Tango Uniform (Vietnam Air War Book 3)

by Tom Wilson

  Then he remembered the other thing. He knew about JACKPOT.

  1537L—Command Post, Takhli RTAFB, Thailand

  Colonel Buster Leska

  Leska told Lucky Anderson he'd made lieutenant colonel. "Pin 'em on before you go to your squadron."

  "It's already effective?"

  "Nope, not until the fifteenth, but I don't want a major taking over one of my squadrons when there are fully eligible lieutenant colonels around. No use to hurt their morale needlessly."

  Lucky frowned. It wasn't right to wear the new rank before he was eligible.

  "I decree it," Buster said. "You're an LC."

  "Yes, sir."

  Another long pause, then Buster looked about to ensure they were alone at the rear of the room and very quietly outlined the JACKPOT mission he'd been given by the CSAF, and how it would be designed to force the North Vietnamese from the war. He told him that he, Lucky, and Manny DeVera were the only ones on base who knew about it, or . . . he paused meaningfully . . . were to know about it. Anderson appeared impressed.

  "The three of us are going to help out from here in the trenches. There's other key players being assigned and briefed at the other bases."

  "Is General Moss aboard?"

  "He's the critical team player over here. He consolidates and forwards the JACKPOT reports directly to General McManus. From there they go to the President."

  Leska watched Anderson as the impact sank in, trying to get an initial impression of the man General Moss thought so highly of. He glanced at the aircraft status board, with Marlin lead circled in red. "That's why we're in here sweating about Manny being shot down," he said softly. "He's one of the few who knew about JACKPOT, and if he's capture . . . ?"

  Lucky narrowed his eyes thoughtfully before shaking his head. "You don't have to worry about that part. Knowing what he does, Manny won't let them capture him."

  1550L— Route Pack Five, North Vietnam

  Captain Manny DeVera

  He first contacted and spoke with Scotch Force leader, but it was Animal Hamlin who responded when Manny said, "F-105 three-ship flight, you are passing overhead now."

  "Marlin three's gotcha, Marlin lead. You in that big patch of grass down there?"

  "That's giant bamboo, three. Fifty, sixty feet high. Stuff's thick as hell and hard to get around in. Can't cut it with my knife, so I'll have to squeeze through best I can."

  "Marlin lead, this is Scotch Force leader. Sandys are on their way." Donovan was talking about A-1Hs used to provide close support for rescue efforts. "Give 'em ten minutes. They want to get to a clearing, if possible, so they can bring the chopper in."

  "Can't find a clearing." As Manny spoke into the radio, he looked up at the sky, so he'd feel more as if he were speaking directly to Donovan. "You see a clearing down here?"

  "Hard to tell. Keep looking."

  That was a lot of help, Manny grumbled, squeezing through yet another unyielding thicket of stalks. He thought of a briefing he'd received about highly poisonous bamboo vipers. Periodically he'd stop and listen, and could hear absolutely nothing except the drone of jets high above. No birds or chirrups from insects. Nada. Was that good or bad? he wondered.

  He pressed through a particularly tough group of bamboo stalks and crawled out the other side, then stood, staring up and shaking his head in amazement.

  "Marlin lead, this is Sandy two-oner. How do you read, babes?"

  Manny hastened with the radio. "Marlin lead reads you five by five, Sandy two-one," he responded, meaning he read him loud and clear. "I'm at the edge of a thicket of giant bamboo, under some ferns."

  "Slow down your words, Marlin lead," said the A-1H pilot, and Manny realized he was spouting unintelligibly in his elation—in his realization that rescuers might pick him up after all.

  He'd thought of the consequence, how he couldn't allow himself to be captured.

  Manny repeated his words slowly, listening as the sounds of the nimble, propeller-driven A-1H came closer.

  "Ferns?" Sandy 21 asked incredulously as it sank in. "You're under ferns?"

  "Yeah. Big ferns. Really big." He didn't know how else to describe them. Manny gawked up at a green canopy of outsize, broadleaf plants that rose forty feet over his head. The scene was eerie, as if he were a Lilliputian in an enchanted forest glen.

  "How's your physical condition, Marlin lead?"

  "Kicked myself in the butt when I landed, but I can walk."

  He hobbled through the wonder world, fighting his way past vines and furry bamboo that he knew not to touch because of their toxicity, before he found a tiny clearing—a small open space where the huge ferns didn't grow all the way to the branches of a towering teak tree.

  He stared critically at the little patch of sky. "I found a place I can see some blue," he told the Sandy driver. "I can hear you, but I can't see you up there yet, Sandy."

  1616L—Command Post, Takhli RTAFB, Thailand

  They waited for yet another nervous half hour, and Leska didn't talk anymore about JACKPOT. Periodically he'd give Lucky advice on how to handle his new command, or Lucky would ask about his policies, but they kept their minds tuned for word about the rescue effort.

  A force of fighters recovered from a mission to pack two, and their call signs were erased from the combat board. The operational status of each airplane was confirmed and called in by maintenance, and a code was shown beside a list of assigned aircraft tail numbers. Code 1 meant it was clean. Code 2 meant it had discrepancies but was flyable. Code 3 was bad news.

  Only the Res-CAP force remained on the combat board, with "Marlin 01" circled in red grease pencil. The downed Weasel bird, Red Dog four, had been lined through. At 1755 the ops sergeant raised a cautious hand. "A new status report's coming through on Marlin lead."

  Leska grew still. Lucky stopped chewing his cigar. The ops sergeant looked tentative as he spoke on his phone. He turned. "The Sandys say Marlin lead reports he's banged up but okay."

  "How long until the Jolly Greens get to him?"

  "They're holding until the Sandys clear them into the area. There's a village four miles to the northeast they're checking out."

  1625L—Route Pack Five, North Vietnam

  Captain Manny DeVera

  The Sandys had left him for a while to check for hostiles in the area. When they returned, they buzzed around a point well south of his position.

  "Sandy lead, you're too far south," Manny called.

  "Give us a long count on your radio so we can home on you, Marlin lead."

  He slowly counted on the radio while the Sandy pilot used his radio direction finder. When the A-1H flew overhead, he stopped and said "mark." After three passes they'd pinpointed him.

  "Jolly Greens are inbound," the Sandy driver announced in a monotone. "They'll be here in eight or nine minutes." It was going very smoothly, Manny thought. Maybe it was all the saintly living he'd been doing lately.

  Animal Hamlin came back into the area with the remnant of Marlin flight and asked Manny how things were going down there. His Jersey accent somehow lent a degree of normalcy to the situation. DeVera decided he owed Animal two drinks now, and told him so.

  "You're on," Animal said.

  Yank Donovan came on the air, using an admonishing tone. "Scotch Force, stay on the look-out for MiGs. That's the second call from Big Eye for this sector."

  Manny scanned his tiny patch of blue sky with a worried look. MiGs? Would the choppers continue if there were MiGs in the area?

  He heard the clopping of rotor blades in the distance—the most beautiful sound he could imagine. Then, "Marlin lead, this is Jolly Green five-one. Get ready for a fast pickup."

  "Roger, Jolly Green," Manny quickly responded, hoping it would be so.

  Sandy lead gave directions to Jolly Green, then rolled in and fired a marking rocket. "He's three hundred meters north of my mark," said Sandy 21.

  Suddenly Manny suffered from near heart failure as things began to fall apart.

&n
bsp; Donovan called. "This is Scotch Force leader. We've got four MiG-17's in sight east of us, not far beyond the river."

  Dammit, Manny's mind cried out. Dammit to hell!

  "Jolly Green five-one, you hear that?" yelled the A-1H driver shrilly. "MiGs in the area."

  The chopper pilot was quick to respond, his voice gruff and businesslike. "You got your job, I got mine, fighters. Now keep 'em off my ass while I make this pickup."

  Manny was stunned at the chopper pilot's answer. His hopes soared yet again when he saw something hover into his patch of sky. "Jolly Green, you're just south of my position. "

  "Stand-by!" growled the chopper pilot in his terse voice. The Jolly reared and hovered, the wash from the big blades making the ferns and limbs of the tree wave to and fro.

  "I'm fifty feet off to your right, in a little clearing," Manny tried to shout over the roar.

  The chopper pilot hesitated for another long moment, then adjusted until he was directly overhead. The giant ferns whipped about wildly. A number of them flew to the ground.

  "Yeah," Manny cried out, his voice lost in the great noise.

  He saw the tree penetrator device lowering from a cable at the chopper's right door.

  "Yeah!"

  When it was a few feet overhead, someone grasped Manny's shoulder and he jumped mightily, again very near having heart failure.

  "Get away from it!" thundered a deep voice.

  "Oh, shit!"

  "It's gotta touch the ground and bleed off the static electricity!" He was a huge black man, six four if he was an inch, and he swung the muzzle of his M-16 in an arc as he pulled DeVera back from the pickup device.

  "Who the fuck are you?" Manny screamed.

  "Santa Claus."

  The device struck against the earth and gave off a bright spark.

  "See! You can get fried, you touch those things before they contact the ground. Now go ahead and climb aboard."

  Manny slowly comprehended that he was a paramedic, one of the gutsy rescue guys they called PJs. He grasped the pickup device and tried to figure it out.

  The black man grabbed him in one hand and the tree penetrator in the other, positioned Manny's legs over the lowered arms of the device, then crawled onto the opposite side and hugged Manny tightly. It all took no more than ten seconds. He stared up at the chopper and nodded vigorously.

  The cable began to reel them quickly upward until they'd passed through the fairy-tale ferns. When they were level with the upper branches of surrounding teak trees, the paramedic bellowed for Manny to hang on—unnecessary advice, for he was grasping as tightly as he could.

  The chopper rose and turned, then dipped its nose and charged westward toward safety.

  The two of them trailed behind the big helicopter in the breeze, still thirty feet from its belly, thrashed by limber treetops. Manny held his death grip on the penetrator, and the big man held him in a grasp of steel. There was no way to fall off:

  The chopper slowed just a bit, and they were reeled the rest of the way up and roughly pulled inside by two other guys.

  "Keep that son of a bitch away from the door and don't let him get hurt!" yelled the pilot, in the same abrasive tone he'd heard on the radio. Later Manny learned that the crew had picked up two other pilots in the previous months. Both had died from wounds. They were overjoyed that they'd recovered a live one, and the pilot wanted to keep him that way.

  The door gunner began to fire his machine gun at something on the ground as the chopper shuddered, now at max power, and picked up speed.

  The huge PJ grabbed Manny, his face transformed and grinning from ear to ear. He planted a wet kiss on his cheek. "Gotcha!" he yelled exuberantly.

  Manny began to laugh.

  "Gotcha," the PJ repeated.

  1637L—Command Post, Takhli RTAFB, Thailand

  Colonel Buster Leska

  The sergeant's voice was excited over the phone. "Marlin lead's been picked up and they're on their way out. No injuries to speak of. Captain DeVera says he's hungry and to have a drink waiting."

  The Supersonic Wetback was okay.

  Lucky Anderson pulled the soggy cigar from his mouth and looked at it distastefully, as if wondering how the unsightly thing had gotten there.

  Leska felt energy reentering his body. "Where are they taking him?" he asked the sergeant.

  "Direct to Nakhon Phanom," he replied.

  Buster sighed audibly as he got to his feet. He waved at a major who'd joined the sergeant in the front of the room. "Have 'em fire up the base gooney bird and send it to NKP. I want DeVera back here ASAP."

  "Yes, sir."

  He turned to Lucky Anderson. "Get on over to the parachute shop and have your new rank sewn on. We've got work to do."

  Anderson was smiling and nodding. They were bringing one home.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Monday, November 6th, 1520 Local—Route Pack Six, North Vietnam

  Colonel Buster Leska

  Before takeoff Buster had done two things to prepare for his private foray over Hanoi.

  First, he'd ordered the photo shop to load the KA-71 70mm camera, mounted under the chin of his Thud, with film, and told the NCOIC that he'd want the stuff developed ASAP after landing. No, he didn't want interpretation of the film strips. Just send them over to his office when they'd been developed. After having more suggestions for support turned down, the NCOIC got the idea that Buster didn't want his people, or anyone else, looking at the film.

  Second, he'd briefed his flight that he'd pull off the target straight ahead to make a brief tour of the countryside. He told the pilots to rejoin and begin their egress with the others, that he'd join them on their way out.

  No, he wouldn't want a wingman. He'd be going low and fast and would be safe enough.

  Buster didn't lie to his flight. He told them he wanted to take a solo close-up look at the Red River Valley because he felt he should know it like the back of his hand. He didn't tell them the examination would include the restricted southern suburbs of Hanoi. The pilots were curious and concerned, but didn't question his decision. It was appropriate that a commander would want to know as much as possible about his enemy.

  It was an alpha strike. Thirty-two dive-bombers from Takhli, separated into two sixteen-ship formations. A four-ship Wild Weasel flight was assigned to fly with each formation, engaging any SAM sites that came on the air. F-4 Phantoms from Ubon would provide MiG-CAP George Armaugh led Bear Force, Takhli's first sixteen-ship formation. Buster felt he'd need a few more sorties before taking on the mission-commander role. He was still in the learning phase.

  Their target was the Gia Thuong storage complex, which consisted of four large warehouses, a rail siding, and a massive truck terminal on the eastern edge of Hanoi. General Moss had requested permission from the Joint Targeting Office at the Pentagon to strike the place as soon as he'd been shown the spectacular results from the "barracks" mission, wondering if they wouldn't find another buildup of munitions. Permission had been granted, which was surprising, because all such decisions had to be approved by the President and his circle of civilian advisors.

  Two similar forces from Korat preceded them, and one of those would bomb Gia Thuong before they arrived. Bear Force would be second. Buster led the last four-ship flight, call sign Wolf, in that group. His rationale was the assumption that the North Viet defenses would be preoccupied with the strike force while he got his photos.

  Their route led them across the Red River north of Yen Bai, then eastward, slowly descending as they flew across the valley. When they approached Thud Ridge at ten thousand feet, they turned southward and flew toward Hanoi. The fighters from Korat were in the target area by then, and when Buster momentarily switched to their strike frequency, he heard a loud profusion of chatter about SAM firings and flak, then awed voices talking about a fireball and tremendous explosion. He eyed the area ahead, but a towering cumulus cloud obscured the target.

  The Korat birds finished bombing and started to
ward their rejoin point to regroup their force. They sounded professional and a bit exuberant at the results.

  The Takhli Wild Weasels, flying just in front of their formation, fired Shrike anti-radar missiles at SAM sites on the northern periphery of the city, but before Buster began to feel good about it, they announced that two other sites had fired missiles at the strike force.

  "Stay in formation and keep the music going," George Armaugh radioed in a calm voice, "unless you know a SAM's committed for your bird."

  It was a hard thing, knowing SAMs were coming up and continuing to fly straight and level, but like the others Buster gritted his teeth and did just that.

  Three SAMs zipped cleanly, one by one, past the formation and blossomed in bright, orange-colored explosions 2,000 feet above them. He waited expectantly, but didn't see the second covey of missiles.

  They were approaching the southern end of Thud Ridge, the Hanoi amoeba looming in the near distance before them, and could now see great columns of smoke from Korat's bombing. Armaugh began a slight climb to the perch, and the others followed, still in formation. A haze of artillery smoke covered much of the city, and a profusion of light-colored flak puffed above it in a thick layer. Here and there clumps of dark smudges bloomed from the bigger guns nearer their flight level. Buster noted artillery muzzle flashes sparkling on the ground beneath the haze, and indeed, most were coming from the far, southern side of the city.

  George Armaugh made a curt radio call as he abruptly turned and dived toward the bright fires left by Korat's bombs. One by one the other aircraft followed.

  When the twelfth ship was gone, it was Buster's turn.

  He immediately turned his Thud up onto its left wing, turned sharply, then rolled inverted and pulled the nose down. As soon as he was established in the dive, he rolled upright and eased off on the throttle so he wouldn't go supersonic. The bird settled at forty-five degrees, and he fine-tuned the ailerons and rudder. The target area, now a profusion of smoke, tiny buildings, and ribbons of railroad track, erupted with more bomb detonations as he stared. Another good hit—there was little of Gia Thuong left to destroy.