Dark Wing

by Richard Herman

  Another note from Carroll. “VD wants a big, fancy air force so he gets a bigger hammer.” And makes it harder to withdraw without a loss of face, Mazie mentally added.

  “As the commander of the A- l Os is the grandson of a former president of the United States,” Von Drexler concluded, “I am drawn to the inescapable conclusion that political influence has driven the decision to send A-10s. Regardless of that, the AVG must remain under my control as commander of the MAAG.” He folded his hands and waited.

  Carroll scribbled a note. “VD is afraid that P is a go-getter out after his job.” The committee stirred itself and directed a series of questions at Carroll. He leaned forward and justified the administration’s policies based on the United States’ interests in the area. Finally, he turned to Mazie and asked for her to assess the current situation for the committee.

  Mazie shuffled through her papers, thinking. “China is at a crossroads,” she began. “Depending on how the current crisis is resolved, China can become a peaceful neighbor or a major threat to peace in the region. At the heart of the problem is General Kang Xun. If he consolidates his power in southern China, he will be strong enough to take over the central government in Beijing. Given his record, he can be expected to destabilize the entire region, much as Saddam Hussein did in the Middle East.”

  She studied an airline schedule, creating an impression of cautious, considered testimony. The legislators were impressed. “Beijing is playing Kang off against the revolutionaries under Zou Rong in the hope they will annihilate each other. To keep Kang weak, Beijing is limiting the flow of men and arms to southern China, which, in turn, drives the tempo of the fighting. Kang attacks when he has built up a logistics base, hoping to defeat the rebels. When he runs out of fuel and munitions, the fighting stops and both sides regroup.”

  Various committee members asked pro forma questions for a few minutes before the chairman gaveled the hearing to a close. “What did all that accomplish?” Mazie asked Carroll.

  “You convinced Congress that it is in our best interest to support Zou Rong.” He laughed at her perplexed look. “You have to read between the lines. In the next few days, the president will have a friendly chat with the chairman of the committee. They’ll exchange confidences about the wisdom of dividing and conquering an enemy. Then the pres will sign the executive order authorizing the AVG.”

  Mazie turned to leave and bumped into Von Drexler. He shot a hard look at her before murmuring an apology. An aide handed her a note from the committee chairman: He wanted to meet with her in his offices. She handed Carroll the note.

  “Offhand,” Carroll said, “I’d say you swing a big bat with the senators. How does it feel to make things happen?”

  Mazie wasn’t sure how to answer his question. She liked the feeling but it frightened her.

  Thursday, May 30

  Near Pingnan, China

  Kamigami stalked his makeshift command post like a caged lion. Keep the god’s-eye view, he told himself, concentrate on the big picture. He studied the chart his operations officer constantly updated. His First Regiment was operating around Pingnan, cutting off every small PLA outpost, destroying every patrol that ventured out to reconnoiter or pillage the countryside for food. Ultimately, they would starve the PLA out of Pingnan and force them to fall back on Wuzhou, reversing Kang’s slow and relentless march up the Pearl River, into the heart of Zou’s territory.

  Get inside Kang Xun’s head like Trimler does, Kamigami thought. It’s amazing what’s there—like Kang’s tactics and strategy. He remembered the heavy, bespectacled general he had seen in Canton and the fear that radiated from him like an insane Chernobyl. The fear was the intangible, invisible part of Kang, but his methods of operation were not.

  Kang had turned Wuzhou into a big logistical base. Then he had leapfrogged up the Pearl River, the main line of communication, and established a forward base for combat operations at Pingnan. He supplied Pingnan from Wuzhou as the PLA established its control over the surrounding countryside. When the area around Pingnan was pacified, he would leapfrog up the Pearl River again.

  Kamigami fought the urge to visit one of his companies and get into the thick of the action. Instead, he paced the miserable hovel the Chinese family had gladly cleared so his staff could set up a temporary headquarters.

  Kamigami liked the small, well-organized staff Trimler had put together. Command and control was much smoother and logistics was becoming less and less of a problem. But it did bother him that so many of the qualified officers and NCOs now flocking to the banner of the New China Guard were former PLA. Zou had overriden his objections with a cavalier wave of his hand.

  Stay focused, he berated himself. Your immediate objective is to starve the PLA out of Pingnan.

  The constant talking his staff indulged in fell away and the room was silent. He heard a single whisper, “Miss Li.” He turned and she was standing there, her eyes on him. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, sweep her into his arms and hold her tight or upbraid her for disappearing. He did neither and only nodded. Deep inside, he felt a warmth return. A wisp of a smile played across her face and she sat in a corner.

  An incoming mortar round and a burst of machine gun fire ended his mental labors. He ordered Jin Chu and his staff into a sandbagged bunker as he grabbed a submachine gun. Outside, he gathered up five panicked soldiers and led a sweep of the area until they had found the intruders and killed them. He wanted to lead the search for the mortar team but instead promoted a private who had fought well to sergeant and had him lead the search. “I want their weapons,” he growled. The sergeant nodded.

  Kamigami was calm and composed when he returned to the command post. He was pleased his staff was back at work and all communications had been restored. His intelligence officer bristled with news. “General Kamigami”—he was barely able to brake his excitement—”we have three reports that a heavily armed convoy is leaving Pingnan by this road.” He pointed to the road that connected Pingnan to Wuzhou. “We think it’s the division commander and his staff.”

  Kamigami’s mind raced with implications. Were his tactics working and the PLA’s defenses crumbling? And why the attack on his headquarters at this particular time? Was it a smokescreen to cover the convoy’s movement? Was this a chance to decapitate the command and control of the PLA division holding Pingnan? He had to find out.

  “Order Monkey Company,” he told his operations officer, surprised that his voice was so calm, “to let the convoy pass and then cut the road.” He pointed to a spot farther along the road. “Have Tiger Company move into a flanking position here and destroy the convoy.” If it was the PLA divisional commander, he wanted to be sure he was totally sealed off when he died. The radios crackled with commands.

  Now he had to wait—the hardest part for a commander. I might have missed this opportunity if I had been out chasing that mortar team, he thought. He dismissed the thought.

  The report from Tiger Company was a simple “Convoy destroyed.” Kamigami calmly ordered Monkey Company to advance down the road and enter Pingnan. Almost immediately, Monkey Company reported the PLA were surrendering en masse.

  A new sensation engulfed Kamigami, a feeling he had never experienced. It was the ego rush that comes when a commander knows a battle is his, that he has defeated the enemy. It was the raw feeling of victory, the lion’s roar of a successful kill. He savored the feeling, liking it.

  A single report shattered the moment: Three companies he had held in reserve were also entering Pingnan. “Damn!” he swore. What was happening?

  “Perhaps,” Jin Chu said, “you should see for yourself.”

  They made a strange sight as they walked down the main street of Pingnan. The huge Japanese-American and the small Chinese woman were followed by a growing crowd of PLA soldiers who insisted on surrendering to them. At a major intersection, Kamigami came to a halt. His face turned rock hard.

  Men wearing the uniform of the New China Guard were looting and pi
llaging stores. His soldiers were out of control. Jin Chu’s voice reached him. “It is only a few, a very few soldiers. Most hold true.”

  The strange procession stood frozen as Kamigami followed a woman’s scream into a nearby store. Inside, he found one of his soldiers raping a teenaged girl. He grabbed the man by his hair and dragged him outside. With a wild gesture, he flung the man against a wall and held him there. “Knife,” he rasped.

  A soldier handed Kamigami his bayonet as Jin Chu ran to him. She grabbed his hand holding the weapon. Her soft touch seemed to scald him as she stayed his anger. “Do not kill him,” she pleaded. “The nine must punish, not you. Remember the riot in Hong Kong. Let him serve as a warning.”

  Kamigami stared at her. Then he grabbed the man’s shirt and lifted, pulling him off his feet and holding him up high against the wall. He snarled a command and the man hesitated. Again, he barked the command. Slowly, the soldier raised his right arm above his head and held it flat against the wall. The bayonet flashed in an upward arc as Kamigami drove it through the man’s wrist, pinning it to the wall. He let go and the soldier screamed in pain as he dangled from the bayonet.

  Kamigami turned to his operations officer. “Order the regiment to fall in. Here. Now.”

  The sporadic looting and pillaging slowly halted as Kamigami’s nine captains regained control and mustered their companies in front of the pinned soldier. His shrieks of agony filled the street. The drill was meticulous as the regiment formed and reported in. Kamigami ordered his captains front and center. When they were standing in front of him, he said, “I found this man raping a girl. He is one of ours and has brought shame on the spirit of the nine. You decide his punishment.” He waited while the captains conferred.

  The commanding officer of Rat Company stepped forward. “He is one of my men,” the young captain said. “We have decided that he is to die where he is.”

  “Stay with your men until it is finished,” Kamigami barked.

  “That was our intention,” the captain replied.

  Kamigami spun and walked away as rain started to fall. Jin Chu followed him. Behind them, the condemned soldier wailed in agony as the assembled ranks of the First Regiment listened and watched, their officers in front, motionless. The PLA soldiers milled around in confusion as a firing squad was formed.

  Saturday, June 1

  Whiteman AFB, Missouri

  The normal number of looks followed Skeeter Ashton as she walked into the Officers’ Club casual bar and found a seat at the bar. Maggot pulled at his beer. “She do fill out those jeans,” he mumbled.

  Another voice said, “Too bad she can’t fly worth shit.” Maggot said nothing. He had flown with Ashton and knew what she could do. But he let his silence give truth to the lie.

  A hulking form wearing a flight suit filled the doorway and paused, taking in the Saturday evening scene. Then he made his way slowly through the crowd, careful not to bump into anyone. “Who made his flight suit?” Maggot asked. “Omar the tentmaker?” The pilots watched as he sat next to Ashton at the bar.

  “Hi,” the newcomer said. “Moose Penko.”

  Ashton cocked her head as she looked up at Penko. “Skeeter Ashton,” she said, extending her hand. His massive hand engulfed hers as they shook hands. Her eyes darted over his name tag: Moose Penko was a weapons controller, not a pilot. She recognized the patch on his flying suit. “AWACS?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Five-fifty-second out of Tinker.” They exchanged basics, and Penko told her that John Leonard had requested the 552nd send a weapons controller to brief the 303rd on the AWACS mission in China. As they talked, Ashton found she was drawn to Penko. He listened more than he talked, his words carried a quiet confidence, and he wasn’t on the make, looking for an easy conquest. “Dinner?” Penko asked.

  “Dutch,” Ashton answered.

  Maggot watched as they left the bar for the dining room. He ordered another beer. He was attracted to Ashton but in his drunken stupor, he was confused. His irritation at her challenge to the macho world of fighter jocks was all mixed up with feelings of lust. He was still drinking when they returned. “Damn,” he muttered, pushing his chair back and spilling his neighbor’s drink. He picked up his beer and headed for the bar. His attitude demanded that he sort out the confusion. “Hey,” he said to Penko, “I see you’ve met our crack troop.” He thought it was a funny opening salvo but forgot what point he was trying to make.

  Ashton read it as a sexist comment from a drunk. She had heard it all before and could hold her own. “Piss off, Maggot,” she said.

  “Oh, oh,” Maggot replied, slurring his words. “That time of the month.” He hummed a few bars of ragtime.

  “My good Christian friend,” Ashton said. “What the hell is bothering you?”

  Maggot rocked back on his heels in mock surprise. He was so drunk that he couldn’t think. All he could manage was, “Ah, fuckin’ broad.” He stumbled off in the direction of the men’s room. Penko stood and followed him.

  “I fight my own battles,” Ashton snapped.

  “I got that,” Penko replied. “But I need to see the man.” The man he had in mind was not the men’s room but Maggot. Outside, he clamped a hand on Maggot’s right shoulder and spun him around, face to face. He grabbed Maggot’s left biceps. “You suffer from brain farts?” he asked. Moose Penko had little time for drunks and believed in quick and direct object lessons. Maggot felt himself being lifted off the floor until he was at eye level with Penko. “Do that again and if she doesn’t rip your head off, I’ll tie you in a pretzel and flush you down the nearest toilet.”

  Maggot was many things, but he was not a coward. He punched at Penko’s chest. The big man didn’t even move. Maggot hit him in the face as hard as he could. The only result was an aching hand. “This is gonna hurt,” he moaned, realizing Penko was going to crush him. He swung again.

  A hand reached out and caught Maggot’s fist before it connected. It was John Leonard. “Knock it off,” he ordered. “Moose, get this drunken asshole over to the squadron. We just got mobilized.”

  “Holy shit,” Maggot said, thankful for the reprieve.

  Waters cleaned out Pontowski’s out-basket and told him, “Nothing else—for now.” She spun around and hurried out of his office.

  Pontowski flipped to the commander’s checklist in the appendix of the freshly printed operations plan DARK WING and ran through the list of items to be accomplished by forty-eight hours into the activation of the American Volunteer Group. Thanks to Leonard’s plan, the activation was humming along with a minimum of confusion and they were twelve hours ahead of schedule. Leonard had created the 303rd’s plan by using a secret operations plan for the activation of a United Nations Peacekeeping contingent that the Junkyard Dogs had “borrowed” from the Marines. No one asked how they got it.

  He read the last item on his checklist: Attend to personal affairs. “Good advice,” he mumbled to himself and headed out the door. Waters and Leonard were standing in the outer office. He was about to tell Waters where he was going but for some reason, he hesitated. The two were in a quiet conversation, standing close, not touching. She looked at Leonard and raised her right hand, hesitantly touched his cheek and turned away. Tears were in her eyes. Leonard quickly left the office.

  Waters watched Leonard leave and felt a pit where her stomach had been a few moments before. The long-dead memories came rushing back. She had been seven months pregnant when her husband had told her he was deploying, taking his wing into combat. What had she felt then? Time had not dimmed the pain of those memories. What had she said that last time? She could only remember that she hadn’t let him see her tears. Now she was crying again because she knew that some of these men were going to die.

  “I’ll be in my quarters,” Pontowski said, bringing her back to the moment. “Call me if anything pressing raises its urgent head.” What was that all about? he thought as he left.

  “Anything pressing!” Lori Williams snorted from her d
esk. “We’re getting swamped with paperwork from every office in the Pentagon. How much longer you gonna sit on it?”

  Waters sat at her desk, bringing her emotions under control. “Until we activate the directed assignment roster. Then as far as the bureaucrats are concerned, we’ve disappeared.”

  “What do you mean ‘we,’ white woman. You and me are still gonna be here.”

  Waters stared at her hands. “I’m going with them.”

  “You crazy!” Lori said. “What do you expect me to do when all those frustrated bureau-what’cha-call-its start asking, ‘What you doin’ about our message telling you to jump through hoops?”

  “Always blame the last person who left,” Waters answered.

  Lori relented. She had decided long ago that it was time for Waters to quit being a widow. “You like him,” she said. “So go get him.”

  “I like them all,” Waters hedged. “Besides, I’m older.”

  “So?” Lori asked. “It won’t hurt you to have a toy boy.”

  When Pontowski arrived home, he found Shoshana in the kitchen with three other wives. “We’re organizing a support group,” she told him. The three women made hasty excuses to leave them alone.

  Little Matt came out of his room and stood in the kitchen doorway, a sad and confused look on his face. Pontowski picked up his son. “I’ve got to go away,” he told the little boy. “I’ll be gone for a while, but I’ll be coming back. Can you handle that, good buddy?”

  His son nodded gravely, his eyes serious, and threw his arms around Pontowski’s neck and held on. “I’ll be good, Daddy,” he promised. Shoshana stood next to them. She was composed and calm, her eyes dry. “We’ll be fine,” she told him. She lifted her face to him and they kissed. Little Matt wiggled out of his father’s arms and ran off, satisfied that his world was in order.