Dark Wing

by Richard Herman

  Saturday, October 12

  Bose Airfield, China

  Maggot was the first to see the approaching C-130. “There it is,” he said, pointing to the west. The rumor that Pontowski was on the inbound Hercules had swept over the base hours before and most of the wing was waiting on the ramp. For reasons known best to themselves, most had polished their boots and changed into clean uniforms. Even a few fresh haircuts were seen in the crowd. A sergeant had washed and polished Pontowski’s old pickup truck and parked it nearby.

  Leonard stood patiently with Waters and for the first time in weeks, the strained look on his face was gone. Now he was only tired, and the thought of a good night’s sleep figured big in his immediate plans. The C-130 touched down and its props slammed into reverse, dragging it to a halt before the first turnoff. “Nice landing,” Leonard observed. The Hercules taxied into the blocks and its engines spun down. The crew entry hatch opened and Pontowski climbed down the steps. Mazie and Hazelton were right behind him.

  The crowd was uncommonly silent as Leonard stepped forward and saluted. Before he could say “Welcome back, sir,” they erupted in loud shouting, clapping, and whistling. A big smile spread over Leonard’s face. “I couldn’t say it better myself,” he said, happy to be an ops officer again.

  Pontowski waved a salute back. “I couldn’t stay away when I heard you were having so much fun kicking ass around here.” More shouting and cheering followed him as he walked to his pickup.

  Waters held back. There was a new sound in Pontowski’s voice, and it worried her. He was not the same man. “Miss Kamigami, Mr. Hazelton,” she called. “Why don’t you come with me?” They had been totally forgotten in the hubbub.

  “How’s it going?” Mazie asked.

  “Tight, very tight,” Waters answered. “Listen.” The rumble of artillery in the far distance rolled over the horizon. “What can we do for you?” she asked.

  “Hopefully,” Mazie answered, “it’s exactly the other way around. Mr. Carroll wants to stay on top of the situation and we’re his eyes and ears on this end.”

  “It’s an understatement to call the ‘situation’ here fluid,” Waters told her. “Beijing keeps starting and stopping the logistical pipeline to Kang and that drives the tempo of the fighting. But it allows us to hang on.”

  “I’d like to visit the front,” Mazie said.

  “You’ll have to talk to Colonel Pontowski and General Trimler about that,” Waters replied.

  Jin Chu sat up in bed with a jerk, waking Zou Rong. “What is it?” he asked.

  “A dream,” she answered. He was fully alert, hanging on every word. “You were at a bridge, talking to soldiers,” she told him. “Then we traveled west and came to a city. It was very hilly and peaceful. You were surrounded by smiling children.”

  “Did you know the city?”

  “No. I have never been there, but in my dream, you said you had been there once before.”

  “Kunming. It has to be Kunming.” He got out of bed and paced back and forth. “Your dream is a sign. Kunming is the headquarters for the Yunnan Military District. The commander there wants to join us but I don’t trust him. He is too eager. Perhaps I was wrong. I must talk to him again. Did you know the bridge?”

  “When I left my village, my grandfather took me to the bridge, where I caught a bus. It is near here.” She told him of her first glimpse of the Pearl River. “The dragons there are angry because of the bridge.”

  “I must see this bridge,” he said.

  “Perhaps you can also visit the Americans on your way.”

  “Yes, that is a good idea,” he replied, “now that Colonel Pontowski is back.”

  Zou Rong’s helicopter approached from the west at low level, barely clearing the trees and power lines. Kamigami was waiting outside his command bunker and called his sixteen-man honor guard to attention as it touched down.

  The honor guard, made up of one man from each of the First Regiment’s sixteen companies, stood at attention, eager to see the drama play out. Like their commander, they were motionless, and not a flicker of emotion betrayed their thoughts. To the man, they knew of his gift to Zou and considered it the privilege of a lifetime to see the two meet. Not one saw Kamigami stiffen when Zou, Jin Chu, and two other passengers emerged from the helicopter. Kamigami recognized Hazelton immediately, but the identity of the last, a petite and very pretty woman, escaped him. The stoic composure that was part of his growing legend was nearly destroyed when he recognized his daughter.

  Kamigami called for his men to present arms and saluted his commander. Zou returned the salute and reviewed the honor guard. “Your men have fought well,” he said so they all could hear when he had finished. “I believe you know Mr. Hazelton, and of course, your daughter.” The last was for the benefit of the sixteen pair of eyes that focused on Mazie. The stories surrounding Kamigami took on a new dimension.

  “I am told,” Zou continued, “that the bridge near here is very important to our defense. I want to see it.”

  “The bridge is the key,” Kamigami said. “If Kang takes the bridge, he can move artillery across and shell Bose. Once past Bose, he can move into Yunnan Province.”

  A muscle twitched in Zou’s face at the mention of Yunnan. “Can Kang outflank us to the north?” he asked.

  “He would have to divert men and supplies from here,” Kamigami replied. “That would weaken his position and you could launch an offensive to retake Nanning. That would mean a major setback for him. Kang needs the bridge.”

  “Miss Li said feng shui at the bridge is very bad and that the dragons are angry. Perhaps she can discover a way to appease them.”

  That settled the issue, and Kamigami called for two Humvees and an escort to take them all forward. Jin Chu spoke quietly to Zou and he relayed her instructions to the driver. Instead of going directly to the bridge, the small convoy turned off to the south and stopped on a small promontory. Below them, the bridge was clearly visible.

  “This is where I first saw the Pearl River,” Jin Chu told Zou. She gestured gracefully, sweeping the view with her right hand. “But the bridge is built in the wrong place and jars the harmony of the land. There are many angry dragons here.” Zou shot her a worried look. Two of the drivers were listening and her words would spread like wildfire among his soldiers. “The dragons,” she said, “are not angry at us but we must destroy the bridge.” The two drivers relaxed and Zou raised his binoculars to study the scene below him.

  Mazie joined Kamigami and they walked away from the others. Both wanted to talk, but neither was sure what to say. “We are a mismatched pair,” she ventured.

  “You’ve changed,” he told her.

  “And you.” It was the truth. Mazie had become more American while he had become more Chinese. The two cultures had pulled them apart, the one drawing her in while the other was absorbing him as it had so many others in its long history. The difference was not superficial and went deep—Mazie thought in English while he thought more and more in Chinese. Both wanted their family to survive, but they were losing what little they had in common. They walked back to the vehicles in silence.

  “You must destroy the bridge,” Zou told Kamigami.

  Kamigami didn’t answer. He fully intended to blow the bridge—at the right time. But for now, he needed it to keep his men fighting in the east and hold Kang at bay. Taking his silence for consent, Zou said, “I’ve seen enough.”

  “It’s getting tough out there,” Leonard said when he entered Pontowski’s operations tent. He had to wait while a KC-10 took the runway and ran up its three General Electric turbofan engines for takeoff. Each engine developed over fifty-two thousand pounds of static thrust and the blast blew over three shacks a quarter of a mile away. With the burden of command off his back, he didn’t worry about it.

  The KC-10 rolled down the runway and the huge jet leaped into the air. “Washington has reopened the air bridge out of Cam Ranh,” Pontowski told him. “That Ten offloaded 135,000
pounds of fuel and twenty-two pallets of cargo. We’re scheduled for two a day.”

  “The modern version of the Hump from World War II,” Leonard said. “I don’t think it’s gonna last.”

  “What’s the problem?” Pontowski asked.

  “I sat in on the debrief for Maggot’s last mission. They got four bandit calls from the AWACS. But the bad guys can’t find us because their warning and control system sucks. But they’re up there and a KC-10 or a C-130 is a sitting duck.”

  “It won’t happen,” Pontowski told him. He walked over to the map table and spread out a chart. “We’re only seventy nautical miles from the Vietnamese border—less than ten minutes’ flying time for the KC-10. And we got F-15s flying CAP with the AWACS here”—he pointed to the AWACS orbit point inside Vietnam but close to the border—”and a pair of F-15s will be on any bandit who heads for a Ten or C-130 like a pit bull on a French poodle in heat.”

  “The politicians in D.C. are getting serious about this,” Leonard allowed. “It’s nice to know we’re not out here all alone.” He paused, considering what he had to say next. “Maggot had more bad news. He got mucho, and I mean mucho, SA-2 hits on his RHAW gear.”

  Pontowski sat down. “We didn’t need that.” Leonard had just given him a new problem to deal with. The A-10’s RHAW, or radar homing and warning system, detected hostile radar threats. The SA-2 was an old, obsolete, radar-guided surface-to-air missile that still presented a very real threat to his Warthogs and any cargo plane.

  “We need to find ‘em and take ‘em out,” Leonard said. “We need to get in bed with the AWACS troops and have an intimate conversation,” Pontowski said.

  Leonard faked a shocked look, “Not me, Boss. According to the F-15 drivers, the mission commander is a good-looking, ball-busting femme they call Major Mom.”

  “Figuratively, meathead, figuratively,” Pontowski replied.

  “I’ll get right on it,” Leonard said.

  Moose Penko arrived on a C-130 that evening and was immediately driven to operations where Pontowski, Leonard, and Maggot were waiting for him. Moose listened while the Warthog drivers laid out the problem. “Our jets have been modified with ESM, electronic support measures,” Moose told them, “and we can locate a radar transmitter the moment it comes up.”

  “How accurate is it?” Maggot asked. Moose mentioned a figure none of them believed. “Shit-oh-dear,” Maggot muttered. “If it’s half that good, we can find those puppies in a heartbeat.”

  “We have to counter their ‘shoot and scoot’ tactics,” Moose said, “and sucker them in.” The tone of his voice was light and bantering but his face was deadly serious. “I’ve got some ideas we can play with.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Pontowski deadpanned. “Warthogs doing air defense suppression.”

  Tuesday, October 15

  Near Bose, China

  Lieutenant Colonel Sung Fu, Second Company, Fourth Battalion of the Twentieth Air Defense Regiment, People’s Liberation Army, trudged up the wide path leading from the village to his missile site. He surveyed the area, his practiced eye measuring every detail. The power line leading from the village’s lone generator was installed. It had best be working, he promised himself, calculating what punishment would best suit that particular failure.

  Sung had learned much from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and took great pains to insure that his orders were clear, simple, workable, and most important, understood. When his commands were not properly carried out, he would investigate and discover which of his officers had failed. He always started with the fool who held the rank of senior captain before working his way down to the two captains, the four first lieutenants, and finally, the eight second lieutenants.

  Occasionally, harsh, and very visible, discipline was called for. He was not averse to calling the entire company out to witness an execution by firing squad and had once, very briefly, considered a beheading to instill proper motivation. But after due consideration, he had decided that would be counterproductive and encourage more defections to the New China Guard. Desertions were a problem in other units, especially those with a high percentage of personnel from southern China. But not his.

  Sung ran through the personnel roster he carried in his head. Who in his company was from the southern provinces? Only that fool of a senior captain. And he wasn’t likely to desert as long as his family was in northern China. In addition to Sun Tzu, Sung had learned much from his commander, General Kang Xun.

  The six missile launchers of Sung’s first missile battery were laid out in the star pattern that characterized an SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile battery. At the heart of the complex was a van-mounted acquisition and guidance radar NATO called the Fan Song. It was an old system with a maximum range of twenty-five miles and effective at altitudes from two thousand to sixty thousand feet.

  Sung had never fired a Guideline and longed to give the fire order so one of his cherished missiles with its three-hundred-pound high-explosive warhead could destroy an enemy aircraft. As he looked around his missile site, he was certain today would be the day.

  “Phoenix, how copy?” Leonard transmitted over his secure radio. No answer. Since he and Maggot were talking to each other, the problem had to be with the AWACS. He called Maggot over to the UHF radio and tried again, this time in the clear. They made contact and Moose’s voice came through loud and distinct.

  Moose checked with his ASO, who controlled the AWACS’ passive detection system, and told the two Warthog pilots that all was quiet. “Time to go trolling,” Leonard radioed. “We got to get ‘em interested.”

  “Roger that,” Maggot replied. The two Warthogs climbed out of their low orbit to three thousand feet, well inside the engagement envelope of an SA-2. Their radar warning gear exploded with a harsh chirping sound and the symbol for an SA-2 flashed on their RHAW azimuth indicator. A Fan Song radar was locked on.

  “We got ‘em,” Moose transmitted. The two Warthogs dove for the deck and leveled off at three hundred feet, breaking the Fan Song’s radar lock.

  The AWACS was over one hundred miles away, established in an orbit over Vietnam, but within milliseconds, its electronic support measures program had detected the signal, measured its electrical parameters, identified the transmitter, and determined its location. A red target symbol flashed on Moose’s screen—the missile site. “Tango, Maggot,” Moose radioed, “your target is bearing one-three-five at thirty. Stand by for coordinates.” Moose’s thick fingers danced on the keyboard and the target’s coordinates appeared by the red triangle. He gave the Warthog pilots the numbers and waited.

  “Maggot, go tactical,” Leonard transmitted. Two clicks answered him as the two Warthogs moved apart and headed for Lieutenant Colonel Sung Fu’s missile battery. They were six minutes out.

  “Shooter-cover,” Leonard ordered.

  “Give me a break,” Maggot answered. He wanted to drop some bombs.

  Leonard almost laughed. “Okay, I’ll cover your worthless ass.” Another two clicks answered him.

  Maggot took the lead, angled fifteen degrees away from the missile site, and at one mile, pulled back on his stick to pop onto the target. He couldn’t see the missile site but he knew where to look. He rolled inverted at twelve hundred feet and pulled his nose to the coordinates the AWACS had given him. “Tallyho the fox,” Maggot called when he saw the camouflaged missile launchers. He was well below the minimum altitude of the SA-2s but inside the envelope for ground fire. He looked for the telltale flashes of AAA. Nothing. He pickled off a string of Mark-82 AIR, five-hundred-pound bombs, and pulled off.

  Maggot’s LASTE system worked its magic and his bombs walked across the missile site with uncanny accuracy. “Shack,” Leonard called, as he rolled in behind Maggot. “I’m in,” he called, strafing the target at a right angle while Maggot positioned to engage anyone foolish enough to shoot at him. Then Maggot strafed the site and the two Warthogs headed north.

  “Scratch one missile site,” Leonard
told Moose. They deliberately climbed into the envelope for the SA-2, still trolling for radar activity. Nothing.

  “Say,” Maggot radioed, “I like this business.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Sung Fu lurched through the debris that had been his first missile battery. He was not prepared for the destruction and carnage around him. He stepped over a three-foot-deep trench Leonard’s cannon had plowed when he had marched a burst of thirty-millimeter cannon fire through the Fan Song radar van. The bullets had riddled the van and it had collapsed on itself like so much Swiss cheese.

  An officer from Kang’s headquarters stood back, not wanting to go any closer in case Sung’s misfortune touched him. The officer functioned as an intelligence and liaison officer out of Kang’s headquarters, explaining the correct meaning of events and orders to field commanders. In reality, he was a spy insuring complete loyalty to Kang.

  Sung straightened his shoulders and joined the liaison officer. “I will avenge this,” he promised. “My second battery has six missiles and I will destroy six Americans.”

  “We monitored the radio transmissions of the Silent Guns,” the liaison officer told him. “Normally, we only hear a rasping chatter from their radios. But this time, we heard everything. It was the aircraft they call the AWACS that directed the Americans to you.”

  Sung stared at the man. Kang’s treatment of commanders who had failed had been graphically implanted and he had to redeem himself. His life depended on it. Yet he also feared the Warthogs and did not want to engage them again. He found a solution to his dilemma. “I will destroy this AWACS,” he announced.

  “That’s not possible,” the liaison officer replied. “The AWACS only orbits in Vietnamese airspace.”