Lucky’s Bridge (Vietnam Air War Book 2)

by Tom Wilson

  Pearly stared.

  "We've got an Air Force that could do it. You know that. All we have to do is convince the politicians to let us act like we're at war and turn us loose to cut off the snake's head up north. I'll bet it wouldn't take you a week to build a plan that would force Hanoi's hand. Hell, I'll bet you've already got one."

  "Yes, sir," said Pearly. "I do. Although it's very rough and would need a lot of work."

  "What's the first step of your plan?"

  "Counter-air. We'd take out their air defense network."

  "What aircraft would we use?"

  "The Wild Weasels would lead the way, but we'd use everything we've got. B-52's to fighters. We'd also use short-range missiles, decoys, and the entire conventional arsenal."

  "And second?"

  "Take out the hundred strategic targets the JCS said were critical to their war effort."

  "And then?"

  "Destroy the reservoirs and dikes and flood the country. The whole place sits right at sea level, and that would paralyze them. We'd also mine their ports and waterways, destroy their military headquarters and centers of government, take out their . . ."

  Moss interrupted. "How long would it take us to force North Vietnam from the fight?"

  "Within three weeks their infrastructure would be destroyed."

  "Our losses?"

  "Eight percent of our strike force the first week. Down to less than one percent after we've destroyed the defenses."

  Moss stared. "Do you believe that scenario?"

  "Yes, sir, I do."

  "Between you and me, I briefed something similar to your plan to the Air Force Chief of Staff," said Moss. "Only I told him it might take as much as four to six weeks before the North Vietnamese would say uncle."

  Pearly caught his breath. He wondered. . . .

  "He said the timing's wrong, that the political environment is sour. The President's scared of the Russians and Chinese, the SecDef's determined we can't win and he's suspicious of military advice, and Congress is increasingly fed up with the whole thing."

  Pearly deflated.

  Moss was slowly shaking his head. "A recent poll showed that more than sixty percent of the American public support a vigorous air campaign to win the war, but the people who can make it happen are either too frightened or too political to let us do it."

  The colonel reappeared at the door, looking nervous.

  "Just a couple more minutes," called Moss.

  "We'll be late, General."

  "Won't be the first time I've kept a politician waiting."

  The colonel backed from the doorway.

  "Another delegation of truth-seekers from Washington," explained Moss.

  "I'd better be going, then."

  "When I'm finished."

  "Yes, sir."

  "I was once a pretty damned good squadron commander, Pearly, so every now and then you've got to put up with me trying to act like a leader. I envy the commanders in the operational units. I manage assets while they lead men into air battles."

  Pearly waited as Moss reflected.

  "But then every once in a while I get to hand out advice to you guys on my staff. One of my strong points when I was a leader was that I knew to keep my men informed and then back off and give them a chance to get the job done."

  Pearly nodded.

  "Try it yourself. Give the wings the best advice and the best plans you can, and then get out of their way and let them fly and fight."

  "Yes, sir."

  "We can win this war, Pearly, and we will once the politicians give us the nod. They'll come around. Until then we've got to keep as much pressure as possible off the backs of our ground troops. One good way is to carry out our new OPlan."

  "Then you're not canceling the campaign?"

  "Of course not. Go ahead and send the results to CINCPAC, bad-news photos and all, and I'll make a call to the admiral this afternoon before it gets there. I'll tell him we proved we could hit the damn bridge, but the weapons we were directed to use were too light and made us too vulnerable. He's still a Navy fighter jock at heart, and he understands glitches like this. For the next couple of weeks we're going to pound on the small airfields, enemy electrical plants, and chokepoints in the new authorized-targets list. Then we'll go after that damnable bridge again, but we'll do it with bombs, like we should've the first time."

  Pearly was beginning to feel better. The general, he decided, was indeed a leader.

  "When I was commander of the Fighter Weapons Center at Nellis," said Moss, "I had a group of fighter jocks who were damned good with tactics. I want you to work with a few of them, and for you guys to iron out the glitches before we go back to the Doumer bridge. Once we've knocked that one down, we'll go to work on the others."

  "Yes, sir," said Pearly.

  "A few of my old Nellis mafia are stationed over here. You know Lucky Anderson?"

  "He's a flight commander at Takhli."

  "Then there's Benny Lewis. . . ." Moss frowned. "But he's in a stateside hospital."

  Lewis had been a Wild Weasel pilot. Pearly Gates had met him and had known his backseater well. The combat theater was a small world.

  Moss went over a few more names, then settled on Anderson again. "Lucky's as good as they come. You want me to call B. J. Parker and get him sprung loose to work with you?"

  "No need to, sir. I've a good working relationship with Colonel Parker."

  The colonel was back. "The congressman from New York's asking for you, General."

  Lieutenant General Moss sighed. He rose to his feet, glared at his chief of staff, then turned back to Pearly and pointed at the recce photos still arrayed on his desktop.

  "Next time we go after that damned thing," he said, "I'll expect better news."

  "I sure hope I can give it to you, General."

  "Now get your ass out of here and go get some sleep."

  1040 Local

  Five minutes later Pearly entered the administrative section of his branch, fully intending to spend only a few minutes before taking the general's advice. But when Pearly asked the WAF sergeant if there was anything going, she motioned her head at a visitor seated in his office, wearing a civilian safari outfit.

  "Says he wants to speak with you, Colonel," she said.

  "Who is he?"

  "Special agent's all he said. Didn't give a name."

  "Anything else?"

  "Staff Sergeant Slye went to his barracks a few minutes ago saying he was sick."

  "That's twice this week for him."

  She nodded.

  Slye was a sometime eight ball and borderline malingerer. The master sergeant he worked for said his frequent sicknesses were the result of too much partying, too late. He said he'd seen him in some pretty shabby joints downtown. When Pearly, tongue in cheek, had asked what he'd been doing there himself, the sergeant hadn't smiled. He'd said he liked to keep tabs on his people.

  Pearly stepped into his office, wondering how quickly he might be able to get rid of the spook. No telling which agency he worked for. They all liked the title of "special agent," and to Pearly's mind they were all quite alike.

  "Can I help you?" he asked.

  The man looked up lazily from the Time magazine he'd taken from Pearly's in-basket.

  "You Lieutenant Colonel Gates?"

  Pearly sighed and chose to ignore the question. He was obviously a light colonel, and the name tag on his right breast pocket was not misspelled.

  He took his seat behind his desk. "I've not had the pleasure," he said.

  The man's brows furrowed.

  "Who are you?" Pearly asked.

  The man brightened. "Special Agent Brown."

  "Identification?"

  The man fumbled, then held up a leather case with a badge and card. He was OSI, and his last name was York.

  Not too tricky. Pearly figured he was here to look into the security leak that was compromising the target list. The agents were becoming a pestilence within the headqua
rters.

  "We'd like to question the men in your branch, Colonel."

  "Is it really necessary?"

  The spook grimaced. "We believe so."

  "Concerning what?"

  "Routine security inspection. We'll start with a general rundown of your organization's function. Manpower. List of personnel. Duties. That sort of thing."

  Joe Friday was alive and well.

  Pearly told him there was a total of seventeen people in his branch. Including himself, there were three officers, five noncoms, counting his admin sergeant, and nine airmen.

  The agent took out a notepad and pen. "Names?"

  "The staff sergeant out front will give you a roster."

  The spook leaned forward, trying to pin him with a confidential stare. "Anyone acting suspicious lately? Anyone I should be concentrating on?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "You know."

  "No, I don't. Tell me."

  When the agent was more specific, Pearly told him he didn't know if any of his people were homosexuals, alcoholics, or narcotics users. He didn't believe so, but who could really know? Nor was there any unpatriotic talk that he'd heard of.

  "Anyone reporting in sick a lot? Taking an excessive amount of time off?"

  Pearly thought of Sergeant Slye, then decided that even if he was somewhat of an eight ball, there was no way the angular young man from Arkansas could be a spy. Anyway, he wasn't gone that often. "Not really," he answered.

  "How many have access to classified material?"

  "All of them," replied Pearly.

  "Any Top Secret material stored here?"

  "Yes."

  The Agent brightened. "How many Top Secret documents?"

  "You have no need to know that."

  "I can show you my security clearance."

  Pearly sighed. "You still have absolutely no need to know, and that's prerequisite. Much of our material is compartmentalized and source sensitive, requiring special clearance."

  "Can I see the document logs, showing who handles what?"

  Pearly nodded. "I'll have them brought to you."

  "I'll need to see where you keep the documents."

  "They're in a classified vault and you can't go in there."

  The agent's voice was rising. "I can go anywhere in this building. I have an order signed by Lieutenant General Moss."

  "We control documents that even General Moss can't see."

  The agent looked exasperated.

  "Look, let's start this entire thing over. You tell me what you're after, and I'll make sure you get to see what's necessary for your investigation. We'll even sanitize the vault and escort you in there, if it's really necessary."

  "It's not an investigation," argued Special Agent Brown/ York. "Just a routine security-procedures check."

  Again Pearly sighed, feeling the weariness creeping over him. "Then you tell me what your routine check's about, and I'll give you all the help I can."

  The agent would not tell him what the check was about, even though Pearly knew. Ten frustrating minutes later they walked down the hall to the other facilities of Pearly's domain.

  "We work in four different rooms, all in this wing of the building," Pearly told him. "My office, two working offices, there and there, and the classified vault on the end."

  "Your men work in three different groups?"

  "Two. Combat Programs, and Documentation." He pointed at one door. "There's a major, a captain, and seven enlisted men working in the Combat Programs section. They build the operations and logistics plans." He pointed at another. "Documentation section's run by Master Sergeant Turner. His five men keep track of all the material. They post amendments and changes, run the vault, and make sure the compartmentalized documents stay that way."

  "Where do you keep your classified material?"

  Pearly pointed again at the massive steel door. "Top Secret and Sensitive documents are kept in the vault, controlled by the Documentation section. Secret and Confidential material's in safes in the various rooms. Which are you interested in?"

  The answer, Pearly knew, was Top Secret, -Sensitive, for that was how the targets were classified until they were attacked. After they were bombed, they were downgraded to Confidential.

  The agent surprised him. "All of it," he said.

  "You want to include every classified document we've got?"

  The agent nodded. "Past, present, and future."

  Pearly stopped, then slowly took off his glasses and began to polish them. He was dog-weary from the lack of sleep, and increasingly impatient with the OSI agent.

  "Something wrong with that?"

  Pearly held the glasses up to inspect them. "I won't tell you the number of Top Secret documents we've got on hand, but in all we have more than nine thousand classified manuals, plans, and pieces of correspondence. Probably more like twenty thousand, if you count amendments and changes."

  The agent's mouth dropped.

  "So where do you want to start?" Pearly asked wearily.

  "First with your people, then with the classified." The agent was frowning. "Maybe I'd better call in a couple of other agents."

  "Maybe so. Or enlist some of my men to help. You've bitten off a big chunk."

  Airman First Class O'Neil came out of the Documentation office and started down the hall.

  Pearly called his name.

  O'Neil turned and saw them, and hurried back. "Yes, sir."

  "You going somewhere important?"

  "Just down to the cafeteria for lunch."

  "Special Agent . . . what did you say your name was?"

  "Jones."

  "Special Agent Jones here is helping to conduct a routine security procedures check in the headquarters. Wants to make sure we're handling our classified material properly."

  O'Neil did not bat an eye. He was one of Pearly's sharpest young airmen. He had two years of college, and his NCOIC, Master Sergeant Turner, was trying to get him into the airman's education-and-commissioning program.

  "Is Sergeant Turner in?" Pearly asked.

  As his name was spoken, Turner came down the hallway toward them.

  Pearly introduced them. The NCOIC appeared more nervous than O'Neil, Pearly observed, likely because he knew the turmoil that was about to beset his section. Turner was an orderly man with an orderly mind and did not like interruptions in the routines he'd established to handle the tremendous work load.

  "Why don't you begin with the Documentation section," Pearly told the agent, "so we can get that part over with and things back to normal. Sergeant Turner will help you."

  He told Turner to sanitize, if necessary, and show him the vault.

  "Will do, Colonel," said the master sergeant. His look remained grim.

  "Now," said Pearly Gates, "I am going to follow a direct order and go to the BOQ to get some rest."

  1400 Local—Route Pack Five, North Vietnam

  Major Lucky Anderson

  The big formation was over the western mountains, still twenty miles from the flatlands of pack six. There were a number of cumulus clouds at their altitude and more up ahead, and that fact was cheerful to no one.

  But Lucky's ECM pod was working, his flight was precisely spaced and positioned in the middle of the twenty-ship gaggle, and there was no flak at the height they flew at, so all was not amiss. They were on their way to the power-transmission station in a northern suburb of Hanoi to complete the destruction of the area's power-distribution network, and were flying in a beeline for the thing.

  Red Dog flight, the Wild Weasels, was ranging out a few miles ahead and called that there was only a single SAM radar signal on the air.

  So far so good. The Weasels should be able to deal with the single site. There were likely to be others, but according to the bomber generals all they had to do was sit back in their big formation and whistle, and the missiles would miss. But SAMs were all they were likely to have to worry about until they dived into the flak. The MiGs had been inactive for se
veral days now.

  "THIS IS BIG EYE. GOPHER AT ALPHA FOX ONE. I REPEAT. THIS IS BIG EYE. GOPHER AT ALPHA FOX ONE." The volume over the emergency channel was loud.

  I was wrong, he thought as the airborne radar, call sign Big Eye, made its MiG warning call. He glanced at the small map on his kneeboard to find the A-F-1 sector.

  "THIS IS MOTEL. GOPHER AT ALPHA GOLF THREE. I REPEAT. THIS IS MOTEL. GOPHER AT ALPHA GOLF THREE." Motel radar's transmission was less booming, but the words were spoken just as emphatically.

  Were the MiGs in A-F-1 or A-G-3? he wondered. Then he realized they were probably in both sectors, and he wondered if it wasn't going to be a MiG day.

  The radio channel became busy as flight leaders encouraged their pilots to maintain a lookout for MiGs.

  Lucky glanced out to the left side and saw the Red River in the distance. In a minute or so they would enter pack six.

  1403 Local—Hoa Binh Province, DRV

  Air Regiment Commandant Quon

  He piloted his distinctive MiG-21F, with its brightly polished aluminum and the red sash painted across the fuselage. Today they would use stealth, and he wished he could somehow become less visible. The previous week he'd ordered that all the MiGs be painted dull green, but it would take several weeks for the job to be completed.

  The small-tail MiG-21 was goosey, and the nose tended to wander in a tight turn, but Quon liked the aircraft's speed and had taken it to its limits on several occasions. Handled properly, it could turn like a nimble acrobat.

  He flew at the edge of a large cloud and listened to the voice of the radar controller. The Mee radar-hunters were in a four-ship formation a few kilometers to his right, the bigger formation a dozen kilometers to his left. He was between them. Quon's three-ship section of MiG-21's were to attack the radar-hunters. A larger group of MiG-17's was just now turning toward the rear of the larger formation.

  "This is Red Quon. Directions to target?" he radioed, asking the Phuc Yen radar controller to steer him toward the stern of the radar-hunters. The P-1 radar tracked his data-link return, and the controller knew his position as well as the location of the Thunder planes. The enemy jammers were set to confuse rocket and artillery battery radars, but didn't affect command-and-control radars such as the P-1.