The remark elicited a surprised laugh from both Hunter and Crunch himself. It was true, most of the Cult’s ground armies had either been killed or isolated on the Hawaiian island of Oahu during the last battle of the recent Pacific war.
Hunter checked his M-16; as usual it was filled with a full magazine of tracer rounds. He had a dozen more magazines in his backpack, they were wrapped around the Me-262’s black box/C-5 autopilot coupled device. He hadn’t let the gizmo out of his sight since leaving the plateau a week before.
It had been a strange seven days. They had floated down the Mekong in the captured Minx river craft, but he was more of a passenger during the voyage than anything else. It was the women of the Li-Chi Chi who had run the moving operation; they’d manned the weapons, they’d charted the course.
And they had massacred the Minx garrisons at Sik Buk and Ku Lung.
Hunter didn’t like their methods; he, Crunch and the Z-men had taken a backseat to the Chinese women fighters’ post-battle activities. But Hunter did, to some degree, understand why the women used the grisly tactics. This was war; troops on both sides were going to die, whether it be from a bullet, a bomb, an artillery shell—or a razor-sharp knife.
A village full of dead enemy soldiers sends a message to the deceased’s high command: a battle has been lost. Carving up those dead soldiers, and leaving behind gruesome calling cards such as gutted stomachs and eyeball stew left another kind of message: a battle has been lost and your soldiers met a grim end. Don’t let this happen to you.
From a psy-ops point of view, it was a very efficient way of installing fear into your opponent. The Minx in the Delta region were absolutely terrified of the rampaging women, and understandably so. And that fear would rise proportionately when the Minx command discovered what had happened at Son Tay, especially inside the Scream Hall.
But Hunter and the others expected to be long gone before that happened.
The plan called for the Li-Chi Chi to get aboard the battleship in the same way they got into the Scream Hall to slaughter Son Tay’s officer corps: by showing skin and a lot of it.
Crunch’s recon had told him that the Cult battleship’s officers and crew usually partook in Son Tay’s hookers while still on board ship—as if the dingy, seedy facilities in Son Tay were below their dignity. This worked fine for the Li-Chi Chi’s strategy. Once aboard, the women fighters would lure small groups of unsuspecting Cult sailors into isolated parts of the ship and kill them, like their unlucky Minx comrades before them.
The first part of the plan went fine. The battleship docked as usual, and was met by an army of slave workers made up of Son Tay’s citizens who were now indebted to the Li-Chi Chi for liquidating the hated Minx overlords. A sizable contingent of these citizens, now well-armed, were guarding a collection of noncom Minx soldiers at a makeshift prison just outside of the city.
There were also 100 of the Li-Chi Chi’s most alluring women waiting on the dock. No sooner had the huge warship been secured to the pier when the captain motioned for the women to come on board. They did so, a variety of weapons hidden beneath their sarongs. Ten minutes passed, the still, morning air punctuated by single gunshots and the occasional scream of horror and pain.
Within fifteen minutes, the Li-Chi Chi’s gruesome work was done. They were already throwing the dead bodies of their latest victims over the side. Waiting nearby, Hunter, Crunch, and the Z-men got the high sign to come aboard.
That’s when they spotted the other battleship.
It was Hunter who sat it first. Something inside him started buzzing, and his eyes were searching the eastern horizon for five minutes before he detected the tell-tale plume of stack smoke coming from a second battlewagon.
Then Crunch and the Z-Men saw it too.
“Damn, now what?” Crunch asked. “These guys are going to want to float in here and get laid. We can’t run that scam twice.”
The original plan called for Hunter and the others to man the most important command positions aboard the first battleship—not surprisingly, the controls to the Cult vessel were user-friendly, and mostly run on automatic. Once the tide began going out, they were going ride with the current and head for the open sea.
But the appearance of the second ship changed everything. Hunter knew that between himself, Crunch, the Z-men and the Li-Chi Chi they could probably sail the ship, and possibly fire one of its gun turrets, which were also highly automated.
But getting into a full-blown sea battle with a well-drilled sister ship was way beyond their means.
As usual, everyone turned to Hunter in the moment of crisis. As usual, he had to make up a life-saving plan on the spot.
The captain of the second Cult battleship didn’t think it unusual that Ship Number 57 didn’t return his ship-to-shore calls.
He was friendly rivals with the captain of the Number 57, and they had raced here to Son Tay from the Thai island of Suangmayaya, which they had left in absolute devastation after brutally liquidizing its inhabitants. Ship 57 had won the race, and now, he had no doubt they were sampling the best of Son Tay’s “comfort girls,” leaving the also-rans and rejects for him and his crew. No wonder he wasn’t answering the radio calls!
But that was OK with him—he’d simply beat him the next time.
The tide had turned by this time, so the captain ordered his engine room to increase power for their approach to Son Tay harbor. He prepared to leave the bridge to go to his quarters to get into his dress blacks when his executive officer suddenly called out: “Fifty-seven is away!”
The captain looked at his junior officer. “What are you saying?”
The officer pointed towards Son Tay harbor. “It’s true, master.”
The captain yanked the binoculars from the XO and trained them towards the port. He was astonished by what he saw. It was true: Ship 57 was pulling away from the dock.
The captain tried to fight down a swelling panic. The only explanation as to why 57 would be pulling out of Son Tay was that enemy action was imminent. Could he have missed a radio call from Cult Supreme Command?
He screamed to his communications officer, but the man came back with all negatives. There had been no communiqués from Supreme Command; no messages at all from anybody in the past two hours.
The captain was dumbfounded. Why then was 57 moving?
The entire bridge crew was looking at him. He had to do something—but what?
He grabbed the ship’s intercom and demanded the engine room provide him with full power. Then he turned to his gunnery officer and told him to load all nine of the battleship’s enormous sixteen-inch guns.
As the crew reported to their battle stations, the captain kept his eyes glued on the mysterious movements of Ship 57. The other ship was moving very slowly, obviously riding out of the harbor on the draining tide. What possible reason would have his colleague acting so strangely, the captain wondered.
He thought he had his answer a moment later.
It was his navigator who first spotted it. A glow at the top of Ship 57’s mast, where the Morse Code strobe light was usually installed. He trained his binoculars on the mast and gasped. With weakened voice, he called out to the captain:
“Our … lady. Our … leader … is …”
The captain immediately focused his glasses on Ship 57’s mast and he too gasped.
“By the gods …” he whispered, his voice equal parts of terror and wonder. “Is it true?”
He never took the binoculars from his eyes. He was transfixed by the vision before him. Standing on the service railing of Ship 57’s communications mast, arms upraised, red hair flowing in the wind, was the Goddess Ala.
Within ten minutes the two ships were but 100 feet from each other.
The captain of the second battleship had hastily assembled his crew on the bow of the ship, some dressed in their present blues. The ship’s string band was out on the bridge railing, plucking out a barely rehearsed tune. The captain himself was standing next to the
band—his dress blacks whipping in the wind.
The Cult religious officers had taught them that to gaze upon the face of Goddess Ala meant eternal joy both on earth and in the afterlife, a jolt of everlasting grace that could only fall on those who believed. Already the captain could feel his eyes tingling, his heart was beating through his chest. He could not wait to die now!
And he would not have long to wait.
For no sooner had the ships pulled even with each other did the captain and his crew see the trio of sixteen-inch guns on Ship 57’s second turret suddenly de-elevate.
What was this? the captain wondered, a salute?
The next thing he saw was three enormous tongues of flame. In the blink between life and death, the captain actually saw the huge, one-ton, high-explosive shell hurtling out of the middle gun and coming right at him.
He immediately raised his eyes to Goddess Ala—she seemed to be looking down at him. Her face was an expression of confusion.
Then the shell hit.
The Captain’s last thought was: At least I’ll be happy….
Chapter Thirty-eight
Da Nang Air Base
THE ANCIENT WILLYS JEEP screeched to a stop next to the nearly deserted runway.
JT jumped from the passenger seat, long range binoculars up and ready.
Frost and Ben were waiting there for him, their own spyglasses in hand.
“Where the hell is it?” JT asked them excitedly. “Can you still see it?”
“He’s still up there …” Ben replied, his binoculars pointing almost straight up. “He’s looking down at us just like we’re looking up at him.”
JT soon got the object of their attention in his field of view. It was an airplane—a C-5, slowly circling the airbase at about 25,000 feet.
“No radio yet?” he asked Ben.
“Nope, he’s sticking to the rules,” was Ben’s reply.
The rules were based on radio silence. The rules were to check out where the hell you were landing, no matter what the latest intelligence told you. The rules were never to let a C-5 fall into enemy hands.
“C’mon down, you idiots!” JT was screaming, as if the people in the huge airplane could hear him five miles up. “C’mon down!”
But it was almost as if they did hear him. For no sooner were the words out of JT’s mouth when the big airplane began venting fuel and turning into a slow descent.
JT was plainly delighted. He grabbed the jeep’s radio and began ordering the air base’s receiving crews into action.
“Any idea who it is?” he asked, putting the spyglasses back to his eyes.
Ben shook his head no. “We’ll know in about ten minutes,” he said.
It was actually eight minutes, twenty seconds later when the C-5 touched down at Da Nang.
By that time, more than half of the base’s personnel had lined up along the runway to take part in the momentous occasion. This was the first C-5 to land in Vietnam since the 1st American Airborne Expeditionary Fleet arrived nearly a month ago.
It was the Triple-X, a converted New York National Guard C-5, previously named “The Empire State.” The plane was nearing completion as an armed, long-range air carrier when the First Expeditionary left Edwards. Its wings were now adorned with four air-to-air Sidewinders on each side, plus two ultralong range Phoenix antiaircraft missiles. There were also a dozen weapons blisters poking out of the huge fuselage in the nose, above the flight compartment, along the fuselage and in the tail. Each weapons’ station had a M-61 rotary cannon barrel sticking out of it.
The Triple-X taxied in from the main runway, rolled up to its hard stand and jerked to a halt. Its engines whining down, its access doors began popping open.
JT and Ben were waiting to greet the pilot as soon as he stepped off the extended access ladder. His name was Dave Morell, better known as ZZ.
JT put the bear hug on him. “ZZ, you son of a bitch,” he said. “Did you bring any beer?”
ZZ was all smiles. “How about a razor?” he replied.
It was true—all of the base personnel were in need of shave and a haircut.
ZZ shook hands with Ben. “When did you leave?” Ben asked him.
ZZ shook his head. “Noon yesterday,” he replied. “Or was it two days ago, your time?”
“Who knows?” Ben told him.
“Who cares?” JT said. “Just tell us how many are behind you?”
ZZ shrugged. “You’re asking the wrong person,” he replied. “We were first in line to go. Probably three or four are at eighty percent; the rest are at sixty or so.”
JT’s face sagged. “Damn,” he whispered. “They might not get here in time for the big party.”
ZZ looked at him. “How big a party would that be?”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Too big,” he said. “We’ll explain it to you later.”
“Yeh, later,” JT said. “But first, what the hell are you carrying?”
ZZ shrugged again. “Well, you better see for yourselves.”
They walked around to the rear of the airplane. Frost was already there.
“We could have used some troops, or heavy weapons,” he said, pointing to the hold of the Triple-X. “But these might come in handy.”
JT and Ben looked inside the cavernous hold of the C-5 and saw a very pretty sight. There four jet fighters stuffed into the wide maw; three were ultrasophisticated Football City Air Corps F-20 Tigersharks.
The fourth was Hunter’s F-16XL.
A half hour later, an informal briefing was in full swing in JT’s fortress office.
In attendance were Ben, Frost, Geraci, and ZZ’s crew. Three cases of beer, carried in by Triple-X, sat in a bathtub full of ice cubes in the middle of the room.
ZZ’s men were drinking quicker than the others. They were coming around to the realization that they’d dropped in on a very bad situation—the “big party,” JT was talking about.
“In a nutshell, guys,” JT was concluding, “we’ve got about ten divisions heading right for us. Down in Hue, our allies are facing about fifteen more; the New Zealanders in Cam Ram Bay are looking at about twelve and the people around Saigon about the same. And there are a lot of smaller cities along the way.
“We talking about heavy tank divisions, lots of infantry, lots of mobile artillery, lots of rocket teams. The dust-up at Khe Sanh was just the preview. A warm-up—and a damn small one. When this tidal wave hits, it’s going to take anything that’s not tied down with it. Us included.”
Another round of beer cans were popped open.
“Jones and the Edwards guys are working day and night to get more people and equipment over here,” ZZ told them. “But you guys know what they face. Most of these ships were stripped down to the cores when we got them. Sheet—I’m flying with hydraulics pinched from a 707, and the brakes from a C-141. It’s like trying to stop a Caddy with the brakes of a Toyota.”
JT just shook his head. “I’m on that horn next satellite pass,” he said. “Fuck the radio protocol. I’m telling them to send anything that can fly over here—tomorrow.”
Frost took a long swig of beer. “It’s still isn’t going to be enough,” he said. “Not even close.”
He had a point. Though they were well-entrenched in hardened, defensive positions in the big cities, they had only eight divisions of democratic Vietnamese forces, four divisions of trusted mercenaries, and two divisions each of Australian, New Zealander and Italian regular troops. That was about 190,000 troops facing almost 750,000.
“We got the edge in airpower,” Frost went on. “We can probably take care of any MiGs they might throw at us. But on the ground, pound-for-pound, man-for-man, gun barrel-to-gun barrel, they can kick our asses.”
“Are we stuck again?” ZZ asked not entirely rhetorically. “Have we landed into another quagmire?”
No one replied.
The silence was broken by a lieutenant from JT’s air defense staff who burst into the room.
“Sir, excuse me—but w
e’ve got a big problem.”
Ten minutes later they were all gathered around a long-range radio set.
Its operator, a sergeant, was conversing with an Australian unit based at a small coastal village named Buk Ha, which was about 120 miles south of Da Nang. Their urgent message was simple enough: A Cult battleship was steaming north at full power, heading right for Da Nang.
After a series of confirmations, and position checks, the Aussies signed off. JT’s usual confident facial expression had just hit a new low.
“Damn, we don’t hear a peep from these floating assholes for a month, and now they’re coming our way?” he cursed.
“And they’re like rats,” Ben said, “where there’s one, there’s usually a pack of them.”
Frost and Geraci were equally concerned. “They could sit out over the horizon and lob those blockbusters at us all day and all night,” Geraci said, “And there ain’t a whole lot we can do about it.”
“There’s only one thing we can do about it,” Frost said. “But it will never be enough.”
“We’ve got to try it anyway,” JT said. He turned to ZZ and his men. “How long will it take to get those F-20s in flying condition?”
ZZ thought a moment. “Just got to gas ’em,” he replied. “Fuse whatever the hell you’re going to use. An hour, hour and a half, tops.”
JT grit his teeth; he was definitely not enjoying playing leader now. “Let’s do it in forty-five,” he said.
Chapter Thirty-nine
THE SENSATION HIT HIM so hard, so violently, Hunter’s head began to spin.
“What the hell …” he gasped. “What the hell is going on?”
He was sitting with Crunch and the Z-Men on the bridge of the captured Cult battleship, trying to find a friendly radio frequency on the mishmash of cheaply made, poorly maintained Japanese-manufactured communications equipment.
He was dizzy. He could hardly breathe. His body was shaking visibly and he couldn’t control it.
Crunch looked at him. “Jessuzz, Hawk,” he said urgently. “Are you OK?”
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