Tango Uniform (Vietnam Air War Book 3)

by Tom Wilson

  "Yeah, go ahead," Dillingham called over his shoulder from the door.

  1125L

  The State Department had a man on the ground at NKP two and a half hours after Larry's call. As the old man had directed, John Dillingham met him at base operations when he crawled out of the embassy jet. He was tall, with closely shorn gray hair, and wore a seersucker suit complete with tie, which looked out of place at the forward base. He introduced himself as Richard and smiled, but you could tell he was constantly evaluating what he saw. Somehow Dillingham knew the guy had his crap together in a single bag.

  They went to the base-operations snack bar and waited, drinking coffee and chatting about things like the weather that was getting warmer and the fact that the summer monsoon was just around the corner. After ten minutes of it Black knew he was some kind of high-ranking spook with the State Department. He very studiously avoided talk about Clipper, except to ask for the estimated time en route for the Jolly Green chopper that the Air Force had diverted to pick her up, and to briefly discuss her physical condition.

  Dillingham checked with the base-ops sergeant and found that the Jolly Green was only fifteen minutes out. He told Richard, and they walked out to observe the sky to the north.

  He stood beside the man in the seersucker suit and waited, wondering about the woman. "Her fiancé's stationed at Takhli," he told the official.

  "I know," Richard said. "He used to call the embassy quite often."

  "You want me to phone him?"

  "Others will take care of notifications. Once she's safely on the med-evac aircraft, I'd appreciate it if you and everyone here forgot all about the Clipper operation."

  Dillingham decided he was with State Department Intelligence, which made the CIA look like pikers when it came to secrecy. They had access to resources and information no one else had, and exercised clout that could water eyes and destroy military careers. Regardless of her title, Clipper was one of them. All of that combined to make Dillingham listen attentively.

  1245L

  The big HH-3 Jolly Green clopped in from the north, entered the helo-approach pattern, and swung around to land thirty yards in front of them.

  Dillingham walked out toward the chopper, Richard close behind.

  A sergeant in jungle fatigues emerged from the door and placed chocks fore and aft of the wheels while the rotors idled. Finally the engines wound down and the blades clattered to a halt.

  A captain jumped out of the thing and came over to Dillingham. "You Lobo?"

  "Yeah."

  He handed him a sealed envelope. "We got your package in the chopper." He looked around the parking ramp. "Where's the med-evac bird?"

  "Be here in a few minutes. They'll park right next to you." Dillingham said. "How is she?"

  "Medic pumped her full of antibiotics, and he's got an IV running. Needs a general overhaul, he says. Med-evac people have their work cut out."

  "Is she lucid?" asked Richard.

  "Sure is. Keeps saying she wants to talk to someone named Sergeant Brack. Know anything about him?"

  "I do," said Dillingham, feeling a jolt of adrenaline. She'd had contact with the lieutenant.

  "Maybe you ought to get him. She's pretty definite about wanting to see the guy."

  "That must be the med-evac aircraft," said Richard, eyeballing a bird on final.

  "I'll talk with her," said Dillingham, and the civilian followed him as he crawled into the chopper. A paramedic was sitting beside a litter, talking to the patient.

  She didn't look at all like the pictures he'd studied of a pretty woman in her early thirties with a clean-cut, almost regal look. This one looked old and unkempt, even though they'd cleaned her up. She was very dark, likely burned that way by the sun, and her skin was cracked like old leather. Her hair was stringy and sparse. Her face was battered, the nose mashed and lopsided, knotted with gristle. Dillingham approached cautiously. Her eyes stared. Deep, sunken eyes that held no trace of happiness.

  "I'm Sergeant Black," he said in a quiet voice.

  "Sarge Brack?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  She regarded him somberly, then glanced at the civilian, and after a moment recognition flickered. "Richard?"

  "Leave me alone with her," said the civilian.

  "No," she croaked in a sandpaper voice. "I must speak with Sarge Brack."

  "Just a quick status report, Linda," the embassy spook said. "We'll get a debriefing when you get to the hospital, but I need a synopsis so we can relay it to the field people."

  "They broke me," she said. "I told them . . . everything, I think. I can't remember all of it, but I told them a lot. I held out as long as I could so you could protect the networks, but I finally gave them names, procedures . . . everything."

  Richard nodded. "That's the way we played it, like all your nets were compromised."

  She moved her eyes to stare at Dillingham. "You're Hawaiian, aren't you?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Lieutenant Phrang said you were going to take the Hotdog team to Hawaii."

  Dillingham's adrenaline surged again. "You saw the lieutenant?"

  "The North Vietnamese were going to kill me, and he took me away from them. He found me, fed me, and saved my life."

  "Where is he now?" Dillingham blurted.

  Even in her condition she managed to look sadder. "Dead. He stayed behind to hold off the soldiers so the Ma people could get me away. He was very determined."

  John Dillingham heaved a long, tortured sigh.

  The roaring of jet engines grew louder as the med-evac bird taxied up outside. Both he and Richard moved close to hear her whispers over the noise.

  "The lieutenant said you are a brave and good soldier, and he was proud you were his friend."

  Dillingham opened his mouth to speak, but words wouldn't emerge. He ignored the moisture gathering in his eyes.

  "He said when you took him and his men to Hawaii, they were going to work in a big hotel in Honolulu until they bought a boat. Then he said they'd take haoles fishing and make lots of money. He said they were very tired of war."

  John's request for asylum for Hotdog had been denied. In two weeks the remainder of the team were to be turned over to the South Vietnamese ARVN Rangers. Only his persistent delaying tactics had put them off this long.

  "Tell his men about him, please. He was very proud of them."

  Dillingham forced out words. "Yes, ma'am. I will."

  "He also said you were a friend of Colonel Lucky. He was talking about Paul Anderson."

  "Yes."

  She nodded weakly. "Tell him about me. I don't want him to worry."

  The PJ corpsman interrupted. "The med-evac bird's ready. Gotta get the lady over there. You gentlemen are going to have to wait for another day to talk." Two medical technicians and a flight nurse, all wearing sage-gray flying suits, boarded through the opened door of the helicopter.

  Then, for no reason he could think of later, John Dillingham reached out and touched the woman's cheek.

  Her tense expression softened.

  The nurse edged him out of the way and motioned to the techs. "Get her over there and into the emergency cab." She glared once at the two men, and both Dillingham and Richard scrambled to get out of the chopper.

  They watched as Clipper was removed from the Jolly Green, the two techs carrying and the nurse shepherding the way toward the big med-evac cargo aircraft.

  Dillingham stared after they'd disappeared through the door. His voice was gruff. "That lady's got balls."

  The embassy official mused for a moment, then nodded. "Linda's a very special woman."

  "You heading back to Bangkok?"

  "First thing I've got to do is find a secure telephone and make a couple calls."

  "I brought a jeep. I'll take you to our compound. I can phone Colonel Anderson from there too."

  "You forget everything about Clipper and this incident. Like I told you, we'll take care of notifications. I'm sending a team of agency peop
le from Manila to meet her when she gets to Clark. They'll handle all of that."

  "You're CIA?"

  Richard paused, then smiled. When he spoke, Dillingham knew he'd passed some sort of inspection. "No. They're useful sometimes though. They'll be told what we want and make appropriate notifications. There's her family to consider too."

  "I wasn't looking forward to telling the colonel about her condition, anyway."

  They watched the med-evac bird's doors being closed and secured, then as the pilot throttled forward and crept in the path of a pickup bearing a large, yellow Follow Me sign.

  "How come she called you Sergeant Black?" Richard asked.

  Dillingham started to say it was classified, but changed his mind. "Back about a year and a half ago I started working with North Vietnamese Army deserters in a new program a colonel at MAC-SOG thought up for recon teams. The policy was that anyone who worked with them used a fake name and rank, so if the NVA were ringers, they couldn't get hard information. We had a Captain Marvel, a Captain Midnight, and a Sergeant Mickey Mouse. I decided on Sergeant Black."

  "I heard about the program. I thought it was unsuccessful."

  "My team worked out fine. I helped train 'em, and we went out on some hairy long-range recons. The code name was Hotdog, but the brass never trusted them and called them Black's renegades." His voice trailed off sadly. "They were rather spectacular, my bunch of renegades."

  "This Lieutenant Phrang she was talking about, was he one of them?"

  "He was their leader, my second in command. A goddam good man. Hell, they were all good men. There's only three left now."

  They watched the aircraft taxi toward the runway, then John led the spook toward the jeep. The emotional scene with Clipper had somehow built trust.

  The civilian was thoughtful as he took his seat beside Dillingham. "Tell me more about the lieutenant who saved her life. Him and the team you were talking about."

  "I've been trying to get them some kind of asylum so they can go to the States. I promised them, but a couple days ago I was told it's been turned down."

  1855L—Third Regional Hospital, Clark AB, Philippines

  Major Marty Mikalski was a hefty, florid woman and, as the hospital commander once said, was the nurse he wanted in attendance if he was ever hospitalized. As he put it, she was the kind of hardheaded nurse who wouldn't back off until her patients received the best treatment possible. As chief duty nurse for the evening hospital shift, she'd been given the task of sealing off a room and preparing for an incoming VIP. An incoming, very secret VIP. To Marty, who fastidiously treated all patients alike, the VIP part was pure bullshit. The secrecy cloaking the patient's arrival was a pain in the butt that had better, by God, not interfere with proper treatment.

  As soon as the comedy twins, Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones, arrived to honcho the VIP's arrival, they'd demanded a meeting with all medical personnel who would be involved with the incoming patient.

  Smith gave a fifteen-minute spiel to the assembled staff on how he wanted them to treat her. No questions other than of a purely medical nature. No notifications of next of kin or anyone else. They'd handle that. No inquiries about how injuries had been incurred or where the subject—he called the patient a "subject," for crap's sake—might have contracted any diseases she might have. No visitors. No casual conversations with the subject. No one allowed near the room. Two security policemen to be stationed outside her door at all times. Upon her arrival, and especially before sedation was administered, she was to be interviewed by them, with no one else in the room.

  At the end of the talk Nurse Marty, as she was known to her patients and co-workers, snorted to a doctor that the twins had put on a pretty good comedy act, which Jones overheard and which made him glare.

  When she walked back to the third-floor room they'd designated for the special patient, she thought about the fact that Smith, the intelligence agent, which was surely what they were, had called the subject a "she." Which meant that it was a female coming in, and that aroused her curiosity.

  The room was deemed ready half an hour before the patient was scheduled to arrive, and as Marty made her final examination, a tech walked in past the agents, who were busy briefing the full-colonel base provost marshal and a couple of security policemen. He handed her the report routinely radioed ahead by the med-evac crew whenever a patient required special or emergency treatment. So much for secrecy.

  NAME: LINDA MARIE LOPES / RANK: GS-15 / DOB: 27 DEC 36 / SINGLE / ROMAN CATHOLIC / MEDICAL RECORDS:

  REQUEST FROM U.S. EMBASSY CLINIC IN BANGKOK / INITIAL OBSERVATION: GENERAL DETERIORATION FROM PROLONGED LACK OF NUTRITION, DEHYDRATION, AND EXTENSIVE PHYSICAL ABUSE. IN CONSTANT PAIN FROM MULTIPLE BROKEN TEETH, BROKEN AND CHIPPED FACIAL BONES, BADLY DAMAGED AND DETERIORATED NASAL CARTILAGE, FRACTURED AND POORLY MENDED LARGE METATARSAL IN RIGHT FOOT, AND MULTIPLE FRACTURED AND POORLY HEALED RIBS. BOTH SHOULDERS HAVE BEEN REPEATEDLY DISLOCATED. SUSPECT FRACTURE OF UPPER LEFT ARM. RAPE VICTIM WITH INFECTION COMPLICATIONS. SUSPECT SHE IS PREGNANT (PATIENT NOT TOLD). MENTALLY ALERT, BUT EXPERIENCING EXTREME DEPRESSION & SELF-CRITICISM. SUSPECT SHE IS WITHDRAWING. WILL REQUIRE EXTENSIVE PSYCH SUPPORT. ETA AT CLARK: 2045 HRS LOCAL.

  Marty ground her teeth a bit before telling the tech to get his ass down to the ranking doctor on duty and tell him she had to see him about the incoming patient ASAP.

  Mr. Smith looked over inquisitively. "How long before the subject arrives, Nurse?"

  She gave him a withering stare. "You fellas clear out. The lady's going to need immediate medical attention, and you'll just get in the way."

  "Didn't you hear my briefing? We talk to the subject before anyone sees her."

  "Look, fella, you're in the wrong place and talking to the wrong person. Now trundle your butt out of here so we can do our jobs. Soon as the lady's well enough to talk, and soon as she wants to talk, I'll come get you. The way things look right now, I figure that'll be a day or two, so you might as well go get yourself a drink. We'll follow your silly rules as best we can unless they interfere with our job. Then we go by our own."

  Smith shook his head, sighed, then motioned to Jones. "We got a little problem here. Give the hospital commander a call and straighten things out."

  "You talking about me?" The chief on-duty physician, a full-colonel flight surgeon who was also the acting hospital commander, pushed past the special agents and came into the room.

  "I'd like a word with you, Doctor," Smith said angrily.

  "Just a moment, please."

  Marty handed him the printout and he scanned it.

  "Jesus," he muttered.

  Smith tried to get his attention.

  "Dammit, just a moment!" the doctor said.

  Smith snapped his mouth closed. Marty glared at him, her nostrils flaring angrily.

  The doctor nodded. "When she gets here, I want her taken to the emergency room for a full workup."

  Marty relayed that to the hospital tech, who hurried out. He would radio the ambulance attendants on their way to pick her up, so they'd take her directly to the ER.

  Mr. Smith frowned as he watched the tech leave.

  Marty thought about the pregnancy. "How about a quick D and C while you're at it?"

  "Sounds appropriate. That'll be in the morning, when we know we've got her stabilized." The flight surgeon reread the message. "Have 'em set up a dental surgeon for tomorrow morning, soon as she comes out of the OR. I'll sedate her until then, so she'll not be in pain."

  "Doctor?" Smith tried again.

  "Should I contact the mental-health clinic?" Marty asked.

  "Yeah. Have a doctor set up to talk to her tomorrow afternoon. Until then you'd better keep someone with her at all—"

  "Doctor!" shouted Smith, frantic to regain control.

  Marty had had enough. She turned slowly toward the agent, her face flushing brighter with each second, and began to stalk toward him, her finger pointed at the door. "Get out of my room! Get off of my floor!"

&nb
sp; The agent stubbornly stood his ground, trying to look past her at the doctor. "Doctor, this is a special case, and I—"

  "Get out!" yelled Marty.

  "Doctor?"

  "You heard the nurse," the flight surgeon said conversationally, still reading.

  "Dammit, Doctor—"

  The full-colonel provost marshal came into the room and motioned to his two cops, then to Smith and Jones. "The doc and the nurse asked you to leave. They're in charge here."

  "This is an agency matter, and we're—"

  That was another error, for now he'd angered the provost marshal, who interrupted with a frosty edge to his voice. "Let me remind you that this is a Department of Defense installation. Soon as you guys start paying the rent for our bases, you can tell us how to run our hospitals." He nodded to the door, and the security policemen started forward.

  The entourage left noisily, the agents arguing that the matter would go to the ambassador, to Washington, to the director, to generals.

  Nurse Marty stared at the doorway for a moment after they'd gone. "Assholes."

  The doctor was oblivious. "Make damned sure the ER knows about the damaged ribs and the foot, so they'll handle her appropriately. I'll want X rays from top to bottom."

  "We'd better get on down there," Marty said. "They'll be bringing her in anytime now."

  2030L—O' Club Stag Bar, Takhli RTAFB, Thailand

  Captain Manny DeVera

  Manny had arrived back at Takhli on the late shuttle flight from Don Muang. As soon as he'd dropped his bag off at his BOQ room at the Ponderosa, he'd called Penny at work and said he'd meet her at the club.

  Smitty had joined them for dinner, then accompanied them into the bar.

  "How's the flying going?" Manny asked. It was the first chance he'd gotten to ask. So far all the discussion had been about what he'd gone through at Honolulu. Smitty wanted to know all about Waikiki, which he planned to visit after he finished his combat tour. Penny wanted to know what the women were wearing, and whether maxidresses were really catching on.

  "Not many sorties going up to pack six lately. Mostly to the lower packs." Smitty grimaced. "Damn! I forgot to tell you. We thought you were getting in earlier, so I put you on tomorrow's flying schedule. Colonel Donovan's leading, and you'll be number three in his flight."