A squeeze of the weapons release lever and the seven-five was on its way. Hunter pulled up and out—he didn’t even see the bomb hit. He didn’t have to. He knew the big 750 would not only destroy the first two mobile guns completely, but also the impact and exploding ammunition would kill the other four. He simply didn’t have time to hang around and watch the fire works.
He banked hard right and went down to tree top level. The Minx had gathered their forces on the flank of Da Nang in a triangular fashion; the rear area being at the slimmest point. Though there were few weapons firing back here, experience told him that any high ground in the area was probably being used for observation and gun targeting.
Sure enough, as he passed over a small stream which marked the rear areas, he spotted a hill approximately a klick to the east. It looked like nothing more than a pile of rocks, and was about 700 feet high.
On top was a Minx chopper with a mobile radio unit.
He didn’t hesitate a second. He simply swooped over the hill top his four cannons blazing, ripping into the radio set and Minx soldiers attending it. All it took was two passes. After that, everything on top of the rockpile—both human and electronic—was dead.
He twisted the XL over on its left wing and streaked back to the edge of the base’s western defense perimeter. The airfield was still being peppered with mortar rounds and Katy rockets, but the defense forces had swung into action. He could see the Football City Special Forces Scorpions pinging around the no man’s land separating the runway from the jungle, firing wide, interlocking barrages from their cannon and turret guns, and then dashing off to another position and repeating the process again. It was a tactic for which there was little defense; any Minx soldier or weapon caught in their cross fire was simply ripped to shreds.
The artillery units were also up and firing, their various sized guns working from behind the thick concrete barriers. Passing over the edge of the main runway, he could see the long streams of blue smoke which unmistakably marked the use of the late, great Bozo’s Gatling guns. Already the jungle at the end of the runway had been cut down as if a giant scythe had slashed through it. Actually, it was the combined fire of the Gatlings mowing down every tree, vine, shrub and Minx soldier within the quarter mile killing zone.
“Environmentally safe defoliation,” Hunter thought. “Should have used it last time.”
He banked back over the runway just in time to see the trio of Tigersharks moving out of the bunkers and onto the taxiway. His initial mission was now fairly complete. The Minx guns nearest to the runway had been silenced, at least long enough for the F-20s to take off.
He circled protectively overhead as the Tigersharks quickly edged out onto the runway and as one, lifted off in a burst of afterburner power. He immediately got on the radio with JT, who then patched him through to Ben and Frost. They quickly decided that the Sharks would go after targets immediately around the base perimeter.
Hunter meanwhile would head towards Da Nang city itself.
Chapter Forty-four
Da Nang City
GERACI WAS SLEEPING WHEN the attack finally came.
He’d been up for thirty-six hours, putting the finishing touches on the 104th’s end of JT’s plan, a project which had come to be known as the “Jersey Tunnel.”
It was a mission which dwarfed all their other accomplishments. By comparison, the assembly of Bozo 2 at Khe Sanh was puny, a walk in the park. Working in shifts, the combat engineers had literally turned the Earth over, moving tons of rocks, sand and soil. And Geraci and his officers—Matus, Cerbasi, McCaffrey, and Palma—had stayed awake for most of the two weeks of the project, sleeping only when rain prevented work from continuing or when they were on the verge of collapse.
In the end, the 104th had never worked so hard to accomplish so much, in such a short amount of time. As it turned out, they’d finished just in time. When the final emplacements were poured, and all of the defensive obstacles in place, Geraci finally ordered his officers and staff to stand down—and get some sleep.
The Minx attacked just two hours later.
The 104th had bivouacked in the second floor of JT’s Defense Headquarters, using the Palace’s rather ornate ballroom as their temporary housing and it was here that Geraci retired to after standing down early that morning.
His first recollection that something was happening was waking up to a huge bang! and looking out the ballroom’s window and seeing a Katyusha rocket go by. A second later there was an even louder explosion, one which shook the Palace right down to its sandy foundations. By the time he was up and into his combat gear, there were some dozens explosions going off all around the place—it seemed like a never-ending earthquake.
He finally made it to the grand hallway and was relieved to see the rest of his men and staff streaming down the stairs and out of the building. Tellingly, some of JT’s men were grabbing the liquor bottles off the shelves of the palace bar and hastily packing them in bubble-filled rubber crates.
“Freaking fly-boys are always thinking,” Geraci thought as he joined the flow of combat engineers and others evacuating the building.
It was total chaos in the streets of Da Nang when Geraci and his men reached the outer wall of the Palace.
Civilians and mercenaries were surging down the main avenue, under the firm prodding of the local militiamen. As part of JT’s overall plan, everyone inside the city knew exactly what to do—and so far it was an orderly evacuation, amazing in the face of the dozens of explosions going on all around them. But Geraci knew it wouldn’t take much to turn the moving crowd into a stampede.
He gathered his officers around him and took a quick headcount of the men. Everyone was present and accounted for. He turned back to the Palace just in time to see the last of JT’s security men come charging out, their arms full of either weapons or crates of booze.
“Is everyone out?” Geraci yelled to their senior officer.
The man yelled an affirmative response and hurried on his way. Just then a trio of Katy rockets slammed down into the Palace courtyard, blowing out what was left of the intact windows and collapsing one corner of the structure’s roof. More Katys went streaking overhead, as well as a barrage of the almost tracerlike 120-mm artillery rounds.
That was enough for Geraci.
“OK, guys,” he yelled to his men. “That’s our cue. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
The rest of the combat engineers needed no further prodding. Within seconds, the entire unit was also double-timing it down the main avenue, mixing in with the mercs and civilians, heading towards the Jersey Tunnel.
First Captain Luk So Sung was in charge of the first unit of Minx soldiers to reach the outskirts of Da Nang city.
So far, casualties to his 100-man force had been only moderate—thirty-two killed, half that many wounded, just about all to boobytraps or long-range artillery. This was far below what his commanders’ had expected for Luk’s unit, which was, in effect, a suicide squad.
Their mission was to take out the first line of machine gun posts that covered the main northern road to the walled city. His men had come out of the jungle with the opening salvos of the attack, twenty-pound TNT packs strapped to their backs. To their amazement, they found the line of machine gun posts had disappeared. There were no weapons, no gunners; only the trenches and the sandbags remained.
Not quite knowing what to do, Luk ordered his men forward. A quarter mile up the road was a string of heavy-caliber guns and TOW emplacements that another suicide squad back in the woods had been assigned to take out. Luk figured he and his men would simply complete their mission for them.
They cautiously rounded the bend and with their own side’s Katy rockets going off all around them, spied the line of TOW emplacements. Using his binoculars, Luk counted twelve of the antitank, antipersonnel nests just within eyesight. He was sure many others were better hidden from view.
He called his fifty men up to his side, gave them a quick and final pep
talk and then unleashed them. They were tentative at first, but finally they charged as ordered, running madly down the road and leaping into the TOW pits, igniting their dynamite-laden backpacks as they did so.
Five explosions went off, almost at once. Then there was two more, and finally another two. Then there was silence. Luk stuck his head out of his protective trench and was amazed to see at least two dozen of his men simply walking back towards him.
He jumped up and grabbed the first junior officer he could find.
“What are you doing?” he screamed at the man. “Go back and complete your mission. Those emplacements must be destroyed.”
“There are no emplacements,” the man answered, his tone shaky and puzzled.
Luk stared at the young officer.
“They’re fakes,” the man continued. “Props …”
Luk ran down the road, gingerly stepping over several puddles of gooey slime, the remains of his soldiers who had detonated their backpacks. He reached the first trench and found a TOW weapon—a Milan to be specific. Or at least it looked like a Milan. Luk ran his hand along the missile’s body and fins and came away with two fingers covered in black paint. He scrapped some more of the paint off and discovered that the “missile” was actually a crudely-carved piece of hollow-out bamboo.
“What are these?” he cried aloud. “Fakes?”
Two of his men were suddenly beside him. “Yes, Captain,” one said. “All of them, bamboo.”
“What does it mean, sir?” the other soldier asked him.
Luk had to think quickly. “It’s obvious,” he finally said. “These weapons have been fakes all along. Props—set up by the cowardly white soldiers to fool us.”
“They worked, sir,” the first soldier said, rather foolishly.
“You’ll be shot, after the battle!” Luk screamed at him.
He turned back to the rest of his unit. “Company up!”
The fifty men jogged up the roadway, all still carrying their suicide packs. An eighth of a mile beyond was the city’s last line of defense—three trenches covered with concertina wire—and then the walls of the city itself.
Luk’s heart was racing. His unit was originally intended to be fodder, cut down in the opening minutes of the major attack. Now they stood on the edge of an authentic achievement: capturing the entrance to the city itself. If they could do that, Luk’s star would rise like a skyrocket.
He stood up, sword in hand and dramatically pointed towards the huge sealed wooden gates of Da Nang city.
“Onward!” he cried. “No slacking!”
His men gathered themselves up and began yet another charge.
They ran as fast as they could even as artillery barrages from both sides were crashing down all around them. Luk cursed his comrade gunners, but understood too. There was no way that the gunners expected any Minx units to be this close, this soon to the entrance to the enemy-held city.
They quickly reached the lines of concertina wire, and found the trenches beyond to be as empty as the machine posts and the ersatz TOW pits. Now they were but fifty feet from the main entrance to the city, two huge wooden doors thirty-five feet in height, and, Luk knew, bolted from the inside with a series of six-inch steel rods.
“Continue!” Luk was screaming as his suicide troops surged forward. “First squad, detonate on those doors!”
Three men in his squad obeyed him instantly. They ran smack in to the large oak door, pulling their TNT fuse cords and blowing themselves up. Luk’s quick calculations told him that it would take anywhere from fifteen to twenty of his men to blow open the huge oak portals—but this was by far within the realm of acceptable risk. After all, his commanders were expecting 100 percent casualties among the noncoms.
But then a strange thing happened. As soon as the smoke cleared from the three human bombs, Luk and the others saw the huge gates swing open, free and easy.
“They are not locked?” Luk said, quizzically. “How can that be?”
His remaining troopers stopped in their tracks.
“What does this mean?” they asked him and themselves.
It took a few moments for it to sink in, but then Luk finally realized the opportunity staring him in the face.
“It means …” he screamed at the top of his lungs, “that we take the city!”
By the time Hunter flashed over the walled city of Da Nang, Minx troops were pouring through the main northern entrance.
Tanks, APCs, mobile guns and literally thousands of soldiers on foot were streaming out of the jungle and into the city. Perversely, the Minx long range guns in the surrounding hills were still pounding the city even as their own troops were moving about. The advance enemy units had achieved their objectives faster than even their commanders in the rear could have imagined.
He buzzed the city once, then continued on his way. His main concern at the moment was the river crossing about five miles north of the city, located at a place called Go Minh.
Hardly known for getting their feet wet, the Minx did have a small navy consisting of armed junks, riverine gunships and ancient landing crafts. The river at Go Minh was about three quarters of a mile at its narrowest point, and deep with muck and silt along its edges. JT’s intelligence men had spotted a large Minx force hiding in the jungle on the far side of the river nearly a month before.
The presence of these enemy troops had told JT’s men two things: One, that the Minx were planning a weak flank attack on Da Nang city, and two, that to do so, they were planning a river crossing near Go Minh.
Recon photos of the area two days before showed unusual vegetation popping up along the mucky river edges; the intelligence men knew that foliage didn’t grow that quickly even in the humid climate of Vietnam. The “growth” was actually camouflaged Minx boats, spirited in at night. Per the overall strategy, nothing was done preemptively about these river craft.
But now that the war had started in earnest, these troops had to be dealt with. Everyone involved agreed that the scariest link in the whole plan was protection of the weak flank. Because no more than a quarter mile from the far bank of the river was one end of the Jersey Tunnel—and if the Minx discovered that, a catastrophe would surely follow.
Hunter roared over the river and could clearly see the boats now, free of camouflage, and filling with Minx soldiers on the south side. Typically, the Minx were taking a blunderbuss approach to a river assault. More patient commanders would have filled their boats and allow them to go across two or three abreast at a time. The Minx were launching their boats—more than fifty in number—all at once.
Hunter banked the F-16XL high over the river, the Minx troops vainly firing their small arms at him. He put the Cranked Arrow into a screaming climb, leveling off at 22,000 feet above the river. Even from this altitude he could see the line of approximately fifty-five boats launching from the northern edge, their weak motors churning up wakes of white foam on the dirty brown river.
“Fools,” Hunter muttered.
He wasn’t happy about what he was about to do. Combat was a strange thing; if a guy shoots at you, you shoot back at him. You kill him, well, that was considered self-defense; that was playing by the rules. Wholesale slaughter was not playing by the rules, though—unless you could rationalize it by saying that you were saving the lives of people on your side.
Still, looking down at the embarking Minx troops, Hunter felt uneasy about going against the rather unsophisticated enemy. The term “fish in a barrel” would not leave his mind.
He loitered over the river for another minute. That’s how long it took for most of the Minx boats to reach the middle of the stream. Then he put the XL into a screaming dive.
He leveled out at just 150 feet and opened up with his cannons immediately. First two, then three, then five boats exploded. He turned over and came around again, pressing his cannons’ trigger and trying not to think about the carnage he was causing below. Ten more boats simply disappeared in a ball of flame and smoke. Another turn,
another strafing run, eight more boats sunk.
It went on like this for ten minutes. The defenseless Minx troops either dying from cannon fire or succumbing to the waters below. After all the boats were either sunk or sinking, Hunter performed the nastiest task of all: strafing the near shore, tearing into the Minx who had made it to the other side. Those not shot up on the narrow beach were forced back into deeper water and a death by drowning. Some of the estimated 900 enemy soldiers eventually figured out that only if they returned to the far shore, the one from which they came, would they be safe from the deadly fire.
But less than a hundred were that smart or lucky.
Stationed in a well-concealed observation post, Geraci had watched Hunter’s one-man, lopsided battle on the river with much anticipation.
As grisly as it was, the combat engineer knew the slaughter had to be done if the overall strategy for defeating the Minx was to work.
Now, as he saw Hunter’s F-16XL rising straight up in the air and give off a long stream of white smoke, he knew at least one aspect of the plan had been accomplished.
Then he turned his attention to the city itself.
A conservative estimate would have placed the number of enemy troops inside the walls of Da Nang at close to 20,000, or a reenforced division. Another regiment or two was waiting outside the city gate while those inside searched every building, house and military installation.
Geraci knew they wouldn’t find anyone—the city had been successfully evacuated during the first hour of the battle. Many of its defenders, and all of its citizens, were now safely hidden inside the Jersey Tunnel.
Though its shape was certainty tubular, the Jersey Tunnel wasn’t a tunnel at all. It was, in fact, a very elaborate bomb shelter. Just a few feet short of a quarter mile long, and about a hundred feet at its widest, it reached more than sixty feet underground. It was nearly all concrete—mixed with local beach sand and petroleum-based binders—with air holes and ventilation shafts every 200 feet. These were covered with camouflage netting and real jungle growth, so from the air and from Da Nang itself, the top of the Jersey Tunnel looked like nothing more than another stretch of mango trees and tropical swamp growth, a terrain seen all over Southeast Asia.
Ghost War Page 31
