Dark Wing

by Richard Herman

  “How close to the border does it come?” Sung asked. “Maybe within twenty miles,” came the answer.

  “Then I will take my company to the border.”

  “Impossible,” the officer snorted. “It’s too mountainous. You can never get your missiles into position.”

  Sung’s face turned into a death mask. “I will take my company to the border,” he repeated, “and destroy this AWACS.”

  Tuesday, October 15

  Washington, D.C.

  A stabbing pain in the left side of his face woke Bill Carroll. He glanced at the clock beside his bed-3:30 in the morning. “Call the dentist,” Mary, his wife, told him. “Quit trying to ignore it.” She wasn’t big on dispensing sympathy in the early morning hours. His jaw sent him a fresh message of agony and he gave in to the inevitable.

  When the national security advisor to the president of the United States calls for a dental appointment, his dentist is instantly available. So when Carroll arrived at the dental office forty minutes later, the dentist, his technician, and the receptionist were waiting for him. That was as good as the day was going to get.

  Carroll was in his office before six, his face still numb from the Novocaine. As usual, his secretary was already at work, laying out his desk. The day’s schedule and the PDB, the President’s Daily Brief, were on top. He scanned the PDB, not expecting to find any significant intelligence in the highly classified summary produced by the CIA. He wasn’t disappointed. “You need to see this,” his secretary said, turning on the VCR. “It was recorded off the Buddy Prince show last night.” Ann Nevers flickered to life on the screen.

  The congresswoman was the last person he wanted to watch but he trusted his secretary’s judgment. Nevers was pounding the same old stake of reckless foreign involvement into the administration’s heart. And sitting next to her was James Finlay, his former chief of staff.

  “Technically,” Finlay said at one point, “the United States has sent mercenaries to China to support one side of a civil war.”

  Damn! Carroll raged to himself. Finlay knows that everyone is on the DASR and that our support of Zou Rong qualifies as a covert operation. Even Congress has bought into it. But he had witnessed how quickly congressional support could wither and blow away in the cave of the winds called the Capitol. Carroll inadvertently chewed his numb tongue, tasting blood. Even the existence of the DASR was classified and couldn’t be revealed. Thanks to Finlay, Nevers had him over the proverbial barrel.

  “Didn’t you have a part in that decision?” Prince asked. Go get him, Buddy, Carroll thought. Prince had done his research and was keeping Finlay honest.

  “I resigned in protest over that decision,” Finlay replied. Prince gave Finlay a look that implied he was speaking less than the truth. “But aren’t the Chinese being massacred by the general Beijing placed in charge of southern China?”

  Nevers jumped in. “Many of those reports are gross fabrications by the administration.”

  “Is our government lying to us?” Prince asked.

  “Really, Buddy,” Nevers answered, “are you surprised? Our government has progressively involved us in the domestic affairs of China when we should be concentrating on problems here, at home. A fine young Air Force general, Mark Von Drexler, was in China, reporting the situation for what it was. Unfortunately, he was killed and our only voice of reason was lost.”

  “Was he one of the so-called mercenaries?” Prince asked.

  “No,” Nevers answered, “most assuredly not. He was a true patriot and I intend to hold the administration responsible for his death.”

  Prince took a phone call from a viewer who asked if it was illegal for U.S. citizens to be mercenaries. “That’s correct, and they can lose their citizenship,” Nevers answered. “Under the circumstances, I intend to see that they do.”

  Prince leaned forward, his voice intense. “But isn’t the grandson of the late President Pontowski in command of the Americans in China?”

  “He’s in command of the American mercenaries in China,” Finlay corrected. “And he will be held responsible for his actions. No man, regardless of his political connections, is above the law.”

  Carroll jabbed at the VCR and turned it off. “Sumbitch,” he mumbled, barely able to wrap his frozen tongue around the word. Finlay had thrown in with Nevers and was feeding her inside information, and with the reverse spin he gave it, Nevers had all the ammunition she needed.

  That afternoon, a large troop of key congressional leaders marched into the Oval Office and met with the president for over an hour. Immediately afterward, the president called in his advisors and told them to start working the China problem—hard. “I want two things to happen,” he ordered. “Start getting our people out of China and find a way to muzzle Nevers.”

  Carroll returned to his office and drafted a message for Mazie, explaining the situation. He stared at the message with its devastating implications: The administration was losing political backing in Congress and its support of Zou Rong was approaching meltdown. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese were going to be sacrificed to Kang, Hong Kong was going down the tubes, and the chance to prevent a major war in Asia was all but lost. What was the answer? He needed time to think. Rather than send the message, he went for a run.

  The two Secret Service agents, Chuck Stanford and Wayne Adams, were hard pressed to keep up with Carroll, until he slipped and fell, straining his Achilles tendon and spraining an ankle. He was taken to the hospital in pain. The message was still lying on his desk.

  Wednesday, October 16

  Bose Airfield, China

  Mazie stood at the wooden-framed door of the tent where Trimler and the MAAG had set up a temporary office and listened. The intensity of the artillery barrage to the east left little doubt that a major attack was underway. She walked back inside and joined Hazelton, who was trying to coordinate a shipment of much-needed supplies up the Hanoi-Kunming rail line. “It isn’t going to happen,” he told her.

  Trimler overheard the comment. “This is no probing action,” he said. “We’re looking at a major offensive. Resupply may be a moot point. We need to talk to Pontowski.”

  Mazie followed the two men out the door and into the early morning dark. A faint glow etched the eastern horizon. Two figures emerged out of the shadows of Pontowski’s operations tent. “Miss Kamigami,” Jin Chu called, stopping Mazie cold.

  “Went,” Mazie called. “Go on in. I’ll catch up in a moment.” She turned to Jin Chu and waited. Up close, she could see that the other person with Jin Chu was a woman carrying a small child.

  “This is May May,” Jin Chu said. She paused, searching her limited English vocabulary for the right words.

  Mazie solved the problem for her and spoke in Cantonese. “I speak a little Cantonese,” she said.

  “May May is your father’s temporary wife,” Jin Chu explained. “She is pregnant with his child.” Mazie stiffened. Parents were not always what their children wanted—or thought they should be. “Can you fly her to safety on one of your airplanes?” Jin Chu asked. “I had a dream with many fires. All were here.”

  Well, Mazie thought, I do have a family—of sorts. But it is all mixed up.

  May May shifted the child on her hip. “Her dreams always come true,” she explained. “The fires mean there will be much destruction and fighting here.”

  “There is more,” Jin Chu said. “Zou is leaving for Yunnan Province in a few hours. The general there is his ally and Kunming is his new capital.”

  “Stay here,” Mazie said. “I’ll see what I can do.” She hurried inside the operations tent. Jin Chu spoke in a whisper to May May before disappearing into the early morning mist. May May sat on the ground and waited.

  The tent was crowded with Pontowski’s staff and they made room for her so she could sit at the front and see the briefing map. “This is the offensive we’ve been expecting,” Pontowski said. He pointed to the map and circled the bridge she had seen three days before. “This is
Kang’s next objective. If he captures it, we will be within artillery range. So we’re going to launch at first light and try to change their minds.” He looked at Mazie. “Any words from your sources?”

  “By all reports,” Mazie said, “this is a do or die situation for Kang. He’s got to win on this one or his masters in Beijing will cut him off at the knees and try to work out an accommodation with Zou Rong. Zou has cut some sort of deal with the military district commander in Yunnan Province and they’ve declared Kunming the capital. Zou’s moving there today.”

  Trimler grunted. “This is news to me. But it could be the break we need. I’ll have to take the MAAG with him. I’ll leave a liaison officer here with you.”

  The high-pitched scream of an incoming rocket arced over them. “Hit the decks” Ray Byers shouted. Hazelton knocked Mazie to the ground and threw his body over her. She buried her face in his chest and threw her arms around him as six explosions rocked the far side of the airfield. She didn’t move.

  “Great,” Byers growled. “Fuckin’ great. Unguided rockets.”

  “You two can get up now,” Trimler said. Hazelton rolled to the side and Mazie looked up into a circle of standing men. She stood and brushed off her clothes, blushing brightly.

  The phones started ringing and the radios came alive with damage reports for Waters’ base defense section. “Those were 140-millimeter rockets,” she told them.

  “Max range about six and a half miles,” Trimler added. “That means they snuck some across the river. We can probably expect a few more.”

  Waters was busy plotting the impact points on her base chart. “One hit the airfield,” she reported, “and started a major fire.” She listened on the phone as more reports came in. “Colonel, the fire is in the cargo area. All our cargo-loading equipment is lost.”

  “Not good,” Pontowski grumbled. Without a constant flow of fuel, munitions, spare parts, and hundreds of other small items, flying operations would dry up in a few days. The survival of his wing depended on at least two KC-10s bringing in fuel along with twenty tons of supplies each day. He turned to his transportation officer. “See what you can do to get it replaced.”

  “Roger that,” the young major replied. He hurried back to his logistics command post, his work cut out for him.

  “The other rockets,” Waters said, “overshot and missed the airfield. They landed here.” Marchioni stared at the chart for a moment and uttered an obscenity. He bolted from the room.

  “That’s where his village is camping,” Byers explained.

  Pontowski’s face was rock hard. “We need to send Kang a message he won’t forget.” Anger burned in his words. “Don’t kill the innocent.”

  Waters’ right hand clenched tight, her knuckles white. The sound in his voice frightened her.

  * * *

  Ray Byers walked with Mazie and Hazelton as they headed back for their makeshift office. Outside, they found May May still waiting, the child asleep in her arms. “She’s pretty,” Byers said. “Who is she?”

  Mazie didn’t know how to answer his question. “I guess she’s part of my family now. Ray, can you take care of her?”

  “No problem,” Byers answered. “She can stay with us.” He and May May disappeared into the dark.

  Mazie watched them go before turning to Hazelton. There were tears in her eyes. “This is so stupid. She’s one of my father’s mistresses. I don’t understand him at all.”

  Hazelton stopped and put both his hands on her shoulders. For the second time that morning, she found his closeness reassuring. “I don’t understand my mother,” he said. “She drives me crazy and wants to control everything I do. I still love her, though.” Then he took the plunge. “But not as much as I love you.”

  The “Oh” that came from Mazie was more of a squeak than a word. Then she was in his arms, holding on to him, her cheek against his chest. He bent over to kiss her, but the difference in their heights made that ridiculous. He scooped her up in his arms and she threw her arms around his neck. Their lips brushed, tentatively, hesitantly. She pulled back and looked at him, their faces inches apart. “Oh,” she murmured, much stronger. Then they kissed again.

  Wednesday, October 16

  The bridge near Bose, China

  Kamigami stood in the middle of his battle staff as a babble of voices engulfed him. But he had learned how to listen and there was no panic or confusion in the swirling sounds competing for his attention. The reports streaming in confirmed what he had sensed form the very first: This attack was different. The artillery fire they were receiving carried a different tempo and intensity. That bothered him.

  He motioned for his operations and intelligence officers to follow him to the J-STARS module next to the command bunker. Inside, the American liaison officer was equally perplexed. “We should be detecting heavy targets, like tanks, moving into position,” the American said. “But there’s nothing. As best as we can tell, all the heavy stuff is still fifty miles to the rear.”

  The two Chinese officers put their heads together and spoke quietly. “Does the J-STARS,” the intelligence officer asked, “detect people? Many people.”

  “Not yet,” the American replied.

  The two Chinese looked at Kamigami. They had asked the right question and as their general, it was Kamigami’s job to put the pieces together. He did. “So where are the tanks?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Kang is holding them back because he knows we can detect them with our J-STARS and destroy them with the Warthogs. He has changed his tactics and is using the Chinese version of stealth—people.” The Chinese officers nodded in agreement. “The incoming is mostly rockets,” Kamigami said, “because rockets can be carried by people one at a time and not detected.”

  “So what does it all mean?” the American asked. High-tech warfare he understood. But this was different.

  “Human wave attacks,” Kamigami answered. “Probably at first light. Move your module to the airfield at Bose. Now.”

  “Yes, sir,” the American replied. “We’re gone.”

  Kamigami strode back into the command bunker calling for the officer in charge of the ASOC. “Tell Colonel Pontowski to load his A-l0s with antipersonnel ordnance,” he ordered. “We will need them at first light.” He spent the next ten minutes on the radio talking to his four battalion commanders, warning them what to expect. Then he ordered the command bunker to relocate to the airfield at Bose. He intended to use his Humvees as a mobile command post and would lead from the front.

  CHAPTER 21

  Wednesday, October 16

  Mindoro, The Philippines

  Nothing, short of evacuation, could have saved the islanders of Mindoro from Typhoon Kewa. The entire island was turned into a wasteland as Kewa moved over Mindoro, flattening homes, twisting and rolling cars over like a child at mad play, and literally blowing people away. Sustained winds of over 170 miles per hour and huge waves pounded at the island until it was populated more by the dead than the living. A supertanker plying northward to Japan ran ashore, splitting its hull and spilling more than twenty-five million gallons of crude oil.

  The fury of the typhoon grew as it moved over warm water and continued on its relentless course. Over a thousand miles to the northwest, the first of the clouds pushed by Kewa came ashore off the Gulf of Tonkin and penetrated into southern China.

  Wednesday, October 16

  Bose Airfield, China

  “Tango calls this the Gopher Hole,” Waters said as she led the way down the wooden steps and into the sandbagged underground bunker. The smell of freshly dug earth was strong, almost overpowering.

  “He got it right,” Pontowski said, looking around the operations center. The bunker reminded him of a World War II movie, but it was surprisingly roomy and well organized. All the telephones and radios were working, the big boards that tracked the status of the base were nailed up against the wall, and fans hummed in the background, circulating fresh air.

  The sound of the first Warthog
s launching reached into the bunker and he checked the operations status board—two A-10s led by Maggot. Two more were taxiing out, led by Mako Luce. Tango Leonard and his wingman, Jake Trisher, were scheduled to take off in thirty minutes. All were loaded out with CBU-58s, cluster bomb units. The CBU canisters split open when they were dropped and spread 650 baseball-sized bomblets over a wide area. Each bomblet exploded into 260 fragments that could chew up soft targets like people, houses, and vehicles. For an added kick, each bomblet had two five-grain titanium incendiary pellets to heat things up. The CBU-58 was one of the ironies of modern warfare. It was developed to replace the older, much-reviled napalm, and in terms of lethality, was a quantum leap beyond napalm. But it was a politically correct weapon.

  Pontowski settled into his chair in front of a communications panel. Damn, he thought, I’d rather be out there, launching. He glanced at the board and the numbers were back to haunt him-46 pilots, 30 operational Warthogs. The monkey of command was back on his back, firmly in the saddle.

  The AWACS broadcast an air-raid warning twenty-five minutes later as Tango Leonard and Jake Trisher were taxiing out for takeoff. Pontowski grabbed the radio mike, “Tango, bandits five minutes out. Hustle.”

  “Rog,” Leonard answered laconically, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Hustling now.” A warning siren echoed over the base, and the minutes dragged as he took the active. Finally, “Rolling.” Pontowski turned to Waters. She was standing, looking up at the beams in the ceiling, launching with Leonard. The radio crackled. “Gopher Hole, Tango. We can jettison our load and discourage those bandits.”

  Pontowski checked the status boards. Tango and Jake were on a close air support mission carrying CBUs. But each had a cannon and two Sidewinder missiles. It took him three seconds to make a decision. “Cleared to jettison, contact Phoenix on secure.” Phoenix was the call sign for the AWACS orbiting one hundred miles to the south over Vietnam. He hit the switch that allowed him to monitor the secure radio.