Tango Uniform (Vietnam Air War Book 3)

by Tom Wilson

  Canepa had stumbled to the side of the room and tried to pull on a pair of filthy walking shorts. Black eyed him as he lurched around, one leg in the shorts, trying to remain upright. "You let him get away with all this shit? Smokin' dope and acting like Lord Jim?"

  When Buddy Canepa had succeeded with the walking shorts, he regarded Black, waving a screw-on cap in his unsteady hand. "Where's my bottle?"

  "We get some jewels sometimes." Jones had eyed Canepa with great distaste. "Hope the dumb fuck drinks himself to death. I let Vientiane know he's a loser, but he's supposed to be good with the equipment, so they wanted me to try him for another week. Now he's stuck here with the rest of us."

  Black had looked around the disheveled room. "Where do you live?"

  "Out at the other end of the Yard village. I gave him the shack here so he could monitor for radio calls and stay out of my way."

  "How are the Yards?"

  Jones had grown increasing weak, and his voice was dwindling. "Good. They're tough and ready to fight. Vientiane shoulda pulled the women off the hill, though." He'd described the locations of things on the mountaintop: the TACAN, the Yard village, a small munitions bunker, and the maintenance-and-supply building.

  "You're lucky you made it up the mountain in one piece," Jones had added after a long grimace. "Canepa almost forgot to tell me you called. The Yards would've blown the road, and you with it, if I hadn't told 'em about you coming up."

  "Any way we can get off the hill without using the road?"

  Black had to wait a long while as Jones endured a series of coughing spasms that released bright blood onto his hands. "Don't think so," he'd finally said. "There was a path on the north side, but I had the Yards blow it."

  Black had sent the lieutenant and another Hotdog to investigate.

  "I'd better call in to Buffalo Soldier," he'd told Jones, who motioned weakly to the Yard tribesman to take him back outside. This time it took two of them to support him.

  As he spoke on the radio, Black had found himself increasingly upset, first at Larry, then at Papa Wolf, who'd tried to calm him.

  "Either get us the air strike or start thinking about getting us out of here," Black had urged. "I don't feel good about holding this place."

  Papa Wolf said they had their hands full of emergency requests, most of them nearer home base. The big offensive they'd expected for the past month was under way. Vientiane Control had responsibility for protecting the nav site, knew they had a badly wounded man there, and had promised relief.

  Black sighed as he ceased his transmission, wondering how long they had.

  Vientiane Control was run by contractors who coordinated other contractors' Pilatus, T-34, C-130, C-123, and helo aircraft, but seldom with the U.S. Air Force, whom Black desperately wanted to become involved.

  Shortly after Black had signed off, the lieutenant had come in and told him he'd posted men with radios at strategic points overlooking the jungle. He said there was movement. More militia were arriving, as many as they'd seen and counted before.

  That meant there were 600 men below. Black had gotten back onto the radio and told that to Larry at Buffalo Soldier. "Put Papa Wolf back on," he'd said.

  When the lieutenant colonel had come back on, Black repeated what he'd told Larry. "We gotta get air support in here ASAP, sir. There's a battalion of militia down there."

  "We're working on it, Hotdog. We got lots of business right now, and there's the area-of-responsibility problem with Vientiane. I'm working it with MAC-SOG, but they're swamped."

  "The Viets were likely just waiting for the reinforcements, and now they're here. If they're not going to send air strikes, Vientiane better think of evacuating."

  "We've already relayed that suggestion."

  "What about the big-time support you promised?" Black had reminded him.

  "There's the coordination problems with Vientiane, Hotdog, and then there's the thing about losing the tango three-four." They'd signed off on that discouraging note.

  Black had gone out and found Canepa sweet-talking the Yard woman. "Get your ass back in there and contact Vientiane Control," he'd told him. "Tell 'em to pull us out of here ASAP."

  Canepa had mumbled his agreement, so Black left for another look at the perimeter.

  When darkness had fallen, Sergeant Black's mood wasn't improved. The lieutenant had reported that the second trail down the mountain, the one Jones had ordered blown, was now a sheer drop-off. Black had told him to set up more booby traps around the perimeter using seismic mines they'd found stored in the ammo bunker near the Yard village, and gathered the Yards together to tell them to keep the kids away from the mines.

  He'd asked how they were organized to fight if the Viets made it up the mountainside.

  Each man had his assigned task, and they were equipped with M-16's, but Black knew it would be a hopeless drill to try to fight off that many soldiers. It hadn't helped his disposition when Buddy Canepa emerged from the shack long enough to cajole the Yard woman into going inside.

  It had been a shitty day followed by a shittier evening, Black thought. When he checked on Jones, he found him resting fitfully, his breathing ragged and uneven. Two Yard men were hunkered nearby, regarding Jones closely with their stoic expressions. A death watch.

  Black left them, wondering what he was into. A while later things grew intolerable when Black was walking around in the dark, and lights came on inside the shack. He stormed in to find Canepa on his feet, yawning and stretching. He'd put on a pair of cleaner Bermuda shorts.

  "Turn off the fucking lights!"

  Canepa gave him a puzzled look. "Why?"

  "Jesus! Turn off the fucking light so the fucking Viets won't shoot your fucking ass off with the fucking howitzers they've got at the bottom of the fucking mountain."

  Canepa shrugged, still floating. "They can't see us. We're too far from the sides."

  Black didn't bother to point out that the militia would have men posted on surrounding mountains to watch them. He motioned at the woman, then the door. "Go," he told her in Yard. "Go back to your people and do not come back here."

  She showed no emotion as she departed.

  "Hey!" shouted Canepa. "Where you going?"

  Black closed the door behind her and turned an exasperated eye on the contractor. "There's six hundred North Viets down below and they're going to skinny up this mountain, Canepa. Then they're going to kill everything that's up here, and that includes you."

  Canepa's voice was confident. "They'll take me out before that happens."

  "They?"

  "Jones told me that's in the site instructions. We call for evacuation and they come get us."

  "Did you see the NVA shoot down the fucking T-34 this morning? The pilot worked for the same people you do. They can't get in here."

  Buddy Canepa trembled noticeably. "Jones said they're sending me home next week."

  Black sighed. It was hard to get through to him. "This place isn't going to be here in another week. It may not be here in another couple of hours."

  "They'll get me out," the contractor nodded, reassuring himself.

  Black went over and, one by one, began to turn off lights.

  "Anyway," Canepa said in the gloom, "you're here now, aren't you?"

  Black wondered where they'd dug up this character, who was fast eroding his already mediocre image of CIA contractors. He left a single hooded lamp burning at the desk. "Okay, what kind of comm gear you got?"

  Buddy Canepa's brow furrowed. "Ask Jones."

  "Jones is dying, for crap's sake. I don't think he can even talk anymore."

  Canepa bit his lip and his eyes walled.

  "Now . . . what kind of radios have you got?"

  Canepa pointed out the Handie-Talkie he'd spoken to Black on, then a set up on the desk beside Black's directional rig. "That's preset to Vientiane Control. We check in once a day, or when we've got an emergency." It was an expensive Hallicrafter civilian model. The thing was turned off, f
or Christ's sake. Black switched it on and let it warm up.

  "Did you call Vientiane like I told you?"

  Canepa hedged, and Black knew he had not. "Before he got hurt, Jones told Vientiane to get us out. They said to sit tight, that they'd send in fighters to knock out the troops."

  "Did Jones talk to 'em today?"

  Buddy's face grew troubled as he tried to remember. "I guess he told me to," he finally mumbled. "After you said you were coming up the mountain, I guess I figured you'd take over that kind of thing."

  "Well Mr. Canepa, we are in deep shit. If there's any way to get our asses out of here, you better think of it."

  Canepa sat at the desk. "I'll give Vientiane a call."

  Vientiane was quick to respond. "Roger, Yankee two-one, we've been trying to contact you all day."

  Canepa scratched his chest, glanced at Black, and managed something about the radio being fucked up.

  "Are you okay?"

  "You better come and get me out." His voice was plaintive.

  "Is Hotdog on site?"

  "Yeah," Canepa said.

  There was a pause before Vientiane Control came back on. "We're going to try for another air strike tomorrow, but it's looking iffy."

  Black thought about that, then pushed Buddy Canepa aside and took the mike. "This is Hotdog leader. We need air now. Right now."

  "No way we can do anything tonight. Tomorrow's the earliest. This whole country's coming unglued, Hotdog."

  "You gonna give us something worthwhile, or use tango three-fours again."

  Vientiane Control's voice was sad. "You'll get what we can spare, Hotdog. We've got priorities. You're not the only ones in trouble, and the pilots are concerned about the rockets."

  "How about some fast movers? Those were dinky little rockets. They couldn't reach a fast mover, if he was to release up high." Black didn't think so anyway.

  "You're talking to the wrong people if you want fast movers. It's going to be hard to get anyone to go back after what happened there this morning, but we'll try."

  Black was increasingly exasperated. "Ask the fast movers, for crap's sake."

  A pause. "They're out of our channel of authority, Hotdog. And don't try calling 'em on the UHF."

  Black turned to Canepa. "You've got a UHF radio?" he said.

  Canepa frowned. "Maybe. There's more radios. I told the woman to put 'em in the storage shed."

  Black spoke to Vientiane. "This is Hotdog. You'd better start evacuating these people."

  "We're waiting for authority to . . . stand by." Vientiane gave them another long pause. "Hotdog, I just got authority to pull you. Problem is it won't be until late tomorrow. Think you can hold out until then?"

  "We can hold out until the North Viets down below get serious, no longer."

  "Give us a call in the morning."

  "If we're still here." Black signed off, cursed a bit, then grabbed a flashlight off the table, stomped angrily to the door, and went outside.

  The lieutenant joined him as he rummaged through the mess in the storage shed, looking for the UHF radio. "We found a way down," the lieutenant said in Viet. "Down the west side."

  "That just means there's another way for the militia to get up here," Black growled.

  "I don't think so. It is so steep we will have to use ropes. We can go down but not up."

  "Are the Viets guarding it?"

  "There is a communications platoon at the bottom. We must be very quiet."

  "Keep planting the mines. Put them as far down the slopes as you can."

  "Mebbe beddah we leaf dis place, bruddah." The lieutenant switched to the island pidgin Black had taught them in frivolous moments.

  "Just get the booby traps set up. We've got to hold the Viets off as long as we can. They are going to try to get everyone out of here tomorrow evening."

  He found a hand-held UHF radio in a box marked, Pork & Beans. He tested it, then began a search for extra batteries. Fuck Vientiane, He'd made up his mind to contact the next group of fighters that passed overhead. If he could get Air Force fast movers to give him a strike on the Viets, it would be safer for the contractors to bring in a STOL cargo plane to get everyone out.

  "Mebbe we beddah leaf, bruddah." The lieutenant, like most Viets, North and South, didn't give a damn about Montagnards. "Mebbe too lade, we waid 'round."

  Black found the batteries. A box of six. "Maybe," he agreed. "Now go finish with the booby traps."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Wednesday, November 29th, 0600 Local—Over Laos

  Lieutenant Colonel Yank Donovan

  The strike was to be a straightforward one, directly across the heart of the Red River Valley to the big storage area at Gia Thuong, where three weeks earlier Korat had bombed and caused tremendous secondary explosions. Reconnaissance photos showed renewed activity there.

  Yank thought it was stupid to think the gomers would put their eggs back in the same basket. They'd find nothing at Gia Thuong. Yet when his squadron was tasked to provide pilots and aircraft for the effort, Yank had placed himself on the schedule to lead the effort.

  They'd be going to downtown Hanoi, and it would be another dangerous one. He was mission commander, Bear Force leader, and his flight would be first on target. They were the chopper flight, their task to release CBU-24 cluster bombs on gun emplacements and suppress the flak for the others who followed.

  Lieutenant Smith was flying on Yank's wing. Bear three was Captain Fields, a flight commander from Lucky Anderson's 333rd squadron. Captain Hamlin flew on Dusty's wing. They were all steady and experienced combat pilots. It was a good group, Donovan thought. He could concentrate his concerns on the remainder of the formation.

  The air refueling went as planned, without delays caused by an anxious pilot or overeager boom operator. The aircraft all seemed to be in good enough condition, so he sent home the two airborne spares that tagged along as far as the tanker.

  Good so far.

  The flight leg from tanker drop-off toward the Channel 97 TACAN was quiet. The pilots mulled over their individual beliefs, the religious said their prayers, and everyone mentally went through their emergency procedures in case something went wrong.

  Yank Donovan's mind was busy with other things—twinges of worry that he tried to relegate to the back of his consciousness. Not about his own abilities or safety, of course. Those were handled by his experienced and orderly approach to flying. Yet apprehension was gathering in the pit of his stomach like a heavy lump of clay.

  It concerned others; the men in his squadron, the pilots in the strike force he was leading. The feeling was uncharacteristic for Yank, who wasn't accustomed to giving much of a damn about anyone. He tried very hard to mask it from others. It was confusing enough to himself, and hadn't been helped by the telephone call from Colonel Tom Lyons the previous evening.

  He'd learned his detachment—not to worry about others—as a boy in Chicago. His pa had been a burly, pleasant construction worker who'd immigrated from Ireland as a young man and was so proud of his new country he'd been given the nickname "Yank" by his Irish friends. When his son was born, he immediately changed it to Big Yank, and the baby—Little Yank, of course. From his earliest memories Big Yank had been a union man, and sometime enforcer of his local's rules. In Chicago it wasn't whether a job would be accomplished using men from the steelworkers union—they all were; it was whether they'd use the right local.

  His mother had been beautiful, and Big Yank squired her to night clubs with pride and a glare for any man who looked too long. She talked about that after he was gone, how Big Yank was loving and protective and how they'd dance until early morning. It was on one of those evenings that his father had faced off against too goons who'd tried to harass him for working a job they felt was reserved for their local. He was used to such badgering and held his peace until they made the mistake of calling his wife a slut. He'd put both of them in the hospital, one with a broken arm and concussion, the other with crushed ribs. Bi
g Yank was tough as a ball-peen hammer, but he was killed the next week on the job, falling seventeen stories in the cab of a poorly secured overhead crane. The family was left with a hefty stack of bills and a few thousand dollars of union insurance. His mother was distraught.

  Yank's mother might have been flawlessly beautiful and perfect in many ways, but she wasn't trained to make a living in the big world. When the last family members had left after the funeral, she'd brooded and hardly left the apartment for more than a month. Several times twelve-year-old Yank had told her not to worry, that he'd get a job and make enough money so she and his four-year-old sister wouldn't have to worry. She'd say that was sweet of him and then cry and drink more gin.

  Finally she started to go out, leaving Yank to watch over his sister for several hours each night. At first his mother had seemed nervous about it, but as the months passed, she reverted to her smiling, happy, and loving self. Then she began to stay out all night, not returning until Yank was about to leave for school. On Saturdays and Sundays she often wouldn't show up until noon. She'd also developed a new self-confidence that he'd never before seen in her. There was no more worrying about money. They moved into an upscale town home, where his mother spent a lot of time in her bedroom on the phone.

  Yank had asked no questions. He earned good grades at school and was popular among his classmates, including the prettiest girls.

  One blustery day when Yank was fifteen years old, his mother didn't return home until much later than normal, and when she did, there were reporters waiting. She called him to her and quietly told him he must be very strong, because people were going to say bad things about her.

  A page-three Tribune article told how Shaleen Donovan, aka O'Brien, was operating one of the most successful call-girl rings in Chicago's recent history, sanctioned and protected by unnamed union officials with links to organized crime.

  Yank's shame was overpowering. His girlfriend dropped him like a hot rock. Bullies at school made snide remarks, and there was relentless snickering behind his back. His sister often came home early from grade school crying, because older girls made fun of her and boys would corner her, pull up her dress and ask if she was a whore like her mother.