Tango Uniform (Vietnam Air War Book 3)

by Tom Wilson

  Manny was the kind who gave off so much energy you could feel it when he came near, and he had buckets of charisma. If she wasn't so taken by Dusty Fields, she could imagine herself being drawn to the handsome pilot with the animal intensity, who could make a room come to life just by walking in. He'd been in her office that morning, in fact, leaning over her desk and joking, when a tall dark-haired lady had entered and given her a card showing she was the country coordinator for USOM/USAID. Her card read that she was GS-15 Linda M. Lopes.

  "I'd like to see the wing comman—"

  "You're Lieutenant Colonel Anderson's fiancé," Penny had blurted. Then she'd become embarrassed at her outburst and added in a more collected voice, "I saw you with him at the Bangkok airport."

  The dark-haired lady had smiled. She was so well groomed and carried herself so regally that Penny was more than a little awed. She could be no more than five or six years older than Penny, and already a GS-15? She'd never met a woman who'd risen that high in the system.

  Linda Lopes had paid a short visit to Colonel Leska, a courtesy call to tell him she'd be in the area for the next few days on USAID business. While she was inside the colonel's office, the chief master sergeant who ran admin at the wing commander's office came over to Penny and said to make sure the lady's usual trailer had been reserved.

  A call to the billeting office revealed that trailer 9A was indeed clean, vacant, and as Miss Lopes had left it on her visit two months earlier.

  Linda had stopped off at her desk again on her way out. "I'll be here for five days," she said in her businesslike tone, "and I'd appreciate it if you'd take any messages. I left this number at the embassy."

  "You'll be at your trailer?" Penny had been unable to keep a trill of admiration from her voice. GS-15 Lopes had remained expressionless, as if she hadn't picked it up.

  "In and out," she'd said. "I'll be working in the area, but I'll drop by there daily. Just have someone leave a note at my trailer and I'll get in contact with you."

  She'd gone over and spoken a few words to Manny DeVera before she left. Penny felt she looked very sexy and quite mysterious. The enormity of what Penny was doing, that she was actually in ancient Siam, meeting people like GS-15 Linda Lopes, had thrilled her once more.

  Manny DeVera had come back over to her desk, smiling. "So the Ice Maiden's here. That oughta make Lucky Anderson happy."

  "Ice maiden?" Penny had asked, wrinkling her nose. It was a silly thing to call someone so sophisticated.

  "That's the nickname the guys use. She's a good lady. How about dinner?" Manny had slipped the last sentence in very smoothly.

  "Dusty and I are going downtown to do some shopping soon as I get off. It's Saturday and I only work half a day."

  "Some other time?"

  "Perhaps," Penny had lied to be polite. She'd already chosen, and there was no turning back, and certainly no playing around.

  The previous night, when Dusty had walked her to her door and tried to talk his way inside, and after she'd firmly said no, they'd kissed and petted for ten minutes outside the dark trailer. Dusty had told her things like, "I never know if I'll make it back," and although she'd known it was a line he was using to get her into bed, she'd been affected. Penny had hurried inside and cried to think about brave men like Dusty facing death and perhaps never again sharing joy with a woman. Tonight he'd not mentioned it when they'd kissed at her door, although he'd pressed to come inside so they could "talk and maybe relax some" together. It was a good thing he hadn't brought up the fears, because if he had, she'd surely have given in.

  Why hadn't she relented and let him inside? Was she being too prudish? When would he stop pressing if she kept putting him off? Did she dare for that to happen? There were too many questions for a woman to answer in a situation such as this.

  When Dusty wasn't around, she confided in his friend Roger, who was very talented with his music, and whom the others inexplicably called Animal. Roger seemed very steady and was happily married, and thus less dangerous. She'd likely also confide in Manny DeVera, if he didn't have that dangerous air about him that made warning bells go off.

  Penny closed the bathroom door, then pulled off the rest of her clothing and stuffed it into a laundry bag the maid had left hanging on the door. It would be washed, lightly starched, ironed, and placed on hangers in her closet or folded in the dresser . . . all for a ridiculously low weekly price. She turned to the mirror, peering critically as she examined herself. There were no wrinkles. She'd not yet reached her twenty-fifth birthday and those horrors would be a few years coming. She preened a bit and decided she was acceptable. Her nose was too pointed, her mouth too pixyish, her waist too long, her nipples too small, her left breast larger than the right, and she had a deep dimple above each buttock that was sure to embarrass her if she ever stood naked before a man, but none of those were overly distracting. She was no beauty, maybe, but she was trim, had the proper equipment, and knew she was as ripe and ready as a woman could get.

  Shower time.

  Penny adjusted the water flow to full blast, let it run until it was steamy hot, stepped inside, and positioned herself so the needles darted upon her breasts. Her breathing slowly intensified. She gradually moved back until her buttocks were against the cold metal of the stall and the water tingled her tummy; then she arched and writhed a bit as the glow Dusty had left her with returned.

  She languidly moved her hands down her body, making believe they were Dusty's. Her breaths came in low huffs now, but she was oblivious. Her fingers found her source and she moaned low. She began to work to finish the delicious feeling.

  It took an effort not to cry out.

  Dusty! she thought as she quickened. Then she thought of intense Manny and felt herself blush. She made a low grunting moan, followed by a series of mewing sounds that she tried to stifle.

  Penny stopped, mouth wide, and held herself very still as the feeling slowly abated.

  Oh, God, but she was ready!

  Sunday, November 26th, 0700 Local—9 km Northeast of Channel 97 TACAN, Laos

  Sergeant Black

  The man called Sergeant Black was wearing jungle fatigues, with a single subdued E-6 rank on one collar and a floppy campaign hat on his head. A use-worn 7.62mm Automat Kalashnikov model-M folding-stock assault rifle rested at his side. He lay on a shale outcropping, binoculars fixed on the small clearing 200 yards distant.

  One of his Hotdog team members was at his side, also staring at the clearing. He wore quite a different uniform, with baggy, olive-drab cotton pants, a matching shirt with sleeves half–rolled up, and tan canvas shoes. A wicker hat lay at his side. It was the field uniform of the North Viet Army as the Americans called it, or Viet People's Army, as they called themselves.

  A dozen soldiers stood in the clearing, talking. One laughed and the sound carried. They obviously didn't anticipate observers.

  "People's Militia," said the team member beside Sergeant Black derisively. The soldiers before them wore Ho Chi Minh sandals cut from truck tires, like the Cong in South Vietnam. Tennis shoes went to the regular People's Army. Yet the soldiers Black observed looked purposeful and professional, not nearly as unkempt as other militia he'd seen. What the hell are they doing in Laos? he wondered

  He remained quiet. The seven men of the long-range recon detachment, code name Hotdog, had worked together for fifteen months. They were professionals and seldom spoke aloud or even used hand signals.

  His six men didn't wear bogus uniforms. They'd deserted from the 321-B Division of the VPA, prepared to give their lives to rid the world of the Hanoi communists. After kidnapping a Special Forces sergeant and convincing the shaken soldier that they wished to turn themselves over to the Americans and no one else, they'd marched into an A-Team camp near the DMZ with wide grins and hands behind their heads. After intensive interrogations and a field test to prove their loyalty, they'd been joined by Sergeant Black. That was in violation of agreements with the South Viets, for defectors were to
be turned over to them, for propaganda use in their "open arms" program. But Black, under the auspices of the new Delta Project and Command and Control–Central, headquartered at Nakhon Phanom in easternmost Thailand, was trying to prove a concept using North Viet defectors for long-range recon patrols into Laos (called Prairie Fire) and into North Vietnam (called Kit Cat). He'd found that the men of Hotdog could soldier as well as any Special forces team he'd served with. Their skills had been proved on five forays into enemy territory, three into North Vietnam, one of those into the very heart of the country, in the heavily populated area west of Hanoi.

  The Special Forces brass in Delta Project at Nha Thing, and CC-C at NKP, called them "Black's renegades," and he'd grown to like the name. He'd trained, lived, and fought with them, and they'd grown interdependent, as men who bet their asses on one another do. Black considered the rock-tough lieutenant, now out leading the remainder of the Hotdog team, as close a friend as he had. His name was Hoang Phrang, but everyone just called him "the lieutenant." He was a natural leader and the best soldier Black had ever seen operate in the bush.

  Black was so impressed with his crew that he'd convinced the Special Forces brass at the Delta Project to try more small LRRP teams made up of SF leaders and NVA deserters. Other American-led indigenous teams had been formed, but none had been trusted sufficiently to routinely conduct sensitive Kit Cat or Prairie Fire patrols, as Hotdog did. One reason was that there were few team leaders with Black's unique qualifications, and of those, even fewer willing to bet their asses on a bunch of fucking deserters. So the indigenous teams were turned over to the South Viet Special Forces or given misinformation and dropped into North Vietnam areas where they'd be compromised and captured.

  Such was the ridiculous war they fought. Hotdog was allowed to continue, but the team's days were numbered. The only thing that held them together was the fact that Black was highly regarded.

  Three weeks earlier Black had been in Hawaii, visiting his family and recuperating from a wound left by a 12.7mm machine-gun round that had passed through his side. He'd been called to Fort Shafter for a quiet, closed ceremony. The four-star running U.S. Army Western Command had presented him with a fourth oak-leaf cluster to his Purple Heart and a Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest medal the army gave out. Black had worn a sharp uniform for the presentation, with captain's bars on his shoulders and five rows of medals, jump wings, and a combat infantryman's badge on his chest. His plastic name tag had read DILLINGHAM, the same as an early-American missionary who'd dallied with a wahine convert. He also had Japanese, Portuguese, and a preponderance of native island blood. One branch of his ancestry traced back to Kamehameha I, the fierce warrior king who had consolidated the Hawaiian isles under his rule.

  Black looked a bit Japanese, but he was too thick-chested. He had a Caucasian's nose, but his face was round, his eyes Oriental, and his hair as straight as a shock of black wheat. He was intense and intelligent, and had a thing for languages, down to picking up local nuances. He could speak French, German, Russian, and Japanese with authority. He also spoke Vietnamese with the crisp staccato rhythm of a northerner, and could get by in Thai, Montagnard, and most Hmong dialects.

  Five days before, Hotdog had been flown from Nha Trang, where they'd received refresher training in LRRP ops by the superb Recondo instructors, back to the CC-C headquarters at Nakhon Phanom. There Black had received briefings on an easy recon patrol into northeast Laos, to pick up information on possible enemy movements. Ma tribesmen, distant relatives of both the Montagnards, who lived to their south, and Hmong, to their west, reported an advance guard of Viet soldiers moving into the area. MAC-SOG wanted to know who they were, and if they posed a threat to the CIA-operated air-navigation station installed on a mountaintop near the tiny village and deserted airfield called Ban Sao Si.

  "Probably nothing to it," the lieutenant colonel who ran the headquarters C-Team had told Black. "The Pathet Lao are mobilizing to battalion strength all over Laos, and we're picking up a lot of NVA activity on the trails, so they've got bigger priorities than a two-bit nav station."

  "Then why are we going in?" Black had asked.

  "Because, one, the Ma tribe's been generally accurate in the past, two, the Air Force prima donnas want to keep Channel Ninety-seven on the air and get nervous when anyone threatens it, and three, after fucking off and getting soft in Hawaii, I figure you need an easy op to hone up on."

  Black had wanted to take his Hotdog renegades with him on his R and R, but the same lieutenant colonel had rejected the idea. Like others, he wouldn't be at all surprised if the renegades decided to turn, or shed a tear if they were compromised and killed. But he was impressed with Black and the results he got on his ops, although he repeatedly cautioned him about the possibility of being captured and turned over by his own men.

  Hotdog had been dropped in two nights before and quickly located their contact in the Ma village, to discuss the military force that was supposedly moving into the area.

  The contact said four of the oddly uniformed soldiers had arrived and set up a radio in the tiny village of Ban Keng Long, and that a larger force was moving through the mountains toward them from the east. He hadn't been able to tell them how many soldiers were approaching, because the tribesmen had no concept of numbers beyond the mystical five, the numbers of fingers on a hand or toes on a foot. The Yards, which is what the Forces called Montagnards, were entrenched in Bronze Age mentalities, but they were downright sophisticated compared to tribes like the Ma, who lived in the hills and jungles to their north. The contact, who was also headman of his village, had pointed about himself with gestures that indicated there were quite a few soldiers coming through the mountains. That could mean ten, a hundred, or a thousand.

  Black had rewarded him with a 500-round box of captured 7.62mm ammo, as well as a small bag of brass buttons he'd bought at a Nakhon Phanom market. The headman had graciously offered Black his two teenaged daughters for the night and grown embarrassed when he declined. The family's honor was salved when the stocky, bare-breasted maids were offered to his men, for the lieutenant had claimed one, and his men had taken turns with the other. By morning, when they'd prepared to move out, the father had been proud.

  Hotdog was a horny crew, Black thought as he peered through the binoculars. He noted two new arrivals in the clearing. Both wore pith helmets with small dark-red stars at the front. One was older, with collar markings he couldn't discern. The other, much younger, carried a leather dispatch bag slung around his neck. A field-grade officer and his lieutenant?

  He watched as the younger man gestured southward and the two discussed something. They reached agreement, formed the men in the clearing into trail formation, and came on, disappearing into a stand of trees. More soldiers appeared and followed in single file. They appeared as professional and sure as regular NVA. Black could hear the revving of engines in the distance. The roads were difficult, and the vehicles were obviously having trouble negotiating.

  Black heard a slight sound to his right, the low clucking of a jungle bird. He edged back off the shale outcropping and watched as the remainder of Hotdog appeared. They'd been gone for two hours, since well before dawn.

  The lieutenant nodded northward. "They are from the Army of National Defense," he whispered in a barely audible voice.

  Black paused thoughtfully, his suspicions confirmed. VPAND People's Militia, never before seen outside the borders of North Vietnam. "How many?" he whispered in Viet.

  "Don't know," came the answer. "At least two hundred, but I believe more. We saw utility vehicles and water buffalo hauling carts and five small artillery pieces. We couldn't get close because we are wearing the wrong uniforms."

  "How many vehicles?"

  "Four, but we could hear more."

  Two hundred soldiers were a sizable force, thought Black, likely enough to overrun a small nav station defended by a handful of Yard tribesmen. If that was where they were going. It made sense, though
, for there was little else of military value in the area, and this was not a normal route of passage.

  Black gave the signal to move out. He planned to back off a kilometer or two, then contact the headquarters at NKP about the force they'd encountered and tell them it was headed toward the mesa with the nav station on top. An air strike would eliminate the threat if they attacked while the force was still enroute.

  An hour later they'd strung the directional antenna of the HF single-sideband radio and connected the battery pack. Black made initial contact with Nakhon Phanom and gave the day's password. The response came from a man with a distinctive nasal voice that he easily recognized. His name was Larry, a sergeant he'd served with at an alpha detachment in the highlands, and Black felt pleased because it was someone he could work with. They'd developed their own distinctive way of communicating at the A-det—their own unique code words. Larry was also one of few at NKP who knew his real rank and that he was to be listened to.

  "Buffalo Soldier, Hotdog counts minimum of two buckets of vee-pand militia on the move with utility vehicles and buffalo hauling horse pistols and supplies. Destination is likely Yankee two-one." He gave precise coordinates of the clearing through which they passed. "Foliage cover's pretty sparse there, and they oughta make good targets."

  Yankee twenty-one was the CIA-operated nav station, so the headquarters was interested. Larry had him repeat his transmission, wary of the two "buckets," which meant 200, and he seemed perplexed that they were VPAND militia, who operated only inside North Vietnam.