“It was touch and go,” he replied. “Fortunately, I’m an expert at escape and evasion.”
“How long were you forced to evade?” Hazelton asked.
It was an innocent enough question but Von Drexler gave him a hard look. “For approximately fifty hours,” Von Drexler replied. “That was the time it took to reach Guilin. Once there, I took charge. Under my leadership, the situation was soon under control and the A- l Os were properly employed.”
My, we are taking all the credit today, Mazie thought.
“For the record,” Von Drexler continued, warming to the subject, “you can tell Mr. Carroll that Colonel Pontowski’s response to the crisis was totally inappropriate. He directed his staff to prepare for an evacuation and did not employ my A- l Os in accordance with Air Force doctrine. He wasted valuable resources by flying combat air patrols. I will have to replace him.”
“General,” Mazie ventured, wanting to change the subject, “can I visit the First Regiment?”
“Out of the question,” he answered. “I have ordered it back to Wuzhou and the situation is still unstable, too dangerous for civilians. Especially foreigners.”
“Perhaps,” Mazie said, “we could visit the Tenth Division.” She decided to apply some pressure. “Mr. Carroll would like a firsthand report on the status of the New China Guard.”
“I have trained observers for that,” Von Drexler replied. “They will answer any questions you might have.” He marched rigidly back to his car.
“What do you make of that?” Hazelton asked.
“The good general is covering up,” Mazie answered. “The question is what?”
“Why don’t you keep the general occupied,” Hazelton said, “while I talk to an old friend.”
The old friend was Ray Byers. While Mazie worked with the MAAG and coordinated the flow of much-needed supplies and relief through Vietnam, Byers gave Hazelton a quick education by taking him to an open-air market in Nanning. Four teenagers Byers used as interpreters and runners went with them.
“The key to what is going on in Nanning,” Byers said, “is right here. The Chinese love to talk and gossip but they clam up when a foreigner comes around. My four buddies here are along to eavesdrop. You’d be surprised what they hear.” The two men sat on a bench and waited. Soon, the teenagers reported back with overheard tidbits. Slowly, Byers pieced the situation together. Most of Nanning had escaped undamaged, and the brunt of the fighting had taken place around the airport. But the people were very upset by the number of civilians the PLA commandos had butchered and many were in mourning for lost relatives.
“Are the people still behind Zou?” Hazelton asked.
Byers shrugged. “It’s hard to say. For the most part, they want to get on with their lives. I guess that’s why I like them.” Suddenly, he motioned Hazelton to be quiet as he peered intently into the crowd. He looked away. “There’s a woman coming our way.”
What woman? Hazelton thought. The majority of the people in the marketplace were women. Then he saw her. It took all his powers of concentration not to stare as she walked past. She paused, looked briefly at them, and moved on. Hazelton whispered a soft, “Wow.” He was breathless. “Who is she?”
“That,” Byers explained, “is Jin Chu.” They rose and followed at a discreet distance. “She shows up from time to time in the damndest places.” One of the teenagers ran up with the rumor that Jin Chu was in the marketplace. When Byers pointed to her, the boy’s mouth fell open and he stared. “She’s the most famous fortune teller in China,” Byers said. “But she won’t take money and she picks the person. The Chinese consider it … well,” he was at a loss for words to describe the faith the Chinese put in her powers.
“It is very good luck,” the teenager said, “for Miss Li to tell your fortune.” His eyes widened as she turned and walked toward them.
She stopped in front of Hazelton. “May I tell your fortune?” she asked. Hazelton nodded dumbly as she led him back to the bench where they had been sitting. The crowd fell back, giving them space but staying well within hearing distance. Jin Chu held his right hand and studied his palm. Then she closed it into a fist and held it with both of her hands while she studied his face. Her touch was warm and reassuring.
“You,” she said, “are in love with someone you do not see. Open your eyes and you will live long and have many children.” She pulled her hands away and Hazelton felt a fleeting touch of sadness. She touched Byers’ arm. “You will prosper in China and must not leave.” She rose and walked back into the marketplace.
“What is she doing here?” Byers wondered.
“She talks to people and listens to gossip,” the teenager said. “The same as us.”
Hazelton felt an urge to move on. “Can we visit the army camp? I’d like to see how the New China Guard is doing.”
Byers said, “Good buddy, right now we can go anywhere we want.” The teenager agreed with him.
Mazie was sitting at a table pecking at her notebook computer when Hazelton returned to the guest house where they were staying. She was wearing a dark green silk kimono and one of her slippers had fallen to the floor while the other dangled from her toes. Hazelton smiled. She has changed, he mused, and looks much younger. Her head was bent over the keyboard and her hair, styled in a short pageboy, hung forward, hiding her face. “The daily report to Carroll?” he asked.
She nodded, not looking up. “Problems?” he asked. A short shake of her head. He knew the signs. There was a problem.
“Do you have anything for the report?” she asked.
“Based on what I saw today,” he said, “the Tenth Division of the New China Guard is a farce. I’ve seen turtles with more get up and go.”
“Can you be more specific?” she asked, still not looking at him.
“All Zou did was replace the leaders of an old PLA division with his officers. Everything else is the same. Personally, I think if they switched sides once, they’ll do it again. They are poorly led, poorly trained, and poorly supplied.”
“What’s happening to all the supplies we’re pumping in here?” Mazie asked.
“According to Ray Byers, most end up on the black market. This place is unbelievably corrupt.”
Mazie pecked at the keys. “Von Drexler is a puzzle,” she said. “One minute, he’s talking good sense and the next he’s off on some grandiose plan talking about ‘forces in being’ and how he’s going to ‘sacrifice pawns to save the king.’ I don’t understand him at all.”
She finally turned to look at him. Her eyes were red from crying. “What happened?” he asked.
“I talked to my father on the phone.” She pounded on the keys. “We had nothing to talk about. We were strangers.”
“Maybe you need to see him … in person. Von Drexler should be able to arrange it if you press him.”
“Maybe,” Mazie whispered.
Sunday, August 25
Guilin, China
“Sir,” Waters said, catching Pontowski’s attention. He looked up from his desk and saw her smiling at him. She stepped aside and First Lieutenant Rod “Buns” Cox walked into his office.
Pontowski shot to his feet and extended his right hand to shake the lieutenant’s. “We wondered what had happened to you.” The number he carried in his head flashed to 48 and he felt good. He had only lost one pilot. “Skid reported seeing a good chute,” he said. “But we never heard your emergency beacon and you never came up talking on your PRC-90.” Each pilot carried an emergency radio, the PRC-90, in his survival vest.
“It was the damndest thing, Colonel,” Cox said. “I was picked up by some villagers. They held me captive until they heard the PLA had gotten its ass kicked out of Nanning and Zou Rong was alive and well. Then they brought me here. I’d have called in but they wouldn’t let me near a phone. They keep repeating something about a reward.”
“That’s news to me,” Pontowski told him.
“I’m the guilty party,” Waters announced. “I had the Ju
nkyard Dogs pass the word that we pay ten thousand dollars in gold for any downed pilot returned alive and well.”
“I ought to dock your pay,” Pontowski grinned.
“Where did we get that much gold?” Cox blurted. “Don’t ask,” Waters answered. The Junkyard Dogs had turned the Japanese Connection to their advantage.
It was too good a day to stay in his office and Pontowski headed for the flight line. He drove slowly down the line of freshly completed revetments. Parked inside each was a gray Warthog. The jets were showing the wear of combat and were no longer the spotless aircraft they had flown in from the States. The leading edges of the wings were chipped and dented, many sported temporary aluminum patches that covered bullet holes, and they all needed to be washed. But only two were reported as nonoperational. The numbers were still good: 48 pilots and 30 Warthogs.
He recognized the teenager who had saved him in the orchard and wanted to stop and talk to him. But the way the boy looked away warned him not to do it. Better his bodyguards remain unknown. This is still a dangerous place, he told himself.
A KC-10 entered the pattern and turned final. He saw Charlie Marchioni and two of the Junkyard Dogs head for the only spot on the ramp where the huge aircraft could park. He followed them.
Ray Byers was the first man off the KC-10. “Got it all,” he told them. He ticked off the items on board. “We got one engine, one nose gear assembly, one complete tail and empennage, two canopies”—he grinned at Marchioni—”and twenty-six Honeywell nav units. Your LASTE problems are fixed.”
Marchioni couldn’t believe it. “Twenty-six? How’d you do that?”
“Don’t ask,” Byers replied.
That seems to be the operational phrase when the Dogs get involved, Pontowski thought. Sooner or later, those con men are going to get my ass in one big crack. Later, I hope, because I can’t do this without them.
The chief of Maintenance examined the cargo as it came off the KC-10. He was amazed the engine could be loaded through the cargo hatch. “We’ll have those two hangar queens flying in forty-eight hours,” he told Pontowski.
A rare feeling of contentment swept over Pontowski as he drove back to the operations building. For us, he thought, this is the bottom line. It’s not a profit and loss statement at the end of a quarter, but accomplishment. The two numbers, 48 and 32, flashed in front of him. Surrounding the numbers, he could see the faces that made them possible. This is what I’m all about, he told himself.
Matthew Zachary Pontowski was having a good day. “Watch some SOB screw it all up,” he muttered to himself.
The SOB was Sara Waters. She was waiting for him with Leonard and Maggot. “We need to talk,” she said.
He settled into his chair and leaned back. “What’s the problem?”
“Skeeter and Buns are lovers,” Waters said.
“I’m not surprised,” Pontowski replied. “They’re both young, healthy, and single. I suppose it was only a matter of time until sparks were struck. Since they’re both first lieutenants, it’s all legal.”
He listened while Waters related the emotional trauma Skeeter had gone through when Buns had been reported missing. “I was with her most of the night,” Waters said. “Fortunately, she wasn’t scheduled to fly on the first go. She was totally strung out.”
“We all take losses hard,” Pontowski told them. It surprised him that Leonard and Maggot were letting her do the talking.
“It’s one thing when it’s a friend,” she argued. “It’s another when it’s your lover. Love and sex are much stronger emotions.”
“She’s a good pilot,” Pontowski countered. “I haven’t seen anything get in the way of that.”
Now it was Leonard’s turn. “I’m not so sure about that, sir.” He recounted the strafing pass incident. “There might have been an ambulance there. But I didn’t see it and it wasn’t clearly marked. She should have pressed the attack. You can’t wait until you’re on familiar ground or in the heart of the envelope to take a shot or drop a bomb. An opportunity only exists for a fraction of a second and then it’s gone. You shoot because it looks right at the time. There’s no time to worry about missing or making a mistake. Most likely, one shot is all you’re going to get.”
Maggot joined in. “I saw the same thing in the Persian Gulf. It’s the opposite of buck fever, when a jock gets trigger happy.”
Pontowski ran what they were saying through his own set of mental filters. Maggot’s dislike of women flying fighters was well-known, which explained his point of view. Still, Maggot had more combat experience in A-10s than anyone else in the wing and he had defended Skeeter in front of the other pilots. As for Waters and Leonard, he suspected they were sharing the same bed and felt a strong emotional bond. Would that affect their judgment about Skeeter and Buns? “So what are you recommending?” he asked.
“I think you should send her home,” Waters answered.
“I don’t think it has anything to do with being a woman,” Leonard added. “I’d make the same recommendation for any of the other pilots under the same circumstances. Whoever said timing is the most important thing got it wrong—it’s the only thing. She’s going to hesitate at the wrong time and get someone killed.”
Maggot interrupted. “Most likely herself.”
“I need to think about it,” Pontowski told them. Leonard and Maggot left while Waters held back. “I noticed you did most of the talking.”
“This was my idea,” Waters said. “Getting those two in here was like dragging a bull to a vet for castration.” Pontowski didn’t smile and she knew an explanation was in order. “Skeeter’s a good pilot. But I don’t think she’s got the killer instinct I see in the others.”
“You see that in us?”
She nodded. “When the challenge is there, I see it. Everyone, you included, has it. It’s part of your personality.”
Pontowski mulled it over. It was the truth. He had no reservations about dropping bombs on people or shooting a hostile aircraft out of the sky. Are we that primeval? he wondered. “And you don’t see it in Skeeter?”
Waters shook her head. “I know male pilots who don’t have it. Maybe she’s like them. Maybe it’s the mother instinct in her. Who knows? I don’t have it.”
“But you’re here,” he reminded her.
“We all have an obligation for service,” she said.
“I’ll think about it,” he said, dismissing her. Why bring this up now? he thought after she had left. Killer instinct, obligation for service … we’ve got more important things to worry about. He shoved the problem to the back of his mind.
Sunday, August 25
Washington, D.C.
Bill Carroll slumped into his chair and rubbed his eyes. He surveyed the clutter on his desk, stood, and stretched, forcing his fatigue to yield. He wanted to go for a run and blow the mental cobwebs away. But it was nearing midnight. Too late. Besides, he had to be ready for the morning meeting with the president. The Middle East crisis was not yielding and the Islamic fundamentalists were consolidating their strength. Only in Saudi Arabia was there a glimmer of hope. It was just possible the CIA might be able to destabilize the fundamentalists and return the Saud family to the throne. How many times can we save their bacon, he thought. He snorted. What a bad joke, Muslims don’t eat bacon.
He read the memo on his desk. The Honorable Ann Nevers, the congresswoman from California, was demanding a full-scale congressional investigation into what she was calling “Chinagate.” Damn! Carroll raged to himself. Doesn’t she understand how limited our options are in that part of the world? He made a note to personally call on Nevers. Maybe he could talk her into backing off.
Mazie’s report was next. Not good. Zou’s government had been seriously shaken by the attack on Nanning, the New China Guard was mostly show, and Von Drexler was coming unhinged. At least the supply channel from Hanoi to Nanning was open and flowing. Thanks to Toragawa, the Japanese were pumping in much-needed relief and money to Zou. That will
help stabilize the situation, he calculated, if the corruption doesn’t get too bad. Carroll shook his head. If Nevers ever found out about that…. He didn’t pursue the thought. It was too painful.
He scratched a note on Mazie’s report—”Find replacement for VD”—and headed out the door for his health club. He hoped Chuck and Wayne were awake.
Saturday, August 31
Nanning, China
The force of the dream forced Jin Chu to sit up in bed. She was awake and fought to control the rapid breathing that pounded at her body. Slowly, she regained control. She had never experienced so vivid a dream. Kamigami reached out and gently rubbed her back. “Are you okay?” There was no answer. “Was it a dream?”
She shuddered. “It was very real. It frightened me.” Kamigami didn’t answer and waited for her to tell him about it. He had seen it before. Jin Chu never consciously reacted to the gossip and news she picked up when she wandered through marketplaces telling people’s fortunes and practicing feng shui.
Her sensitive nature was attuned to the emotions of people around her and by touching them, she felt what they felt. She chose with care the people whose fortunes she told, and because she never accepted money, they paid by talking. But she did not consciously evaluate what they told her. It was absorbed into her subconscious where it came out in dreams.
“You must return to Wuzhou,” she told him.
Kamigami smiled in the dark. She had responded to his emotions. He had been at Nanning for two days, arguing with Zou’s staff for more TOW antitank weapons and Stinger surface-to-air missiles. It had been a losing argument and he wanted to return to his First Regiment in Wuzhou, even though it meant Jin Chu would probably not accompany him. He looked at his watch: one-thirty in the morning. “I had planned to,” he told her. “Later today, when it’s light.” But she knows that, he thought.
Dark Wing Page 31