Ghost War

by Maloney, Mack;

  Crunch refilled their glasses once again.

  “Well, I got a plan,” he said. “And maybe it will put another piece of the puzzle together.”

  Hunter had to laugh. “A plan? A plan for what?”

  “To go after one of those battleships,” Crunch replied matter-of-factly.

  “By yourself?”

  Crunch shook his head. “No, not now that you’re here.”

  Hunter was amazed at Crunch’s chutzpah.

  “And what the hell are you going to do with this battleship?” Hunter asked incredulously. “Sink it?”

  “‘Sink it?’” Crunch replied. “No way—we’re going to steal it.”

  “Steal it?”

  Crunch smiled again. “Sure,” he said. “That way, we solve two problems. We get rid of one of them, and maybe we find out just what the hell they’re up to. Plus, it’s a way we can all get out of here.”

  Hunter just shook his head. Maybe his time in the hell at Khe Sanh had temporarily sapped him of that special kind of initiative that characterized the officers of the United American Armed Forces. But the élan was quickly returning. That idea that if you were in the right, then anything was possible—no matter how outrageous. It was good to feel that way again. Suddenly nothing sounded too crazy. Steal a battleship? Yeah, sure, why not?

  “OK, I’m game,” he told Crunch. “When do we start?”

  Crunch poured out one last round of drinks. “Well, the sooner the better,” he said. “But there is one thing we have to do first—and this is the really nutty part.”

  Hunter just shrugged. “What could be nuttier than trying to swipe a battleship?”

  Crunch shook his head. “Well, Hawk, old buddy,” he said with his trademark toothy smile. “You’ll really have to see for yourself.”

  Through most of the conversation, Timmy and Terry had sat back and enjoyed the rice wine, and started a buzz.

  But now, they were clearly puzzled.

  “Excuse me,” Terry finally said. “But did you chaps say you’re going to steal a battleship?”

  They were running.

  Over the dry marsh, up small hills, down into gulleys. The grass was bright green, almost emerald; the sun was incredibly hot, yet there was a brisk breeze in the air.

  Hunter couldn’t remember ever running so fast, but still he couldn’t keep up with Crunch. The older, slightly heavier man was flying, his black flowing garment whipping behind him in the wind, the sun shining off his shiny bald head.

  They were running west, along a path which served a network of canals, all of which emptied into the Mekong. Hunter had no idea that the plateau island was so large. A kind of land bridge ran up from the opposite edge of the plateau, down into the grassy marshes and then onto the smaller, connected island. While smaller than the plateau island, this spit of land also had a steep hill in its center, with a cliff on its southern side.

  Crunch didn’t stop running until he reached the foot of this hill, and then only to allow Hunter to catch up.

  “What the hell have you been doing, taking vitamins?” Hunter asked him, pausing to catch his breath.

  “I quit smoking,” Crunch called back to him, starting to run up the hill. “I haven’t had a cigar in weeks.”

  Hunter took a deep breath and continued the pursuit. He’d spent too many days and nights running back at Khe Sanh—from the snipers. From the mortars. From the ghosts.

  Now here he was, hundreds of miles away from that hell, in a wide open space that was as opposite as you could get from the claustrophobia of Khe Sanh, and he was still running.

  It took him ten minutes of humping, jogging and all out running to reach the top of the hill: Crunch made it in under five. He was waiting for Hunter at the summit, legs crossed Lotus-style, facing south. The wind was really blowing up here, and the heat rising from the Delta waters was almost condensed to hot vapor. It also smelled incredibly sweet.

  It was now 1545 hours. The sun was beginning its descent.

  Hunter half-collapsed beside his friend, sucking in the sweet air.

  “You give up any more vices, you’ll kill yourself,” he told Crunch.

  Crunch just sat back and let the sun wash over him. “Hey, there’s something good to be said for a clean lifestyle.”

  Hunter suddenly froze.

  “Don’t you agree?” Crunch asked him.

  Hunter didn’t respond. He was sitting perfectly still, his eyes locked on the southern horizon.

  “Something’s coming,” he said finally. “Something very weird.”

  Crunch opened his eyes quickly, sucked back to reality by Hunter’s declaration.

  “It’s what I brought you up here to see,” he told the Wingman. “It shows up almost every day at this time.”

  They both moved back from the cliff, and into the shrubbery, Hunter’s finely tuned sixth sense still focused on the thin band of reddish clouds to the south.

  “You’re right,” he half-whispered to Crunch, closing his eyes to better concentrate on what had his inner psyche setting off alarms. “It is something very strange. Flying at about two hundred fifty knots, if that. Maybe three hundred high, no more than that.”

  A second later, they both heard it. It was a highly-unusual whining noise, definitely that of a jet engine, or more accurately a pair of jet engines, but definitely not one of typical manufacture.

  Then they saw it—Hunter first, Crunch about five seconds later.

  “There it is, Hawk!” Crunch half-yelled. “See it? Coming in at about forty-five.”

  Hunter did see it—and in the same instant, couldn’t believe it. It was a jet. It was trailing two long white contrails, even though it was barely 300 feet off the deck. Its engine was whining, its mechanics sounding extremely foreign to Hunter’s perfect pitch.

  “Old bolts,” Hunter said of the sound. “Old bearings and blades. This thing is antique.”

  It was now about fifteen miles away, and quickly taking some kind of distinct shape. It was tubular, with wings slightly swept back and a stubby tail plane. A disproportionately large engine hung from each wing, the thick vapor trail—actually exhaust and poorly spent fuel—underscoring their ancient manufacture.

  Strangest of all, the damn thing was painted bright pink.

  “Jeesuz,” Hunter exclaimed. “It’s a Me-262.”

  Crunch was nodding enthusiastically. “That strange enough for you Hawk?”

  The Me-262 was the first jet airplane ever to see combat. Built and test-flown by the Nazis in the late Thirties, it was faster, more maneuverable and much more advanced than anything else flying at the time, including lesser-known British and American test models. If it wasn’t for an incredible blunder on Hitler’s part—he decreed that the speedster be used as a bomber—then the Me-262 might very well have turned the tide in the European theater. Had the Nazis used their brains and built hundreds of the jets to go against the Allied bomber forces, the entire strategic bombing initiative would probably have been halted, or radically reduced at the least. But a relatively few were ever built and they weren’t used against the Allied bombers until the last few months of the war when it was too late. That was the Nazis for you: supermen who were superdumb.

  But still, Hunter didn’t think the Nazis ever painted their jets pink.

  About twelve miles out, the pink Me-262 went into a long, slow turn towards the west. Hunter never kept it out of his sight.

  “Do you remember me telling you about this thing, Hawk?” Crunch asked him. “Right after Okinawa?”

  Hunter did remember. After the small United American task force defeated the hated Asian Mercenary Cult forces on Okinawa a few months back, Crunch was doing a long recon flight of the South Pacific looking for more enemy installations. Nearing the end of this mission, Crunch’s F-4X nearly collided with an Me-262. His recollection of the incident was limited to a quick view of the old jet, and the distinct feeling that its pilot appeared to be out of it, not under his own control. One thing th
at was for certain, whatever reason it had for flying around, it was probably linked to the Cult.

  Crunch’s encounter with the Me-262 took place several hundred miles south of Okinawa, which was close to the Japanese Home Islands.

  And now here it was, flying over the Mekong Delta, thousands of miles away.

  “I tell you, Hawk,” Crunch told him, “I think this thing is following me around.”

  They watched as the pink jet continued on its arc, slowly turning toward them.

  “I’ve seen it about ten times in the past two weeks,” Crunch told Hunter as they moved deeper into the foliage. “Almost the same time every day. Same flight pattern. Same speed, same altitude.”

  “What the hell is it doing?” Hunter wondered as the Me-262 passed overhead. “Can’t be doing camera recon—he’s too low for that.”

  “Doesn’t look like it’s armed,” Crunch agreed. “They could obviously see us on top of the plateau if they looked hard enough. But they’re not.”

  Hunter was baffled. The jet was breaking three cardinal rules of military operation: it was flying in a predictable pattern, at a predictable time of day, and doing so low enough to be picked out of the sky with small arms fire, never mind a surface-to-air weapon.

  It didn’t make any sense. But one word suddenly popped into Hunter’s mind: Ritual.

  “If we’re going to do something about that battleship, we’re going to have to deal with this thing first,” he said as the jet disappeared over the southern horizon.

  “I agree,” Crunch replied. “But exactly what are we going to do?”

  Hunter just shook his head as the jet’s two white contrails slowly faded in the darkening sky.

  “I don’t know,” he said finally.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  The next day

  IT WAS HOTTER THAN the day before—so much so Hunter was sweating himself right through his flight suit.

  He was sitting on the edge of the cliff on the small island, looking to the south. He was waiting for his inner senses to start buzzing, the prewarning that would alert him of the pink jet’s approach.

  The last twenty-four hours had passed somewhat uneventfully. Upon returning to Crunch’s plateau camp, the Li-Chi Chi laid out a huge feast of vegetables and fruits, with a healthy flow of rice wine. Terry and Timmy especially enjoyed themselves—the Li-Chi Chi made no pretenses as to their promiscuity or love of erotica. The younger members of the women’s group seemed extremely anxious to dress up in their skimpiest outfits—sewn together from uniforms taken from the Minx they’d slaughtered—and parade around in front of the Z-men. Some resorted to X-rated dancing, others practically forced the rice wine down the visitors’ throats.

  No sooner was it dark when the randy New Zealanders were playing mix and match with about two dozen young beauties inside one of the communal huts; at least that many more were waiting outside.

  Hunter had watched the whole exercise with a mixture of amazement and amusement. The women were obviously starved for affection—and their sheer numbers dictated that not all of them could be satisfied during the course of the day and night. So they resorted to taking turns, and doing so in a very ritualized way. No wonder Crunch was in such good shape!

  Though tempted to partake, Hunter had stayed on the sidelines. His head was filled with too much stuff to think about getting his oil changed. If he and Crunch were going to pull off their battleship heist, they would have to do it quickly. JT’s estimate of the major Minx attack in the north of the country was three weeks. Once that campaign started, then the fate of Vietnam, and the United American air fleet’s mission here, would be determined.

  But before they even considered moving down the Mekong to the deep-sea port Son Tay, they would have to deal with this mysterious pink airplane. Not to do so would leave them open to aerial detection by the Minx, and that would put the kibosh on everything.

  So that’s what Hunter was doing on the cliff, studying the southern horizon. He had thought about it long and hard, and came to the conclusion that he had no other choice but to shoot down the pink airplane. And that he would have to do it alone.

  As he sat waiting, the hot wind blowing across his face, he realized that there were few places he’d seen in his life that was so strange, so beautiful, so surreal as this part of the Delta. The marshes which stretched out endlessly before him looked like acres of well-manicured lawns rolling on top of the constantly rippling water. This oddly aquatic-pastoral scene was broken only by a handful of plateaus, which rose like gigantic mushrooms on the horizon. Some of them had small spoon-shaped islands attached, like the one his was sitting on now, others were fairly barren. It was like he was on another planet. Or seeing the earth at a different time; during a different age.

  Soon other things began to cross his mind. As always, the thoughts turned to Dominique. He missed her terribly. Solemnly he pulled the small, tattered American flag from his breast pocket and slowly unraveled it. Inside was the equally tattered photo of Dominique. His heart jumped upon seeing it—her lovely face, her long blond hair, her incredible inner beauty. It all came through even though the photograph was almost entirely faded.

  This was another big reason he’d abstained the night before. It just didn’t make any sense for him to be with another woman. Not now. Not with the way he felt about Dominique. He closed his eyes and imagined her sitting on the porch of their small farmhouse on Cape Cod, reading one of her books on the paranormal, and probably wondering when the hell he was going to return to her.

  He opened his eyes and wondered the same thing.

  That’s when his spine started tingling.

  He was on his feet in an instant, his M-16 up and ready. He saw the two white contrails first, about twenty-two miles dead south. The airplane was following the exact same flight pattern as the previous day; flying at the same height and the same speed. As before, the strange jet began a long arc about 18 miles out, first pulling towards the west and sweeping north and then eastward. Again, the one word that came to Hunter’s was “ritual.” For what ever reason, the airplane seemed to be following some kind of rite.

  He waited patiently as the jet approached. At ten miles out, he had it in his rifle’s telescopic sights. He expected the plane to pass within an eighth of a mile of him, just like the day before. It would take a perfect shot to hit it, but he had no doubt he could do it. And the question wasn’t whether he could inflict enough damage on the airplane to bring it down—he was sure he could do that, too.

  No, the question was: Did he really want to kill the pilot?

  Something deep inside him was telling him not to—he didn’t know why, but he’d always relied on his extraordinary perception before. Now was not the time to begin doubting it.

  He waited for another full minute. Now the plane was about two miles due west of him, and beginning its long bank back towards the south. He was amazed—it was an exact recreation of the flight the day before, and according to Crunch, the path it had taken every day for the past two weeks.

  But now, even as the pink airplane grew larger in his sights, Hunter’s inner voice was telling him that valuable things might be contained inside the ancient jet. He was puzzled by this feeling, not that he was getting it at all—but why he was getting it. He suddenly felt like a hunter aiming a rifle at a magnificent golden eagle. One squeeze of the trigger and the rare creature would be gone forever.

  The plane was now less than a mile away, and coming closer to him by the second. He tightened his grip on the M-16, keeping the pink fuselage dead center in his telescope. His inner psyche was flashing like crazy. It was a feeling unlike he’d ever felt before. He had to follow what it was telling him—and see what the consequences brought.

  The jet was about 800 feet away when he squeezed the trigger. A long stream of tracer bullets streaked across the sky in a perfectly projected arc. Within two seconds, they found their mark, tearing through the pink jet at mid-fuselage and perforating it all the way bac
k to the tailplane.

  The jet predictably banked up, and ran right into the thick of his second burst, ripping apart its left side engine, and destroying the right-wing’s control surfaces. It then began to slide to the left, exposing its cockpit to Hunter’s gunsight—but he didn’t continue firing. Instead he eased off the trigger.

  The jet began smoking heavily and started to go down. He watched anxiously as it first dipped, then briefly rose again, then nosed down for good.

  He was up on the edge of the cliff now, watching as it went right by him, both wings aflame. The plane hit the wet marsh a few seconds later, bounced up and then pancaked back down onto a nearby canal. Its momentum carried it across the narrow waterway and up onto the far bank. It was here it finally came to rest about a quarter of a mile away from him.

  Before he knew it, he was running again. Down the hill, and across the marsh, heading for the downed airplane.

  Two members of the Li-Chi Chi also saw the airplane go down.

  They were at a lookout position on the far western edge of the plateau, placed there by Crunch to watch Hunter’s one-man shoot-down mission and provide backup if necessary.

  As soon as the airplane was hit, they made a quick call back to the base camp and then slid down the embankment and ran across the marsh. They got there just as Hunter did, and using the butts of their rifles, they helped him bust through the jet’s canopy.

  The airplane was nearly engulfed in flames by the time the hole in the glass was large enough to yank the pilot out. Hunter had to crawl into the blazing cockpit to unstrap the unconscious flyer; the two women fighters held tight to his legs, all the while fending off the flames as they totally consumed the wings and moved towards the forward fuel tanks.

  The smoke inside the shattered cockpit proved to be Hunter’s worst foe, but after several anxious seconds, he was able to cut through the safety straps and free the pilot. On his call, the women fighters yanked on his legs and Hunter and the pilot both came tumbling out. The women pulled them away from the flames, but they were startled to see Hunter scramble back towards the airplane, and once again dive head first through the hole in the shattered cockpit.