Con Trails/200 Sky Obscured

by Salvatore A. Joseph

  “I understand . . . I too sense the weird or uncanny feeling far too well that you are describing,” responds Sal as he takes a quick drink. He continues, “Not everyone can judge men like us correctly or properly . . . they have not walked through the Valley of Death knowing what we did at the time, that deep down on the inside somehow, I felt I would come out untouched and alive.” He shakes his head, trying to get back to the conversation at hand.

  “Uh, truly, hell I was scared to death every time the rag heads shot up at me,” said John.

  Tom and Sal exchange looks. They are part of a different set of men, rare men who pass through life with a hyper sensitive set of senses which border on the supernatural—magnificent men like Chesty Puller, the famous U.S. Marine who charged machine gun nests over and over again, but was never hit a single time out of thousands of bullets let loose his way.

  Sal says, “I see you men understand. I am not in this anymore . . . to clear up these cases or for the reward money, but if these two guys keep at it, someone is gonna’ get smoked, uuh shot. They will be waiting for you . . . or whomever the next time you . . . uh they enter one of those little out of the way banks . . . on a rainy foggy day,” Sal chuckles enjoying the light moment.

  “A good friend of mine back home flew choppers in Vietnam before he joined the Police Department back in Houston. He’s the one who helped figure out the weather reports, the pilot weather reports so you two . . . uhh, whoever—could tell when the next foggy day was coming to a bank near you.”

  “Uh, hmm,” says John. What could he truly say?

  “I figured out the connection, the missing piece of the puzzle. Even though the FBI pukes up in DC don’t . . . can’t figure it out yet . . . they do possess all the pieces to finish this enigma.”

  A now calm John adds, “OK, but why tell ’em to quit?

  Sal finishing his beer and suggests, “Let’s get another round here and I’ll tell you more.”

  Without thinking, Tom raises his right hand and motions for the waiter to bring another round over. Quickly and smartly, the prompt waiter arrives with the fresh drinks. He only has to walk 10 feet from the bar to the table to accomplish his task. Once these men are settled in again with their fresh drinks, Sal raises his cold beer bottle and offers a toast. As Tom and John tip their glasses upward making the toast, the mood becomes somber and sober.

  “To the Wild Blue,” Sal says.

  “Here, here,” comes from Tom, followed shortly by John’s “Here, here.”

  A definite somber mood takes over Sal and is picked up on by the boys. Holding his beer with both his hands, sort of peeling on the label, he’s merely staring at the bottle of beer. “I did two tours in Nam as a US Air Force Crew Chief. I started out of the F-100 Super Sabers and later moved onto the newer F-105’s before I became a cop; you know the Air Force version of almost a mechanic. I don’t have the official mechanic’s license, but I’m a damn good airplane mechanic. I was good enough for Uncle Sam when I worked for the Air Force. Hell, I always liked working on things as a youngster. I loved taking things apart and putting them back together . . . got the bug from my older brother . . . my hero.”

  Sal lifts his beer for another big drink . . . he continues. “Lost my older brother in a Thud (North American F-105 Thunder Chief) one day up north of the DMZ—the Demilitarized Zone and the pilot of the Thud I was crew chief on two months later. He takes a big drink. “Neither pilots were ever found. He, too, was like an older brother to me. Man, I loved him like a brother.”

  Taking another drink, he says, “I had been told . . . off the record, by my Commanding Officer officially off the record, how everybody had successfully bailed out . . . good chutes were seen on both days. He said that according to the report . . . according to the G-2 Intelligence reports which came across his desk each week, there was a description of an intercepted North Vietnamese Army radio calls on how both these men were captured alive and moved up north.”

  Wiping his watery eyes, he continues . . . “but this country is still missing two of our best boys with Silver Wings on their chests.” With tears in his eyes, Sal continues on, “It . . . this tragedy drives men fuckin’ crazy to this day to think that my older brother, the guy I always looked up to, was captured and taken as a Prisoner of War by those fuckin’ North Vietnamese Communist pricks. He never came home after the war . . . even when all those other boys were released in 1975. We never heard a damn thing. Not from the North Vietnamese Communist jerks . . . not even anything authentic from my own fuckin’ government. Nothing more than political double-speak, bull.”

  “It still eats me up every damn day. Time passed, and it wasn’t too long after he was listed as Missing In Action that my Dad’s heart gave way. A month or two later, in short order, my Mom gave up living or really caring too. I know what the official death certificates stated as the cause of death . . . but I know deep down inside it was because of a broken heart, loss of faith, and loss of hope. Her baby boy, their baby boy, her shining light of her life, her big proud Air Force Fighter Pilot was gone . . . consumed by the fuckin’ jungles of Vietnam. To this day I do not know if he is dead or even now alive, rotting away in some Communist shithole Prisoner Of War camp.”

  “God help him.”

  “God help all the boys who are still over in Southeast Asia.” Salvatore continues. “I know, I know . . . probably most of them are dead and buried, but I still feel deep down in my gut that some of our boys are still alive . . . they have to be. I can just sense it in my heart. At one time, I was contacted by the folks who run the Bamboo Connection Rescue Group.”

  Tom nods to acknowledge he is familiar with the outfit, but young John is not, as the men exchange glances. Sal starts to explain, “They’re a large group of American POW families who are trying to keep pressure on the Government to get off their butts and do something. They once told me about some decent on-the-ground intelligence that pointed to some of our boys held in a cave complex outside of a village close to Tchepone, Laos.

  Hell, I sent them 10,000 dollars, but all that I got back was some beat up old ragged dog tags with my brother’s name on them. Those fuckers turned out to be a good copy, uh . . . the tin tags were later proved to be fakes made in the Philippine Islands, but I still have hope and faith. Another time, I sent an additional 5,000 to a group of former Green Berets who were trying to get our boys out. They never got past Thailand before the State Department pulled their passports and shut the whole deal down.

  Hell, I even got as far away as Thailand myself, but I also got shut down by the State Department. Some State Department guys in dark suits pulled me into the Embassy and told me, in no uncertain terms, to leave or I would be arrested and tossed into a local jail. Damn, I’m a cop and I damn sure know how to read people. These guys sure seemed serious, damn serious . . . they weren’t bluffing. They fed me some BS story about working on the issue, but here we are some 10 years later, and nothing has come of their fairy tale. Not one of our boys has been returned alive or rescued.

  “Next time I ever get any kind of good info . . . Hell, for that case, any kind of information on my brother . . . uh . . . and make a decision to go back, I won’t go through official channels. I have learned that lesson all too well. I should have snuck in Vietnam like so many others do every day over in Vietnam.” Sal takes a long drink and continues on. “Now that I am retired and got my pension all locked up, they can’t hold my retirement over my head anymore. If I get smoked in some far off land, my kids get my full pension and benefits until they turn 25. They’ll be set for the rest of the lives with my life insurance, so I’m telling you this much. If I pick up any word that my brother is still alive, I’m sneaking back into Vietnam or Laos and getting him the fuck out myself. I don’t give a fuck if I start World War Three, but somehow, I’ll get it done! My brother was always a fighter and I realize full well inside of me he would never give u
p the fight.”

  “Last month he should have turned just 62 years old. Damn . . . 62 is not too old . . . he should, uh, could still be alive. Hell, I remember growing up in the Deep South, there was many a poor black man or white trash hoodlums that went to the chain gangs, living on nothing but bread and water, and lived well past 62. I can recall when I was a mere kid seeing the chain gangs out working on the side of the freeways cleaning up the ditches and bayous, working their butts off in the hot Texas sun. Hell, I studied courses on locking people up in my Police Science college classes.”

  A calm mood takes over the table as Tom offers, “Sorry . . . uh . . . sorry ’bout your brother, man.”

  John adds, “Me too, man. I understand firsthand how that can go . . . I got my ass shot up . . . my F-15 one night over . . . barely got me and the plane back to base. Uh, sorry man, it scared me to think that I was going to have to eject over the desert . . . uh. I can’t even imagine being taken as a POW for a day, much less for years and years.”

  Sal takes another drink and continues, “I’m OK . . . things one day will be OK. Somehow, somewhere I still think there is a chance either one of those men may walk out of those fuckin’ jungles of Vietnam one day and come home.

  Tom says, “I feel it’s possible, man. I don’t know how much you learned about me, but I flew Air Force F-4’s in Nam. I lost many a good friends over there and I know for a fact” (as he punched his index finger on the table) “that every one of our boys’ did no tcome home in ’75.

  “My own friggin’ wing man, my best friend in the War was shot down and taken as a POW. Hell, I saw the intelligence reports from G-2 on every one in our sector that was shot down. Hell, I was a Squadron Commander for half the fuckin’ war.

  There is always a chance someday, one day some of them will come out of Southeast Asia alive.”

  Upon saying all of this, Tom now offers up a toast. Holding up his drink glass high he speaks, “To all those who have gone before us, climbed up into their cockpits, strapped on their bird, and flew off into harm’s way, we salute you.”

  John fires off a quick, “Here, here,” followed shortly thereafter by Sal’s, “Here, here.”

  Returning to the conversation at hand, Tom asks, “Uh, so where does this leave us?”

  Sal clears his throat and wipes a few tears from his eyes then responds, “Well . . . If you two men understand what I’m trying to say . . . and do here . . . well, I’m going home. I’d suggest strongly you two do the same and keep a low profile for a while . . . it won’t bring anyone back . . . but maybe I can keep two more American flyboys from getting shipped home to their Momma’s house in a US red, white, and blue, flag-draped coffin . . .”

  A relieved Tom adds, “Got ya’ . . . and thanks. I was thinking about taking a little time off anyway . . . uh maybe . . . I’m gonna’ take a little vacation . . . as they say.”

  A relieved John says, “Yeah, uh thanks much . . . Me too.”

  Sal gathers up his files and the stands up to leave; He reaches out his hand to shake then, but then—SNAPS TO ATTENTION and SALUTES.

  With tears in his eyes, he holds the salute until it is returned by the two men sitting in the booth. Immediately Sal pivots smartly around and walks, actually marches away. Tom and John sit back in amazement and contemplate what only this minute happened—almost stunned as they watch Sal hurrying out of the restaurant, up the stairs. He quickly enters the gaming area and in a flash seems to almost fade away, to disappear into the crowded casino.

  Headed to the east side taxi stand, Sal grabs another well-worn cab. He is more than ready to head back to his room at the Luxor. His work is done here. He wants to gather up his bags and in quick order head back home to Houston. He is tired, plain ’ol tired. As the cab arrives at the Luxor, Sal pays the fare, exits the taxi, then starts his walk to the front door, but for some reason, he pauses, turns, and walks out to the curb. Looking right and left, he starts off heading north bound. He does not know why, but something is drawing him up the Vegas Strip. Off in the distance, across the massive intersection of Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard, a sound carries through the night air—an alto saxophone. Trying to look around the mass of people, Sal searches for the source of the sound—but to no avail. The sound fades away as he arrives at the intersection, and he finally passes it off as simply being stressed out and exhausted.

  A little over three and a half hours later, Detective First Class Salvatore is seated in another airliner in the coach section, waiting on a Bud Light, trying to blank out his mind, to relax. As the airliner taxies to the take-off end of runway 19-right, he looks out his left side window toward the MGM Grand. Just as the plane makes its right turn onto the runway, Sal catches a glimpse of a vagabond, pushing a shopping cart eastbound across the street from the airport . . . just outside of the perimeter fence with the two flags flapping in the breeze . . . the same two flags as the one in Houston. The man is wearing the same old faded Army jacket—”no way” thinks Sal as the plane rushes down the runway and claws its way up into the night sky.

  Sipping the last of his beer, in an effort to doze, Sal shifts in his seat, as a brief thought flashes through his mind. “Damn! Damn! Ah crap! I forgot to ask him what all the numbers on the business cards were for.”

  “Oh, well . . . I’m too tired to worry about it now,” he said softly to no one. Shifting this way and that way, forward and back, he finally dozes off to a fitful sleep as the tired old airplane with a nice new paint job heads east bound toward KHOU, Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport.

  Chapter 16

  Current Weather or current METAR: KSPG

  12013KT 10SM 30/19 A29.98 or in layman’s terms:

  Winds are 120 degrees at 13KTS, 10 SM of visibly, clear sky, temperature is 30C, dew point 19 and the area altimeter setting is 29.98: simply put, this is great weather.

  St. Petersburg, Florida

  A day or two later, early in the morning, right as the sun rises once again on the east coast of the far south end of the State of Florida, something is making lots of noise. The sound is coming from the southeast coast of the Florida peninsula built a few hundred feet out into the bay waters. On this spit of land exists a small general aviation airport, sort of your regular everyday general aviation airport used by flight training schools and small single-engine airplane pilots. It’s the type of airport frequented by weekend aviators in their little single engine airplanes and used to practice their takeoffs and landings.

  Today is simply a beautiful day. Located on the southern end of the peninsula, there is a pleasant little airport known as the Albert Whitted Municipal Airport (KSPG). This airport is in south part of St. Petersburg, Florida area and is literally built out on the water into Tampa Bay. At this airport, on this lovely warm day, something is rolling faster and faster down the south facing runway number one-eight. A loud, low rumble builds up, louder and louder from the 600hp Pratt and Whitney model R-1340 radial engine. A shiny brightly polished aluminum airplane called an AT-6C Texan lifts off the end of a small 2,864 foot concrete runway.

  This airplane is restored to the United States Army Air Force colors and paint scheme consistent with a 1943 AT6C Model. The mirror-like shine of the polished aluminum fuselage is blinding in the Eastern sun. Painted on each side are the five point stars common to US Air Force airplanes.

  The World War II era fighter/trainer airplane starts climbing almost straight up as the smoke system is turned on, spewing out beautiful white air-show smoke that trails from the tail end of the plane as she climbs up, up into the morning sky. The engine is running at full blast, at its full rated power setting of 2200 rpm. Rumble, rumble, pop, pop, pop, rumble, rumble—raw, pure American made horsepower.

  Headed south out over Tampa Bay’s open waters, the little project—John’s pet project—his airplane is finally finished and officially signed off by his airplane mechani
c. She is at long last flight ready, and this is her first flight since a complete, absolute, and total restoration. The airplane is actually in better shape now than when she came off the factory floor back in 1943.

  Peering into the airplane’s greenhouse canopy, the bird is occupied by two men wearing WW II flight goggles and white flight scarves. She is piloted by Captain John in the front cockpit and Captain Tom in the aft-seat as the aircraft climbs on up . . . up and over into a full loop, a snap roll, a hammerhead, to finish with a little two and a half-turn spin to the right.

  The crackle in the headset speakers breaks the sound of the engine’s rumble for a second. From the back seat, Tom offers a quick friendly jab. “Like I said before, my F-4 Phantom could beat up your fancy F-15 . . . uh, is that the best you got? What in the world are they teaching you boys at the Air Force Academy these days?”

  “Ha! I’m almost warmed up,” John follows with a quick comeback. You want to show me how to do it . . . old man?”

  “Roger that, I’ve got the stick . . . uuh, hang on up there junior.” In a flash, Tom performs a Split S diving maneuver, flipping the plane over on its back. Diving faster and faster toward the choppy bay waters, at that moment he pulls up hard, very hard as the plane does a beautiful inside loop, up, up, and over the top, then down, down, for a brief second or two of level fight before he does a quick and smart snap roll. Almost panting . . . breathing hard, fighting the 5 Gs, Tom pulled up again to finish with the famous Immelmann flight maneuver developed during the WW-I dog-fighting days by the famous War Ace Max Immelmann.

  Back up high, on altitude, but going the other way, Tom grins at his perfectly executed maneuver. He keys the mike button. “How was that . . . junior? Are you still awake up front or did you black out when I pulled those 5 Gs?”