But Hunter noticed right away that something was wrong with this picture. The base was about six miles due north of Khe Sanh—this placed it in a fairly volatile area. Yet the personnel here were anything but combat ready. They could clearly see ground support people lounging around the base’s grassy infield. Some were playing Ping-Pong on one of the several tables set up near the control tower. Others appeared to be playing cards or maybe dice. And even though the base was obviously well-stocked with fuel and ammunition, they could see no guards on duty, no defense positions manned or weapons ready. Not even a perimeter wire surrounding the place.
Hunter slipped out his binoculars and focused on the edge of the field that was covered by a maze of camouflage netting.
That’s when he saw them.
There were four of them, all the same model; all MiG-25 Foxbats.
These were the same kind of MiGs they’d encountered first over the Gulf of Tonkin. Built in the mid-sixties, the MiG-25 was designed as a high-altitude interceptor. With a speed approaching Mach 3.2, it was able to reach heights of more than 80,000 feet. Hunter flipped up the power of the binoculars to take a closer look at what they were carrying under their wings. His worst fears were confirmed.
Instead of being armed with its usual complement of air-to-air missiles, these particular fighters had been converted to a ground attack role. The armaments bolted underwing of each of them attested to that gloomy fact—three 550 lb. GP bombs, two 1,100 lb FAB-500 GP bombs, and an array of AS-7 Kerry air-to-surface missiles. He handed the glasses to Ben.
“Fucktheduck,” Ben whispered as he scanned the jets parked under the netting. “This is the first time I’ve seen Foxes rigged for ground attack. You’d think they’d be too damned fast.”
“They are,” Hunter replied. “But let’s face it, these Minx guys are nothing if not unpredictable.”
Ben handed the glasses back to Hunter. “I just don’t get it,” he said. “These guys have four kick-ass airplanes, no more than ten klicks away from us—and they don’t use them? How come?”
Hunter could only shake his head. “The same reason they do all the screwy things they do, I guess …”
But deep down, Hunter’s psyche was telling him it was only a matter of time before the four jet fighters came into play. And he knew he’d better be prepared when they did.
He nudged Ben and they began inching their way from the edge of the clearing and into the bush.
They had to get back to the base.
Chapter Twenty-three
Khe Sanh
FROST’S HANDS WERE BLEEDING.
His fingernails were split and ragged, his knuckles gashed and stiff. He’d lifted so many sandbags that he’d developed dozens of water blisters, especially on his thumbs and forefingers. With each sandbag, a blister would break and start bleeding, only to be covered up by an even larger blister.
It was getting close to midnight. Frost and the ten men in his group had been busting ass for almost five hours now, building the northwest corner of the fifteen-foot high, six-sandbag-deep wall which was slowly growing around the outside of NJ104.
More than eighty men were at work on this massive project now. Once completed, the wall would shield the battered C-5’s fuselage and engines from most mortar blasts; a roof being constructed with corrugated tin and planking copped from destroyed Legion bunkers would help protect it from direct hits.
To the casual observer, it might have appeared that the enormous sandbag and tin cocoon was being built too late. NJ104 was literally a wreck. It had been three times battered; first, in the MiG battle, then in its subsequent pancake crash, and finally in its painful, asphalt-scraping, wing-twisting towing from one end of the runway to the other. Now, its right wing was hanging by less than a dozen bolts. Its tail section was on the verge of collapse, and its cockpit and flight deck were absolutely riddled with cannon holes. Its two outer engines had already fallen off; a third—the inner right engine—was drooping very low. So in many ways, NJ104 looked to be in worse shape than Bozo.
But in many ways, NJ104 was more important than Bozo, despite that airship’s massive weaponry. For the wrecked Galaxy once flown by the New Jersey combat engineers held the key to survival for the base defenders. Without it, they were surely doomed to die here in the mud of Khe Sanh.
It was ironic, then, that there were no weapons anywhere on NJ104’s sandbag barrier, nor on its protective roof. In fact, there were no weapons at all on the enclosed airplane. The idea was not to have any gunfire coming from the sheltered C-5. This way it was hoped the Minx would bypass it when they attacked.
It was straight-up midnight when Geraci himself arrived, bearing a pot of coffee and some barely cooked MREs.
Frost’s sandbag crew was granted a well-deserved five-minute break. As the rest of the workers sat down for what would be a quick respite from the back-breaking labor, Frost and Geraci walked a hundred feet away from the airplane and settled under the splintered wooden roof of a half-collapsed Legion gun position.
Geraci passed the Canadian a cup of coffee.
“What do you think the chances are of finishing the whole wall by 0300?” he asked.
Frost wiped his bleeding hands on his coveralls and took a long sip of the hot java. “We’ll need more guys,” he replied. “With the crew we have now, I can’t say we’ll have it finished even by sunup.”
Geraci shook his head slowly. “We might be able to spare two or three guys at the most in about an hour,” he said. “But I don’t have to tell you that manpower is our biggest problem right now.”
Frost could only shrug in grim agreement. There were about 150 Americans and 100 Legionnaries and mercenaries left stranded at the airstrip, and every one of them was involved in some sort of labor essential to what had come to be called simply, “The Big Plan.” Even the normal complement of sentries around the shrinking perimeter—made up mostly of the Bozo gun crew—had been cut in half, a dangerous yet necessary circumstance. At the moment, their muscles were more important than their sharp eyes and quick trigger fingers.
Even more hazardous was the fact that more than half of the base defenders—just about all of them belonging to Geraci engineers—weren’t outside at all. They were now locked inside Magic Mountain, working feverishly under dim lights and little air circulation. An enormous amount of pressure weighed down on these men, much of the Big Plan depended on their endurance and skill. And though protected by the mountain walls themselves, these men were also in the most dangerous spot in a place filled with dangerous spots. Should one rogue mortar round fired from the Minx in the hills hit the mountain’s ancient mechanical doors, these men would be entombed forever, and with them, the hopes for the rest of the defenders’ survival.
Frost took another long swig of his coffee and then wiped his weary brow. He looked back towards the rear end of NJ104’s sandbag shelter, contemplating the hours of hard work that still lay ahead.
“If I get out of this,” he said, only half-joking, “I’m retiring from this hero business. I’ll leave it to you Yanks. You do it better anyway.”
“I’m no hero,” Geraci replied. “I just seem to get stuck hanging around with heroes.”
Frost laughed. “Hang around long enough,” he said. “It starts to rub off.”
Geraci checked the time. It was 0005 hours.
“I’d just feel a whole lot better if Hawk and Ben were here,” he said.
“They’ll be back,” Frost said, finishing the last drops of his coffee. “They always come back.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth when suddenly there was a bright flash above the base.
It was so intense both Geraci and Frost immediately hit the ground. Instinctively they put their hands over their ears—but there was no accompanying explosion. Rather the flash was caused by a magnesium flare, launched from up the hills and slowly floating down towards the base on a time-delayed drag chute.
Geraci and Frost froze. Usually a flare of this si
ze was a harbinger of a Minx attack, providing light for their soldiers in the dark of the midday monsoon rain.
But it was now the dead of night; the enemy never attacked after dark.
At least, they hadn’t so far.
An instant later, they heard the telltale sound of mortars going off in the hills. But this was not just the usual, sporadic popping—this sounded more like a string of huge firecrackers exploding in the distance.
“Jesuzz, what’s happening here?” Frost yelled.
“Damn if I know,” Geraci yelled back.
That’s when the mortar shells started coming down.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
In a second, there were so many enemy shells exploding, it sounded like one, long horrendous roar. Dozens of mortar trails lit up the sky brighter than the flares. In seconds, .81-mm high-impact shells were crashing down all over the base. It was so loud neither Frost or Geraci could hear each other yelling.
Frost dared to look up from his cover-up position. He couldn’t believe the intensity of the enemy barrage. The sky itself looked like it was on fire.
“Looks like these guys got resupplied,” he yelled.
“We’ve got to get better cover,” Geraci finally managed to scream over the tremendous roar.
Instantly, both men were up and running, heading at full sprint for the sandbag cocoon surrounding NJ104. Many of the defenders were scrambling to the same location as it afforded the most protection from the thousands of mortar fragments that were suddenly zinging through the air like snow in a blizzard.
The two officers somehow made the short dash in one piece, joining the crowd of engineers, Legionnaires and mercenaries already hunkered down behind the opening on northwest wall of sandbags. Though pressed tight up against the half-finished barrier, Frost and Geraci could clearly see the gun crews of Bozo running into the back of their airplane, the screech of weapons’ generators powering-up barely audible over the roar of the incredible mortar barrage.
“We don’t have to worry about those guys,” Geraci yelled in Frost’s ear, pointing to Bozo. “It’s the people inside the mountain.”
In seconds, they both had their NightScopes out and trained on the camouflaged entranceway to Magic. Some of the enemy shells were coming down perilously close to the hidden portal.
“If we lost them,” Geraci said, “that’s the ball game.”
But oddly, Frost wasn’t listening. Instead he had his NightScope trained in the other direction, towards the northern edge of the base, out beyond the last line of Legion trenches.
“I don’t believe this,” he said, his voice rising above the rain of crashing mortal shells.
Geraci heard him, and immediately turned his scope in that direction.
That’s when he saw them too.
Illuminated by the horrible explosions out on the edge of the base were two figures, running full-tilt over the churned-up, muddy ground, heading right for them.
“Jessuzz …” was all Geraci could say. “They are crazy.”
It was Hunter and Ben. They were darting and dodging around the mortal explosions, sometimes running in a low crouch, sometimes as straight up as sprinters finishing a 50-yard dash. Every few seconds they would disappear from sight completely—usually Hunter yanking Ben to the ground in anticipation of a particularly close explosion. After several frightening seconds, the pair would invariably pop up again, running at full-speed through a haze of fire. They were carrying something with them—it was a knapsack. And even in the confusion of the mortar shells going off, the flares above, and the noise, it was obvious they were taking special care with the package.
Suddenly there was an even more frightening noise—it was so intense it startled Frost and Geraci into temporarily losing sight of Hunter and Ben. On someone’s call, just about every weapon on Bozo had opened up at once. Instantly one long streak of flame erupted from the left side of the downed gunship, shooting into the enemy-held hills about a half mile away.
Suddenly the noise, the flame, the smoke and the utter confusion of battle around Khe Sanh had doubled in intensity.
“This is crazy!” Frost heard himself yelling.
The sky was absolutely filled with tracer streaks now, mortal shells coming down, explosions going off, flames, billowing smoke everywhere—all lit beneath the continuously falling magnesium flares. It was not just a vision of hell—but hell itself.
By the time Geraci and Frost turned their scopes back to where Hunter and Ben were last spotted, they could see nothing but flames, rising high into the air. One of the enemy shells had made a direct hit on the Legionnaires’ modest ammunition bunker, and now the entire area was being wracked by secondary explosions.
Both officers felt their hearts sink. The violence of the ammo going up along with the mind-boggling exchange of weapons fire made it impossible for anyone not under cover to survive.
Almost impossible, that is.
The next thing they knew, here came Hunter and Ben literally running out of a ball of flame, explosions going on all around them, heading right for the bunker.
“Jessuz, make some room!” Geraci yelled. But before the words were out of his mouth, Ben was already diving over the wall of sandbags, Hunter was right behind him.
They both rolled once and then were suddenly on the feet again. No one in the bunker could believe it. They had never seen anyone run so fast, amidst so much incoming ordnance. It seemed almost impossible they’d had made it unscathed—their uniforms were smoking. But here they were—out of breath, but alive.
“Welcome to the party, guys,” Geraci told them, ducking back down beside the sandbag wall. “Our friends in the hills are a little restless tonight.”
Hunter and Ben were soon hugging the sandbag wall, too.
“And we thought they were heavy sleepers,” Hunter replied.
The battle raged all through the night.
The Minx mortar barrage did not let up one iota, nor had the return fire from Bozo.
Still huddled against the NJ104 sandbag wall, Hunter and Ben had long ago given up trying to wolf down some cold MREs; it was almost impossible to swallow in between mortar blasts.
They had already recounted their trip to Frost and Geraci, first detailing the climb to the Green Beret’s cave and subsequent journey to the nearby MiG base. The others listened with growing anxiety. The presence of the MiGs so close by was as disturbing as it was baffling. As heavily armed as they were, the base defenders had little in the way of antiaircraft weapons. One or two attacks by the speedy, bombed-up MiGs and the party at Khe Sanh would really be over.
The enemy shells continued to fall for hours. The incredible nonstop barrage underscored just how desperate the situation at Khe Sanh was getting—the already-tight timetable for the Big Plan was shrinking further and further even as the Minx attack seemed to grow stronger and stronger.
And Hunter was certain that it was just a matter of time before the MiGs based over the hill came into play, too.
There was only one bright spot in the whole dark mess—and they had Willy Rucker, the last Green Beret, to thank for that.
It was the Jason Transponder Module—the JTM. Hunter had spent the time huddled against the sandbag wall studying the bulky, 50-pound device. He was astounded at its sophistication. On the surface, it looked like something out of a bad spy movie. Dials, switches, levers, and a handful of multicolored wires running out of a multitude of holes, and into the ancient nickel-cadmium battery at its base.
In the JTM’s center was a circular radar-screen type window with a fading grid scratched into its orange-tinted glass covering. This looked like the hokiest item of all. But as soon as the device was turned on, all of the tinsel seemed to fade away. The light behind the orange window was bright and deep, the noise coming from it sounded authoritative. It was actually a series of continual beeps and tones; their frequency and pitch levels Hunter had yet to decipher.
But what he did know about t
he JTM was that when the proper grid was set inside the orange window, and the device tuned to the correct frequency of the built-to-last Jason noise and motion detectors, then it would be able to provide them with extraordinary information on the movements of enemy troops in the immediate area as well as all over the northern part of South Vietnam.
But they had to survive to have the JTM do them any good. And as if to underscore that fact, a particularly brutal barrage of mortal shells came crashing down not five feet from the sand bag wall where Hunter and the others were huddled.
It was now 0530 hours. The sun would be up soon and with it the grim unpredictability of another day. Luckily most of the work had been completed in the NJ104 wall, and similarly protected Bozo was somehow weathering the long attack.
But, still, Hunter knew it was time for some hard questions.
“What will happen if we move the deadline up by twenty-four hours?” he asked Geraci.
The top engineer just shook his head. “I can’t really say,” he replied, gesturing towards Magic Mountain where more than half his corps had been working nonstop for what seemed like days. “My guys are at the end of their rope now—and we haven’t even got to the major stuff, if you know what I mean.”
“How about if we leave out all the bells and whistles?” Hunter asked. “Just do the primary work and see what happens?”
Again, Geraci could only shake his head. “My guys are good,” he said. “Miracles might be a little out of our league, though.”
“But that’s exactly what we need,” Ben said. “Divine intervention. A lot of it. And quick.”
Another massive barrage came down at that moment, this one even closer than the one a half minute before.
All eyes were on Geraci now. He just shrugged. “We really don’t have much choice, I guess,” he said wearily. “OK, I’ll pass the orders down. If we survive the ground attack tomorrow, we go all out on Phase Two of the Big Plan tomorrow night.”
Ghost War Page 17