by Robert Gandt
Maxwell nodded. “Ah, Admiral, before we go into the debriefing, there’s something you should know about—”
“I’ve already seen your HUD video tape,” said Boyce.
Maxwell felt a rush of uneasiness. He’d almost forgotten about the digital video tape that recorded everything in the Black Star’s cockpit, including the view through the gun sight. It would capture the death of the Dong-jin crew.
“Yes, sir. Then I want to make it clear that—”
“Too bad about the tape,” Boyce said. He was giving him a look that Maxwell had seen before.
“If you saw it, then you know—”
“The damned thing quit running just after you shot down the Dong-jin.”
Boyce was still giving him the look. Gypsy was peering at them both quizzically.
“What about Zhang?” she blurted.
“Who?” said Boyce.
“General Zhang. The Chinese pilot we shot down.”
“Oh, him. Dead as a dog turd. His wizzo too. Wedge Flores got there with a SEAL team about twenty minutes after the shoot down. He found a helmet, remnants of a parachute, and some bloody flight gear. And lots of sharks. Forget Zhang.”
Boyce was still giving them the look.
Maxwell made eye contact with Gypsy. He moved his lips almost imperceptibly. Forget Zhang.
She nodded.
“Shall we go to the debriefing?” said Boyce.
Chapter 35 — Boy Scout
USS Ronald Reagan
South China Sea
1705 Monday, 7 May
“Purely medicinal,” said Boyce. He held up his glass. “Flight surgeon’s orders.”
Maxwell didn’t have to ask what was in the glass. He watched Boyce sip the drink and sigh with pleasure. His right arm was in a sling, bound to his side. Stolichnaya vodka was Boyce’s choice of medicine.
“Sure you won’t have one?” said Boyce.
“I wasn’t wounded today.”
“Today, yesterday, what the hell? There’s no statute of limitations.”
They were in Boyce’s stateroom. The intel debriefing had been surprisingly short. Even Harvey Wentz had been uncustomarily civil. He displayed little interest in the events following the shoot down of Zhang’s Dong-jin.
Boyce was tilted back in his bunk, cradling the glass against his chest. He was looking woozy, which meant that the pain killer Knuckles Ball, the flight surgeon, had given him for the broken bone was kicking in. The medicinal vodka, Maxwell assumed, was for something else. Losing Jack Hightree was a blow to Boyce.
“Have you seen Dr. Boudroux?” asked Boyce. His words were coming slowly.
Maxwell looked at him in surprise. “No. Why?”
“Oh, just wondered. I would have thought she’d be, you know, sort of curious about what happened today.”
Maxwell didn’t reply. He’d been wondering the same thing. He thought he’d glimpsed Dana at the edge of the hangar deck as they climbed down from the Black Star after the mission. When he looked again, she was gone. He tried calling her lab, then her stateroom. No answer either place.
That figured. Dragon Flight was history, and so was any relationship between them. Dana was headed back to Groom Lake, and he was going to Fallon—or wherever Boyce decided to send him. For all he knew, Dana had left already. And that was fine with him.
No, it wasn’t, he thought. It wasn’t fine at all.
Boyce’s eyes were closed. Maxwell removed the drink from the admiral’s hand and poured it in the sink. He turned the light out as he left.
<>
Hanoi, Socialist Republic of Vietnam
“So good to see you again,” said Li Che Kim.
“It is entirely my pleasure, Madame Ferrone,” said Trunh Bao. “You have been much in my thoughts.”
Kim stood at the head of the reception line in the garden of the Presidential Palace. At her side was the President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Van Duc Chien. Standing at her other elbow was Mike Medford, Joe Ferrone’s deputy and now the acting U.S. Ambassador.
Kim had remained calm and dry-eyed throughout the memorial service for her husband. President Van had delivered a eulogy in surprisingly good English in which he described the unusual friendship he had struck with Joe Ferrone. The two of them, Van said, were old soldiers who could put the past behind them. Their countries could now do the same.
Mike Medford read a letter from the President of the United States about his old mentor and skipper. An honor guard presented Kim with both an American and a Vietnamese flag.
The reception line had dwindled to only a few remaining guests. Trunh was one of the last to pay his respects.
“I’ve been thinking about you, Trunh,” said Kim.
“In what respect, Madame?”
“Wondering what you’ve been doing since the death of the ambassador.”
Trunh should his head sadly. “It was very difficult for me. Not until yesterday could I bring myself to return to Hanoi.”
As they spoke, Kim was aware of President Van’s wrinkled face watching them both. He was nodding his head, following their conversation.
And then Van interrupted. “But you are Vietnamese, Trunh. Why did you remain in China?”
A look of alarm flashed over Trunh’s face. It was obvious that he did not expect to be addressed directly by the President. “Because I was. . . overwhelmed with grief, Mr. President. As Madame Ferrone knows, I was very fond of the ambassador.”
Van nodded. “So fond, in fact, that you signaled the news of his departure from Hong Kong to a PLA officer in Lingshui.”
Trunh’s eyes widened further. “I do not understand your meaning, Mr. President. What officer would I—”
“You knew him well. His name was Zhang. General Zhang Yu.”
Trunh’s eyes darted from the President to Kim. “What are you suggesting? That I had something to do with the ambassador’s death?”
“What is your rank in the Te-wu?” said Van.
“I. . . I do not know what you mean?”
“Of course, you do. You are an agent of the Te-wu, the PLA secret police. General Zhang was your superior officer. It was you who directed the assassins to the two Americans, Maxwell and Boudroux, when they were in Hanoi.”
“I know nothing about that, Mr. President.”
“And it was you, Trunh, who informed Zhang of the precise time of Ambassador Ferrone’s arrival at Gia Lam airport. Zhang then intercepted the ambassador’s jet and shot it down.”
Fascinated, Kim watched the exchange. Earlier that day Medford informed her that they had connected Trunh to her husband’s death. She refused to believe it. It simply wasn’t possible.
Now she believed it. The proof was in Trunh’s darting eyes, the contorted face, the nervous twitch in his hands.
“I will not be subjected to such questions,” said Trunh. “I must leave.”
Abruptly he turned from them and strode toward the gate that led through the south wing of the palace and out to the street.
Medford started to go after him, but Van stopped him. “Let him,” said Van. “He won’t go far.”
And he didn’t. A half dozen green-uniformed Vietnamese soldiers were moving from either side of the garden to close the gateway. The officer in charge of the soldiers held up his hand, signaling Trunh to stop.
Trunh stopped, still twenty yards from the soldiers. For several seconds he studied the officer advancing toward him. Then he whirled back to where Kim and Medford and Van stood in a cluster. He slid his hand inside his coat and pulled out a semiautomatic pistol.
With both hands he aimed the pistol at Kim.
Kim stared back at him, transfixed. None of this was real. It wasn’t possible that this young man whom she once trusted was about to put a bullet into her.
She saw the pistol recoil, and at the same instant she felt an impact. In some remote part of her consciousness she heard the sharp crack of the shot. It sounded like the backfire of an automobile.
She was aware of more pistol shots, at least three of them. She felt the soft earth pressing into her face. A dull ache was spreading across her upper body. It occurred to her that dying was not all that agonizing. Uncomfortable, but without agony.
But she wasn’t dying. She was sure of it. The ache in her upper body was not from a bullet. It was from being slammed by another body, which still lay atop her.
She rolled over and gazed into the face of Van Duc Chien. His eyes were closed. He appeared to be sleeping. His face wore an expression of utter peace.
She couldn’t hold back the tears. Through her blurred vision she saw Trunh Bao lying face down on the grass. The officer who had shot him was standing over him, keeping his own pistol trained on Trunh’s body.
Mike Medford was kneeling beside her, looking worried. “Are you hurt?” he said.
She shook her head. “Van,” she said, fighting back the grief that was welling up in her. “He threw himself in the way so that I wouldn’t be shot.”
At this, Van Duc Chien’s eyes popped open. He sat up and plucked a wad of grass from the front of his jacket.
“Of course I did,” he said. “Joe would never have forgiven me if I let something happen to you.”
Kim stared for a long moment. Then she seized him and planted a kiss on the wrinkled face.
<>
USS Ronald Reagan
The first clue came when he tried to unlock the door to his stateroom. It was already unlocked. Maxwell stood there for a moment, trying to remember whether he’d locked it when he left in the early morning.
The second clue came when he opened the door.
“Leave the light off.”
He left the light off and closed the door behind him. Music was coming from the compact hi-fi on the desk. He recognized it—a Brahms violin concerto, one of the CDs he’d brought with him to the ship.
“I don’t suppose it would do any good to ask how you got into the room,” he said.
“That’s right,” she said. “It wouldn’t.”
He heard something that sounded like the rustling of nylon.
“I thought you said you didn’t want a relationship with another fighter pilot.”
“That was then,” she said. “This is now.”
“What’s changed?”
“Everything. And nothing. Dragon Flight is finished. You’re alive.”
That much was true, Maxwell thought. Unless the Chinese reneged on the agreement and unless there was another nut case like General Zhang to sabotage the peace, the Black Stars—and the Dragon Flight team—were going home to Nevada.
He was definitely alive, and liking it more by the minute. But a bothersome thought kept inserting itself in his mind. It was a breach of protocol for a senior officer to be alone in his room with a woman. As a squadron skipper aboard the Reagan, he had been scrupulous about setting the right example for his junior officers.
Of course, he wasn’t a squadron skipper any longer. And Dana Boudroux wasn’t in the military. But those were technicalities. The rules applied to everyone.
“It was the admiral,” she said.
“Excuse me?” said Maxwell. “What about the admiral?”
“You asked how I got into your room. Admiral Boyce gave me a key.”
“Oh.”
“He said that you wouldn’t mind. But he warned me that you were a Boy Scout. You had a thing about rules.”
Maxwell nodded. Boyce again. Brilliant, meddlesome, presumptuous. Some things never changed.
“The admiral should mind his own business.”
His eyes were adjusting to the semi-darkness. In the sliver of light from beneath the door, he saw that she had undone her pony tail. Her hair was splayed on the pillow. He could see her tanned body silhouetted on the bed.
“Are you going lock the door?” she said.
“Sure,” he said. Actually, it was already locked. He’d gotten over the bothersome thoughts. Some rules were meant to be broken.
CLASSIFIED MATERIAL—TOP SECRET
Specifications: YF-27B Black Star
Contractors: Lockheed Martin/Northrop-Grumman
Power Plant: Two General Electric F404-GE-102D engines
Wingspan: 44.0 (13.41 meters)
Length: 38.4 (11.7 meters)
Height: 9.15 feet (2.8 meters)
Speed: High subsonic
Ceiling: 55000 feet (16,764 meters)
Takeoff Weight (Typical): 52,000 pounds (23,587 kilograms)
Range: 810 nautical miles (1500 kilometers)
Armament: Cannon, air-to-air missiles, internal bomb bay
Payload: 7,200 pounds (3266 kilograms)
Crew: Two
Unit cost: Approximately $1.89 billion (2007 constant dollars)
TOP SECRET
*NOFORN*
ROBERT GANDT is a former naval officer, international airline captain, and a prolific military and aviation writer. He is the author of thirteen books, including the novels The Killing Sky and Black Star Rising and the definitive work on modern naval aviation, Bogeys and Bandits. His screen credits include the television series Pensacola: Wings of Gold. His acclaimed account of the Battle for Okinawa, The Twilight Warriors (Broadway Books, a division of Random House) was the winner of the 2011 Morison Award for Naval Literature. He and his wife, Anne, live in the Spruce Creek Fly-In, an aviation community in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Connect with him online at:
Robert Gandt Author’s web site; Smashwords Author Page; Random House Author’s Page; Facebook fanpage
Here’s an excerpt from
The Twilight Warriors
Robert Gandt’s award-winning saga of a tightly knit group of young pilots thrust into the last—and bloodiest—sea battle in history.
“A riveting masterpiece, a powerful tribute to all those sailors and pilots went in harm’s way. Five stars!”
—STEPHEN COONTS, author of Flight of the Intruder
“A spellbinding account of men in war . . . an excellent read.”
—DAYTONA BEACH NEWS-JOURNAL
Prologue
Alameda Naval Air Station, California
19 February, 1945
It was late, nearly ten o’clock, but the party was going strong. You could hear them singing a hundred yards down the street from the officers’ club.
I wanted wiiiings
‘til I got the goddamn things,
Now I don’t want ‘em anymoooore . . .
Getting plastered before deployment was a ritual in the wartime Navy, and the pilots of Bomber Fighting 10 were no exception. It was the night before their departure aboard the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid. The entire squadron had suited up in their dress blues and mustered in the club for their farewell bash
The party began like most such occasions. Pronouncements were made, senior officers recognized, lost comrades toasted. The liquor flowed, and then came the singing. It was a form of therapy. For the new pilots, the booze and the bravado and the macho lyrics masked their anxieties about what lay ahead. For the veterans, the singing and the camaraderie brought reassurance. Most knew in their secret hearts that they’d been lucky. They’d lived through this much of the war. There were no guarantees they’d make it through the next round.
Leaning against the bar and clutching his drink, Ens. Roy “Eric” Erickson bellowed out the verses of the song. Erickson was a gangly 22 year old from Lincoln, Nebraska. He was one of the new pilots in the squadron. They called themselves “Tail End Charlies.” They flew at the tail end of formations, stood at the tail end of chow lines, and now they were catching the tail end of the war. They’d spent the past year and a half training to be fighter pilots. Their greatest fear, they liked to boast, was that the war would be over before they got there.
The Tail End Charlies were seeing a new side to the squadron skipper, Lt. Cmdr. Wilmer Rawie. Rawie liked to drink, and now that he’d had a few he was leading his boys in his favorite drinking song, “I Wanted Wings.”
They taught me how to fly,
And they sent me here to die,
I’ve had a belly full of waaarrrr. . .
Rawie had gotten a brief tour of combat duty in 1942, flying off the Enterprise in the early Pacific skirmishes. But then he was relegated to two tedious years as an instructor back in Florida. Finally, in the twilight of the war, he’d gotten a squadron command. Now Will Rawie was playing catch up.
But I’ll take the dames,
While the rest go down in flames,
I’ve no desi ire to be buuurrrned . . .
Watching from across the room was the CAG—air group commander—Cmdr. Johnny Hyland. A dozen years older than most of his pilots, Hyland wore the bemused expression of a father chaperoning teenagers. The only one near his age was Rawie, who had begun his commissioned career after a stint as an enlisted man. Hyland had seen lots of these parties, and he had nothing against them. It was a tradition. Let the boys get shitfaced, herd them back to the ship, then get on with the war.
Though most of his pilots didn’t know it, Hyland was also playing catch up. When the war began, he was on a patrol wing staff in the Philippines. Since then he had served in a succession of Washington staff jobs. Now Johnny Hyland, who had never flown fighters in combat, was another twilight warrior.
The singing grew louder.
Air combat’s called romance,
