Phantom Leader Part 39

"The binh tran truck parks and stations are placed about every twenty miles or so. A station launches a truck convoy south, then calls the next station up north and says he's ready to receive. They leave after dark and try to be at the next binh tran before daylight. The same shift of drivers drive the same bit of Trail back and forth with the same vehicle. That way they know the road and its problems like their own village neighborhood." Toby indicated some pictures that looked like a sandy version of a moonscape.

"These are a few of the choke points we blast every day and they repair every night. Based on intelligence reports, we estimate there are about 600,000 people on the Trail at any given time. The majority are support people, not movers. Of the support people, we estimate 200,000 are roadrepair crews." There were expressions of surprise from the audience.

"Because of the daytime interdiction strikes, the open portions of the Trail, which comprise about twenty percent of the route structure, are closed. This causes most of the trucks to hole up. During that time loads are shifted, repairs are made, drivers rest. By the way, there are women drivers.

It's also during that time the day FACs and the others look for those truck parks. They don't have much luck. A little hint from the FACs: look for small open areas that look like vegetable gardens. They probably are. Except for rice shipped to them, these drivers must live off the land and will try to grow food in gardens, and gardens need sunlight. Back to the trucks and this is the point-the trucks do not drive one inch in the daytime in the open areas. Secondly, driving at night cuts about fifteen percent movement because it is dark and the drivers don't want to turn on even the slit lights if they hear an airplane. If the day FACs stop the movement in the open areas during the day, and you Phantom FACs stop it at night, then we'll put some real hurt on them." Toby pulled out some new charts.

"About defenses. Most are 14.7mm, 23mm quad-barrel ZSUs, and 37mm single-barrel guns. There is a rumor of a 100mm by Delta 32, but no hard intell as yet. So far they are not radar-directed, but they are plain mean. The gunners are good. In the daylight they can track an airplane at one-thousand-feet alt.i.tude flying five hundred knots. That's manual tracking by the Mark One, Mod Zero Viet nine-level gunner's eyeball. At night it's a different story. They actually have giant ears to pick up the sound of our engines. They have modified what the VC and the NVA do in South Vietnam. They dig bowl-shaped holes about six feet across and seat a guy in the center. Some are in hillsides, some on the flats. The ones on hillsides face different directions to give better azimuth readings of the inbound fighters." Toby put his hands on his hips. "About those guns. You must protect your strike pilots. They need to know where the guns are.

Since it isn't as easy as the daytime, when you might spot them even before they shoot, at night you must make them illuminate themselves."

He grinned. "Only one way to do that-make them shoot at you. Believe me, sometimes they light up the sky like Times Square. Other times all you see is pinp.r.i.c.ks of light on black velvet. You backseaters have got to log where those guns are. The only way you can do that is know the area like the back of your hand. It ain't easy, guys, but there is a way. There always is. In this case it's gaining experience, but gaining it the hard way. You just go out and do it."

Toby stopped and looked around. "That's about it for now. Any questions?"

"How many tons a day on the Trail?" Grailson asked.

"During the dry season, about two hundred tons per day in motion from one end of Laos to the other. Note I said dry season. Weather is a big factor. The dry season runs from October through May, the wet season from June through September. We've got three good months to stop those trucks before the weather does."

"Any SAMs out there yet?" Neil Tallboy asked.

"No. But that's not to say there won't be. They could be in place tomorrow." Toby scanned the crewmen. There were no more questions.

Court took over.

"We have two rooms in this building we've got to fix up for ourselves.

They were storerooms just off the big Wing Intelligence map room. Roily, it's special-project time. Get some of the troops, scrounge up whatever you need to set up our Phantom FAC area." He looked at his watch. "It's nearly ten. You've got all day. Have the rooms ready for business by tomorrow night. Although we're on a training schedule with the Wolfs and the Night Owls, I want us to have our own squadron area. Meanwhile, you guys get your sleep schedules flip-flopped. Noon is now midnight and vice versa. One last thing. I'm having a long talk with the support people. I want us to have our own hooch, since we're all on the same schedule. Right now you guys are scattered around the squadrons.

I'm planning on getting us all together within a few days. Meanwhile get all your daytime personal stuff taken care of. Howie Joseph and I are flying tonight. It's time I get started on my twenty Night Owl missions. That's it. You're dismissed."

0315 HOURS LOCAL, SUNDAY 18 FEBRUARY 1968.

HOUSE OF VENUS APARTMENTS BEREm7m, CALrroRNu "Oh, baby, why won't you go to bed with me? You're so cute. I'll bet you're a great lover. But, hey, let's have another toke, what say?" The dark-haired girl pouted and swayed on her feet as she spoke to Michael LaNew. LaNew sat on the frayed couch in her apartment, which had once been tastefully furnished. Now, rough wear and lack of cleaning gave the rooms the appearance of a fourth-rate flophouse. Dirty mattresses were scattered about, some flat, some bent against walls, The cloying smell of the burning incense didn't quite cover the ropy smell of marijuana and stale von-t.i.t.

Several couples were scattered about, crashed in drugged stupor or arguing the merits of gra.s.s over mescaline. Sitar music whined up and down, low lights glowed. These were serious followers of Doctor Timothy Leary's turn-on, tunein, drop-out philosophy.

LaNew took a pull at a pint of brandy. He wore sungla.s.ses, blue jeans, a rough denim shirt, and a dirty suitcoat two sizes too large for him.

His quick but deep research in response to the call from Gant on Shawn Bannister had turned up the background on the founders of the Peace and Power to the People Party. Alexander Torpin was one founder; this woman, Becky Blinn, swaying in front of him, was another. He discovered Torpin was still active and powerful, a man very much in control of himself and his destiny.

He was strong in the party, perhaps controlled it.

It was not the same for Becky Blinn. Through careful research, help from the neighborhood police precinct, and sly LOCAL questions, LaNew had found out she had become far too strung-out on drugs to be of any benefit whatsoever to herself, much less to the party. She lived now by charging the locals only handfuls of gra.s.s, and whatever pills they had, to use her crash pad. She was a dying woman and smelled bad.

LaNew took another swallow of his brandy. He wished he had some wintergreen to rub under his nose. "Sure," he said.

"I'm a good lover. The best. You want some pot first? Okay with me."

He patted a pocket in his coat. "But you haven't answered my questions about Shawn Bannister." He had been feeding her some good stuff for over six hours, ever since he had appeared, as nameless as the others, at her door.

"Why you so innerested in that ba.s.sar, anyhow?" Becky Blinn sat down suddenly in the center of the floor. "Come on, give us something," she said in a wheedling voice.

LaNew pulled some thick marijuana cigarettes from a box in his pocket.

"Sure, babe, sure." He held one just out of reach. "All you got to do is tell me how you got it on with Shawn Bannister."

"You keep asking that," she whined. "Is that how you get off? Hearing about the others?"

"Maybe. Who cares? You want some more of this stuff, you got to talk."

"Come on, baby. Give me some and we'll get it on, you and me. The h.e.l.l with him." She reached for the cigarette.

LaNew pulled it back.

"Okay," she said. "Okay. You wanna hear about him? He was freaky, a real s.p.a.ce cadet. Finally had to toss him out of here. Here's how it was." She started to talk.

LaNew slid his hand into a pocket of his coat and flicked on the tiny switch of the tape recorder. He was careful not to rustle his clothes and flood the mike, covering her words.

Using interrogation skills learned in the OSI, he led her along the paths and into the details he wanted.

"Yeah," she said after a long description of bizarre s.e.xual events, "he wanted all that. An' we did it. Hey, he used to give us money too, you know. Lots of money, every month.

Din' even have ta use the pichures," she slurred.

"Pictures? Tell me about the pictures." LaNew was very alert and solicitous.

"Good old Torp had a hin cam--" She belched. "Hin camera and took some ziz wow pichures. Ri'up his a.s.s," she cackled. As she went on, she sank lower and lower onto the floor. LaNew had to get off the couch and kneel close to her.

When she closed her eyes and began mumbling, he took the chance and pulled the microphone from behind his lapel and held it near her lips.

He coaxed a few more details from her, made sure she reaffirmed they were talking about Shawn Bannister, and sat back when she lost all consciousness.

Thin drool seeped from a corner of her mouth. He checked her pulse and heartbeat and sat back on his heels. Her face was the color of old rice. She would last a while longer: a week, a month, a year perhaps.

The music sawed and droned. LaNew pulled out a Minox, snapped a few very high ASA black-and-whites of her and the room, then got to his feet and started searching. Careful to leave no fingerprints, stepping over drugged bodies, leaving mumblings behind him, he searched the entire apartment and found nothing.

LaNew finally left the rancid rooms, carefully closing the door. A black man lurched against the wall as he went down the dark hall lit only by a pale bulb.

"Hey, bro, wha's happening?" the man said.

"Not much, man. Not much-," Michael LaNew replied as he went out the door to the street.

1000 HOURS LOCAL, MONDAY 19 FEBRUARY 1968.

THE EmERsON BUHMING, MUGHT STREET Berkley, California Michael LaNew stood across the street from the Emerson Building, the five-story brick structure that housed the office of the Peace and Power to the People Party. He wore the same clothes and was tired and dirty.

He had been up all night clearing up the tape and working with the Minox negatives in his portable lab. It wasn't the first time his photography hobby had come in handy.

He stared at the office across the street. The building, st.u.r.dy and well-built, had been constructed at the turn of the century. As with the others, it had been designed with a storefront on the bottom floor and apartments above. The stores now were mixed. They sold nature foods, old-time clothes with beads, psychedelic trappings, and drug paraphernalia; others were launderettes, Zen churches, counseling services, and coffee shops. Drugstores, dry-cleaning shops, and small markets had moved out because they couldn't sell enough to stay in business and couldn't prevent shoplifting. All the apartments were shoddy, since rent control didn't allow landlords enough money to keep them fixed up. Several radios tuned to the same radio station flooded the streets with acid rock.

The windows of the shop on the ground floor of the Emerson Building were emblazoned with large pictures of Shawn Bannister, and with signs proclaiming his running for a.s.semblyman as the candidate from the Peace and Power to the People Party. The picture was the blowup of one taken in Vietnam, where he had been wearing a tiger suit and holding a camera while crouched by a piece of shrubbery.

LaNew thought he recognized the shrubbery as some located behind the Continental Hotel in Saigon.

LaNew checked his watch. It had taken several days to arrange a meeting with the man he had arrested for spying less than a year before. He had had less trouble seeing Becky Blinn the night before.

"LaNew?" Shawn Bannister had said on the telephone.

"Michael LaNew? The cop who busted me on false charges in Thailand? Why should I see you?"

LaNew had prepared a noncommittal answer that he hoped would pique Shawn's curiosity. "It would be in your best interests to see me. I don't want to say any more on the telephone." With that, Shawn agreed to the meeting.

LaNew crossed the street and entered the office. It was crowded and bustling. Several people, male and female, in jeans and granny dresses, were using telephones, writing flyers, painting signs, working a mimeograph machine.

Shawn recognized LaNew and went to him without offering to shake hands.

"Is this an official visit?" he asked. "Because if it is, you'd better present your credentials." Several burly men with long hair stared with obvious hostility at LaNew as they looked up from their duties.

"I am no longer in the Air Force," LaNew said.

Shawn regarded LaNew's clothes. "Are you an undercover narc? Or with any government agency whatsoever?"

he asked.

"No.

Shawn Bannister flashed his famous smile. "Then what do you want? A job?" He gave a short laugh. "Because if you do, I can always use a smart man like yourself. A man who has been there and who has seen the follies and failures of our policies in Vietnam." He smiled again. "Is that how it is?

You want a job?"

"No, I don't want a job." LaNew looked around. "Let's go someplace where we can talk."

Shawn said a few words to one of the men and went out the door with LaNew. Moments later they sat on rugs at a table with sawed-off legs in a coffeehouse.

"Okay, LaNew, what is it that is in my best interests to hear?" Shawn spoke in a sarcastic tone.

"It pertains to the statements you made at Udorn."

"So? You let me go. You had to. I wasn't doing anything wrong. The Air Force itself admitted that."

"It was when you were talking about freedom of the press and how you reported on both sides. You said you were taken into the tunnels under Cholon to interview a VC colonel."

"That's right. They were a h.e.l.l of a lot more polite and cooperative than you were. They're organized, they've got a plan, and, most important, they all know they are right. The Americans don't."

LaNew waved his hand. "I'm not here to debate the war or to listen to your views. You said you saw a man with the VC colonel who was referred to by your guide as the Lizard."

"I did?" Shawn looked both doubtful and defensive.

LaNew pulled a 3 by 7 black-and-white photo from his pocket. It was a blowup of Huey Dan's ID photo from the MACSOG file. He placed it on the table facing Shawn.

Although Shawn barely glanced at it, LaNew saw his eyes flicker in recognition.

"Who is that?" Shawn asked.

"You tell me."

Shawn flicked the photo back to LaNew.

"Haven't the foggiest."

"I think you do."

Shawn glanced at his watch. "You don't have my interest at all. I've got to go." He started to rise.

LaNew grabbed his wrist and forced him back down.

"Maybe I should have played this first," he said. He pulled a small tape recorder from his jacket pocket and flicked the on switch.

"Yeah," came the slurred voice of Becky Blinn, "I know that Shawn Bannister. Let me tell you what that ba.s.ser likes." She giggled and began to recite some of the rank and raunchy exotic delights involving, among other things, peanut b.u.t.ter, fried eggs, and turkey feathers that made Shawn Bannister scream and cry out in joy.

Shawn's self-conscious grin faded to a scowl. "Gimme that." He grabbed the recorder and slammed it onto the rug.

The other patrons barely looked up. They were used to sudden and irrational behavior.

LaNew made a mocking smile. "I have more."

Shawn straightened his back and looked down at LaNew.

"You don't have any plans to blackmail me, I hope. I might be running for office, but my const.i.tuents would find this quite amusing, actually." He didn't speak with much conviction.

LaNew grinned broadly and spoke in a mimicking voice.

Actually, yes. I do have plans to blackmail you."

"I'm leaving."

"As liberal as your const.i.tuency might be, I think they would be appalled to find you like to crawl around on your hands and knees with turkey feathers stuck up your a.s.s while some naked girl with spurs on rides you like a horse."

"This is ridiculous," Shawn Bannister said in a thick voice, and swallowed twice. "Why should they care?"

"I think they would always wonder if you'd ever be found crawling around the Capitol halls with an a.s.sful of turkey feathers."

Shawn blinked rapidly. "You've got no proof. That tape could be a phony."

LaNew leaned forward and spoke in a voice so soft that Shawn had to lean forward. "Listen, turkey snot, you give me what I want or the California Sun, Democratic headquarters, and your public will get more than just the tape. They will get a blowup of this." He pulled a photo from his jacket and placed it on the table.

Shawn looked down at it and let out a little squeak. It was a blurry photo of a naked man on all fours in Becky Blinn's living room. He quickly looked away. Perspiration burst out on his forehead. "Who took that?" he moaned. He didn't see the gleam of satisfaction in LaNew's eyes. LaNew still felt strange from crawling around naked in front of the low tripod, holding his Minox on self-timer. It wasn't too difficult to superimpose the results on the shot of Becky Blinn's apartment.