by Tom Wilson
07/1600L—People's Army HQ, Hanoi, DRV
Xuan Nha
Two dummy transmitters had been placed into position.
"Very good," he told Major Nguy on the radio-telephone.
"Major Gregarian is happy that we will not have to use the special rocket site again."
"He is an old maid," said Xuan. "Is he there at the center?"
"He is out with the teams setting up the last two dummy transmitters, comrade Colonel." Nguy laughed. "I suggested it, for he is continually worrying about this or that procedure or piece of equipment. I don't think he believes it is working as well as it is."
"Our controllers must concentrate on learning from the Koreans and Russians."
"They are, comrade Colonel. Soon we shall no longer need their help."
"There must be nothing but good news from now on, Major Nguy. Wisdom must break the backs of the American air attacks."
"We shall, comrade Colonel. I have no doubt of that at all."
09/1030L—Takhli RTAFB, Thailand
Benny Lewis
Thursday was a revealing day. They learned more about what had happened to Ries and Janssen, and Benny learned what had been bothering the Bear to make him so moody.
From Monday through Wednesday they'd given the dog and pony show to the pilots of the three squadrons. On Thursday they had the day off. After eating a leisurely breakfast they wandered back to the squadron building to find that Colonel Mack wanted to see them ASAP.
When they reported to his office, Colonel Mack looked stone-faced. Tiny Bechler sat opposite him, looking nervous. Mack curtly waved Benny and the Bear inside and growled for them to close the door behind themselves.
"Lieutenant Bechler has something to tell us," said Mack, "that he's been holding inside for two weeks."
Tiny looked miserable.
"I've impressed on him that by not telling, he may have placed the lives of his squadron mates in jeopardy."
Tiny grew white-lipped.
Mack went on. "I've called you two in because I thought you needed his information more than anyone, since you have to deal with defenses." He eyed Tiny. "You want to tell them?"
Tiny looked Benny in the eye. "Ries didn't get shot down near Kep, like I reported. We followed Thud Ridge up north into the Chinese buffer zone. They got shot down there."
The Bear started coming to life. "What got them, Tiny?"
"I dunno. It was like I said. I was watching them when their airplane came unglued. Came apart in a big, bright orange explosion."
"Orange? Like a SAM warhead going off?" asked Benny.
Tiny nodded, looking miserable.
"Was it a SAM?"
"We got a SAM activity light, but Ries called to disregard it."
"How come no one heard any of that on the radio?" asked Benny.
"We went to another frequency. Major Ries didn't want any distractions." Tiny looked miserably at Colonel Mack. "And when we went into the Chinese buffer zone, I guess he didn't want anyone overhearing us."
"Did you have a SAM light?" asked the Bear. "Or see a radar strobe on the scope?"
"No, just the activity light," said Tiny.
"Can you show us where it was on a map?" asked Benny.
"Not precisely. I'd say we'd just crossed into the buffer zone. We were up beside the ridge, doing better than six hundred knots. Probably six-ten."
"How close to the ridge?"
"Fifty feet or less. We were hugged up as tight as you can get."
The Bear spoke then. "Could they have hit the ridge with a wingtip?"
Tiny reflected for a moment. "I don't think so. There was the orange explosion, then the airplane came apart and hit the ridge. It happened so quickly I hardly had time to think, but I don't think they hit anything. Something got them."
Benny shook his head slowly. "Going that fast, and that close to the ridge." He turned to the Bear. "Could a SAM radar have been tracking them?"
The Bear stared out the office window, talking mostly to himself. "The Fansong is a good radar. Both beams use a Lewis scanner, and it picks out the moving targets from the still ones . . . but if they were flying that close to the ridge, they were in the same resolution cell as the ground." He shook his head slowly. "As far as I know, there's no way they could pick up an airplane flying that close to the dirt."
"What could it be?"
The Bear shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe something new to protect the Barlock and their command-and-control center?"
"You guys done with Tiny?" asked Colonel Mack.
"I can't think of anything else," said the Bear.
Benny nodded his agreement.
"I want everyone in this room to forget what was said here."
Benny and the Bear agreed. Tiny became tight-lipped again, because Colonel Mack was regarding him evenly with his hawk's eyes.
"Lieutenant, if I ever catch you lying again about something that might cost us lives and airplanes, I promise you I'll bust you so low you're looking up to crabgrass."
"Yes, sir," whispered Tiny.
"Now get the hell out of here."
Tiny was plainly shaken as he left the office.
Mack looked at Benny and the Bear questioningly. "You guys have any idea about what could have got Ries and Janssen?"
"It's hard to believe Ries ran into the ground," said Benny. "He was one of the best low-level pilots around."
The Bear shook his head. "And if Janssen said there was no SAM radar signal on the air, there wasn't one. He was a damned good EWO. Anyway, Tiny says he didn't have a SAM signal on his radar warning receiver."
"What the hell could it have been?" asked Mack.
"If it was a SAM, they were being tracked by something that doesn't show up on our receivers. Maybe a radar outside our frequency coverage? Electro-optics?"
"What do you mean optics?"
"Like television. You track something by using the contrast between the target and the background. Our people are testing a system like that to guide bombs."
"You think that's it?" asked Benny.
"You guys get out of here and let me get back to work," said Mack. "If you come up with anything the rest of us ought to hear about, let me know."
They went to Intelligence and started going over photos of SAM target-tracking systems. After half an hour of looking and brainstorming, Benny glanced up at the Bear.
"You done with your shitty mood?" he asked.
The Bear was staring at a photo of something Intell called an E-variant Fansong radar, with what might be video sensors mounted at the sides of the vertical antenna trough.
"You were after me to get rid of my gremlins," said Benny. "Now you've got them."
"It's nothing," the Bear replied.
"Something to do with Ken Maisey quitting?"
The Bear looked up, shocked. "You think I'm turning chickenshit?"
"No, but you've been acting strange."
"It's personal."
"Like you told me in the Philippines, fuck personal. What's wrong?"
The Bear shifted his gaze up from the photos. "The gomer defenses are whipping our ass, Benny. Ries and Janssen were two of the best Weasels in the wing. Hell, maybe they were the best. And they got shot down by a SAM?"
Benny let him talk.
"Any jock here would feel like shit if he got whipped by a MiG in a dogfight. I'm a Weasel electronic warfare officer, and I feel the same way about SAMs and radars. First an EB-66 with all that jamming power, then a good Weasel crew. And the way the gomers are chopping up the strike pilots?" The Bear shook his head.
"I thought you were pissed off at me."
The Bear looked surprised. "Aw shit, sorry about that."
Benny asked, "Do you think we would have been shot down like Ries and Janssen?" He raised an eyebrow, and the Bear stared back.
The Bear finally blew out a sigh. "I don't know. Even if it was some kind of optical tracker, they should have known something was happening out there. I think Ries w
as busy flying the airplane, so he couldn't look out for missiles. Maybe Dan had his head down in the cockpit, working with his receivers when he should have been looking for SAMs." He shrugged, then looked harder at Benny. "You thinking of us going up there after the Barlock?"
"Not until we learn more about what we'd be up against. For now, let's just warn the guys to stay away from that area. We're going to have our hands full trying to deal with the defenses we know about. We can't go up against some new kind of SAM system located in an area we're not even supposed to fly in."
"Sooner or later," said the Bear, "I've got a feeling we're going to have to take it on." The Bear's voice was quieter and less angry than it had been.
Benny felt the Bear hadn't told him everything that was bothering him, but it was a good start and they were getting back on track.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Friday, February 10th—0305 Local, 16 miles north of Vinh, North Vietnam
Chickenplucker Crawford
They had been on the run for four days, huddling during the day in rice paddies and bomb craters, at night probing cautiously, trying to make their way to the sea. Whenever they thought they were getting close to water, they either saw or heard soldiers moving about, searching. Each time they had drawn back, farther inland, to seek a hiding place before daylight arrived.
Periodically they saw U.S. Navy recce aircraft flying overhead, but they could only watch and wish, for they had no way to signal their presence without alerting what seemed to be half the people in the world.
They both knew that if they couldn't get to the beach soon they had better start walking in another direction, for there were just too many people. They felt they had been tremendously lucky to carry it off and remain free for as long as they had.
Pete Crawford could hardly believe the number of people who inhabited the area. From the air it appeared mostly deserted. Down here there seemed to be farmers, fishermen, road work gangs, soldiers, children, and animals everywhere they turned.
They'd been seen several times, but only once at close proximity. That time it had been by a very old man returning to his stilted farmhouse from an adjacent field. He'd stopped and looked at them, lying there half-submerged in the muddy water of a rice paddy, and had actually tried to talk to them. Either he'd finally decided they weren't real, or he'd been so feebleminded he forgot them. With a single shout of alarm he could have ended their freedom. Instead he had simply, painfully, continued to hobble toward the farmhouse.
They'd stayed there, not knowing what else to do in the daylight with people everywhere, and almost suffered cardiacs as they watched a group of soldiers in an aged weapons carrier stop and talk to the old man. He'd acted confused and just kept shaking his head. There was no telling what the old man had been thinking or saying, and they were so benumbed by the event that they didn't try to make sense of it. When dusk came they were not slow in moving out.
On the fourth night they were trying once again to make their way to the sea.
"It feels right, Pete. It just feels right."
"I hope so, Red. My stomach's gnawing on my backbone."
"If we don't get something to eat pretty soon," said Red, "they're gonna be able to pound me in the ground and use me for a fence post."
Their hunger jokes were getting feeble. So far all they'd had to eat were a few gecko lizards and a red frog that had made Crawford puke. All they'd had to drink had been brackish and salty water from irrigation canals.
"Little, tasteless salamanders," Crawford said disgustedly as he bit into a gecko.
Red told him geckos weren't salamanders. "Newts are salamanders. They got those in Korea. Geckos are just lizards that eat insects," he said. They agreed that regardless of what they were, the tiny creatures didn't have much substance and tasted like mud.
"I want a snake," whispered Red as they crossed a path and headed for the beach a mile north of their last attempt. "A big, fat snake."
"I saw a rat back in that rice paddy."
"You eat the rats, I'll eat the snakes," Red said. "Rats carry diseases. They've still got the plague over here, you know."
"I got my plague shot. I'd settle for a pudgy old pack rat."
"Snakes are cleaner."
They crept on in silence, cautiously making their way around a row of dark houses on stilts.
They'd become close in their eighteen days together. Each knew the other's home town, college, the first names and habits of his wife and children, his hobbies, where he'd been stationed, and the different aircraft he'd flown. They shared a common thirst for freedom. They both felt they would succeed, and that by God if they didn't make it this time they would try again. Each lent the other his own courage.
"You smell bad," whispered Crawford. "Like a gecko tastes."
"I've eaten so many geckos I'm starting to snap at flies and make funny sounds."
"We're getting close to the water, Red. Hear the surf?"
"Yeah. I can hear it. Notice the soil is turning to sand? We're close, Pete."
"Let's stop for a minute or two and listen."
They dropped flat on a rise of sand and looked over it through a thicket of weeds. They had been this close before.
They waited for a long time, listening, looking for movement. They heard the roar of a diesel truck engine far behind them. There was a paved road there, its bomb craters filled level with sand and rocks by work gangs they'd seen.
"You hear anything?" asked Crawford, impatient but fearful now that they were this close.
"I saw something move a little bit ago. I think it was an animal of some kind. Maybe a dog?"
"I think so. It went over toward the left. See that house over there?"
"Yeah."
They were wary. Twice, dogs had created a racket when they passed close to farmhouses. Little yellow, shorthaired dogs with their tails curled up behind. They were loud, and each time they'd barked, humans had come out to see what was there. Red told him in South Vietnam they raised dogs like that to eat. He said they tasted like stringy pork.
"Let's give it another minute or two," whispered Crawford.
Finally they moved out another hundred yards to the next crest. The sea was louder now, with the distinct sounds of breakers against the shore. They watched and listened again.
Nothing. The next rise was farther yet. The house loomed dark a few hundred yards off to their left, but there seemed to be no one up and about.
They went slowly, cautiously, Crawford clutching the old rifle and leading the way.
They could see it now. The black of the South China Sea, the water swelling and white-capping as it neared the beach. The moon was a sliver now, but they could see the dark shapes of boats drawn up on the shore. Fishing boats, probably twenty feet long, narrow, with high prows. A dozen or more of them.
"Luck's with us."
"I love it. We're gonna make it, Pete."
"You know anything about boats?" asked Crawford after a pause. "I went deep-sea fishing down in Florida a few times, but I don't know anything about launching boats."
"I thought maybe you knew about 'em. I'm from Kansas, for God's sake. I almost drowned at water-survival school."
"Well, by God, we'll learn."
They lay there, looking at the sea and thinking of the freedom it offered.
"Say," whispered Red. "We'll be the first ones to escape from North Vietnam after being captured."
"I'd like to be first, but mainly I don't like being a prisoner. I didn't like that cage even a little bit. See anything?"
"Nothing."
"There's that dog again."
The dog ran down the beach from the direction of the house.
"Son of a bitch."
"That's what he is, a son of a bitch."
They watched as the dog ran and played, chasing a long-legged crab that scurried out to the safety of the surf.
"It's getting light," said Crawford. "We'd best be making our move."
Red agreed, but felt
caution as he watched the yellow dog.
"Let's go. Slow and easy, okay?"
Red followed him, hunkered down and running toward the boats. The dog stopped still, watched them for a moment, then ran toward them.
"There's food," whispered Red as they continued their run. "I could eat that sucker."
The dog stopped short, looked at them, and cocked his head. Then, as if he'd understood Red's threat, he growled and started backing away.
They reached the boats, then stopped and looked, trying to decide what to do next. The craft were fifty yards from the water.
"Fucking low tide," muttered Red, "and now it's starting to come in. That's not good, Pete."
Crawford was examining the boats. "They look heavy as hell."
"Maybe if we turned one over. I think that's how they get 'em to the water. Turn 'em over and drag 'em."
The dog started barking at them. The sound was shrill and loud, even with the roar of the sea.
"Jesus!" said Red.
"That one looks lightest," said Crawford, and he grabbed his choice and began trying to turn it over. "Weighs a ton!"
Red grabbed hold with him, and they started making progress. The boat tipped up slowly as they huffed and pushed.
"Keep thinking first, Red. We're gonna be first."
"How sweet it is!" Red groaned.
They continued to lift and push. The dog was barking louder, coming close, then backing off and generally raising hell.
The boat finally teetered, and after a final shove turned over. Beneath it were oars and a great mound of fishing nets with glass floats.
"Oars," said Red. "We can't forget the oars!"
The dog darted in and tried to bite Crawford, who took a kick at it. The dog backed off and continued to bark with vigor. Crawford grabbed oars and oarlocks and put them in the boat, then added the old French Mauser.
"Let's go," he said unnecessarily, for Red was already shoving on the boat.
"I think someone's coming," said Red, panting and looking toward the house.
"Push!"
With both of them heaving they inched the boat forward. Crawford eyed the distant figure and judged he was indeed coming toward them. "Keep pushing!"
"I am!"
The boat slid forward a foot, then stopped. They would push, and the boat would move. Heave! Slide. Heave! Slide.
