The Aviators

Home > Other > The Aviators > Page 48
The Aviators Page 48

by W. E. B Griffin


  "Is that why you asked, because I'm black?"

  "That fact did run through my mind, yeah."

  "Well, around here we don't talk about who we know or who we don't know."

  "Is your date of rank a military secret, Captain?"

  "I made captain a couple of months ago. What's it to you?"

  "I am senior to you, Captain," Oliver said, coldly furious.

  "And with that in mind, why don't you go fuck yourself?" A few minutes later Oliver saw a civilian store, which meant that they had left the reservation. He was curious about that, but he was determined not to say one more damned word to this icy, nasty, self-satisfied sonofabitch.

  And five minutes after that the headlights of the pickup illuminated a fading sign: CAMP MACKALL. U.S. MILITARY RESERVATION. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.

  But there Was no gate, and no fence, and no sign of life.

  They drove another five minutes, and the pickup slowed. The Captain turned off the-headlights. The blackout headlights, a narrow slit of light, barely illuminated the road. But as his eyes grew adjusted to the faint light, the Captain picked up speed.

  Five minutes later they came out of a stand of trees to the edge of a field. Oliver saw a half-dozen vehicles, jeeps, pickups, a six-by-six, and then a Hughes Loach. The Captain pulled the pickup up beside the other trucks and shut it off.

  "This is it," he said.

  "No fooling?" Oliver said.

  He climbed out of the truck, and only then saw Colonel Sanford T. Felter, in fatigues, and wearing a green beret. As he walked toward him, he saw Brigadier General Paul T. Hanrahan, the head Green Beret in the Army.

  He walked up to Hanrahan and saluted. "Good evening, Sir," he said.

  Hanrahan and Felter returned his salute.

  "If you had gotten here earlier, Oliver," Hanrahan said, "you could have ridden out here with us in the Loach. "

  "Sir, General Bellmon said I could have dinner before I came over here," Oliver said.

  "He's been asking about Father Lunsford, General," the Green Grunt Captain said. It was more of an accusation than a simple statement of fact.

  "He and Father Lunsford are old pals, Timmons," General Hanrahan said. "They used to take long walks together in me woods. "

  "I haven't heard from him lately," Oliver said, looking at Colonel Sanford T. Felter.

  "He's in the Congo," Hanrahan said matter-Of-factly, "

  "Walking around in the woods. I thought you knew."

  "He's all right, Johnny," Felter said. "I heard from him yesterday."

  There was just enough light for Oliver to be able to see the Green Grunt Captain's eyes widen in surprise at the exchange.

  Up yours, buddy! Don't lay any of your Green Grunt bullshit on me!

  "'I'm really sorry General Bellmon couldn't get away," then went on. "I would have liked for him to see this."

  "Sir, what am I looking at?"

  Felter chuckled.

  "Johnny," Felter said, "Sperry came up with a new navigation system. 'Inertial.' You familiar with it?"

  "I've read about it, Sir," Oliver said. What he had read was that a combination of gyros and computers established an artificial departure point and then produced a second-by second readout of how far the aircraft had come from that point. If the destination point was known, all a pilot had to do was~ fly the needles to get there. No contact with on-the ground navigation aids was required. "I didn't know it was operational."

  "It's not," Felter said. "It's supposed to be accurate within a hundred yards per hundred miles. We're about to find out.

  There's a couple of C-130s up there somewhere that took off from Fort Riley. When they think they're over here, they're going to drop an A-Team from each airplane."

  "It'll be handy as hell if it works," Hanrahan said. "This is the first time we've really tried it. I'm beginning to have my doubts."

  "Sir? "

  "The ETA was ten minutes ago," Hanrahan said.

  "I don't hear any engines," Oliver thought out loud.

  "Oh, you won't," Hanrahan said tolerantly. "That's part of the whole idea. They'll be dropped from thirty thousand feet-HALO." High Altitude, Low Opening. "They'll pop their chutes at ten thousand. That will give them some movement across the ground to home in on here. There's a little transmitter going beep beep over there." He made a vague gesture in the direction of the woods.

  Oliver looked up at the sky. There was almost no moon, and he could neither see nor hear anything at all.

  Three minutes later, however, there was a noise from the blackness at the end of the field. It sounded for all the world as if someone were beating on a child's tin drum. Someone was. To the musical accompaniment of a $1.98 drum and a harmonica, playing When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again, Hurrah! Hurrah!" two nine-man A-Teams marched out of the darkness.

  "I'll be goddamned," Hanrahan said in delight.

  A man dressed in leather high-altitude flight clothing detached himself from the marching group, walked up to Hanrahan, and saluted.

  "Very' impressive," Hanrahan said.

  "It worked like a goddamned jewel, General," the man said.

  "You could hear the radio all right?"

  "Came in five-by-five, Sir, but we didn't need it. We homed in on cigarette coals. I could see them the minute I popped my chute."

  "But the radio worked?" Hanrahan insisted.

  "Yes, Sir!"

  "Christ, that's impressive!" Johnny Oliver blurted.

  Hanrahan chuckled. "We Green Berets are very impressive people, Captain Oliver. I'm surprised you haven't learned that. Major Dopp, this is Captain John Oliver. He's the guy who got shot down trying to extract Father Lunsford and then had to walk out."

  "Father's told me about you," the man in the leather high altitude clothing said warmly, offering his hand. "He said you're one hard-nosed sonofabitch."

  "That would seem to be the pot calling the kettle black," Oliver said.

  "But I am delighted you said that in the hearing of the asshole here. . . . Up yours, Captain, again.

  "We've got room in the Loach, Dopp; if you want to ride back to the post with us," Hanrahan said.

  "I appreciate it, Sir," Dopp said. "But I want to eat a little ass before I go back."

  "Suit yourself," Hanrahan said. He walked over to the Green Berets, which were still in a rough formation. "You guys are good," he said. "Now see if you can stay out of jail."

  Then he walked down the double line and shook every man's hand.

  Sanford T. Felter touched Oliver's arm and nodded toward the loach, which already had its rotor turning. Oliver started walking to it, realized he was still angry, and turned back to Captain Timmons.

  "It's been an experience meeting you, Timmons," he said. "Ranking right up there with the time I had an abscess on my ass."

  Then, feeling very pleased with himself, he trotted toward the Loch.

  He reached it as General Hanrahan walked up to it. Hanrahan put his hand on Oliver's arm.

  "Timmons gave you a hard time?" he asked.

  "No problem, Sir."

  "Well, you probably won't see him again, Johnny, but if you do; got the word yesterday that his brother got blown away."

  "shit!"

  "No way you could have known," Hanrahan said. He held open the Loach door so Oliver could climb in the back with Felter. Twenty seconds later they were light on the skids.

  [TWO]

  Hurlburt Air Force Base,

  Florida

  0845 Hours 13 July 1964

  "Hurlburt, Army Six Zero Six over the outer marker."

  "Army Six Zero Six, you are cleared as number two to land after the C-130 on final. Beware of jet turbulence. The time is one five past the hour. The altimeter is two niner niner niner. Ceiling and visibility unlimited. The winds are ten- to fifteen from the north. Please advise your Code Seven that he will be met."

  "Roger, Hurlburt," Oliver said to the microphone. "Understand Three Six. I have the One Thirty in s
ight. You want to close me out, please? I filed to Eglin."

  "Roger, we'll close you out."

  "Hurlburt, Air Force Four two, on the deck at one five past the hour."

  "Four Two, roger. Four Two, take the night taxiway, left."

  "Next left, roger."

  "Army Six Zero Six, you are clear to land. If conditions permit, take your first left taxiway. The One Thirty went in - a little long."

  "First left, roger," Oliver said. He brought the U-8 in low over the bright blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico flashed over the wide beach, and then a highway, and put the wheels of the U-8 on the runway a hundred feet from the threshold.

  "Well, I see that we have cheated death again," Brigadier General Paul T. Hanrahan said solemnly. Oliver looked over at him and smiled. The Commandant of the U.S. Army Special Warfare School, the titular head Green Beret, smiled mischievously back.

  "Hurlburt Ground," Johnny said to the microphone, "Six Zero Six on taxiway two right. Where do I go?"

  "A Follow Me will meet you, Zero Six."

  "OK. I have him in sight," Oliver said.

  A Chevrolet pickup, painted in a yellow and black checkerboard pattern, came bouncing over the grass toward them.

  He pulled in front of them and led them down the taxiway to another taxiway, and then to a remote comer of the field.

  There a Sikorsky CH-19 with Air Force markings sat waiting.

  A man who was obviously its pilot was sitting on. the main leaf wheel.

  Oliver was not at all surprised that Brigadier General Hanrahan and Colonel Felter, now in his customary baggy gray suit, helped him, insisted on helping him, tie the U-8 down.

  He had learned long ago that only majors and lieutenant colonels, especially newly promoted ones, considered that sort of thing beneath their dignity.

  By the time they were finished, the Air Force had wound up the CH-19. And as soon as they sat down on the pipe-and-nylon seats it went light on its wheels.

  "For an historical note," Felter shouted in Oliver's ear, Dick Fullbright found out the field we're using is the one Jimmy Doolittle used to practice taking B-25s off an aircraft carrier."

  "Oliver nodded his understanding, but it was a moment before he really did understand, remembering that in the early days of War II, Jimmy Doolittle led a flight of B-25s to bomb Tokyo: they took off from an aircraft carrier. It turned out that they didn't really do much damage, but it was an incredible feat of heroism, for which, Oliver recalled now, Jimmy Doolittle had been given the Medal of Honor, that gave the Japanese a kick in the teeth-and American morale a sorely needed boost.

  When they arrived, all they found was a small strip in the middle of the enormous Eglin Air Force Base reservation: several rather bedraggled buildings. As they approached, glistening B-26 appeared to their right, dropped its gear, lined up with the runway, and landed.

  Oliver looked at it with a pilot's fascination for a new aircraft. He was watching an airframe that was nearly as old as he was. The first B-26 had been built for the Army Air Corps in 1940. But Felter had told him the night before, over a roast beef dinner in Hanrahan's quarters, that the B-26Ks they were going to have a look at at Hurlburt were for all intents and puroses new airplanes. A civilian concern called On Mark Engineering had taken about seventy of the old twinengine attack bombers from the Air Force aircraft graveyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and rebuilt them from the wheels up. The original 2000hp engines had been replaced with 2500hp ones. Larger internal and new wingtip fuel tanks

  had been installed. Three .50 caliber machine guns had been installed in each wing, and on the ones at Hurlburt, the bombardier's plastic nose had been replaced with an eight-gun .50 caliber machine-gun battery. There were hard points under the wings for bombs and other external loads, and there was provision to fix six 1,000-pound-thrust JATO bottles to the fuselage. JATO stood for Jet Assisted Take Off, which allowed a heavily laden aircraft to -take off from a short runway. the avionics were state of the art.

  Felter told him that the aircraft were intended for use in Vietnam, and that the Air Force was "mightily pissed" that the first six off the On Mark production line had been taken away from them, no reason given, and ordered delivered to Support air Services at Hurlburt Field, Florida.

  Oliver, looking at the airplane start its landing roll, sensed there was something wrong with what he was seeing. After a moment he realized what it was: there were no. markings of any kind on the wings, or the fuselage, or anywhere else.

  The CH-19 went into a ground hover and turned around.

  Through the open door Oliver could see five more B-26Ks, and none of them had any markings of any kind either.

  Colonel Richard M. Fullbright walked up the CH-19. He was attired in a powder-blue coverall, on which SUPPORTAIRE, INC. was gaudily embroidered. .

  "We're a little short on brass bands, Red," he said to General Hanrahan. "But if you'd like I'll try to whistle a couple of ruffles and flourishes."

  "I love your rompers," Hanrahan said as he climbed out of the helicopter.

  "And I see you've brought your dentist with you," Fullbright went on. "And how are you, Doctor Felter, Sir?"

  "Oh, for Christ's sake," Felter said impatiently.

  "And Captain Oliver," Fullbright said. "The perfect dogrobber. How are you, Johnny?"

  "Good morning, Sir."

  "They're all here?" Felter asked impatiently.

  "And most of the motley crew of drunks and misfits who will fly them," Fullbright said. "The airplanes are in fine shape."

  "Did Portet get here?" Felter asked.

  "That was him in the one that just landed," Fullbright said. "He's getting checked out."

  "That's not what I sent him here for," Felter said sharply.

  "Hey, Sandy. Don't tell me how to do what you tell me to do," Fullbright said. "If you want these planes in the Congo yesterday, I need him as an IP."

  "Is he that good?" Felter asked.

  "No. But he's way ahead of everybody else except the guy checking him out. Some of these guys haven't flown an airplane, much less a B-26, since the Korean War. 1 just told my guy to hire another ten pilots-which will require some funding, incidentally-because 1 don't think half of the ones I have been able to hire so far are going to be able to cut the mustard."

  "Do what you have to do," Felter said after a moment. "Call Finton about the money."

  "That's what I've been doing."

  "But no military personnel, and that expressly means Portet are to take these airplanes off the Eglin Reservation, much less to Africa. You understand that?"

  "This isn't the first time I've done something like this, Sandy," Fullbright said. "I know the rules."

  Jack Portet and a swarthy-skinned man walked across the runway to them.

 

‹ Prev