Julia climbed out of the Jeep, bemused by the contrast between the grim hootches and the neat white house. With its columned porch, blue shutters, and skirt of wavy banana plants, it resembled a plump white hen roosting amid a courtyard full of scraggly fighting cocks.
Trust Gabe to find this little gem, she thought sardonically. Then she noticed the bullet holes pock-mocking the walls. Suddenly, the little house didn’t seem quite so jewel-like.
Dillon rapped on the door twice. Receiving no response, he pushed it open. Julia followed him inside and sagged in relief at the rush of fan-cooled air that wrapped around her. Blinded by her transition from glaring sunlight to the dim, shuttered interior, she didn’t see Lassiter at first. Gradually, her eyes adjusted to the gloom and she made out the figure of the reporter sprawled on an uncomfortable-looking wrought iron sofa. One leg dragged the floor. The other was hooked over the metal sofa arm. His heavy breathing rumbled in the dim quiet, broken only by the whir of the oscillating fan. While the PAO went into the hut’s other room to check it out, Julia prodded Lassiter’s shoulder.
He jerked awake, his arms and legs flailing. She jumped back just in time to avoid a fist to the chest.
“Wh... What?” He swung upright, blinking furiously to clear his vision.
“Dean, it’s me. Julia.”
“Julia? What are you doing here?”
He struggled to his feet, and her stomach lurched at the ravages his stay in DaNang had left on his handsome face. Cheeks unshaven, eyes bloodshot, sandy hair standing straight up, he looked like a far different from the man who’d casually dropped his credentials on her desk. Even his cream-colored bush jacket had lost its pristine newness. It had been blooded, just as Lassiter himself had.
“I’m sorry about Remo,” Julia said quietly.
He shoved a hand through his disordered hair. “Yeah, me, too. He was a hard man to get to know, but a damn fine photographer. So what are you doing here?”
Julia blinked, taken aback. From her brief association with the two men, she knew they tolerated rather than liked one another. Still, she’d expected Lassiter to display a kittle more remorse over the photographer’s injuries.
He caught her reaction and grimaced. “Look, I told D’Agustino not to go any closer. But he had to run those extra twenty yards. Had to get one more shot. The grunt he was shooting had sense enough to hit the dirt when things started popping, but Remo had to have one more...”
He broke off as Dillon came back into the room.
“Who are you?”
“Chuck Dillon, the wing PAO. I drove Lieutenant Endicott over here to pick you up.”
Lassiter’s red-rimmed gaze swung back to Julia. “Pick me up?”
“My orders are to make sure you get back to Tan Son Nhut.”
“Hey, that’s fine by me. I got what I wanted up here, anyway. I can’t leave until I get a chance to talk to Hunter, though.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.” Lassiter dragged a palm across his whiskered chin. “We were up all night, or most of it. I collapsed on the couch while Gabe was still going over the details of the rocket attack with the deputy commander. I remember him shaking me a little while ago. Saying he’d be back shortly.”
Julia glanced at her watch. It was almost eleven. “We’ve got a couple of hours before we have to be back at base ops. We can wait that long.”
Captain Dillon pulled his fatigue hat out of his pocket and slapped it against his leg. “I can’t, unfortunately. I’ve got to work the official release on last night’s attack.”
He pulled out a notepad, scribbled a number, and passed the scrap of paper to Julia. “Here’s my office number. Call me if you need a ride back to the flight line. You’d better check in with ops periodically to verify the status of your bird.”
Julia tucked it into her pocket. “I will. Thanks.”
He left with a curt nod to Lassiter.
“What did you do to get on the wrong side of Dillon?” she asked curiously when the door had shut behind the captain.
“The guy’s an ass. A delusional ass, if he thinks I’m going to run my copy by him. Especially last night’s.”
“You’ve already written it?”
“I wanted to get my impressions down while they were still vivid.”
With her boss’s injunction to minimize, if possible, the adverse press that might result from D’Agustino’s injuries, Julia probed for details. “What happened last night, Dean?”
He scooped a spiral bound notebook off the table beside the sofa. “Here, you can read it yourself while I clean up.”
“You’ll let me read your copy, and not Dillon?”
“You, Endicott, are not an ass.”
Notebook in hand, she looked around the room for some place more comfortable to sit than the wrought iron sofa. She didn’t have many options to choose from. The room’s furnishings consisted of the sofa and one armchair, a side table, and a Formica-topped kitchen table with two plastic chairs. Behind the table was a counter that sported a chipped enamel sink and a two-burner hotplate. The kitchen, Julia assumed.
Light filtered in through the slats of closed shutters, illuminating dancing dust motes and tiny, flittering, white-winged insects. Frowning, Julia followed the flight path of one bug to a swarming mass burrowed in a patch of decayed wall. Termites. Hundreds, no, thousands of them. She’d never realized they could fly.
Grimacing, she retraced her steps and settled at the dusty kitchen table. She flipped through the scribbled pages for one dated 29 March. With the first few words, she lost herself in Lassiter’s sparse, compelling prose.
ROCKETS HIT DANANG
DaNang Air Base, South Vietnam, Mar. 29
A barrage of 107 mm rockets rained down on the base last night, destroying an ammunition storage facility. The attacks are a nightly occurrence. Most residents believe these so-called nuisance attacks are primarily intended to keep DaNang’s aircrews and support personnel from getting any sleep. In that, they succeed.
Lassiter went on to describe the small, isolated teams of spotters on Monkey Mountain. Their watch for fiery red contrails as rockets ignited and arced through the night sky. The radio alert from the spotters. The sirens that blasted the stillness of the night and sent DaNang’s inhabitants scrambling for flak vests, helmets, and cover. The eerie, whistling sound of in-coming. The agonizing wait. The explosive detonation.
Then Lassiter’s account segued from detached reporting to an achingly intimate portrait of a young maintenance tech, advisor to one of the VNAF units. Sergeant Scott Forbes and his counterpart had come in from the field just hours before, intending to fly to Saigon in the morning to scrounge some badly needed parts. They’d bunked down in an empty hootch next to the storage facility. When the siren went off, they ducked for cover. Cringed at the sharp, whistling sound. Heard a thud. Waited long, agonizing minutes. Then they grinned at each other and crawled back into their bunks.
Moments later an explosion ripped the night apart. The storage facility near-by had blown. Flames engulfed their hootch. The sergeant stumbled out, blinded by smoke. When he realized his Vietnamese counterpart hadn’t emerged, he threw his arm over his face and ran back in. He carried his friend to safety in his arms.
Her throat tight, Julia reread the stark tale of heroism that transcended duty, friendship that knew no uniform. Only on the second reading did she pick up the subtle shadings and unspoken questions. Why were men like Sergeant Forbes still dodging rockets? How long would these peace negotiations take? When would the killing stop and the long-anticipated peace begin?
Julia sat back in her chair, awed by Lassiter’s skill. He’d crafted a story that would sell to either the hawks or the doves. In one piece, he extolled American bravery, and damned the need for it. He didn’t need D’Agustino’s pictures, she thought. His words would stir anyone to demand answers to the hidden questions.
She was on her third reading when Lassiter emerged from the other room. H
is eyes were still bloodshot and his face lined with fatigue, but he’d shaved and tamed the spikes in his hair. He glanced from the notebook on the table to her face.
“What do you think?”
“I think the Times is going to snatch this up,” she replied. “It’s good, Dean. Better than good.”
“Yeah, I think so, too.”
She checked her watch, then put in a call to base ops. The sergeant who answered seemed distracted, but verified that her C-130 was still in-bound. She’d better make that one, he warned, as the afternoon thunderstorms would roll in soon after that and they were getting reports of some weird activity up north, along the DMZ.
“We can’t wait much longer,” she warned Lassiter.
They didn’t have to.
Ten minutes later, Julia was in the hut’s minuscule bathroom when she heard the front door open. She turned off the taps, wiped her hands on a much-used khaki-colored towel, and walked through the bedroom. Gabe’s voice carried to her clearly.
“Relax, Dean-boy. No one saw anything, I’m telling you. No one but you and me.”
Dean mumbled something under his breath.
“Remo had those cameras stuck to his face,” Gabe tossed back. “This is strickly...”
He stopped abruptly as he caught sight of Julia in the doorway. A slow, wicked grin lifted his tawny mustache. Rocking back on his boot heels, he hooked his thumbs in the unzipped pockets of his green flight suit.
“Well, well, I almost didn’t believe Dean when he told me that Goldilocks walked right into the big bad wolf’s lair. Yet here you are, in the flesh.”
Julia strolled into the living area. “You’ve got your nursery rhymes all mixed up, Hunter. Red Riding Hood was the one who tangled with the wolf. As I recall, she left him in little pieces.”
“I prefer my own version of the story.”
“I’ll bet you do. In any case, this Goldilocks is about to blow the wolf’s lair. Lassiter and I are hoping a C-130 back to Tan Son Nhut.”
“So I hear.”
Dean turned on his heel and headed for the other room. “I’ll get my gear.”
Gabe folded his arms. He looked tired, Julia thought, but as cocky as ever.
“Why don’t you stay a while after we put Lassiter on that 130?” he suggested. “I’ve got this hut all to my self for another two nights.”
Julia shook her head. “You don’t ever give up, do you Hunter?”
“No, sweet thing, I surely don’t.”
His reply was an affirmation...and a promise she couldn’t mistake. The sheer gall of it took Julia’s breath away. She was still fumbling for a snappy comeback when Lassiter strode back into the room.
“Have you got transportation?” he asked Hunter.
“Right outside.”
The reporter reached under the sofa to pull out another bag. Julia winced as expensive camera lenses rattled and clacked together.
“Is that Remo’s gear?”
“Yes. I promised I’d get it to him.”
Dean dug into the bag and hefted a small black canister in one palm.
“The explosion that took Remo out shattered his lens, but I managed to salvage the film.”
He would, Julia thought.
“These should be some pretty spectacular shots.”
“Yes, they should. Let’s get going.”
An almost palpable tension grabbed them the moment they walked into base ops. Tight-faced aircrews huddled over weather printouts in the briefing room. Phones shrilled nonstop. The airfield management specialist behind the counter waved a distracted hand, signaling them to wait while he took a call from the tower.
Frowning, Gabe hailed a two-man flight crew heading for the door, parachutes humped over their backs. “What’s going on?”
“We’re not sure,” the pilot replied. “We’ve got all kinds of garbled reports coming in. All we know for certain is that Camp Carroll is taking heavy artillery and tanks are rolling across the DMZ.”
“No shit? They’re really sending tanks across the DMZ?”
The flier grinned. “No shit. Sounds like we’ll have us a nice little turkey shoot this afternoon.”
“Sounds like.”
Gabe swung back to Julia and the reporter. “I’ve got to head over to the squadron. Get on that C-130, you hear me? Both of you.”
Lassiter started to protest.
Gabe cut him off with an impatient chop of his hand. “I can’t fly cover for you now, Dean-boy, and I don’t have time to set you up with anyone else.”
“I’ll manage.”
“Look, this move across the DMZ is only a feint. Intel expects the real thrust to come across the Central Highlands. Get back to Saigon. Talk to Gator. He’ll get you to the action.”
Lassiter conceded grudgingly. Gabe tipped him a salute, then gave Julia a swift, rakish grin. “See you back at the ranch, Endicott.”
He swung away, already thinking of his plane, his crew, his mission.
“Gabe...”
“What?”
She knew better than to jinx him by wishing him good luck. “See you back at the ranch.”
His thumb went up, and he was out the door.
As the tense afternoon wore on, the scope of the activity along the DMZ some thirty miles north unfolded. Fuzzy and unclear at first, the picture gradually assumed frightening dimensions.
Contrary to Gabe’s blithe assumption, the tank thrust wasn’t a feint but a precursor to a full-scale attack by three heavily armored NVA divisions. The enemy quickly surrounded the forward firebases. Every fighter aircraft at DaNang scrambled to provide air support to the defenders. Gunships roared down the runway and lifted into the sky. Cargo planes ferried emergency stocks of ammunition to the forward airstrips. The Tactical Air Control Center in Saigon diverted the C-130 that Julia was waiting for to Quang Tri City, which lay in the path of the attack.
Sometime around three that afternoon, thunderstorms rolled down off the mountains, blanketing the entire northern sector in a heavy cloud cover. Frustrated, the fighter crews unable to assist the beleaguered ground troops because of the weather. Only the gunships were able to operate.
An AC-119 from DaNang answered a desperate call from the 8th Battalion of Vietnamese marines at Fire Base Holcomb. Flying dangerously low through shrouding fog and rain, the Stinger finally located the target via an infrared strobe and orbited for an hour and a half, firing on enemy positions. Another gunship braved intense ground fire to touch down at a forward base that was being overrun. It took the two dozen surviving defenders aboard and lifted off again with guns blazing. Only later would Julia learn that Gabe was at the controls, and that his aircraft had taken more than 300 hits from the murderous ground fire.
Stranded in DaNang, she and Dean Lassiter grabbed a meal at the officers’ mess. While he commandeered a phone to dictate his story to a copy-taker, Julia offered to assist the harried PAO. Grateful, he accepted her help in responding to the demands for information coming at him from the media in and around DaNang. She was still manning the phones when an exultant Lassiter tracked her down a few hours later.
“They bought it!”
“Who?”
“The Times! They bought the rocket attack piece. It’s going to run in tomorrow’s edition, without the pictures. They want another piece on today’s action, as well.”
“Dean, that’s wonderful!”
A trained journalist herself, Julia saw no incongruity in congratulating him for profiting from what might have been a horrific tragedy. Someone had to record mankind’s tragedies as well as triumphs.
Some time after midnight, things quieted enough for Dillon to shut down his operation. Exhausted, Julia opted to share the stucco house with Lassiter instead of driving to the complex where the nurses were housed. She rousted the reporter from the bed and sent him grumbling to the couch, dragging his helmet and flak vest with him. Julia arranged the vest and helmet she’d scrounged for herself on the floor beside the bed, then sank dow
n on top of the blanket, fully clothed.
An hour later, the wail of a siren pierced the night. Jerked from sleep, Julia rolled off the narrow bed and into the flak vest in clumsy, panicky movements. Cramming on the helmet, she yanked the mattress over her body.
From the other room came the sounds of Dean scrambling under the kitchen table. Eyes squeezed shut, she strained to hear the whistling that preceded impact. None came, nor did a deafening blast. The rockets must have passed over this side of the base. If they hit on the other, she couldn’t hear it. Trembling, she lay in the dark for what seemed like hours.
“What in the hell are we doing here?” Dean’s voice sounded thin and reedy in the dark.
Julia managed a shaky laugh. “I was just wondering the same thing.”
Sure she’d never get to sleep again, she shoved the mattress back onto the bed and curled up. The second attack came a half hour later.
After the third, she decided to spend the rest of the night on the floor. She was still huddled under the mattress when a gray, watery dawn broke. Stiff and aching in every bone, she started to crawl out. To her surprise, she saw the floor beside her was covered with a light dusting of white.
She thought at first some plaster had cracked and fallen. Dragging a fingertip through the dust, she held it up to examine the particles. Belatedly, she realized the white film was actually thousands of tiny wings. Sometime during the night, the termites munching their way through the rafters overhead had swarmed and shed their aerodynamic appendages.
“Yuck!”
She scrambled back, intending to push herself to her knees, only to find her way blocked by a solid, immoveable body. She twisted around to find Gabe sitting on the floor beside the bed, his back to the wall and his eyes glinting in the pale light.
“Well, well, Goldilocks. Imagine papa bear’s surprise when he got back to his hootch and found you in his bed.”
Duty and Dishonor Page 11