Tango Uniform (Vietnam Air War Book 3)

by Tom Wilson

  For another thing, he'd received word from Carolyn that his son, Mark, was going to be booted out of Columbia if he didn't raise his grade-point average. The poor grades, according to their faculty friend, were because he spent most of his time running around with a group of long-haired and generally undesirable characters instead of studying. Carolyn wanted Buster's advice. Perhaps the situation was even worse, she'd said, for there were growing reports of LSD use on campus, and with the friends he kept . . .

  Carolyn was beside herself with worry.

  General Moss wanted another input for JACKPOT.

  George Armaugh demanded that maintenance be improved, so they could meet their operational taskings from headquarters.

  Jerry Trimble demanded that operations slack off on their unreasonable demands, which were destroying morale among his overworked crew chiefs.

  His secretary and chief of admin were temporarily gone, and he had an urgent message to get out to PACAF headquarters.

  And he had to keep all of those things from clouding his judgment.

  "You guys ready to start?" he growled to the assembled group.

  Lieutenant Colonel Lucky Anderson stood up from his seat at the side of the room. "I was just talking with Yank here, and he's got a damned interesting story, Colonel."

  "Go ahead."

  Donovan spoke in a terse voice about a radio conversation with someone called Hotdog when the strike force had approached the Channel TACAN that morning.

  "Who the hell's Hotdog?" asked Colonel Armaugh.

  "Got me." Donovan was acting more than a little morose. He'd lost a pilot in his flight, Penny's boyfriend, and it was obviously eating at him.

  The conversation continued for a bit, including the unlikely remark from Hotdog that a T-34 had been shot down by a small guided rocket. Buster shrugged. "If no one knows if the call was real, let's move on to another subject."

  Lucky Anderson took his feet again. "Colonel, I think I've got some answers, but it's pretty sensitive. And listening to Yank, I think it's important we try to get them help ASAP."

  "How sensitive is it?'

  "Could we speak in private?" Anderson looked concerned.

  "After the briefing."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Okay, let's get the show on the road." Buster didn't like long staff meetings.

  They started with an aircraft-status report from maintenance. George Armaugh began to complain, bringing a quick put-down from Buster. Next operations gave a rundown of the previous week's combat sorties, and Buster had to glare at Jerry Trimble to keep him silent. The Deputy for Logistics gave a report about the resupply efforts and added that they were processing a request from Captain DeVera for a large number of additional ECM pods. When he asked for more rationale, Buster said this was not the place and told him to have his experts help Manny with the request. He said he'd approved it, and that should be enough clout for the colonel to get off his duff.

  The meeting went quickly, because they realized the old man was in a bad mood. Which made Buster wonder if he shouldn't be bitchy more often, so he could keep the meetings shorter and to the point. When the others had left, Buster motioned to Anderson. Lucky followed him to his office and closed the door, obviously serious about the secrecy of the Hotdog matter.

  "So who was it that called Yank Donovan?" Buster asked, anxious to get it over with.

  "The only Hotdog I know about's an Army long-range recon patrol. A very special team."

  "Special how?"

  "I promised not to discuss them. Let me put it this way, Colonel. They saved my ass."

  "When you were shot down?"

  Lucky Anderson stared at him for a moment, then gave a tiny nod of his head. It was apparent he wasn't about to tell more.

  "So how do you interpret this radio contact?"

  "I know the team leader. He wouldn't have called unless they were in deep shit."

  "So why isn't the Army requesting air support?"

  "I can't say, hut the guy running Hotdog wouldn't do this unless the situation was tense."

  "Special Forces?"

  "Yes, sir. I can't tell you more. I'm not even sure I know much more."

  "Damn!" Buster muttered. There was too much pressing on him. He blew a breath. "Well, let's go over to the command post and call MAC-SOG on the scrambler phone. Surely they'll tell us if their people are in trouble."

  It took fifteen minutes to get hold of MAC-SOG headquarters at Nha Trang, then five more before Buster was put through to someone who might know of such things. Finally a full bull answered who said, very pointedly, that there was no such thing as a Hotdog team assigned to Surveillance and Observation Group in Vietnam.

  "What about in Laos?"

  "It's against U.S. policy for Americans to operate in Laos."

  When Buster repeated what his mission commander had heard on the radio, and asked if a T-34 might have been shot down near Channel 97, the colonel said he knew nothing about a downed aircraft.

  When Buster hung up and relayed what had been said, Lucky Anderson's mouth became a taut line. "That's pure bullshit, Colonel. They're just not telling us."

  Buster nodded to the command-post tech to shut down the secure telephone console. "Well, there's nothing we can do about it, if they don't want to help their own people."

  He had other things to worry about.

  1550L—Trailer 5B, Takhli RTAFB, Thailand

  GS-7 Penny Dwight

  Penny was devastated. The admin chief had delivered her to the trailer and asked if she'd wanted him to stay, but she'd wailed "no," and shut herself inside.

  They'd told her there was no hope that Dusty had survived.

  After long, shuddering bouts of tears, she would collect herself. Then she'd remember his grin or the way he'd move his hands to try to put his impossibly unruly hair back in place, and start crying again. Finally she held her head and sat quietly, letting the misery consume her. She hardly heard the knocking at the door, and then almost didn't answer.

  Roger Hamlin was there. "Just came by to see how you're doing," he said. She let him in and they sat at the table, avoiding each other's eyes and remaining quiet for a long while.

  "I hate this war," she whispered miserably.

  "You gotta keep living, Penny."

  She shook her head sadly.

  "That's something you learn, Penny. Some of the people here have to give their lives. It's their job to face that possibility, and they do it for whatever reason makes 'em tick. And when they're gone, the others have to keep living."

  She sniffed, looked at the ceiling, and shook her head. "I don't ever want to feel that callous about it, Roger. Last night Dusty and I shared . . ." Prudence stopped her when she realized what she'd been about to say.

  "This morning Dusty told me you were very . . . special," Roger said quietly.

  She looked up sharply. "Did he say anything else?"

  "No. Just that you . . ." He swallowed, and his eyes became misty.

  Penny wondered just what Dusty had told him. If he'd let on what she'd done, she would just die. She wanted to feel ashamed. Dusty had been Roger's best friend, and here he was trying to build her spirits, yet . . .

  They'd been quiet for a long while when Roger came around and knelt beside her and held his arm lightly over her shoulder. Penny huddled there. She pulled a tissue from a box on the table and blew her nose.

  "Your hair looks nice," Roger said.

  She'd had it trimmed in a pageboy cut, so it would frame her rounded face. "I did it for Dusty," she said forlornly.

  "You gonna be okay?"

  She eyed him glumly, then nodded.

  "I've gotta go to the squadron for a meeting."

  She thought before saying quietly, "Don't tell the others what Dusty said about us last night, okay?"

  "He just said you were special . . . not like other girls he'd met."

  A burden left her. "I just don't want any . . . ah . . . stories started. It's bad enough as it is." />
  "I understand. You take care?"

  She pulled in a ragged breath and nodded.

  He patted her on the shoulder and stood.

  "Thank you for coming by, Roger."

  "You want me to check back later? Maybe escort you over to the club? One of the Weasel pilots plays a mean banjo, and we're going to get together for some tunes after dinner. Music helps take my mind off things. Maybe it'll help you too."

  She started to say no, then reconsidered. Roger was happily married and safe.

  "I'll drop by about six." He paused. "I'm sure gonna miss him," Roger said as he left.

  After a bit she got up and scrubbed her face with a washcloth, pleased that Dusty hadn't said anything about what they'd done. She knew that men sometimes talked about an easy conquest, as if they were showing off a trophy or something.

  She shuddered at the thought. That had been about the worst thing that could happen to a girl in Seymour, Indiana, where she'd been raised. After the single, unsatisfying time in the backseat with the high-school basketball player, the guys had looked at her and treated her entirely differently. A girlfriend had learned that he'd spread it around that he'd "banged her cherry so far back, she'd be using it for a tail light," and also that she'd been a lousy lay. Penny had been utterly mortified. As soon as she'd graduated, she'd left town—moved as far from Seymour as possible, to Maryland, where she'd lived with an elderly, widowed aunt until she found work. Then there had been her fiancé at Andrews, who'd let their co-workers believe they were sleeping together, acting as if he were a real stud.

  The fact that Dusty had not talked made her feel even warmer toward his memory. Another flood of sadness swept over her. "I hate this damned war," she whispered again.

  A little later she wondered if it could have been anything she'd done that had caused Dusty to be lost. Whether he'd been tired from their lovemaking. Whether she'd somehow robbed him of his alertness, or if he'd been distracted by thoughts of her. The ideas were disturbing.

  1645L—Channel 97 TACAN Station, Laos

  Sergeant Black

  The militia soldiers were quiet down below. They could afford to wait—he could not. First he'd been turned down by the fast movers he'd contacted on the UHF radio; then Vientiane Control had told them there'd be no air strikes today. Their only hope was to be evacuated, which Vientiane reassured him would be done. The controller wouldn't say how or precisely when.

  Black had trouble with that because, one, he didn't see how they could safely get a cargo plane into the site, and two, he didn't trust Vientiane Control. When he'd tried Buffalo Soldier, there'd been no more advice. Larry said they'd again urged Vientiane Control to extract them. Buffalo Soldier had no authority over air assets in northern Laos, and combat ground operations were verboten there.

  Papa Wolf had come on the air once and said if the evacuation failed, to somehow get out of the immediate area on foot and give them a call so they could put a rescue effort together.

  Great advice, with 600 soldiers down below eager for blood.

  Papa Wolf signed off by chiding him for using the UHF. He'd been chastised by MAC-SOG because Black's team had called on an unauthorized frequency for illegal air support.

  The Hotdog team members were idle. They'd spent the night placing the mines, so he'd told them to rest so they'd be able to help with the evacuation tonight.

  Lying bastard, he told himself. He still didn't believe Vientiane Control was serious about getting them out.

  Black was restless, so he walked through the Yard village and talked to the people there, joking with the kids and admonishing them to stay close to home and not wander off.

  Buddy Canepa came over to complain. He said he'd gone to the supply shack and found the cases of booze had been stolen. Black told him he'd had them removed.

  "It was private property," Canepa tried. "Just give me one bottle and we'll forget it."

  "Get fucked," Black said cheerfully.

  "How's Jones?" Buddy Canepa finally asked.

  "He died this morning."

  They heard an explosion from below, and Black walked toward the precipice in that direction.

  "What the hell was that?" Canepa asked.

  "Booby trap," said Black. "Amazing the shit you hear when you're sober."

  He continued to the side and looked down. There was a second explosion. The Hotdogs were good with booby traps.

  He heard the sounds of a chopper and looked around until he saw it. Coming from the east, the direction of North Vietnam. A speck at first, then it grew. The chopper flew directly over the militia soldiers, so he supposed it was North Vietnamese.

  It kept coming, directly toward the mountain top. Black unslung his AKM, staring as the thing grew closer. It didn't look like the helicopters he knew were in North Vietnam, but . . .

  He aimed, then heard a Yard yell something to him. A friendly? He lowered his weapon.

  A stream of 12.7 fire reached up from below, and the chopper began to take wild evasive action. It was a small one with a bubble canopy, and it passed over Black, swung about, and settled in a cloud of blowing stones and debris. He watched closely, still handling the AK. The rotors clopped to a halt, and a grinning pilot unstrapped and stepped out. He wore jeans, a checkered shirt, and an Orioles baseball cap.

  "Whoo-ee," he yelled exuberantly. "Fooled 'em that time."

  Black went closer. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

  "S'posed to take out three Amer'kins." The pilot peered. "You one of 'em?"

  "How about the rest of my men?"

  The chopper pilot frowned. "They Amer'kins?"

  "What about noncombatants? The Yard women and children."

  The pilot glanced at the Montagnard village. "Got me, Jocko. Maybe they're sending someone else for 'em, but I'm here for three Amer'kins. That's all I can haul, and all I was sent for. I get a ten thou bonus for each of you folks I deliver alive to Luang Prabang."

  Buddy Canepa hurried up, smiling. "Let's get going," he said. "I'll pack a couple of bags."

  "No bags," said the pilot. "She's a two-people bird, and she'll be strainin' to get up with the four of us. Anyway, we gotta wait for dark. No way I can do that act twice and get away with it."

  "Jones is dead," grumbled Canepa. "That gives us more room."

  The pilot grimaced. "I get half pay for bringing 'em out dead. Maybe we should take the body." He pondered for a bit before rejecting the idea.

  "I oughta be able to take just one bag," complained Buddy Canepa.

  The lieutenant walked up, and the pilot did a bug-eye act when he noted the NVA uniform. It had happened before with other unsuspecting Americans. The lieutenant enjoyed his moment and tried to look menacing.

  "He's tame," Black said, looking with disgust at the tiny helicopter.

  The pilot didn't appear convinced.

  An explosion sounded from below as a booby trap was set off.

  Black knew it was no use to call Vientiane, but he wondered if Buffalo Soldier knew the score, so he returned to the hut.

  Larry wasn't manning the radio. "Papa Wolf advises that you take the chopper," a new, belligerent voice told him.

  "I've got my detachment here, and there's nineteen women and kids, and they send a two-man chopper? That's bullshit, Buffalo Soldier. Let me talk to Papa Wolf."

  The man on the other end sounded impatient. "I repeat. Your orders are to take the chopper. Acknowledge, Hotdog."

  Black sighed angrily. "We've got a bad frequency or something, Buffalo Soldier. Can't hear you worth a shit. Hotdog is out."

  The voice turned angrier. "Hotdog, be advised . . ."

  Black left the hut and stalked to the chopper, where the pilot was switching between talking with Canepa and carefully eyeing the glowering lieutenant.

  The lieutenant kept up his menacing appearance as he came over and quietly spoke to Black. "The militia are grouping at the bottom of the mountain. Two places." He indicated the main trail and then due south, the gent
lest of the steep slopes.

  The sun was drooping into the mountainous horizon.

  "Won't be long now until it's dark," called the pilot. "I figure we oughta wait until after midnight before we take off." He pulled a bedroll from the chopper and placed it next to a skid, then stretched out and used it for a headrest.

  Black left them and went to the Montagnard tent village, where he carefully looked about until he'd found his candidates.

  1830L—O' Club Dining Room, Takhli RTAFB, Thailand

  Lieutenant Colonel Lucky Anderson

  "How'd it go today?" he asked Linda after the waitress brought their menus.

  "Fine. Is that the girl the men call No Hab?" she asked.

  He chuckled. "Yeah."

  "She's cute."

  "She's a farm girl from a little village east of here, across the Phraya River. Some of the girls from over there migrated here when the base opened." He saw no use to add that the majority had become hookers downtown—No Hab had been given the job in the dining room because a Thai officer stationed on the other side of the base was a distant relative.

  "There's some dense jungle across the river," Linda said knowingly.

  "The last bastion of the Bengal tiger. They still hunt them using elephants, beaters, the whole shebang."

  "Sounds like something out of Kipling."

  "The Kwai River's there. I came back from a mission with a little extra fuel one time and went over to take a look at the bridge built by British POW labor. The one in the movie."

  "I loved Alec Guinness in that." Linda frowned. "I thought the bridge was blown up. That's what they showed in the movie."

  "Then they rebuilt it, because it's still there. It looks out of place. Big steel structure like you'd find in Europe or the States, but it's out in the middle of the jungle."

  No Hab returned, poised her pencil over her pad, and raised an eyebrow as she imagined waitresses did in the States. The fact that she could read and write only a few necessary numbers wasn't nearly as important as the image.

  "We'll both have Salisbury steak," Lucky told her, which was number four on the menu.