by Tom Wilson
To Trimble:
BY ORDER OF THE COMMANDER, 355TH TFW: EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, YOU ARE RELIEVED AS DEPUTY COMMANDER FOR MAINTENANCE, AND WILL ASSUME THE POSITION OF DEPUTY COMMANDER FOR OPERATIONS. OFFICIAL ORDERS WILL FOLLOW.
The two men's positions had been reversed. Both were scrambling to come up to speed in their new job, and the peace and silence at the staff meetings was conducive to getting much more accomplished. They were good men, and would quickly discover just how difficult the other's position had been. Armaugh would develop an appreciation of how hard maintenance had to work to keep the birds flying. Trimble would learn to bear the losses of pilots flying combat.
Buster felt very wise.
Lucky Anderson had just left his office after telling him about the screwup in today's mission, and Buster included his concerns in the message he'd been preparing. He reread the words he'd carefully printed for transmission and decided they were proper.
SECRET—JACKPOT
7 AP CC EYES ONLY—NO FURTHER DISSEM
DTG: 16/0700ZJAN68
TO: HQ 7 AF/CC, TAN SON NHUT AB, SVN
FM: 355 TFW/CC, TAKHLI RTAFB, THAI
SUBJECT: JACKPOT INPUTS
1. (C) PARTIAL LIFTING OF RESTRICTIONS HAS BEEN BENEFICIAL. WE LOOK FORWARD TO FURTHER CHANGES, AS REQUESTED.
2. (S) LOSS OF CHANNEL 97 TACAN HAS AFFECTED THIS WING'S COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS. IT WOULD BE ESPECIALLY DESIRABLE TO HAVE IT BACK ON THE AIR PRIOR TO INITIATION OF LARGE-SCALE ACTIVITIES, SUCH AS ENVISIONED IN OPLAN.
3. (S) FYI, LT COL DONOVAN RECEIVED TWO (2) MORE PHONE CALLS FM COL LYONS RE. JACKPOT, & REPORTED SAME TO ME. 1ST CALL FM DANANG, 2ND FM PACAF HQ. LYONS INDICATED HE KNOWS MORE THAN PREVIOUSLY, BUT DIDN'T EXPLAIN. SECRET—JACKPOT
Saturday, January 20th, 1330 Local—Pave Dagger Test Headquarters, Danang Air Base, South Vietnam
Major Benny Lewis
The Danang wing commander had become easier to deal with following their discussion, but he still was not truly responsive. When they received the two F-4's for field modification and use on the test, which was a full week after he'd seen him, it was the final straw. Both were hangar queens, non flyable until hundreds of hours of major maintenance could be performed, and then the birds would have to be scheduled for test flights and certified ready.
Benny had told Moods to have his men and the Texas team continue to tune and peak the seekers and bomb kits, and to stand by until he returned. Then he'd departed on a base shuttle flight. That had been five days earlier.
Now, half an hour after his return to Danang he had Moods gather the entire bunch in the too-small, decrepit building near the end of the runway. Benny sipped a cold beer as they assembled. He'd missed breakfast and lunch and needed something to fill him.
"You guys ready to go to work?" he asked when the last men had arrived.
Moods's backseat PSO piped up. "Neither of the test birds is ready to fly."
"Forget about 'em."
"Sir, we can't modify them until they've been—"
"I said forget 'em. They can have their trash back."
"Sir?"
"I made three stops after I left here. First was in Saigon, where I told General Moss about the horseshit going on here."
There were smiles.
"Second I went to Ubon, over in northeast Thailand, and spoke to the wing commander. He liked what I told him about your smart bombs—thinks they might be the hottest thing since Sherman partied in Atlanta. He's sick and tired of the Thud wings telling him they can outbomb his Phantoms all to hell and wants to teach 'em a lesson."
"Can't agree more," said Moods's PSO, an avid F-4 proponent.
"Then I went back to Seventh Air Force and General Moss approved the move."
"We're moving?" Moods asked.
"Tomorrow afternoon they're sending us two C-130's, and we'll haul everything to Ubon. Think you can get everything boxed up and ready by then?"
"Why the big rush?" complained the Texas team lead engineer. "We've done nothing but sit on our asses for the past month."
"That's over. I want you to get moved and complete the test ASAP."
"Something hot coming up?" asked the pilot GIB, much happier.
"Maybe. Let's prove these things work, so the company can crank up the assembly line."
"Yes sir," said the lead Texas-team engineer. He was smiling broadly now.
"How about bombs?" the backseater asked.
"They'll have thirty picked out and ready for you. The best they can find."
More smiles.
"Another thing. I want tighter security this time. Don't tell anyone here where we're going. I want us to load up and be out of here before anyone realizes it. When we land at Ubon, I want you to move in and set up shop as quickly as possible. And don't put up any signs or anything announcing you're Pave Dagger."
The men began to talk among themselves. Happy chatter. They were finally going to see progress.
Benny drove the battered old pickup back to base operations, where he had a late lunch at the snack bar—the same greasy burger and fries and watery soda pop found at all such places. Hunger did not improve their taste.
When he'd told Moss about watching the 366th commander and Tom Lyons sitting together and confabbing like brothers, the general had at first been angry with Benny, then had turned quiet, then reflective. He'd said he'd call the wing commander in and find out if he'd given anything away. When Benny dropped back by after visiting Ubon, Moss hadn't shared what he'd learned, but he'd authorized the move to Ubon and told him to watch their security.
As he finished the last of the greasy fries, he felt another twinge in his back. He tried hard to relax it until the spasm passed. The shaking and shuddering of the C-130's he'd taken on two of the flight legs had not been nearly as gentle on his ailing backbone as the commercial airliners. Still, he'd made the flights and suffered no real, lasting pain, so he knew he was healing. After taking a single muscle-relaxant pill and three or four aspirins, he was able to sleep just fine.
On his way out of the snack bar, Lewis saw Tiny Bechler standing with a lanky staff sergeant and a stack of bags and boxes in front of base ops.
"Going somewhere?" he asked.
"Yeah." Tiny introduced him to his ROMAD. "We're headed over to Nakhon Phanom. Talk to the O-1 Birddog pilots and teach 'em the ropes."
Benny laughed. The Birddog pilots at NKP nurtured reputations as the best airborne forward air controllers in the free world.
"Take care of yourself, Tiny."
"Will do. You heading back to the States soon?"
"Soon enough."
Benny drove back to the shack at the end of the runway. He'd decided to stay with the test for a while longer. He could think of no compelling reason to return to Nellis. More and more he'd been thinking that his relationship with Julie had come to a turning point . . . and was headed for nowhere in particular. Several times he'd started to write her as he'd promised, but something would clutch at his hand and the words wouldn't come. Each time he'd think of the night they'd spent together, the awkwardness and the boorish way he'd treated her—the anguish he'd felt over the memory of her dead husband—and he'd put off writing for yet another day.
Benny missed Julie and still wanted her more than any woman he'd met in his life, but the more he thought about things and the way they'd become, the more he realized she'd be better off free of him. Perhaps her mother was right. He wondered if Julie would be there when he returned, or if she'd be in New Jersey, setting up a new life. By not writing, he knew he was encouraging her to go, yet he was increasingly at peace with himself about the decision.
1840L—O' Club Dining Room, Takhli RTAFB, Thailand
GS-7 Penny Dwight
The short major had freckles, a head of the reddest hair she'd ever seen, and light-blue eyes. His name was Rudy, like the reindeer, he liked to say, which he thought was a great joke. When he'd asked her out the first time, she'd turned him down. The next time she'd done the same. This time
she'd thought it over, asked herself why not, and accepted.
He was very nice, well mannered, and thought she was beautiful. He was also a supply officer, and as a nonpilot he didn't fly. She didn't find Rudy exciting and wasn't particularly drawn to him, but he wasn't going to be shot down in flames and threaten her sanity. He was also able to feel sorrow for others. He'd told her about his best friend at his previous base, and how he'd developed a heart condition. He said he worried a lot about his friend, and she noticed moisture welling in his eyes. He was normal and vulnerable, Penny told herself, and not at all like the fighter pilots.
Rudy was ten years older than Penny, but she felt she'd recently matured a great deal herself. For the past three months she'd lived in a far different, emotional, and violent world, and she knew she could never be the same again.
Penny was changed from the wide-eyed girl who'd arrived at Takhli, enamored with exotic Siam, captivated and cowed by the bold, adventuresome young pilots. It had been like a dream, as if she'd been dragged at a maddening pace through scenes from a bad movie. The smoke-filled bar with pilots singing the obscene songs of their odd fraternity. Heights of passion she'd not dreamed possible in an evening she'd never forget. Her lover killed. The awful night when the colonel had used her like a whore. Lovable Roger, with his gaudy guitar, now gone forever. She'd never believed she could become like the pilots, numbed and callous and taking death in stride as if it were part of the dues and not an awful, terrible thing . . . but she had. The evening following Roger Hamlin's death, she'd hardly cried. She'd grieved, but there'd been no sobbing, none of the heart-wrenching emotion she'd felt when Dusty had been lost—when she'd been normal. Death was a part of a fighter pilot's life. Roger had played his role, and more would go as he had. It was all a part of the movie—of a game they played. They didn't mourn one another.
Penny was determined to rekindle human charity within herself.
She'd not believed that her heart-thumping infatuation over Manny DeVera could end, but something had certainly changed, and abruptly so. It was a part of her journey to normalcy. She was distancing her life from theirs, fearful of what they'd done to her and of what might happen if she didn't move away. So she'd agreed to go out with Rudy—dinner at the club followed by a visit to the on-base Thai market. She'd never go out with Manny DeVera, or again wear the silly party suit to the club and act as if she were one of their insane cult.
They ordered steaks, and the waitress made a big deal about "hab punkin pie."
"Perhaps later," Rudy told her in his correct tone.
"Mebbe no hab punkin pie latah," she warned.
He ordered pie with their steaks, and Penny smiled.
Manny DeVera came into the dining room with Smitty Smith, and they took a seat nearby. Manny tried to catch her eye, but Penny ignored him and very deliberately reached over to touch the major's hand. The redhead jumped a bit, then showed a nervous smile.
"Have you been here long?" she asked Rudy, making small talk.
"Only a month. I'm still getting my feet on the ground." He leaned forward and his eyes came alive. "You wouldn't believe the volume we work with, and the items are so diverse that manual accounting and reordering methods are becoming useless." He went on to tell her about an automated inventory/reordering system they were installing, and how the keypunch operation would vastly improve their lives.
She stared and nodded and tried to give his speech full attention, quelling the urge to look over at the other table to see what Manny was doing.
She certainly did not miss him. She refused to. He was a part of the madness.
Captain Manny DeVera
"Forget her, Manny," said Smitty. "You're gonna blow your reputation."
"She won't even look at me," DeVera lamented. He was sure he felt more emotion for Penny Dwight than he had for any other woman, yet none of his magic seemed to work with her.
Smitty grinned. "You seen Colonel Armaugh's secretary? Now there's a foxy female, and she still hasn't gone out with any of the guys. Bazooms like watermelons. You oughta lay on the old Supersonic Wetback charm."
"I've gotta deal going with myself. No round-eyes until I finish my tour. I get in trouble every time I chase round-eye women."
"Then what're you doing worrying about who Penny's out with?" Smitty looked cherubic, more like a teenager than a combat-hardened fighter jock.
"That's different," Manny said, then adroitly changed the subject. "How're you doing with the Thai base commander's daughter?"
Smith grew quiet. Everyone knew about his on-again, off-again relationship with the stunningly pretty Thai commander's numbah-one daughter by his numbah-two wife. Every two weeks, around payday, the girl would become reenamored. She'd telephone him at the Ponderosa and simper about how she missed him. They'd date once, then she'd insist that he take her shopping in Nakhon Sawan or the downtown Thai marketplace, where she'd blow his money in yet another spending frenzy. As far as they knew, she remained virginal, and Smitty was poor as a church mouse.
"You gonna get any of that girl?" Manny asked mischievously.
"She'll be worth the wait." Smitty didn't sound sure of himself. He was getting smarter, putting aside enough to make weekly trips downtown to the Takhli Villa, where sympathetic whores vied to relieve his anxieties. He was popular at the Villa. Whenever he entered the place, half the girls became dreamy-eyed and ignored business. Several had done the unthinkable and offered themselves at reduced prices for the cute Lootna Smitty.
"Forget the Thai colonel's daughter," Manny advised. "Go downtown and run for mayor. The girls'd vote you into office."
"Same as you oughta forget about Penny," countered Smitty.
Manny looked over at her table and forlornly shook his head. "What the hell does she see in him?" He sincerely didn't understand how she could ignore him for a supply officer.
"Maybe he's a nice guy." Smitty took a bite of hamburger steak, frowned, and doused more ketchup on it. "You better eat or it's gonna get cold."
"So what. Tastes the same either way."
Smitty grinned. "That's like you used to say about women. Turn 'em upside down, and they're all the same."
Manny continued to stare at Penny, who was listening intently to the redheaded major. She was not the same as other women he'd met—not at all.
Monday, January 22nd, 1000 Local—CC-C, Nakhon Phanom RTAB, Thailand
Sergeant Black
The commander had summoned him to his office. Black appeared there alone, as usual, and carefully closed the door.
Papa Wolf was in better spirits than the last time he'd seen him, which meant to Black either that the situation in Laos was becoming manageable, which was doubtful, or that they'd received orders to mount an operation.
It was the latter. "How's your team, Black?"
"They're healed and ready to fight, sir."
"Can you handle a routine patrol?"
"We're still at reduced numbers, but yes, sir. We're ready."
"We've been tentatively tasked to assist in an air operation, which I can't go into details on at this time. We'll need to insert a recon patrol to observe from the ground. Since it's a critical op and we're low on personnel, I'm going to use Hotdog to augment and back up."
Black was instantly happy. His deal not to participate in missions had been like a ballerina agreeing not to dance.
Papa Wolf glared at him. "Get that smirk off your face."
"It's a smile. Certainly not a smirk, sir."
The lieutenant colonel nodded at the wall map. "We'll drop you in separately, just in case, and you'll join the primary team at a base-camp observation post."
"Who's the primary team?"
"Banjo. They'll be in charge. Hotdog's only being used because of your . . . ah . . . unique qualifications for enemy recon."
"Banjo's good." Black wondered if they'd be returning to the mountaintop TACAN station. He hoped so. They'd left unfinished business there.
"When do we go, sir?"
"Ten days to two weeks. MAC-V's given tentative tasking to MAC-SOG, but we're still awaiting approval. The XO will brief you on specifics as the time gets closer. Let's say . . . four days from now." The lieutenant colonel was giving him an odd fish-eye look.
Black wondered why he was being told this by the old man; normally he'd be alerted and briefed by the XO, not the commander. And why only general details? They were usually given specifics as early as possible so they could plan their activity down to a gnat's ass.
"Make sure your team's prepared, Black." The fish-eye again.
"Of course, sir." He saluted and started to leave.
Papa Wolf's next words held him up. "Regarding the Clipper operation you've been asking about? Your jet-jockey friend's fiancée?"
Black slowly turned back.
"I'm about to tell you something I'll deny ever mentioning. Understand, Black?"
"Yes, sir."
"They're through hesitating at MAC-V. They're about to do something about her, even though the priority's been reduced."
"It's about time we did something, sir. It's been three weeks since we discovered her location. That seems like a hell of a long hesitation."
"Big wheels move in mysterious and ponderous ways, Black, especially at MAC-V. But they've received a new HUMINT report that her physical condition is deteriorating. According to the source, she still hasn't told them what she knows, but she's likely about to break."
Black agreed. Few humans could long withstand continuous beatings. "Then they're finally going in after her?"
"They're not interested in mounting a ground operation with large numbers of enemy troops in that area. They're looking for an easier solution." He sat back in his chair and fixed Black with the odd gaze. "This coming Wednesday, that's two days from now, they're flying two dragon ships over from Nha Trang. Wednesday night they'll take out the camp at Ban Si Muang with Gatling guns."
"And the woman with it?"
