Tango Uniform (Vietnam Air War Book 3)
Page 69
He waited until most of the other passengers had deplaned before joining the line and trudging along with the flow. Out the raised hatch and down the boarding ramp, helping an elderly gentleman who had trouble with the steps. Into the terminal, and looking around for Moods.
He paused and stared at the face that had become etched in his mind. Julie Stewart hurried forward—stopped just out of arm's length. Her eyes were wide, her expression shy.
"I thought you'd moved," Benny said awkwardly.
"That's what Moods told me. Are you disappointed?"
He shook his head, struck wordless.
"Mom went back to New Jersey. She was the one I told Pam was leaving. She misunderstood."
"Oh?" He wanted to hold her.
Julie pulled in a breath, turning her eyes toward the crowd. "Been here an hour so I wouldn't miss you if your plane was somehow early. Hell, I work here. You'd think I'd be smarter than that."
As they started down the corridor toward the baggage-claim area, Benny realized she was alone. "Where's the baby?"
"She's with Pam and Moods for the night. I told them we'd want to talk."
"Your mother's gone?" he asked.
"We had a long discussion. I told her I didn't have a chance with you unless we had more time to ourselves. She argued, but that's Mom."
A chance with him?
"God, I missed you, Benny Lewis," she whispered as they walked.
He put a hand on her shoulder and stopped her. The crowd milled past, but he didn't care.
She looked up at him, tears welling. "I realize you were too busy to write or call—at least I hope it was because you were busy. It was awful not hearing from you all that time."
"I thought—"
"After that dumb night when I acted so silly, I felt you might want out. Tell me if you do. I'll learn to live with it."
He shook his head wordlessly.
"I'm sorry I was such a klutz. Give me another chance, okay?" Tears were flowing freely.
He gently pulled her to him and held her. He wanted to protect and shield her from harm as he'd wanted to do since he'd first seen her more than a year earlier and every time since when he'd thought of her and felt the warm and comfortable sensation. She made a small sound, grasping on to him as if he were a life preserver.
"I thought I'd lost you," she whispered.
He found his voice, and it was determined and sure. "You'll never lose me, lady."
They stood, hugging fiercely as the tourists continued past.
An impatient couple jostled them and Benny glared, then regarded Julie. His voice was gravel rough. "After we get my bags, let's go somewhere."
"I've cleaned the apartment constantly for the past month, waiting for you to get home."
Home. "Yes," Benny said, "let's go home."
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Thursday, March 14th, 0730 Local—HQ Seventh Air Force, Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Saigon, South Vietnam
Lieutenant Colonel Pearly Gates
As soon as he took his seat in the general's office, Moss handed Pearly the JACKPOT message. The general's look was studiously neutral, yet the back-channel message was the most encouraging of all those sent to date.
SECRET—IMMEDIATE—JACKPOT
CC EYES ONLY—NO FURTHER DISSEM
DTG: 13/1840ZMAR68
FM: CSAF/CC, HQ USAF, PENTAGON
TO: CINCPACAF/CC, HICKAM AB, HI
CINCSAC/CC, OFFUTT AFB, NEB
CINCTAC/CC, LANGLEY AFB, VA
HQ MAC/CC, SCOTT AFB, ILL
HQ 7 AF/CC, TAN SON NHUT AB, SVN
HQ 13 AF/CC, CLARK AB, PI
USAFTFWC/CC, NELLIS AFB, NEV
USAFTAWC/CC, EGLIN AFB, FLA
SUBJECT: STATUS REPORT
1. (S) MET WITH J THIS A.M. HE IS OUTRAGED OVER LEAK TO N.Y. TIMES ABOUT WESTMORELAND'S REQUEST FOR 200,000 MORE TROOPS & BLAMES THAT FOR THE 40 PERCENT VOTE GAINED BY E MCCARTHY IN NH PRIMARY. HE BELIEVES RFK W/BE ENCOURAGED TO ENTER RACE. THAT WAS TONE WHEN HE CALLED ME IN.
A. J 'S 1ST QUESTION WAS "WILL LINE BACKER JACKPOT END THE WAR?" MY ANSWER WAS "IT WILL FORCE NVN TO RECALL THEIR FORCES, & THAT WILL QUICKEN END TO THE WAR."
B. J GAVE TENTATIVE APPROVAL FOR IMPLEMENTATION, PENDING HIS FINAL GO-AHEAD WHICH COULD COME ANY DAY NOW.
2. (C) CONTACT ON PRES STAFF SAID NEXT WK J WILL NAME W. WESTMORELAND AS NEW CHAIRMAN OF JCS (NO SURPRISE). HAS NOT YET DECIDED UPON OTHER REPLACEMENTS (SUCH AS MINE). J WILL AUTH 7 AF CC AS 4-STAR POSITION.
3. (C) MY FEELING IS THIS TIME THE APPROVAL IS REAL. J CANNOT SEND 200,000 TROOPS TO COMBAT ZONE WHILE CRITICISMS ARE MOUNTING. LINE BACKER JACKPOT IS ONLY HONORABLE WAY OUT.
4. (S) FOR ALL: REVIEW & ENSURE THAT THE I'S HAVE BEEN DOTTED ON THE OPLAN, NOW GIVEN OFFICIAL STATUS AS AF OPLAN 68-1011, SHORT TITLE: LINE BACKER JACKPOT.
SECRET—IMMEDIATE—JACKPOT
When Pearly had finished reading, General Moss pointed at the address block. "Notice all the big boys are included now?"
"Yes, sir. And he wants you promoted to four stars."
"It says this position will be elevated to a four-star billet. There's no mention of my name. They may bring in someone from the outside."
"But the President said he wanted you running the effort."
"I suppose he did." The general played it with the neutral expression, but Pearly noted he was in a jovial mood. "By the way," Moss added, "I finally received a phone call from General Roman yesterday regarding the briefing you gave him."
Pearly leaned forward, listening hard.
"He said, 'Tell Lieutenant Colonel Gates that I concur with his plan.' That's all. He just spat out those words like they were bad-tasting medicine, then hung up."
Pearly heaved a sigh of relief. "Then he's aboard."
"It would seem so." Moss stared moodily at the shuttered window, and Pearly knew what he was thinking. He still did not trust Roman. Not a bit. And Roman, Pearly knew, did not trust Moss. It was an odd world, his Air Force.
Half an hour later Pearly was going over the LINE BACKER JACKPOT inputs from the various bases. All units would be ready to fly the sustained sortie rate, given the four weeks of preparation time noted in the plan for the buildup. Everything, from top to bottom, was ready to go. All they needed was the nod from the President of the United States to begin deploying stateside units to beef up their numbers.
He was placing the messages in his safe when Major Friday Wells came into the office and asked to speak with him. Pearly spun the knob on the safe to secure it, then went back to his desk and faced the Special Operations rep.
"Whatcha got?" he asked, feeling upbeat.
"I just came from MAC-V intell. What does it take to get an air strike authorized in North Vietnam, Pearly?"
"If its around Hanoi or Haiphong, it takes an executive order."
"Nope." The C-130 pilot went to the large-scale wall map of North Vietnam, searched, and placed his finger on a spot in the mountainous region of pack five. "How about here?"
Pearly pushed his glasses into position and peered. "I don't see anything but a village."
"It's called Yen Chau."
"We don't bomb villages, Friday."
"What if it's a military camp?"
"General Moss can authorize a strike in route pack five."
"Good." Friday tapped the tiny black dot. "We want an air strike."
"Come on, Friday. I can't go to the general and say we've got this place that's shown as a village, but it's really not and the good guys at MAC-SOG want to bomb it. First place, General Moss doesn't think the people at MAC-SOG are much good at all. He keeps saying they stole his airplanes. Second place, you haven't proved it's anything except what it looks like, which is a medium-sized village."
Friday looked troubled.
"What's there?"
"I'm not supposed to say."
"Then the answer's no. You can't get an air strike. I won't even take it to the general."
"Nice guy."
"I want to keep m
y job."
"What if I tell you what it's about? Will you help getting it authorized?"
"Try convincing me. If you do, I'll call for a recce mission and we'll send an RF-4 up there. If the photos come back showing it's a military base, I'll go to the general and try to convince him. If he says yes, I go to the TACC and they write up an air tasking order and send it out to the units."
"Jesus, and I thought we had a bunch of bullshit red ink in Special Ops. How long does all that take, from convincing you until the fighters drop their bombs?"
Pearly pondered. "A week. Longer sometimes."
"You've gotta be shitting me!"
"But if you're really nice, and everything goes smooth . . . we can do everything on an immediate basis."
"How long for that?"
"Twenty-four hours or less."
Friday looked happier.
"So convince me. I'm a busy man."
"First of all, everything I'm going to tell you is sensitive, okay? Like Top Secret plus."
"I'm cleared for anything you've got."
"Yeah, I know. Anyway, there's this North Viet bastard who specializes in getting information out of people, and he's cooling his heels in this place." He tapped Yen Chau. "He's carrying all the secrets he beat out of one of our people. An American."
"What's your source of information?"
"I can't say."
Pearly pondered. The case was weak and recce flights were expensive.
"Send up your RF-4, Pearly. Check out the village."
"And you think this North Viet's there with information he beat out of one of our men."
"Not one of our men. It was a woman."
Pearly stared.
"He got the information from Clipper. He doesn't have her with him, so we think he killed her."
Pearly's jaw clenched. He searched around in a drawer for a RECONNAISSANCE PHOTO SORTIE REQUEST form.
He filled it out, making a check mark in the IMMEDIATE block. The sortie would be flown that afternoon.
1730L
Pearly led the way into the photo lab—one of a dozen such rooms along a long corridor.
"That was quick," Friday said. "I take back some of what I said about you headquarters pukes taking a week to pick your nose."
A staff sergeant in a white smock looked up. "The film came out okay, Colonel Gates."
The two officers leaned over the table at eight-by-ten blown-up prints.
"Be careful," said the photo interpreter. "They're still drying."
"Looks like a village," Pearly said.
"It is a village," said the PI. "I'd say a thousand people there. Maybe a few more or less."
"Dammit," Friday muttered. His face was drawn into a hostile grimace. "You're sure it's not a military camp?"
"It's just a village, sir."
Friday glowered at the photo, as if trying to change what he saw.
The PI used a small pointer. "There's this. Looks like an observation tower of some sort. Probably part of their manual air-defense system where they call in aircraft that fly overhead. And I'd say the adjacent huts there are where the militia guys live."
"How about the rest of it?" Friday said, pointing to the remainder of the buildings. He wouldn't give up.
"Just your run-of-the-mill, everyday village, Major. Those are no-shit women, children and puppy dogs running around. There's a Chinese-built weapons carrier parked next to this large house, but that's the only military vehicle in town, and I couldn't even find any antiaircraft guns."
"After they've all dried, mark the photos and send 'em to my office," Pearly told the PI.
"Anything else, Colonel?"
"Not right now. Thanks, Sarge."
"Anytime. We aim to please."
As they walked back toward the headquarters building, Friday remained in a dark mood.
"We win some, we lose some," Pearly said.
"I'd still like you guys to take the fucking place out," Friday muttered. "There's a no-good bastard in there, Pearly. He specializes in torture."
"It's a village with noncombatants. We couldn't hit it if Jack the Ripper was in there giving us the finger."
"How about the observation tower? How about bombing that fucker? Maybe he'll be in it."
"Too close to the town. Look, Friday, if we bombed or strafed the place, even if it isn't a village and it's the best case of camouflage in the world, the gomers would say we'd bombed innocents, and someone would sure as hell be all over our asses."
"Not this one. No one gets in trouble no matter what we do there."
There was no one around them. "What makes you think that?"
"Remember when I told you about the sensitive sources?"
"Yes."
"Dammit, I can't tell you more, Pearly. Just believe me, okay? It involves MAC-V intell and the Army Security Agency, and it's real."
Pearly chewed on his lip as they walked.
"No one gets in trouble if we bomb the village, Pearly."
Pearly shook his head, remembering the noncombatants in the photos. "We can't do it."
After a few more steps Friday said, "What if my general took it straight to General Moss?"
"Tell him to go ahead." They both knew that Moss was distrustful of both MAC-SOG and Special Operations.
Friday sighed. "Yeah, I suppose I agree we can't go around bombing villages. It's a crying shame, though, that we're just going to let this character get away."
As they approached the headquarters building, Pearly slowed, then stopped. "The guy's gotta get out of there some way, if he's going to get to Hanoi. If your sources can tell us when and how, we can try to take him out while he's traveling."
"That's a hell of a long shot."
"It's all I can come up with."
Friday remained discouraged. "I'll see if they can get the information. I don't see how they can, but I'll try."
"If he's going out by chopper, we'll need the takeoff time and route."
"That's probably too much to hope for. I think we've lost our chance, Pearly."
"Wish I could have helped more, Friday. I'll send a recce bird over the place every couple of days and see if anything changes."
Wells gave him a highball salute and trudged off toward the BOQ. Pearly returned to his office, certain there'd be another hour's work stacked in his in-basket.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Saturday, March 16th, 0830 Local—Nakhon Phanom RTAB, Thailand
Major John Dillingham
It hadn't been a bad morning so far for the man who'd once called himself Sergeant Black. The first thing he'd done when he'd risen at 0500 was remove the captain's railroad tracks and pin new gold oak leaves onto the collar of his jungle fatigue shirt and admire them. After a leisurely breakfast he'd reported to the outgoing XO and told him he was ready to start his two-week understudy of the position. When he assumed the job on the first of April, he wanted to be ready.
For the next two hours he'd followed the guy around, listening hard and thinking life was pretty damned good.
He was sitting outside the XO's office at half past eight, sipping java and waiting for the major to get through with a private chewing on an A-Detachment commander's ass over a difference of opinion when the admin sergeant asked if he'd take a phone call from the comm center.
Larry, who was manning the Buffalo Soldier HF radio, requested that he come over.
Dillingham took his coffee along. The guard at the entrance to the comm center was attentive and passed him quickly through to the inner room where Larry manned his HF radios.
"Sorry to bother you, Captain . . . whoops, make that Major. Sorry all to hell, sir."
"Don't sweat the small stuff." Dillingham grinned.
"Razorback's on the line. Says he has a situation. Since the XO and the old man were both busy, I thought you'd wanna take it." Razorback was the code name for the A-Detachment at the Channel 97 mesa, so Dillingham took the mike quickly, hoping to get word about the Hotdog lieutenant.
The guy on the other end also hesitated because of the unfamiliar call sign. "Ah, Lobo, this is Razorback leader. Some Ma tribesmen just brought in a . . . ah . . . female."
"Go ahead."
"She claims she's an American national."
Dillingham sat bolt straight in the chair. "Her name?"
"Says she's a Miss . . . ah . . . Linda Lopes."
Clipper! It took a moment to respond. "What's her condition, Razorback?"
"Not good. She's emaciated. Teeth missing, can hardly walk, like that. My corpsman's looking after her now. He'll give me a better rundown when he's through."
He didn't hesitate. "Do what you can for her, Razorback. We'll get a bird up there ASAP."
"You know anything about her, Lobo?"
"Yes." He remembered the classification. "Let's not talk anymore about it over open radio, except give me an update on the package's physical condition."
"Ah, roger."
Then Dillingham drew a breath and asked the other question. "Was she accompanied by my team member, Razorback?"
There was an audible sigh as the A-Detachment commander realized who he was talking to, and the conversation they'd had at the mesa. "Negative, Lobo. Just the one package and the Ma's."
"Roger, Razorback. Before they get away on you, question the tribesmen who brought the package in and try to find out anything you can, okay? Send the report back with the package. And remember to tell the Ma they've got a reward coming. I promised them."
"Will do, Lobo."
"Buffalo Soldier out," said Dillingham, tingling with the good news.
"You think it's really Clipper?" Larry asked excitedly.
"Yeah." He stood. "Phone over to the Air Force command post and see if they've got a chopper flying up there, Larry. If they don't, tell 'em we're requesting a flight, pronto."
"We're supposed to clear it with Vientiane Control."
"Just do what I ask, okay? I don't want the contractors getting anywhere near her."
"Yes, sir."
"I'll pass it along to the old man. Give me a call at his office when Razorback gives a new reading on her condition."
"Gotcha. One more thing. The directive on Clipper said we're supposed to contact a guy at the embassy in Bangkok the second we get word on her. You want me to do that?"