by Tom Wilson
"I agree," said Max Foley.
Colonel Mack got to his feet, like he'd made up his mind on something. "You and Benny flying tomorrow?"
"Yes, sir."
"I'm taking you off the schedule for a week. I want you two to come up with a group of guidelines for the strike pilots. What they should look out for, how to detect SAM launches, and how to dodge the SAMs without getting shot down by the guns. Major Foley, you work on tactics to use against the MiG's."
"Yes, sir," said Max.
"When you guys are done, set up a briefing for every pilot in the wing. And remember, I don't just want our guys to learn how to stay alive. I want everyone thinking of killing MiG's and SAM sites, like the Bear was saying."
Max Foley and the Bear agreed.
"I'll let Colonel Parker know what we've come up with and what you guys are doing."
As they broke up the meeting, the Bear asked for a minute of Colonel Mack's time.
"Sir," he started, "this might get sort of awkward, what with Les Ries being a major and all, and being the ranking Weasel. Shouldn't he be in on this?"
"Do you see him here, Bear?"
"No, sir. That's what . . ."
"Colonel Parker said I could pick anyone in the wing to work on this, and I'm choosing you and Benny. You two get together with Major Foley and get on with it."
"Yes, sir."
As he left the command post, the Bear found Lyle Watson waiting outside. They fell into step and walked back toward the club.
"You did good in there," said Lyle.
"Benny's gonna shit when he finds out what I've signed us up for. This is a hell of a night for him to be downtown screwing off."
"I thought you'd be all for him. Getting to see his girl like that."
The Bear didn't answer. How the hell could he have known that Benny was going to change his mind about Liz? It didn't help to remember that he had said no when she said she wanted to see him again, or that he'd had to endure one of her tantrums.
When he thought about Julie, he felt even worse. He'd been reading her daily letter this morning when Liz had called the Ponderosa from Bangkok. Julie's pages had been filled with her steady kind of devotion, exactly the kind of thing he hadn't wanted to deal with.
But on the phone Liz had told him something that might change a lot of things. He had to do some heavy thinking.
19/2100L—Takhli Village, Thailand
Takhli was a small, ancient village built on the banks of the Yai, a minor tributary of the mighty Chao Phraya River. It lay only fifteen miles east of the Chao Phraya, situated on the main arteries of the north-south railroad and the highway from Bangkok.
The old village featured a bustling market square, a railroad depot, a number of stores, and a lumberyard built on the road going east toward the big military airfield.
In the market were entrepreneurs selling wares of all descriptions. Bolts of cotton, synthetic, and silk material. Live and slaughtered pigs, goats, ducks, and chickens. Baskets of betel nuts. Woven wickerwork. Vegetables and fruit. Bins of tubers, peppers, bright saffron, and curry. Tubs of river fish and eels. Cheap radios, tape recorders, and watches. Brooms and dusters. Dishes made of metal, pottery, and wood.
Buddhist monks went about the market, their eating cups their only worldly possessions. Old people and cripples begged there. Women walked around shopping wisely, munching on deep-fried chicken feet. Many of their mouths were bright red from chewing betel nuts, teeth black and falling out from the strong, addictive juice. Sometimes the men would gather, hunkering down to watch and wager on a battle between a cobra and a jungle rat, which usually ended in a standoff. The women averted their eyes and shuddered as they passed by the bloating bodies of thieves—usually once-rowdy teenagers—left to rot for a few days in an open area as reminders of what could happen if . . . Men looked to see if they recognized them. The bodies weren't there often, only when thieves were caught.
Bars, massage parlors, restaurants, and shacks had been hastily thrown together on the road leading to the base. Whores, hotsy bath girls, musicians, and entrepreneurs from Bankok lived there, working at night, lying around or visiting the market during the daytime. Thieves, samlor drivers, and beggar kids hung around there. American and Thai military policemen kept order at night on the strip, but they generally allowed the servicemen to do their thing, which was to whore and drink and enjoy themselves. American doctors from the base worked out programs to examine and treat the whores for syphilis and gonorrhea. Except for the overworked police force, no one minded much, for the action was mostly confined to the strip.
Liz Richardson
Liz had hired the taxi in Bangkok. She'd had trouble finding the right combination—a driver who appeared honest with an automobile that looked sound enough to make the trip—but had finally made the deal for thirty dollars.
What she was doing was taking all her courage. Even talking to Mal Bear hadn't been easy. She'd called him from Bangkok and explained that she was in Thailand for a five-day layover and what she wanted to do. He'd been hesitant at first, sounding guilty. At least he had that decency about him. He had not been at all happy about what she wanted to do, hadn't been helpful at all until she'd told him about Julie.
Julie would kill her if she ever found out she'd told Mal
Bear.
After Liz had told him, he'd sounded dazed. Eventually he explained how she might go about getting to Takhli and finding Benny.
She'd gotten over her hatred of Mal Bear for rejecting her before they'd left each other in Bangkok. All that long night he'd played her body like a maestro might a piano, matching her hungers, teaching her new ecstasies, making her feel like a beautiful queen of passion. He'd repeatedly told her how desirable she was as he'd driven her to new heights, and she'd believed him. But then, at the end, he'd told her that he wouldn't see her again.
For a week there had been a different man at every layover. She'd tried her new wings and experienced pleasures that had only been fantasies before. But that wasn't really her and it had been easy to stop. She'd also come to realize that Mal Bear had been right, that they were not for each other. But if he'd asked she'd have tried. It had been that good.
She'd started writing letters to Benny Lewis because of his proximity to Mal Bear. Then she'd remembered that he really was a nice guy, that he was interested in places and history. She realized writing to Benny pleased her.
After the morning call to Mal Bear, she'd had the hotel operator place a second call to Benny at his squadron. She'd been brief, telling him she was in Thailand touring with a group and was coming up in a taxi to see him, and that she'd call him when she got to Takhli. She had not given him time to refuse her, but had excitedly rushed her words before hanging up.
After the long, bone-rattling cab ride, she'd called again from the base gate, using the phone provided by the droop-mouthed air policeman. The appreciative look on the airman's face was a tonic for her ego.
A huge man in an Aussie hat dropped Benny off from a blue van. Benny looked good in civvies, slacks and a cotton shirt that showed off his muscular build.
Civilians weren't allowed on base without special permission, he'd said, so they'd gone downtown in the taxi.
This time he hadn't kissed her when they met, and that was fine. They'd had a single drink at a sleazy club filled with bar-girls who Benny said were waiting for the night action to begin.
It was dark when they left the bar. When they were getting back into the taxi, she saw airmen in civilian attire getting off buses and out of samlors and starting to filter toward the different bars.
"The zoo's about to open," he said.
"It's a different world."
"Not much to it," said Benny. "Glitter and grime."
An airman whistled.
"And they don't get to see many round-eyes." He appraised her and looked appreciative. "You look spectacular, Liz, especially considering you've ridden for hours in the heat and dust."
"Tha
nk you." No need to mention the time she'd spent getting fixed up before calling his squadron.
"Let's eat Thai food tonight," she said. "I'm famished."
He directed the way. As they rode he asked again why she'd come.
"I wanted to see the real Thailand, and I thought this might be the best way. Just rent a taxi and go north. I'm going to have the taxi driver drop me off in a city a few miles from here called Nakhon Sawan. I've got a reservation at a hotel there. Tomorrow morning I get on the train—it's called a Roog-fry, something like that—and go up to a place called Chiang Mai."
"I've heard about it. It's an ancient walled city up north. You're going alone?" He sounded surprised.
"I'll be with a group of our Pan Am people, mostly stews and a few agents here on vacation. I'll meet them tomorrow on the morning train. I just got a head start."
"Sounds like it'll be fun."
"Our Bangkok office manager says you haven't seen Thailand until you've experienced Chiang Mai. They don't allow motor vehicles in town, and he says it's unbelievably quiet. The prices are supposed to be great, and you can live like royalty. He says the silver market there is out of this world."
"Will he be with your group?"
"Nope, only girls allowed. I can only stay in Chiang Mai for two days. I'll take a small plane back to Bangkok on Sunday, then I'm working flights to the Philippines and on back to the States."
"You're going to be busy," he said.
"Now that you know everything, you can tell me what you've been doing."
"First, I'll show you our lovely metropolis and we'll find the restaurant."
They drove around the village for ten minutes, then found a dimly lit Thai restaurant with an unpronounceable name. The food was good, as good as the Thai food they'd had in Bangkok, but was so hot they had to pause even longer between bites. Benny talked some, but they spent a great deal of quiet time.
"How's your flying going?" she asked.
He answered with a noncommittal shrug.
"The news we get in the States is sketchy as far as you guys are concerned. Every now and then they just say that there was a raid on the Hanoi area and that more planes were lost."
"I don't think they want much publicity. Too many hush-hush agreements. For instance, we're not supposed to talk about how we get from here to North Vietnam, because there aren't any official overflight agreements."
"Are you still losing friends?"
"A lot of good people don't come back."
"Julie doesn't talk about it very much, but she sure misses Mal Bear." She didn't tell him the revelation that Julie had confided. Anyway, as she'd told Mal Bear, one missed period could easily be a false alarm.
"They seemed to get along well," Benny said, but he had a stern look about him when he said it.
She agreed, then remembered the next part of her plan. "Would you like me to give your family in Santa Rosa a call when I get back next week? I'm sure they'd like to hear that you're doing well."
"Would you?"
"Of course. Anyone else?"
He thought. "No."
She got his family's address and phone number, which she already knew, then they had a discussion about how his divorce was going (he was over his ex, she could tell), and (bitterly) how he'd not gotten a letter or any word about his children. By the time he was ready to return to the base in the taxi, she'd agreed to call his sister in Sacramento and to periodically send him news (he liked the Examiner) of what was happening back in the Bay Area.
At the gate, he was reluctant to leave. He dawdled and talked about the guys, how he and the Bear were doing well together, and then, how tough the flying was getting. Finally he gave her a long, pleasant kiss.
"I'll write more," she said.
He mumbled something about being sorry he hadn't replied and said he had a letter half written that he would finish. As the taxi drove away, he stood there for a while. At last he waved.
19/2330L—Hanoi, DRV
Li Binh
Xuan Nha was exultant, strutting about the house like a royal peacock. "Eight airplanes today," he gloated. "Eight!"
Always before his boasting had been done quietly, as if it were his destiny to succeed. Not so today. He was childlike, and Li Binh thought that his exuberance, much like that of her servants, was gratitude for his reprieve.
"General Luc was briefed tonight about the shootdown of the Pesky plane. He sent me his personal congratulations, Li Binh. He asked if I would join him tomorrow in his staff meeting, as I did before. That was why I hurried back to Hanoi."
He had just been deposited at the door of the villa, fresh from the field.
"It is like it was before, Li Binh. Just like before."
Nothing is ever like before, she thought archly, but did not tell him so.
He was still strutting, hands on his hips. "Tea!" he commanded, and the servants made noises from the kitchen area to let him know they had heard.
He sat in his leather strap chair, but his energy was still apparent. "It was like a concerto," he said. "From the Wisdom command center we see a complete picture of the air battle, and no airplane can escape our scrutiny. We see where the enemy is and know where our own forces are. I can look at the radar returns and know what the enemy is thinking!"
"And you have gotten results."
"Thirteen enemy shot down with Wisdom, and it has only been two days!"
"And the radar-hunters?"
"We shot one down today. It is apparent what they are doing, easy to tell who they are now. If the radar operators are observant, we can even tell when they fire their homing missiles."
"The American prisoner who gave you information about the radar-hunters. Is what he said true? Are the Americans fearful?"
"If any are not, they shall be. Li Binh, we have won the air battle. All that remains is to shoot them down as fast as they come. Thirteen in two days, eight of those today, and we have captured eleven pilots."
As he continued to babble, she thought that she was fortunate not to have invited her nephew to the villa tonight. That should be a lesson for her, she thought. With Xuan's unpredictable schedule, popping in and out from his frequent visits to Wisdom, she could no longer have her nephew visit during his absences. From now on she would go to him.
She missed him almost as much as she was growing to detest Xuan Nha.
20/1000L—Hoa Lo Prison, Hanoi, North Vietnam
Glenn Phillips
Someone lifted the viewing hole cover, then the key rattled in the lock. Fishface came into Glenn's cell and glared as he hobbled painfully to his feet and bowed at the waist. Bowed low like they wanted, to please Fishface.
The kid gloves had come off soon after his return from the hospital. They'd tied his elbows behind his back and hooked ropes to his hands, hoisted him up, and stretched him until his feet no longer touched the floor, pulling his shoulders from their sockets. Then, after he'd hung there for an hour, they'd jogged him up and down for a while and dropped him to the floor. They had bent him two days later, showing him other things they could do with his body with their ropes. That was when he'd learned to bow. Other prisoners he saw in the exercise yard and washup area had been bent worse.
Fishface grunted, his normal sign of recognition, then turned and motioned. Another guard brought in a new prisoner, one he couldn't recognize who was still in his flight suit, and dumped him on the floor. Glenn bowed again as they left.
They were gone.
It was the first time he'd had a roommate, but the guy didn't look good. Glenn examined him closely. Unconscious, hoarse breathing, fetid breath—but whose wasn't—and bad facial burns. Torn and charred flight suit with subdued lieutenant's bars on the shoulders, and blood at the right shoulder. He stripped his fellow prisoner carefully and pulled him onto his bunk.
He heard rapping on the wall. Several quick ones to clear things, then five, pause, two. He went through his mental gymnastics. He wasn't good with the tap-code yet. The alphabet was divid
ed into fives, with the K removed. A, F, L, Q, and V started the rows. Two across in the V row. The letter was W.
He knocked once. Received.
The knocking continued at a rapid rate then. "Who is new guy?" was the question from the captain in the adjacent cell. The brass among the prisoners had determined that the most important thing they could be doing, besides resisting the enemy, was to account for each and every POW who came to jail. Whenever they got a name, it was everyone's responsibility to spread the word and add it to the memorized list.
He tapped a question mark, then returned to the man on the bunk. As he looked him over more closely the lieutenant groaned. A good sign?
The shoulder was cut, but not too badly. Glenn carefully turned him and examined him closer. Burns on the neck, face, and hands. Scaling, blackened skin with pink, tender flesh beneath.
"Where?" the lieutenant's voice was weak.
"Hanoi Hilton. You're in jail. I'm Major Glenn Phillips." Glenn whispered, since the Americans weren't allowed to talk to one another, upon penalty of beating or bending with ropes.
"I thought . . ." He groaned. "They really hurt me. Brought me in . . . and then really hurt me. Ropes."
"They like rope tricks."
Silence. The new guy turned his head painfully to try to look at him and cried out in pain.
"When did they get you?"
"Five days ago." His breathing became badly labored. "NVA got me . . . when I . . . came down in the chute."
"You're lucky it wasn't civilians. What's your name?"
He held his head rigidly in position. Apparently it pained him when he moved it, and every few words he paused for breath. "First . . . First Lieutenant . . . William Dortmeier, sir. Three-fifty-seventh at Takhli."
"My old squadron. You hurt anywhere? Anywhere worse than others, I mean."
"My face hurts like hell. I hurt my neck and my back in the ejection, but wasn't too bad until I got here. They hurt me with ropes. . . . God did they hurt me."
"The guys who brought you in here?"
"Yes, sir."
"Fishface likes to make us yell."
"I don't feel my legs now—I mean, I feel something, but not really." He whimpered, gritted his teeth, shifted a bit, and cried out. "My neck hurts!"