Phantom Leader Part 13

"Ah, just pa.s.sing by, Khe Sanh," Clifton said on the new frequency of 127.1.

A new voice came on the air. "Sabre, this is Covey One Zero. Go Covey common on Fox Mike." Covey common, 50.4 megacycles, was known to most of the Special Forces as the discreet frequency the Coveys used to talk among themselves. The numbers were taken from the 504th Tactical Air Support Squadron. They called it the bulls.h.i.t freq. Clifton gambled Khe Sanh Control did not know what it was.

Both Sabres switched to 50.4 and checked in with Covey One Zero.

"Roger, Sabres, what's your position?"

"About ten miles east of Lang Tri. What's the weather there? Do you have contact with the camp?"

"The weather, comrades, is delta sierra, but usable if you're a duck.

Many buildups in the LOCAL area extend up to thirty grand or better. The low stuff is thin for the moment.

Rainsqualls pa.s.sing through. Altimeter twenty-nine thirty-two. I do have occasional contact with the camp on their survival radio, but their battery is low. Are you gentlemen here for an exfil?"

"That's affirm, Covey. Sabre One is a gunship, Sabre Two a troopship.

What's the situation on the ground?"

"Grimsville. I just put in a B-57 and some Navy A-Is.

They got one tank and a bunch of gomers. But there are maybe two other tanks grinding around. Lots of bad guys, heavy groundfire. What are your intentions?"

"We want to get those guys out of there. What frequency are they on?"

Clifton asked.

"Uniform two four two point five."

"Sabre, go two four two point five." When Sabre Two and Covey checked in, Clifford tried Lang Tri.

"s.p.u.n.ky, this is Sabre, do you read?" There was no answer. He tried twice more with no results. He called the Covey FAC.

"Look, Covey, we got to get on the ground. I'm going to be over the camp in about two minutes. I'll find what I think is the best LZ, prep it, then my number-two man will land and off-load troops and take off.

I'll gun around as required, two will orbit off to the side. Can you get any air in the next ten minutes?"

"Sabre, I've had a standing request for the last hour. It all depends on the weather. I'll have to say right now it ain't gonna improve."

Clifton motioned to the SF man with the RPG. "Load that thing," he said, "hang out the right door. Point the tube forward parallel to the fuselage. Get your buddy to hold you. If I see a tank, I'll aim at it and tell the door gunner to point it out to you. Get ready."

The man checked the five-pound projectile mounted in the mouth of the three-foot weapon and positioned himself outside on the skids. His a.s.sistant held him by the back of his collar and his belt.

Clifton suddenly was over the camp at fifty-feet alt.i.tude.

For a few precious seconds he had the element of surprise.

The camp looked like a burnt-out junkyard on the moon.

Craters, ashes, hulks of jeeps and three tanks, and burneddown structures littered the area. Smoke rose from half a dozen smoldering fires.

"Over there," Clifton shouted to his copilot and door gunner. He spun the Huey toward a lone tank crouched under a tree clump outside the camp where it had hidden from the air strikes. The man holding the RPG-7 on his shoulder hung out the right door, left leg kneeling inside the helicopter, right leg extended to the skid. The door gunner slapped his shoulder and pointed at the tank. The man shifted the tube slightly and squeezed the trigger. There was a tremendous backblast and the rocket sped on its way. In a fountain of red fire and black smoke, it impacted just under the turret. Immediately, flames poured from vents.

The hatch slowly opened, an arm appeared, then fell back in the tank as fire shot into the air.

As soon as he had fired, Clifton swung his Huey back and forth, spraying an area next to the command bunker. There was very little return fire.

No fighting positions or mortar pits in the open parts of the camp were occupied by the NVA soldiers, probably, he reasoned, because of the air strike.

"Land your people, Two," he ordered the warrant officer, who immediately started down. The Special Forces men began spilling out even as it flared to a moving hover five feet off the ground. In less than ten seconds all twelve men were out and deployed in a tiny perimeter around the helicopter.

As the last man leaped out, the warrant officer lowered the nose of his craft and sped off across the camp and pulled up sharply to clear the trees.

In the silence after the helicopter disappeared over the treeline, Wolf made arm signals to deploy his men in a wider perimeter around the bunker. From Wolf's pre-brief, each three-man team knew in which direction to extend. They quickly flopped into craters and the old fighting positions.

They carried a mixed bag of weapons: M79 grenade launchers, heavy slings of grenades and ammunition for their M16s and CAR-15s, every third man carried a SOG-60, a cutdown version of the M60 machine gun. One team stayed next to Wolf.

"Okay, George," Lochert said to the leader, George Heaps, "let's crack that bunker." Bent over, they ran to the bunker. Lochert carried a PRC-25 radio and his MI 6. Next to the bunker was a burned-out tank hull and two dozen or more green-clad NVA bodies testifying to the immediateness and accuracy of the B-57 and Navy A-1 strikes. With Heaps and his two men, Wolf Lochert ran to the steps leading down into the bunker. Bodies and pieces of bodies littered the way.

The dirt walls, even though sh.o.r.ed up by PSP (Pierced Steel Planking, used to make runways), had collapsed on the bottom of steps covering the door to the command post. One man on each team had a folding shovel.

"Start digging," Wolf said. He positioned himself on the lip of the steps and took the handset of his p.r.i.c.k-25. Rifle fire started to pop and rattle. He heard his people returning fire with their M16s and M60 machine guns. He spoke into the handset.

"Sabre One, this is Dakota Six. The bunker is partially collapsed.

We've got to do some digging. Might take a few minutes. Starting to take some fire. Not heavy yet." Sabre acknowledged the call. "Hurry up, guys. Gonna get mighty black here toot sweet."

Wolf looked back down the steps. All three men were digging, one with the shovel, the other two with torn pieces of the pierced steel planking used to build the bunker. They had the top five inches of the door exposed.

"Start knocking," he commanded. "See if anybody's alive in there." The fire picked up. He heard the bloop of the M79 and the bang of exploding grenades. His men beat on the door with the shovel. There was no answer. They continued their frenzied digging. The fire outside was rapidly increasing in intensity.

Major Doug Clifton banked his gunship sharply around the perimeter, keeping low over the trees so the NVA could not get a clear tracking shot on him. Searching green-andred tracers crisscrossed the sky directly over the camp and disappeared into the overcast. Sabre Two orbited to the east.

He checked his fuel.

"Time, gentlemen, time," he transmitted to the men on the ground.

Wolf Lochert heard the caution on his radio. He was shooting from the bunker stairwell at the heads that would pop up from a gun pit to fire at his troops. He shifted as the fire picked up to his left. Nearly a full squad of NVA was attacking one of his teams. Through the smoke he could see the enemy figures dodging around wreckage, hopping from hole to hole, making a probing thrust from the south side of the camp.

"From the south, they're coming from the south," he warned over the FM.

"I got 'em," a team member radioed back.

" Rolling in," Doug Clifton said from his helicopter. He turned sharply from his position over the trees and swept the south compound with his four forward-firing guns. Both door gunners and SF men were shooting out the side, sweeping the ground with their fire. The helicopter took several hits in the tail section and one through the front windscreen.

The attack subsided, "You got anybody out yet?" Clifton asked.

Lochert's men had just cleaned the dirt from the scarred and battered door, but couldn't open it.

"Hey, in there," they shouted, and beat on the door.

"Anybody alive? We're Americans."

"New attack," Clifton suddenly transmitted, "from the west and north.

Looks bad." He looked down and saw dozens of the NVA soldiers ma.s.sed in the treeline, some already running at the smashed perimeter wire, then the rest followed in a stream. He positioned himself for a re-attack and rolled in.

"We can't hold them," Team Two radioed to Wolf. Three teams had the NVA in a crossfire, but despite many going down, the communist soldiers kept coming. Doug Clifton's UH-IC clattered across the clearing, firing furiously.

"We need some help," Wolf hollered behind him to the men in the stairwell. "Two of you get up here."

Two men flopped into position next to Wolf and began shooting in careful two- and three-round bursts.

"What's going on down there?" Wolf asked.

"We heard someone rap on the door from the inside," one of the men said between volleys. Wolf looked down the well.

The door was opening and the remaining man, George Heaps, was sliding through.

"Two minutes, Sabre," Wolf radioed to Clifton. "We'll be ready for pickup in two minutes." He returned to his shooting.

"Sabre Two," Clifton called, "get ready for extraction on my count."

"They're on us," Team One cried out on the radio.

Wolf looked over to their position. It was closest to the north wall where the NVA were pouring in. "Get that north wall," he radioed to Clifton, who rolled in immediately, door guns spraying hundreds of 7.62mm bullets, chin turret lobbing grenades into the green hordes.

"Let's go down there, George," Wolf yelled down the stairwell.

Sergeant First Cla.s.s George Heaps helped a man in a torn and b.l.o.o.d.y tiger suit out the bunker door. He trailed an AK-47 behind him. "Five more inside," he gasped. "Some dead, some alive. I'll help . . ." He collapsed on the red dirt piled by the door, barely conscious. Heaps saw the name Lopez on his torn and filthy shirt.

"Stay here in the well," Heaps said and disappeared in the door. Inside, the air was full of dust and the stench of wounded men and full cans of human waste. He began to make out forms and shapes as his eyes became adjusted to the dim light from the open door. "Over here," a man waved from a corner. Heaps found two men, an American and a Vietnamese, lying crumpled against the wall, holding M16s pointed toward the door. The torn body of another American lay against the intersecting wall. Heaps briefly touched them, then searched through the small door to the supply room. Inside he saw the legs of two men protruding from a mound of dirt that had broken away and avalanched down from a large section of the wall. He fumbled under their pant legs to feel their ankles. Both were cold and rigid. He crawled back out to the two men against the wall.

"Anyone else?" he asked.

"Yeah, the cot," the American mumbled. "An Air Force guy. Under the cot."

"I'll get him," Heaps said. "You guys get out of here. Stay just outside the door. Don't poke your heads over the stairwell." The two men helped each other up and hobbled to the door. Each clutched his rifle. Heaps heard a hissing sound.

Looking down, he saw two green oxygen cylinders for an acetylene torch lying in the debris. Someone had opened the valves, releasing life-giving pure oxygen into the dank air of the bunker.

Heaps tipped the broken cot back, revealing a figure lying in a tangle of poncho liners and b.l.o.o.d.y bandages. He found a strong pulse, then started to look for wounds. The man stirred, then jerked in a convulsive motion and tried to bring a .45-caliber pistol to bear on Heaps.

"Hey, it's okay," he said, pushing the big automatic away.

"I'm an American. Can you move?"

Toby Parker focused his eyes in the gloom on the big man kneeling over him. "You bet your sweet a.s.s I can," he said.

1200 HOURS LOCAL, WEDNESDAY 31 JANUARY 1968.

RAFFLES HOTEL, SINGAPORE CITY REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE.

The noon sun bore down on the city of Singapore with crushing intensity.

Court and Susan sat in rattan chairs in the shade of the Long Bar, sipping iced tea. They had slept late, and were still groggy with lovemaking and wine.

Each day had been the same. For sightseeing Susan wore sundresses and sandals, Court wore light slacks and occasionally short pants. Once he wore a light-blue scarf knotted at his throat. They both wore Raffles pith helmets and laughed at each other. In the evenings they dressed and dined formally. Always they would return to her room.

In the morning, at dawn, when the birds in the Palm Court were chatting themselves awake, Court would walk down the open veranda to his room. He would shower, then drink coffee in the courtyard while thinking of his future. He decided they would marry very soon, and he would get out of the Air Force. Maybe go airlines while looking for good movie scripts he could produce. Certainly no acting, he chuckled to himself. And Susan could fly or not for American Airlines as she saw fit. Soon he would call the general's office at 7th Air Force and tell them of his decision to get out of the Air Force. Soon. Maybe next week.

They took the ferry to Sentosa Island. The boat heaved and splashed through heavy chop as it made its way between ponderous oil freighters and rust-bucket cargo ships. After the twenty-minute ride they disembarked and walked away from the construction sites of the new park to the new beaches of the small island. They wore shorts and sandals.

Susan had her hair in a ponytail. Court carried a bagful of iced Tiger beer slung over his shoulder.

When they rounded the tip of the island to see the South China Sea, Susan spoke up. "My G.o.d, Court, you're striding along these beaches like MacArthur's return to the Philippines. Give me a break, O mighty warrior."

They sat barefoot under a palm tree and drank the cool beer. The sea breeze made the heat endurable. At first they spoke of the trips Susan now took-she was back on MAC contract. That meant she flew the flights chartered by the USAF's Military Airlift Command to ferry GIs to and fro Vietnam. MAC simply wasn't geared to shuttle tens of thousands of GIs between the U.S. and Vietnam every week.

American Airlines was just one of the many civilian carriers MAC had chartered to do that job. She said how young the GIs looked going over, and how old on the return trip.

MENEL "Enough of that subject," she said. She leaned over and gave him a big kiss and snuggled in his arms. "What are your plans when your tour is up?" she asked.

"Well, funny you should mention that. I've been giving it a lot of thought lately. In fact, I've been thinking a lot about us, and maybe getting out of the Air Force. You see, I'd kind of like you and me "

"Get out of the Air Force?" she interrupted. "What do you mean? You told me you were a career fighter pilot."

"I know I did. But there just doesn't seem to be a big demand for career anything these days, much less a career fighter pilot."

"Hmm. I seem to remember you once said you owed your government and the Air Force something for all those great years of flying."

"I did, and I've paid them back, I'm in the top ten percent in total fighter combat time. I've got more MiG credits than anybody else in this war. So I think maybe it's time to pursue other things."

"You once told me that another reason you went back to Vietnam was because your buddies were all there."

He was silent for a moment, thinking of Wolf and Toby.

"I know," he said. "It's still true. But now so many are dead ... or captured." He thought of Flak Apple. He had been with him when he had been shot down, and his own backseater, Ev Stern, had been captured on the same mission.

She leaned back in his arms to look up into his face.

"Court, I want to ask you a kind of funny question, do you mind?"

"Go ahead." He stroked her cheek.

"I once thought you, well, liked combat. That you thrived on it. Don't you feel that way any longer?"

He put his hand down and looked out to sea. "Christ, you, re tough. You just won't let this go, will you?" He looked at her with a wry expression. "Maybe you have a point. I do sort of enjoy what I do. I'd be lying if I said I didn't. And that's one of the things that scares me. That's maybe another reason why I should quit it now before it's all I want to do-or worse yet, is all I can do." He took a long pull of Tiger beer.