Strike Eagle

by Doug Beason

  “Fuel.”

  “Ten thousand pounds.”

  “Altimeter.”

  “Passing nine thousand.”

  The minutes passed quickly. They came in from the south, heading straight for the sprawling complex. A single volcanic mountain jutted up from the jungle floor to the west. A checkerboard pattern of green fields dotted the surrounding area. From a mile above ground the area looked peaceful, lush. The day was hazy, barely affording a view of mountains. Bruce knew that Subic Naval Station, where his father was now stationed, lay to the southwest, some fifty miles away. He couldn’t make out the Navy base through the clouds.

  “Maddog, echelon right.”

  Maddog flight moved from a full, V-shaped fingertip formation to a half V. Two thousand feet to the right lay a town—dingy streets and tin-covered buildings. All around were the remnants of half-built buildings, a morass of people, the tops of brightly colored jeeps, and a confusion of activity.

  Then suddenly, they popped over a wire fence. The fence seemed to delineate a different world, a different universe. Bright green grass, razor-straight streets, and a permeating sense of orderliness.

  “Fifteen hundred,” warned Charlie.

  Bruce still followed in a tight wing, flying three feet behind Maddog Three’s wing tip and three feet to the left. They continued to fly over the expanse of Clark Air Base. The runway came up fast—even throttling back, they were on the landing strip almost before they knew it.

  “Maddog, break to an overhead pattern on my command: one break!” Skipper’s fighter tore off and down to the right, turning hard to come in for a landing. The rest of Maddog continued on.

  The feeling hit Bruce like a sledgehammer, the suddenness of it.

  The months pushing through the divorce, the rut he had fallen into … and now he was starting a new life, away from Ashley, but with the promise of a wide-open beginning. And with his Dad not fifty miles away, it had to be an omen.

  “Two’s in break.”

  He felt better than he had in his life—even including throwing the hat at June Week, or his interception in the Liberty Bowl. There was a crescendo lifting him up, pumping him into excitement.

  “Three’s in break.”

  When Maddog Three’s F-15E Strike Eagle broke right, leaving him alone in the air, Bruce went nonlinear.

  “Four—break.”

  He jammed the stick hard to his front and right. His fighter flipped over and executed the “break right” upside down. The gear warning horn blared throughout the cockpit.

  “Yahoo!” Charlie’s voice ricocheted over the intercom. “Go for it!”

  They continued the tight turn upside down until the F-15E pointed at the runway. Buildings and cars whizzed by below them; Bruce didn’t look, but he could imagine the open-mouthed stares as people gaped at the upside-down fighter. Now five hundred feet above ground level, Bruce continued to burn in toward the runway, still upside down.

  Charlie’s whoops added to the cacophony. Descending through three hundred feet, Bruce flipped the aircraft right side up and brought the aircraft on in. The airways were filled with excited voices—Bruce ignored them and greased his craft onto runway 02.

  The fighter didn’t even bounce as it glided in. Bruce automatically started the rundown sequence, disarmed the ejection seat, and switched to the runway frequency.

  “Taxiway Alpha to Joliet Ramp, Maddog. Parking assigned after a maintenance check—you are cleared for crossover.”

  “Roger, tower.”

  “Rog, rog, Assassin!” Charlie said. “You really know how to bring them in. Let’s hope nobody saw that, otherwise you’re going to be one hurting mo’fro.”

  Bruce clicked his mike. He concentrated on taxiing the fighter.

  By the time they arrived Bruce was too exhausted, too exhilarated to say anything. Charlie had kept quiet since landing, and the usual friendly banter was missing between the craft. Everyone was tired and ready to rest up for the next phase of the show—the start of the actual day-to-day flight operations.

  When Bruce revved down his engines, the enlisted engineer popped him off a friendly salute and ran back to where a gaggle of people waited. She motioned to the group. They pushed aluminum stairs to the F-15E and she climbed up. As the cockpit opened, Bruce unbuckled and struggled out of his seat.

  Long arms reached down to help him out. “Welcome to Clark, sir.” The female crew chief smiled down at him. She wasn’t a knockout, but she was pretty—and very female. It took a second before Bruce grinned. With his divorce, he had to keep reminding himself that it was all right to start looking again.

  “Thanks.” He decided he was going to like it here.

  As he pushed out of the craft, a blue-and-white staff car slid up to the fighter. A panel on the front of the car displayed an eagle—the symbol for a full colonel—with the words 4th tfw commander stenciled below the bird. Bruce’s eyes widened.

  Bruce nudged Charlie. “Think he’s coming to personally welcome us to Clark?”

  Charlie looked deadpan. “What you mean ‘us,’ Assassin? You’re the friggin’ pilot. And since that upside-down stunt broke every safety reg in the book, I’m not expecting the natives to be too friendly.”

  A blond, lanky officer pulled himself from the staff car. On his light blue shirt, command pilot wings were positioned over a shiny pair of Army “Jump Wings.” The Jump Wings showed that the colonel had completed the arduous parachute school at Fort Benning.

  He wasn’t smiling, and he looked straight at Bruce.

  “Welcome to Clark, sir,” whispered Charlie, mimicking the female airman.

  Angeles City, Philippine Islands

  The street smelled of urine, week-old garbage, and the odor of heavy cooking oil. Two- and three-story buildings enclosed the street in shadows. There was a danger of being hit by dirty water, or buckets of rotting vegetables thrown from the upper two stories. The noise was overwhelming. A half a block away, an open-air market spilled out into the street.

  Cervante Escindo had never gotten used to the backwardness, the cramped and crowded living style of this city. Manila to the south, or even Bagio to the north, was nothing like this, so backward and yet pulsating at the same time. People from the barrios, small villages that dotted the majority of the Philippines, found it difficult to adjust here. To Cervante, it seemed inconceivable that such a state of affairs persisted.

  But Cervante Escindo knew why. And that was why he was here.

  Fifty miles to the southwest lay a similar city, one that could pass for Angeles if you shut your eyes and felt the pain weaving through the city—the pain of a people being raped. For Angeles’ sister city Olongapo lay outside of the Subic Bay Naval Base, just as Angeles lay outside of Clark.

  If it hadn’t been for Clark and the thousands of Americans stationed at the sprawling military base, Angeles would have been nothing more than another dot on the map, a barrio peopled by a few hundred Filipinos. But the growth of Clark Field after World War II, after the American “liberation” of the Filipinos from the Japanese, had caused Angeles City’s population to skyrocket. Even after the Americans had left for three decades, the city continued to grow.

  And now the Americans were back.

  With the population increase came an exponential growth in prostitution, immorality, and other vices. Thousands of Americans filled the streets of Angeles every night—no wonder Angeles had turned out the way it had.

  General MacArthur may have had good intentions, but the Philippines might never recover.

  Cervante waited outside a small sari-sari store. The same Americans who pumped millions of dollars into the Filipino economy were also responsible for the city’s backwardness. It was unacceptable.

  Tired of waiting for the old man, Cervante ground out the cigarette he smoked, salvaged the remaining tobacco and filter, and entered the store.

  A long counter ran the length of the store, about two thirds of the way into the building. A door in the rear
opened to a back room. Shelves covered every inch of the walls, and items were crammed into every space: food cans, diapers, soap, nails, magazines. Electronic equipment—Japanese flat screens, radios, DVD players, Korean stereos—lined the bottom shelf. A refrigerator guarded the back corner; two cartons of cigarettes were split open.

  As Cervante entered, a young woman came from the back. She entered singing along with the latest pop song blasting from the radio. On the counter lay one of the digest-sized weekly magazines, printed in English, that listed the words of all the Top One Hundred songs. No music, just words. Most of the songs were American.

  The girl spotted Cervante and stopped singing. She lowered her eyes.

  Cervante asked tightly. “Where is Pompano?”

  “Father … is not here.”

  The young woman was a master of the obvious. “Do you know when he will return?”

  She shook her head and kept silent.

  Cervante studied her. Yolanda was almost too tall and light-skinned to pass for a native Filipino. At five feet seven, she towered a good half foot above her peers. Yolanda’s high cheekbones, soft dark hair, and long legs distinguished her from other Filipinos.

  Cervante turned away from the young woman. Pompano was lucky that the sari-sari store was deep within the city, far enough away from “B-street”—the ubiquitous bar girl district—that Americans would not frequent it. Otherwise, Yolanda was pretty enough to draw the military men like bees to honey. And that would never do.

  Cervante had started to leave a message for Pompano when Yolanda placed her hands on the counter.

  “Father!”

  A short, graying man hobbled in. He dragged one foot slightly behind the other but carried himself with dignity. His eyes lit up. “Hello, Little One.” They both laughed at his greeting. Cervante kept quiet at the obvious absurdity.

  Before they said anything else, Yolanda gestured with her eyes toward Cervante. Pompano swung around. He nodded tightly, then without looking to his daughter said, “Yolanda, San Miguel and water.”

  As she turned toward the refrigerator, Pompano took Cervante’s arm and led the younger man outside. Pompano leaned heavily on Cervante as they made their way to a table just outside the door.

  “I wish I could have stayed to see what you seized during the raid. Have you appropriated enough supplies?”

  Cervante nodded slightly. “Yes, and more.”

  Pompano raised his eyebrows. Cervante leaned closer, and was about to speak when Yolanda came out of the store. She carried a San Miguel beer, grasping the brown bottle in one hand and carrying a glass of water in the other. She set the drinks on the table.

  “Salamat po,” smiled her father. He waved her away. “Go rest in the back, Yolanda—I will watch the front. Go on, we are just speaking man-talk.”

  “Thank you, Father.” Ignoring Cervante as she left.

  Which was fine with Cervante. Pompano Sicat was a good man and had his roots firmly entrenched in the movement. As long as Pompano kept his daughter separated from the Huks, Cervante had no qualms. It had been an integral part of his intensive training: a strong delineation between pleasure and business.

  Cervante took a sip of his water.

  “We have appropriated more than enough supplies to accomplish our goals. We can change the way we operate, expand our activities, and increase our power. There are several plantations in the mountains that will serve well as a base camp, a permanent place to extend the revolution.”

  Pompano looked tired. “Cervante, is not my store good enough? From here we can ship people and supplies to any place on Luzon, without attracting attention. I am a clearinghouse, a way station for the Huks—not just your New People’s Army faction.” He waved his hand around, motioning to the street. “I have served this way for years and no one even suspects I am involved with the Huks—not even my very daughter! The store provides the perfect alibi.”

  Cervante’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, but in the shadow of the Americans. We have to watch everything we do. In the mountains we can build a true base, where we will not have to fear the damn Americans and PC everywhere we turn.”

  “What about the Huks in Angeles? You want to reorient our entire focus?”

  “That is right! We can either stay small, forever nipping at the government’s heels, or we can seize the opportunity to grow, to make an impact.”

  Pompano held up a hand. “I agree, Cervante. It appears that we have an opportunity to grow, but that may be a bad thing.” He smiled. “We will not decide today. This needs discussion, time to evolve, so we may grow and proceed carefully.”

  “And if we take too much time, the opportunity will pass us by.” Cervante felt his face grow hot.

  Pompano spoke softly. “We must seize the proper opportunity. Take me to the supply cache and we will discuss the options.”

  Cervante started to retort, but a group of children, all dressed in their school uniform of white shirts and dark pants, crossed the busy street and entered the store. They called out to Yolanda as they entered.

  Cervante kept his mouth shut, angry at Pompano’s cool reception of his news. That is what happens when the founding member of a Huk cell grows old, he thought. Too set in his ways, he spurns change. He had been immersed in the details for so long that he had forgotten what the overall goal of the Huks entailed.

  First established as rebel activists after World War II, the Huks had fought against the cruel plantation owners who dotted the Luzon jungles, trying to topple the system oppressing the people. The Huks gained a wide range of notoriety and were even applauded for their democratic goals. But after the plantation owners had capitulated and the major Huk officers had surrendered to the PC, there still remained a dedicated core, a cadre of Huks that wanted reform.

  The most famous, and most touted since it supported the Marcos government’s anti-socialist movement, was the radical pro-Communist file that had emerged within the Huks—the New People’s Army. Living in the mountains and striking fear into people’s hearts, this group received most of the press. And it was this group that was the most hated and sought after, since the free world had been programmed to react with a knee-jerk, froth-at-the-mouth reaction at even the mention of Communism.

  Pompano had been instrumental in starting the first Huk cell in Angeles City. No other cell was close to an American military base. It was this closeness that had attracted Cervante to this particular cell. But Pompano was an old man, using old ideas to pursue old goals—he was content to steal from the Americans, support the vast black market that infected Clark.

  As Cervante studied the man, Yolanda walked out with the group of children. She bid the children farewell, laughing at their joking, then brushed back her hair before heading back inside. Cervante caught Pompano’s attention and nodded to the store.

  “Are you worried about your daughter, taking her up to the mountains?”

  “Yolanda? She will attend the university in Quezon City later this year. She will not get involved in this. She knows nothing and suspects nothing.” He set his bottle down. “As far as she is concerned, you and I are members of the Friends of Bataan, sharing a common link in our country’s history by building war memorials in the countryside.”

  Cervante picked up his glass and swirled it around before draining it. “That is good. Very good. I must travel—” He hesitated, wondering briefly if he should let the old man know where he was going, but decided against it. The meeting with Kawnlo must remain secret.

  “I must travel, but I will be back Sunday. When can we next meet? I will know then when I can take you to the mountains.”

  Silence, then: “Monday, after the weekend.”

  Cervante stood. “Good. Meet me in front of the Skyline Hotel—eight o’clock at night.” He looked toward the door and saw the shadow of Yolanda’s lithe figure and a feeling stirred inside him. Some time would elapse before his return.

  ***

  Chapter 2

  Friday, 1 June


  Clark Air Base

  Sweat rolled off Bruce’s forehead. The humidity was as high as in a sauna.

  Jet engines roared behind him. From the deep pitch it sounded like a C-5, one of the giant transports that flew into Clark. Without any wind, the heat was even more unbearable. He could see the colonel, waiting by the staff car, hands on hips—ready to have Bruce’s butt for flying upside down on final approach.

  Bruce felt a gentle push against his back. Charlie spoke urgently. “Let’s move ... I gotta go.”

  Charlie squeezed around him at the top of the stairs, holding his helmet in one hand and his flight bag in the other. Unfastened from the helmet, Charlie’s mask bounced against the stairs, looking like a miniature elephant’s trunk as it dangled free.

  Bruce swung his flight bag up and followed. As he climbed down the stairs he noticed that a small crowd had gathered around Skipper’s fighter, Maddog One. They stood watching Bruce’s aircraft.

  Oh well, thought Bruce. It’s not like I haven’t been chewed out before.

  He braced himself for the tirade to come. It was something he had learned to endure at the Air Force Academy—thank God he had gotten something out of the arduous training. He had a dim memory of his fourth-class, or freshman year. Doolies, they had called them, meaning slaves, in Greek. The first year had been bad enough, but the worst was Hell Week—a seventy-two-hour period that made every doolie wish he were dead. It had begun with a special ceremony. The doolies had been ordered to wear their sharpest dress uniforms and line up in a row in the hall with their noses to the wall. After what seemed to be an hour, the strains of Also sprach Zarathustra—the 2001 theme—rumbled down the hall, accompanied by the sound of marching upperclassmen.

  The command was given—”Fourthclassmen, about face!”—and the screaming started. Each doolie had been assigned a special “mentor”—an upperclassman whose sole purpose in life was to ensure that the doolie’s life was made as miserable as possible during Hell Week.

  Except that Bruce’s mentor was nowhere to be seen. Still looking straight ahead and oblivious to the shouting around him, Bruce momentarily thought that they had forgotten him. After all, as a starting defensive back for the varsity football team as a freshman, Bruce had not seen much of the usually unavoidable hazing.