“Where I can do some good,” Trimler answered, “with the First Regiment.”
Tuesday, September 3
The Executive Office Building, Washington, D.C.
The dark-suited aide escorted Mazie through the deserted Executive Office Building. She checked the time—almost midnight. Jet lag was still playing havoc with her internal clocks. They reached the luxurious office suite in the southeast corner on the top floor that overlooked the White House. Next to having an office in the White House, insiders considered it the most prestigious office location in the capital. Why was Carroll working here so late at night? The aide motioned her to a chair in Carroll’s outer office. “The national security advisor is in a meeting,” he told her.
Mazie dozed, her mind a blank. She jerked awake when Carroll came out of the office, ushering four uncomfortable-looking Asians. The mental haze that had bound her in a cobweb of lethargy blew away in a gust of recognition. She knew these four men! They were the same Vietnamese they had negotiated with in Hanoi, that Byers had cut deals with on the side. What was going on?
Carroll shook hands with the men and the same aide escorted them out. She followed Carroll into the office and sank into a comfortable chair. She wanted to ask why the Vietnamese were in Washington, D.C. But it was an improper question. He pulled a chair up next to hers. “Is it as bad as it looks?” Carroll asked.
“Worse,” she replied. “Chaos is the best word for what’s going on.” Carroll listened without comment while she described the situation in Nanning. Then she played Hazelton’s videotapes and summarized what Trimler had said.
“Colonel Trimler’s message registered a nine on the Pentagon’s Richter scale,” he told her. “Even the Joint Chiefs are involved. I think we’ve got a solution worked out. What’s your impression of Trimler?”
“Intelligent,” Mazie answered, “competent, and steady as a rock.”
“We’re going to split the AVG off from the MAAG. It was a bad idea to have Von Drexler in command of both. Trimler is going to take over the MAAG.”
“I think that’s a good choice,” Mazie said. Jet lag was reclaiming her and she was too tired to think of the next, obvious question.
“The Honorable Ann Nevers is turning her opposition into a personal crusade. I want you to take a copy of these tapes over to her. Answer any questions.” He stressed the word “any.”
“Even about the Japanese Connection?” she asked.
“If she asks, yes.” He trusted Mazie not to volunteer information and not to get caught in a fishing expedition by Nevers. “Get some rest,” he told her. “You look beat.”
“I am,” she replied. She pulled herself out of the chair and left. Carroll reached for the phone and started making phone calls.
Wednesday, September 4
Guilin, China
Sara Waters parked Pontowski’s pickup beside the empty revetment and waited. Jake Trisher, the pilot sitting beside her, counted out loud as the Warthogs circled to land. All had recovered safely and for a moment, the anxiety and stress that had become a part of her existence eased. Then it was back. Within minutes, the aircraft would be serviced, armed, and launched on another mission.
The sergeant from intelligence who debriefed the pilots during combat turns stuck his head inside the window. “It’s not good,” he told them. “The last flight reported numerous tanks advancing on Guigang.” He showed them the map he had taped to the back of his clipboard. Guigang was seventy-five miles to the east of Nanning. “The First Regiment is pulling back.” The noise of four Warthogs taxiing in drowned out any further conversation.
A crew chief marshaled Pontowski’s Warthog to a stop in front of the revetment. Before the engines could spin down, a tug with a tow bar was pushing the A-10 into the bunker while a fuel truck drove up. Four weapons trailers were already parked inside the revetment with a waiting load of Mark-82 AIRs and Mavericks. The crew chief dropped the boarding ladder and Pontowski climbed out of the cockpit.
The crew chief pointed to four holes punctured in the fuselage aft of the engines. “Damn,” Pontowski said, “I didn’t even know I’d been hit.”
The crew chief dropped an inspection panel and stuck his head inside the fuselage. “You were lucky,” he said. “Only minor damage.” He grabbed a roll of repair tape and slapped makeshift patches on both sides of the holes. “Load her up,” he said. “She’s still OR.”
Pontowski grunted an answer. OR—operationally ready—was what he needed to hear. “It’s getting tough out there,” he told the sergeant from intelligence. “What’s our status?”
The sergeant answered, “Counting your jet, we have twenty-seven Hogs operational. Three are down for battle damage and two for hydraulics. No wounded or killed.”
The tension in Pontowski’s face eased. He hadn’t lost another pilot. But he knew it couldn’t last. He finished debriefing the sergeant as the ground crew hurried to refuel and rearm the Warthog. Waters and Jake got out of the pickup and walked up. “Whatcha got, Ripper?” Pontowski asked.
“Jake will have to take the next mission,” she said, handing him a telefax message.
Pontowski scanned the message. “I’ll be …” he whispered. The message stated he was promoted to full colonel and was to immediately assume command of the American Volunteer Group at Nanning. He was to appoint an interim commander for the wing, subject to confirmation by higher headquarters.
He looked at her. “You’ve read this?” She nodded. “Anyone else?” She shook her head. “Okay, here we go. I need to see Tango ASAP.” Waters’ face paled. “I know how you feel, Ripper. But he’s the best man to take over for me.”
“Congratulations on your promotion, sir.” Her voice was controlled and formal. She walked to the pickup and held the door open for him.
“Lighten up,” Pontowski said.
“General Trimler is waiting for you in operations,” she replied. He cocked an eyebrow at her. “He’s been promoted to brigadier general,” she explained, “and is assuming command of the MAAG mission.” She allowed a tight smile. “They got that one right—finally.”
“We’ll have to go to Nanning,” he told her. “I want you to come with me.”
Her body went rigid and she wanted to argue that her place was here, with the wing. That was a lie—she wanted to stay because of Leonard. But she was Pontowski’s executive officer. The words came hard. “Yes, sir.”
The helicopter circled Nanning, overflying the roads clogged with refugees streaming out of the city to the south and west. Trimler yelled at the pilot and they landed outside the headquarters compound. Pontowski jumped out and led the way to the security shack at the main entrance with Trimler and Waters close behind.
“Please call the chief of security,” he told the American sergeant on duty. A few moments later a worried-looking captain entered.
“Thank God you’re finally here, sir,” the captain said. The relief he felt was caught in every word. “The general received a message hours ago directing him to relinquish command to you and General Trimler. He’s gone crazy and won’t come out of the command post. When you didn’t show up, he claimed you had been wounded or killed.” He straightened up. “I’ll escort you.”
Von Drexler was standing over a map table when Pontowski entered. He shot Pontowski a disdainful look. “You are out of uniform,” he snapped. “You are only a lieutenant colonel. Remove the eagles and wear your correct rank.” Then he saw the single star on Trimler’s collar. “Captain,” he said to the chief of security, “place both of these men under arrest. I have a war to fight.” His voice was calm and matter of fact, a total contrast to his haggard and drawn face. Even his normally crisp and fresh uniform was rumpled and disheveled. His egomania was still driving him, destroying what was left of his rationality.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the captain replied. “I can’t do that.”
Pontowski handed Von Drexler the message directing him to assume command of the AVG. The general slapped it away
. “This is mutiny,” he rasped. “Captain, place them under arrest.”
“General,” Pontowski said, “let’s go to your office.”
Von Drexler turned, walked to the front of the room, and picked up a microphone. “Gentlemen,” he announced to the command post, “let me have your attention. We have two officers in the command post who have assumed a rank they are not legally entitled to. I can only assume a mutiny is in progress, therefore—” The loudspeakers went dead.
The captain had disconnected the cord and approached Von Drexler. “Sir,” he said, “I must ask you to return to your quarters.” Von Drexler ignored him. The captain leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. “Unless you leave now, I will forcibly escort you. Under restraint, if necessary.”
Von Drexler glared at the captain for a brief moment, his face full of hate, before he marched out of the command post. “Call my car,” he commanded, “I’m returning to my quarters.”
“Ripper,” Pontowski ordered, “go with the captain and make sure Von Drexler stays there.” He turned to Trimler. “Let’s see if we can salvage this.”
Von Drexler marched into the main hall of his mansion and called for James, his majordomo. There was no answer. He ignored Waters and the captain and climbed the main stairs, calling for the two women. “Yu Ke.” Silence. “Ailing!” Again, no answer. He disappeared into his bedroom.
“I’ve got to get back,” the captain told Waters. “I’ll leave a sergeant here with you.” He hurried out the door as Waters scouted the main floor. The house was a wreck and had been ransacked. She found a telephone and dialed the command post. “Please tell Colonel Pontowski the general is in his quarters.” She dropped the phone when she heard a single shot.
Waters followed the sergeant as he pounded up the stairs, his weapon drawn. “Holy shit!” he blurted when he entered the bedroom. Waters halted, afraid to look inside. Then she forced herself. Von Drexler was lying on the floor, his head in a pool of blood. A nine-millimeter Beretta semiautomatic was beside his body. “He took it in the mouth,” the sergeant said.
He checked the adjoining sitting room. “Captain,” he called. “There’s two more in here.” Again, Waters had to force herself to look. Yu Ke and Ailing were lying naked on the floor, their throats cut. “They’ve been dead at least a day,” he said. “He couldn’t have done it. He hasn’t left the command post since Saturday.”
Waters shuddered and threw open a window. She needed a breath of fresh air. In the distance, she heard the heavy thunder of artillery. “How far away?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” the sergeant answered. “But it’s getting closer.” He covered the bodies and called the security shack. “We need to get the general to the morgue and get the hell out of here,” he told her. “I’ll check his personal effects.”
The ambulance had left with Von Drexler’s body when the sergeant handed her a box and a list of the items he had found. “The house was ransacked,” he said. “Everything of value is long gone.” She looked inside the box. “If I were you,” he said, “I’d trash those videotapes. They were deliberately left behind so we’d find them.”
She carried the box out of the house, leaving the door open.
Pontowski leaned forward over Von Drexler’s map table and bowed his head. Panic, he thought, is coming out of the woodwork. It was a deadly cancer he had to cut out before it killed them. But he was on the edge of an unfamiliar situation and dealing with too many unknowns. He studied the chart under his hands. Was it current? Was it all there for him to see?
How long did he have? The answer was clear—not long. In one respect, it was the same as flying combat. He was relying on his skills, his abilities, all that was in him, to survive and win. He was only going to get one shot. And if he missed? What was the price for failure? It was a burden few men willingly shouldered, yet he wanted it. Frank Hester’s words came back, strong and clear: “Do something, even if it’s wrong.”
“Here we go,” he said to no one. He started by talking to Charles Parker, the vice commander he had inherited from Von Drexler. “Where do I start?” he asked.
Charlie Parker was a senior colonel, heavy with time in grade and experience. The heavyset, slightly balding, middle-aged man was on his last assignment before retiring. He had no illusions about his future, had suffered under Von Drexler, but was still a consummate professional. As long as he was Pontowski’s vice commander, he would do his best. “We need to streamline the way we control the A-10s,” he told Pontowski. “Von Drexler personally approved every single mission you flew. He got in the way.”
Pontowski was encouraged. Parker’s thinking paralleled his own. “What else?” he asked.
“We need an AWACS bad.” He responded to the look on Pontowski’s face. “We need centralized control of the airlift operating out of Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam, fighter escort”—he was on a roll—”and for God’s sake, cut the number of people here in half.”
Pontowski had a vice commander he could rely on. He issued his first orders to the American Volunteer Group and within minutes, the headquarters was alive with purpose. It was one of the quickest reorganizations in Air Force history.
He found Trimler huddled with Hazelton and the remnants of the MAAG mission in the back of the compound. “Von Drexler was right in one respect,” he told Trimler. “The MAAG and the AVG must work together. This is twice the building the AVG needs, so why don’t you set up a logistics center in the command post? Talk to my vice commander, Charlie Parker.”
Hazelton joined in. “We can help. The railroad is still open and we’ve got tons of material stockpiled at Hanoi. But we don’t know what to do with it.”
“Getting it to the right people, at the right place, at the right time is always the nut cruncher,” Trimler told him. A wicked look crossed his face. “I can make that happen. Besides, I’m tired of getting kicked around by Kang.”
“Don’t underestimate him,” Pontowski said. Outside, the sound of artillery punctuated his warning.
Then it came to him, clear and complete. The key had been on the map for him to see all along. It was so obvious, so basic. “Kang is running out of gas,” he said. He walked out of the room, his strides long and quick. Then he ran for the command post. The A-10s had to go after different targets.
Wednesday, September 4
Washington, D.C.
Congresswoman Ann Nevers split her attention between the videotape playing on the TV screen and the young woman sitting in her office. Although they had been in Hanoi at the same time, they had never met, and Mazie wasn’t what she had expected. Her staff had described Mazie as short and dumpy. This woman was petite, stylishly dressed, and very pretty. Nevers caught her reaction to the segment where Hazelton destroyed the tank.
“You are very fond of him,” Nevers observed when the screen went blank. She smiled at the astonished look on Mazie’s face. “The young man who made these tapes,” she explained.
The smile disappeared and she turned to the heart of the matter. “I know how your Mr. Carroll works and understand his message: If I continue to oppose the administration’s current policies in China, he will give the media the scenes showing the carnage from the chemical and artillery attacks. The public will be outraged, and the fact that I opposed the policies that caused those attacks in the first place will be lost in the allegations that I support the very regime that committed the atrocities—which I do not.”
“Mr. Carroll never said that,” Mazie declared. She sensed it would be useless to remind Nevers that Kang Xun had been committing atrocities against the southern Chinese long before the United States had gotten involved or had a policy.
Nevers ignored her. “I’m not stupid, Miss Kamigami. These tapes are excellent trump cards.” Nevers liked the analogy she was drawing and ran with it, since they both knew she had a weak hand. “But I need to win a trick or two to stay in the game.”
“If Mr. Carroll knew what you had in mind …” Mazie ventured. Both women kne
w they were cutting a deal.
“I will drop my demands for an investigation into Chinagate if these tapes are never made public.” She paused and smiled, calculating how to even the score. The news clip of her vomiting in the hotel lounge in Hanoi had made the national evening TV news on a slow news day. The damage was compounded when TV talk show hosts had replayed the tape for the amusement of their audiences. She was a methodical and patient woman and could wait to take her revenge. It was one of the reasons she had entered politics.
PART 3
Excerpt: President’s Daily Brief,
Tuesday, September 3.
FIGHTING IN SOUTHERN CHINA SUBSIDES. ZOU Rong’s New China Guard has withdrawn to the west, consolidated its position, and stopped the PLA advance on the Republic of Southern China’s capital at Nanning. The PLA and the New China Guard have exhausted their respective logistical bases and stopped fighting. Knowledgeable observers predict the two sides will try to negotiate a cease-fire.
CHAPTER 16
Thursday, September 5
Guilin, China
Skeeter Ashton stood in front of Leonard’s desk and glared at him. “I volunteered for this,” she shot at him, “while most of your pilots still had their thumbs up their fat asses. I’ll match my record against anyone in the wing.”
“Skeeter,” Leonard said, trying to explain his concern, “I know what you’ve done here.”
“You’re still pissed because I didn’t nail those trucks.”
“Skeeter, a kill is a kill,” Leonard replied. He was blowing it and not getting his point across. There was more to running a wing than he had thought. “Look, what I’m trying to say is, take the shot at the first opportunity. It may not look perfect but don’t worry about making mistakes. The first shot may be the only chance you’ll get. Okay?”
“Is that all, Colonel,” Skeeter asked.
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