conference room. He'd called for the staff meeting to discuss a matter that had pressed on his mind since he'd given up the 20,000 militiamen. The generals were again complaining about manpower shortages, and if nothing changed, he knew he'd be ordered to transfer even more.
It was no longer a problem he might have when General Luc recovered and questioned what had happened to his militia during his absence. Luc was slipping ever closer to death in his battle with stomach cancer. Now it was a different issue altogether, for when he replaced Luc as general of the VPAND, he didn't wish to inherit a weakened command. The militia was a key element of the Army of National Defense, and he wanted it to remain intact. He'd searched for a way to prove they were critical assets and keep them under his control. He thought he'd found it.
A major from the People's Army Air Force was in attendance, as were sixteen ranking staff officers and commanders of VPAND. Xuan nodded for Lieutenant Quang Hanh to close the door.
He opened with a description of an air-navigation station atop a mountain near the tiny Laotian community of Ban Sao Si, only a dozen kilometers from the border of the Democratic Republic. Mee pilots used it to position their aircraft before they entered the combat zone.
Since the station was viewed as only a pesky thing, the People's Army had mostly left it alone, focusing their energies on larger aspects of the war. Crusty old Colonel Trung, more than fifty years of age and a veteran of all the people's struggles in the current century, and who commanded VPAND antiaircraft and antishipping coastal artillery, had long disagreed and called for its elimination.
Trung was a warrior of older schools, who understood little about radars and missiles, who mistrusted airplanes and refused to ride in the things. But he'd hated the French and now despised the Americans, and knew that in war one did everything possible to make the enemy's life miserable. The existence of the Mee navigation site so close to their border became an issue for him, and he'd grumble about it to all who would listen. While unsophisticated, Trung knew the capabilities of artillery, and he favored bombarding the site into rubble. When told it was unreasonable to haul big guns over the tall mountains for such a small purpose, he'd argue to at least send a few capable troops with light howitzers.
Trung had been ignored during most of his arguments, but periodically someone would acquiesce and request that a force of Pathet Lao troops be diverted to overrun the mountaintop navigation station, which was protected only by a few dozen mountain tribesmen. The Pathet Lao expeditions had been meagerly manned and poorly equipped, for the Laotian communists had priorities of their own. Mee fighter aircraft had strafed, bombed, demoralized, and sometimes annihilated them, and the remnants of each group had eventually been recalled.
Now seemed a poor time to broach the subject, for the Pathet Lao were maneuvering forces throughout their country. Within the month they were to launch a massive series of attacks on Prince Souvanna Phouma's government troops in eastern Laos. They were entering a win-or-die situation, the most important drive of their struggle, and had little time for such diversions as a small navigation site on a mountaintop, which would be difficult to reach and impossible to hold.
Xuan Nha felt it was time for a new effort, using other resources.
He asked Colonel Trung to outline his rationale for wanting the navigation station eliminated, a topic the audience had heard from him many times. But they listened as Trung elaborated, for Xuan Nha nodded as if his words held sage wisdom.
When Trung finished, Xuan asked the major from the VPAAF to speak. The fighter pilot added fuel to Trung's argument by saying it had become more critical to the Mee pilots to have a final orientation before entering the combat arena, for they flew at higher altitudes than before and could not as easily see ground markings. It would be helpful to the VPAAF MiG pilots if the ground station was eliminated.
The pilot cast a quiet look at Xuan Nha, who gave him a subtle nod. Xuan voiced his thanks and the major departed. General Tho had agreed to provide a similar speech to the general staff, to gain their support for a modest expedition.
Xuan Nha spoke, outlining his plan.
The Commandant of Militia argued that his forces were stripped to the bone, that he already lacked sufficient manpower to patrol the coasts and borders of the Republic properly. If his finest militia troops were jeopardized by sending them to Laos—
Xuan interrupted. "Our duty is to protect the borders of the Republic—to keep them free of foreign threats. We know that a Mee site exists a few kilometers from our border, which the People's Air Force has just told us provides valuable support for their pilots. Do you doubt him?"
"Of course not, comrade Colonel, but the navigation station has been there a long—"
Again Xuan interrupted in his low, dangerous tone. "It is our duty."
The colonel judiciously grew silent.
Xuan Nha spoke again. Tomorrow he'd gain approval from the senior staff. He planned to show that the People's Militia was required and essential and must not be further dismantled.
The Commandant of Militia had one last question, a very good one. "Why will we be successful, when other forces have failed?"
Xuan Nha was ready. The generals would ask the same thing. He grew a small smile. "How did the Mee destroy the Pathet Lao expeditions?"
The commandant was hesitant. "By strafing and bombing them?"
Xuan nodded. "The Mee pilots flew very low and were able to see the Pathet Lao in the jungle surrounding the mountain. They had to fly down there so they could find the elusive targets. There were also friendly native villages throughout the area, which they had to avoid bombing. Then, after they located the hidden Pathet Lao, they dropped their munitions."
The commandant agreed.
"Another question. Why do they not fly low and slow over targets here in the Republic?"
"Because we would shoot them down with our artillery. But we will have very little artillery at the navigation station."
"Perhaps only a few small guns," Xuan Nha agreed.
"Then how," the colonel asked again, "will it be different this time?"
Xuan raised the eyebrow of his good eye and offered an indulgent smile. "I have received a shipment of new weapons that will stop the Mee pilots. Your militia will take them to Ban Sao Si, and when the Mee aircraft come to find us, your men will test the new weapons. If they work there, as I know they will, they will also work for our soldiers fighting in the South."
The militia commandant looked puzzled. "I thought we were to take no medium artillery?"
"The terrain will be difficult, so we will take only a few small, mobile guns, but that is not what I speak of. The new weapon is called 'Strela,' a Russian word meaning arrow."
He described Strela in detail. Finally he concluded. "The Mee navigation station at Ban Sao Si will offer a test to show how well they work. And our militia will be victorious."
1720L—Hanoi
Assistant Commissioner Nguyen Wu
Wu was remorseful as he slunk from Li Binh's villa and hurried toward the street.
Two hours earlier h
e'd been visited in his office by a discreet courier and handed a plain envelope. Inside, a note told him to appear immediately at the rear door to the villa so Li Binh could pass on information of importance. He'd canceled his final meeting of the day and hurried as never before, heart pounding wildly, praying to the fates that it would be . . . exactly what it had turned out to be. But he'd not considered the awful thing that had happened.
When he'd rapped cautiously at the villa door, he'd been immediately admitted by a very young, wide-eyed maid who ushered him to the north wing, then fled as if chased by demons.
He'd stood awkwardly at the door to Li Binh's bedroom, a place he'd once known well. After a moment she'd called him into the dimly lit room where she waited, a neutral look on her face. He was told simply to prepare himself, and it took a moment, seeing her languidly disrobing, before he'd understood. Nguyen Wu, feared instrument for the Commissioner of Death, had sunk to his knees and blubbered his happiness.
Li Binh had snapped at him and told him to hurry. She had a busy schedule. Yet he'd noticed the hungry look, one he'd recognized when things had been warmer between them.
He tried to please her as he'd done before, but it was an impossible task. There was no charade to act out, no way to fool her into believing he was overcome by her femininity, for she now knew of his preference for men. He'd spoken the same love words, and she'd allowed him to stroke her skinny and angular body, had even touched and fondled him in return . . . did she tremble? . . . but it was all for naught After half an hour's efforts she'd sighed and told him to leave. She seemed unhappy, resigned, as if she'd proved something distasteful to herself.
His moment of opportunity was past. "It's been so long," he'd stammered in excuse, but by then she was half-dressed and intent on other thoughts. She'd related, almost offhandedly, that a high official was indicating a desire that Quon's reeducation be declared complete.
He'd hardly heard her words. When she repeated them, he'd sputtered that the release of important men such as Quon could come only from the Minister of Internal Affairs.
Li Binh said the official she spoke of was higher than Wu might imagine, that he could have the Minister of Internal Affairs crushed with a word. She'd advised him to handle the matter quickly, then motioned at the door and told him to leave as discreetly as he'd arrived.
As Nguyen Wu hurried past the iron gates into the quiet street and walked in the direction of his waiting utility vehicle, he was tormented. Was there now even a slight chance of redemption from his aunt? Her anger had been terrible when she'd learned about his sexual preferences. Now she'd given him another chance, and he'd failed miserably.
He cursed his body for being unable to respond. It was more than her being a woman. She was as imperious, as dangerous, and as sure of herself as any man. That fact had made it possible for him before. This time sheer fear of failure had turned his penis into a shriveled impossibility.
Next time I'll prepare better. I must make her squeal with pleasure.
He felt better until he had another thought. Would there be a next time? There must be! He would do anything, prove himself in any way, to return to the good graces of his beloved aunt.
Then he recalled the discussion about Quon, the once-famous fighter pilot. His aunt never spoke frivolously. The powerful person she'd spoke of was likely Le Duc Tho, whom he'd learned had arrived from the South. A tremor of apprehension coursed through him.
Nguyen Wu knew he must relay the message to the Commissioner of People's Safety.
Then he worried anew, for he'd visited horrors upon the ex–fighter pilot which far exceeded normal reeducation. Quon was still incarcerated in a miserable cell at the rear of the Commissioner's building, was still beaten thoroughly and often, was made to confess new sins daily. If he was to be released and reinstated too quickly, Quon would surely poison Wu's name with his powerful relative.
Only a few months before, Quon had arrogantly used his connections to have Nguyen Wu ignominiously removed from his position as Commandant of Rockets and Artillery and sent out on a fool's mission. But the man was arrogant no longer. He now answered his interrogator's questions humbly, and confessed readily. He divulged that his mother had been a common street whore, and that his dead son had been a traitor—admitted to every despicable act that rose in Wu's imagination. It had taken a long while, but Nguyen Wu was very good at his work, although he never soiled his own hands, of course. The ingredients to his formula were simple ones—degradation, starvation, and intense pain—and they'd all been used on Quon.
Now Nguyen Wu began to form a new plan, for he must reverse things. First he would convince Quon that he had studied the confessions and concluded that none of the things could possibly be true—that he'd have the interrogators chastised and removed from their posts. He had certainly meant him no harm and had only done his duty. He would examine his living conditions and demand more food and comfort for his friend Quon. Next he would plant the seed that he wished to become his savior, that he would try to engineer his freedom. It would take a little time, but it would surely work. Men in hopeless situations grasped at such threads.
Only then, when Quon realized that he was not to blame for his plight, would it be safe for Wu to advise his superiors that he should be released.
Life is so full of twists! Wu lamented, for he despised the famous fighter pilot and thoroughly enjoyed his torment.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Friday, November 17th, 0800 Local—Pacific Air Forces Headquarters, Hickam AFB, Hawaii
Colonel Tom Lyons
The headquarters was a collection of ugly, age-yellowed concrete buildings. Some fool had decided that the lessons of the disastrous air attack on December 7th, 1941 must not be forgotten, so the ugly marks of Japanese bullets had been left in the aging walls. Stupid kids' games, thought Tom Lyons as he strode through the entrance. What kind of idiot would want to be reminded of failure? He stopped at the security desk and gruffly asked for directions to CINCPACAF's office. General Roman's suite was on the top floor, he was told.
Tom said he was expected, and after the guard made a confirming telephone call, was told to go up. He chewed the sergeants ass for taking too much of his valuable time before starting up the staircase, where he noted even more of the ancient bullet holes. Ridiculous.
Roman's secretary was thirtyish and not at all bad looking. She asked him to wait, explaining that the general had visitors from Washington.
"How long?" he snapped irritably. His wife had complained the previous evening about the fact that their household shipment hadn't yet arrived, and about the house not being nearly large enough for her things anyway. She wasn't accustomed to camping out, she'd sniffed. To an heiress who could write a personal check for a couple of the lesser Hawaiian islands, it might indeed be camping out. They'd find another house, he'd said, trying to soothe her.
They couldn't, Margaret Lingenfelter Lyons had wailed, because her daddy would be let down, and they simply couldn't do that to him. They'd have to make do. She just hoped it wouldn't be for too long.
It was one of her parents' several vacation homes, a 6,000-square-foot multilevel "cottage" built into the heights overlooking Diamond Head with a full-size kidney-shaped pool on the west lanai. Her father had lent it to them for the duration of Tom's assignment.
Margaret had been difficult since he'd shown up in New York two weeks earlier to break the news about the assignment. "High-strung," her father called it. She'd acted as if he were taking her to Borneo to live among savages. They'd partied every night for a week so she could say good-bye to her various acquaintances, and each function ended with her crying on yet another friend's shoulder about the cruelties of life and the stupidity of the Air Force. During one party her mother had taken her aside and told her first that she was exaggerating and finally that she was being downright tawdry. Margaret had shouted she hated her and hurried off sobbing to lock herself in her bedroom. Tom had tried to talk her out, but it had taken her fa
ther to cajole her into returning to her guests.
She'd gone along when he visited his parents in Cherry Hills, an upscale suburb of Denver. After their arrival she'd cried again, that time about his thoughtlessness in taking her to such a cold, windblown place, where she had trouble breathing the rarefied air of the mile-high city. She'd huddled in the big house, sipping warmed port and pouting while he'd visited with his parents. Margaret was impossible. If the two fathers didn't believe that the marriage was such an appropriate merger, Tom Lyons would have ended it long before. But both men had very pointedly expressed that view on several occasions, and it would be an exercise in poor judgment to go against either's wishes.
During the visit he'd summoned his courage and told his father about the poor efficiency rating he'd received at Takhli, and how he thought his records had been flagged at Military Personnel Center because a dolt three-star general named Moss had it in for him. His father hadn't reproached him. He'd simply made a telephone call in Tom's presence. It was not the first call he'd made in his son's behalf, for similar matters in the past had required similar intercession. When his father stepped back and said a matter was resolved, Tom knew it was so. This call had been to General Roman in Hawaii.
Thank God for his father, who'd spoken with Roman as if his four stars meant nothing. After he'd hung up, he told Tom his career would be salvaged. He'd added his advice. The keys to Joe Roman were the same as with most generals: ego and ambition. Roman wanted to become the next Air Force Chief of Staff. He'd sell his mother for the chance. Go to Honolulu, he'd told him, massage Roman's ego, and help him make chief of staff.
After Colorado, Tom was off to Hawaii with Margaret, to whom flying in first or any class meant hardship. She'd started complaining before they took off from Stapleton Field and had not yet stopped, although two days had now passed since they'd deplaned in Honolulu. Margaret made his life miserable. It had even been better, Tom told himself, when he'd been at Takhli flying combat. He'd conveniently forgotten about ordering his staff never to schedule him on tough missions and had told his parents, his children, and even Margaret, about his unflinching heroism in the face of the SAMs and MiGs he'd been briefed about but had never seen firsthand during his nine combat sorties in route pack one.