by Mike Jenne
Bea sighed. “They’ll be fine, Scott. I can’t comprehend why you have to make such a fuss about it. I’ll bundle them up and go out with them. We’ll be right outside, in the back yard. They’ll be back inside in plenty of time when Drew calls, I promise.”
“We can’t take that chance, Bea,” replied Ourecky, shaking his head. He poured his coffee in the sink and ran some water to rinse out his mug. “Scott has a five-minute block on MARS, but that also includes the time it takes to make the connection, so by the time he finally gets through, we may only be able to talk for a minute or two.”
“But these kids are getting cabin fever,” urged Bea, rinsing flour from her hands. “It’s so pretty outside. I’m sure that it will be fine.”
“Please, Bea,” he replied, staring at the old phone on the wall, as if he could will it to ring. “Please just give me this today. That’s all I ask.”
3:45 p.m.
Bea was worried about her melancholy husband. Despite a few anxious false alarms, the MARS call had not come through, and after hours of waiting by the phone, Ourecky had all but given up. While she knew that he was distressed about Carson in Vietnam, she sensed that something else was troubling him, but whatever it was, he wasn’t forthcoming. She knew that he was having nightmares, and his sleep was suffering as a result.
His extended family was due to begin arriving in an hour or so, to sit down for the Oureckys’ traditional Czech Christmas Eve feast. All of the decorating was done, the tables were carefully set, and most of the meal—with the exception of the dishes that would be contributed by other family members—was either in the oven or ready to be served. In any event, as much as Bea wanted to help Mama Ourecky, most of the remaining cooking chores were far outside her area of culinary expertise. Now, all that remained was to pass the time until the others came.
Yawning broadly, Ourecky peered out a window at the carrot-nosed snowman that Bea and the children had built earlier, after he finally conceded to let them go out to play. “I can’t just sit,” he confided to her. “This waiting is just driving me crazy.”
“He’ll call sometime, if he doesn’t call today,” said Bea, gripping his hand as she tried to console him. “There was probably some technical problem earlier. You have to know that there are thousands of guys trying to call home right now, and maybe the system was so overloaded that it just couldn’t handle them all at once.”
“Hey, Papa,” said Ourecky, turning toward his father as he pulled his old field jacket from a wooden peg next to the door. “Didn’t you say you wanted to raise a few more head of cattle starting next spring? You’ll need some more room in the barn to stack hay bales. I’m going to go out there and move that old Mercury mock-up outside. It’s not doing anything but wasting space.”
“Son, there’s no need for that,” answered Papa Ourecky, slipping an LP album onto the spindle of the record player. Seconds later, the voice of Andy Williams spilled out of the speakers, crooning Christmas carols. “There’s plenty of room for more hay. Besides, it’s Christmas Eve. There’s no need to fool around out there in that old barn.”
Without speaking, almost as if he were in a daze, Ourecky donned his woolen hat and mittens, pushed open the door and went outside. He trudged toward the barn, leaving deep impressions in the otherwise virgin snow.
Rebecca tugged at Bea’s hand. “Can we go, can we go?” she implored, jumping up and down excitedly.
“Please?” asked Andy.
Surrendering to their demands, Bea quickly stuffed the children into their snowsuits, hats, mittens, gloves and boots. She grabbed her own coat, slipped her feet into her boots, and escorted the children to the barn.
By the time they arrived there, Ourecky had already pushed open the big sliding doors and was wrestling the mock-up space capsule onto its side. Watching him, she remembered the Christmas Eve just four years prior, in this same barn, when he had knelt in the hay in front of the mock-up and asked for her hand in marriage.
As she and the children watched, Ourecky rolled the cone-shaped mock-up into an open patch of snow about thirty yards from the barn, and pushed it upright so that its blunted vertex pointed at the dismal gray sky. The flimsy framework was fractured by his rough handling, and large pieces of cardboard, tarred roofing shingles, and plywood had fallen off along the way. Slowly collapsing in on itself, the mock-up was damaged beyond repair.
Cursing under his breath, he slogged back into the barn and returned with a five-gallon can of gasoline, a pitchfork, and a box of “strike anywhere” kitchen matches. “Stand back,” he ordered.
Bea nudged the children away and held them cautiously at her sides,
Grimacing, Ourecky doused the mock-up with gasoline. He set the gas can safely aside, struck a wooden match, and flicked it toward the mock-up. The structure caught fire without hesitation; after years of storage in the barn, its wood was dry and crisp as kindling, and needed little encouragement to ignite. In moments, it was entirely ablaze, roaring and crackling in its destruction.
Still holding the kids, Bea studied him. His face was illuminated in the brilliant orange glow of the fire, and she was alarmed to see tears streaming down his cheeks. His hands trembled as he watched the pyre consume the plywood and cardboard. Bea suspected that burning the mock-up was not something that he was just doing on a whim, to make the time pass faster, but rather an act that he had been contemplating for a while. And whatever the reason for his odd behavior, it obviously had little to do with creating room for more hay.
Bea knelt down and whispered in Rebecca’s ear, “Becky, take Andy back into the house.”
“But we want to see the bonfire!” declared the little girl, obviously more than curious about Ourecky’s uncharacteristic behavior. “Please, Aunt Bea, please…”
“Take Andy inside now,” said Bea sternly. She pointed at the kitchen door, where Papa Ourecky waited, a concerned look on his face. “You can watch from the kitchen. Fire is nothing to play with, especially for little ones like you two.”
The children reluctantly walked back to the house, and Papa Ourecky took them inside.
Bea went to stand beside her husband as the token of his teenage years went up in flames. She was bewildered by his attitude and actions; she couldn’t decide whether he was frustrated over the present situation with Carson, or whether he might be angry over his failure to achieve his childhood dream of becoming an astronaut. Deciding on the latter, she tried to console him: “Scott, I know you’re disappointed, but sometimes our dreams just don’t come true.”
He looked at her, then at the blazing mock-up, and then replied in a quavering voice, “Sometimes they do, but just not the way we want them to.”
Within minutes, the fire had reduced the mock-up to a rough circle of black soot and charred bits of wood, stark against the mantle of fresh snow.
Using a pitchfork to sift through the smoldering residue, Ourecky periodically stomped the ashes to extinguish the few embers that still glowed. Bea was pleased to see that he seemed much calmer and composed now, as if torching the mock-up had been some sort of emotional sacrifice, like burnt offerings to appease some demon that tormented him. Maybe—hopefully—the catharsis was complete, and the evil spirit was permanently exorcised.
Apparently satisfied that the destruction was adequate, he returned the pitchfork, matches and gasoline can to the barn, closed the doors and returned to her.
“Feel better now?” she asked, hugging his waist.
“Much,” he replied, looking toward the faint sun hanging over the bleak horizon. “Hey, it should be about time for dinner. Hungry?”
“Famished,” she answered. “Lead me to the carp, Mr. Ourecky.”
Grinning, he leaned toward her, kissed her, and said, “Vesele Vanoce, Bea. I love you.”
“Vesele Vanoce, Scott. I love you, too.”
8:20 p.m.
The big farmhouse was quiet after the massive meal. After exchanging some gifts, Ourecky’s siblings and other relatives
had gone home almost an hour ago. Snoring quietly, dressed in his favorite Liberty Brand overalls and Pendleton wool shirt, Papa Ourecky dozed in his big recliner next to the fireplace. Lying in wait for Saint Nicholas, Andy and Rebecca were sound asleep, snuggled in thick blankets, resting on straw pallets underneath the Christmas tree.
As Bea lolled on the couch, engrossed in an old family photo album, Ourecky sipped eggnog as he reflected on the evening’s news. There was scarcely anything substantial from Vietnam, other than reports about the Christmas ceasefire. A C-130 transport plane had been shot down over Laos, where the ceasefire was not in effect. Closer to home, a massive earthquake had struck Nicaragua. Managua, the capital of the Central American nation, was largely destroyed; the estimated death toll was five thousand, with 20,000 people homeless and/or injured.
Daintily arranging dulkove kolacky pinwheel cookies on a lacquered platter, Mama Ourecky was in the kitchen when the phone jangled on the wall. She answered it, listened intently for a moment, and calmly announced, “Scott, it’s your friend Virgil again.”
Sitting up, Bea groaned as she set aside the album. “Virgil,” she hissed. “Just when we’re finally happy again, Virgil has to call.”
Wearing a perplexed expression, Ourecky went into the kitchen, took the receiver from his mother, and said, “Yes, sir.” He listened silently for a few minutes, and concluded the largely one-way conversation with, “Yes, sir. Uh…Given the circumstances, it might not be appropriate, but Merry Christmas, sir.”
“I’ll fetch your suitcase from upstairs, Scott,” snapped Bea. “Luckily, everything is still boxed up back at our place, so I won’t have much to…”
Hanging up the phone, he gestured toward the back door. “We need to talk,” he said in a hushed voice. “Outside.”
She took her pea coat from a peg by the door as she followed him out onto the porch. Shivering, she tugged on the heavy wool coat. As he closed the door, she asked, “How long will you be gone this time?”
“That’s not why Virgil called. I’m not going anywhere,” replied Ourecky quietly. “He had some bad news. Very bad news.”
“What?” she demanded.
“The details are still sketchy, but Drew was shot down over Vietnam today…”
“Oh my God,” she gasped. “I just knew that this was eventually going to happen.”
“It happened several hours ago, before the Christmas ceasefire started,” he explained. “He and his back-seater were able to eject. They’ve made radio contact with Drew. He’s banged up some, but he’s moving and hiding from the enemy. They’ve attempted to rescue him, but the helicopters ran into heavy fire and had to turn back. They’ve already picked up his back-seater. He’s in surgery back on their carrier.”
“So what will happen now?” she asked calmly. “Is Drew going to land up in a POW camp?”
“Probably not. They’ve sent in a special team for him. He’ll be in good hands. They’re the same guys who…” Abruptly quiet, Ourecky shivered as he brushed fresh snowflakes from his hair.
“The same guys who what, dear?” asked Bea. “And did you imply that Drew was flying from an aircraft carrier? Isn’t that what Navy pilots do?”
Ourecky looked at the half-full cup in his hand and asked, “What have you been putting in this eggnog?”
“Truth serum, obviously. I guess I need to increase the dose slightly, though.”
23
SWAMP
North Vietnam
5:02 a.m., December 25, 1972
Nestor Glades and his small team arrived at the link-up site shortly before dawn. After establishing a tight security perimeter, he scripted an initial entry report as Trung si Dinh pieced together his GRC-109 clandestine radio. Using its coder-burst device, Dinh transmitted the brief message to Da Nang to notify them that the team was in position to contact the pilot.
A few minutes later, they received a short coded dispatch from “Gull Wing,” a powerful FM transmitter located on a Navy picket ship several miles off-shore, acknowledging their arrival announcement and apprising them of the current situation.
Operating in the midst of the NVA, communications were tremendously awkward. For most of his previous MACV-SOG missions, in areas where the US maintained undisputed dominance in the air, Glades enjoyed the luxury of a “Covey Rider” aircraft flying over his team on a routine basis. But unlike the skies of South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, which the US essentially owned, chunks of North Vietnamese airspace could be temporarily leased, but there was typically a high price to be paid, usually in American hardware, blood or both. Without the option of habitual overflights, operating in a hostile environment where the enemy aggressively exploited sophisticated technology to ferret out covert agents and teams, Glades and his men had to rely on an extensive array of equipment and specialized techniques to communicate.
The communications network was like a triangular system of one-way pipes. The team transmitted to their base station in Da Nang, Da Nang transmitted to Gull Wing, and Gull Wing closed the unidirectional loop. As the most vulnerable piece of the complicated puzzle, the team could only transmit short bursts at infrequent intervals, and even those required an extensive amount of preparation. The GRC-109 operated in the high frequency range; combining a highly directional antenna, low power transmission, and the coder-burst device that essentially “squirted” their abbreviated messages, the covert radio was virtually invisible to even the most sophisticated radio detection equipment.
By relaying traffic through Gull Wing, the Da Nang mission controllers could provide the team with updated instructions and a virtual running commentary of operations and intelligence concerning the enemy situation. Since their ship-based radio station was safely beyond the NVA’s grasp, Gull Wing could transmit continuously, if need be, on frequencies that the team could monitor on a standard tactical radio.
While the communications were awkward, they were also absolutely essential. To ensure that the scheme would function under all contingencies, the team had to haul a lot of radios. Besides Dinh’s GRC-109, they carried two redundant radio systems to receive Gull Wing’s transmissions, as well as a Soviet-built field radio to eavesdrop on NVA’s tactical chatter.
Glades and the other two Americans also carried small PRC-90 survival radios, exactly like the pilot’s, which were only suitable for short-range ground-to-air use. If there wasn’t an aircraft overhead to talk to, they were virtually useless, and it was unlikely that there were going to be many US aircraft venturing close enough for a conversation.
In all, on top of their weapons, ammo, and other essential gear, each man on the team carried roughly twenty pounds of communications equipment—radios, batteries, extra crystals, tubes and other spare parts—most of which would not be used unless a primary system failed.
Glades listened as Dinh quietly dismantled his radio. The team’s radio operator was tremendously vital; their survival literally hinged on his competence. On the recon teams he had run in the past, Glades had always entrusted this crucial job only to an American. At the outset, he hadn’t been confident in relying on the Vietnamese SMS sergeant, especially since he had been a former enemy, but he had grown to trust Dinh without question. The little Vietnamese sergeant obviously took great pride in his role and was always fastidious in his work.
After Dinh stowed his gear, there was little to do but wait. Glades let half the team sleep as the others kept vigil. Although he rarely allowed his thoughts to drift away from the mission, Glades remembered that it was still Christmas Eve back in Florida, and it would still be hours before Deirdre sent the children to their beds. He could just see them, rising before dawn, squealing with anticipation as they ran to the living room to open the presents that she had stashed under the tree in the wee hours. Glades sighed; he had missed more Christmases than he could remember, and he hoped that he could someday make it up to her.
As the sun rose, he heard a significant air operation underway several miles away to the southwest. Glade
s smiled, knowing that the action should significantly improve their chances for success and survival. Listening to the roar of jets, he was aware that the Air Force and Navy were pretending to resume their SAR effort.
It was an elaborate deception plan designed to draw attention away from the link-up site. Hopefully, the feint would convince the North Vietnamese that the pilot had evaded all the way to the coast last night. Remaining offshore and out of reach, the SAR forces would go through the motions—including mimicking the appropriate radio traffic that they knew the NVA would monitor—of rescuing the pilot. If all worked well, once they had rendezvoused with the pilot, Glades and his men would be able to stealthily slink to the coast with minimal interference.
7:15 a.m.
Snugly wrapped in his poncho to stay warm, Glades was sleeping fitfully when Henson nudged his elbow. Mouthing the words “Merry Christmas,” he pointed to the west and then to his ear.
Glades pushed away the condensation-soaked poncho, rolled on his side, cupped his fingers around his ear, and listened carefully. Sure enough, he detected the distinctive sounds of someone moving through the woods. He glanced at the plastic face of his tactical wristwatch, noted the time, and then tapped Finn’s foot.
With hand gestures, he dispatched Finn and Trung si Hieu to scout in the direction of the movement. If the pilot had been moving last night, he certainly would be near exhaustion after stumbling through the difficult terrain in the dark. With luck, the two men would find him and guide him to the team, and then they could make their way south to culminate this mission.
As he waited for Finn to return, Glades grew more apprehensive as the sounds grew progressively louder. He couldn’t imagine a single man generating so much noise, regardless of how tired he might be. Thirty minutes after he had sent them out, Finn and Hieu returned with an answer to the mystery.
Finn knelt down and removed his pith helmet. In a soft voice, he calmly explained that a large NVA force was approaching. As he described it, the force consisted of at least a hundred or more men, arrayed on line, moving on an axis roughly perpendicular to the river.