Dark Wing

by Richard Herman

  “Have you told Washington all this?” Pontowski asked.

  “Repeatedly,” Trimler grumbled. “Ah, shit.” There was despair in his voice. “It’s not going to happen that way,” he moaned. “We were so damn close.”

  Pontowski’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the map. “We’re going to need airlift to get out of here. At least twelve to fifteen sorties by the C-130s. That will take a day or two. And we’re going to need fuel for the Hogs. That means at least one KC-10 has to come in. No reason for those aircraft to come in empty, is there? A last-minute emergency resupply might keep the New China Guard fighting for a few more days.”

  Pontowski’s transportation officer chimed in. “One problem, sir. All our loading equipment was destroyed. We need one forklift, and the KC-10 will have to fly in an on board loader.”

  “What the hell is an on board loader?” Leonard wondered.

  “It’s like a big erector set the KC-10 can carry,” the transportation officer told him. “The load crew swings it out the cargo door on its own davit and they assemble it on the spot. It sorta looks like the skeleton of an elevator. Takes about four hours to assemble. Then they can off-load the jet in about forty-five minutes.”

  “Why don’t they just push the pallets out the door?” Leonard asked.

  “It’s a seventeen-foot drop,” the major explained. “It’s not easy, and it’s asking for trouble, since a loaded pallet can weigh up to sixty-five hundred pounds.”

  Trimler shook his head. “I don’t think Washington is going to buy it. They want us out. Now.”

  “An old friend helped once,” Pontowski said. “Maybe he can help again.” He picked up the phone and jabbed at the buttons. Six minutes later, he was talking to Cyrus Piccard, his grandfather’s best friend and a former secretary of state. He explained what he wanted, listened, and hung up. “Pick isn’t too hopeful,” he said.

  “Was that Cyrus Piccard?” Trimler asked, amazement in every word.

  “Yep,” Pontowski answered. “He said he’d do what he could, but Congress isn’t in one of its braver moods right now. Too close to election.”

  “Don’t you just love using political influence?” Trimler muttered.

  “It’s a beautiful thing,” Pontowski shot back.

  Friday, October 18

  The Sino-Vietnamese border, China

  Lieutenant Colonel Sung Fu stood on the edge of the road as the first truck crested the long uphill grade and headed into the narrow mountain pass. A swarm of villagers moved with the truck, carrying branches and brush to shove under the wheels at the first sign of slowing. They had learned the hard way that it was easier to keep the vehicles moving than to dig them out after they had mired down.

  His eyes narrowed as a villager collapsed from exhaustion. Should he discipline the lazy dog to motivate the others? He held his temper when he saw his senior captain hurrying toward him. “Colonel Sung,” the captain panted, “the road is dry through the pass and there is an excellent area for a missile site on the other side.” He waited expectantly.

  First things first, Sung thought, turning his attention back to the malingering villager. A kick in the ribs was warranted. He walked over to the prostrate man and gave him a swift kick. Nothing. He bent over and examined the man. He was dead. Sung stood up, angry with all the villagers. They were nothing, beasts of burden to be used as he willed. He walked, cooling his anger. When he reached the edge of the road, he looked over the mountains. It struck him that he had done the impossible to bring a surface-to-air missile battery through those mountains. It had been a Herculean task. Reluctantly, he ordered a break and told his men to feed the villagers. They had earned it.

  While his company and the villagers ate, the senior captain escorted Sung through the pass and onto a broad plateau. Sung checked his map and allowed a tight smile. The plateau was right on the border. “Perfect,” he said. “Bring the trucks forward immediately.” The captain hurried to carry out the order while Sung selected a site.

  The work went smoothly and Sung’s two remaining Guideline missiles were moved into position and transferred from the transporters onto their launch pedestals. While Sung’s men worked on the missile site, the villagers built a bivouac area. Finally, they were ready for an operational check. The portable generator was fired up and he waited inside the radar control van.

  Sung was a commander, not a technician, but even he realized something was wrong with the circuitry on his number-two missile. His eyes narrowed into slits as he listened to his men discuss the problem. Finally, the senior captain approached him, fear written plainly on his face. He gulped. “It’s the battery in the number two-missile.”

  “So?” Sung replied.

  “It has failed and must be replaced.”

  “Was it replaced during the last inspection?”

  “Of course, sir,” the captain said. There was indignation in his voice. Sung couldn’t believe it: His senior captain was actually showing some backbone. “Moisture caused by the rain reached the battery pack.”

  “Then replace it,” Sung ordered.

  “Our spares were destroyed in the fire. I have sent a runner back to base for another one.”

  Sung fought down the urge to find and punish the person responsible for the battery’s failure. But an inner voice warned him that it was not the fault of humans. It was his own bad luck. “You have done well,” he said. He couldn’t believe what he was saying. “Secure the system and take care of our men. They are tired and need a rest. Feed the villagers and send them home.” He turned to leave but stopped. “Pay them well for their work.” He walked out of the radar control van, ignoring the captain’s reaction.

  The rain had stopped falling and he removed his raincoat. When will my luck change? he wondered.

  Less than thirty miles to the south of Lieutenant Colonel Sung’s missile site, the orbiting AWACS reached the northern end of its orbit and turned away from the border, heading south, back into Vietnam. It flew at a leisurely speed, conserving fuel. When it reached the end of a ten-minute leg, it was 250 miles from Bose, at the extreme edge of its radar coverage.

  The copilot, since the pilot was asleep, tweaked the autopilot and banked the aircraft into a gentle turn, reversing course and heading back to the north. The navigator cross-checked the AWACS’ navigation system with the GPS, the satellite-based global positioning system. GPS satellite coverage was marginal over Vietnam and occasionally the navigator could not get a good reading. But it always cured itself in a few minutes. The navigator didn’t worry about it as the inertial navigation system on board the AWACS was highly accurate and rarely required updating. The flight crew was bored silly.

  In the back of the AWACS, the mission crew commander, Major Marissa LaGrange, was anything but bored. As usual, she was tethered by her long communications extension cord as she stalked the aisles behind the consoles. She was talking to the J-STARS aircraft on the secure radio as her ASO demanded her attention. “Major Mom,” he shouted, “we have thirty-eight hostiles tagged up. All tracking for Bose.”

  “Say type,” she snapped.

  “Beagles, Fantans, and … and … holy shit! J-8s!” His announcement was electrifying. The Beagles and Fantans were light bombers but the J-8 was China’s most sophisticated fighter. The Mach 2 aircraft was an enlarged version of the MiG-21 that had been updated with a modern avionics system supplied by the United States.

  “Warn Bose that an attack is coming their way,” LaGrange ordered. “The RO is talking to them on secure.” The RO, or radio operator, actually smiled as he linked the ASO with the Americans at Bose. From his position, he monitored all transmissions and knew exactly what was going down.

  “Moose,” LaGrange said over net one of the intercom, “start talking to the F-15s. I want them in a CAP overhead in case those J-8s get interested in us.”

  The pilot on the flight deck came awake. “Major Mom, what’s going on?”

  LaGrange owed him an answer. Besides, it kept him a
wake and gave her time to think. “Trouble, big trouble. The J-STARS reports heavy ground traffic moving forward and we’ve tagged up beaucoup hostiles. Most of them are air-to-mud and headed for Bose. But we’ve got—” she looked over the shoulder of the ASO and counted the red upside-down Vs on his scope, “eight J-8s escorting them.”

  “Not good,” the pilot replied. He remembered only too clearly when J-8s had forced them into a retrograde maneuver over the South China Sea. “We don’t need them coming after us.”

  “Not to worry,” LaGrange assured him.

  Friday, October 18

  Bose, China

  Pontowski was on the flight line talking to the crew chiefs and wrench benders from Maintenance when the air raid siren began to wail. He jumped into his pickup truck, jammed on his helmet, and raced for the Gopher Hole. The heavy blast door at the entrance was still open when he reached the bunker. Where did that door come from? he wondered. He knew the answer—the Junkyard Dogs.

  Leonard was sitting at the center console and gave him a quick update. “The AWACS reports thirty-eight bandits heading our way, seventeen minutes out. I’m scrambling as many Hogs as possible to get them airborne and away from the base.”

  “Who’s up for air defense?” Pontowski asked, recalling how Leonard and Jake Trisher had broken up the last attack on the airfield.

  Leonard shook his head. “They’re escorted by J-8s. They’d eat us alive.”

  Pontowski’s mouth compressed into a thin line. Leonard had made the right decision. But he didn’t like it. They only had ten Stinger missiles, two Hawk missiles, and one antiquated thirty-seven-millimeter antiaircraft cannon for base defense. They were going to take a pounding.

  But the Junkyard Dogs had other ideas. The four went into a well-rehearsed drill with Marchioni’s villagers. Little Juan Alvarez, the Mexican-American who could have been a matador, and Big John Washington, the African-American built like a fireplug, worked with a group of villagers at the decoy airfield they had built a kilometer from the air base. They ripped camouflage netting off a weird collection of boxes, pipes, junked vehicles, and shacks. A specially equipped dump truck drove back and forth spreading a mixture of lime and dirt into a long strip that resembled a runway. Another truck raced around the area, setting up radar reflectors. The reflectors were arranged to create the pattern of an airfield on the inbound bombers’ radar.

  On the ground, the phony airfield looked like a surrealistic collection of junk that wouldn’t fool anyone. But from the air, the Junkyard Dogs had created a very authentic-looking airfield.

  While Alvarez and Washington labored to make the decoy field visible, Byers and Larry Tanaka worked with the Americans and fifty of the villagers to conceal the main base. They spread camouflage netting, moved trucks and vehicles out of sight, and spread brush and vegetation across the runway. They were still working when the first Fantans zoomed overhead, heading for the fake airfield.

  Pontowski glanced upward at the heavy beams over his head when he heard the first bomb explode. No one had to tell him it had missed the base. He shot a look in the direction of Waters’ desk, where she had sat running base defense. Her bank of telephones and radios were quiet. There was no damage to report. The bombs continued to fall and still no damage reports came in. Finally, it was quiet and the all clear sounded.

  He fought down the urge to go outside and check for himself. Instead, he took his cue from Trimler and waited. A sergeant handed him a message and he wished he had gone outside. The message was from the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon and ordered him to cease all operational flying. “The assholes,” he muttered as he handed the message to Trimler. “This is hard to take right after getting the livin’ bejesus bombed out of us.”

  “They missed, remember,” Trimler said laconically as he read the message. “What’s called for here is commonly called the ‘Fuck you very much’ answer. You need to send a message back asking, one, are you being denied the right to self-defense? two, where is the airlift and emergency resupply you requested earlier? and three, who is assuming responsibility for the evacuation? since they have taken it away from you.”

  “They haven’t taken away my responsibility for evacuation,” Pontowski protested.

  Trimler nodded a reply. “True, but if you accuse them of it, they’ve got to scramble to prove they haven’t. My guess is you’ll be allowed to fly sorties in self-defense by—” he checked the master clock on the wall, “noon at the latest. Getting the airlift will take a little longer.”

  Pontowski sent the message and in less than twenty minutes he had authorization to fly all the sorties he needed for self-defense. There was no word about the airlift or emergency resupply. He still had much to learn from the general.

  Friday, October 18

  The White House, Washington, D.C.

  Bill Carroll gulped his second cup of early morning coffee, grabbed his cane, and stormed around his office, venting his anger on Congresswoman Ann Nevers and her latest political ally, James Finlay, the chief of staff he had fired.

  Mazie folded her hands and waited patiently. She was very much aware of Hazelton sitting next to her and the way he looked at her from time to time. It sent a warm feeling through her and she wanted to be alone with him. Pay attention to business, she told herself.

  “Finlay knows exactly what information to feed her,” Carroll groused, “and he’ll give it the spin she wants.”

  “I was hoping,” Mazie said, “that these tapes would bring her around.”

  “Videotapes don’t carry much weight with Nevers,” Carroll replied. “It didn’t work the first time, remember?”

  Of course, she remembered the time she had shown Nevers the videotape that documented Kang’s brutality. Nevers had been reasonable at first and moderated her scathing criticism of the administration. It had been a total weather change to find Nevers dealing with the truth. Then she recruited James Finlay to her cause and resumed her crusade.

  Carroll stopped in front of his desk and picked up one of the videocassettes. “Besides, this is pure pornography, and I’m not about to use it.”

  “Actually,” Hazelton said, “it’s sadomasochism. You need a psychologist to explain what is involved.”

  Carroll snorted, threw the cassette down, and lurched back to his chair. “Damn,” he muttered. The pain in his leg was intense. He made a note to have a psychologist at the CIA analyze the tape.

  “Is there any good news?” Hazelton asked.

  “The worst appears to be over in Hong Kong,” Carroll answered. “The British and UN cargo ships relieving Hong Kong have docked and as long as Kang is occupied with Zou in the west, the pressure is off.”

  “If Kang wins, he’ll blockade Hong Kong,” Mazie predicted.

  Carroll’s secretary buzzed and announced the arrival of Cyrus Piccard. Carroll came to his feet and hobbled to the door. He switched the cane to his left hand and shook the hand of the former secretary of state. Piccard was over six feet tall, lanky, hunch-shouldered, and with a full mane of gray hair. His gray-blue eyes were tired and he walked slowly, as befitted a senior statesman. “Sir,” Carroll said, “thanks for coming over so early. May I introduce Mazie Kamigami and Wentworth Hazelton?”

  Piccard was a gentleman of the old school and did not expect Mazie to rise as they shook hands. “My pleasure, Miss Kamigami. I have read your reports and your excellent monograph on Kang Xun.” The old man’s eyes twinkled as he held Mazie’s hand. He still appreciated beautiful women, especially those with brains and talent. “Very insightful. I knew Kang’s father—a terrible, vicious man.”

  “Ah, Wentworth,” he said as Hazelton stood. “So good to see you again. Please give my regards to your mother.”

  “She doesn’t know I’m in town,” Hazelton replied.

  Again, the sparkle was back in Piccard’s eyes. “Perfectly understandable, my boy, perfectly understandable.” He sat down, placed the tip of his black ebony cane on the floor between his shoe
s, and held it upright between his knees. It was a classic Piccard pose. “I am more than glad to he of help,” Piccard said, coming to the business at hand. He didn’t mention the phone call he had received an hour earlier from Matt Pontowski. “Perhaps you can bring me up to date on what is happening in China?” Piccard actually had an excellent understanding of the stakes they were playing for. Otherwise, he would not have been talking to them.

  Carroll quickly recapped the situation and ended with, “It looks like Beijing is ready to deal with Zou if Kang can’t win. That’s why Kang is pushing so hard. He wins now or ends up in a trash can. The situation has gone critical and Zou has to hold on. Unfortunately, Congress is pressuring us to immediately withdraw our support.”

  “During a crisis or election year,” Piccard observed, “your average congressman prefers an attack of amoebic dysentery to a display of intestinal fortitude. Dysentery is considered normal.” The three waited for him to continue. Piccard was famous for his long, rolling speeches.

  “Mr. Carroll,” Piccard smiled, looking over the gold handle of his black ebony cane, “you are an idealist. Need I remind you that honesty and integrity are not the most efficient ways to deal with Congress? If one of these tapes should ‘happen’ to find its way into the hands of the right senator, it would become the ‘in’ scandal of the weekend, creating a lascivious interest in the back corridors of the Capitol.

  “Of course, only the ‘in’ people will have seen the tape, which makes it desirable for everyone to possess a copy. If left to its own devices, Congress will keep the Honorable Ann Nevers fully occupied as she maneuvers to keep the tape out of the hands of the TV scandalmongers. Deals will be cut, promises made, and bets laid. After all, we cannot have the more tasteful scenes enlightening the electorate about the man the Honorable Ann Nevers calls ‘a martyr to the American way of life.’ What would it do to the image of Congress?” His bushy eyebrows raised expectantly.