*
The fires were out.
Except for the raging flames rising from the destroyed fuel tanks at the northeast end of the field.
Six hundred thousand imperial gallons would burn for a long time.
The thick, acrid smoke hung heavily in the windless clearing. Henry Loh had ordered the engines of the two undamaged aircraft, a Cessna 310 and a Douglas DC-4, started, and the planes had been turned in place in the attempt to fan the smoke with the propellers.
A dozen men toured the mounds of wreckage with fire extinguishers, searching out hot spots. At Shan Base, water was in short supply, and they did not have an effective fire control plan.
In fact, no plan had ever been developed for an attack on Shan Base. It was too well disguised. It would never happen. Henry Loh had known that.
Henry Loh was stunned.
He and Jean Franc, who served as his executive officer, walked the southern side of the strip, examining the remains of the First Squadron. As far as he could tell, less than ten percent would be salvageable as spare parts. No airplane that had been hit would fly again.
Halfway down the airstrip, they met Jake Switzer coming toward them. Like themselves, he was carrying a six-cell flashlight.
Switzer was chanting drawn-out repetitions of American obscenities.
“Jake?” he asked.
“I just cannot fucking believe this, Henry. We’re wiped out.”
Franc waved at the two aircraft whose engines were roaring at half-power settings. “Just the two left?”
“That’s the sum of it,” Switzer said. “You get a casualty count?”
“There are four dead and three wounded,” Franc said. “One pilot lost, as well as three technicians.”
“Fuck. Who’s my pilot?”
“Lung. He was sleeping in a hammock under his Marut.”
“Dumb shit.”
“The ordnance dump?” Loh asked. It was located on the east end of the field, a half-kilometer to the south.
“It’s all right. We’ve got more fucking missiles than we need. We can’t deliver them anywhere.”
He did not need to ask about the fuel stores. He thought of the endless trips they had made with the tankers, amassing their supply of aviation gasoline and JP-4 jet fuel.
Loh trained his light on the center of the runway. Pierced steel planking had been ripped out of the surface. Splinters and shards of bent steel were everywhere. A crater three meters deep and ten meters in diameter was carved almost exactly in the center of the runway.
“It’ll take us two fucking days to repair the runway,” Switzer said.
“We will recruit from the Hsong tribe,” Loh told him. “It must be done in one day.”
“Shit! Have you talked to Burov or Chung? If they got hit, too, we’re done for.”
“Not yet. The telephone lines are being repaired. I do not wish to use the radio.”
The three pilots turned around and began walking to the west, crossing the runway between two craters. They entered the trees, trudging toward Loh’s Quonset hut. Farther back in the jungle were hooches and tents utilized by the pilots and ground support people. None of them had been damaged.
As they entered the Quonset, their boots beating on the wooden floor, an Indian communications technician told Loh that the telephone line had been repaired.
He went straight back to his office, sat at the small wooden desk, and lifted the telephone.
He called Chung first.
The commander of the Third Squadron was not in bed.
“We are almost ready to launch aircraft, Henry.”
“You may put them on standby, Kao.” He briefly reported on the attack at Shan Base.
“No! It is impossible! Who?”
“I do not know, Kao. There were five aircraft. They fired ten missiles and dropped five bombs, probably five-hundred pound bombs. That would make them light ground assault craft. Two of my men saw the fifth airplane, but they describe it only as a delta-winged fighter. There were no markings that they recognized, or could see.”
“Mauk? Would he have betrayed us?”
“He would be my first suspect,” Loh said. “It is likely that he knows the location of Shan Base. I do not know where he would obtain the aircraft my men described.”
“I will launch aircraft now and obliterate our fine Colonel Mauk,” Chung said.
“No. Let me first make telephone calls. And send me one of your helicopters immediately.”
Loh hung up, then called Burov. Their conversation was a copy of the one he had just held with Chung.
When he had finished with the ex-Soviet, he said, “Jake, you and Jean should start making calls around the province. Tell everyone to hold in place until they hear from me. Jake, call Micah Chao and Vol Soon, first.”
“You will call the Prince?” Switzer asked.
“I will call the Prince,” Loh said.
*
When the telephone rang, Lon Pot was sound asleep.
He awoke, but stayed warm on his side of the bed while Mai got up and went to the living room.
She came back quickly. “Master, it is Henry Loh.”
Rubbing his eyes with the knuckles of his fists, Pot slipped out of the bed and walked naked into the living room. He picked up the receiver resting on the sideboard.
“There has been a setback, Prince.”
That woke him up.
“Setback! What is this of a setback?”
“The First Squadron has been totally demolished.”
“That is not true.”
“It is unfortunately true, Prince.” Loh quickly detailed the attack.
“Mauk. It must be Mauk.” Pot felt the anger building deep in his stomach, spreading throughout his body. He would have heads impaled on poles. They would be carried through every village.
“That is possible, but not yet proven.”
“Send Chung against him.”
“We must not react just yet, Prince. A commander does not make decisions on impulse. We must have more information before deciding on a course of action.”
“But we are to make the transition today,” Pot insisted. He rubbed the center of his chest. His heart felt as if it were on fire.
“It must be delayed.”
“I will not tolerate delay. Today is the day I become Prince of Burma.”
He could hear Loh’s sigh.
“Is that not so?” Pot demanded.
“If Mauk has betrayed us, then all of the Burmese army and air force may be waiting in ambush, Prince. I must go to Rangoon and learn what I can. I must meet with Micah Chao.”
“How long must this delay take?” Pot asked, his aspirations sinking.
“At least two days, I think. The morning of the twenty-ninth.”
“Make it so,” Pot said and slammed the telephone down.
He turned toward the bedroom, feeling the heat suffusing his face.
Mai waited in the hallway for him.
“Master? Is —”
The flat of his palm caught her on the low side of her neck, and the blow smashed her against the wall.
*
“Goddamn it!” Wilcox shouted over the phone. “They were supposed to attack Chiang Base.”
“They didn’t,” Simonson told him. “I’ve got the satellite photos on the desk right in front of me, Ben.”
“That sonovabitching Kimball pulled a switch on me!”
“Tit for tat, I’d guess,” Simonson said.
“Jesus!”
Wilcox was up and dressed. He had been waiting in the secure room of the American Embassy in New Delhi for Simonson’s call. The Deputy Director of Operations was monitoring the action in Burma through the National Security Agency’s overhead reconnaissance.
“What’s the damage?” Wilcox asked.
“Damned near total, from what we can interpret of the photos. The jungle overhangs the area along the strip, and we don’t get a clear view, but it looks as if there were a hell of
a lot of airplanes on fire. That would be the whole First Squadron of the Dragon Wing, from what you told me. Almost a third of Pot’s air force.”
“You think that’ll cancel his coup, Ted?”
“If it doesn’t, it still buys us some time. I’ve told my people to get out and listen for rumors.”
Wilcox couldn’t get over Kimball’s treachery. “Goddamn it. It was supposed to be Chiang Base.”
“What the hell, Ben? He accomplished the purpose. Who gives a shit about Shan Base, anyway?”
“My source does.”
“Why?”
“That’s where he’s supposed to be.”
Seventeen
The Aerospatiale Gazelle five-seater was the helicopter assigned to Henry Loh by Lon Pot. It was painted in ivory with a twin band of red stripes running fore and aft. Lon Pot envisioned the twin red stripes on an ivory background as his eventual flag.
Kao Chung had sent it to Shan Base in the middle of the night, and Henry Loh had commandeered it for his trip to Rangoon, where he landed at four-fifteen in the morning.
Micah Chao was waiting for him.
The Police Chief was obviously not in good humor. In Rangoon, which was not yet officially Lon Pot’s territory, of course, he was not allowed to wear his camouflage uniform and his Sam Browne belt. Without the belt and his huge Colt .45, he did not appear to carry the authority to which he felt he was entitled.
Loh slid out of the pilot’s seat as the rotors ran down and ducked his head against the swirl of heated air. Despite the early morning, it was still sticky lukewarm in Rangoon, and once he left the rotor’s down-wash, the heat licked at him. He crossed the ramp with long strides to where Chao waited beside his Renault sedan.
The storm that covered Chao’s face was reflected in his voice. “Tell me what happened.”
Loh detailed the events quickly and then asked, “Have you suspended your operation?”
Chao nodded, somewhat miserably. “The snipers have all been pulled back.”
Chao had his hand-picked sniper teams placed all over the city, ready to neutralize those high-level police, military, and government officials who did not favor a change in the status quo.
“This is not good for morale,” Chao argued. “Any delay at all makes the men tense and more susceptible to error. We should have proceeded, despite the losses.”
Henry Loh passed the blame to Lon Pot. “It was the Prince’s decision. If Colonel Mauk has betrayed us, then we need to know what other surprises await.”
“Mauk? Why Mauk?”
“Who else controls attack aircraft?”
“Perhaps the Thais. Mauk never left his quarters last night. Two regular patrols of SF.260MBs flew from here last night, nothing more.”
“You are certain of this, Micah?”
“Absolutely. My intelligence network is utterly reliable,” Chao boasted.
The policeman’s certainty undermined Loh’s confidence. He had been positive that Colonel Mauk had changed his mind, or had his mind changed for him, and initiated the surprise raid. In fact, Loh had looked forward to a confrontation with Burma’s ragged air arm. He had always wanted to be an ace, and he had foreseen five or more slow 260MBs falling to the missiles and guns of his Mirage.
“We have a serious problem, Micah, if we do not know our aggressors.”
“That is the first thing you have said with which I agree. Do we have a new date?”
“Yes, the twenty-ninth. But we must first determine the origin of the attack on Shan Base. If not, we may have to delay longer.”
“Lon Pot would not agree,” Chao said.
“If it meant the possible failure of the coup, he would be forced to agree.”
Chao leaned back against the fender of the automobile and considered him with mean eyes.
“You have radar, antiaircraft guns, and surface-to-air units at each of the bases …”
“As well as the Prince’s compound and many of Vol Soon’s army garrisons,” Loh added.
“And yet, your elaborate defenses did not anticipate this attack. How is this possible?”
Loh did not like interrogations. They reminded him of the severe questioning he had once undergone at the hands of a Khmer Rouge maniac. He kept his voice steady, however, in response. “Squadron Commander Switzer is now interviewing the radar and missile crews, but it appears that they saw nothing. That is not impossible, Micah. The hostile aircraft could have flown low enough to evade radar contact.”
“Across several hundred kilometers of Burmese territory? Without being spotted, or heard, by persons on the ground?”
“Difficult, yes. Impossible, no.”
Chao pushed himself away from the fender. “Let us go see Mauk.”
“We should not risk public contact with him,” Loh protested.
“The risks have changed, have they not?”
Henry Loh nodded and crawled into the back of the car. Chao’s driver started the engine and found his way to the airport gate, then into the labyrinth of streets that crisscrossed Rangoon.
Colonel Kun Mauk’s residence was a narrow, two-story, French-styled villa cramped on a small lot overlooking the river. The driver spun the wheel and slid the car into the drive, startling the single guard standing nearly asleep against the trunk of a sugar palm. He came to belated attention, but did not offer a protest as Chao and Loh left the car and climbed the three short steps to the front door of the villa.
The ground floor windows were already illuminated. Mauk would have risen early on this important day.
When he opened the door readily at Chao’s insistent banging, he was already dressed in his uniform. He eyed them both, then nodded them inside with his head.
“There is trouble, then?” Mauk asked.
“You will need to postpone your part of the operation,” Loh said.
“For how long?”
“Two days.”
“I will make a telephone call.”
Loh and Chao followed him from the foyer into a small living room and waited while he made a single telephone call.
He replaced the receiver after issuing curt orders, then turned to Loh. “The nature of the problem?”
Loh explained it to him in detail.
“There were no radar contacts?”
“None. Would the Thais have intervened?”
“I think not,” Mauk said.
“Who then?”
Mauk’s eyes were opaque as he considered the possibilities. “The Americans.”
“That is insane,” Chao insisted.
“Not so,” the colonel said. “They have long been concerned about stability in the region.”
“Not to the point of armed interference,” Chao said. “From where? An aircraft carrier?”
“From Dacca.”
“Dacca! You are insane.”
“There is a demonstration group of stealth aircraft on display there. I told you about them, Henry. The airplanes would be capable of making such a strike,” Mauk said. “The distances are not long.”
Loh was incensed. He had not known that the aircraft were nearby. His intelligence-gathering capabilities were limited.
“You told me they were due in Rangoon on the twenty-eighth, Colonel. You did not tell me they were poised to strike against us.”
“And how would I have known that?” Mauk said. “I know only that this American, Bryce Kimball, will show his airplanes to us.”
“What do they look like?”
Mauk’s eyes focused on something else. “The brochure had a drawing. I think they are smaller than most interceptors. A delta wing, almost. Twin rudders. I remember that it uses a single jet engine.”
Exactly what his man had seen, or thought he had seen. Loh could not understand the treachery. “It is the Americans!”
Micah Chao offered a twisted grin. “To whom will we complain? The United Nations?”
“We will assure that it does not happen again,” Loh said. “I will order Chung’s squadron to
attack them in Dacca. The Bangladesh Air Force will not intercede.”
“It is unnecessary,” Mauk said. “They will be here in the morning. Why should we destroy the airplanes when we can use them?”
*
Both the afternoon aerial demonstration and the night ground attack exercise had gone smoothly, and Kimball was more than satisfied. He, A.J. Soames, and Alex Hamilton had conducted the post-demonstration briefing for three hours in the morning, and the Bangladesh defense establishment had appeared duly impressed. Kimball left the conference feeling that, if they could find the money, they would spring for enough aircraft to complete one or two squadrons.
For a change, their schedule gave them an afternoon free. They weren’t due to fly into Rangoon until morning, and as soon as his cab reached the hotel, Kimball headed for the room he shared with McEntire. Except for the guard contingent at the airport, most of the KAT employees were touring Dacca or sacking out.
Kimball intended to sack out.
Sam Eddy was already in the room, slouched in one of the two chairs at a small table. Two glasses and the bottle of Black Label were on the table in front of him.
Kimball shut the door. “Drinking without me?”
“Just looking at it, waiting for you to get back. How did it go?”
“If it weren’t for the committees that have to get involved, we’d have had some signatures on the dotted line. Sometimes, I wish we were selling used cars.”
“Too easy, Kim. You and me, we’ve always made it more difficult than it had to be. You want?”
“I want.”
McEntire picked up the bottle and poured them each a couple inches of scotch.
Kimball flopped in the chair opposite him and took a sip from the glass. It went down smoothly despite its iceless warmth.
They had been so busy in the last couple of weeks that Kimball hadn’t taken a good look at his best friend for awhile. He was conscious now of a subdued aspect to Sam Eddy that didn’t seem usual.
“You doing all right, Sam Eddy?”
“Me? I’m doing Jim dandy, Kim-O.”
“Any after-effects from the mission?”
McEntire thought about it and then shrugged. “Naw. It felt good. The airplanes did what we knew they’d do. And I’m damned glad everyone came through it clean.”
Alpha Kat Page 23
