Tango Uniform (Vietnam Air War Book 3)

by Tom Wilson

  "An officer got off the helicopter with a courier bag," the lieutenant said.

  Black studied the grass strip closely, then the group of thatch huts beyond. Ban Sao Si. Two large newly-constructed wooden buildings had been built between the village and the runway. The militia's headquarters?

  "Any sign of Banjo?" he asked.

  "No."

  They were in a good position. The village, now bustling with activity, was only four kilometers away. The mesa that had once born the TACAN station was eight kilometers beyond Ban Sao Si, its top slightly below their position, and he could observe movement there too.

  He lowered the glasses. "The HF radio?"

  The lieutenant pointed. "While you slept, we set it up in the trees there."

  Black glanced at the lieutenant and noted a mischievous look. "Get ready to send a patrol to check our perimeter."

  The lieutenant nonchalantly motioned northward. "Nothing behind this mountain. The nearest soldiers are at their observation post four hundred meters below us. Typical militia. Twelve men and three women, and they are not alert. One of the women is old and ugly, the others . . ." He shrugged, as if to say "so-so." "There are animal trails there, there, and there, all leading down the mountain. No one below is watching them. We are watching all three." He cocked his head thoughtfully. "There may be a small problem."

  "What is that?"

  "I think they know about us. Ten minutes ago they sent a company of men toward the drop zone." He pointed again. "You can see them through the binoculars."

  Black looked until he saw men-specks walking on a dusty road, double-file but bunched up and looking more like a mob than a formation.

  "These are poorly trained and very unprofessional," said the lieutenant. "Not the same kind of soldiers we saw here before. They will not be able to find us."

  "Good work," Black muttered as he started for the radio, to make their initial call to Buffalo Soldier.

  "Perhaps you should sleep late more often, Sarge Brack," grinned the lieutenant.

  Wise guy. He found the radio, examined and rearranged the antenna, then hooked up the battery pack and double-checked the power level and reflected signal ratio. He stared at his wristwatch until it was time.

  Buffalo Soldier immediately responded to his call.

  "Hotdog is at Yankee five-four," he told Larry on the other end.

  "Roger. Any problems?"

  "There's no sign of Banjo."

  "We know. You'll be alone there, Hotdog. Anything else?"

  He thought about the fucked-up insertion location and the fact that the militia were deploying toward their DZ, but answered, "Negative on the problems."

  "Is your position secure?"

  "Affirmative, Buffalo Soldier. Position is secure."

  "How's the view?"

  "We've got a good line of sight with all objectives."

  "How about Yankee two-one?"

  "We've got good L-O-S. There's movement up there. No estimate on numbers yet."

  "Yankee oh-three?" Meaning the dirt strip.

  "Good L-O-S. There's one Sunday Hag and one Sunday Oscar Alpha down there now." Meaning there was a Soviet chopper and an observation aircraft on the dirt strip below.

  "Yankee oh-four?"

  The village. "We've got it in sight. What's all this for?"

  "Stand by, Hotdog."

  Black waited.

  After a moment Larry came back on the air. "How quickly can you get the numbers and locations, Hotdog? Minimum. "

  Before leaving NKP, they'd told him he'd have ten days to look around and pinpoint everything. "Five days?" he tried.

  Another wait. "Hotdog, try to complete it in three. Break-break. Expect an incoming papa package of two at fourteen hundred hours, location Yankee seven-zero."

  Although they considered the directional, low-frequency HF signal-sideband radio secure, he was to add twelve hours to anything spoken by Buffalo Soldier. Which meant that at 0200 hours tomorrow morning someone would be dropped in at . . . he mentally went over the locations . . . a point nine klicks behind and north of the mountain.

  "Roger, Buffalo Soldier. Yankee seven-oh at fourteen hundred hours."

  After he signed off, Black wondered if whoever they dropped in might shed some light on the changes Buffalo Soldier had referred to. He felt a nagging dread. It was seldom good practice to alter things in the middle of an operation. He also wondered what had happened to Banjo. They'd been in charge of communications and had been carrying the UHF radio, and thus were the only ones who could talk with the fighters. Then he remembered the airborne FACs, and the fact that the radios in the O-1's would be set to monitor channel B on their hand-helds.

  They'd have to make do with what they had.

  1235L—Pave Dagger Test Headquarters, Ubon RTAFB, Thailand

  Major Benny Lewis

  The air tasking order for the following day had been received from Saigon, and the tasks for the Phantom wing at Ubon had been fragmented out. They'd be a part of a medium-sized bombing effort to strike targets in the Hanoi area.

  The morning frag order for Ubon was to bomb new construction at the Phuc Yen MiG base that had been photographed by recce birds.

  There was a special amendment to the air tasking order sent from Saigon. The one Benny and Moods had been awaiting. Two F-4Ds, coded PD-1 and PD-2, were tasked to bomb the small but critical railroad bridge over the Canales des Rapides.

  The first Pave Dagger would be the illuminator bird, flown by Moods Diller and his GIB. Pave Dagger number two would be the shooter, one of the volunteer F-4 crews Moods had been working with—only one aircraft dropping bombs on a difficult target, which would normally require dozens of sorties.

  Benny sat with Moods at his desk in a corner of the open room, pointing out the weakest parts of the bridge structure. He also observed his friend's reactions.

  "Except for a flight of Weasels, you're going to be all alone over the target," he said.

  Moods was engrossed with the photo.

  "Wild Weasels from Korat will work over the area and keep the SAMs preoccupied during your time over target. They'll try to give you a three-minute window to locate the bridge and drop the two bombs. That's not giving you much time to get the job done."

  Moods nodded almost abstractedly. He pointed at the middle span. "We'll take it down here," he said.

  1400L—Ban Sao Si, Laos

  GS-15 Linda Lopes

  Ten days had passed since her arrival at the North Vietnamese camp, and they'd been odd ones. She was treated with disdain by the North Vietnamese, bullied like an animal, but the bamboo-stick beatings were administered halfheartedly, as if they didn't really expect answers.

  Her broken nose had been the worst part. She spent hours holding it firmly in place with her fingers trying to straighten it. It was not only vanity. When it healed, she wanted to be able to breathe through the thing, a task which was impossible while it remained swollen. On the sixth day it was still terribly sore, but for the first time she was able to draw in a small flow of air. She became hopeful, and each night continued to hold it rigidly between her fingers. A small, tender knot of gristle had formed at each side of the bridge.

  "You're tough," she kept telling herself, as she'd done at the Pathet Lao camps, and the self-exhortations worked. She also thought of Paul Anderson a lot, and as the feeling of intense love for him bolstered her, she concentrated on what he'd told her about his own brief period of captivity by the North Vietnamese.

  Each time she was interrogated, the Sad Man, whom she had pegged as a Pathet Lao official, looked on quietly. He was obviously in charge of her treatment, a fact that the Viets liked not a bit. Sergeant Gross continued to go through the motions, reiterating the same questions, slapping the length of bamboo against her chest, stomach, legs, and arms, but there was no conviction to it. The Thin Man, whom she feared most, seldom watched the questioning, and when he did so, he appeared uninterested.

  The beatings were administere
d in the hut, and there came to be a sort of ritual about them. Sergeant Gross would stand outside while a soldier unfastened the door. Then he would step in and eye her with his hungry look for a moment before motioning. She would go to a bamboo rack, where the soldier would tie her, and the sergeant would begin, barking a question, then striking her with the stick, always under the watchful eye of the Sad Man. Twice more the sergeant had led her outside to be bathed, and the soldiers gathered to stare and joke about her nakedness. The sergeant seemed to enjoy those times most of all.

  She heard the familiar commotion at the door and stood, waiting fearfully as she had for each of the other sessions, muttering, "You're tough," over and over in a low voice.

  The door opened, and Sergeant Gross stepped inside and stared with his narrowed eyes. This time he had a length of rope with a noose tied at one end, as he'd had that first day, and a smile danced about his pig's feature as he shoved it toward her.

  She took it and frowned. Where was the Sad Man?

  "Pud id on!" Sergeant Gross demanded, and abruptly kicked her leg. Linda gave a small shriek as she fell back, clutching her shin.

  She slipped the loop about her neck.

  Sergeant Gross watched with glittering eyes. He snapped his fingers and held out his hand.

  Linda handed over the leash end of the rope.

  Thin Man came in then, also smiling. He said something to Sergeant Gross and laughed in his high, reedy voice.

  "The assistan' commissioner wan' you know you be-rong to him. Tings haf change. You be-rong to him"—he smiled meanly—"an to me."

  Where was the Sad Man? she wondered again.

  Assistant Commissioner Nguyen Wu

  The woman stood dumbly as he examined his trophy. She was nude, because he'd ordered her to remove her clothing.

  Early that morning a courier had arrived on a helicopter, carrying official missives for Nguyen Wu, the Viet militia commanding officer and the Laotian watchdog official.

  The commander was told that all militia personnel were to comply with Assistant Commissioner Wu's every wish, under penalty of summary execution. The order was signed by Colonel Xuan Nha.

  Nguyen's beloved aunt had also worked her magic with the Laotians. The message for the Pathet Lao watchdog was that the Mee woman was turned over to the assistant commissioner until he'd retrieved her secrets. It bore the authority of a high official of the Lao communist party.

  The Pathet Lao nurtured some ridiculous idea about trading her to the Americans. They could do so, but Wu doubted if anyone would want what he left for them.

  Nguyen Wu didn't hate the woman . . . did not have any feelings for her except his natural antagonism toward that sex. She was a tool to provide answers that would return him to favor with the party. He would impress his beloved aunt as never before. He had absolutely no doubt that the Mee woman would talk.

  He walked slowly about her and eyed his subject. She was tall and very correct in her bearing. Although she was a captive without hope, she'd not been stripped of her pride.

  Ridiculous.

  The Pathet Lao had tried to beat answers out of her and had gotten nowhere. That meant she had resolve. The silly, backward guerrillas had been impressed that she'd resisted so staunchly, for they'd been told that Americans were soft and nonenduring.

  Nguyen Wu held no such regard for her. She was an animal to be broken. He'd learned how to do that. Degradation, starvation, and intense pain. First he would remove the pride, even the sense of humanity. He would dissolve all vestiges of civilization until left with a shell that would respond without hesitation.

  He spoke instructions to a soldier and the man hurried out.

  "Do you want to rut with her first?" he asked the Sergeant. The fat and ill-mannered man had been like a dog in heat since he'd first seen the woman.

  The sergeant swallowed and attempted to suppress his anticipation. "If you wish, I will try, comrade, even though she is large and ugly."

  "I do not want you to be gentle."

  The sergeant's eyes glittered happily.

  The soldier came back inside with a chair. Nguyen eyed the woman for another moment, then motioned for it to be placed back near the wall.

  He sat.

  "First perhaps a small beating," he said.

  "I did not bring the bamboo, comrade." The sergeant was breathing harder now, a fact that was not lost on the woman, who watched him suspiciously.

  She knows, thought Wu. He wondered what she was thinking.

  "Use your fists and feet," he said.

  Wu turned to the soldier who had retrieved the chair. "Gather twenty men who have been without women and who would like to fuck the Mee."

  The sergeant struck the woman on the side of her head with his hand. She staggered and grunted.

  "Get on with it," Wu said to the sergeant, then settled back with a bored expression to watch.

  He'd picked his man well. The sergeant spent twenty full minutes kicking and beating the woman with his fists until she was cowering on the dirt floor, fresh blood pouring from her nostrils.

  The sergeant motioned to several of the soldier's who'd gathered in anticipation at the door. They came in and held her down as the sergeant fumbled with his trousers with shaking fingers.

  "She is a whore," Wu said to the soldiers. "Treat her like one."

  They felt her breasts and one who was holding a leg thrust fingers into her and laughed loudly when she groaned.

  The obese sergeant shoved the soldiers hand aside and knelt between the woman's legs, said something in a thick voice to her, then grasped hard on a breast and held himself with the other. He pushed harshly into her, and immediately began to rut. The outside world was quickly gone for the ill-mannered fat man who had trouble attracting the most desperate of the camp's prostitutes.

  Wu looked on with interest. Women didn't excite him, but this particular incident was unique. The sergeant continued to labor vigorously, making high, piglike sounds from his opened mouth as he lurched and jerked. Wu peered at the woman's face. She squinted her eyes tightly, her face expressionless, head jolting with each of the sergeant's thrusts. Periodically she would cry out when the sergeant squeezed especially harshly or hit her with a fist.

  The sergeant groaned, grasping harder yet on the woman's breast as he stiffened. He half rose, grimaced, and grunted loudly as he strained. The woman squirmed and tried vainly to escape. After a short, puffing pause, the sergeant began to pump anew, using more cautious strokes, breathing through his mouth.

  When it was apparent that he was going to repeat the act, Wu spoke tersely. "Let the next man have her!" He had to raise his voice and repeat himself to gain the sergeant's attention. Wu motioned brusquely at the next man in line.

  "When the others are finished, you can have her again," said Nguyen Wu to the sergeant.

  Nguyen Wu watched as three more men toiled over the Mee woman. He went outside finally, bored with the wornan's thrashing and dwindling shouts of outrage, and walked about the compound yard. The attitude of all who saw him was quite different from what it had been before. Men whispered and scattered at his approach. He was again a man to be reckoned with. And very soon all of his powers would be fully restored.

  BOOK III

  tan • go u• ni • form [military jargon, circa 1968] < phonetic alphabet acronym for "tits up"—Informal. adj. describing something which has failed, is dead, done for.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Friday, February 16th, 0200 Local—Location Y-70, Northeast Laos

  Sergeant Black

  Black and three Hotdogs waited at the DZ for the "packages" Buffalo Soldier had mentioned. Yankee 70 was an indistinguishable part of an uninhabited valley north of Ban Sao Si, covered to head height with elephant grass. The slope there was gentle, a good place for a drop.

  Precisely on time Black heard the low, steady drone of aircraft engines from the west. He held out a powerful hooded flashlight and waited, remembering that the night's code was al
pha. A dark shape loomed in the western sky, skimmed over the mountain, and dropped lower as it continued toward them.

  Short-long, short-long, short-long, he signaled. The C-130 passed overhead, then the left wing drooped and it turned toward the north.

  Two dark chutes blossomed, the dangling humans swinging in wide arcs . . . a precise low-altitude drop. Black aimed the flashlight at them, blinked several more dit-dahs, and scrambled toward the first impact point a hundred yards distant.

  He hurried, then slowed when he heard rustling sounds of human movement. "Baltimore," he called in a low voice.

  "Oriole," came a gruff response. There was more noise, subtle sounds of the man struggling out of his parachute. Black stepped in beside him and watched as he finished shedding the harness, then as he rolled up the nylon parachute. He was very large, six four or five, he estimated.

  "Bring your chute," he whispered.

  The man jumped. "Shit, I didn't see you there."

  Black led him toward the other "package." As they came close, he repeated the password and again got the proper response. They found the second man hunkered down, examining something. While the two conferred in whispers, Black took both chutes and cut a panel from each with his knife.

  "You Sergeant Black?" asked the big man.

  "That's me." He finished, sheathed the bayonet knife, and rolled up the panels. "These are good to curl up in when you sleep. Help keep the bugs out."

  "Captain Bechler," the guy said, kneeling beside the other guy and peering at something on the ground. "I'm your FAC."

  "Forward air controller? I thought they were going to use an airborne FAC."

  "Tell you about it later. This is Staff Sergeant Young, my ROMAD."

  "Hope to hell the thing's okay," Young lamented. He looked up at them. "Radio was on a ten-foot tether, and it hit awfully hard."