Dark Wing

by Richard Herman

  He made his decision and headed for his operations center. He found Waters and pointed to his office. Inside, he closed the door and paced the floor. “Ripper, we got problems.” Waters did not respond. “This is day three, we don’t know shit-all what’s happening, and we’re hung out here all alone. The situation improves today or we’re getting the hell out of China.”

  Waters nodded. “When?”

  “Starting tonight.” He collapsed into a chair. The strain was taking its toll. “You’ve got the stick. See what airlift you can get in here. Get the Junkyard Dogs on it. We got lots of trucks and buses. Check out an overland route.”

  “Demolition?” she asked.

  “I hadn’t thought of that. We’ll blow up what we can’t take with us.”

  “Where are we heading?” she asked.

  He stared at her. Hard. “Remember Tucker the Fucker?” She nodded. “He once said that if anything went wrong, our government would hang us out to dry. I don’t want that to happen, so start talking to the NMCC in the Pentagon.”

  “I’ll get back to you in an hour,” she told him as she left. Thanks a bunch, Colonel, she thought. She made her first call to Bill Carroll.

  Leonard burst into his office twenty minutes later. “The First Regiment is at Nanning!” he yelled. “Kamigami is kicking ass and taking names.” The First Regiment had covered the three hundred miles from Wuzhou in less than forty-eight hours. “Their ALOs are talking to our FACs,” Leonard continued, “and are giving us good targets. The FACs are calling for everything we got.”

  A shot of adrenaline drove Pontowski out of his office. “And we got visitors,” Leonard called at his back. The adrenaline rush crashed, stopping Pontowski dead in his tracks. Von Drexler was standing in the operations center.

  “Now do you understand why I sent you here, Colonel,” Von Drexler said.

  Sara Waters scanned the list of items Von Drexler had demanded and permitted herself a rare outburst of profanity. “He’s a fucking maniac,” she announced. But no one heard her. Feeling better, she continued to make entries in her war diary.

  18 Aug 1700

  Von Drexler established headquarters in hotel with remnants of MAAG staff. About half of MAAG are MIA in Nanning. Two Chinese nationals are with Von Drexler, mother and daughter, most beautiful women I have seen in China. Intelligence reports all resistance crumbling in Nanning. Only airport still held by PLA. Contact with headquarters New China Guard established at 1635.

  Sortie count: 105. Bossman pleased.

  CAP: Tango Leonard, Skeeter Ashton, Goat Gross, and Jake Trisher.

  FACs: Snake Bartlett and Skid Malone.

  Plans for evacuation on hold.

  She snapped the book closed and stood by the scheduling board, waiting for Leonard to land.

  Snake Bartlett’s voice came over the Have Quick. “Tango, move your CAP to the east. I’ve got a flight of two inbound and we’ll be working targets under your present position. My ALO reports the PLA has abandoned the airport and moving in your direction.”

  Leonard acknowledged Bartlett and entered one last orbit. To the west, he saw fires still burning in Nanning. He called for an ops check. All four Warthogs were still feeding on their wing tanks and he calculated they could maintain the CAP until sunset. Then low fuel would force them to return to base. By then it wouldn’t matter, since they couldn’t do much at night.

  “You heard the man,” he told his flight. “Let’s move ten miles to the east.” He gave them new coordinates for their CAP points. “Heads up,” he said as they entered their new CAP. “Check six.” It was a routine warning. Missiles and radar combined with high-speed aircraft had changed air combat. But one fact had not changed since World War I when air combat was in its infancy. The majority of air-to-air kills were still made from the rear, or six o’clock position, and most pilots never saw the fighter that gunned them out of the sky. What they did was not the work of the chivalrous knight but of an aerial assassin.

  “Tango,” Bartlett radioed, “I’ve got three trucks making a break down the main road, coming your way. My Hogs are busy, can you handle it?”

  Leonard considered the request. Their thirty-millimeter cannon could easily do the job and the Chinese Air Force had stayed on the ground. They had enough fuel but only a few minutes of usable light remaining. Enough for one pass, he figured. He’d do it. “We got it, Snake.” He called his flight. “Skeeter, we’ll do a low-level visual recce along the road. First one with a tallyho on the trucks is the shooter. One pass, haul ass. The free fighter will fly cover. Goat, you and Jake CAP overhead. We don’t need an Atoll shoved up our ass.”

  He led Skeeter down to the road and they flew a figure eight pattern at 240 knots with Skeeter always passing behind him on the crossover. She saw the trucks first. “Tallyho,” she called. “I’m in.” Leonard pulled his nose up and rolled to take spacing. He would engage anyone foolish enough to shoot at her when she made her strafing pass.

  Bright flashes winked at them from the trucks. “Ground fire from the trucks,” Leonard transmitted. “Small arms only. Nail the lead truck and stop ‘em.” He watched Skeeter jink the Warthog as she lined up on the lead truck. But the pass didn’t look right and she pulled off dry. At the same time, the distinctive plume of a shoulder-held surface-to-air missile arced toward him from a clump of trees fifty meters back from the road. He turned into the missile and hit his flare dispenser button. Six flares popped out behind his tail and captured the seeker head of the Grail missile.

  Leonard turned hard and walked a long burst of thirty-millimeter through the stand of trees. He circled back to the road. But it was too dark to find the trucks. He climbed, looking for Skeeter in the fading light. He found her orbiting at six thousand feet. “Join up for RTB,” he radioed. “What the hell happened on your pass?” he asked. It should have been a piece of cake.

  “The tail-end truck looked like an ambulance,” she replied.

  What the hell, he raged to himself. I didn’t see any red cross on any truck. Besides, those fuckers were shooting at us. So aim for the lead truck and let the ambulance take its chances for traveling in bad company—if it was an ambulance.

  He would talk to her about it on the ground.

  Monday, August 19

  Tokyo, Japan

  Miho Toragawa was waiting for the Gulfstream IV jet when it arrived from Hanoi. She guided Mazie and Wentworth into the limousine and directed the driver to take them to the Akasaka Prince Hotel in downtown Tokyo. “It is fortunate you came so quickly,” she told the two. Miho chose her words with care, tiptoeing along the fine line of discretion and indirection the Japanese followed when dealing with a problem. Mazie understood perfectly what she was saying—because of the attack on Nanning, the Japanese were losing their nerve.

  “We need to speak to Mr. Carroll,” Mazie said. “I think it would be best if he explained the situation. He will know if the worst is over.” She knew every word she said would be repeated verbatim to Toragawa. She smiled at Miho. “But I think Kang shot his toe off.” Miho’s hand came to her mouth and her eyes sparkled at the American slang.

  “Kang,” Mazie explained, “needs most of his forces for internal security because Zou is very popular in Guangdong Province and Canton. To stay in power, Kang had to show he could hurt Zou. He did it by attacking where Zou is the strongest—Nanning. He threw all he had at Nanning, knowing he couldn’t win. But he will claim it was a close thing, a moral victory.”

  “But to attack Zou at Nanning …” Miho let her words trail off.

  “I think,” Mazie ventured, “the attack was much like the 1968 Tet offensive in the Vietnam War. It was for political purposes, not military. Much can be won from a defeat—but I could be wrong. Your grandfather understands such things better than I do.” She knew that also would get back to Toragawa.

  Miho gave a slight nod and cast a sideways glance at Mazie. She understood exactly what Mazie was doing. “You look very tired,” Miho said, deliberate
ly changing the subject. “You need to rest.” She smiled beautifully. “I hope we have a chance to go shopping. You need new clothes. That suit fit perfectly when you bought it.”

  “I keep losing weight,” Mazie said. “I don’t know why.”

  “Ah, but that is good.” Her hand was back to her mouth as she looked at Hazelton.

  The limousine pulled into the hotel and they were escorted to their suites on the top floor. “What was that all about in the car?” Hazelton asked when they were alone.

  “We’re explaining to the Japanese what happened in Nanning,” Mazie explained. “But it’s better if they figure it out for themselves.” She paused. “With a little help from their friends.” She sighed and kicked off her shoes. “I’m bushed.” She walked into her suite.

  Hazelton shot a quick glance her way as she closed the door. She has lost weight, he thought. I hope she’s not sick.

  Jet lag was weighing heavily on Bill Carroll when he arrived in Tokyo. He slumped into the rich leather seat of the limousine. “I wish I could sleep on a plane,” he complained. Mazie sympathized with him. “Are the Japanese still pinging?”

  “Not as bad as when I got here,” she replied. “The situation has stabilized and Toragawa has calmed them down. But they can’t understand how Kang could get kicked out of Wuzhou and then attack at Nanning, deep inside Zou’s territory.”

  “It was classic Mao doctrine,” Carroll said. “Kang diverted our attention at Wuzhou while he slipped a large commando force into Guangxi Province. They came upriver in small groups, carrying their weapons with them. It took some time to do.”

  “That explains the lull in the fighting,” Mazie added. “That may have been Kang’s hardest punch.”

  “I don’t think so,” Carroll replied. He fell silent, thinking. “Kang is unorthodox, dangerous, and much stronger than we suspected. He’s going to keep the pressure on. Now he can go to the central government in Beijing and demand more men and supplies. He’s going to attack again. Soon. We’ve got to keep the supplies flowing to Zou or his supporters will think we’ve deserted him.”

  “The Japanese have two ships at anchor in Haiphong with supplies for the New China Guard,” she told him. “But they won’t let the Vietnamese unload it.”

  “I’ll convince the Japanese to release it,” Carroll said. He paused, still working through the fog of jet lag. “Mazie, my gut feeling tells me that Kang hurt Zou and the New China Guard much worse than Von Drexler reported. I want you to go to Nanning and find out.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Thursday, August 22

  Over the South China Sea

  “Rio One, Rio Two,” Moose Penko transmitted over the UHF. “Snap one-eight-zero at forty-five. ID only.” LaGrange hovered behind him as he ran a routine training intercept of two F-15s against a single F-15. It was the last mission for the F-15s before they returned to their base in Okinawa.

  She was worried because the crew was bored silly and going through the mission like robots. Even Moose’s voice sounded flat and uninterested. The J-STARS aircraft had been unexpectedly recalled two days before and her instincts warned her it was time for them to leave. She decided to call Tinker Air Force Base when they landed and talk to her commander, Colonel Tucker, about it.

  The intercept went smoothly and the three F-15s headed for Hong Kong, low on fuel. Moose turned and looked at her, boredom written on his face. “We’re as useless as hemorrhoids in an elephant’s ass.”

  She wanted to agree with him, but that would only make the situation worse. “It’s what we get paid for,” she snapped, walking away.

  Moose turned back to his scope. “Cut some slack, Major,” he grumbled under his breath.

  Twenty minutes later the ASO tagged up two hostile tracks. “Major,” he was almost shouting over the intercom. “Two bandits on us! Three-four-five at sixty.” The boredom was shattered.

  LaGrange took one glance at his scope. Two inverted red Vs on a bearing of 345 degrees at sixty miles were tracking directly toward the AWACS. She wanted to ask how they had gotten so close without the air surveillance techs detecting them. She knew the answer—boredom, slop, and routine. But for now, she had another, much more serious problem.

  “Flight deck, MCC,” she said over the intercom. “Retrograde now. Heading one-six-five. Gate.” The AWACS banked sharply to the right as the pilot turned and firewalled the throttles. They were going to give ground and run away from the threat coming at them. The pilot rolled out on the new heading and nosed the aircraft over into a shallow descent as the engines spun up to max power. They were trading altitude for airspeed.

  “Point nine-six Mach,” the pilot told her. “That’s all we’re going to get.”

  LaGrange punched at her communications panel and called the military air controller at Hong Kong for help. “Hong Kong Mil. Request immediate scramble of Zulu Alert. Bandits on us.” Zulu Alert was the two F-15s that sat quick reaction alert at Hong Kong.

  A crisp British accent replied, “Roger. Scrambling Zulu at this time.”

  “Major,” Moose called. “I got the numbers.”

  “Go,” LaGrange said. Moose explained the two hostiles chasing them had an overtake airspeed of 190 knots, and it would take fifteen minutes to close the fifty miles that still separated them. “Say type aircraft,” LaGrange asked.

  “Finbacks,” Moose answered. “J-8s.”

  J-8s, LaGrange thought. She recalled everything she had memorized about the Chinese delta-winged fighter, which was an enlarged version of the Soviet MiG-21. Her lips compressed into a tight grin. “They can’t do it,” she announced. “They’re in afterburner to get that much overtake airspeed and are sucking gas at one hell of a rate. They ain’t got that much gas to spare and they got to fly all the way back to land. Expect them to break off shortly.”

  Four minutes later, the ASO announced the two bandits had slowed and were turning back to China. The mission deck tensed as LaGrange sorted out the confusion and canceled the F-15 scramble. They knew what was coming next. She pointed at the ASO and motioned toward the galley in the rear. She wanted to know why the two bandits had gotten that close before they were tagged up as hostile. The ASO was about to have a moving experience he would never forget.

  “Rats,” Moose muttered. “We’ll never get home now.” All hopes that LaGrange would request a return to Tinker were gone.

  “Why not?” the weapons controller sitting next to him asked.

  “Because she’ll want to return the favor,” Penko explained.

  “Lighten up, Moose,” the controller said. “Why are you always on Major Mom’s case, anyway?”

  Moose thought about it. It was true, he did have an attitude when it came to LaGrange, and he never called her Major Mom. “Because she’s a balibuster when she doesn’t have to be,” he replied.

  Thursday, August 22

  Nanning, China

  Von Drexler’s pace through the debris and destruction that had been Nanning’s airport was slow and deliberate. His voice matched his cadence and he spoke in slow rolling tones. He was the expert explaining the situation to an appreciative audience. “This was the A-10 operations building,” he told Mazie and Hazelton. “It was the prime target, not the runway. Fortunately, I had deployed the wing to Guilin to counter the danger of an attack.”

  Hazelton panned the area with his camcorder, documenting the destruction. Von Drexler waited patiently and continued the tour. He was dressed in BDUs and carried a walking stick he used as a pointer. “The J-STARS module took a direct mortar hit,” he said, “killing the civilian and the Army major on duty. Once they came across the fence, they slaughtered every man, woman, and child they found.” He paused for effect. “It is an indication of the enemy we are fighting.”

  “How did the PLA manage such a complete surprise?” Mazie asked. She sensed Von Drexler bristle at the question.

  “According to the prisoners we interrogated,” Von Drexler explained, “they were ordered to travel in smal
l groups and trained to avoid detection. Many of them came upriver in small boats, traveling at night. It took them two months to move approximately ten thousand men into place.”

  Now it was her turn to bristle. She had seen the CIA estimates that fewer than two thousand men had been involved. “I’m surprised they could move so many men into place without being detected,” she said.

  Von Drexler seethed at the implied criticism. “Miss Kamigami, I hope you’re not suggesting it was a breakdown in my intelligence. You cannot believe how corrupt the system is here. With the right bribes, you can do anything in China.”

  She changed the subject. “I understand the First Regiment relieved Nanning.”

  “They played a small part in defeating the PLA,” Von Drexler huffed. “Please remember, only two battalions from the First Regiment were engaged. It was the A-10s under my personal command that stabilized the situation.”

  “I see,” Mazie replied. What game is Von Drexler playing? she thought. Why did he lie about the number of attackers? To make himself look good?

  The CIA’s preliminary analysis claimed the main objective of the attack was to secure the airfield to open an airbridge into Nanning. The plan called for commando units to create confusion by killing Zou Rong and destroying the combined headquarters building while reinforcements were flown in. Kang’s goal was simple—decapitate the rebels’ leadership by leapfrogging into Nanning.

  It was a bold plan that was spoiled by the quick reaction of the A-10s in sealing off the airport until Kamigami’s First Regiment could recapture it. But from all the reports she had seen, Von Drexler had been missing until the third day of the battle.

  An idea started to form: Pontowski and the First Regiment had reacted independently of Von Drexler. He had contributed nothing to the victory. She needed to verify her hunch. “We understand you were almost captured.”