Tango Uniform (Vietnam Air War Book 3)

by Tom Wilson

  He picked at his breakfast while reading about a concert the king of Thailand had attended. A British orchestra was touring Asia. Next an article on a guy named Thompson, who was an American ex-patriot who'd become a multimillionaire in the Thai silk business, and how he'd recently been kidnapped. Next about a USAID executive who'd been ambushed and was feared kidnapped by communist terrorists.

  He reread that final one, written by a reporter in Muang Sakhon Nakhon, in far eastern Thailand. Yesterday the police from nearby Nakhon Phanom had located a vehicle in the jungle north of the city. They'd also found the bodies of two men. The executive was missing. None of the names had yet been released by the police, but one of the dead men was identified as a Thai, the other an American, and both worked at the Nakhon Phanom USAID office. The article went on to describe the CTs as being increasingly active in that area, and warned the people there to be vigilant and contact the provincial police before traveling in remote areas.

  Manny looked about the dining room until he found Lucky Anderson eating breakfast at the wing commander's table, deep in conversation with Buster Leska and Colonel Trimble, the Deputy for Maintenance. He thought about the newspaper article, then went over to their table and waited until Trimble paused and looked up.

  "You got something, Captain DeVera?" He was obviously unhappy with the interruption.

  Manny regarded Lucky. "Something here I thought you might be interested in," he said. "You talk to the Ice—" He stopped himself, remembering that Anderson didn't like the nickname. "You talk to Miss Lopes recently?"

  "Why?"

  "Article here's about USAID people. I remembered she runs the agency and thought you'd be interested. Looks like one of her top people was kidnapped and—"

  "Let me see that." Lucky took the paper and carefully read the article, then abruptly got to his feet and left the room.

  "What does it say in the article?" Buster Leska asked.

  "A USAID vehicle was shot up over near NKP by commie terrorists. Two men were killed and some executive was kidnapped."

  Colonel Trimble looked concerned. "Lucky said she hasn't called in a few days and he was getting worried."

  "You don't think it could be her, do you?" Manny thought of Lucky Anderson as he would a big brother.

  "We'll find out more when he gets back," said Leska. "Have a seat, Manny."

  Colonel Trimble grinned at him. "You still interfering with things over in my ECM shop?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Good." He looked at Buster. "Captain DeVera not only tells 'em what he wants, he spends time trying to help. The technicians think he's great."

  "They've raised the OR rate on the pods sixty percent by making the right changes," Manny said. "Now we've got a few more pods in, too."

  Buster nodded. "I like the way you're hanging two pods on some of the birds."

  "We haven't lost a single bird that had two pods aboard to a SAM," said Colonel Trimble.

  "Then we need to get more of the things and load two on all the Thuds," Buster said.

  Manny shook his head. "There aren't many more of these old ones that use a RAT for power. There's plenty of the new kind that take aircraft power, but we're not wired for 'em. Unless we can get the assembly line reopened or get our birds rewired, this is all we'll get."

  "Meaning we'd better preserve what we've got," said Trimble.

  Lucky appeared at the opposite end of the room, head down and looking as if he'd been walked on. "I called the embassy," he breathed as soon as he reached the table. "It was Linda."

  Manny felt himself blanching. "Jesus," he said, staring at Lucky.

  "I've gotta go to NKP."

  Buster observed him evenly. "You'd just get in the way. Why not leave it to the guys who know what they're doing?"

  Lucky's voice trembled with emotion. "You're saying I can't go?"

  "No. I'm just telling you we need you here, and it's unlikely you'll be able to do anything for her there."

  "I can take the eleven o'clock round-robin to NKP."

  Buster sighed. "Cut orders putting your ops officer in charge until you get back."

  "Yes, sir. How long have I got?"

  "Use your judgment. Soon as you realize you're getting nowhere, head on back."

  Lucky nodded curtly and left.

  "Jesus," repeated Manny, thinking of his friend's anguish. Then he thought about the Ice Maiden. "Jesus."

  1045L—Takhli Base Operations

  Major Lucky Anderson

  Lucky stared numbly as the round-robin gooney bird dropped onto the end of the runway. A dull, persistent ache gnawed in his chest, and horrors kept buzzing about inside his head, making it difficult to think clearly. He kept going over his phone call to Linda's office in the Bangkok embassy. All the people there could tell him was what was already in the newspaper article. Then they'd connected him with a familiar male voice that sounded entirely too collected.

  Linda was missing, the voice said evenly.

  Was she alive?

  They didn't know.

  Had the embassy been contacted about a ransom?

  Not so far.

  Who had taken her?

  They had no idea.

  "She's my fiancée," he'd pleaded with the voice. "I've got to know what's happening!"

  If he didn't realize that, the voice on the telephone had said quietly, they wouldn't be talking. Linda's name hadn't been released to the press.

  "Who am I talking to?" he'd demanded.

  "This is Richard. We spoke once before, remember?"

  "I'm going to NKP to find out what's going on," he'd told him.

  "I'd rather you didn't, Colonel."

  "I've got to."

  "Do what you must. We hear anything, we'll contact you." Richard had then terminated the conversation.

  As he watched the gooney bird taxi off the runway, Lucky realized that Buster Leska had likely been right. He wouldn't even know where to start when he got to Nakhon Phanom. He had friends there. One worked in Igloo White, a secretive project to set up eavesdropping sensors on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Another was a pilot he'd been stationed with when he'd flown F-100's, who was now ops officer of the O-1 Birddog squadron. While it was unlikely he'd be any help in his search for Linda, at least he'd be able to cadge a bed and maybe be introduced to the right people.

  He remembered another friend at NKP. Yeah, he thought as he started walking toward the gooney bird, which was coming to a halt, brakes squealing like a thousand-pound rat. Sergeant Black might be able to help.

  Monday, December 18th, 0800 Local—HQ Seventh Air Force, Tan Son Nhut AB

  Lieutenant Colonel Pearly Gates

  Pearly's Plans and Programs (Out-Country) branch at the headquarters was concerned only with ROLLING THUNDER, the air war over North Vietnam, and was made up of two sections, Documentation and Combat Programs. The first kept track of classified material. The second consisted of three officers, two NCOs, and five airmen. Two of the officers were fighter pilots, one from Thuds, the other from Phantoms. The third was an airborne command post radar controller.

  Combat Programs ensured that headquarters' plans accurately reflected friendly and enemy capabilities, and that the units knew what was required of them by the various and voluminous directives. In effect Combat Programs told the units what, when and how to fight in North Vietnam and interfaced with the Tactical Air Control Center, which sent air tasking orders out to the flying units.

  Two other officers were attached to the headquarters and worked closely with Plans and Programs (Out-Country). When he was present, Colonel Snider represented Strategic Air Command assets, the B-52's and KC-135 units that rotated in and out of the theater. A major from the Ninetieth Special Operations Wing, which was the property of Military Assistance Command–Surveillance and Observations Group, was assigned as the MAC-SOG liaison officer. He was a C-130 Hercules pilot and had been sent to Saigon from Nha Trang, headquarters for the Army's Special Forces, as well as the Air Force's Special Op
erations.

  The Special Ops major had the unlikely name of Friday Wells. He disliked both the headquarters assignment and the city of Saigon, and was not hesitant to tell anyone who listened that he was the best damned Herky pilot in the Air Force and was being grossly misused.

  There were jokes about Herkys and Herky people in the theater. A number of fighter jocks changed the name of their ungainly aircraft to "turkeys," called their pilots "turkey drivers," and made jokes like, "It's hard to soar with the eagles when you're in the company of turkeys."

  The six of them, Pearly, his three Combat Programs officers, Wes Snider, and Friday Wells, met that Monday morning to share recent developments.

  When Friday's turn came, he said the tempo of the war in Laos was still escalating, and the good guys, the Royal Laotian Army, were not faring well. Pathet Lao troops had gathered in battalion strengths throughout much of the country and were attacking government-held outposts. He also told them a long-range recon patrol had confirmed that it had been Russian-built SA-7s—shoulder-fired, infrared missiles—that had driven off slow-flying, propeller-driven airplanes before they'd overrun the Channel 97 TACAN station.

  He added that another source had confirmed that SA-7's were being brought into South Vietnam, along with a small group of trained operators. So, he said, the others had better start thinking of placing flare dispensers on their aircraft as they were doing with their Special Ops birds. The SA-7, he said, was unsophisticated and easily decoyed by brightly burning flares.

  One of the fighter pilots said he wasn't concerned about Thuds or F-4's, because they could release their bombs higher and fly faster than the SA-7's limited speed and effective range could cope with. Forward air controller birds, like O-1's, didn't have much of a heat signature and weren't considered good targets either, if they kept turning. The most endangered aircraft were A-1H Sandies, helicopters, cargo birds, and airliners, and they'd been alerted to change their flight and approach patterns to avoid overflying enemy-held areas at vulnerable altitudes.

  Wes Snider said the B-52's flew too high for the SA-7's, that the little missiles would run out of fuel between 5,000 and 6,000 feet altitude, and the BUFs flew above 30,000.

  After more discussion about heat signatures of various aircraft, Pearly brought up the TACAN again and asked Friday what it would take to get the CIA, or someone, to set up another nav station at Channel 97. The Thuds and Phantoms flying into North Vietnam needed it.

  MAC-SOG's working on a solution to get the site back, was all Friday would tell him.

  After an hour the meeting broke up and Pearly checked in at his office. The admin sergeant had a couple of new messages. She said Buster Leska had called from Takhli and asked if Pearly had information concerning the ambush of USAID officials near NKP. He said the missing woman was Lucky Anderson's fiancée. Which made Pearly groan. Anderson had paid his dues when he'd been shot down and set a record for the number of days on the ground before being rescued. Now this. Life wasn't playing fair with the badly scarred LC. He decided to corner Friday and request information from his spook contacts at MAC-SOG. He'd also have to pass on the info to the general, because Moss thought very highly of Anderson.

  The second request was from Flo. General Moss wanted him to appear with Wes Snider at ten o'clock for a short meeting.

  Pearly went into his inner office and nodded absently to Lucy Dortmeier, still thinking about Lucky Anderson.

  "I'm done cleaning up section nine," she said with a satisfied smile. "Only three to go. You want to look over my work?"

  "Wait'll I find out something." Pearly dialed Friday's number and asked his question.

  "I can tell you right now, Pearly. No one knows anything. USOM, that's another name for USAID, has been screaming about it and now the State Department's in the act, raising hell with us about not alerting them about the extent of the terrorist problem in that area, which is a bunch of bullshit because they knew. Just a minute." He paused. "Something was just placed on my desk." He paused again. "I'm coming up to your office. See you in a minute, okay?"

  While he waited, Pearly filled Lucille Dortmeier in on Lucky Anderson and Linda Lopes.

  "That's terrible," she said, her face reflecting genuine sympathy. Lucy had come to the war theater with a purpose: to find out more about her brother who'd been shot down eleven months earlier and be close by when he was released. But she had no illusions about the awful treatment the POWs were receiving from their captors. If Linda Lopes was alive, she was likely being treated no better.

  Friday came into the office, wearing short-sleeved camouflage jungle fatigues with blackout rank and wings. Those and an Aussie hat were his uniform, and no headquarters puke could tell him differently. He took a seat, brandishing a document with a red "Secret" cover.

  "Couple things in here I couldn't say on the phone," he said. "This GS-15 lady has a Top Secret SI clearance and possesses specific knowledge they definitely don't want the bad guys getting their hands on. They're giving the matter a high priority."

  "Getting her back, you mean?"

  Friday shrugged. "What I mean is they do not want the info getting out. Period. If they can rescue her, so much the better."

  "You mean they'd eliminate her if that was the only way?"

  "I don't think you headquarters guys listen. There's a high priority, a double-A priority, on the effort to contain her information. That's all."

  Pearly nodded as if he understood.

  "One more thing. The woman's code name's Clipper, same as the operation they've set up to investigate and do damage control."

  "Operation Clipper?"

  "Just Clipper. She's Clipper, and so's the effort. That's sensitive, and I don't think you're supposed to know."

  "Thanks, Friday."

  "No sweat. I'm taking off now. Heading over to Nha Trang to fly a couple of sorties so I can keep my hand in. Need anything, call the duty desk at the detachment."

  "If you hear anything more about Clipper, let me know."

  "Will do." Friday huffed as he rose from the chair, rendered a sloppy salute, and left.

  "He's certainly not very military." Dortmeier frowned.

  "Special Ops people are a bit different," Pearly agreed.

  At ten Pearly accompanied Wes Snider into the general's office.

  Moss didn't deal with niceties. As soon as the door closed, he said he'd received a call from General McManus on his scrambler telephone the previous night. "Three days from now the President's traveling to Australia to attend Prime Minister Holt's funeral, then he's coming to the combat theater for a couple days. Beat the drums, tell the guys they're doing a great job, all that."

  Pearly frowned. "Isn't that dangerous for the President, sir?"

  "Won't be when they get through securing the areas he's going to visit. They're not announcing his schedule. Won't until he's gone. Know another reason he's coming?"

  "JACKPOT?" breathed Wes Snider.

  "He wants a firsthand look at things, and he told General McManus he wants to get the word about the LINE BACKER JACKPOT OPlan right from the horse's mouth. He asked him who the horse was over here. I'll fly a leg of the flight on Air Force One and talk to him one on one."

  "With L.B.J.?" Pearly asked incredulously.

  "You haven't had your Pentagon tour yet, Pearly. Once you do, you'll get over being excited about meeting Presidents."

  "That's for sure," agreed Wes Snider. "Every other week they're trying to get you to go over and be window dressing for somebody's visit. Stand around the Rose Garden or back lawn and look pretty and don't tell civilians what kind of dinks are running their country."

  Moss chuckled. "That's not bad. I thought you bomber pukes liked that sort of bullshit."

  "I'd rather have a tooth pulled than go to another White House function."

  "You meet Johnson? I was stationed there before he was elected."

  "L.B.J. wasn't bad," reflected Snider. "He'd come around and talk to the guys in uniform if he ha
d time, tell them he knew it was a pile of horseshit, having to show up. But then none of us heard him telling our bosses to stop sending us."

  "Anything I should know about him?"

  "He was in the Navy Reserve before World War II—likes to tell how he volunteered for active duty five minutes after he heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor."

  "I heard he was an ex-swabbie," said Moss.

  "He's not as obnoxiously pro-Navy as some. He spent his war tour flying around the Pacific for Roosevelt and served at MacArthur's headquarters in Australia. He still speaks highly of him. MacArthur presented Johnson with a Silver Star after he survived a hairy flight in a navy bomber, with Zeros using them for target practice."

  "Well, at least he knows what war's like."

  "He gave his medal away last summer," Wes said. "Pinned it on a captain from Takhli who'd shot down two MiGs. There were a number of people at the Pentagon who thought he was okay, but none of us trusted his cabinet or advisors, especially those left over from the Kennedy years. We felt if he'd get rid of the lot of 'em and start listening to the professionals, guys like Rusk at State and at least a few of the generals on the JCS, he'd be a pretty good wartime president."

  Moss looked at his watch, then back to the two men. "I want you both thinking about what I should say to convince L.B.J. to proceed with LINE BACKER JACKPOT. We'll talk again tomorrow."

  Before they left, Pearly asked if the general had heard about Lucky Anderson's fiancée. He had not, so Pearly told him what he knew.

  General Moss grew a face of stone. "Keep me posted," he said quietly.

  As Pearly was leaving, he heard him mutter, "Goddam, fucking, no-good war!"

  1400L—Hanoi, DRV

  Assistant Commissioner Nguyen Wu

  The three People's magistrates sat, wordlessly watching him. They'd called him from his office without providing reasons, and he'd been led to the People's Court at Ba Dinh square by men from his own commission, the ones he sent to gather citizens named to be reeducated.

  The chief magistrate finally asked his first question. Why had Wu not responded to their order for the immediate release of Air Regiment Commandant Quon?