by Tom Wilson
How far had he come?
He'd found the road and begun running on it at 1640. He furrowed his brow and computed his normal rate and the times he'd had to slow down for obstacles. Then he added the short distance he'd walked after darkness. He was at least three, and no more than five, miles from where he'd landed.
He tried it again and decided he'd come four miles. Fortunate miles, he told himself, for there'd only been the two houses and no travelers on the path. Several times on the mountainside he'd been able to look out on the flatlands and had seen villages, cities, and farms there. Those he had to avoid at all costs.
The sliver-moon peeked out from the cloud it had been hiding behind, and he eased himself upright. The night must become his time to travel. When he'd been running on the road, he'd thought it fortunate that he was a runner and that he enjoyed hiking and camping. Henceforth that might do him little good. He wouldn't be able to run at night, and his outdoor knowledge was of far different places. In the darkness many things would be different, easy things would become difficult. He had a lot to learn if he was to evade capture for long.
It began to rain, lightly at first, but quickly building in tempo.
He found shelter beneath a tree trunk that grew at an angle. After an hour the rains stopped as quickly as they'd begun, and he continued northward. He was thoroughly soaked and miserable, and his progress was slow as he slipped and slid along the narrow path.
1930 Local — Hoa Lo Prison, Hanoi, DRV
Air Regiment Commandant Quon
The prisoner was strung up in the interrogation room when Quon arrived. When he strode into the room, the senior lieutenant bowed appropriately and spoke in an obsequious voice, trying to remain between Quon and the prisoner, who'd been stripped and was receiving his initial beating.
Quon pushed the prison commandant aside and stared. The prisoner was not Lokee. Quon sighed with disappointment.
"His name?"
"Cah-tah. He is not on your list, comrade Quon."
"His unit?" Quon's interest began to lag.
"He has not yet told us."
Quon felt discouraged. His intuition had let him down.
He stared at the prisoner for another moment, then looked at the interrogator. "I must have the information very quickly, for I have an important obligation."
He sat and watched, interested in the brute-force technique of the interrogator who asked his questions and manipulated the prisoner into interesting, almost impossible positions using ropes. He asked his questions and used a bright cigarette tip on the man's head and body. He asked his questions, and by the time he'd removed three of the pilot's fingernails, he'd been told everything Quon wanted.
Quon became elated when the interrogator interpreted.
The other aircraft that had been shot down might indeed be Lokee's. The last flight to bomb the bridge had been called Ba-koo-dah, and Lokee had been one of those. When the prisoner had been shot down and the Thunder planes had circled him and were talking on their radios, they had said a Ba-koo-dah had been shot down.
As Quon listened to the interrogator, he smiled. So close now. He walked over to get a closer view of the prisoner, and the senior lieutenant prison commandant grew panicky.
"Please, comrade. If certain party officials find out that prisoners are being killed for no reason . . ."
"For no reason?" Quon turned on the man. "Is the murder of my son no reason?"
The senior lieutenant raised his hand to his mouth, as if guilty of blasphemy. "Of course not, comrade Quon." He tried to explain. "But as each prisoner arrives, a report of his name and condition is forwarded to the"—he dropped his voice to a whisper—"Commissioner of People's Safety." He spoke of the official who controlled the secret police, the man called the Commissioner of Death.
"The Ministry of Internal Affairs shares control of Mee prisoners with the People's Army," said the senior lieutenant. "We are accountable to both."
Quon sighed. The lieutenant was truly fearful, and he supposed there was justification. "If anyone questions, tell them to speak with me, comrade Lieutenant."
That didn't seem to mollify the prison commander, so Quon looked at the prisoner and smiled. "Tell them this one arrived in good health and cooperated well."
The Mee pilot's eyes were half-shut, and he was gasping from his awful pain.
"Reward him," said Quon. "Feed him and tell him that because of what he said, I will catch Lokee and kill him like the monster he is."
"We cannot tell prisoners such things, comrade Quon."
Quon's enthusiasm was undampened. "Do as you wish. But I order you to treat him well, for he has made me very happy."
The return drive was even slower than the trip to Hanoi had been. With the Long Bien bridge impassable they had to find a way to cross the Hong Song, and the night traffic was queued in impossibly long lines at the ferry slips near Hanoi. The driver detoured northwest to Son Tay, more than fifty kilometers out of their way, and used Quon's influence to place them in front of the line. After crossing the Hong, they backtracked eastward to Phuc Yen.
By the time they'd returned to the base, the Russian colonel had long before retired to his room. General Tho was livid with anger that Quon hadn't been there to greet and entertain them. Quon accepted his admonishments, saying he would atone by presenting them with a superb tour the next day. When Tho calmed enough to ask where he'd been, Quon told him.
General Tho knew about Quon's mission of vengeance and thoroughly disapproved.
"Forget this silliness, and about this man you call Lokee. Your son was killed in battle and died heroically. A warrior cannot ask for more. You should not ask for more."
"I may be very close," said Quon. "Either Lokee or his wingman was shot down and is hiding in the southern Viet Bac. He may be no more than a few thousand meters from where we stand."
"Forget it, I tell you," said Tho.
"I radioed intelligence in Hanoi and told them to find if it is truly Lokee, and to tell the search team to capture the pilot alive."
Tho shook his head wearily.
Quon stared at his superior officer evenly. "This thing I must do."
Tho looked evenly at his old comrade. "I hope this thing does not destroy you."
1950 Local—Guest Trailer 9A, Takhli RTAFB, Thailand
GS-15 Linda Lopes
She was not a maudlin person, for she'd learned at an early age that it was better to reason her way through bad news than spend her time wringing her hands. She was very good in emergencies, her bosses had always told her, and this one qualified. The guy she'd loved for eight tough years was in deep trouble.
Colonel B. J. Parker had been considerate enough to come and tell her about it. They were not at all sure where he'd gone down, he said, because everyone else had been rejoining south of the target. They thought he might have gone down somewhere near the northern side of the city of Hanoi, near a bridge he'd tried to bomb. No, Parker had corrected himself. The bridge he had bombed, and had destroyed a span of. It had still been standing when the rest of them had left the area, but they'd received a jubilant call from Tan Son Nhut Air Base saying the reconnaissance film showed a span of the bridge was definitely down.
Lucky's had been the only bombs to hit.
"If he was fortunate," Parker had told her, "he's been captured by North Vietnamese soldiers." He'd explained that was better than being captured by civilians.
So Linda had returned to her trailer to hope and pray that Lucky had been captured by soldiers and not by civilians enraged because they'd been attacked by American bombs.
Sometimes the North Vietnamese released names of the pilots they had captured. She said another prayer that his would be on the next list. Then Linda Lopes, who'd heard she was called the Ice Maiden by some, and a cold bitch by others, began to hold herself and rock, and to sob uncontrollably.
2015 Local—Plans & Programs, HQ Seventh Air Force
Major Benny Lewis
General Moss
had told them to call him at his quarters as soon as the results of the strike were in and interpreted. Ten minutes earlier Pearly had made that call, and now Moss was on his way. They waited in his office.
The two RF-4C recce birds that had crossed over the northern side of Hanoi at 1636 local hours, immediately after the strike, had returned directly to Tan Son Nhut. At 1812 local time they'd landed, and their film had been off-loaded and processed in the Recce Tech, the best-equipped and most efficient photo-intelligence facility in the world.
Photo interpreters had analyzed the poststrike film negatives, frame by frame, as they emerged from the auto-developing system. Within fifteen minutes the initial estimates had been made. Then the best and most revealing frames were selected, some forty-seven of them for this particular job, and a thorough bomb damage assessment had been made. That process included enlarging selected frames and poring over each for signs of target and collateral damage, damage to defenses, and other information of intelligence value.
It was said that a good photo interpreter could tell the size and weight of a human from a single frame, from two frames he could tell his age and unit, and from three frames his IQ and mother's maiden name. The PIs at Tan Son Nhut were very good and, using their magnifying glasses and interpretive skills, had formed a comprehensive picture of what had taken place in the hour and nine minutes between the pre- and poststrike recce sorties. This they wrote onto summary sheets that accompanied the seventeen photos they selected.
Lieutenant Colonel Pearly Gates carried a manila folder.
A total of forty-eight aircraft sorties involving nine different types and models of aircraft had participated in the attack. Twelve MiGs had threatened and been driven away, and seventeen more had been deployed into the Chinese buffer zone during the attack. Nine SAM and sixty-four artillery batteries had engaged the aircraft. Some 145,000 gallons of petroleum, 127,000 pounds of bombs and munitions, 21 surface-to-air missiles, and 9,900 artillery rounds had been expended. One hundred and one Americans had been airborne to support or participate in the strike, and 1,348 North Vietnamese had actively defended the bridge. One North Vietnamese MiG-17 pilot, seventy-three artillerymen, and four civilians had been killed or wounded, and two American pilots were missing in action. The results of that grand effort were summarized in the twenty-three pages of photos and summary sheets contained in the folder.
Pearly pushed his glasses back on his nose, a nervous habit Benny had noticed in the man. "Forgot to tell you. My admin sergeant said you got a call from Nellis while we were in the control center."
"Anything important?" Benny's mind was elsewhere.
"She said your boss is some pissed off. I guess the hospital commander's raising hell about your pulling the wool over his eyes when he signed your waiver to travel."
"Oh, shit," said Benny. For the past days he'd been preoccupied with the air strike, and he'd completely forgotten.
"Your boss says for you to get your ass back there pronto if not sooner, because the hospital commander's about to press charges."
"You got any connections, Pearly, so I can get an early flight?"
"I'll get you out on the med-evac bird like the general wanted."
"You'd better make it ASAP."
"We've got med-evacs going both to Travis and San Antonio."
"Make it Travis." He wondered if he should take time to drop in on Julie and see how she was faring.
"I'll call your colonel in a couple hours when it's morning there. Tell him General Moss is putting you in for a gong to your Bronze Star for your effort here, that he's also writing a personal commendation to go into your records."
"Think Moss'll do it?"
"Sure. Moss thinks a lot of his mafia."
"You're part of the group. He appreciates having someone on his staff here who'll tell it to him the way it was."
"Yeah, but he's got a special feeling for you guys from Nellis."
The general hurried into the office, wearing a polo shirt, white shorts, tennis shoes, and a bronze tan. He waved them into his inner office, then sprawled behind his massive desk.
"I'm supposed to play a set of tennis with the fucking honorable congressman from Massachusetts. I dislike that slimy politician more every time I meet him, and I'm looking forward to whipping his ass."
Pearly started to pull the summary from the folder, but Moss raised his hands.
"Did they knock it down?"
"Yes, sir. One span's down and two more are damaged."
Moss grinned at Benny. "Told you guys the three-thousand-pounders would do the trick."
He noticed Lewis's grave look.
"Losses?"
"Two of them, sir," said Pearly Gates.
"That's unfortunate. Who knocked it down?"
Benny spoke up. "From all we can gather, it was one of Lucky Anderson's bombs."
Moss chuckled. "So Lucky came through again."
"He's down, General."
Moss immediately sobered and stared. At Nellis, Lucky had been his handpicked mafia leader. He had genuine affection for him.
"Lucky sent the rest of them ahead so he'd be last on the target," said Benny. "A couple minutes later he called the success code, then no one heard anything from him again."
"Did they hear an emergency beeper?" asked Moss.
"Yes, sir," said Pearly. "Colonel Parker was circling a pilot who went down about twenty miles south of the target when he heard it. He couldn't take the force back for him, and we don't know where he went down. The Wild Weasels said two sets of SAMs were fired from Hanoi, but they didn't have him in sight."
"That's a hell of a loss for the Air Force. A hell of a loss." Moss looked at the ceiling and stared there. "That's an expensive bridge."
"Yes, sir, it is," said Lewis.
Moss blinked and lowered his gaze. "I had a gut feeling we'd knock it down. As soon as we got the initial success code, I called Admiral Ryder and told him we'd done it."
Ryder was USCINCPAC, the admiral in charge of Pacific-theater operations.
"He said to get on with the program and knock down the rest of the damned bridges, that he'd take care of the authorization." He pinned his look on Pearly Gates. "Go ahead and release the proper ATO."
The air tasking order would be transmitted to the units to spell our their targets.
"Yes, sir," said Pearly Gates.
"What's on the menu for tomorrow?"
"Both Thud bases will hit the bridge at the Canales des Rapides in the morning. The Navy'll strike two bridges near Haiphong tomorrow night."
Moss drew a deep breath, then slowly released it. He regarded Lewis. "Thanks for coming over, Benny. You've been a great help. Guess you'll be going back now."
"Tomorrow, sir."
"Take better care of that back."
"Will do, General."
"They treating you right at Nellis?"
"Yes, sir. I've got a good job."
"I told the general there he was getting a good man last time I spoke to him."
"Thank you, sir."
"Anything I can help you with?"
Benny immediately thought of Mal Stewart's official status.
"Well?"
His face burned again with the shame Colonel Lyons had put him through at Takhli. "No, sir," he finally said.
"You guys never delivered on your six-packs. Trying to welsh on a bet?"
"I'll have one sent to your quarters tomorrow before I leave."
Moss nodded firmly. "I'll collect the other from Lucky when he gets back."
2200 Local—Command Post, Takhli RTAFB, Thailand
The new air tasking order had arrived thirty minutes earlier, and the frag order outlining Takhli's role had been broken out for the next morning's mission. They were to return to Hanoi with 3,000-pound bombs, this time to attack the five-span bridge over the Canales des Rapides, just four miles north of the Doumer bridge.
The rail line that ran out of Hanoi went over the Doumer bridge, then split, east towa
rd Haiphong and north over the Canales des Rapides toward China. Cutting the bridge would stop the rail traffic from China before it reached the big rail yard at Gia Lam. There was to be no letup now that they'd knocked down the first bridge. The campaign to destroy the enemy's key bridges and shut down their rail and road traffic had been turned on.
Captain Manny DeVera
Max Foley said the headquarters planners thought if they could knock down the big, tough Doumer bridge, the rest would be easier. But as he studied the target, he said he was not at all sure they were right.
"The Doumer bridge is big," agreed Manny, "and look how much trouble we had hitting the damn thing. The Canales bridge is a lot smaller, and it'll be that much harder to hit."
Max grinned. "Think we ought to try Bullpups again?"
"Fuck you, Major."
"Just asking," said Max.
Max knew and liked Lucky Anderson as well as anyone, had worked for him at Nellis, and had known him even before that. It was the first time he'd shown anything but a grimace since the afternoon mission had landed.
"I talked to Benny Lewis on the phone," said Max. "He's returning to the States in the morning."
"Land of the big BX," said Manny. He looked at Max. "Lyons makes a sour look every time Lewis's name is mentioned. Something happen between those two?"
"Something, but I don't know what. Benny came out of his office all pissed off last week, but he wouldn't tell me what it was about."
Manny fished. "What do you think of Lyons?"
"Same as everyone else, I guess. No one except the Bad Injin and B. J. Parker likes the egotistical bastard. Lucky Anderson had his number and Lyons pussyfooted around him. But with Lucky out of the picture, you watch your ass. I know he doesn't like you."
"B.J. likes him?" Manny asked. B. J. Parker and Max Foley were friends.
"Lyons talks about all the influence his family has in Washington and how he knows a lot of politicians, and B.J.'s impressed. He would not at all mind making brigadier general."
"Yeah. B.J.'s ambitious."
"Why're you asking about Lyons? Jealous because he's chasing your girl?"
Lyons had been seen with Jackie Bell a lot since Manny dropped out of the game.
