by Tom Wilson
"You're cleared, Shark four," said Lucky, because it was now mostly a fait accompli. It would be equally dangerous for Bowes either to continue or to break it off and climb out to join the rest of them.
For the benefit of the others, he radioed, "Shark two and three, set up for guns-ground and prepare for a thirty-degree, high-angle strafing run."
"Shark two," called Bob Liebermann.
"Shark three," drawled Turk Tatro in his most eager voice.
A flew flak bursts began to walk across the sky toward them as they perched at 5,500 feet, banking around toward the taxiing MiG-21. They would wait until Bowes had finished his low-angle run, then make their higher, steeper strafe passes on the MiG.
Poor, dumb bastard, thought Lucky Anderson as the taxiing MiG began to zigzag down below. The pilot had obviously seen Billy Bowes's Thud as it rolled out, stabilized, and began to close for the kill.
0642 Local—Kep PAAF Auxiliary Air Base, DRV
Kapitan Aleks Ivanovic
Aleks had huddled, rolled into a ball in the hangarette near his MiG-21 as the bombs rained on the airfield, sending concussive waves, one after the other, to pummel his senses. He'd looked out only periodically, and each time another explosion had rocked the ground he'd pulled back, turtlelike, and huddled again.
He wore his flying helmet, for he'd made it into the cockpit acting as if he were considering starting the engine when the first bombs exploded on the runway. Then he'd scrambled down to find an unoccupied corner.
A lull, and he cautiously looked out the mouth of the hangarette. An explosion shook the hangarette, and a spray of sand spewed down through the wooden ceiling. Then plop, plop, plop as sandbags fell through to land beside a terrified, screaming maintenance man.
Aleks was facing the taxiway and could see a great gouge 200 meters distant where the closest bomb had impacted. Probably that last, great explosion, he thought, which had also loosened the sandbags.
A rain of smaller explosions blanketed the operations building.
Cluster bombs!
He backed another meter into the sanctity of the hangarette, but still cautiously peered out.
Some of the bomblets exploded as they rained down, while others bounced about the tarmac before they came to rest. Are they duds or delayed fuzes? he wondered.
More raining bomblets, some exploding, some just bouncing and lying there. Then, down the flight line, he could hear one of the MiG-21 engines whining to life. Even above the awful din of the exploding bomblets and the artillery bursts far overhead, he could hear the distinctive, shrill call of a lone Tumanskii turbojet.
Thanh?
"Don't go out there!" he yelled at the maintenance crew, who'd heard the jet engine and were edging toward the door. "The bomblets have time-delay fuzes!"
At the corner of his vision he saw a silver MiG taxiing out. It had emerged from Thanh's hangarette.
The young Vietnamese pilot left the hangarette's mouth, then swung into a hard right turn up the taxiway. Aleks watched without smiling, his heart crawling toward his throat.
Dimetriev's hero.
Mechanics cheered from the hangarettes.
The lieutenant gunned his engine and sprinted his MiG-21 forward for twenty meters, then slowed to avoid taxiing over a piece of net that had been tossed there by an explosion.
Aleks watched as the MiG drew abeam the mouth of his hangarette, and he saw Thanh peer quizzically, then frown as he saw Aleks's aircraft still inside. He waved frantically and pointed energetically toward the runway end. His breathing mask hung to one side, his expression was one of bafflement.
A mechanic ran from Aleks's hangarette toward the taxiing MiG, waving and cheering.
A hero. The sick feeling continued to crawl in Aleks's stomach.
He watched then as a Thunder plane descended, extended for distance, then turned sharply toward the taxiway as if the American pilot were going to land there. There was no doubt that he was positioning for a low-angle strafing run on the taxiing MiG-21.
The moment became frozen. Both hunter and prey were aware, for Thanh had seen the Thunder plane and was zigzagging wildly, still a hundred meters from the end of the runway.
The sister-fucking idiot doesn't realize the Thunder planes have destroyed the runway. There's nothing to take off on!
"I'll meet you at the end of the runway," he'd told Thanh, "and we will take off together." So Thanh had taxied.
The fool! That moment marked the end of Aleksandr Ivanovic's naïveté.
Mesmerized, he watched as the Thunder plane drew closer, saw a stream of smoke from its gunport, and a second later heard a loud braaa-aaat. It was the same gun that terrified all sane pilots when they studied it. This was the first time Aleks had actually heard one.
The Thunder plane was already by, but its image was fresh in his mind's eye. Big and angry looking, with green and black and tan camouflage paint and a splash of bright blue at the top of the vertical stabilizer.
He dared to look and saw that Thanh's aircraft was still taxiing. Had the Thunder plane missed?
"Thanh! Get out!" he cried.
The MiG-21 continued in a straight line, off the pavement and toward the sleeping quarters . . . slowing in the grass, stopping finally beside the entrance to the dugout. The hardy Tumanskii engine continued to squeal as smoke began to curl from the right wing-root.
Did Aleks see a shrug of movement from inside the cockpit?
"Get out of the aircraft!" he heard himself hoarsely yell again.
A roar of dismay erupted from the throats of a dozen maintenance men, who began to run from the hangarettes to help Thanh get out.
Aleks stood, wanting to run out and join them . . . hesitating.
A bomblet's timer expired and it exploded with a loud bang, and two of the men dropped in their tracks. Two others turned to scramble back to the safety of the hangarettes, but the remainder screamed defiantly and kept running toward the young hero.
More smoke trickled from the wing-root. There was indeed movement from within the cockpit. The canopy cracked open and started slowly to lift.
He was alive. Aleks began to smile. Thanh was alive!
Nine maintenance men had made it to within twenty meters of the aircraft with its still-squealing engine when the sky again began to rain bullets.
"Nooooo," moaned Aleks as he watched.
The downpour was intense, making the turf pop and sputter, and the maintenance men fell in their tracks as if swatted by a giant hand. The small-tail MiG-21 jumped and shuddered, then knelt onto its right wing before spouting flame from the fuselage aft of the now-opened canopy. The Tumanskii engine stopped dead.
Braaa-aaa-aaat. The sound followed the spectacle.
Aleks glanced up, saw a Thunder plane pulling away, another diving in its place. Tears were awash in his eyes. He could not remove the mental image of the young lieutenant as he'd looked at him with trust in his eyes. He stifled a sob.
"Forgive me!" Aleks moaned.
More deadly hail. Thanh's aircraft danced and shuddered from side to side with the impacts. Its remaining gear collapsed and it settled onto the grass.
Braaa-aaaa-aaat.
A final fury, this one walking and stirring angrily about the entire area, making the tarmac pop and jump just as the sod had done.
Braaa-aaa-aaa-aaa-aaat.
The small-tail MiG-21 was burning fiercely. Once Aleks thought he saw an arm slowly rise from the inferno of the cockpit, but he doubted that could be so.
He began to cry.
The siren at the operations building again sounded, and through his grief Aleks wondered if it was the alert for the attack that had just occurred, or if another was beginning.
It was the latter, for a few minutes later Phantoms began to dive-bomb the runway. Again Aleks Ivanovic curled into a ball, still sobbing, but his sadness was quickly replaced by terror as bombs again began to rain upon the airfield.
CHAPTER SIX
Tuesday, April 25th, 10
25 Local—Kep Auxiliary Airfield, Democratic Republic of Vietnam
Air Regiment Commandant Quon
Quon stared out the open door of the big Russian helicopter, dazed in his grief, mind racing with self-incrimination and memories of his son.
The boy had been conceived the year of Quon's heroic return from Europe, the seed energetically pumped into a lively fifteen-year-old offspring of Lieutenant Tho's stodgy uncle, as it was into a dozen other daughters eager to please the dashing young pilot. But then the revolt had come, and he'd hurried into the mountains to hide and fight for the Viet Minh. He'd not learned of the girl's condition until several months after their frolic, and by then he'd not been able to remember what she'd looked like.
The girl's father had been a high-ranking Lao Dong party official, sufficiently important that when hostilities began, he and his family had been imprisoned in Hanoi by the French. When Quon learned of her pregnancy, he'd been told the girl was already swollen like a melon and daily announced to Frenchmen within earshot that the child's father was a brave pilot named Quon who would soon come to rescue her. He also heard that her important father was pleased with neither his daughter's condition nor her suitor. That was all. News from Hanoi had been shut off because of the war, and he'd forgotten the affair as he learned to fight on the ground like an elusive mud-hog, rather than in the sky like a great predatory bird.
By the time he'd heard about the Hanoi girl, Quon had already plucked another from a nearby village to keep his campsite neat, prepare his food, and help carry his belongings when they moved by night. Many Vietnamese men were either very shy in the presence of females, or looked upon them as shallow and useless objects. A considerable number of Viet Minh were more sexually attracted to their fellow warriors with whom they shared hardships than to the women in the villages. But Quon liked females and preferred them young, and by the end of that long conflict, he'd gone through several girls, none older than sixteen. One had been killed as she hurled herself, screaming defiantly, upon an advancing platoon of legionnaires. That one had likely saved his life as he escaped. But the fourteen-year-old girl had sacrificed herself willingly, and he'd understood it as a reasonable and necessary act. He'd mourned only because she'd been especially obeisant and might be hard to replace. That worry was proved unfounded when he took an equally humble and dedicated girl, gangling and wonderfully elastic-limbed, from the next village they passed through.
He thought hard before he remembered what had become of that one.
She'd allowed herself to become pregnant, this only a few months before he and Captain Tho had started on the long trek from the mountains northwest of Saigon to China. By the time they'd walked 200 kilometers, she was slowing them down. She'd grown plump and waddled along, complaining about her discomfort as well as the weight of the camp goods, until they'd finally grown exasperated and traded her to a small, nomadic Lao tribe.
The tribesmen had been short and misshapen from inbreeding, with pronounced noses, muscular bodies, and small arms and legs. Fierce and peacock proud, they wore metal jewelry that dangled from their ears and outsized, tattooed noses. Three naked and slack-jawed women busily attended the needs of the sixty men, each as pregnant as the girl with Quon.
Like other nomadic tribes, they traveled exceedingly light, carrying few luxuries. Sickly males and most female infants were cast out to die. Only one female was spared for each ten males, to become a communal seminal vessel and mother to the future tribe.
The previous year catastrophe had struck when four of their adult women were killed by a relentless fever. Since their replacements were very young, only the three adult females were left to them, and they were severely overworked. Every minute they were not moving, during the several days they were with them, at least one was on her hands and knees at a corner of the camp, lurching and grunting as she was serviced by one of the males whose jewelry jangled gaily as he howled and rutted.
Taller than the tribesmen by a head, Quon's gift was a curiosity appreciated by the village men. As he'd prepared to leave, he'd heard her wailing for him to take her, but her voice had come in starts and jerks accompanied by a lively, jingling sound. They'd received one of the tribe's shaggy pack horses for her, which he and Tho quickly decided was a good trade. The horse neither nagged nor complained and easily carried their load.
They'd continued through north-central Laos, then into southern China, where in mid-1953 Captain Tho had wheedled the Chinese People's Army into donating two vintage fighter aircraft to the Viet Minh cause.
Quon stared out the window and saw Kep in the distance. The trip would soon be over.
Quon remembered the child he'd acknowledged. The one who had grown up to die in a hail of American cannon rounds! He groaned at the thought, and his adjutant looked at him with an embarrassed, sympathetic look.
In 1954 they'd quickly lost their two aircraft to French gunfire, and both Tho and Quon had only narrowly escaped death. When the Viet Minh had marched victoriously into Hanoi, he and Major Tho had hurried to the Gia Lam airport to observe the facilities and inspect the military aircraft abandoned by the French, some battle damaged and others victims of cannibalization. He'd still been there when the message from the child's mother had arrived, passed to him by her party-official father, who was Major Tho's uncle. Le Duc Tho was a prominent member of Ho Chi Minh's entourage, a resolute, often-jailed martyr of the Lao Dong party, and a man to be reckoned with.
Quon had judiciously wed the woman he did not remember and acknowledged the son he'd never seen. Later the party newspaper Nham Dan had published the first of dozens of articles about the great hero Quon. Mostly lies, but always flattering. According to Nham Dan the marriage was solemnized by the girl's father, and the couple bade to keep the covenants of marriage so long as the Republic breathed freedom into the breasts of Vietnamese people.
Le Duc Tho had certainly been solemn, but the only words he'd spoken to Quon had been a terse threat to bring no more shame to his family. While he doted on his grandson, after the hasty marriage he paid little attention to either his daughter or Quon.
Le Duc Tho had gone on to become the most trusted confidant of the Enlightened One, and it was now rumored that he might even replace him as president. He was in the South as Ho Chi Minh's on-scene agent, orchestrating the war effort and keeping the military activities in tune with the political ones. His nephew was General Tho, commandant of the People's Army Air Force, and his son-in-law was Quon, Hero of the Republic. But the only one of the group he cared for greatly, his only grandson . . . was now dead.
The helicopter engine surged and clattered, and they settled toward the end of the battered runway below. The Russian helicopter pilots were wary, looking about nervously for enemy fighter-bombers, although the Phue Yen radar continued to announce that all was clear.
The Russians build fine helicopters, Quon thought, trying to keep his mind busy with inconsequentials.
He studied the damage to the airfield. The Americans had continued bombing throughout the previous day, and the previous night the damnable Navy Intruders had bombed even more, killing many of the repair crew trying to patch the holes in the tarmac runway.
The runway was still unusable, but no air raids had been made today, and if their luck held, they'd be able to repair it sufficiently for the three undamaged Mig-21's to take off and return to the safety of Phue Yen. Two other MiGs would be transported by giant Russian workhorse helicopters to the Gia Lam aircraft-repair facility.
Below them he saw the MiG that had been attacked and destroyed. Burned to skeleton and ashes. As was his son.
He wished he could recall the boy and tell him to ignore the lies created by Nham Dan.
In his shaken voice he directed the helicopter pilot to fly the length of the runway before landing, so he could further survey the extent of the damage.
The work gangs are making progress, he finally decided.
He held his face stony then as they circled back and descended
to land near the demolished MiG-21, where it rested in the grass near the end of the runway. He no longer appeared distraught. An observer would have believed him to be in complete control.
What sort of feelings should he hold for a fool who insisted on following in his father's footsteps?
Sadness. Utter sadness. He caught a breath.
The boy had attended pilot training and taken up the ridiculous false name his father had suggested. The father had encouraged him even though he'd suspected his limitations. Self-recrimination nagged unmercifully until he again convinced himself the American assassins had somehow singled out his son for death.
Quon remembered meeting the frightened eight-year-old, so full of stories planted by his mother. The awkward child with bright eyes. He remembered the boy's childhood, remembered ignoring him again and yet again, always in a hurry to attend to important matters.
During puberty Buddhist sons would go into the mountains for a month of seclusion and prayer with their fathers to learn humility, how to lead a righteous life, and whatever other nuggets of wisdom the father wished to impart. What had he taught his son? How to strut like a peacock infatuated with its own legend? How to smile enigmatically when awed fools asked about the lies printed in Nham Dan? He'd done such a good job of it that the boy had wanted to be like him.
When his son was fifteen, Quon had decided it was time to participate in his tutelage and had excited him with the news. Time had not allowed it. He'd promised to take the boy with him on this or that trip. He'd never done it. He'd spent his available leisure hours with his latest concubine rather than his wife, leaving her to maintain his home and raise their son.
Guilt flooded him, made his chest hurt with emotion as he realized how much he missed the foolish, fawning boy.
He crawled from the helicopter while the rotors were still turning and hurried to the wreckage to stand dumbly before it and stare. Smoke still issued from here and there. Only a few ribs and part of the tail section remained intact.
