He didn’t have time to sit and wonder about it. He unbuckled his seat belt, bracing for the crash he knew would result. The fall to the aircraft’s ceiling wasn’t that far, but he was going headfirst. He thrust out his hands and managed to lower himself, relatively gently, to the ceiling.
His door was jammed shut, wedged into the trees so tightly that he couldn’t budge it. He could scramble across the upended crates and spilled weaponry to the other door, but it looked about the same. His best escape route was out the back—the tail had mostly snapped off in the crash, so behind his seat was an opening wide enough to crawl through.
As he did, the plane shifted, cramming itself lower in the trees. Again, the fear of a spark struck him—metal scraping against metal could set off a fire that would engulf him, the airplane, and the trees in an instant.
He managed to free himself from the wreckage. He worked his way into a tree, coming to rest on a thick, sturdy branch that disappeared into the Super Courier’s interior a few feet away. Every inch of him was sore, and he knew he would hurt more later, but for the moment, he appeared to be intact, with none of the broken bones Corbett was so proud of.
He still couldn’t see the pilot, though, or Donovan.
If they were in front of the airplane, or near the front, he couldn’t reach them from here. The bulk of the aircraft’s cabin was in the way, and he couldn’t risk going through or over that, not the way it had slid and shifted when he had simply tried to crawl out. Instead, he turned his sights downward, picking out a seemingly safe route of descent, and climbed down from the tree.
On the ground, the underbrush was dense and almost waist-high, with plenty of smaller trees growing up between the big ones. He could have hacked his way through with a machete, but if there were any among the plane’s cargo, they were still twenty-some feet up, in the canopy. Instead, he worked through it as best he could, shoving smaller trunks aside, wading through brush, hoping there were no snakes or other venomous creatures lying in wait.
Above him, the plane creaked and settled. The smell of fuel was stronger here, and he saw where the trickle rained down to the jungle floor. He didn’t dare travel directly below the airplane, in case its weight suddenly became too much for the trees to bear, or something set off the explosion he dreaded. He pushed and tugged his way around it, until he was in front of it, looking up at its battered, upside-down cockpit.
There was Donovan, apparently unconscious, wedged in the crook of a limb. One foot might have been stuck inside the airplane, but Lincoln couldn’t quite tell from where he stood.
He spotted Corbett a few moments later, awake but dazed. He was somehow mostly above the airplane and starting to shift around in the branches. With each movement he made, he was pushing on the plane, rocking it ever so slightly. Every nudge, Lincoln feared, increased the risk of that stray spark.
“Hold still, Corbett!” Lincoln cried. “I’m coming!”
Corbett answered with a wordless moan and a motion that rocked the plane even harder.
He didn’t want the pilot to blow up his own plane. But his first priority had to be Donovan. If the airplane went up in flames, the CIA agent was toast.
Fortunately, the foliage was thick enough that it was easy to gain elevation, and Lincoln climbed up to a reasonably substantial branch that angled out toward Donovan’s position.
The agent still hadn’t moved. Lincoln saw blood and wondered if he was too late. Was Donovan already dead? He edged closer. No, the man’s chest rose and fell. He’d been cut, by tree limbs and probably windshield glass, and he was going to be in a world of pain, but he would live. At least, if Lincoln could get him down in time.
“Take it easy, Donovan,” he said as he reached the agent. “I’m just gonna get you loose from these branches.”
Donovan’s only response was a louder exhalation. Maybe he heard Lincoln, and maybe not. Lincoln hoped he hadn’t suffered any major injuries—a perforated lung, a broken neck, brain damage. He couldn’t tell from here. He’d had some medical training in his abbreviated Special Forces school, and he knew that accident victims shouldn’t be moved until the extent of their injuries could be determined and they could be properly braced, if necessary. But he didn’t think that applied to people dangling in the upper canopies of trees, in which the remnants of an airplane might crash down around them and/or explode into flames at any moment.
He got a good grip on Donovan’s shoulders and tugged, trying to extricate him from the branches. Donovan moaned. Lincoln pulled harder, and the agent’s body seemed to stretch toward him—but only so far—before stopping short. Lincoln tugged with even more force. Same result. Something was holding Donovan fast.
Lincoln looked below the agent’s position and above. He was resting on tree limbs and was possibly impaled on some, but it didn’t look like there were any sunk so deep in him that they wouldn’t let go. Certainly nothing had come out the other side.
Then he saw Donovan’s left foot, the one still partially inside the cabin. It was trapped between the upper edge of the windshield frame and a thick branch. The branch Lincoln sat on pressed against that one, about seven feet away. He got a better grasp on Donovan’s shoulders and shifted his weight to rock the branch, hoping he could free the man’s foot without sending the whole airplane crashing through the trees. Nothing was happening, though—he was moving the other branch only slightly, and in such a way that it might have been increasing the pressure on Donovan’s ankle rather than releasing it. In his mind, he saw a flash of himself trying to explain to Donovan how his foot had become amputated and decided a change of plan was called for.
His new plan might have been more dangerous still, though. He would have to get closer to the plane—practically right on top of it—to lift the branch off Donovan’s ankle. At first, his additional weight would force the branch down even more, running the risk of crushing the bone. But after a few steps, he would be able to climb off onto another branch, relieving the pressure on Donovan. Then the biggest risk was that his weight on that other branch—one that had thrust through a side window into the cockpit—would upset the plane’s precarious balance. Lincoln was torn—he didn’t want to set off any sparks, but the longer Donovan hung there in the trees, the more danger he was in if a spark happened incidentally.
Lincoln had to try for it. He raised his feet to the branch and stood, reaching out to other limbs for balance. In that way, he walked up to the branch pinning Donovan in place. From here, he could barely reach Donovan at all, but he was able to get a hand on one shoulder. That would have to do. Awkwardly, reaching at the farthest extent of his arm to pull on Donovan, he used his other hand to try to lift the branch.
It wasn’t going to work. He didn’t have a good angle. The branch was wedged tightly into the cockpit, probably weighted down in there by the cargo crates. And even if he could budge it, how could he get Donovan free without being able to pull him by both shoulders?
He gave it one last try, almost bouncing on his branch as he yanked upward on the other and tugged at the CIA agent. The airplane squeaked and groaned, Donovan gave a low, unintelligible moan, and the foliage rustled. Then the plane slipped and dropped, almost a full foot. Lincoln held his breath, waiting for the blast.
It didn’t happen, but the shift had released Donovan’s foot. Lincoln looped an arm under Donovan’s right armpit and across his chest, and pulled. Donovan slid toward him. Lincoln got a firmer hold, clutching Donovan to his chest, and climbed down from the trees. Finally on the ground, he carried the agent over his shoulder to a clearing well away from the spilled fuel and the precarious airplane overhead, then went back for Corbett.
By the time Lincoln got there, Corbett was mostly conscious. “What the fuck?” he muttered.
“Number five,” Lincoln said. “Come on, man, we got to get out of here. Plane’s dumping all its fuel onto the ground. If that ignites—”
“Boom!” Corbett said. He spread his hands, shaping an explosion. The action
shifted the branches holding him up and he dropped down several inches. If he fell much farther he would land on top of the Super Courier, and that impact might well be enough to jostle it loose. Donovan was the only one who would be safe, if that happened.
“Easy,” Lincoln said. “Don’t move around too much. The plane’s right under you. If you fall—”
“Boom!” Corbett said again. He started to make the same motion with his hands but thought better of it. Instead, he anxiously grabbed hold of some of the sturdy branches supporting his weight.
“Right. Just work your way toward me. Carefully. We don’t want to shake the plane too much.”
“My vest is in there. Behind my seat.”
“Right where we can’t get to it,” Lincoln said. “Good plan. Just come on.”
Corbett nodded—gently—and obeyed. He weighed more than Lincoln and was older, both factors that made tree-climbing a less-than-ideal practice. And he still seemed partially dazed from the crash. Lincoln was afraid he would slip or lose consciousness.
“Come on, man,” Lincoln said. “Just a few more feet.”
Corbett shook his right leg. His pant leg was snagged on a limb. The more furiously he tried to shake it free, the more Lincoln worried about the effect his thrashing would have on the airplane a few feet below him.
“Slow down,” he urged. “Your pants are stuck, is all. I can get them.”
“Get ’em fast, then,” Corbett said. “I don’t want to be here when that thing goes.”
“Don’t do the boom.”
“No boom. Just get me the fuck offa here.”
“Just think about pie,” Lincoln said. “And tall blondes and glasses of milk.”
A dreamy grin spread over Corbett’s face. Maybe he had a concussion, Lincoln thought. If he couldn’t keep his wits about him, they could still both die up here.
He moved onto another limb—one that shifted disturbingly under his weight but held—and found the branch that had snagged Corbett’s pants. He worked it loose, then hurried back to his earlier perch. “Okay, there you go, Corbett. Keep coming toward me.”
Corbett pulled himself from branch to branch, half-swimming through the trees, swaying with each step he took. Finally, though, he reached the big tree that Lincoln had climbed up.
“Doing good, man,” Lincoln said. “It’s easy from here. Straight down, just like a ladder. Plenty of places to put your feet, you dig?”
“I dig,” Corbett said. He was still wearing a half-smile, and Lincoln wasn’t reassured about his mental state. This was not, as far as he was concerned, some kind of fun adventure. He didn’t want to be killed by wind and trees and fire before he had even met his Hmong counterparts.
“Just watch where I go,” Lincoln said. “Do what I do. You can do that, right?”
“I can do that.”
“Cool. That’s cool. Here we go.”
He descended, branch by branch. After a few steps, he stopped and watched Corbett. The pilot managed to make most of the same steps and avoided plummeting down from the heights. Soon they were both on solid ground, and Lincoln was leading him toward Donovan’s position.
Just as Lincoln got Donovan in sight—sitting up with his back against a tree, watching for Lincoln’s return—Corbett startled Lincoln with another braying laugh.
“What the hell, man?” Lincoln snapped. “We don’t know who’s around here.”
“I just got the joke,” Corbett said. “Number five. Plane crash number five, right?”
“That’s right. Now keep quiet. Sit over here by Donovan. I’m going back to see if I can salvage any of those guns.”
Some rifles had spilled from the airplane. He wasn’t sure what condition they were in or if he would be able to find any ammunition for them, but he had to try. His sidearm had come out of its holster at some point, and he didn’t want to be here, defenseless, when the Pathet Lao came to investigate the crash.
But he was too late. He had taken only two steps toward the plane when it shifted again, its weight finally too much for the canopy holding it up. He threw himself to the ground as it crashed and squealed toward the earth, and he stayed there, hugging dirt, as the world went bright and a wave of incredible heat passed over him, curling leaves.
15
* * *
The fireball, Lincoln was sure, could be seen for miles. Wherever the Pathet Lao were, they’d spot it and hurry to check it out. He hustled Donovan and Corbett away from the flames before they could spread too far. “We’ve got to get off this mountain,” he said. “Double-time.”
Both men were conscious now, able to walk on their own, though Donovan remained a little unsteady on his feet. He still had a holstered .45-caliber Colt, but that was the only firearm between the three of them. Lincoln had a survival knife strapped to his ankle, with jagged teeth across the top of the blade, in a leather sheath with a sharpening stone in the pouch. Corbett, in his tattered Hawaiian shirt, was unarmed. They wouldn’t be much good if a Pathet Lao division found them.
They knew the direction in which Vang Khom lay, and their best hope—their only hope, as far as Lincoln was concerned—was reaching it before the bad guys found them. No problem—it was just down from this mountaintop, across a valley that was probably heavily traveled by Pathet Lao and VC, and up the next mountain. At 150 miles per hour, it would have taken no time at all. On foot, badly banged up, through dense jungle, it would be a marathon.
Lincoln thought about the airplane’s radio, doubtless burned beyond recognition. He thought about the guns, some of them possibly still usable, but at the bottom of a superheated bonfire. They didn’t have a map or a compass or a canteen or any food.
Their situation wasn’t hopeless, but it lived right next door to that. It was, in the immortal language of American soldiers, FUBAR—fucked up beyond all repair.
Progress was slow without a blade adequate to chop their way through the brush. In a half hour, they had gone less than a mile. Probably less than a kilometer, Lincoln thought. He could still see the smoke behind them, the flames licking at treetops. The smell of burning was everywhere, as if it were traveling with them. “On the bright side,” Corbett said after a while, “the racket probably scared away all the tigers for miles around.”
“Tigers, shit,” Lincoln said. “Thanks a lot. I’ve been over here worried about the enemy and completely forgot to worry about tigers.”
“And don’t forget the snakes,” Donovan added. “Malayan pit vipers. Banded kraits. Laos is full of the bastards.”
“That’s a big help.”
“I’m just looking out for you, buddy. It’s what I do.”
“You were lookin’ out for me, you coulda found me a pilot who didn’t crash into mountains.”
“Hey, man, that wasn’t my fault!” Corbett protested. “We were too heavy for those downdrafts.”
“You couldn’t fly a little higher over the mountains?”
“And be a target for Chinese radar? We’d be fighting off MiGs right now.”
“Really?” Lincoln asked. “The Pathet Lao can scramble Russian fighters at the drop of a hat?”
“You don’t want to know,” Donovan said. “Both of you guys, knock it the fuck off. We’re alive. We’re on our way to get help.”
“We were supposed to show up at Vang Khom looking like their saviors, with an airplane full of arms,” Lincoln said. “Not crawling in, starving and injured, with one gun between us. That’s not exactly gonna be awe-inspiring.”
“They know me,” Donovan said. “I’ll explain, don’t worry.”
“I’m tired of being told not to worry. At this point, I think some worrying is called for.”
“You worry all you want,” Corbett said. “I’m saving my breath. Man, I hate walking.”
“Can’t fly everywhere,” Lincoln said.
“Why not?”
“Man, you can’t fly anywhere! You sure you only crashed five planes? I think it’s probably more like fifty.”
&nb
sp; “Lincoln!” Donovan snapped. “Give it a goddamn rest.”
Lincoln shut up. Donovan was right. Arguing with them wasn’t going to do anybody any good. They would have to rely on one another to survive this little excursion after all.
“Sorry,” he said. Then he was silent, focused on pushing through the brush, watching for snakes and listening for tigers.
It wasn’t a tiger he heard, though.
It was a man.
He stopped suddenly, raising one fist. Donovan caught it and froze, but Corbett stumbled into him. Lincoln shushed him.
He had distinctly heard the rustle of foliage and the snap of a branch or twig on the ground. A tiger wouldn’t be so careless. A communist might be, though.
He motioned toward the ground, and all three men lowered themselves into crouches. Donovan drew his Colt, and Lincoln silently unsnapped his knife.
More rustling ahead. It didn’t sound like a group of soldiers, though. It sounded like one man—or one careless man, walking at the head of a patrol comprising more careful ones.
Lincoln waited. A shape appeared, just a shadow on the brush. Shoot him, Lincoln thought. Donovan’s gun was aimed at him, his other hand steadying his gun hand, but he didn’t pull the trigger.
The shape came closer. Shoot him! Lincoln thought. He was almost ready to scream it when the man finally broke into view.
He probably wasn’t really more than a hundred years old, but he looked like he was close. Ninety, anyway. He wore a robe belted at the waist with a length of rope and tied at his left shoulder. Lincoln couldn’t see his feet but assumed he had on sandals of some kind. In one hand, he carried a staff, which he used to delicately part the jungle ahead of him. He was completely hairless, with furrowed skin the color of the knotty pine paneling in the dining room of the orphanage Lincoln had grown up in. When he saw the three Americans, his ancient face broke into a gap-toothed grin. He babbled something that sounded like gibberish to Lincoln, but Donovan answered in the same tongue. Soon, they were conversing back and forth like old friends.
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