STEEL TIGER
by
MARK BERENT

Jove Books by Mark Berent

ROLLING THUNDER

STEEL TIGER

JOVE BOOKS, NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction.  All of the characters in this book are
fictional and bear no resemblance to real-life personages either living
or dead.  (Sometimes I think the Vietnam war bore no resemblance to real
life.)  However, in striving for authenticity, some of the organizations
and public figures exist or existed at the time.  Note that not all
actual events occurred in the exact chronology presented.

This Jove Book contains the complete text of the original hardcover
edition.  It has been completely reset in a typeface designed for easy
reading, and was printed from new film.

STEEL TIGER

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with Berent-Woods, Inc.

PRINTING HISTORY

G.  P.  Putnam's Sons edition / May 1990

Published simultaneously in Canada

Jove edition / December 1990

All rights reserved.

Copyright (D 1990 by Mark Berent.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or
any other means, without permission.  For information address: G.  P.

Putnam's Sons, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

ISBN: 0-515-10467-1

Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison
Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

The name "JOVE" and the "J" logo are trademarks belonging to Jove
Publications, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated to the KIA, MM, and POW aircrew from Air America,
the U.S.  Air FORCE, the U.S.  Army, the U.S.  Coast Guard, Continental
Air Service, the U.S.  Marine Cozps, the U.S.  Navy, the Royal
Australian Air FORCE, and to the men of the U.S.  Army Special Forces.

"We stand to our glasses ready.

And to MB.

"No guts, no glory.  If you are going to shoot him down, you have to get
in there and mix it up with him."

-Frederick C.  "Boots" Blesse, USAF 10 victories, Korean War

"The fighter pilots have to rove in the area allotted to them in any way
they like, and when they spot an enemy they attack and shoot him down:
anything else is rubbish."

-Baron Manfred von Richthofen, German Air Service Leading Ace of WWI
with 80 victories

'Y love the vertical.  Why?  Few know how to use it.  It's not just
geometry.  It's mental.  And you've got to think in four dimensions:
time, both horizontals, and the vertical.

-Bill Sakahara, USAF, Fighter Pilot Instructor

Prologue

0945 HOURS LOCAL, WEDNESDAY.  17 MAY 1967

MiG-21 AIRBORNE over HANOI DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

He would kill the American.  Secure in the cockpit of his MiG21 jet
fighter, Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir N.  Chemov of the Soviet Air FORCE
stalked the lone F-4 Phantom 6,000 feet below.

His face was hidden behind his oxygen mask and bug-like rounded sun
visor.  The light blue of his helmet matched a scarf knotted at his
throat.

Chemov had positioned himself in the glare of the sun to hide from the
searching eyes of the crew of the two-man Phantom.

He carefully checked the sky around and behind his own airplane.  From
his vantage point, he saw no other evidence of the large American air
fleet that had been over the Bach Mai Cement Works just moments ago.

Black and white smoke drifted up from the ruined buildings that had been
smashed by a strike FORCE of F-105s protected by F-4s.

Four of Lieutenant Colonel Chemov's North Vietnamese students had
tangled briefly with the Americans using the carefully briefed
radar-controlled sequence he had taught them.  Under control of the
ground intercept radar, they had shot down two of the American pilots by
using a one-pass, high-speed stern attack, firing K-13 missiles from
behind and below.  Then they had turned and dove away before they could
be seen and chased.

Two of the four MiG-21 pilots, Toon and Van Bay, had scored one kill
each.  The two American planes, an F-4 and an F-105, had never known
what hit them.  The missiles had blown them into red and black streaks
that had arced into the rice paddies.

The other two students, lower-ranking wingmen, had not gotten into
missile-firing range.  After the attack, Chemov had directed them to
land.  He remained aloft to do what he was forbidden to do: fight
American airplanes.

Chemov monitored the American's emergency radio frequency of 243.0
megacycles, the one that warned of MiGs.  He was surprised their C-121
airborne radar airplane had not called out his position to the F-4.

Maybe it was too far away.  Hara sho, so be it.  Worse luck for the
American fighter.

"Good hunting," his North Vietnamese ground controller said in passable
Russian.

"I'm not here.  I am not on your screen," Chemov shot back, momentarily
furious at the controller's breach of security.  The last thing Chemov
wanted was for anyone to know he was actively flying combat.  If his
superiors knew, he'd be disciplined by exile to air base Chita up in the
Siberian wastes, where the mechanics drank brake fluid to get drunk.

If the Americans knew he was flying combat with the North Vietnamese Air
FORCE, it would give them a propaganda coup that could seriously erode
Soviet aid to North Vietnam, not to mention damage international Soviet
credibility.  Either way, Chemov thought, I lose.  I'll just credit
honor-pupil Toon with my victory, same as before.

He took one last look around, lazily rolled to an inverted position and,
never taking his eyes off the enemy fighter, pulled the nose of his
MiG-21 down so the glowing round dot of his gunsight was pointing into
the black smoke emanating from the engines of the jet.  Ridiculous, he
said to himself, the way this big American Phantom had engines that
smoked so badly they left trails in the sky pointing to them like Thor's
arrows.

The smoking jet engine was just one of the many things that hampered the
Americans' efforts to bottle up North Vietnam, Vladimir Chemov thought.

He had often discussed the Americans with his Russian ground crew.  They
had laughed about how easily and safely they could fly Soviet fighters
and transports into and out of the Gia Lam Airport near Hanoi, because
the Americans were not allowed to strike the field.  They couldn't even
strafe the MiGs parked on the ground.  Only if they were shot at, could
the Americans shoot back.  And that was almost a joke.  Many times
Phantom pilots had been in good firing position, yet did not shoot.  Or,
if they did, many times the missile either fell off or went wild.

All the better for me, Vladimir Chemov thought, and concentrated on his
pursuit curve.  He rolled out and slowly pulled the nose of his airplane
up to place his gunsight dot on the heated tailpipe of the Phantom.  His
visibility directly forward, like that to the rear, was not good, and
once again, he cursed the thick bulletproof glass directly in front of
him that restricted his forward observation to a mere three miles.

Sighing, he flipped up the cooling switch for the guidance system of his
missile.  Just inside three miles, the missile's heat-seeking system
awakened, and began to growl its lock-on to the heat of the Phantom's
tailpipe.  Chemov pressed in.  He wanted to get close enough to fire one
missile, then break away.  If successful, it would be the second U.S.

jet fighter he would have been able to down with one missile.  Yet he
would rather be using a gun.  It was a romantic throwback, he knew, to
the Yak and Stormovik fighters of the Great Patriotic War.  Chemov hoped
his request to headquarters for a 23mm gun pod he could sling under the
belly of his MiG would be approved.  He much preferred the swirling of
the classic dogfight to this reliance on an impersonal heat-seeking
missile.

The missile tone reached its highest pitch, indicating it had a solid
lock.  Zashel v hvost, I am on his tail.  He checked his airspeed, bank
angle, and G-load; and made sure he wasn't too far away or too close.

Everything was within tolerance, which meant he was well within the
missile-firing envelope.  He lifted the cap that protected the firing
button on his control stick grip, and pressed down.  With a swoosh and a
great trail of white propellant smoke, the K-13 missile dropped from its
rails and homed in on the fleeing jet.  It guided perfectly and flew up
the left tailpipe.  The Phantom disintegrated.  There were no
parachutes.

Chemov's radar controller saw the Phantom disappear from his screen and
couldn't restrain himself.

"Congratulations, Comrade Chernov.  You have scored again."

Chemov swore.  Would these imbeciles never learn) "You are mistaken," he
responded, barely keeping his anger under control.

"It was Comrade Toon who scored the victory.  Comrade "Acknowledged.

Comrade Toon," said the controller.

Shaking his head in disgust, Vladimir Chernov headed back to base.

1230 HOURS LOCAL, FRIDAY, 19 MAY 1967

IN A T-33 JET TRAINER over EDWARDs AIR FORCE BASE, CALIFORNIA

It was to have been a normal flight, in which the student test pilot was
to have practiced his newly learned ability to perform a simple stall
check.  But deep in the bowels of the sleek jet, a wire had been chafing
for the last six flights.  The final thread of Mil Spec W5086 PVC/nylon
insulation was about to separate, which would allow the 12-strand copper
wire to ground out on the electrical motor that moved a trim tab.  This
tab relieved the pressure on the pilot's control stick, enabling him to
fly hands off, by positioning a flight control, called an elevator, up
or down at the rear of the plane.  The elevator was more formally called
the horizontal stabilizer.

The pilot, Air FORCE Major Court Bannister, was in his fifth month of
training at the Test Pilot School at Edwards Air FORCE Base (AFB) at the
western end of the Mojave Desert in California.  He was well into the
Stability and Control phase, which taught him how to evaluate aircraft
handling characteristics.  An hour earlier, Bannister's instructor had
given him his final guidance.  "Fly the card," he had said, meaning
Court was to conduct a routine stall check exercise following the climb
test, as outlined on the flight test card on his kneeboard.

Today's project airplane was a Lockheed T-33A jet trainer.  Nicknamed
the T-Bird, it was the two-seat version of the ven e F-80, America's
first jet fighter.  This particular T-Bird, mber 29846, had been a
mainstay of the school since 1959.

Bannister's test card called for him to climb the plane in a sawtooth
profile to 35,000 feet and trim it for hands-off straight and level
flight.  Then he was to reduce power and record the speed, stick forces,
and aircraft warning signs as he approached a stall.  To actuate the
trim, he used his right thumb on a little coolie-hat-shaped button on
the top of the control stick.  Thumbing it forward or back actuated the
electrical motor that moved the elevator trim tab; thumbing it left or
right moved a tab on the left aileron that moved the wing up or down in
the same manner.  Bannister began to perform the stall check.

Right hand on the stick, left hand on the throttle, Bannister cleared
the area with two ninety-degree turns and made his checkin radio call to
Test Control.

"Eddie Test Control, Test Four Six beginning stall check."

"Test Four Six, Edwards Test Control.  You're cleared.  Report
completion."

"Four Six.  Rodge.  Out."

Bannister eased the throttle back to the idle position on the quadrant.

He wiggled contentedly in his straps and harness as he watched the
airspeed bleed off.  He hummed as he increased back stick pressure to
hold the airplane level.  This was the last and, surprisingly, the
simplest test of the stability and control series.  The sky was clear
and blue and the visibility was so good he could easily see beyond the
dirty yellow haze over Los Angeles to the flat slate of the Pacific
Ocean.

This is a great life, he thought to himself.  A bachelor fighter pilot
with a combat tour of Vietnam behind him, and an astronaut position in
front of him-if all went well, that is.  First, he had to complete the
twelve months' course at the Test Pilot School, and get selected for the
astronaut corps.  He thought he had a good chance, though.  He loved the
school and the challenges and rewards it presented.  He loved being in
the United States Air FORCE, but most of all he loved flying jet
fighters.

This was his second appointment to the school.  He had turned the first
one down a year ago, because he felt he should spend a year in combat
first.  He almost hadn't gotten accepted the second time, but things had
gone so well since, it felt like smooth sailing.

As the airspeed neared stall speed and the T-33 began to buzz and
vibrate, Bannister thumbed in enough back trim to remove the pressure
from the control stick.  When it felt right, he relaxed his grip on the
stick and, in a moment of bravado, to show himself how well he had
trimmed the plane, he held both hands in the air while behind his oxygen
mask he flashed a look-Momno-hands grin.  But abruptly the grin was
gone.

The first indication of the disrupted airflow over the wings of the T-33
as it slowed to a stall was a slight buzzing and a small vibration.  All
perfectly normal, but the onset of the stall vibration was enough to
cause the insulation on the 12-strand wire to part and the wire to
ground out.  The trim motor hummed briefly as it ran to the full up
position, then stopped with a screech and began to smoke.

The jet trainer pitched up abruptly, hung in the sky for an instant like
a great shotgunned bird, then began to tumble toward the earth seven
miles below.  Its motions were like a badly punted football spiraling
around its longitudinal axis while tumbling end over end as it fell from
its apex.  First, positive G-forces crushed Bannister into the seat,
then negative G-forces threw him up into his straps toward the canopy so
hard the blood vessels in his eyes began to gorge.  Left and right
pitching moments cracked Bannister's helmeted head against each side of
the canopy with the jolting smashes of a jackhammer.  The cycle repeated
itself every four seconds.

Abruptly the 4,600-pound-thrust engine flamed out with a loud bang.  Its
compressor had stalled due to the interruption of airflow into its
intake caused by the wild gyrations of the airplane.

Unless Bannister made a quick recovery, the out-of-control jet would
smash into the ground in a matter of seconds.  Already it was showing
signs of disintegrating.  Small blue flames began to dance around the
overheated electrical motor.

Slowly, the surprised and dazed Bannister began to struggle feebly with
the controls, instinctively placing them first this way, then that, in
vain efforts to recover the fiercely tumbling jet.  Both his mind and
body were viciously assaulted by the sudden and brutal departure of his
airplane from controlled flight.

He saw neither up nor down, merely the blurred flashes of the vivid blue
of the sky, the straight line of the horizon, and the brown of the
Mojave Desert flashing past the Plexiglas canopy like bits of blue and
brown glass in a madly rotating kaleidoscope.  Nor did he feel upness or
downness as the plane plunged madly toward the hard desert floor.  He
struggled not to lose consciousness against the battering.  Not even his
flak-filled flights over North Vietnam had beaten up his body like this.

He knew only one thing: He had to neutralize the flight controls until
he could determine exactly what the airplane was doing and then assess
what placement of them would effect recovery.  He did not, however,
think of his predicament in exactly those dry classroom words.  His
reaction was more like, "Holy Christ, what happened?  I gotta do
something."

As the airplane fell lower, flashing silver in the sun like a tossed
coin, he barely noted the sound of the wind rushing first one way, then
the other, past the whirling cockpit.  Slowly, the creaks and groans of
the airplane structure subjected to unplanned stresses began to
penetrate his consciousness.  Unless he recovered or ejected, he didn't
have long to live.  Yet he wasn't really afraid of crashing.  Like all
fighter pilots, the thing he feared most was making a mistake and being
grounded.

Then he saw the first thin wisps of smoke beginning to penetrate the
cockpit.

It was as if he had been jolted by an electrical shock.  Deep down in
every pilot's consciousness is an almost unreasonable terror of fire,
particularly fire in the cockpit, slowly burning him as he struggles
vainly to escape.  But the good pilots know how to make fear work for
them, and so it was with Court Bannister.

Adrenaline exploded through his body.  His whole being suddenly came to
a clanging alert, and time seemed to slow, as his mind became pinpoint
clear and sharply focused.  He knew exactly what to do as if it had been
taught in a class.  He released the stick and throttle, jammed his
elbows on each side of the canopy and put his hands on his helmet to
brace his head.  His vision cleared.  Through the front of the canopy,
he saw the brown horizon line was slanted, rotating, and pitching up and
down.  Glancing down to his instruments, he saw the low engine revs and
low tailpipe temperature that spelled flameout.  He knew what had
happened.

He was in the worst possible phenomenon a T-Bird could experience.  In
the old days, this type of departure from stable flight was called The
Thing.  It had been cured by minor modifications to the leading edge of
the wings.  But this school T-Bird, besides being rather bent and
twisted by scores of student test pilots had just now gone beyond design
limits when it had stalled, and' pitched up and over into The Thing. Now
it was a collection of junk with a dead engine and-according to the
increasing smoke-on fire.

Court Bannister knew he could raise the handle on his ejection seat, and
squeeze a trigger to blast himself out of the airplane to descend by
parachute.  But such an ignominious end to a supposedly normal flight
was not to be contemplated, unless he still had not recovered by 10,000
feet above the ground, the altitude at which school regulations demanded
separation from an out of-control aircraft.  No pilot as yet had
followed that particular guidance to the exact foot.  To abandon an
airplane merely because it was momentarily out of control, while two
miles of recovery airspace remained, was unthinkable.  Many productive
seconds remained for an enterprising pilot to try various recovery
methods.  There was always one more trick to find in the aeronautical
bag so crammed full of lessons and stories and experiences.  Of course,
if.

the airplane was in the process of breaking up, or clearly on fire with
no chance of extinguishing it by sideslipping, then stepping smartly
over the side was considered the intelligent and prudent thing to do.

Bannister saw the altimeter needle pass through 20,000 feet as it
unwound like a clock gone berserk.  His rate-of-descent needle was
pegged down at 6,000 feet per minute, which meant he was falling faster
than a mile a minute.  He knew he had to perform several actions at
once.

He had to jettison the partially filled fuel tanks on the end of each
wing tip to change the airplane's center of gravity, which would stop
the whirling-dumbbell effect.  Next was to pull the throttle full back,
report his problem to Edwards Test Control, and turn off the master
electrical switch to stop what he was sure was an electrical fire.  Then
he would recover from the normal spin the T-Bird would enter once he
halted the tumbling-if he could.

"Test Four Six, Edwards Test Control.  Report state." Test Control had
noted his rapid descent with no forward motion.

Court didn't register the transmission.

He took his arms down from the canopy and, fighting the whirling and
flailing, punched the red emergency jettison button on the instrument
panel that released the wing-tip fuel tanks.

Centrifugal FORCE flung one tank straight away from the airplane.

The other one rolled up the wing and smashed the Plexiglas canopy into
jagged shards that blew away like shattered ice.

Bannister flinched as the huge 400-pound tank narrowly missed his head
before flying off into space.

The release of the tanks caused two things to happen at once; the
tumbling stopped and the T-Bird fell into an inverted spin.

And the draft caused by the missing canopy caused an eniption of white
smoke to gush past Bannister's face.  The altimeter unwound relentlessly
past 14,000 feet.

Upside down, and resisting an urge to unstrap and just drop out of the
airplane, Bannister fumbled with both hands on the right console for the
electrical master switch.  He found it, and nearly tore it loose turning
it off.  Immediately the smoke thinned, then stopped.  Somewhere back in
his mind, he logged a dispassionate note that the circuit breaker for
whatever electrical circuit that was burning had malfunctioned.  It
should have tripped long ago.  Now, without electrical power, he could
not report his predicament to Edwards Test Control.

He grabbed the control stick.  Stopping the inverted spin should be
easy.  He centered the stick, then shoved it forward a few inches.

Simultaneously he tried to push the rudder against the direction of his
spin, only to find his legs and feet were floating a few inches above
the rudder pedals.  He could feel his vision dimming from the inverted
spin as he fought his feet down to the pedals and pushed.  At first
nothing happened.  The altimeter spun through 10,000 feet.  He was
breathing in short fast breaths now.  The roaring airflow through the
broken canopy was buffeting and tearing at his head.  Had he not
fastened the chin strap before takeoff, his helmet would have been torn
off long ago.

There was nothing between the top of his helmet and the brown desert
sand over a mile below.

Slowly, almost lazily, the T-33 stopped spinning.  It was now merely
falling upside down in a forty-five-degree nose-low attitude.  He
released the rudder pressure to center the pedals, and eased back on the
stick to pull the nose of the T-33 straight down.  This should gain him
the forward speed necessary to control the aircraft.  He saw the
altimeter unwind through 6,000 feet.

For the first time he thought seriously about ejecting, though he knew
that, hanging in the straps the way he was, the rising seat would
probably compress and fracture something in his back as it slammed into
him.  Further, the seat would propel him even faster toward the ground
as it blasted him out of the upsidedown airplane.  His eyes fixed on the
airspeed indicator.  It was beginning to creep up from the 60 knots it
had been registering

since the plane had gone out of control.  It quivered and passed 65,
then 70; it moved faster to 80, then 90.  By now the altimeter had gone
under 3,000 feet remaining.  He knew by feel he would need at least 120
knots before he could pull the plane out from its dive.  At that low
speed he could not pull many Gs to level the airplane before it dug a
hole in the desert.  The airspeed needle jerked past 100 and Bannister
started to ease in some back pressure on the control stick to bring up
the nose of the T-33.

At 120 knots, the airflow started forcing the runaway trim tab to pitch
the nose up.  Bannister had to push forward on the stick to overcome
this FORCE, yet still position the elevator to let the nose come up
smoothly and as fast as possible to stop his downward plunge.  Now the
ground was too close to risk looking in the cockpit.  He had to pull
back on the stick without snapping the plane into another stall, while
completing what in effect was the bottom half of a loop.  He raised his
head to fasten his eyes on the horizon.  Below him was the blur of brown
desert.  There was absolutely nothing he could do except hold exactly
the amount of stick pressure against the conflicting forces.  His years
of flying experience told him he was on the thin line on the graph
between high-speed stall and the lesser amount of Gs which would
increase the amount of altitude he needed for recovery.

No chair or performance curve depicting Gs versus airspeed and altitude
would do him any good at this point.  It had to be by feel alone.  This
used to be called seat-of-the-pants flying in the days when barnstormers
flung their bi-winged kites through vaulted clouds.  He wished he dared
put the electrical master switch on long enough to transmit an emergency
radio call to Edwards Test Control-maybe transmit some last cool message
that he was putting it down.

The T-33 neared the ground at the bottom of a graceful low speed arc.

There was no thrust from the dead engine.  His speed came from the
kinetic energy of his fall, and he was losing that speed by pulling Gs
to break the fall.  The only question now was what would happen first: a
low-speed stall or a smashing impact with the desert floor.

His mind's eye unrolled the film of an F-100 in Vietnam he had seen hit
the ground because the pilot had recovered too low from a strafing pass.

Like Bannister, the pilot had sat there asking the airplane for as much
up-elevator as it could give him.

When it had become apparent there wasn't enough, the doomed pilot had
pushed the radio transmit button on his throttle and transmitted the
words usually said by all pilots who are about to die due to their own
error: "Ah, shit." The F-100 and its pilot then rolled into a huge,
boiling, red-and-black ball of flames.

The air rushed by the open cockpit, tugging at Bannister's helmet and
mask.  Less than four hundred feet below was the flat desert and the dry
lakes area that most of the year was so firm an airplane could land on
it.  He rapidly checked his altitude, attitude, and airspeed.  With a
thrill of excitement, Bannister knew he could pull out of the dive
safely and land on the dry lake bed.  He resisted the urge to try an
airstart, because putting the master switch on long enough to go through
the entire airstart procedure would reignite the electrical fire.

With that awareness came the realization that he had to use the
emergency system to lower his landing gear.  A dead engine could not
operate the hydraulic pumps that gave him both the pressure to lower the
landing gear and the aileron boost he needed to control wing rock.  It
was like trying to recover a car from a high speed skid without power
steering or power brakes because the engine was switched off.  As in a
car, the backup to a T-33's hydraulically boosted aileron flight
controls was a manual system that required a lot of muscle, which didn't
allow for much delicacy or finesse.  The landing gear was a separate
problem.

There was no manual way to put the wheels down.  Nor were there any
manual brakes.

As he pulled the plane up level from the dive, he saw he had 300 feet of
altitude and 130 knots of airspeed to play with.  He burned up 10 knots
and 100 feet finding a rolling tumbleweed to determine from which
direction the wind was blowing.  Now Bannister had only seconds to get
the nose wheel and two main gears down and locked.  He reached down with
his left hand and slammed the landing gear handle down, which
mechanically released the locks holding the three wheels up in the belly
of the T-33.  The gear doors opened, the three wheels and struts
partially extended.  To get them fully down and locked in place required
electrical power to operate a hydraulic pump.

Now the T-Bird was only 200 feet in the air and the airspeed was fast
bleeding off.  Bannister was too low to eject.  Crunching down with no
landing gear, or on wheels and struts partially extended, could tear the
jet apart.  Flying with his left hand, he quickly reached to the right
console and turned on the emergency pump switch, then the master
electrical switch.  White smoke from the reignited electrical fire
immediately started boiling up

between his legs.  He held the switch on just long enough for a few
pounds of hydraulic pressure to push the main gear into position.

Because of the heavy smoke, he had to flip the master switch off before
the cockpit indicator showed the nose gear was down and locked.  He had
felt the mains thudding into place.

The smoke dwindled, and swirled in strips from the smashed canopy.

Now the desert floor was just 20 feet below.  He could feel the T-33
near a stall as the airspeed bled below I 10 knots.  Without electrical
power, he could not put the flaps down to help him land at a lower
speed.  Grasping the control stick with both hands, Bannister wrestled
the plane down to merely inches above the ground, then rocked back and
forth on the stick in a cadence to bounce the main gear on the hard
desert.  For once, he was thankful that neither the elevator nor rudder
controls needed hydraulic pressure to operate.  On the second bounce,
the nose gear snapped into place, just as the airplane ran out of flying
speed.

Brown dust puffed up and away from the tires, as the T-33 slammed hard
on the ground with 100 knots forward speed still on the indicator.

No engine, no electrical power, and no hydraulic power meant no brakes
to steer and stop with.  Bannister was now strapped into 12,000 pounds
of runaway airplane moving at 1 15 miles per hour across a desert floor
as flat and firm as a bowling alley.

The area was smooth and clear for 20 miles in all directions except dead
ahead, where he saw a weathered one-story farmhouse surrounded by trees.

Directly in his path, just before the oasislike setting, was a deep
irrigation ditch.

Rain on the western Mojave in late fall and winter months turns the dry
lake bed into a gummy quagmire totally unsuitable for use as a runway.

Whereas the dry desert is a light brown.

the wet or drying portion of the floor, or a dried-up water hole, is
dark brown, almost black when seen from certain angles.

To his right, at his one o'clock position, Court saw a black patch.  A
fighter pilot knows there is always one more trick: that one more
last-ditch maneuver will present itself if he remains calm and knows how
to find it.  The black patch was it.  He punched the right rudder pedal
with all his strength.  There was still enough airflow past the rudder
control surface on the vertical stabilizer of the T-33 to cause the nose
to head to the right.

At just over 70 knots, the T-Bird shot into the shallow depression full
of drying desert mud.  A huge carpet of brown splashed up from the nose
wheel to cover the top of the airplane.

Underneath, the mud splashed up in undulating waves and sticky sheets to
coat the entire underside and fill the wheel wells with hundreds of
pounds of the gummy substance.  The sticky and clinging effiect was the
same as if the speeding jet had engaged the nylon barrier put at the end
of runways to stop runaway airplanes.

The T-33 slowed abruptly and stopped.  In the sudden silence, Court sat
back, drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out.  He held his hands in
front of his face and noted with satisfaction they were not shaking.  He
methodically took two four-inch pins with the red tags from the map case
and pushed them into the proper holes to secure the ejection seat
mechanism.  The rnd on the windshield prevented him from seeing anything
more than a blurred image in front of the airplane.  He thought he saw
movement.  Not wanting to use the electrical switch, he found the handle
and manually cranked open the broken clarrishell canopy, He looked out,
and found his hands starting to tremble.

Twenty feet away at the edge of the mud pool, a woman sat astride a big
bay horse.  She wore dark britches and boots, a gray flannel shirt and a
wide-brimmed man's hat, and had a grin on her face that scrunched up her
too big nose and raisin eyes into a happy clown's face.  Black curly
hair escaped from under her hat.  She had large, man-sized hands that
held the reins in a light and experienced grip.

"It's none a my business, sonny boy, but if you're looking for the
goddamn air base, it's way over yonder.  She pointed toward Edwards.

"But if you're looking for Pancho Barnes, you done found her."

Pancho Barnes pressed another mason jar full of scotch and ice into
Court Bannister's hands.  He took a sip, then pulled some crushed Lucky
Strikes and a Zippo from the pocket on his left sleeve and lit up.  The
Zippo had a rubber band wound around it.  They sat at a weathered wooden
table in the shadow of a giant willow next to her mobile home.  Pine and
palm trees and rows of eucalyptus shut out the desert.  Two fat Labs
sprawled in the dust at their feet, tongues lolling.  Court had
telephoned the base and told the relieved Test Control he and the
airplane were on the ground in one piece.  They said a helicopter would
be there in minutes.  That was half a pint of scotch ago.  Court was
tearing into the second half with gusto.  He was pleased the trembling
had stopped in his hands.

"So I told them sumbitches," Pancho said, continuing her story of her
lawsuit against the United States Air FORCE, "they damn well owed me
four hunnert Gs for my land.  The land they extended that Edwards runway
over.  My club had burned down, so what the hell.  Mought's well get
some cash in hand." She waved her hand expansively at her run-down
complex I containing a mobile home and a few sheds with sagging
chicken-wire

fences.  nd of the Court knew the story of this famous woman pilot a
Happy Bottom Riding Club she had operated for so many years, the club
where all the famous Edwards test pilots had hung out.

Pancho would be the last to complain, but the years and the breaks had
not been good to her.  No lady of fortune had stood by her side as she'd
first lost her club to fire in 1954, then her land to Air FORCE
expansion.  But rugged old Pancho Barnes loved pilots.  Anyone who flew
an airplane was special, she knew.  She just didn't know how special she
was herself.

"Hey, Pancho," Court sang out, buzzy on both scotch and the rush not
only of having cheated death, but taking the old bastard by the horny
scaly tail and flinging him clean into the next galaxy.  "Wahoo, Pancho,
wahoo.  " He stood up and yelled at the I sun.  "Hey, we did it.  We did
it in 'Nam and we did it

here.

"Shut up, Bannister, and sit down." She had'read his name from his
flight suit name tag.  "You're scarin' the goddamn dawgs."

"Pancho-Pancho, I love you." He leaned over and gave her a hug and a
boozy smack on her leathery cheek.  She was over sixty and her lived-in
face showed every minute of her years.

"You goddamn Air FORCE guys are all alike.  Do ya a little favor an ya
wanna play grab-ass.  " Her grin was magnificent.

They heard the whine and hiss of the Hillman Husky helicopter from
Edwards coming to pick up their wayward student test pilot.

1830 HOURS.  FRIDAY, 19 MAY 1967

OFFICER'S CLUB EDWARDs AIR FORCE BASE, CALIFORNIA

"Hey, great job, Court.  Now all you got to do is go Out there and wash
all that mud off that T-Bird," a tall captain with a mustache said.

Court Bannister and most of his thirteen classmates were standing at the
bar, drinks in hand.  They were having a brief get-together celebrating
the end of the classroom day and Court's recovery from his unusual
flight.  All wore the green cotton K-2B flight suit, the one with
thirteen zippers.  Some had scarves representing their previous fighter
squadrons around their necks.  Normally they wore the school scarf, but
occasionally, out of a sense of loyalty to their old squadrons coupled
with a sense of independence from the school solution, they took to
wearing their old ones.  Court always wore the red, white, and blue
scarf he had been awarded by the Third Corps Mike FORCE commander, Tom
Myers, in Vietnam.  Myers had awarded one to him and one to Lieutenant
Toby Parker for the air support they had provided under some very hairy
conditions.

"Yeah, and then fly it out of there," a second man said.

"Fly it, hell.  That bird's going to have to be towed out of there if
they want it back before the mud dries," the tall captain Ken Dwyer,
said.  He was a student and the acknowledged leader of his class in both
academics and flying.  He was the only man in the test pilot
school-staff, faculty, or student-to sport a mustache.

They all laughed.  Court signaled another round from the bartender.  He
was feeling good.  He had told the story of the wild T-Bird problems and
his countertnaneuvers to the provisional investigation team upon his
arrival back at Edwards.  He had been told to write it up and evaluate
the flight as an extr assignment; this would further his ability to
write a technical report, they told him.  He had already, as had the
rest of his class during the previous five months, written scores of
performance reports.  No point in being a hotshot engineering test pilot
if you can't tell anybody what went on inside the airplane you were
testing.

The men laughed and joked easily.  They had well survived the rigors and
shock of a heavy academic load and the long HOURS of seminars, study,
and flying.  One more drink and they would leave the Club to prepare for
a long weekend of hitting the books.

So far, they agreed, all that time spent getting up to speed on
differential and integral calculus and thermodynamics, then applying
those skills to viscous flow, supersonic aerodynamics, and maneuvering
flight stability, had been a bitch.  And there was no release.  All of
them knew that, instead of the usual FRIDAY night beer bust that went on
with fighter squadrons in the rest of the Air FORCE, they would all be
in the school library tonight, or buried deep in the books in the BOQ or
at home.

"You knew Ted Frederick, didn't you, Court?" Dwyer said.

Of the thirteen in the class, only Court and Ken Dwyer had seen combat
in Vietnam.  "Didn't you and he shoot down a MiG?

What do you think of his court-martial?"

Court had flown with Ted Frederick several times in the back seat of an
F-105F from the USAF base in Tahkli, Thailand.  On particularly hairy
mission near Hanoi, they had attacked and shot down three MiGs.  Court
had been credited with one of them.  A few months later, the Russians
claimed a USAF fighter had, without provocation, strafed an unarmed
Soviet cargo vessel in a North Vietnamese harbor.  A Congressional aide,
who had refused to give his name, had leaked to the press that the pilot
was Ted Frederick.  A media storm had evolved, demanding Frederick be
court-martialed for making an attack on a peaceful vessel.

"Well," Court said, "the court-martial wasn't really for Ted's strafing
the ship.  The ship fired at him two days in a row, so he shot back.

Quite accurately, I might add.  Under the Rules of Engagement allowing
return fire, he was legal.  The court-martial was for destroying
government property.  It was a big mess."

"I don't get it," Dwyer said.

"Few people did," Court replied.  "The 'government property' in question
was forty bucks' worth of gun camera film.

Seems Ted's boss tried to protect his troops by exposing the film that
might or might not have shown the strafing.  Since they couldn't nail
Ted on the strafing, they nailed his boss for destroying the film.  Like
I said, it was a mess.  Everybody involved wound up eating dirt.  And
now Ted's MIA."

Dwyer shook his head.  "As the captain said, 'It's a fuckedup war." So
here you are, hero first class, going through Test pilot School.  where
do you want to go when you graduateOL or Apollo?" Dwyer was referring to
the two space programs available to graduates selected for astronaut
training.  In 1961, the school at Edwards had been designated as the
AerO-space Research Pilot School, much to the dismay of the students,
who much preferred the earlier and more down-to-earth name of the
experimental Flight Test Pilot School.  The school had taken on new
dimensions when it had become an adjunct to the NASA astronaut training
program.  At that time the course had been divided into two six-month
halves: the experimental test pilot course and the aerospace research
pilot course.  Those who finished the aerospace course could volunteer
for the Air FORCE Manned Orbital Laboratory (MOL) or NASA's Apollo moon
flight program.  Though NASA was harrumphing that they wanted scientists
in orbit and flying to the moon, wiser heads convinced them that it was
a lot easier to train a pilot to pick up a rock, than train a scientist
to land on the moon.

"I'm not sure I want either, tight now," Court replied.

"What do you mean?" Dwyer asked.

"Well, maybe as long as the war is on, I should be earning my fighter
pilot pay.  I'm not sure I'd feel all that comfortable shot up in space
knowing my buddies were still being shot at in Vietnam, or POWs in the
Hanoi Hilton."

"How tall are you?" Dwyer asked.

"Six-one.  Why?"

"I heard they won't put anybody over five-eleven into space, that's
why."

Court nodded.  They fell respectfully silent as two of the academic
instructors, Majors Fred Derby and Flak Apple, walked by the group. Both
wore their Class-B khaki uniforms.  Derbv was medium-sized with dark
hair, thin lips, and piercing gray eyes.  Algernon Albert Apple, on the
other hand, was as big a man as the USAF allows in a fighter cockpit,
and quite black.

Major Algernon A.  Apple, known as Triple A, Trip, or Flak, but never
Al, much less Algernon, was the Chief of the Operations Division for the
Test Pilot School.  He and Derby had been on the debriefing team when
Court had returned earlier that day.

Apple had been sympathetic, even laudatory.  Derby had not.

"Glad to see you gentlemen are preparing for your weekend study load,"
Apple said with a wide grin.  He stopped to talk.

"Me, I prefer a more leisurely approach.  While you guys are sweating to
improve your testy little minds, I will be up in the mountains in the
cool waters of a river I refuse to name, on the prowl for the wily
golden trout."

Apple, the top graduate in his class two years before, had won the Honts
trophy for academic achievement and flying excellence, and had been
chosen as an astronaut candidate.  He had achieved this success by
natural ability and by spending every hour off the flight line buried in
books.  At that time he hadn't even known his secret river existed.  He
claimed he'd burned up two Batori slide rules and an E-613 computer
getting through the Test Pilot School.  Apple had lost his astronaut
slot, however, when a slug of cold water injected into his ear for a
balance test had thrown him sideways.  He had had a hard time convincing
Congressman Dwight from New York it wasn't a racial slur that had forced
him out of the astronaut program.  The USAF happily brought him back to
Edwards as an instructor in the Test Pilot School, but though he loved
his job, he had quickly volunteered for Vietnam and was soon to go.

Flak Apple was bigger than most fighter pilots, much bigger.

Properly measured, he would stretch up to six foot two and a half, which
was one and a half inches taller than the USAF height limit for pilots
allowed to squeeze into fighter aircraft.

But Flak Apple knew how to fake out the measuring devices by using what
he called his "saddle slump."

"When I'm in those flight surgeons' offices taking my annual physical, I
can't afford to be tall in the saddle," he had told his confidants.  "In
the airplane, sure; but not under that prong sliding up the back of
those medical scales."

Flak always wore the baggiest flight suit he owned to his annual flight
physical.  When it came time to step up on the scale to be weighed and
measured, he would unlock his knees, curve his spine, pull his neck
down, and settle his head lower, while tilting it back so the prong
wouldn't rest on the crown.  The fact that his head wasn't massive and
his features were fine aided in the deception, especially since he kept
his hair cut short.  Occasionally the technician would make some
surprised comment about how well he carried his weight of 190 pounds.

The Air FORCE had a valid reason for limiting the height of its fighter
pilots.  Not only would a bulky person, six-one or over, have a
difficult time in the small cockpit of a fighter, but his knees could
hit the bow of the windscreen as the seat shot out of the airplane on
ejection.  Flak had gone from F-86s to F-100s, where that might have
happened.  Now he flew airplanes such as F-4s, which had roomier
cockpits and an ejection seat that would rocket back at such an angle
that Flak's knees would probably clear the forward canopy bow.  At least
Flak hoped so.

The group slowly broke up.  Bannister and Ken Dwyer remained.  Derby had
stood by while Flak Apple and Court bantered.  Now, off to one side,
Derby spoke to Court.

"You got off easy today, Bannister.  If I had my way, you'd be out of
the school for exceeding the student test card and for improper and
sloppy control of an airplane.  You damn near lost one of our T-33s. You
were just lucky to get it back on the ground in one piece."

"Hey, hang on, Fred," Flak Apple said.  "He did a pretty good job
getting it down."

Derby ignored him.  "I know about you, Bannister.  I know you threw away
a slot for the school last year so you could run off to Vietnam and be a
hero.  And you probably had some pull to get back in here.

Bannister's face flamed.  "Listen, Derby, you may be right about today's
test card, but by God I didn't use any pull to get back in here.  I
don't have any.  I reapplied and took my chances like everyone else.  I
won my second slot just like the first onefair and square."

Court Bannister walked up to face Derby, who, though three inches
shorter, did not flinch.  Derby stood five foot ten, but was stocky and
powerfully built.  He looked a match for Court.,"hey knew one did not
yell or fight in an officer's club.  They also knew they were on the
edge of something that maybe neither could stop.  Derby flicked Court's
Mike FORCE scarf.  "Scool scarf not good enough for you?  Or do you
always wear your Boy Scout scarf?" Court glared, muscles tense, fists
clenched.

Both men were at flash point.

Flak Apple stepped in between them.  "Shut up, you guys.

You are among the better people I know, and I'll be damned if I'll stand
around here and watch you go at it.  You guys got enough tough stuff to
do around here without getting all stupid and riled at each other.  " He
placed a big hand on each man's shoulder and squeezed none too gently.

"Knock it off or I'll punch the piss out of both you dummies."

Major Fred Derby glared with narrowed eyes at Bannister.

"You don't have it, Bannister.  You won't make it through the school.

You're just a flashy hotshot who thinks he's Hollywood's gift to the Air
FORCE." He spun out of Apple's grip and stalked off.

"What in hell is his problem?" Court asked Flak Apple.

"Take it easy, Court," Apple said.  "He's a good guy.  Just a little
testy once in a while."

"That Hollywood comment was a cheap shot," Court said, and snorted in
disgust.  This wasn't the first time something like that had happened.

When he'd first joined the Air FORCE he'd had to face the fact that
being the son of a well-known movie actor both intimidated and put off
his squadron mates.  That, coupled with his own natural aloofness, had
made his early days difficult and solitary.  During his combat tour,
however, especially after he had received credit for shooting down a
MiG, his reputation as an able and dedicated career fighter pilot had
spread in the fighter pilot community.  Yet Derby's actions and comments
seemed more than just a reaction to his Hollywood background.  He looked
at Apple.  "Something's riding that guy," he said.

Ken Dwyer spoke up.  "Maybe it's because you've been to Vietnam and he
hasn't.  He had a volunteer statement in, but pulled it when he was
selected for astronauts."

Apple looked surprised.  "How did you know that?"

"I date lovely Rita, one of the civilian admin clerks at Wing
Headquarters," Dwyer replied.

"Maybe what you say is true," Apple said.  He put his hands on his hips
and looked at Bannister and Dwyer.  "I guess you guys think you're
pretty hot just 'cause you've flown combat in Vietnam."

Bannister and Dwyer looked at each other.  Between them, they'd had
hundreds of combat missions.  Before they could answer, Flak Apple broke
into a broad grin.

"Well, you are pretty hot," he said quietly.  He reached for his hat.

"I'll get my crack at it soon.  Finally got my orders to F-4s at Ubon."

He waved his hand.  "See you all Monday.  I'm off for the wily trout.

Study hard - " Apple walked out of the bar.

Court and Ken Dwyer walked out of the club toward the library.  "Say,
Court," Dwyer said, "you better double check that 'fair and square'
business about your reappointment."

Court stopped and grabbed Ken Dwyer by the arm.  "Just what is that
supposed to mean?" Still riled over Derby, his blood was running hot.

"Take it easy..  Rita told me she heard the Commandant talking you to a
Pentagon general, a Lieutenant General Austin.

Seems Austin didn't want you in the school, but another general named
Whisenand did." He saw the look on Bannister's face.

"Do you know these guys?"

Court relaxed.  "Whitey Whisenand is my dad's cousin," he replied, "but
I haven't any idea why Austin was against me coming to the Test Pilot
School."

Dwyer looked concerned.  "I think I know.  Rita heard something else.

Maybe you can find out about it.  Austin will be flying out here every
month or so to ramrod the NF- 104 zoom program."

"You mean she heard something about why Austin seems to have it in for
me?" Court asked.

"Yeah.  He thinks you killed his son."

1030 HOURS LOCAL.  THURSDAY, 8 June 1967

OFFICE OF THE COMMANDER 3510TH FLYING TRAINING WING RANDOLPH AFB, TExAs

John Walker studied the two messages again.  It was something he had
already done several times in the last six months, as though to reassure
himself they were real.  He was a full colonel and had been commander of
a flying training wing for two and a half years.  During that time he
had earned outstanding ratings in all areas.  Because of his fine
record, he had been selected above all others to start up the 3510th
Flying Training Wing at Randolph.  The USAF was expanding its pilot
training program to fulfill the increased requirements for more pilots
for the Vietnam war.

By working 18- and 20-hour days, and nearly the same on weekends, Walker
had brought in the training wing reactivation and expansion on time and
on budget.  If he continued doing as well with this wing, he would make
brigadier for sure when his records were due for review by the promotion
board in five months.  His flying safety record, student pilot
graduation record, maintenance record, wing administrative record, and
reenlistment record were the best in the Air Training Command, and he
knew he could maintain them that way.  There was just one problem.  That
problem had presented itself in the form of one not-so-bright-eyed or
bushy-tailed first lieutenant named Toby Parker, who had about as many
hero medals as Audie Murphy.  Colonel John Walker reread the messages.

The first was addressed to both his boss and himself.  It was directive
in nature.

280832Z DEC 66 FROM: DEP CHIEF OF STAFF USAF TO: COMMANDER, AIR TRAINING
COMMAND, RANDOLPH AFB, TEXAS COMMANDER, 3510TH AIR TRAINING WING,
RANDOLPH AFB, TEXAS INFO: DCS PERSONNEL, MPC, RANDOLPH AFB, TEXAS S E C
R E T AFPTRF 88390 NOV 66 SUBJECT: (U) INCREASED PILOT PRODUCTION 1. (S)
SECDEF ON 25 NOV 66 AUTHORIZED USAF TO INCREASE UNDERGRADUATE PILOT
TRAINING (UPT) BY THREE THREE PERCENT.  EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, YOU ARE
AUTHORIZED TO TAKE ALL IMMEDIATE PRACTICAL ACTIONS TO INCREASE UPT FROM
2307 PER YEAR TO 3000.

2.  (S) FY-67 (SUPPLEMENT) AND FY-68 BUDGETS ARE BEING ADJUSTED TO
REFLECT NECESSARY RESOURCES FOR THIS INCREASE.

3.  (U) WHILE THE MOTIVATIONAL BENEFITS OF CEREMONIAL FUNCTIONS ARE
APPRECIATED, THEIR ACCOMPLISHMENT TO THE CUSTOMARY AND DESIRED DEGREE
UNDER THIS INCREASE OF FLYING TRAINING MAY RESULT IN THE LOSS OF FLYING
TIME.  THEREFORE YOU ARE AUTHORIZED A PERIOD OF AUSTERITY IN WHICH YOU
WILL JUDICIOUSLY CURTAIL CERTAIN CEREMONIAL ACTIVITIES USUALLY HELD IN
CONJUNCTION WITH GRADUATIONS.  WHILE A MINIMUM PROGRAM OF FORMAL
PRESENTATION OF WINGS AND DIPLOMAS PLUS A SOCIAL FUNCTION SUCH AS A
RECEPTION OR DINING-IN IS EXPECTED BY THIS HQ, OTHER TRADITIONAL
ACTIVITIES SUCH AS A PARADE OR FLYBY ARE NOT.

4.  (U) 1/LT TOBY G.  PARKER, USAF, SSN FV41296248 IS ASSIGNED TO
RANDOLPH AFB FROM CURRENT SOUTHEAST ASIAN (VIETNAM) ASSIGNMENT REPORTING
NOT LATER THAN JAN 67.  5.  (S) PARKER IS TO COMMENCE UPT COURSE NUMBER
111103 IMMEDIATELY.  DUE TO THE EXIGENCIES OF THE SERVICE HE IS TO
COMPLETE THE COURSE AND GRADUATE AS A RATED PILOT (USAF SPECIALTY CODE
"15Z) NO LATER THAN 29 SEPT 67.  AT THAT TIME HE IS TO REPORT TO GEORGE
AIR FORCE BASE, CALIFORNIA, FOR UPGRADE INTO THE FRONT SEAT OF THE F-4
AIRCRAFT FOR SUBSEQUENT REASSIGNMENT TO A SUITABLE FIGHTER WING IN
VIETNAM AS AIRCRAFT COMMANDER.  6.  (S) CSAF RECOGNIZES THAT PARKER IS
TO RECEIVE ONLY 39 WEEKS OF UPT INSTEAD OF THE NORMAL 52 WEEKS, YOU ARE
AUTHORIZED THE FOLLOWING ACTIONS: A) HIS TRAINING WEEK WILL BE SIX DAYS,
B) ALLOW HIM TO PROGRESS FROM ONE ACADEMIC AND FLYING PHASE TO THE NEXT
ON A "QUALIFIED PROFICIENT" BASIS AS HE DEMONSTRATES HIS ABILITIES, C)
FLYING TRAINING TIME MAY BE CUT AS FOLLOWS: T-41 AIRCRAFT FROM 30 TO 10;
T-37 AIRCRAFT FROM 90 TO 80; T-38 AIRCRAFT WILL REMAIN AT 120, D) 168
HOURS OF GROUND TRAINING TIME MAY BE CUT BY ELIMINATING ALL THE OFFICER
TRAINING SUBJECTS WITH THE EXCEPTION OF COUNTERINSURGENCY.  7.

(S) SINCE NO T-41 AIRCRAFT ARE ASSIGNED TO RANDOLPH, PARKER IS TO
RECEIVE HIS T-41 PHASE UNDER CONTRACT WITH HALL MARK AVIATION AT STINSON
FIELD, SAN ANTONIO , TEXAS.  8.  (U) FOR EXTREME HEROISM AND VALOR IN
SUSTAINED COMBAT WHILE PARTICIPATING IN AERIAL FLIGHT, PARKER HAS BEEN
AWARDED THE AIR FORCE CROSS, THE DISTINGUISHED FLYING CROSS, THE ARMY
BRONZE STAR WITH V FOR VALOR, AN AIR MEDAL, THE VIETNAMESE CROSS OF
GALLANTRY WITH STAR, AND THE PURPLE HEART.  IT IS MY DESIRE THAT
COMMANDER ATC PERSONALLY PRESENT THESE AWARDS AT AN APPROPRIATE CEREMONY
(PARAGRAPH THREE THIS MESSAGE WAIVED ON A ONE TIME BASIS FOR THE
OCCASION).  MAXIMUM LOCAL PARTICIPATION BY SAN ANTONIO OFFICIALS AND
NEWS MEDIA IS ENCOURAGED.  9.  (U) HE IS IN THE PRIMARY ZONE FOR
CAPTAIN.

HIS PROMOTION ORDERS WILL FOLLOW.  10.  (S) CSAF REALIZES THERE IS A
CERTAIN CALCULATED RISK INVOLVING THE ACCELERATION OF PARKER THROUGH
UPT.  HOWEVER, HE HAS DEMONSTRATED PHENOMENAL INNATE FLYING SKILLS AND
SUPERIOR JUDGMENT IN A COMBAT SITUATION.  ASSIGN HIM YOUR BEST
INSTRUCTOR PILOT, MONITOR AND REPORT HIS PROGRESS TO THIS OFFICE.  BACK
CHANNEL EYES ONLY TO CMDR ATC.  MESSAGE REFERENCE 28083OZ DEC 66
FOLLOWS.

GP 4.  NNNNNNNNNNNNZ

The second back-channel message had been given to Walker by Commander,
ATC, for his personal records.  It was to the commander from the USAF
Chief of Staff.  FROM: CHIEF OF STAFF USAF TO: COMMANDER, AIR TRAINING
COMMAND SUBJ: 1/LT TOBY G.  PARKER, SSN FV41296248 REF MSG 280832Z DEC
66 DEP CSAF JOHN: GO WITH THIS ONE.  THE ADMINISTRATION IS TAKING SOME
HITS AND SO ARE WE FROM THE PRESS RE AIRCRAFT LOSSES IN SOUTHEAST ASIA.

THE PROTEST AND DRAFT DODGE MOVEMENT SEEMS TO BE HEATING UP.

WE JUST MAY NOT GET ENOUGH APPLICANTS TO MEET OUR INCREASED PILOT
TRAINING QUOTA.  WE NEED ALL THE FAVORABLE PUBLICITY WE CAN GET.  PUT
PARKER IN FRONT.  PUT HIS DECORATIONS ON HIM NOW AND HIS WINGS IN 9
MONTHS.  HE IS A BRIGHT AND IMPRESSIVE YOUNG MAN WHO DID A WHALE OF A
JOB IN VIETNAM.  READ THE CITATIONS ON HIS AWARDS.  THE PUBLIC
INFORMATION PEOPLE WANTED TO PUT HIM ON A RECRUITING POSTER BUT I NIXED
THAT.  ONCE HE IS UP GRADED IN THE F-4 I WANT HIM SENT TO VIET NAM TO
WHATEVER BASE HAS THE MiG MISSION, PROBABLY THE 8TH TFW AT UBON,
THAILAND, AND WATCH HIM MAKE ACE.  MEG AND I SEND OUR BEST TO YOU AND
DOROTHY.  NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNZ

Colonel Walker had checked the records.  It turned out that Parker had
single-handedly saved a Special Forces unit under heavy fire while
flying a small plane, an O-1Birddog, from the back seat after his pilot
had been killed.  Parker's duties at the time had been as a courier.  He
was not, and had never been, a rated pilot.  Only his natural ability to
fly coupled with some training given him by his pilot, Phil Travers, had
pulled him through.

So John Walker had done all that was required for Parker.  He had pinned
captain's bars on him, and had been present when Toby had received his
medals from Commander, ATC, at a full parade, for which the whole base
had been turned out.  (The press had thought him "handsome, winsome,
all-American."

They could not, however, bring themselves to use the famous World War II
phrase "authentic war hero." To use the word "war" would give the lie to
the term they had already coined, "conflict." There was no way the press
would give an honorable title to a war they were declaring to be
immoral.)

Walker had personally tailored Parker's flying curriculum per CSAF
instructions.  He had selected his best young instructor, Chester
Griggs, and forwarded appropriate messages as he monitored Parker's
progress.  Beyond doubt, Parker was eating up the course as no student
had ever done before.  Also beyond doubt, Parker had an attitude problem
that rivaled that of Frank Luke, the World War I ace who had received
the Medal of Honor posthumously.  Like Luke, Parker simply didn't
respond well to authority or regulations.  Both displayed a tendency to
run off and do things by themselves.  While, overall, this is a normal
fighter pilot tendency, training and sense-of overall mission
responsibility shape and form this vice into a controllable vinue.

Walker sighed and looked out the window at the training airplanes
landing and taking off from the runways.  He knew Parker was flying at
this very minute.  He hoped he was behaving himself.

1045 HOURS LOCAL, THURSDAY, 8 JUNE: 1967

IN A T-38 TRAINING AIRCRAFT LETTING DOWN IN THE 14L RAFB II PENETRATION
RANDOLPH AFB, TExAs

Due to sheer boredom, Captain Toby G.  Parker was about to perform an
unauthorized acrobatic maneuver.  At the moment, Parker didn't know he
would do this.  He merely scanned the gauges on the instrument panel in
front of him.  He flew, quite relaxed, in the back seat of a
twin-engined Northrop T-38 jet trainer.  His instructor pilot, First
Lieutenant Chester Griggs, at, not quite as relaxed, in the front seat.

They had been shooting touch and go landings over at the Sequin
auxiliary base.  Parker's had been perfect.

"OK, read 'em.  off," Griggs said over the intercom system to Parker.

Both men wore full helmets with oxygen masks and sun visors.  The
microphones were built into the oxygen mask, the earphones were in the
helmet - A switch on one of the throttles activated the radio.  The
cockpit was spacious.  Though a wide Plexiglas canopy provided good
visibility, Parker could not see out.  He had a white canvas hood fixed
inside his cockpit in such a manner that all he could see were the
gauges on the instrument panel.  This was the way student pilots
practiced to fly in bad weather.  Parker sighed, and began the litany
for the instrument letdown he was making using the TACAN navigational
beacon at Randolph.

"The engine's RPMs are at 82 percent, speed brakes out, ten degrees nose
low, we are tracking outbound from the Randolph TACAN holding three two
zero degrees, at an airspeed of 280 knots, descending at five thousand
feet per minute out of twenty thousand feet.  We are passing through
sixteen thousand now.  At eight thousand, I will turn inbound to the
TACAN and commence a low approach to runway One Four Left at Randolph."

His readings were precise because his gauges were right on the money and
had been the entire flight.  Such excellence was normal for Parker.

"Very well," Griggs said.  He marveled at Parker's innate stick and
rudder ability.  The man was an absolute virtuoso with an airplane.

Parker stared at the gauges.  There were three long minutes remaining
before he had to begin the penetration turn back to the runway.  Without
hesitation he smoothly fed in left bank and, against Griggs's startled
protests, made a perfectly coordinated descending barrel roll.

A barrel roll is a beautiful but complex maneuver.  To be performed
correctly, the pilot must constantly change his altitude, airspeed, and
aircraft attitude as he makes a graceful roll around a point.  He must
reach the inverted position with wings parallel to the horizon, then,
without pause.  continue rolling to the upright position on his initial
heading and attitude.  Anything but a yank-and-bank maneuver, it is an
operation of grace and style which can demonstrate exactly how
coordinated and skillful a pilot truly is.  Few student pilots in UPT
master it before their tenth hour in the airplane, and then only after
practicing the maneuver over 100 times with full outside visibility.  To
perform one on the gauges during an instrument letdown was unheard of,
not to mention quite contrary to ATC regulations.  ,

Regarding the breaking of regulations, Parker's barrel roll was on a par
with flying under a bridge; regarding skill, it was on a par with flying
under the bridge inverted.  To perform either maneuver would be to
invite instant washout due to lack of discipline and lack of flying
safety considerations; but mostly certainly for lack of judgment when
performed with an IP on board.  That's the ultimate stupidity.  Captain
Toby Parker was guilty of all of the above.  The obvious course for Chet
Griggs would be to recommend Parker for elimination.

"EEEEHAH," Parker yelled into his mask at the end of his roll.  Griggs
acted as if nothing had happened.

Parker made a perfect penetration turn and started inbound to the TACAN
beacon.  Swapping hands on the stick, he unzipped his left sleeve
pocket, pulled out a package of Luckies and a Zippo with a rubber band
around it.  He never took his eyes off the instruments as he shook one
from the pack, unhooked his mask and lit up.  He inhaled deeply.

"Enjoy your cigarette," Griggs said.  "It's your last one flying an
airplane in the United States Air FORCE."

1530 HOURS LOCAL, THURSDAY, 8 JUNE 1967

OFFICE OF THE COMMANDER 3510TH FLYING TRAINING WING RANDOLPH AFB, TExAs

Colonel John Walker stared at the pink ATC Form 861, Student
Discrepancy, the paper that formally records transgressions by hapless
students.  Three pinks and a student is up for a progress check by a
more senior instructor.  It is the first step toward elimination if the
student does not shape up.  The pink slip Colonel Walker held went well
beyond just the first step.  It was accompanied by a formal statement by
First Lieutenant Chester Griggs, instructor Pilot, 3510th Flying
Training Wing, ATC, that Captain Toby G.  Parker had exceeded the bounds
of disciplinary propriety and judgment by such a wide margin that said
transgression called for immediate dismissal from UPT on grounds of
gross lack of judgment.

Colonel Walker had received a call from the squadron as soon as Griggs's
operations officer had received the fateful write-up.

After a moment's hesitation, Colonel Walker had said for Griggs to
report to him ASAP.  Griggs now stood at a position of attention in
front of the colonel's desk, his eyes fixed on a point in space six
inches over the colonel's head.

"At ease, Chet.  Sit down," Colonel John Walker said.  "Cigarette?  " He
offered one from a box on his desk.

"No, thank you, sir," Griggs said.

"Don't smoke, eh?  Good boy." The colonel put the box down.  He didn't
smoke either, but used the offer of a cigarette as a ploy to see who
would dare light up in his presence.  "I've been meaning to talk to you
for some time.  You've been doing a good job.  I know teaching Parker
how to fly is a tough job.

That's why I picked you."

He reexamined the pink slip.  "What exactly do you mean, unprecedented
lack of judgment'?  Isn't it more a case of a spirited young man feeling
his oats and knowing he is outstanding

in his field?  Didn't you ever do a roll or two at altitude just because
you were feeling good?  Don't you think perhaps you are overblowing this
just a bit?"

"No, sir, I don't.  And, yes, I've done a roll or two in my day, but
always when legally planned under controlled and safe circumstances in
clear air, and then only after making clearing turns.  " Griggs set his
jaw.

Walker sat back in his chair.  He looked thoughtful.  "Well, then, how
did Parker come to the conclusion he could do a barrel roll during an
instrument letdown and get away with it?  You must have given him some
cause to think that."

"Well, maybe I did, sir." Griggs paused.  "Maybe we both did.  You
remember the pink I gave him for the landing problem he was having in
the '38?"

Griggs had pinked Toby Parker once before for having difficulty landing
the T-38.  It had been a minor thing involving rollout on final approach
that had soon been cured.  Griggs had really given t the pink slip more
to get Parker's concern and concentration rather than to call attention
to a real deficiency.  His ploy had failed in two ways: it hadn't gotten
Parker's attention, and it had brought a request to Griggs to drop by
his wing commander's office at his earliest convenience.  "What do you
mean, he has trouble landing?" the colonel had said.  "We've got nearly
one hundred students here and less than five percent have trouble
rolling out on final.  Herr, you've got a proven pilot and you tell me
he can't fly.  Are you sure it's not you?  Perhaps you have some sort of
a personality conflict with Parker?" There had been times after that
session when Griggs would have pinked Parker but did not.  And he had
always felt guilty about not doing so.

He had consciously not tried to square these omissions with the honor
code he had learned as a cadet at the Air FORCE Academy.

Then there was his responsibility as an instructor pilot.  It made no
difference that Toby Parker was a captain and Griggs a lieutenant.  An
effective IP has knowledge his student does not.  His job is to pass it
on correctly, safely, and quickly.  Outside of a 11sir" at the proper
time, rank hath no privileges.  First lieutenants or captains upgrading
full colonels to a new aircraft or leading them on area checkout flights
is an accepted and common practice.  No quarter given, no quarter asked.

The upgrading pilot, regardless of his rank, must learn what the IP has
to teach him.  He must pass the proper written and flight exams before
being signed off as competent to fly that particular airplane on those
particular missions.  The IP who is intimidated by the rank or notoriety
of his student, and consequently does not perform his job of
transferring information from his head to that of the student, is not an
effective IP.

"Sir," Griggs began, "every time Parker goes up solo, he's wearing my
wings.  Every minute he logs by himself in training is logged with my
wings riding on his judgment and maturity.  I don't think he has the
basic judgment to be a pilot, and I am no longer going to jeopardize my
career on some whim of his.  How can I place my career on a line drawn
by a man, a boy really, who doesn't care one bit for his own career?"

Walker ignored Griggs's question.  He sat forward.  "Do you realize how
many phone calls I get about Parker from Commander, ATC, or how I'm
required to send regular progress reports to the Deputy Chief of Staff
of the Air FORCE?"

Griggs didn't answer.  He sat expressionless, his eyes fixed on his
commander.

"You're from the Academy and a pIow-back now, aren't you?" Colonel
Walker said, more as a statement than a question.

"Yes, sir," Griggs answered.  He was an Air FORCE Academy graduate who
had come out of pilot training at the top of his class.  He had always
wanted fighters and a chance at combat in Vietnam.  Instead, being so
stellar, he had been put back into the training system as a plow-back, a
first-assignment-instructor pilot, called by the acronyrnic term FAIP.

"Randolph is the showplace of the Air FORCE," Walker continued.  "You
well know that excelling here guarantees your choice of aircraft and
assignments.  Let's see." He examined an open file on his desk.  "You
want F-4s at Ubon Air Base in Thailand, don't you?  Want to 'get over
there with Robin Olds and his 8th Tac Fighter Wing, eh?  Where all the
fighter pilots go to become MiG killers." Walker was referring to a
folder on his desk containing Griggs's USAF Form 90, called a Dream
Sheet, because it contained what an individual desired for his next and
subsequent assignments.  Griggs knew he probably wouldn't get fighters
without a favorable recommendation from his wing commander, Colonel John
Walker.

And you want Phantoms with the 8th at Ubon, right?"

Walker said again, this time looking up for an answer.

"Yes, sir," Griggs had said.

Colonel Walker fixed Lieutenant Griggs with a fatherly smile.

"You help me with Parker, and I'll guarantee you Phantoms at Ubon." He
handed Griggs his pink slip and report on Parker.

"Colonel, I'll accept this only on one condition."

John Walker looked startled.  Lieutenants don't make "conditions" with
colonels.  "All right, Lieutenant, suppose you tell me the one
condition."

2030 HOURS LOCAL, THURSDAY, 8 june 1967

BACHELOR OFFICER'S QUARTERS RANDOLPH AFB, TEXAS

Toby Parker sat in the easy chair with his feet up on a hassock.

He had bought both, and several other items of furniture, including a
small refrigerator, to spruce up his 16-by-17-foot BOQ room on the
second floor of the students' BOQ.  He was wearing a rumpled USAF flight
suit that had reddish brown stains on the chest and legs.  It was
unzipped down his chest, revealing a piece of jade hanging from a gold
chain.  On his feet were scuffed jungle boots stained with the red mud
of Vietnam.  He was drinking by himself.  When he'd first arrived at the
base, he had hung around the Auger Inn, the stag bar at the O-Club. He'd
given that up when he'd found he was too snarly and uncommunicative with
the younger pilots, who wanted war stories from their famous classmate.

Now he preferred the privacy and solitude of his room in the BOQ.  There
was a highly expensive hunt scene by Herring on a wall and a few prints,
but no decorations or memorabilia from Vietnam.  He never pulled out
photos or tape recordings of his time in Vietnam for what few visitors
he had.  His only outward reference to Vietnam was the flight suit and
boots he wore on certain solitary occasions, and the jade earring
hanging from the gold chain.

Cigarette smoke curled up from a stand-up ashtray next to his chair.  He
took manly swigs from a double scotch as he listened to a tape of Piaf's
"Non, Je the Regretted Rien" ("No, I Regret Nothing").  The tape wheels
spun slowly on the Akai deck he had bought in the big PX at Tan Son Nhut
Air Base next to Saigon.  He leaned back and closed his eyes as the rich
nasal tones of Edith Piaf swept over him with vibrations and pulses that
seemed to resonate in his groin.

Once again he was back in Saigon holding Tui in his arms.

She was a tall and straight-shouldered Eurasian with long brownish-black
hair that hung straight past her shoulders and curled in wings by each
side of her face.  Her teeth glistened white and perfect in a half
smile, her eyes closed as she bur rowed her head into Toby Parker's
shoulder while they danced.

She wore an ao dai, the traditional Vietnamese dress of white blouse and
black flowing silk trousers and long white wrap around apron with long
slits up each side of her legs.

"I love you, Tow-bee," she said, as she shook a wing of hair to one side
and leaned back to look up at him with eyes brown and soft and deep with
adoration.  "I love you so much." She took a jade earring from her ear
and gave it to Toby as a symbol for love eternal.  Piaf's rich and
melancholic song swept over Toby Parker as he danced once again with his
beautiful girl, her body firm and curved in his arms, her perfume
filling his head, sweeping his mind, tingling his very being with love
and desire like he had never known.  The image began to blur.  Like a
movie screen gone wild, discordant and tragic images swept just behind
his eyes.  Phil Travers once again died bloody and bent in his arms;
Haskell's eyes drilled into his as he 'em braced an exploding grenade;
and Tui danced into death as the bullets tore her body apart.

"Aaahhhh, aahhhh," Parker moaned.  He sat slumped for a long moment,
immersed.  Slowly he sat upright.  Then, with a quick gesture, he gulped
the rest of his scotch, and hurried over to snap off the tape deck. "Got
to stop that," he muttered, knowing full well he would not.  He was
addicted, and to more than the scotch.  He was addicted to the memories
and he knew it.  He didn't feel complete without them.

He had been a floater for all his college and early Air FORCE years,
just a frat boy floater looking for another party, another meaningless
adventure.  He had volunteered for Vietnam as a lark for his third and
last year in the Air FORCE, and there had been an administrative officer
who'd wound up flying in the back seat of the little O-1 puddle-jumper
with Phil Travers as pilot.

They had flown around South Vietnam delivering classified documents to
remote Special Forces camps.  Many times they had controlled air strikes
in support of U.S.  ground forces, and, as Travers had felt Parker's
keen interest and natural ability to fly, the two of them had become
close.

Now, Toby Parker couldn't shake Vietnam and he didn't want to.  There
had been no meaning to his life before his tour and precious little
since.  Now he just wanted to be with the people he loved most: lovely
Tui, who induced a depth of feeling he never knew he possessed.  And
solid Phil Travers, the forward air controller pilot who'd showed him
the glory and thrills and fun and mystique of combat flying.  And the
Special Forces men with such easy professionalism about living and
dying.  The exhilaration of being shot at, and doing something about it.

The camaraderie.  Rich emotions.  He missed it.  He missed it all.

But the people who had brought him to life, who had put meaning and
depth and purpose into his life, were dead.  Blown away, gone forever.

Travers had died in his arms, his blood staining the flight suit he had
just given Parker a few HOURS before, as a tribute to Parker's eagerness
and ability to fly.  He had seen his lovely Tui cut down by American
guns, his name on her lips as she died.  Now they existed only in his
mind and memories and he intended to keep them alive there forever.

Until the glorious day he joined them.

There was one man still alive from those days, Wolf Lochert, a Special
Forces lieutenant colonel.  In Vietnam, Lochert had taken an interest in
the young Air FORCE lieutenant.  Toby would get drunk and call him up.

But Lochert wasn't accessible anymore.  He had left Fort Bragg and was
back in 'Nam.  His last words to Parker had been to tell him to get the
hell off the sauce and the memories, and get to work learning how to fly
airplanes.

And to come back to Vietnam where the big boys were.

There were a few others: Court Bannister-but he was up to his ears at
the Test Pilot School-and Tiffy Berg, a Braniff stewardess he had met in
Vietnam.  They had had several days together in the Philippines, where
he had flown up from Vietnam.

He had called her a few times and drunkenly rambled on.  She was a
direct link to Vietnam.  Once she had flown out on a pass to see him. It
hadn't gone well.  She wouldn't drink with him and talk about the war.

And he wouldn't-said he couldn't-go to bed with her; said he just didn't
function well anymore.

But it was all over now, Parker thought.  He had let them all down.  He
was being tossed out.  He would never fly, never go back to Vietnam as a
pilot.  He was through.  Griggs had told him he was out.

The phone on his desk began to ring.  Parker finally picked it up on the
eighth ring.  It was Chet Griggs.

"Parker, we've got to talk," he said.

"What about?" Parker said to Griggs ten minutes later, as Griggs,
dressed in a white polo shirt and light blue cotton trousers, stood in
his room.  "What could we possibly talk about?

You said I was through flying.  You said you were washing me out.  What
the hell do you want now?" Parker took a swig of his scotch.  He felt
agitated and mean.  "You got a new lecture about discipline I haven't
heard?  You want to maybe preach about responsibilities?  You're a real
puke, you know that, Griggs?  You don't drink, you don't smoke.  You
probably don't even come.  I'll bet all you do is pee through your
pecker.  Isn't that right?  You only know how to pee through your
pecker?"

He pushed his drink toward Griggs.  "Here, take this.  Let's see you
drink some down.  Maybe then I'll talk to you."

Griggs waved it away, an expression of exasperation on his face.  "Come
on, Toby," he said.  "Ease off.  You can do better than this.  Be a
gentleman."

"Ease off?  Be a gentleman?  Oh, I get it.  You're one of those, those
Latter Day morbids from Salt Lake.  Aren't you from Salt Lake?  Oh yeah,
and you're a zoomie from the Academy, aren't you?

"Yeah, Toby, I'm all of that.  But I'm also your friend.  Or I want to
be.  Look," he said, "I understand.  I know you had it rough over there.

I know you lost- "What the hell do you know what I lost?  What do you
know about it, you weren't even there.  Go log some combat time, then
we'll talk.  Go get some blood on you and we'll talk all you want."

Parker turned away to splash more scotch into his glass.

Griggs walked over and took Parker by the arm.  "Toby, hey man, I just
want to be your friend."

"I don't need you," Parker said.  With a sudden motion he tossed the
scotch into Griggs's face.

Griggs grabbed Parker's outstretched arm and, rotating, bent it behind
his back to double him over.  He stood wide and braced as Parker tried
to kick back his shins.  Parker groaned and swore as he tried to wrench
free.  Griggs held Parker's bent arm tightly and reached forward to the
back of his collar, pulled him upright and marched him toward the
bathroom shower.

"Hey, ouch, goddamn, stop it.  What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Parker struggled unsuccessfully in Griggs's expert hold as Griggs
stuffed him into the shower stall and turned the cold water full on.

Both men got soaked as Griggs held Parker sputtering and choking under
the thrumming of the needle spray.  They grunted from the FORCE of their
struggle, but Griggs had the edge both in size and sobriety.  He held
Parker firmly under the stinging water.  Some of the old blood dissolved
from Parker's flight suit and swirled down the drain along with red mud
from his combat boots.  Parker saw it and began to shout in a voice made
hoarse by scotch and a tightening throat.

"No," he yelled, "oh no.  Oh God, Phil.  " His voice cracked.

He struggled and slammed about, but couldn't break Griggs's hold.  He
relaxed and slowly slumped down to sit on the floor as Griggs turned him
loose.  Water beat on his bowed head and ran in rivulets down his face,
off his chin, and down his bare chest to swirl past the jade.  Griggs
stepped out of the stall, water streaming down his polo shirt, cotton
pants stained dark.  His blond hair was plastered to his head.  He
looked down at Parker.

Toby had cupped his hand over the drain and was letting the reddish
water flow through his fingers into the drain.  After a few moments,
Griggs turned the water off.  Parker continued sitting there, watching
the last of the water go down the drain.

"Okay," he said, his voice hollow and echoing.  "Let's talk.

I'll listen."

Ten minutes later, toweled off and dry, the two men sat across from each
other, Griggs in the chair, Parker on the hassock.

"I said I would wash you out," Griggs said.  "But it seems that's not
what Colonel Walker or the Commander of the Training Command, or even
the Chief of Staff, desire."

"You mean you aren't going to wash me out?"

"I suppose I could if I made a federal case out of it, went to the
Inspector General and all that," Griggs said.  "I could eventually get
you out of the program.  But that's not what I'm going to do."

"But I signed the pink.  I admitted what I had done." Parker looked
surly.

You're getting a second chance.  Your last chance," Griggs said.  "I had
a long talk with Colonel Walker, or rather he had a long talk with me.

I've withdrawn my report.  You're still in the program."

Parker looked up.  He studied Griggs for a moment.  "Do you mean that?"

He reached for his scotch, thought better of it and put it down.  He
looked contrite.  "Hell, I don't know what to say.  Thanks, I guess. And
after all that stuff I said about you .

He trailed off.

"Don't thank me, Parker.  I don't want to hear it.  I still think you
should be out of the program.  Any other student would be.

I've washed them out for far less than what you did." Griggs sighed.

"You've got some serious problems, Toby.  I don't know which came first,
your drinking or your lack of discipline.  But you are a first-class
problem drinker, maybe an alcoholic, I don't know.  I do know I like
you, Toby, but, drinking aside, I honestly don't think you have the
discipline to be a pilot in my Air FORCE." He shook his head.  "It's
obvious, I can't be your IP anymore.  Starting immediately you will have
a new instructor pilot.

Parker absorbed the information.  "Well, thanks anyway.

You've given me some good news.  " He paused, then added hastily, "But
it's bad news you won't be my IP anymore."

"You haven't heard the really bad news, Toby."

"What is it?"

"You lost your fighter assignment.  You are not going to F-4s when you
graduate.  I am, but you're not.  I'll level with you.  I kept you out
of fighters on pain of my resignation if Colonel Walker didn't approve.

It went all the way up to the Chief of Staff.  I'm telling you, you
don't have enough discipline to be trusted with something hot like the
Phantom.  Not in my book.

Instead, you're going to Hurlburt Field in Florida to learn how to be a
forward air controller so you can fly all over Vietnam entirely by
yourself and run your own war.

0815 HOURS LOCAL.  SUNDAY, 2 JULY 1967

AIRBORNE IN A UH-1B To LANG TRI SPECIAL FORCES FORWARD OPERATING BASE
(FOB) REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

The olive-drab Army UH-111 slick (no guns) whop-whopped its way across
the jumbled hills covered with triple-canopy jungle.

The sky looked gray and desolate through the early morning mist that
rose in wisps and torn banners.  The helicopter cruised at an altitude
of 4,500 at a true airspeed of 100 knots.  The pilot preferred this
higher altitude to avoid ground fire and to take advantage of the upper
air that had cooled two degrees for each thousand feet above the ground.

Both side doors were open.  The chilled air swirled around the
compartment, cold-soaking men and machine in preparation for the heat of
the earth below.

As is normal in helicopters, the pilot sat in the right seat and gle
fatigues and olive-drab the copilot in the left.  They wore jun flyer's
helmets with earphones and boom mikes.  Three other men in jungle
fatigues sat on the pull-down red canvas seats behind them in the center
of the cargo compartment, Strapped to the floor of the compartment were
resupply cases of ammunition and radio batteries, C rations, and clothes
for the Special Forces Forward Operating Base (SF FOB) at Lang Tri.  The
helicopter crew chief sat in the right rear canvas seat facing forward.

Like the pilot and copilot, he wore a helmet with a boom mike pressed to
his lips.  Next to him sat two passengers.  They wore green berets with
the distinctive flash of the 5th SFG.

The younger of the two passengers, a thin sergeant first class, was from
the Special Forces C Team that serviced the men at the Lang Tri FOB.  He
was responsible for their aerial resupply.

He carried a two-foot dark-orange nylon mailbag with a padlock through
the metal bands at the mouth.  Inside were classified documents and mail
for the twelve Americans at Lang Tri.

The older passenger had a rucksack and an aluminum carrying case at his
feet.  The case was dented and heavily scratched.  In his lap he held a
small book with gold -tipped pages and a tooled black leather binding.

The book was open, but he was not reading.  Instead, he was staring at
the jagged horizon line.  His eyes were dark, his skin tone brown, and
his cheekbones were high with a hint of Indio blood.  His jungle
fatigues, thin and faded from too many in-country washings, were neat
and pressed.  On the right collar of his blouse was the black stitching
and thin white border depicting the silver oak leaves of a lieutenant
Colonel.  On his other collar, stitched in black thread, was a
chaplain's cross.  Sewn above the right slanted pocket of his blouse was
his name tag, Sollivan.  Stitched in black thread over the other pocket
was the wreathed rifle of a combat infantryman's badge.

The SFC leaned over to shout against the wind and blade noise.  "Hey,
Padre.  Kind of a small place to be going for your Sunday rounds."

Chaplain Sollivan turned his head and looked at the young SFC.  "One of
many," he said, with a faint Puerto Rican accent.

He stretched his mouth into a smile that exposed white and even teeth.

The SFC nodded and looked back outside the speeding helicopter, The tone
of the whirling blades increased as the pilot pushed forward on the
collector.  The blades slapped air as he entered a steep descent to the
east of the Lang Tri landing zone.  The pilot a 20-year-old warrant
officer, kept his helo backlit by the mom' in sun as long as possible.

At the last minute he scooted the slick over to the LZ and, nose high,
touched down with a finesse born of hundreds of combat takeoffs and
landings.

On the ground, between the landing helicopter and the camp, a
half-circle of potbellied brown children stood giggling and pointing
with pudgy fingers.  Some wore a narrow dark cord around their waist,
others nothing.  Their nakedness was as natural as the surrounding
jungle.  They held their hands up to shield their eyes as a wave of red
laterite dust thrown up by the whirling blades engulfed them.  The
blades made 11 sweet sweet sweet sounds.  Three Special Forces men from
the camp carrying bags and boxes ran crouched to the helicopter.  They
helped the crew chief and the two passengers off- ad the supplies, then
loaded their own boxes on board.  The pilot had not shut down the
turbine engine, and the hissing exhaust, combined with the whoosh of the
big blades, reduced communications to hand signals.  The SFC swapped
bags with one of the men and reboarded the helicopter.  Two of the men
from the camp went behind the children and picked up a stretcher that
carried something inert and ody bag.  The bag protruded oddly positioned
in a green rubber bag at such odd angles it looked as if a thick tree
limb with branches sawn off at varying lengths was inside.  The men
hustled to the helicopter and gently placed the bag into the cargo
compartment.

Engine noise covered the hollow thumps the protrusions made when they
thumped on the deck.

Chaplain Sollivan quickly made a sign of the cross in the general
direction of the rubber bag, threw his ruck over his shoulder, picked up
the aluminum case and walked hunched over under the blades toward the
edge of the dust circle.  The helicopter turbine hissed louder and the
skids were five feet in the air by the time he reached the edge of the
cluster of children.  In seconds, the noise was an echo and the dust was
settling.

The children swarmed around the visitor.  They had seen many
rough-looking men come and go.  Almost always they carried something for
them.  The chaplain did not disappoint them.  He dug into the flapped
pockets of his blouse for bits of rock candy.

He also gave each child a folded blue bandanna from a supply he had
bought from the PX.  The children danced with delight, then silently ran
up to a large sideless dirt-floor hut.  Inside, their parents, a Nung
fighting FORCE, rested on hammocks and woven mats.  City kids would have
been screaming with delight.  Not so these little ones, who had been
taught the rigors of jungle life .  before they could walk.  They
disappeared in with the families to show them what they had been given
by the American.

Back at the LZ, the larger of the camp men, a captain, walked over and
shook hands with Sollivan.

"Good to see you, Padre.  Welcome to Lang Tri.  " He was in his late
twenties and wore his green beret tilted forward upon his closely cut
blond hair.  His name was Janosik, and he was built like a 'tall and
rangy college fullback.  He had heard of Sollivan, that before becoming
a priest he had been a 17-year Old dogface in the Korean War.

"Carry that for you, Padre?" He nodded at the case.

"Thanks, I'm okay," Chaplain Sollivan said.  They walked toward a low
rectangular wooden building with screen doors at each end.  Next to it
was a bunker covered with earth and logs.

The captain held open the screen door.  Inside, several bare chested men
wearing only the Camouflaged pants of their striped Olive-drab-and-black
tiger suits were sitting around rough wooden tables.  Behind them in a
corner sat a slender Vietnamese with watchful eyes.  He wore a complete
tiger suit, and appeared to be about forty.  The Americans stood up.

"Hey, Chaplain Sollivan," one of the younger men said, recognizing him.

"How ya been?  It's me, Button.  I heard you were running around the AO
[Area Of Operations] giving church services.  Hear confession, say Mass,
save souls.  Stuff like that."

He remembered Sollivan from the 1st Special Forces Group at Okinawa,
where he had been known for his ability to jump out of airplanes and put
away beer with the best of them.

"Right.  But I've given up trying to save your immortal soul, Burton.

It's far too late for that.  " He slung his ruck into the corner and set
the case next to it.

"Yeah," Burton laughed, "ever since I went SF." Soldiers in the Special
Forces refer to themselves as just that, Special Forces, or the
abbreviated form, SF.  Regardless of the publicity since "The Ballad,"
they never said green be t in any other way than as a reference to a
type of hat.  They rmeight refer to a helicopter pilot as a rotor head,
or a nonparatrooper as a "leg," from the term "straight leg," but no one
could refer to them as Green Berets, for the beret was a hat, and only a
hat.

Captain Janosik, the team leader, spoke.  "There's a place out in back
where you can hear confessions and say Mass, Padre, A couple of the guys
here and a few of the Viets set it up, Nothing fancy." His troops called
Janosik the Di Uy, the Vietnamese term for captain.

"Nothing fancy required," Sollivan answered.  He had many times said
Mass in the jungle in pouring rain with no more protection than a poncho
and a floPpy-brimmed jungle hat.  Based now at 5th Special Forces Group
(SFG) at Nha Trang, he tried to make the rounds at least once a month of
the scores of SF camps scattered throughout Vietnam.  He particularly
liked Lang Tri.  The base was unusual, because it was one of the three
FOBs from whence clandestine missions originated that, among other
things, searched for downed American pilots.  Chaplain Jaimie Sollivan's
younger brother, Luis, was a Puerto Rican Air National Guard pilot on
active duty with the USAF flying F-4s.

Jaimie truly appreciated any ground support available for pilots in
trouble.  You never knew.

outside the team house, Sollivan followed Janosik to a tenby-ten
structure that was nothing more than a thatched roof set on four thick
posts over a dirt floor.  Enough wooden benches for 20 people were in
front of a narrow five-foot-high attar carefully fabricated from halved
sections of bamboo.

"Not bad, not bad at all," Sollivan said in admiration.  He placed the
aluminum case on a bench close to the altar and began to unpack.  From
the case (Kit, Chaplain's, Catholic, NSN 99255206), he placed on the
bamboo stand the chalice and its paten, the communion paten, and a
crucifix.  To one side he placed the tube holding the communion wafers.

He hoped and prayed that God had a special place for soldiers of any
religion, of any country, of any age, who trusted so much in their
leaders and their cause.  He wanted to do the best he could for these
young men, because they were among those dying and killing and he was
doing neither.

In a matter of minutes there were eight Nungs and four Americans
gathered for Mass.  Sollivan was just about to ask if anyone wished to
serve Mass as an altar boy when he saw a figure approaching from behind
the benches.  It was a squatty man with sparse black hair shaved close
to his skull, and almost Neanderthal bushy black eyebrows overhanging
dark brown eyes.  He was bare-chested, with burly arms and a pelt of
black hair, and wore a pair of cutoff tiger suit pants.  He was carrying
a folding butt Avtomat-Kalashnikova-47 assault rifle, and around his
right leg, just above his knee, was a bloody wraparound bandage.  He
favored the leg as he walked up to the chaplain.

"Jaimie, you spic soul-saver," he said in a gravelly voice, "welcome to
Lang Tri.- The two men pumped hands and 'em braced.

The heavier man, Wolfgang Xavier Lochert, was an SF lieutenant colonel
assigned to the Military Advisory Command Vietnam Studies and
Observation Group, better known as MACSOG.

The innocuous Studies and Observation Group name was a cover for
MACSOG's classified mission.  The group was a joint service
unconventional warfare task FORCE engaged in clandestine operations
throughout Southeast Asia.  MACSOG had the assistance of certain USAF
(the 90th Special Operations Wing) and Navy StAL units.  The MACSOG
troopers, of which Lieutenant Colonel Wolfgang ("The Wolf") Locherl was
well-known, conducted highly classified sabotage, psychological and
other special operations in North and South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and
Red China.

MACSOG men were tasked with many other special operations, as well. They
had been known to kidnap, assassinate, plant booby-trapped ammo in big
enemy supply caches, steal enemy documents, and other such venturesome
and risky behind the-lines business.

Wolf Lochert had returned a few HOURS earlier from a snatch mission in
which he had bagged an NVA division commander just as the man was making
his weekly visit to his girlfriend's hootch.  The division commander had
been a man of habit, and punctual, which had made the snatch rather
easy.  Wolf had had only one other man with him on his mission, Huey
Dan, the watchful Vietnamese who had been in the team house when
Sollivan arrived.

" Hey, Jairnie, welcome back." Wolf slapped the chaplain on the
shoulder.

M"How are you doing, Wolf?  You've come a long way since aryknoll,"
Chaplain Sollivan said, holding Lochert by the elbow.

"Too far, maybe," the Wolf said, his grizzled face serious.

He had been in the same seminary class as Jaimie Sollivan, late of the
New York Puerto Rican barrios, after a stint in the U.S.  Army.  At the
time, each had known he had the calling to be a Roman Catholic
missionary priest.  But, after 18 months, Wolfgang Xavier had realized
he simply was not the type to stand by and passively watch events take
place around him.  He was a participant, and that was all there was to
it.  If another seminarian made a mistake in class or on the sports
field, Wolfgang was right there to correct him.  And it had been like
that in high school.  More than once he had been dismissed from the
practice field for telling his coach exactly what he, Wolfgang, thought
the coach was doing wrong.  It usually involved some hard-hitting
tactical strategy and Wolfgang was usually correct.  And woe to the man
who uttered profane words around Wolfgang.  "You don't take the Lord's
name in vain in my presence," he would say, while backing the hapless
curser up to a wall.

During a tour of duty at Bad Tulz in Germany, he did pick up the term
scheisskopf, shithead, which he dearly loved to use on those who merited
it, particularly those who swore, "Don't swear, scheisskopf, or I'll
bust you one," he would say when necessary.  Even among the collection
of what the regular army called the snake-eating maniacs, the Wolf was
considered unique, not so much because of his anti-swearing campaign,
but because he rarely drank.  And when he did, his rampages were of
herculean proportion.

So young Wolfgang had dropped out of the Maryknoll seminary in upstate
New York, convinced he was a failure in the eyes of Almighty God.  He
had dropped out because he could not submit.  The devastating truth, as
Wolfgang Xavier Lochert saw it, was that since he was old enough to
comprehend the world about him, he could not be submissive to anything
that happened to him or around him.  At each Mass and in his evening
prayers, he sought and prayed fervently for humble submissiveness.

"O Holy Spirit," he'd prayed thousands of times, "soul of my soul, I
adore Thee.  Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me.  Tell me
what I ought to do and command me to do it.  I promise to be submissive
to everything Thou pennittest to happen to me, only show me what is Thy
will." Only when he could submit to the forces around him, Wolfgang
knew, would he be worthy to wear the cloth of a Maryknoller.  So far
nothing had worked.  He still questioned, argued, and ultimately
resisted anything about him that he didn't agree with or approve of,
whether the matter was physical or moral.

After dropping out of the seminary, Wolfgang Lochert had joined the
United States Arrny.  He had been 19 years old at the time.  Since then
he and Sollivan had seen each other every few years, more often now that
Sollivan had been assigned in-country to the 5th SFG at Nha Trang.

"Got a message for you, Wolf," Chaplain Sollivan said.  "It's from Al
Charles.  He wants you to drop by MACSOG ASAP.Lochert raised his
eyebrows.  "Did you come all the way out here to tell me that?  Why
didn't Al just tell me on the daily commo check?  Or send me a note in
the mail sack?"

"Dunno.  I'm just telling you what he told me to tell you," the chaplain
said.  The Wolf nodded.  Sollivan regarded him kindly and pointed to the
altar.

"You'll serve, won't you?  " he said, more as a command than a question.

"Yeah, sure," Wolf said.  He went into the team house and came out with
his shirt on and a fresh bandage on his leg.  He leaned his AK against a
pillar.  The chaplain handed him a paten, and turned to the group that
had assembled on the wooden benches.  "I need one more to serve Mass."

There was a slight stirring.  Before anyone could volunteer, the slender
Huey Dan stepped up and said in a quiet voice that he would be honored
to serve Mass that day.

"It has been a long time," he said, "perhaps too long since I served as
an altar boy in the Catholic church in Hanoi.  You will permit me?"

Both Wolf and the Padre stared at the Vietnamese.  The Wolf was the
first to speak.

"Beedee, you never cease to surprise me.  You're a chu hoi an ex-VC, one
of the greatest jungle trackers and night fighter I've ever seen, a
former tennis club manager at the Cercle Sportif in Saigon, and now I
find out you can serve Mass.  " Wolf Lochert looked at Huey Dan with
undisguised respect and admiration.  Seven months earlier, Huey Dan, or
Beedee, as the Wolf liked to call him, had saved the Wolf's life in a
surprise encounter with an NVA patrol.

Chaplain Jairnie Sollivan handed the Vietnamese a card wi h the Latin
Mass responses.  As he did, his eyes narrowed ai d became mere slits
from which reflected obsidian blackness.  F e didn't speak.  He turned
and began the Mass.  Wolfgang Lochert and Huey Dan began the familiar
responses in Latin.  Lochert loved the words the priest spoke:

"Introibo ad altare Dei.  Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam.  " I
will go unto the altar of God, to God who brings ' to my youth.  JOY
When it was time, Chaplain Sollivan's sermon was short and to the point.
As usual.

"It's very easy to become fatalistic when one's role in life, for a
while, is to kill or be killed.  What a terrible role, but now is not
the time to whimper over it.  We will do what we have to do.  But we
must reflect once in a while how close we are to enormous evil.  The
killing of people is no good, yet we find ourselves in the damnable
position that we must do it as the lesser of two evils.  Pity is, if we
stop to ponder in time of crisis upon what we are doing, then we are
dead ourselves.  Yet God expects us to have hope.  Hope .  .  .  hope is
the virtue by which trust in God.  Trusting that God will ultimately do
the best for us.  In the meantime, we must try to do our best.  And God
bless you for trying."

Chaplain Sollivan had to FORCE himself to look away from the men in
front of him.  He wanted to memorize their faces.  He wanted to look
into their eyes, and draw part of their souls to him so they would
always be a part of him.  He loved them so, these young warriors, and he
wanted to give them life everlasting, even if only in his memories.

After communion, during which Bucy Dan solemnly took the host on his
tongue from a stone-faced Chaplain Sollivan, the Mass drew to an end. As
Sollivan was performing the final rituals, his thoughts turned to his
brother.  He had offered the Mass for Luis, and for the dead soldier in
the body bag, and for all the men in the lean-to.  At the final
blessing, "Benedicat VOS Oninipotens Deus, " he made a larger than usual
Sign of the Cross over his jungle congregation, hoping this symbol of
power over evil would extend out through the jungle and protect his
brother.  "Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus.  " He stopped for a
moment and looked at his charges.  "Go," he said in Latin, "the Mass is
ended.  .  .  .  Ite, Missa est." A shiver ran the length of his spine.

He didn't know why.  It happened sometimes.

Burton never knew what hit him.  He slumped with a cry, fresh blood
staining the back of his shirt.  Then came the echoing pop of the
sniper's rifle.

"Hit the dirt," someone yelled.  He didn't have to.

Instantly, every man, including Chaplain Sollivan, dropped to the
ground, eyes searching the area from where they thought the round was
fired.  A Nung crawled over and tended to the groaning Burton.

"Anybody get a line on it?" a voice shouted from the team house.

"Yeah," Lochert growled back, his face barely five inches above the
ground, "I got a line on him.  I saw some smoke."

He crawled forward to get his AK and bring it to bear on the spot in the
tree line from where he was sure the round had been fired.  It was a
finger of jungle, barely five feet wide and ten feet long, pointing at
the camp.  Wolf estimated the distance at nearly 200 yards, about two
football field lengths away.  He again saw smoke rise next to a
particular tree in the finger as two more slugs thudded into the dirt
followed by two pops from the same place.

"That's a mighty heavy caliber he's firing," the Wolf said.

A series of rounds zinged back toward the sniper from several fighting
positions around the camp perimeter on that side.  Wolf put in the
proper elevation and squeezed off three rounds which he knew were of no
value at such a distance.  The captain sprang out of the team house door
and dove into the dirt next to Wolf.

"Something funny about this," the Wolf said.  "Why hose off in the
middle of the day?"

"What in hell do you think is going on?" Janosik asked.  "We never draw
fire into the camp during daylight."

For a moment Wolf thought it might be a daylight ambush.

Maybe the purpose of the sniper was to draw troops down from the camp to
investigate.  If there were an ambush, they could be trapped and chewed
up.  He looked closer at the sniper's site.

"I don't think it's an ambush.  That finger of jungle he's in is too
easy to cut off and too narrow to hold any significant amount of enemy
troops." He looked at Huey Dan.  "Come on, Beedee, let's go get that
dummy," the Wolf said.  He started to get up, then turned to Janosik.

"Ah, if that's okay with you, Captain," he said, acknowledging the
protocol of the team leader, who ran the camp.  Wolf was a transient at
the FOB and hence should follow the orders of the man, regardless of
rank, who was responsible for the security of the Lang Tri camp.  He was
pleased he had remembered to ask, even if it was rather proforma,
because, as the Wolf knew, he rarely asked anybody's permission to react
to a combat situation.  Invariably, he reacted first and soned out
details later.

"Be my guest," the captain said.

"Where's your path through your mines?" the Wolf asked.

"Go to the left of the brown post and head toward that tall broken palm
tree to the right.  " The captain gave the visual clues to provide safe
passage through the minefield he had planted around the perimeter. There
had to be a path for patrols that was easy to remember, though one not
obvious to the enemy.  "Be careful, it's only two feet wide," he added.

"Got that, Beedee?" the Wolf asked.  When Huey Dan nodded, Wolf sprang
to his feet and dashed zigging and zagging in a low crouch from cover to
cover to the wire.  In an instant he was through, bare knees scrabbling
in the red dust, then out along the safe path.  Huey Dan, who had his
own AK, followed in the same manner.  When they were deep into the
jungle, Huey Dan trailed Wolf by whatever distance it took to keep him
in sight.  Sometimes three feet, sometimes ten, depending on jungle
density Huey Dan permitted his lips to tighten once when the muzzle of
his AK swung within range of Wolf's back.  The Vietnamese saw again the
scene in front of the shattered church, when this hairy long-nose had
killed his son after his son had set the blast.

Though his son's death had been for the glory of the revolution, Huey
Dan had sworn he would take his blood revenge-but only after he had
extracted all the usefulness possible from his military comradeship with
the long-nose.  Until then, he would serve the Front, who knew him only
by his code name, the Lizard.

Back at the camp, the team captain ordered everyone to hold their fire
while the two men worked their way toward the sniper.

Wolf crouched and walked silent and slow.  He had to favor his sore leg.

When he knew he was close, he signaled with his hand for Huey Dan to
move right, putting him deeper into the jungle, while he stayed left to
parallel the tree line.  Both men were bent low, barely moving,
carefully lifting and placing their feet, slowly cocking their heads
from side to side listening for telltale sounds of enemy activity.  Each
sensed the position of the other beyond the green wall.

Suddenly from close in front of them, they heard a shot muffled by
jungle growth.  Both men froze in a crouch.  Wolf pointed his finger at
Huey Dan, then made a "stay" sign, spreading the fingers of his hand and
making a push down motion.  The Vietnamese nodded and slowly crouched
lower.

Down-and-dirty time, the Wolf thought.  The sniper knows we're here
because everybody from the camp is holding their fire.  He got down on
his elbows and knees and moved slowly and precisely in the direction of
the sound.  He no longer favored his wounded leg.  He was particularly
alert for wires, bent twigs or grass, or any other sign of a booby trap.

He was vibrant and alert for odd or out of place objects.  Ahead of him,
he spotted a small bit of color not consistent with the green jungle
surroundings.  He crawled closer until he was behind the base of a giant
palm tree.  He peered around the base and saw the back of a lone man, a
Vietnamese he was sure, in torn and raggedy black pajamas laying prone
behind a fallen tree.  Well-concealed by underbrush, he was aiming an
ancient rifle at the camp.  Wolf looked cautiously around, deten-mind
the VC was by himself, and called in Vietnamese from his position behind
the tree.

"Hands up, hands up."

For an instant, the figure froze, then slowly turned to bring his rifle
to bear on the Wolf.  His face was contorted, his eyes wild.

"Drop that gun.  Don't move.  Don't move, " the Wolf cried in
Vietnamese.

As if controlled by wires, the man continued swinging his rifle in jerky
motions toward Wolf.

The Wolf aimed his rifle directly into the face of the man, who was
barely ten feet away.  He yelled again.

"Don't more.  " When the man did not stop his inexorable movement, the
Wolf shot him twice between the eyes.  The man fell back with an odd
clanking sound.

"Okay, Beedee, come on up, but slowly.  Something funny here."

With Huey Dan covering him, Wolf Lochert advanced to inspect the corpse.

Checking for booby traps, he held the AK with one hand like a pistol,
pointing at the head of the man, while he carefully turned him over with
his foot.  Bile rose in his throat.

"This is terrible, Beedee.  Come here and take a look at this."

Wolf pointed down at the body as Huey Dan came next to him.

The dead Vietnamese was an emaciated boy of about twelve years of age
covered with ants and angry red bites.  He was chained to a log, and his
ancient rifle was strapped into his arms.

Under his body was an anthill.

1430 HOURS LOCAL.  TUESDAY.  4 JULY 1967

MACSOG HEADQUARTERS.  HUE PASTEUR, SAjr.ON REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

MACSOG operations was run from an unpretentious four-story villa
situated on the tree-lined rue Pasteur in central Saigon.  Two pedicabs
churned down the street and stopped in front.  Wolf stepped from one,
toting his ancient mountain rucksack and his folding butt AK.  Chaplain
Jaimie Sollivan climbed out from the other carrying his black satchel.

They were both dressed in jungle fatigues, sleeves rolled up, and wore
their green berets.  They returned the salute from the villa guards,
tiger-suited Nungs who wore thongs and carried AK-47s, and who opened
the wide steel gate for them.  They walked through and past the giant
tamarind tree on the right.

"How come you were staring so narrow-eyed at my buddy, Huey Dan"" the
Wolf asked.

"There"s something behind his eyes I don't like," the chaplain
responded.

"Yeah?  Like what?"

"Death."

Wolf stopped and turned to the chaplain.  "That's in all our eyes," he
said.  Jaimie Sollivan shrugged, and they walked on.

After a few paces, the two men entered the door of the villa that housed
the headquarters team of the Studies and Observation Group assigned to
MACV (Military Advisory Command, Vietnam).  As a secret directive so
dryly spelled out, MACSOG's six primary duties included:

Conducting regular cross-border operations to disrupt enemy intentions;

Keeping track of all captured and missing Americans and conducting raids
to find or free them;

Training and sending agents into North Vietnam to run resistance
movements; * Conducting black psychological operations, such as
establishing false radio stations inside North Vietnam; * Conducting
gray operations, such as the Hue-Phu Bai radio transmitter; * Conducting
other operations as deemed necessary to disrupt enemy plans.

"Ah, it was terrible, Al," Wolf Lochert said to Lieutenant Colonel Al
Charles, his boss, the MACSOG commander.  Lochert and Sollivan sat in
cheap vinyl lounge chairs in front of Charles's battered wooden desk.

Charles wore the standard jungle fatigues.

"The kid had been chained to a log placed over an anthill.

He couldn't get away.  The ants were all over him.  The gun was strapped
lengthwise to him in such a way he couldn't shoot himself.  All he could
do was shoot at us and hope we'd kill him.

His face was all twisted.  He had gone crazy."

"Did the camp commander know anything about him?" Al Charles rumbled. He
was a burly black man with a huge chest.

As a matter of fact, he did.  The kid was a LOCAL who used to shine
shoes for the GIs and run errands for money.  He was a nice kid, they
said.  He had told one of the guys he was being pressured by the LOCAL
VC cadre to spy on the camp.  The commander figured he was staked out to
make an example to the others about what happens to nice kids who won't
rat on the Americans."

"Hell of a war," Al Charles said.

"But it's not a war, Al," Chaplain Jaimie Sollivan said.  "As our
congressmen and senators say, 'It's a conflict."

"Nuts," the Wolf said.  "If somebody's shooting at me, it's a war.  And
if it isn't, I'll declare one." He slung his good leg over the rusty
metal arm of the lounge chair and motioned toward a calendar.  "Happy
Fourth of July," he said in a voice thick with disgust.  "Let's start
another War of Independence.

This time let's separate from Washington."

"Right on, brother," Al Charles said.

"Here, here," Chaplain Sollivan said.

The Wolf leaned back.  "Okay, Al," he said.  "What's up?

Why send Jaimie all the way to Lang Tri to deliver the message to come
see you, when you could have sent it on the commo net?  Or sent a
written message up with him?" Wolf's face suddenly brightened.  He sat
forward.  "is the MACSOG rescue committee on?  Do we finally have the
green light for some full FORCE POW rescue attempts?"

Late last year, Wolf Lochert had been sent first to Fort Bragg, then to
the basement in the Pentagon, to help conceive some large-scale rescue
attempts of American soldiers and pilots held in prison camps.  When the
JCS rescue committee had gone forward with the plans, they had been told
that small forages into South Vietnam were authorized.  They had also
been told, by the civilians who staffed such answers for the Secretary
of Defense, that rescue attempts in North Vietnam were absolutely out of
the question.  Such efforts would be seen worldwide as further American
aggression.  Further, the efforts would be interpreted by North Vietnam
as an overabundance of interest in Americans held prisoner, therefore
increasing their value.  Lastly, it might just start World War III with
Russia, or Red China .  .  .  or both.

The rebuttal white paper that had demolished the rescue ideas had
implied that the JCS was not only impertinent in requesting such
foolishness, but that their judgment was in question.  Didn't they know
there was a war on?  When the dismal response had been received, a boom
had echoed up Pentagon Stairwell from the spook area in the basement,
causing passersby to wonder if an explosive device hadn't just
detonated.  It had.  Wolf Lochert had just punched a metal locker.

"No, Wolf," Al Charles said, "I am sorry to say that is not why you are
here." He sat forward, his black face uncommonly solemn.  "You are here
because what I have to say, I don't want anyone else to hear.  And
better you hear it from me first." His words resonated from his deep
chest cavity.

Concerned at the tone of his voice, Lochert leaned forward.

"What is it, then?" he asked.

Al Charles cleared his throat.  "Wolf, I think you are going to have to
go to jail."

"What the hell for?"

Al Charles stood up and put his hand on Wolf's shoulder.  He looked down
at his friend and best warrior.  "Well, now, we're going to have to talk
about that."

1030 HOURS LOCAL, TUESDAY, 5 JULY 1967

THE BUTTERFLY BAR Tu Do STREET, SAIGON REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

The fight started suddenly and violently, like a thunderclap on a clear
day.  The Butterfly Bar, a long narrow place with a bar to the right and
tables to the left, was a known SF hangout, and woe betide the "leg" who
accidentally entered for whiskey or women.  Occasionally, cocky
paratroopers from an airborne unit would enter looking for trouble.

They'd find it.  Usually in quantities they could not handle, because by
the time they were drunk enough to have the courage to challenge the SF
men on their home turf, they were too drunk to swing more than a feeble
fist.

The Wolf had been standing at the bar, drinking a fizzy French orange
soda, minding his own business.  He wore khaki civilian pants with cuffs
and an atrocious Hawaiian shirt.  He needed a shave.  The mama-san and
two bar-girls sat patiently behind the bar.  The Wolf had made it clear
he wasn't springing for any Saigon Tea, the amber water the GIs bought
at outrageous prices for the B-girls so they could talk and play
kissy-face.  It was early in the day.  The bar was cool and dark.  The
only other occupants were two SF men on pass from a remote up-country
camp.  Several large bottles with the red number 33 stood on the small
table in front of them.  All GIs swore that Bamuiba, which meant 33 in
Vietnamese, contained formaldehyde.  The Wolf had shaken off their
greetings and inquiries about what he was doing in the bar so early.

Wolf had muttered and snarled something about the United States Army
being ungrateful and stupid about the way it was treating him.  This
wasn't like the Wolf, they said to themselves.

Three tall and well-built paratroopers wearing jungle fatigues entered.

They were staggering slightly and joke-talking loudly among themselves.

They blinked in the darkness, then selected places at the bar close to
Wolf.  The mama-san immediately filled their order for Bamuiba and
dispatched the girls to sit with them to cadge Saigon Tea.

For twenty minutes, the men fondled the girls and drank beer.

Twice they asked the mama-san to turn up the Volume for the country
music on her tape recorder.  Several times they looked contemptuously at
Wolf.  Finally, the bigger of the three made a remark about green
beanies drinking orange piss.  The Wolf's head came up and turned slowly
like a tank turret to face them.

There was a lurching jostle, and the fight erupted.

The mama-san quickly dialed MP headquarters.  The bar-girls fled
screaming to the safety of the back room to peer through the beaded
curtain at the fight.  The two seated SF men sprang up and joined in
with whoops of glee.

In the beginning, it was really an unfair engagement.  The Wolf, equal
to two or three troopers on any given day, today seemed possessed of a
powerful rage that turned him into a maniac.  The six men were soon in a
tangle.  There were groans and thuds and curses.  Much of the cheap
furniture was smashed.  The melee boiled out into the street.  Vendors
and passersby screamed and crowded around to watch.  Unexpectedly, the
burliest of the three troopers got the Wolf down and started kicking
him.  A second pulled a switchblade from his pocket and snapped it open
with a flick of his wrist.  He crouched and held it low, knuckles down,
thumb up along the handle, sharp edge up.  He moved the tip in small
circles and lunged at Wolf.

Before either of the two SF men could tackle the man, the Wolf rolled
away and reached under his right pant leg for his social weapon, a
Mauser 7.63mm, and shot the knife-holder in the chest.  The man dropped
the knife and flung his arms up.  He went down without a sound.  A red
blotch appeared and spread on his chest.

Sirens were sounding in the distance.  The trooper's buddies ran away.

The two SF men lingered just long enough to ensure the Wolf was okay,
then took off.  He sat up and looked at the dead man.  He slowly bowed
his head and carefully unloaded his Mauser.  "Aww," he said out loud,
"aww, why'd you have to go and do that?"

Two police jeeps screeched to a halt and six helmeted MPs wielding
nightsticks dismounted and sized up the situation.  Two tended to the
wounded man, four swan-ned over Wolf and snatched his gun.  He roared
and fought, but Saigon MPs were picked for size and aggressiveness, not
civil rights affirmation.

The raging man went down.  The MI's bonked his skull a few times,
handcuffed him, and dumped his battered body into the back of a jeep.

The two MPs next to the bloodied man on the sidewalk looked up.

"Radio for an ambulance," the senior said, "but tell 'em to take it
slow.  This guy's dead."

The two SF men had circled back to watch the Wolf being taken away.

"Hey, man," one said to the senior MP.  "It was self-defense.  We saw it
all.  " The MP paid no attention.  He pointed at Lochert.  "Take him to
the station and book him for murder."

The jeep with Lochert and the MPs sped off for the Saigon station of the
92nd Military Police Battalion.  The two SF men watched.

"You know something?" one said to the other, as the MP jeeps disappeared
in the heavy traffic.  "That trooper, he wasn't too smart."

0515 HOURS LOCAL.  THURSDAY, 6 JULY 1967

BRIEFING room C, AEROSPACE ]RESEARCH TEST PILOT SCHOOL EDWARDS Air FORCE
BASE CALIFORNIA

In 1954, Lockheed built the F-104, the fastest jet fighter in the world.

It was the first Mach 2 fighter, and the first to break the sound
barrier in a climb.  To help it slice through the air, the leading edges
of the stubby wings were as sharp as a dinner knife.

Although it was faster than an artillery shell or a .45-caliber bullet,
nobody really knew its top speed, because it would start to melt after
it passed Mach 2.3.  Naturally, the hierarchy at the Test Pilot School
at Edwards Air FORCE Base thought that, with a few design changes, it
would be a grand vehicle for high altitude and high angle-of-attack
training for future space vehicle pilots.  So they acquired a couple and
attached a 6,000-pound thrust rocket to the rear end of one of them to
make it go even higher, farther, faster.  They called this modified
Lockheed F-104 the NF-104.

The most famous-and most dangerous-of NF-104 flights at the Test Pilot
School was the zoom maneuver.  The object of the flight was to provide
training to test pilots and future astronauts in the operation of
aerospace vehicles at altitudes above 20 miles.

One of the three birds configured with the rocket engine and hydrogen
thrusters had already crashed in 1963.  The thrusters were to provide
the pilot with attitude control since the NF-104 zoomed so far out of
the atmosphere the air wasn't dense enough for flight controls
to act upon.  The zoom flights were to introduce students to
rocket-powered flight; extended zero-G conditions, as they arced in a
parabola over the top of the zoom maneuver; high-altitude,
low-dynamic-pressure flight; and, finally, experience using the hydrogen
thrusters mounted on the wing tips, nose, and tail to control the
attitude of the craft.  An NF-104 sat poised and ready for flight in the
purple dawn.

Court Bannister was scheduled for his third ride in a T-38.  In this
phase of the program, the student learned properly how to fly and
position a chase plane following an important test aircraft through its
maneuvers.  Chase Three, as today's flight was called, consisted of
advanced aerial maneuvers while pursuing an airplane that might well
outperform the chase plane in speed, altitude gained, and
maneuverability.  Major Flak Apple was Court's IP, the Instructor Pilot
in the back seat of the slim, dartlike T-38 supersonic trainer built by
Northrop.  Both wore flight suits.  They were in a small briefing room,
one of four in the building by the flight line that housed the school.

The walls were covered with LOCAL area flight maps, chalk boards, and
aircraft cockpit pictures and data.  The two men were sipping coffee.

Flak had asked Court please not to smoke in such confined quarters.  "I
don't want anyone but myself ruining my lungs," he'd said, tapping his
massive chest.

"Okay," Flak continued.  "First we rendezvous with an F-105 doing
weapons delivery on the range.  He'll be doing loft and
over-the-shoulder maneuvers.  In loft, he pulls smartly up from level
flight to about forty-five degrees, where a computer will release a
bomb.  over-the-shoulder means he'll come smoking in on the deck and
pull up into a four- or five-G Immelmarm, a half-loop over the target.

He releases the bomb going straight up, then rolls out down the backside
of the loop facing the direction he came from and going like hell to get
away from the burst." He sipped his coffee.  "We'll follow the Thud
through a couple of those, then get into some diving, high-G spirals to
loosen up.  From there, we will do some out-of-plane maneuvering-that's
a fancy test pilot tenn for the old high and low speed yo-yo maneuver
you use to cut across a turn to catch up and join up with another bird.

Finally, as the PDR .

"PDR?" Court interrupted.

"Yeah, PDR, pi&e de resistance.  As a PDR, we'll join up with the zoom
chase and watch him intercept the NF-104 when it comes down into the
atmosphere and restarts its engine.

"You see," Flak continued, "the way the NF-104 climbs to twenty miles,
100,000 feet, is to nip along at top speed of about Mach 2.2 at 35,000
feet.  That J-79 engine is delivering nearly 16,000 thousand pounds of
thrust to the 20,000-pound NF.  Then the pilot flips the switch igniting
the rocket, which kicks in an extra 6,000 pounds of thrust.  He then
pulls the nose up to a 70degree climb.  As he zips through 60,000 feet,
his jet engine flames out from lack of oxygen in the thin air, so he
stop-cocks the throttle.  As the engine unwinds, he loses hydraulic
pressure to move the flight controls.  That doesn't make much
difference, since there isn't enough air where he's going to make any
difference, anyhow.  When his flight controls lose effectiveness, he
uses a hand-controller on the instrument panel to spurt hydrogen
peroxide out of nose, tail, and wing tip thruster nozzles to control his
attitude.  Without thrusters, any disturbance would toss him
ass-over-teakettle, and there wouldn't be anything he could do about it.

He'll top out of his upward arc at about a hundred grand, then tip the
nose down for reentry.  He has to get his nose down and wings level, so
when he gets down to about 40,000 feet where the air is thick enough to
flow properly into the intakes, the airflow will windmill the engine
enough so he can perform an airstart.  That's where the chase pilot
meets him.  The chase pilot has to know where and when the NF will
appear.

Radar can give him a steer to the rendezvous point." Flak stopped and
peered closely at Court.  "You okay?  You look a little tired."

" Yeah, I was up most of the night with a sick paper," he said.

:'Which one?" Flak asked.

I 'Frequency Response Method of Determining Aircraft Longitudinal
Short-Period Stability and Control System Characteristics in Flight,' "
Court answered.

"POC.  I did mine on a Sunday morning," Flak said.

"POC?" Court said.

"Piece of cake.  Have another coffee and let's get to work."

After they finished the briefing, the two men walked in the early
morning coolness along the ramp to their T-38.  They were wearing
parachutes on their backs and carrying cloth bags decorated with patches
from prior squadrons.  In the bags were their helmets, gloves, and
kneeboards with flight cards clipped to them.

:'Who's flying the NF today?" Court asked.

'Your old buddy, Fred Derby," Flak said.

0720 HOURS LOCAL.  THURSDAY, 6 JULY 1967

AIRBORNE IN A T-38 over THE ROGERS DRY LAKE EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE
CALIFORNIA

An hour later, the two men were airborne over the Rogers Dry Lake area
talking to Edwards Test Control and Zoom Chase.

Zoom Chase was an F-104B with a flight test photographer in the back
seat.  His job was to record as many phases of the NF-104 flight as he
could point his camera at.  There was always the possibility of
something going wrong, and a film record would prove invaluable.  Court
and Flak, call sign School Test Two One, had already spent 35 minutes
flying with the F-105 weapons test bird.  Now they were in a long arcing
left cutoff turn to keep the F-104B chase bird in sight.  They were to
fly 200 feet to the rear and to one side to keep out of the way, yet
still go through all the planning and gyrations necessary to meet the
returning NF- 104.  Both planes were at 42,000 feet, where abrupt
maneuvers could produce stalls.

"Zoom Chase, Edwards Test," the ground station radioed.

"Eddie, Zoom Chase, go ahead," the pilot of the F-104B answered.

"Zoom Test is at your one o'clock high coming through eighty " Ground
said.

thousand, "Eighty thou, rodge," Zoom Chase said, then added, "Uh oh, I,
ah, got a little problem here.  My oil pressure is falling off.  -zoom
Chase, Edwards, are you declaring an emergency?"

"Negative, but I guess I'll have to abort and bring this beast back
before it locks up on me."

"Roger, copy, Zoom Chase.  Break, break; School Test Two one, you copy
Zoom Chase?"

"Edwards, School Test Two One copies," Court transmitted.

"School Test Two One, do you have Zoom Chase in sight?"

Edwards Ground asked.

"Affirmative, you want me to escort him back to base?"

"Negative, Two One, I want you to meet Zoom Test.  What's your fuel
state?"

"Hey, hey, hey," Flak Apple said on the intercom from the back seat.

"Think you can handle it, Court?  I can't see much From back here."

"No sweat," Court said on the IC (Intercom).  He punched the radio
button on his throttle.  "Eddie Ground, School Test Brovo One, no
problem, glad to oblige.  I've got forty-five minutes of fuel until
bingo at this altitude.  Will maintain this orbit."

Court had just told the controllers he had forty-five minutes of flight
time remaining if he stayed at the same high altitude at a constant
throttle setting.  Jet engines burn less fuel the higher they go.

Zoom Chase transmitted.  "Eddie Ground, Zoom Chase, I'm breaking it off
now and heading back.  Oil pressure low but stabilized.  Switching over
to Approach Control."

"If you guys are done bullshittin " a new voice broke in, "I got some
real problems up here," Fred Derby, the Zoom Test pilot, radioed.

"Zoom Test, Edwards Ground.  What is the nature of your difficulty?  "

"The nature of my difficulty is I can't get the frapping nose down.

Stand by to copy data."

Like all good test pilots, while looking for a solution to his problem,
Fred Derby wanted to make sure the ground station was recording
everything he was saying, in case he didn't make it.

Edwards Ground said the recorders were on.

Derby gave his angle of attack at the top of the parabola, the indicated
airspeed, engine RPM, tailpipe temp, peroxide tank pressure, and
peroxide remaining.  He spoke on in a flat, unemotional voice, detailing
the information vital to a crash investigation even before there might
be a crash.  The last F-104 that had crashed had buried its engine and
airframe thirty feet into the desert floor, making reconstruction of the
burrit, dime-sized pieces of gauges and flight recorders impossible. All
they had found of the pilot in the exhumed wreckage was a thumbnail.

"We got a good copy, Zoom Test," Edwards Ground said.

"Break, break, School Test Two One, Zoom Test is at your twelve o'clock
high for two miles, descending rapidly through six zero thousand.  You
got a tally?" Edwards Ground had all the airplanes on its height and
directional radar.  A "tally" was short for "tally ho," meaning, "I have
him or it in sight."

Court strained forward.  He saw the silver speck glistening in the sky
nearly three miles above him.

"School Chase Two One has a tally on Zoom Test," he transmitted.

"You have negative overtake speed, Two One," Edwards said.  That meant
the NF-104 was not only ahead of Court's T-38,.  but going faster and
pulling away from him.  "Go Buster for 100," Edwards ordered.

"Roger, Buster for one hundred," Court replied and pushed the twin
throttles of the two J-85 engines to engage their afterburners.  "Go
Buster" meant increase speed as fast as possible; the 100 stood for 100
knots.  He was to increase his speed by 100 knots on his airspeed
indicator, enabling him to overtake the returning NF-104. Unfortunately,
pouring raw fuel into the flaming exhaust, as the afterburner ignited to
increase thrust, also increased fuel flow by over 30 percent.

Slowly, Court's T-38 drew up to the flight path of the descending
NF-104.  It was difficult to see the needle-nosed fighter whose wing
span was only 21 feet.  It was descending wings level, but in a
nose-high attitude so extreme that air could not flow into the intakes
to windmill the engine.

"Passing through fifty thousand and still can't get the nose down,"
Derby transmitted.  "The nose-tail thrusters just aren't working .  .  .

oh God," he transmitted in a strangled voice, "here we go.  It's
departing."

Court saw the nose of the NF-104 suddenly pitch up even higher, then the
airplane fell off on the right wing into a flat spin.

"He's in a flat spin to the right," Court yelled to ground control.  He
felt his pulse shoot up.

"No engine RPMs, no thruster action, controls are all locked up.  I'll
try the drag chute," Fred Derby transmitted quietly from the cockpit of
the spinning aircraft.  It was spinning flat, almost straight down, with
no forward speed.  The drag chute was a twenty-foot parachute attached
to the rear of the jet that the pilot would normally deploy on touchdown
by a handle in the cockpit.

The chute would blossom out to slow the fast-landing fighter to a
manageable speed on the runway.  Now, in this situation, it might just
jerk the tail up and dump the nose, allowing air in to windmill the
engine.

"Roger, pull it, Zoom Test," Ground said.

Court pulled his two throttles inboard to cut off the afterburners, as
he slid into a diving spiral just outside the radius of the spinning
aircraft.  As they shot through 40,000 feet, he saw the housing door in
the tail section spring open, and the drag chute pack fly out to the end
of its 15-foot cable.  It deployed briefly, jerking the tail of the
spinning jet outward, then shredded like a dandelion puff in a
windstorm.  The bare cable streamed, following the circle of the
revolving tail.  The pull of the chute had been enough to place the
NF104 into a lazy, skidding right turn, yet the nose was still too high
to take in enough restart air.

"It blew out," Court transmitted.  "The drag chute blew out.

"No good," Derby said after a moment, his voice sounding resigned for
the first time.  "I'm not much better off than before.

I am in a slow descending right-hand spiral.  I'm just above stall.

There is not enough airflow to windmill the engine.  My controls are
still frozen.  Passing through thirty-five thousand feet."

"Okay, copy," a new voice said, deeper and with obvious authority.

"You're going to have to get out, Zoom Test.  Get out, eject.  Rescue
chopper scrambled.  This is General Austin, eject now," the man who had
taken over the microphone at Test Control said.  His voice was cool but
authoritative.

"Roger, getting out," Derby said, equally as cool.  "Hate to leave this
beauty, though."

"Two One, stay with him, follow his chute down," Austin ordered Court
Bannister.

"Roger, with him all the way," Court said.  He had taken up a position
just outside of Derby's spiraling aircraft and, by holding a diving
tight turn, pulling three Gs, he was able to orbit around the stricken
aircraft.

"Now you'll see what a real ejection looks like," Flak Apple said from
the back seat.

"Saw a couple in 'Nam," Court said.  "One was really bad."

He had seen a burning Marine F-4 from Chu Lai, from which just the
back-seater had gotten out.  The front-seater had been torched after the
back-seater had ejected; the fire had sucked into his face and flowed
out the back canopy like a blowtorch.

They watched Derby position himself in his ejection seat, head back,
torso erect.  He wore a full-pressure suit and a spaceman's helmet.  He
reached to pull the upper ejection device, a face curtain, to begin the
ejection sequence.  The canopy would blow off, then the seat would
rocket up the rails at a peak speed of 90 miles per hour, shooting the
pilot well clear of the high tail.

The early F- 104s had had downward ejection, because the rocket seats
that would build up gradual Gs (if a tenth of a second can be considered
gradual) had not been invented.  The cannon shell that had been used in
the old days to blast a seat out hadn't been powerful enough to loft the
pilot and seat clear of the high tail.

Famed jet ace and test pilot Iven Kincheloe had been killed when his
F-104 had flamed out just after takeoff.  He'd tried to roll inverted
and eject "up," but couldn't make it.  A shell with a strong enough
charge to blast the pilot up and clear of the high tail would have also
broken his back.  The accelerating rocket seat that had replaced the
hard bang of the shell had ended the problem.

Derby pulled the face curtain down.  Nothing happened.  Court and Flak
saw Derby quickly lower his arms to grab the other ejection handle
between his legs.  They saw his body jerk as he pulled up on it.  Again
nothing happened.

"Seat failed," Derby transmitted, his voice one pitch higher and many
times faster.  "I'm blowing the canopy and going out manually.  " They
saw him bend over as he tugged at the manual canopy ejection handle.

Nothing.  They saw him beat on the canopy with his fists, then stop and
put his arms down.

"I have complete ejection system failure," Derby transmitted, in a voice
now slow and laconic.  "Guess I'll just have to ride it in."

"Fred," Court transmitted, "if I can get your nose down, can you get a
restart?"

"Damn right, if you can get it low enough to get air flowing through it.

But there ain't no way," Derby said, excitement abating.

"Just let me try," said Court, tightening up his turn and pulling in
closer to the spiraling NF-104.  "I'm going to try to tip your left wing
up, so maybe your nose will slice down.  Jettison that cable.  I don't
want to get tangled up."

"Nothing to lose as far as I'm concerned," Derby said, "but screw it up
and you'll go in with me." He pulled the handle to jettison the
drag-chute cable.  It flew off and disappeared in a blink of an eye,
writhing like a thin black snake.

"Court," Flak Apple said from the back seat, "are you out of your mind?

You can't keep this thing steady enough or close enough to push his wing
up.  And we barely got enough fuel now to get back.  This guy's gone."

"Two One, Bannister, isn't it?" General Austin transmitted.

"Stay clear.  That's an order.  You don't have the experience.

Return to base."

Court ignored him to talk on the IC to Flak.  "I'm going to try it,
Flak.  I think we can do it."

"What's this 'we' shit, white man?  I have my very own ejection system
back here, you know." He took a deep breath.

"What the hell.  Let's try it.  Screw it up and it'll be more my ass
than yours.  I'm the IP in here, you know."

The problem Bannister faced was pulling his plane around in a steep
bank, tight enough to stay just outside the circumference of turn of the
downward spiraling NF-104, while diving at the same rate of descent.

This meant pulling six to eight Gs in a diving spiral with a downward
velocity.  While doing so, Court had to fly around the circumference of
the spin with the NF-104, while placing his right wing tip under the tip
of Fred Derby's left wing to FORCE it up.  So far, he had been flying
several hundred feet outside the circumference.  Now he had to reef it
in and match his turn radius and speed with that of the NF.

"Aerodynamically, what you're trying to do is impossible," General
Austin at Edwards Test Control radioed.  "The engineers here say it
can't be done.  You can't pull enough Gs to maintain such a turn without
stalling.  I order you to break it off and return to base."

For a split second, Court started to say something about how,
aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn't fly either.  Instead, he jammed
the two throttles full forward and into the afterburner range.  He had
to have maximum thrust from the engines to counterbalance the terrific
G-load he was already imposing as he reefed it in to the NF.  He pulled
his turn tighter and tighter.

"Watch it, Court.  You're going to over-G this thing," Flak grunted
against the strain where, now at six Gs, his 200-pound body weighed over
half a ton.  Just the helmet alone of each man became a 15-pound weight
on his head and neck.  Both men wore G-suits, the zip-on chaps like
cowboys wore, except they were filled with inflatable rubber bladders. A
hose from the suit plugged into a valve in the airplane that metered air
under pressure into the bladders proportionate to the number of Gs being
pulled.  Air expanded the bladders, compressing the thighs, calves, and
abdomen to help FORCE blood to the head.  As the G-load increased, blood
would drain from the head, first out of the thin 'llaries behind the
pilot's eyes, causing him to gray out, then black out.  Sustained loss
of blood to the brain would make the pilot unconscious.  The G-suit was
really an aid to the pilot, who was already tensing his thigh and
stomach muscles and grunting to keep the blood with its life-giving
oxygen in his brain.  It was exhausting work and couldn't be kept up for
long periods, unless the pilot was in excellent physical condition.

Derby's airplane was spiraling to the right, requiring Court to bank
sharply to the right to stay with it.  Fighter pilots prefer a left
bank, maybe because it's easier to pull the right arm to the left, maybe
because the throttle is on that side, or just maybe because that's the
way their mother said was best.  Regardless, banking tightly to the
right was difficult for Court.

"You're .  .  .  too .  .  .  far .  .  .  out, you'll .  .  .  never .

.  .  catch .  .  .  up," Flak grunted.

Court didn't answer.  He reefed it in tighter, then had to snatch the
throttles back as he began to overshoot.  In an instant, he fell too far
back.  Got to leave one throttle in burner and just play the other one,
he thought to himself.

"Break it off," Derby said.  "No way you're going to catch me." His
voice sounded remote and far away.  Derby began to bang on his canopy
with what looked like his kneeboard in a futile attempt to break
through.  Should have that heavy, shortbladed canopy buster we had in
the F-100, Court thought.

Again he started forward, trying to place his right wing tip in position
under the left wing tip of Derby's airplane to push it up.  They were
plunging through 30,000 feet.  He inched up, his wing tip within two
feet of the plunging NF-104, then inches, then he hit too hard.  The tip
housing of Derby's plane crumpled and flew off.

"Watch it, my God," Derby yelled, as the two planes plummeted downward.

"Get the hell away from here."

"Low .  .  .  fuel, low .  .  .  fuel," Flak Apple gasped against the
G-load.  Court had his head turned full right as he looked down over the
smooth surface of his wing.  He could not afford to take his eyes from
the wing tip to look at the fuel gauge.

"Land .  .  .  dead-stick .  .  .  okay," he grunted.  They passed
through 25,000 feet.  Three more turns and both airplanes would dig deep
holes in the desert floor.

He eased up again to the wing tip of the NF, playing the throttle of his
inboard engine with two-fingered delicacy.  He had to match precisely
the angular rotational rate of the wing tip with his turn radius and
rate of turn.

"Bannister, break it off, BREAK IT OFF,- General Austin yelled.

"Shut .  .  .  up Court gasped, concentrating so hard he was barely
aware of what he said.  He didn't need any distraction at this critical
point.  The sweat was pouring off his body.  It ran down from his soaked
hair, stinging his eyes and making him blink.

Derby, the quintessential test pilot, began dictating the conditions of
his spin to Edwards Ground.  He had plenty of battery power to operate
his radio.

In the back of his mind Court marveled at how calm Derby sounded.  The
doomed pilot had even timed his rate of descent with a stopwatch and the
altimeter because his vertical displacerrwnt needle was pegged down at
its limit of 6,000 feet per minute, and the plane was dropping at 21,000
feet per minute.

Court finally had his wing tip under that of Derby's airplane.

He gave just the slightest jerk to the left on his control stick to tap
the spinning jet's wing up.  It didn't work.  Drops of sweat slid into
his eyes.  He overcontrolled, and his wing tip slid up toward the
canopy.  He saw Derby duck.

"No way, no way," Derby yelled.  "Get outta here."

"Flame .  .  .  out .  .  .  one .  .  .  minute," Flak struggled to get
the words out.  Fuel- consumption by the thirsty afterburners and the
lower altitude had all but emptied the tanks of the T-38.

"Flame .  .  .  out," Flak said again, then slumped forward in his
harness, unconscious.

That fact registered with Court.  He knew that unless he unloaded the
G-FORCE on the airplane in a matter of seconds, Flak Apple would die at
worst, or suffer brain damage at best.  Then Court began to feel fuzzy
and his vision dimmed from the sustained Gs.

" Yaaaahhhhhhh, " he yelled into his mask, forcing more blood up into
his brain.  "Yaaaaaaahhhh," he yelled again, in a last ditch effort to
remain conscious.  His adrenaline and pulse rate, already high, shot up
even more.  He held his breath like a shooter preparing to squeeze off
the decisive shot.  With a final effort, he slid his wing tip directly
under that of the NF-104.  Then, with an overlap of two feet, he raised
it to contact Derby's wing, then gave a sharp jerk on the stick to the
left.  It worked.  Derby's left wing came up, slicing the nose of his
airplane almost straight down.  Court frantically snatched his T-38 away
and rolled left, as the NF-104 suddenly gained forward speed and pitched
down into a normal dive.  They passed through 9,000 feet.

' 'Hey, my God, I got air.  I got RPMs.  I GOT RPMS," Derby yelled
across the airwaves.  "It's starting." The relief bubbled his normally
cool voice to a fever pitch.

Flak Apple came to just as the T-38 flamed out.

"Bannister, you bastard, are we still alive?" he blurted into the sudden
silence.

"No brain damage there, I see," Court said.  He blew out a lungful of
air.  He didn't realize he had been holding his breath.

"The bad news is, we ain't got no gas.  The good news is, a couple
hundred square miles of Rogers Dry Lake is right beneath US.  I'm going
to dead-stick it in."

He actuated the ram air turbine and the auxiliary pumps to supply
hydraulic pressure for the controls and landing gear.  Everything
functioned as advertised.  He had just enough altitude to circle and set
up his flameout pattern for the four-mile length of the runway marked
out on the hard, dry lake bed.  The NF- 104, having power, was there
ahead of him, already set up on final approach for landing.  Court heard
the mobile control, Lake Bed, clear him for landing.

After a few S turns to lose altitude and get pointing in the right
direction, Court set up the silently gliding T-38 on the final approach,
heading for the parallel lines that depicted runway 25.

He could see a blue USAF ambulance and a red fire truck waiting for him.

At the far end, off to the north side, was Derby's NF-104 surrounded by
crash and rescue vehicles.  A rescue helicopter orbited off to one side
of his own plane.  It followed him down to the runway.  He eased over
the approach end, careful to maintain I 10 knots, the correct
forced-landing speed for a T-38, plus a few extra knots for the air
disturbance caused by the bent right wing tip.  He started his flare.

Dust spurted from the mains, and then the nose gear, as they smoothly
touched down.  The chopper flew parallel to his left side, the ambulance
and fire truck sped down the runway through his dust following him.  He
rolled to a halt one hundred feet short of Derby and his NF- 104.

Court saw the firemen ax open Derby's canopy and help him out.  Court
and Flak sat in silence for a few moments, then thumbed the switches to
raise their canopies.  Fresh air blew in.

Though hot, it still cooled Court, whose flight suit was black with
sweat.  He unhooked his mask and slipped his helmet from his head.  He
used both hands to wipe the sweat from his fore head and face.  Flak
Apple did the same in the back seat.  They sat for a moment and breathed
deeply.

"Sweet Jesus, that smells good," Court said, and ran his hand through
his short-cropped blond hair.  The desert air was quickly drying it to a
salty stiffness.  He felt drained and limp, as if enmeshed in molasses.

He looked out as the arriving crash crew propped egress ladders against
the fuselage.

"Better stick the pins in and safe our seats," Flak said in a quiet
voice.

With hands that felt heavy and swollen, Court pulled the safety pins
from his G-suit pocket and stuck them into the safing holes to prevent
the seat from accidentally ejecting on the ground.  Flak did the same.

They climbed down the ladder from their two seater jet.  The ground crew
surrounded them, congratulating them on the rescue.  Both men nodded and
grinned.

"Gut check," Flak Apple said.  Both men held their hands out in front of
them.  Both pairs showed barely perceptible trembling.

"Not too bad," Flak said.

"Not for government work," Court answered.  He pulled his cigarettes and
lighter from his left sleeve pocket.  He lit up and sucked a deep drag
into his lungs.

"Those things will kill you," Flak Apple said.

"I hope to live that long," Court said.  They watched as three men
detached themselves from the cluster around the NF-104 and headed toward
the T-38.

"Oh, oh, here comes trouble," Flak said.

General Austin and the Commandant of the Test Pilot School, Colonel
Chuck Hunter, were in the lead.  General Austin was a sparse man with
thin features.  His brown hair was flecked with gray.  He wore the 1505
khaki uniform with several rows of World War II and Korean War ribbons
set beneath his command pilot's wings.  Colonel Hunter, sturdy and
tanned, wore the green K-213 flight suit.  They were followed by Fred
Derby, still in his full pressure, suit minus the helmet.

"Bannister," General Austin said as he stomped up, "you're through here.

You disobeyed a direct order and jeopardized the lives of two other men
besides yourself, and almost destroyed two valuable airplanes.  You
might as well turn in your school patch right now, because you'll never
fly here again." He had thrust his face up at Bannister, his anger
obvious.  Although Court had been prepared for a chewing out, he was
shocked at the finality of the statement and the anger in the general's
voice.

Too much, perhaps?  Bannister wondered.

"General", Colonel Hunter spoke up.  As Commandant, he was responsible
for the school, its students, and its curriculum.

"With all respect, sir, I think I am the-judge whether or not Bannister
finishes the course.  And he certainly didn't jeopardize the life of
Major Derby, nor almost cause the destruction of the NF.  They were
already as good as lost.  Isn't that correct, Major Derby?  "

Derby nodded, his face thin and pale above the round metal collar that
topped his pressure suit.  He stepped forward and held his hand out to
Court Bannister.  His mouth twisted into a grin.

"Thank you, by God.  Bannister, I don't know how you did it, but you did
it.  If it weren't for you, I'd be at the bottom of a smoking hole out
there." He jerked a thumb toward the desert.

He looked Court Bannister straight in the eye, his face at once stern
and uncompromising.  "But I agree with General Austin.

You don't belong in the School.  He ordered you to get away, I told you
to get away, but you did not obey.  It all leads to one conclusion.  You
don't have the discipline or judgment to be a test pilot." He turned to
his boss, Colonel Hunter.  "As one of Bannister's instructors I
recommend he be washed out for lack of judgment." There was a silence.

The wind was picking up and starting to swirl sand around in miniature
tornadoes.

"Gentlemen," Flak Apple said, stepping up, looming over them all, "you
have just witnessed some of the most unbelievable flying you will ever
see in your entire lives.  Flying that saved a man's life.  Flying that
saved an expensive test aircraft.

And you are standing here telling the pilot who did such superb flying
that he is not worth a shit.  This is crazy." He looked from Austin to
Derby, hands on hips, shaking his massive head.

"Cool it, Flak," Court said, and took him by the elbow.

"Look, Apple," General Austin said, "you're not exactly clean in this.

You are an experienced instructor pilot who flew in the back seat of
this airplane." He patted the T-38.  "That you were in charge.  Makes no
difference that Bannister was in front, you were responsible for the
flight.  It's your signature that's on the school flight plan and on the
Form 175.

Seems to me you could have taken control of the situation before it
developed, and stopped it."

"What," Flak Apple said in mock surprise, his eyebrows raised, "and
missed being in on some of the most unbelievable flying I've ever seen?"

General Austin looked grim.  Apple's response was not what a lieutenant
general expects from an officer five ranks beneath him.  "I want you two
in my office at Test Control this afternoon--he glanced at his watch-"at
two o'clock." He spun on his heel and walked to his staff car.  Colonel
Hunter and Derby remained behind.

"Apple, you've got a big mouth," Chuck Hunter said.  "But you're dead
right, that was some shit hot good flying." His eyes twinkled.  "You
guys come see me after your visit with General Austin and I'll see what
damage control is needed." He turned to Fred Derby, put his arm across
his shoulders and drew him along as he walked back to his staff car.

"Fred," he said, "you are one of my top instructors.  Your point about
Bannister's judgment is well taken, and, going by the book, totally
accurate.  But there are a few things that aren't quite spelled out in
the book that you and I need to talk about." They climbed into Hunter's
staff car and drove away.  Flak and Court rode back in the flightline
van.

Flak spoke first.  "Court, ah, about calling you a bastard look, I
really didn't mean it.  It just sort of popped out.  You know, it's so
easy to say.  It rolls so nice off the tongue.  .  .  ."

He spread his big hands in a gesture of futility, a rueful grin on his
big black face.  "Oh hell, I'm sorry," he said.

"Apple, you big bastard.  You didn't try to stop me, and you laid your
career on the line for me with your smart-ass remarks and now you are
apologizing.  You're too much." Court slapped him on the back.  "You're
too much.  I love you, you big bastard."

"You do?" Flak Apple said, and beamed.  "Well then, kiss me, whitey.

Court studied him.  "You know," he said in a serious tone, "I could
probably trade you for a bale or two of cotton any time I wanted."

Promptly at two minutes to two that afternoon, the two majors presented
themselves to General Austin's temporary secretary at his
away-from-Pentagon office.  They were decked out in 1505 silvertone
khakis with ribbons and badges.  Flak Apple had senior pilot wings and a
row and a half of peacetime ribbons denoting faithful service, good
shooting, and a commendation.

Major Courtland Esclaremonde de Monts6gur Bannister had all of those
plus the Silver Star, the DFC, a Bronze Star, the Vietnamese Cross of
Gallantry with Palm, and numerous Air Medals.  He had been eligible for
a Purple Heart, but, in a moment of misguided false modesty, had turned
it down.  He had considered his wound "too piddly" compared to what
routinely happened to his Special Forces buddies.  He also wore senior
pilot wings and a parachutist badge he had earned going through the 10th
Special Forces Group jump school at Bad Tulz, Germany.

"Major Apple, the General wishes to see you first," the secretary said.

Flak winked at Court, knocked twice at the closed door, and entered when
bidden.  He closed the door softly behind himself.

Court sat stiffly in one of the yellow vinyl lounge chairs in the
secretary's office.  He smoked three cigarettes, holding a red butt can
for his ashes.  The secretary, a slim brunette, coyly peeked at him from
behind horned-rimmed glasses, a puzzled look on her face as she typed.

Suddenly, she sat upright and squeaked, "I know who you are.  You're . .

.  you're Silk Screen Sam Bannister's son."

Court smiled and nodded.  This had happened before.  He knew what she
was thinking, saw it in her eyes.  "if the son was like the father .  .

.  " she would be musing.  He saw her eyes stray to his left hand,
looking for the wedding ring that wasn't there.

She looked up at him, boldly.  Then she took her glasses off and softly
spoke the rhyme that half the world seemed to know: "Silk Screen Sam,
the ladies' man./If he can't get it in, no one can.

"Oh," she said, and giggled, "did I really say that?" She flushed and
put her hand to her mouth.  Court Bannister nodded and smiled.  He knew
better than to say anything and get involved in a prolonged gambit that
could only end that evening in pneumatic and lubricious maneuvers.  It
had happened many times before and the ending was always the same.  The
girl would try to hog-tie and wrap him, and call him her very own.  He
smiled again and looked away.

He thought of Nancy Lewis and Susan Boyle, two stewardesses he had met
in Vietnam.  They'd flown for different airlines and didn't know each
other.  Nancy was quiet, with soft brown hair.  Her husband had been an
Army advisor who had been killed in the Delta region of Vietnam.  Susan,
blonde, sun bleached, and boisterous, had never been married as far as
he knew.  He had been seeing both of them, but sleeping with only one.

"Maybe Ken has told you about me," the secretary said.

"Ken Dwyer?" Court asked, focusing on her.

"Yes.  My name's Rita.  We've been dating, He talks a lot about you."

She quickly put her glasses on and turned as the door to the general's
temporary office opened and Flak Apple walked out.

"He wants you now," Flak said to Court.

"How did it go?" Court whispered as they passed.  The door was still
open to General Austin's office.

"I'm not exactly court-martialed, but I'm sure glad I've got that F-4
upgrade and Vietnam assignment locked up.  Otherwise, I think I'd be
permanent range officer at Tonopah." Tonopah was a secret test site out
on the Nevada desert miles from nowhere.  "That'll teach me to wise off
to a three-star-maybe."

Court entered the office and saluted.

"Major Bannister reporting as 'ordered, sir," he said in the stylized
ritual he hadn't used since he was a second lieutenant.

The fighter squadrons he had been in didn't go for much formality.  He
stood at attention in front of the general's desk, eyes drilling
straight ahead.  Lieutenant General Austin did not see fit to tell Major
Courtland Edrn.  Bannister to stand at ease.

"Bannister, I've been on the phone to NASA.  They don't want you.  " The
pleasurable malice was obvious in his voice.

"And, frankly, I don't think you belong in the United States Air FORCE.

You certainly don't need the money.  " He tapped a 201 record file in
front of him.  "I see you are up for a Regular commission.  Why don't
you just get out and make room for someone else?  Why don't you do like
your father did and go back to Hollywood with all the other phonies?"

Bannister broke his locked military stance and looked down at Lieutenant
General Austin.

"Sir," he began, voice and eyes steely, "I don't know what in hell
you've got against me, but you damn well keep my father out of this." He
could feel his face flushing and his ears burning.

Steady, boy, steady, he said to himself.  It was too late.

"Don't you swear at me, boy.  You hear me?" Austin stood up, his face
red and swollen with a rage out of proportion to his words.  "Bannister,
I could run you up on charges so fast you'd be out of the Air FORCE in a
week, if not in jail."

"Jail," Bannister said.  "What for, disobeying an order?" He had
abandoned his position of attention, but stood stiff with bewilderment
and concern.

"Murder," Austin yelled.  He leaned across his desk.  "You murdered my
son," he said, in a voice that sounded close to the breaking point.

Suddenly, Bannister understood.  He had seen Major Paul Austin crash his
F-100 on a combat mission in Vietnam, due entirely to Austin's
ineptitude.  There had been ground fire that day.  To spare Austin's
wife and children anguish and shame, Bannister had taken it upon himself
to report his death as a shoot-down.

He had had a small twinge over the lie, but had assuaged his conscience
by thinking that maybe Paul Austin had taken a round in the cockpit,
thus causing him to pull out too low.

"General Austin," Court began, in a voice thick with sudden compassion,
"I didn't murder your son, sir.  I didn't murder Paul.  He was hit by
ground fire on a ground attack mission and went in with his airplane."

"That's just it.  There was ground fire and you didn't call it out.  You
didn't warn him." The general leaned heavily back into his chair.

"General Austin, the FAC had called out the possibility of ground fire.

Your son was leading the flight.  We were spread out in the attack
pattern.  If I had seen muzzle flashes, I'd have called them out.  We
all do.  But I didn't see anything except his crash.  " Involuntarily,
behind his eyes, the film rolled of Paul Austin's nose-high crash,
afterburner kicking up a rooster tail'of nce-paddy water.  What was he
going to do?  Tell this pitiful man that his son had fouled up?  That he
had rolled in too low and slow to ever pull out?  That he had punched
the mike button and died with the words "Oh shit" on his lips when he'd
realized what he had done?

"General, listen to me.  You have no case.  There is no fault or
deficiency here, unless it was your son.  .  .  ."

"What do you mean?" The general raised his head, eyes bright.

"You know your son was a cargo pilot all his life and new to fighters.

He died because he .  .  ." Court hesitated.

"Go on," the general urged, eyes narrowed.

"He died because he was .  .  .  a hero who brought the fight to the
enemy.  " Court just couldn't tell this father, who had once changed the
diapers and loved and raised his only son, that said son had splattered
himself all over the battlefield because he couldn't fly fighter
air-craft worth sour owl shit.  "He was a hero who paid the highest
price for his beliefs,"  Court concluded about a pilot who should never
have been passed through the F-100 upgrade program.

The general had his head down and was silent for a moment.

Finally, he looked up.

"I didn't tell you to stand at ease, Major," he snapped.  Court popped
to attention, eyes straight ahead.

"You are lying and I know it," Austin said, in a voice thin and hard.

His eyes were narrow, and too bright.  "But you are right on one thing,
there is nothing I can do about it."

"General Austin," Court choked out, "I'm not lying, goddammit." Oh shit,
Court thought, I am lying, but not the way he thinks.

"I know you're lying and I can prove it.  Your own operations officer,
Major Harold Rawson, told me about the ground fire, and that you could
easily have warned Paul.  Instead, you let him fly directly into it."

The general spoke with distinct triumph in his voice.

"General Austin, I am not lying, but Major Rawson was.  He wasn't there,
he saw no such thing, I told him no such thing, and the FAC on the scene
reported no such thing.  In fact, the FAC will totally support me,
because that is what happened.

There was no ground fire for me to call out to Paul."

"How dare you say that?  Men who are mighty enough to win the Medal of
Honor, as Rawson did, don't tell lies," the general grated.

"General, I'm sorry about your son," Court said in a loud voice.

Forgetting military protocol, he pounded on the general's desk.  "But I
didn't kill him.  That's a preposterous idea."

Austin jumped to his feet and leaned over his desk, his face red and
contorted.  "Get out, get out of my office.  I don't want to see you
again.  Get out.  You haven't heard the last of this.

Get out," the general shouted again.  Tiny bits of spit dotted the
corners of his mouth.

White-faced and furious, Court spun on his heel and stalked out of the
office.  He did not salute.

An hour later Court Bannister sat in Colonel Hunter's office and, after
sincere encouragement by the colonel, told him the whole story.  He
omitted nothing, not even the pail about Paul Austin saying "Oh shit"
just before he crashed.  And he told them about Harold Rawson.

"Major Rawson was a lying little wimp and coward who damn near killed me
and a lot of other people at Bien Hoa because of his actions.  He was
the only guy in theater who could miss with napalm by 1500 feet .  .  .

to one side.  But he did receive the Medal properly because he picked up
a satchel charge that was thrown into a bunker full of people and ran
out with it.  It vaporized the little shit."

"Sumbitch, Bannister," Colonel Hunter began, "I've heard some stories in
my day, but yours sets all records for sheer unbelievability.  It's the
most improbable, outlandish, and .  .  .

and .  .  ."

"Outrageous," Flak supplied.

"Yeah, that too.  As outrageous as a drunk fox in church," Hunter said.

Colonel Chuck Hunter, a double ace from World War II and the first man
to break the sound barrier, loved his metaphors.  He'd grown up with
them in West Virginia and dropped them in his daily language like birds
in a cornfield.  He looked at Court.

"Outrageous, but I know it's true.  I know your old boss, Jake
Friedlander.  He was the wing commander at Bien Hoa at the time you're
talking about.  I called him at TAC headquarters today and he told me
the whole story.  Seems you left out one part; you pulled a gun on
Rawson."

"That's because he was lying about some airplane problem and wanted to
abandon some of our guys out in the jungle," Court said, starting to
heat up again, not noticing the twinkle in Hunter's eyes.

"Cool off, hotshot.  I know that.  Jake told me all about it.

You got more sides to you than a piece of coal.  " Hunter leaned back
and put his hands behind his head.

"Austin talked to NASA all right.  He fixed you for good there.  They
don't want you under any circumstances.  My man on the scene, Joe
Engles, the only one of the active-duty military guys in the astronaut
program, by the way, who wears his uniform, says that Austin's wired in
with Senate appropriations and Johnson's space budget like honey in a
comb.  One word and they can lose a million here or a million there.  So
if Austin says you're out, you're out.  Remember, Bannister, Austin is a
three star who you cussed out and told to shut up.  There are wiser
things to do.  So, you tell me.  Do you want to stick around for the
aerospace portion of the course and hope when you graduate you can ride
around in the USAF MOL program like Spam in a can?  Or do you want to
graduate at the end of the test pilot phase with your test ticket and
join the real world of plain old flight test?

"I'll take my test ticket and run," Court said.  "I don't fancy orbital
mechanics, anyway."

Hunter nodded.  "Thought you'd feel that way.  I already canceled your
last six months here," Chuck Hunter said.  "Anything else?" he asked.

"Yes, sir.  Rather than go right into testing, I'd like to upgrade into
the F-4 and get another tour in Vietnam," Court said.

"Thought you'd feel that way, too.  It's all arranged.  You graduate
from here next week, take a week of leave enroute, and report to the
479th Wing at George Air Base to check out in F-4s.

From there, you've got orders to the fighter wing at Ubon.  That means
MiGs over Hanoi and the Steel Tiger mission over Laos.

Think you can handle that, boy?"

1730 HOURS LOCAL, THURSDAY, 6 JuLy 1967

Room 212, DESERT ViLLA BOQ EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE.  CALIFORNIA

"You bet I can handle that Ubon assignment," Court said to Flak Apple.

They had decided to have two beers only-it was, after all, a school
night.  Each man still had work to do: Court finishing up some papers,
Flak grading tests and reviewing the next day's curriculum.  They stood
at the makeshift bar in Court's room in what was laughingly called the
Desert Villa in Housin Area "D." The spider-and-scorpion-infested cinder
block Bachelor Officer's Quarters was more pre-Pancho Villa than
anything else.  Court had a tape of Puccini's La BoWme on his Akai
250SI).

"Well, I'm off to George and Ubon as well," Flak said, "only I get the
quickie course at George 'cause I got previous time in the F-4.  So I'll
get to Ubon before you.  Got to get me a MiG or two, you know.  You got
a MiG from the back seat of a Thud the first time you flew it, didn't
you?"

"Not exactly, well, yes.  But I never pulled the trigger.  Ted
Frederick, the front-seater, did.  I just spotted the MiGs and put him
in position."

"He's the guy who shot back at that trawler and is now MIA?"

"The very one."

Flak took a pull, and hummed a bit along with Mimi.  He looked at Court.

"At least you've already had one combat tour.

This will be my first.  Did you, ah, I mean before your first tour, ever
feel, well, nervous or anything?"

"Oh, hell yes," Court laughed.  "I had done pretty well on the gunnery
ranges, but I didn't know if I could hack it when someone was shooting
back.  It worked out okay.  Although, I'll tell you, seeing your first,
or any SAM shot at you is the most puckering experience you'll ever
have.  And it doesn't get any better with practice."

"Then why are you going back?"

Court looked out the window.  There was little besides sandy desert and
Wherry housing to see.  A few mountains in the distance broke the
monotonous horizon.  "I just am.  It's what I do.

"You know," Flak said, "I knew there was something wrong with you.

That's not much of an answer."

"Listen, I want to go back for the same reason you volunteered.  The war
is on, our guys are still over there.  We should be with them.  I feel
that more than any political motivation.

Besides, there's a lot of MiGs to kill.  I want to make ace, and I'm
antsy to get going."

Flak Apple studied Court.  "Look, every fighter pilot wants to make ace.

And we all have a variety of reasons.  What are yours?  "

Court looked at the picture of an F-4 behind the bar.  "I was your usual
dumb-shit fighter pilot, having a good time flying airplanes, chasing
girls, tearing around the world with my hair on fire.  Then several
things happened.  I got married, and I decided to be the first man on
the moon.  I worked my buns off getting my engineering degree at Arizona
State so I'd qualify for Edwards.  I made it.  I got my degree and
qualified for the Test Pilot School.  My wife thought that was so great
she asked for a divorce.  About then the Vietnam war started." Court
sighed and turned to face Flak.  He shrugged.  "I asked to slip my
appointment one year so I could go to Vietnam." He thought he saw a
flicker in Flak Apple's eyes.  "They said I had to reapply.  So I took
my tour in Huns at Bien Hoa, reapplied for the school, made it, then
came here." Court looked back toward the F-4.

"But I didn't get everything I worked for, did I?  After today, I get my
test certificate, okay, but I don't go through the aerospace portion.

Lack of discipline and judgment, I believe is the phrase.

Where do you go from here?  Back to Vietnam.  For me, anyhow."

"That doesn't tell me why you want to make ace."

"Anybody ever tell you you were relentless?"

"Yeah.  And cmel, too.  Tell me why."

"It's obvious."

:'Maybe.  Tell me anyhow."

"Apple, you're really pressing.  It's because I flunked marriage, I
flunked the moon, so what's left?" Court's voice was very flat.  "I want
to be the best goddamn fighter pilot there is."

Flak Apple nodded.  "Ah, ego," he said.

"Damn right, ego.  I believe in ego as a strong FORCE, a great motivator
if used correctly.  Ego can help you, or it can kill you.

A fighter pilot has to have the right mixture.  Enough ego to get into
the card game confident he can whip the shit out of anybody, but not so
much he won't throw his cards in on a bad hand and, equally as
important, not so much he isn't afraid to learn what he did wrong so he
won't do it again."

"Couldn't have said it better myself," the black man said.

Court took out his cigarettes and offered one to Flak, who shook his
head no.  They listened to Puccini's opera.  Flak moaned a few lines
along with the man singing Rodolfo's part, revealing a passable
baritone.

"Not bad," Court said.

Flak grinned.  "Thanks.  Say, that was quite an article on your dad
today," he said.  The Palmdale Press had run a half-page society spread
on Sam Bannister, who, besides being a famous old-time movie star, owned
the Silver Screen Hotel and considerable real estate in downtown Las
Vegas and Palm Springs.  "is he really everything you read about?"

' 'Yeah," Court said, "he is that.  He's quite a guy.  He was a B- 17
gunner in the big one."

:'Any other relations?  Brothers?  Sisters?

' One, Shawn Bannister.  He's my brother, half brother, actually.  He's
a newsie for the California Sun." Court swirled his beer bottle.  "We
don't get along so well.  We tangled in Vietnam when I was on my first
tour."

Flak looked surprised.  "Sure.  I remember.  He's the guy who wrote that
article about some jock napalming a bus full of civilians.  Made quite a
spread."

Court rapped the bar.  "Goddamnit, that jock was me, and what he wrote
wasn't true!  We had a shot-up M-113 an-nored personnel carrier, and it
was real, live VC that blew it up and they were who I dropped some
napalm on.  He saw the pictures of the track, but he chose to lie
anyhow.  No, we sure as hell don't get along."

Court thought back to the last time he had seen his brother, just a few
weeks ago, when he'd gone to Las Vegas to see his father.  They'd been
sitting together at dinner when Sam poked Court.

"Look who's coming," he said.

Court looked up as Shawn Bannister walked to the table.  With him were
two long-legged showgirls, one on each arm.  He looked down at Court.

"So, why are you going back to Vietnam?  To napalm some more women and
children?" Shawn was nearly as tall as Court, but younger and more
slender.  There was a resemblance.  His face was tanned and
astonishingly handsome.  He had blond hair brushed to his shoulders, and
wore expensive slacks and a heavy gold chain with a tiger's tooth and a
gold clip shaped like an alligator.  Although his smile at Court was
wide and dazzling, he didn't put out his hand.  The buzz of LOCAL
conversation was momentarily interrupted as women at nearby tables gave
muffled little shrieks and tried to appear unconcerned.  They were sure
they had recognized the young man as Sam Bannister's son.

"Dad said you were in town," the blond man said.  "Thought I'd stop by.

No, don't get up.  I'm just passing by." Court hadn't moved to get up.

Shawn swayed slightly, tightening his grip on the girls' arms.  "I'm on
my way to the Coast, Berkeley.  Then I'm off to Saigon, as a matter of
fact.  Seems the Sun wants me to look into all the military corruption
and smuggling going on over there."

"Shawn," Sam Bannister said, "you're tight.  Sit down, talk nice, "

"Not tonight, Dad.  Say goodbye to big brother here.  I got places to go
and things to do." He waved a hand to his brow.

"Cheerio." He moved off with the two girls.  Every eye in the room was
on the trio.

Court, I didn't arrange this.  I'm sorry, old man." Sam Bannister had a
ruefirl smile on his face.  He held his hands palms out.  "But you know
Shawn."

"Yeah, Dad.  I know Shawn."

Flak looked at Court, who seemed lost in thought, and decided to drop
the whole subject.  It had to be painful as hell to be attacked by your
brother like that, for all the world to see.

, :Fuck it," he said.  "Drink up, Court.  We got a war to get to.

0330 HOURS LOCAL.  FRIDAY.  7 JULY 1967

SOVIET EMBASSY HANOI.  DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Ever since Premier Kosygin's visit to Hanoi in February 1965, Soviet Air
FORCE aid to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam had increased
dramatically.  Besides older MiG-17 and MiG-19s being transferred to
Hanoi, fifteen of the latest model MiG-21s had arrived in September
1965.  Initial training and combat clashes with the Americans had been
disastrous.  By the 6th of January 1967, all of them had been shot down.

less than a year and a half had been very bad indeed.  But what had
caused head-rolling all the way into the Kremlin was the fact that seven
MiG-21s had been shot down in one day-the 2nd of January 1967.

Pod-Palcovnik (Lieutenant Colonel) Vladimir Chemov smiled grimly to
himself.  That raid on the 2nd of January was why he was in Hanoi and
not teaching advanced fighter tactics at Fruenze.  That devastating raid
had been conceived by the fighter pilots of the 8th Tactical Fighter
Wing over at Ubon in Thailand.

It had been led by their commander, a full colonel named Robin Olds.

Only after the raid had Soviet intelligence supplied all the
details-names, tail numbers, weapons.  Soviet intelligence had
completely missed the ruse Olds and his men had used that day.

The raid idea had been quite simple, and simplicity, Chemov knew, was
not always the Americans' strength.  Ever since the Korean conflict,
American planning had gotten convoluted and complex.  Yet in this case,
simplicity itself had made the final tally of the day seven MiG-21s shot
down at no cost to the attacking Ubon F-4 Phantoms.

Olds and his men had simply masqueraded as bomb-laden F-105
Thunderchiefs.  They'd used the same call signs, flown in from the same
direction, used the same speeds and altitudes.

The MiG-21s had been sucked in.  Chemov seethed.  It was at that time he
had been hurriedly detached from his position as chief of MiG-21
instruction for international pupils at Fruenze and sent to the People's
Air FORCE at Hanoi.

There was a puzzlement, though, about that day; and other days when the
Americans were fighting MiGs.  Sometimes a Phantom would be in perfect
firing position but would fail to fire.  Either the plane was out of
ammunition-in which case it should depart the battle scene-or for some
reason the pilot had decided not to shoot.  More likely, Chemov thought,
it was equipment failure of some kind.  That might be a weakness to
exploit.  He made a note to ask the GRU to investigate this matter by
whatever means they had.

Problems with the Americans aside, there was further disaster for Soviet
equipment on 5 and 6 June, this time in the Mideast.

With a loss of only 26 airplanes, the Israeli Air FORCE had destroyed
428 Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi, and Jordanian airplanes on the ground on 27
different airfields.  Of those destroyed, 269 were MiG fighters, of
which 136 were MiG-21s.

The ultimate irony was that Soviet Air FORCE Colonel General Kirsanov
had seen the whole thing.  He had been airborne in an Ilyushin transport
the first two HOURS of the strike with the Egyptian Air FORCE Commander
in Chief, General Mohammed Sidki, and the Egyptian Chief of Staff,
General Amer.  It was ludicrous.

They had been forced to remain aloft until cleared into Cairo
International because all the military airfields had been under attack.

Now Kirsanov was in Hanoi.  Kirsanov, once an impressive man-now gray
and coughing-still retained an impressive title.

He was the Deputy Commander in Chief for Combat Training, Chief of the
Training Department, and a Merited Military Pilot of the USSR.  He had
fought with distinction in the Great Patriotic War, avoided purges, and
had risen rapidly through the ranks as he trained pilots for various
wars of liberation.  Once a handsome and hearty man, Kirsanov had turned
into a doughy replica of his former self.  Things had gone well for him
through the decades as he carved a comfortable career for himself. Until
this year, that is.  This year, things had gone sour very quickly for
Kirsanov.  First the Mideast disaster, now Hanoi was in trouble.

Something had to be done.

Kirsanov had arrived on an overnight trip to Hanoi, slipping into Gia
Lam Airport in an IL-18 transport with Aeroflot markings.  He'd
immediately hammered the entire Soviet advisory contingent for three
HOURS about Soviet equipment and training.

He said Soviet prestige and excellence were on the line in the eyes of
the world.  He was agitated and angry.  He said the honor of the entire
Soviet Air FORCE rested on their shoulders.  The Air FORCE men in the
contingent stared at the ground.  They couldn't understand why this
pompous air bladder was blaming them.

When Kirsanov had finished, he told Chemov he wanted to see him
privately.

They sat in Chernov's tiny office in the embassy.  It was after three in
the morning, and the air was cool and damp, like that from a Lake Baikal
icehouse.  The general was due to take off shortly before dawn for
Moscow.  He took off his tunic and loosened his tie, and from his
oversized briefcase produced a flask of vodka and two silver cups.  He
and Chemov each tossed one off.  The general took a second, then lit a
Marlboro, which provoked a heavy coughing fit.  Chernov sat quietly
until he finished.  Kirsanov wiped his lips with a handkerchief, then
gazed at Chemov with kind eyes.  He liked Chemov.

"Volodya," he began in a hoar-se voice.  "I knew your father, you know.

We were flying sergeants for a while.  In Stormoviks." Chemov knew this.

Kirsanov had mentioned it many times before, as if he wanted to
establish the same sort of bond he had had with the older Chemov.  Maybe
it brought back pleasant memories, maybe Kirsanov was trying to impress
him.  Chernov didn't know.  He did know that in addition to setting his
own record as a crack pilot, the contact did not hurt.  Kirsanov had no
sons of his own.

"Things were clear then," Kirsanov continued.  "Now they are not.  Now
we are running around the world giving sophisticated equipment to
peasants who barely know how to put on shoes.  It's bad, it's bad." He
coughed.  "The Arabs.  They don't listen to what we say.  They are
obsessed with killing Jews.  I'm not a Jew-lover, but Thor's balls, you
don't plug a meat grinder with your own hand just because you hate pork.

But of course, Headquarters says it is all my fault." He shook his head
in disgust, quickly downed another shot.  He coughed a bitter "Hah."

."There we were, that ass-wipe of a pilot, Sidki, and me, in an old tub
of an 11yushin 14 at eight o'clock in the morning.  I had told Sidki the
night before our intelligence had said there would be a preemptive
strike.  So he put his patrols up in the wrong place at the wrong time,
and said let's go look at the slaughter.  When his pilots landed for
breakfast, as they did every day at eight-thirty, the Israeli Air FORCE
struck at eight forty-five.  Oh, it was funny, I tell you.  We saw the
whole dirty show.

Couldn't do a thing about it." He lit another cigarette and went into a
paroxysm of coughing: "Ah-hee hee hee, ah-hee hee hee.

He rumbled and spit into his handkerchief.

"So it comes to you, Vladimir Nicholaevych.  You are the chief
instructor of the most visible contingent of Soviet equipment in the
world today that is actively in combat-and with the Americans.  This is
it.  For sugar or for vinegar, this is it.  The Premier wants results,
superlative results.  We must prove the superiority of our equipment and
tactics.  Prove it, or we will all share a little cardboard dacha in
Siberia."

"I understand fully, Comrade General," Chernov said.  He thought of the
disastrous second of January.  "Perhaps we could have better
intelligence input to help us provide those results.  It is
inconceivable how F4 Phantoms could take off from the American base and
change into F-105 Thunderchiefs in midair.

We need better intelligence about enemy air bases."

"Something is being done, Volodya.  There are plans to exploit the
American newspapers' love for printing anything, even military secrets."

He started to laugh, but again it degenerated into a hacking cough.

"Ah-hee hee hee, ah-hee hee hee.  " When he was through heaving, he
leaned forward, a serious expression on his face.

"But listen carefully to me.  This is a bad, bad time.  Air FORCE
Headquarters is after the heads of the entire Combat Training Command,
starting with me.  You can show them we are doing our job.  Train these
little people.  Teach them to use our airplanes to their fullest,
Volodya.  The Soviet Union cannot have the reputation of its equipment
sullied.  When it is used by incompetents, we are laughed at.  We cannot
stand by and let this happen.  Do whatever it takes.  I've read the
reports.  We need victories.  We must have revenge for the Ubon
attacks," Kirsa nov said.  He bit off a cough.  "Our agents say it was
called 'Bolo.  I II

"Our agents read the American magazine Aviation Week," Chemov said.

"That's how they know what it was called.  It was printed out in some
detail."

"The Americans like to congratulate themselves too much," Kirsanov said.

Yes," Chemov replied.  "I also think they need heroes and battle
triumphs.  That is what the American people need to read about."

"It is not only the American people who want victories, Volodya.  I too
am under pressure.  We must have victories." He paused.  "I mean, of
course, our equipment must provide victories.  It must be superior to
that of the Yankee imperialists.  I see in the reports the names Toon,
Van Bay, Vong.  They are doing well.  Make sure they fly at the proper
time in the proper places to get victories-victories without risk.  I'll
see the reporters from sympathetic newspapers and journals come to Hanoi
to record what they do.  The world must know our equipment is good.  We
cannot rely on those Arabs to prove it.  Those Arabs-pah."

The general paused.  "Of course," he said in an oily voice, we must help
our Vietnamese friends in their struggle for liberation.  " He looked
around, as if to spot the microphone to take in those obligatory words.

Then he rapped the table.  "Do whatever it takes, I'll back you on
anything, Vladimir Nicholaevych.

Anything," he repeated.  He puffed himself into another coughing spell.

Chernov studied Colonel General Kirsanov.  He wondered how far he dared
go in telling him about his flying combat against the Americans.  He
decided Kirsanov knew all about it.  He had just made his instructions
clear, and didn't want any further talk.

Do what you have to do, but don't let on what it is you are doing.  Yes,
Kir-sanov's instructions were clear: Defeat the Americans, even if it
means you fly every day.

Pod-Palcovnik Vladimir Nicholaevych Chemov smiled at Colonel General
Kirsanov.  They understood each other.

More than one Vietnamese pilot was about to become an ace.

0930 HOURS LOCAL, FRIDAY, 7 JULY 1967

USARV INSTALLATION STOCKADE LONG BINH.  REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

LBJ was the nickname for the Long Binh Jail, the huge stockade in the
middle of the sprawling Long Binh An-ny Depot 20 kilometers northwest of
Saigon on Highway 1.  Prisoners the U.S.  Army particularly wanted to
impress were locked in metal Conex shipping boxes at LBJ.

The huge Long Binh complex was the headquarters of USARV, U.S.  Army
Vietnam.  Hundreds of tents, one- and two story buildings, barracks, and
huge warehouses were set in neat, orderly rows on an enormous flat plain
of 300 acres of red dirt.

Interspersed midst the rows of barracks were community latrines with
showers and sheds containing soft-drink vending machines.

Just outside the main gate were dozens of Vietnamese concessions housed
in lean-to structures made of plywood and hammered beer-can tin.  There
were short-time play sheds, tailors, barbers, and tiny two-table bars
that sold iced Bamuiba and soda.

Inside the gates on the sprawling post, concession privileges had just
been granted to selected American and Chinese businessmen who were
frantically building and opening shops to sell furs, diamonds, and
clothes.  There were even automobile dealers selling American cars to
GIs for delivery back in the World, as the GIs called the States. Madame
Tang's Steam Bath and Laundry Emporium did a landslide business cleaning
both bodies and clothes.

USARV wasn't even close to performing the duties its name implied-a
field army headquarters overseeing combat operations, as was done by
similar organizations in World War II and Korea.  Rather, it was an
enormous supply center incorporating administrative and logistical
headquarters where rather dull jobs were performed mostly by people who
had originally thought they were being assigned to an important post. In
addition to the support groups (and a huge ammo depot) at Long Binh
under USARV were an engineering command, a security agency and
intelligence group, an aviation outfit, and a medical brigade with a
huge evacuation hospital and Dustoff helipads.  At one side of the
complex was the 18th Military Police Brigade, whose men tended the USARV
Installation Stockade on 10 Hall Road.

Lieutenant Colonel Wolfgang Xavier Lochert, hands handcuffed together in
front of him, sat in the right front seat of the MP jeep as it drove up
to the stockade gate.  He was wearing rumpled prison issue fatigues with
painted white stripes and a white -P- on the back of his shirt.  He was
bareheaded.  The stubble on his face accentuated the lines of exhaustion
and indignation.  The sign over the stockade gate, WE WELCOME COMMAND
FAILURES, was flanked by the crossed pistols of the provost marshal.

Inside, Lochert was signed over to a beefy MP lieutenant named Hartigan,
who roughly pushed him to a table where he held each handcuffed hand to
roll his fingerprints.  Then Hartigan jerked him to a position in front
of a camera.

"They done all that to me in the Saigon MP station," Lochert growled.

"Got to make sure it's the real you I'm signing for," Hartigan snapped.

"That's not how you talk to a superior officer, Hartigan," Lochert shot
back.

"In here, there's nothing superior about you, Colonel," he said, lacing
the title with heavy sarcasm.

Lochert held up his cuffs.  "Must you?" he said.

"You're lucky a wild man like you isn't in leg irons." The lieutenant
went to his desk.  "Come over here, Colonel, I got to read something to
you." Lochert walked over, eyes smoldering, as the lieutenant picked up
the charge sheet and began reading.

" 'Charge One: Violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice,
Article 118, Murder.  Specification: In that Lieutenant Colonel Wolfgang
Xavier Lochert, United States Army, 5th Special Forces Group, Nha Trang,
Republic of Vietnam, APO 96240, did at 122/3 Tu Do Street, Saigon,
Republic of Vietnam, on 5 July 1967, murder John Charles Stevens by
means of shooting.  Charge Two: Violation of the Uniform Code of
Military Justice, Article 128, Assault."

" Hartigan paused, then looked down at the paper.

" 'Specification: In that Lieutenant Colonel Wolfgang Xavier Lochert,
5th Special Forces Group, Nha Trang, Republic of Vietnam, APO 96240, did
at 122/3 Tu Do Street, Saigon, Republic of Vietnam, on 5 July 1967,
commit an assault upon John Charles Stevens by striking John Charles
Stevens with his fists and did thereby intentionally inflict grievous
bodily harm upon him."

" Hartigan cleared his throat.  - 'Charge Three: Violation of the
Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 133.  Specification One: In
that Lieutenant Colonel Wolfgang Xavier Lochert, 5th Special Forces
Group, Nha Trang, Republic of Vietnam, APO 96240, did at 122/3 Tu Do
Street, Saigon, Republic of Vietnam, on 5 July 1967, commit murder to
his disgrace and compromise his standing as an officer of the United
States Army.  Charge Four: Violation of the Uniform Code of Military
Justice, Article 109.  Specification: in that Lieutenant Colonel
Wolfgang Xavier Lochert, 5th Special Forces Group, Nha Trang, Republic
of Vietnam, APO 96240, did at 122/3 Tu Do Street, Saigon, Republic of
Vietnam, on 5 July 1967, willfully and wrongfully damage by breaking and
smashing furniture, the amount of said damage being in the sum of about
14,500 piasters, the property of Madam Lien Van Loc." Quite an
accomplishment, Colonel." Hartigan stood up.  "It is my duty," he said
in an officious voice, "to order you placed in pretrial confinement here
at the Long Binh Installation Stockade.  Do you have any questions?"

"Yeah, why don't you unlock these cuffs so I can rip your face off?"

Wolf Lochert rasped.

"Oh no, Colonel, no fancy games so you can call for a mistrial.  But
once you are sentenced, I'll be more than happy to accommodate you out
back of the Conex boxes." Wolf just glowered.

Hartigan took Lochert down a hall past several cells occupied by figures
in prison fatigues, standing or sitting, all smoking cigarettes.  He
stopped at the last cell on the right.  It was empty ' The cell next to
it held a man lying on his steel bunk smoking and reading a lurid pocket
novel.

"Turn around so I can take your cuffs off, Colonel Lochert," the MP
lieutenant said in a quiet voice.  Lochert turned, eyes widened in
curiosity.  He held his wrists out for Hartigan to unlock the cuffs.

"Chaplain Sollivan sends his best and says he will be up to see you
soon, sir," the MP lieutenant said, in a low but respectful voice.  He
had positioned himself so the man in the other cell couldn't hear him.

Then he released the cuffs, locked Wolf in his cell, and walked away. He
trod the freshly shined linoleum as if he wore metal parade taps on his
boots.

A metal GI cot without bedding was welded to the bars of the end wall.

On the bed was a rolled-up mattress.  It was thin and stained.  Wolf
stood next to the bed and looked around.  He estimated the cell to be
six feet by seven.  Fluorescent light shone from the ceiling.  All the
walls were made of one-inch steel bars.

The cells, he noted, were fabricated within a large room in the building
like animal cages in a laboratory.  There were five on each side,
furnished identically with a GI cot, a wooden chair, and a narrow metal
locker with no door that opened toward the cell door.  His cell, like
all the others, had a ceramic washbasin fixed to the back bars.  Next to
it was a toilet with no seat.  Bare pipes were visible behind and under
the fixtures.  Wolf walked to the barred window and looked out at an
exercise yard, where prisoners were slowly walking or performing
in-place exercises.

A few were lifting weights.  Wolf smacked his fist into his palm, again
and again.

The man reading in the next cell looked up.  He was about thirty-five
years old, had dark hair, and measured five foot eleven.  Unlike the
other prisoners in military fatigues, he wore civilian black pants and a
white sport shirt.

"Welcome," he said from his cot.  "Welcome, Colonel Lochen.  I've heard
good things about you." He stood up and held out his hand through the
bars.  Wolf Lochert looked but made no move to take it.

"My name's Bubba Bates," he said, "and you sure look familiar.  " He
pulled his hand back.  He wet his lips.  Lochert looked at him without
speaking.  Bates stared, then spoke.

"Why won't you shake my hand, Colonel?" he asked.  "It's not wise to
make enemies in this place.  You never know who has connections."

"How do you know who I am?" Wolf asked over his shoulder, as he turned
back to the tiny window.

"Word gets around fast, once you're connected," Bates responded.

Wolf knew exactly who Curtis ("Bubba") Bates was.  They had met over a
year before at the Tan Son Nhut Officer's Club.

Bates, the civilian station agent for Alpha Airlines, had brought a
beautiful young Vietnamese girl named Tui to the Club.  When Bates had
become abusive to her, Air FORCE Lieutenant Toby Parker had intervened.

In the ensuing fight, Parker had knocked Bates down, and Wolf had
stopped two of Bates's civilian companions from beating up on Parker.

Bates knew him by name, but did he remember him by his face?  He
fingered his beard.  He hoped not.  He looked at his reflection in the
small window.  The black wire stubble on his face made him look
piratical.  He turned to face Bates.

"Yeah, you're right, let's shake." He did his best to conceal his
disgust at the limp paw Bates presented as they shook hands.

Bates peered at Wolf, obviously puzzled.

"I still think I've seen you somewhere before," he said.  He cocked his
head, then his face lit up.

"I've got it," he said, and snapped his fingers.  "I know who you are. I
mean, I know where I saw your face."

Wolf Lochert imperceptibly bunched himself for an attack.  It wouldn't
do to be recognized as the man who had helped Bubba Bates be vanquished
in the Tan Son Nhut Officer's Club.

"I know," Bates said.  "Last Christmas.  You had your picture in the
Stars and Stripes.  You and three other guys.  Some hippies had splashed
blood on you in the L.A.  airport."

"Yeah," Wolf said, He relaxed.  "Yeah.  That's it.  We had our pictures
plastered all over the stateside papers and the Stars and Stripes over
here.  Even made Newsweek.  Some photographer in the terminal caught it
just as that hippie broad threw red dye on us.  She was screeching and
saying we were murderers."

"And you said you were a killer, not a murderer," Bates said ' Yeah,
that's it.  I remember now." He stared at Lochert a long moment with
hard eyes.

" How come you're all of a sudden in jail?  From an allAmerican hero to
public enemy number one.  Doesn't make sense.

"It does if you look at it from my standpoint," Lochert said.

"Which is?"

"Which is I've had it with those ungrateful bastards.  Give your all for
your country and what do you get?  Some punk kids wearing the American
flag on their ass throwing stuff and spitting on you.  It used to be if
there was a war and you weren't in uniform you got spit on.  The hell
with 'em." Wolf waved his hand in dismissal.

A guard unlocked Wolf's cell door and threw some bedding and a towel on
the floor.  He kicked it toward Wolf, and walked out.  He carefully
locked the door.  Wolf and Bates watched him walk down the hall.

"And to hell with the United States Army, too," Wolf said.

He walked to the far side of the cell with steps that thudded onto the
floor.  He turned to face the man in the cell next to his.

"What are you in for, Bates, and why don't you have prison fatigues on?"

he asked.

"It's like this," Bates said, his voice thin and reedy.  "I'm a
civilian, see, and the MPs got me on a little smuggling charge.

You seen that Viet civilian jail in Saigon?"

Wolf shook his head.

"Well, it's rats and sewer shit and real downtown shakedowns.  Nobody
speaks English.  You know what I mean?"

Wolf shook his head.

"It ain't fit for a civilized man," Bates replied.  "Now, me, got some
connections.  Instead of serving my time down there, fixed it to come
here to the LBJ.  I've got some clout."

"How come you didn't get sent back to the slammer in the States?" Wolf
asked.

"That was handled by a legal technicality involving extradition or
something.  I don't have to go.  Besides, this here jail is considered
federal territory.  So I'm serving federal time, see?"

Bates looked smug.  "Like I said, I got connections."

Wolf rolled out the bare mattress on the springs and stretched out.  "I
gotta rest," he said.  "I got a lot to think about." He closed his eyes.

Bates looked at him for a moment, shrugged imperceptibly, then turned
back to his book.

1830 HOURS LOCAL, SATURDAY.  8 JULY 1967

USARV INSTALLATION STOCKADE LONG BINH.  REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Wolf was finishing his sit-ups.  He was on his third set of the day,
doing sixty repetitions each set.  He had already finished his push-ups
and squats under the same regime.  He did pull-ups on the bars, but not
as many.  He had only been allowed out for ten minutes of exercise in
the morning and ten in the afternoon, always under guard.  No one spoke
to him.  He had been taken to the small mess hall to eat by himself. The
food was not good.

A guard brought Bubba Bates a plastic bag with Vietnamese lettering on
it.  From the bag, Bates extracted a sealed white envelope and read the
contents.  Then he pulled out two beers and a bag of peanuts.  Through
the bars, he offered a can to Wolf, who took it and downed a deep
draught.  He looked appreciatively at Bates.

"One man says I ought to be in leg irons, and here you are giving me a
beer.  Yeah, I guess you got clout, all right." Wolf shook his head in
admiration.  He leaned forward.  "Do you think your clout can help me?"

he asked in a low voice.

"Maybe.  I was wondering if you would ask.  Say, you sure we haven't met
before?" Bates grinned.  His teeth were tobaccostained.

"No, I don't think so.  But you know how it is around Saigon.

You can easily run into the same people at a bar or some club.

It's probably just those pictures you saw of me." Wolf tensed again. For
Bates to remember the old animosity would not be good.  He might go for
revenge, and right now Wolf needed Bubba Bates's good feelings.

"Maybe so.  That's probably it.  But I do know all about you," Bates
said.

"You do?  How come?" Wolf seemed surprised.  "What's going on?"

"What's going on is you killed a man, scragged him good, so I hear.  For
that you're going to spend the rest of your life in Leavenworth prison
in the middle of the Kansas nowhere," Bates said.

"Maybe not," Wolf said.  "I'll get off because it was selfdefense.

"That's not quite the way it works.  You used excessive FORCE to defend
yourself.  FORCE far beyond what would be considered reasonable and
prudent.  Furthermore, you could have walked away.  And further than
that, you struck the first blow." Bates nodded emphatically as he ticked
off each point.  For an instant, he no longer seemed the sleepy-eyed
bumbler.

"How did you know all that?" Wolf asked, his eyes narrow.

"Colonel, you haven't'been listening.  I'll put it another way.

I'm wired in at a very high level, very high indeed."

"Why are you telling me all this?  It isn't just to impress me, is it?"

"No, it isn't just to impress you.  I think we can help each other.  My,
ah, connection thinks so, too."

"If you are so well-connected, why are you in the slammer in the first
place?"

"It was a planned fall," Bates said.  He lit a Marlboro and blew the
smoke toward the ceiling.

"Tell me why you took a planned fall," Wolf growled.

"My, ah, patron needed to establish his credentials.  We worked up a
little scenario where he could, ah, capture me.  The charge was rather
trivial, so my time is about up.  I'm due out in three days.  Meantime,
his record looks good.  And I hdve been paid quite handsomely, quite
handsomely indeed, for my time spent locked up."

"What are his credentials?"

"I'll have to wait until he tells you himself."

"Doesn't he trust you?"

"Of course he trusts me.  Maybe it's you he doesn't trust," Bates said.

Wolf fixed Bates with a narrow-eyed stare.  "We're getting no place. Why
are you telling me all this?"

"Because you need us.  You need our help so you don't go to Leavenworth
for life."

"What makes you think I need you?" Wolf thought of Mahoney and Spears
who would spring him with a can opener, if need be.  Of course, they
were NCOs, and that made the difference.  Outside of Al Charles, there
was no officer he could rely on for such immediate help.  "There's any
number of men I could call who would spring me from here in a
heartbeat," he said.

"You're joking.  You are here under charges legally presented because
you scragged someone.  You think they would risk their careers-more than
that, risk going to jail-to help you get out?  No way."

."I could find a way to get out of here and be free," Wolf said.

"Forget that.  You'd be a fugitive and a deserter.  Somebody would be
looking for you all the time.  After all, you are a murderer, Colonel
Lochert."

0830 HOURS LOCAL, SUNDAY.  9 JULY 1967

USARV INSTALLATION STOCKADE LONG BINH.  REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

The next morning, on Sunday, Wolf lay stretched out on his sweat-soaked
cot.  Except for being allowed out a total of 20 minutes a day for
exercise and for the latrine, he hadn't been out of his cell nor seen
anybody except Bates and the guards.

He had refused to shave with the giant seven-inch bar that cleverly held
a dull blade such that it could never be used as a weapon.  It had been
provided along with other toilet articles.

He lay, half-dozing in the sweltering heat, daydreaming of a cool glen
bordering a stream he knew in northern Minnesota, his home state.  His
thoughts wandered.  He wondered what his buddies would think, seeing the
great Wolf Lochert jammed up in a cell.  He thought of Charmaine, the
ex-wife of the fighter pilot Court Bannister he had known since Bad
Tulz.  Charmaine of the green eyes and long legs; Charmaine who had
given him smoldering glances and little else when they met in Las Vegas
at a week-long party last December thrown by Court's father.

He started to doze, but was abruptly roused when the steel door was
unlocked and thrown open with an echoing clatter.  Lieutenant Hartigan
stood there, "Someone here to see you, a big wheel," he said, and
handcuffed him.  Hartigan was wearing fatigues with sidearm.  He carried
a nightstick.  From his cot, Bates watched the scene with hooded eyes.
He had a small enigmatic smile on his face.

Hartigan led Wolf Lochert out of the cell area into the hallway.  He
stopped before an unmarked door.

"We'll have to wait in here, Colonel," he said loudly, using his
customary sarcasm.  "Your big-wheel visitor will he along soon."

The room was sparse and set up for interrogation and lawyer/prisoner
visits.  A two-way mirror was set in a wall.  From the other side,
victims could see a lineup without being seen, or military police
officials could view an interrogation.  Two scratched and dented gray
steel chairs stood on each side of a battered gray steel table.  A large
electric clock with a white face hung on one wall.  An old air
conditioner braced in a rectangle cut out of the wall clattered and
chugged.  Cold air puffed from the broken vents, condensation dripping
yellow map outlines on the faded green wall.  In a far corner was a
humming water cooler.  The brackish liquid in its tank denoted water
heavily laced with iodine and chlorine.  Hartigan winked and shook his
head slightly to discourage conversation.  The two-officers sat without
speaking for twenty minutes.  At ten o'clock, the door opened.

A slim Army major general entered.  He was of medium height, and had a
light and sallow complexion.  His eyes were light blue and watery.  His
khakis were pressed knife-sharp.  His collars held the two stars of his
rank.

Hartigan jumped to his feet and saluted.  "He's all yours, General, " he
said.

"Thank you, Lieutenant.  Take the cuffs off him," the general said, and
dismissed him.

"Colonel Lochert, glad to meet you." The general extended his hand.

"Please be seated.  I'm Major General Joseph Wohler, the Provost General
for all of Vietnam.  I'm so sorry to meet you under these conditions.  I
have heard so much about you.  You have set a fine record, which none of
us can hope to follow."

He used a self-deprecating tone.  On his left breast he- wore ribbons
showing he had served in World War II and Korea.  There was a DSC, two
Silver Stars, and several commendations, along with a Legion of Merit
and a Bronze Star.

The general spoke in a soothing voice.  "We will attempt to convene a
board of court-martial at the earliest possible moment, rest assured.

It's easy enough to get a law officer to act as judge, but it is
difficult to get a jury, that is, a court of your peers, together all at
once.  Your little problem in Saigon was, well, rather unwise.  I simply
cannot understand how you of all people could do such a thing."

Provost General Wohler seemed genuinely interested, perhaps even
sympathetic.

"Look, General, as far as I'm concerned, I didn't do anything.  I was
defending myself, and no court-martial board will convict me for that."

Wolf slammed his fist on the table, his face angry, thick black brows
drawn together.  "And where is my counsel?  Why haven't you appointed me
a military lawyer?

I'm entitled to one.  He should have been here long ago.  Where is he?"

He stood up, working himself into a smoldering rage.

"Take it easy, Colonel," Wohler said.  "We're working on that.  Most of
the young men are quite busy out in the field.  Rest assured, we will
get you one soon.  In the meantime, wouldn't you feel better if you
shaved?" The general pulled his lips back in a movement that was more a
horizontal rictus stretch than the smile he thought it was.  Nor did his
eyes crinkle.

"I was defending myself.  I will be acquitted.  Then I'm getting out of
the army," Lochert bellowed.  "And I'm not going to shave until I get
out!"

"Colonel Lochert, please, relax," Provost General Wohler said, his eyes
watching Wolf Lochert closely.  "Maybe that's just the way it will work
out.  Maybe you will be let go.  The military criminal justice system in
Vietnam is eminently fair and impartial."

"Oh yeah?  You can take your 'eminently fair and impartial' and shove
it!  "

"Dog rot it, Lochert, relax, I tell you." The Provost General seemed to
make a decision.  "Look, I'll make better arrangements for you here.

More yard time.  Better food.  And if you don't like the food here, I
can arrange for something to be brought from the Officer's Club.  Now
what is more fair than that?" Wohler made his rictus stretch at Lochert,
then suddenly pulled out his handkerchief and sneezed twice.  "Allergy,"
Wohler mumbled.

"Why are you being so eminentlyfair?" Wolf asked when he was through.

"Because you are a worthy man, Colonel.  And I want to help you." He put
his handkerchief away.

"Aren't you afraid of conflict of interest or prejudicial conduct before
a trial?" Wolf asked.

"No, I don't think so," the general said.  "Besides, it may not even go
to trial, First there has to be a preliminary hearing.

Maybe, if things work well at the hearing, there won't even be a trial."

"What do you mean, 'work well'?" Wolf asked.

"Dod rot it, don't ask so many questions.  Let's just say you have
friends and let it go for the moment." He stood up.  "We will talk about
this later.  Can't talk you into shaving?" He saw the look on Lochert's
face.  "No, I guess not." He stuck his head outside the door and called
for Hartigan.  "No cuffs, more yard time, take him back," he told him.

Wohler nodded goodbye and walked down the hall.  Hartigan locked Wolf
Lochert back into his cell.

Bubba Bates had a strange, almost smug look on his face.

"Well?" he said.

"Well what?" Wolf asked.

"How did it go?"

"What do you mean, 'how did it go?" How could it possibly go?  He said
he would be fair with me.  As if the system could possibly be fair." He
spit the word out like a piece of bad food Bates looked steadily at him.

"What if we get you off?  Completely off.  All charges dismissed."

"How can you do that?  After all, I did shoot the guy, even if it was
self-defense - " Wolf knitted his brows.  "What would you do?  Produce
some witnesses who said I didn't do it?  That wouldn't work, because
there are too many other people identified who saw me do it."

"We'd do better than that, Colonel, far better.  We would produce a man
who would say he shot that GI.  A man who looks very much like you. Then
you would be freed on your own recognizance until the formal hearing
which would completely exonerate you.  How does that sound?"

Lieutenant Colonel Wolf Lochert stood up and walked to the tiny window.

He watched two stockade prisoners watering some wilting potted plants
next to the wooden latrine.  He spoke without turning.

"Okay," he said, "it sounds good.  When do I get out?  What do I do?"

"Right now, you do nothing.  We'll get you out in a matter of days.

Then, at first, you would also do nothing.  We will help you make sure
you get some obscure job in Saigon so you will have plenty of spare
time.  You just go around as normal and keep your eyes open and your
mouth shut

"All right, so your people get me out of here, " he said.

"When can I get out of the Army?"

"You don't get out of the Army.  At least not right away," Bubba Bates
said.

"Oh, yeah?  Just what am I supposed to do?  Where do I fit into whatever
it is they do?"

"Well, there is one little thing," Bates said.

"What's that?"

:'You'll have to prove yourself."

"What do you mean, 'prove myself'?  Seems to me you've gone through
quite a bit to get me to this point.  Now you want me to prove something
to you.  Prove what?"

"Prove your loyalty."

"How?" Wolf snapped.

By killing someone for us.  You do that for us, Colonel, and we will cut
you in on the whole thing.  We need a man of your skills and connections
as a planner and an enforcer.  But you must prove your loyalty."

"That's not proving my loyalty," Wolf said in 4 disgusted tone.  "That's
setting me up so you've got a hook into me for life.  Nothing doing.  No
deal." He moved suddenly, reached through the bars and grabbed Bubba
Bates by the shirt front and jerked him close.

"You prove your loyalty.  You and your people get me out of here, then
we'll talk about what I will or will not do for you."

He pushed Bates back, causing him to stumble and fall to the floor.

Bates's face was red.  He struggled to his feet.  "Lochert, you just
dealt yourself out of the best card game in town."

"Bates, I didn't deal myself out of anything.  You don't have any
say-so.  When I get out of here, I'll tell you and your boss whether or
not I want in."

:,It doesn't work that way," Bates protested.

"You want me, it's got to work that way."

1715 HOURS LOCAL.  FRIDAY, 14 JuLY 1967

RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE SAN ANTONIO.  TEXAS

Captain Toby Parker tapped the steering wheel of his Corvette in time
with the strong beat from The Doors' "Light My Fire - " His flight suit
was stained with sweat, but he was happy.  He had aced an early morning
navigation test, and had just landed from the smoothest formation flight
he had ever flown.  Now he had the whole weekend to be by himself, and
maybe go someplace and drink; maybe Corpus Christi.

He wheeled into the lot next to the BOQ, parked near the main entrance,
and took the steps two at a time.  Quick shower and he'd be on the road.

He flung open the main door and started through the lobby.  He skidded
to a stop and stared at the girl seated on a couch.  An overnight kit
and garment bag were next to her.

"Hello, Toby," Tiffy Berg said.  She was a firm and chunky brunette. She
wore light gray slacks and a white blouse.  She had a soft smile on her
generous lips.

"My God, Tiffy, what are you doing here?" In an instant, memories of her
and Vietnam flooded back.

For two HOURS they sat and talked in the dining room at the Officer's
Club.  After two cups of coffee, Toby had ordered beer.

He finally asked her why she had come.  "I didn't think you were
interested," he said.

Tiffy covered his hand with her own.  "Chet Griggs called me, because he
was worried about you.  He's so sweet," she said.

"He sounded so sincere and so worried I'd take it wrong when he called.

Said that although he was no longer your instructor, he was concerned.

He said you really needed someone around you that cared.  I had some
time off due.  So here I am, all yours for ten days." She smiled
uncertainly.

Toby wasn't exactly leaping for joy.  "So, what did he say he was
worried about?" he asked in a flat voice.

Tiffy tried to brighten her smile.  "Why not pack and we'll take a
weekend drive?  I'm all packed, so let's just hit the road.

It's a lovely time of year to see the Gulf."

"Tiffy, answer my question.  What did he say he was worried about?  "

She stood up.  "Let's talk about it in the car.  You get us on the road
and I promise to tell you all about it." She shoved his beer away from
him.

They made Corpus Christi just after sunset.  Toby drove in silence and
seemed to be enjoying the trip.  They drove with the top down, letting
the wind and sun tousle their hair and crisp their faces.  He had not
repeated his question about why Chet Griggs had called.  They took a
room with twin beds in the Gulf Ramada, and ate seafood on the dock
overlooking the Gulf.

When Toby ordered wine, Tiffy said she wanted only iced tea.

Later they stopped by a beach bar.  Toby drank beer and happily soaked
up the raucous atmosphere.  They were back at the Ramada by midnight,
after an argument over who should drive the car.  Tiffy drove, and
calmed Toby by saying she had never driven a Corvette before.

"Hell, I don't care.  Drive all you want.  Enjoy yourself.  Makes it
easier for me, actually.  " He took a pull from the beer he had smuggled
from the bar.

Once in their second-story room, Tiffy went into the bathroom.  Toby
splashed scotch into a silver cup from his traveling kit, and slid open
the door to the Gulf.  Salty humid air rolled in to replace the dry
processed air from the vents.  He stepped out onto the balcony, The low,
oily surf rumbled softly.  Toby stood at the rail and tried to clear his
mind.  He began to feel fuzzy and hazy, and slightly nauseated.  He
turned back to the room.

Tiffy came out of the bathroom wearing a sheer white chemise, firm
breasts jutting.  She had a small unsure smile on her face.

"Well, look at you," Toby said.  "Here I am ready for the shack .  .  .

sack, to sleep, I mean, and look at you, all ready ior fun and, and .  .

.  wha's the word?  Oh yeah, frolic.  Tiffy's smile faded as Toby poured
himself a scotch.  He took a deep swallow, then stood, hipshot, absently
tapping the silver cup against his lower lip.  He shook his head.

"It's no use, you know.  Sex, I mean.  Why don't you just have a drink?"

he said.

"Can I have yours?"

"Sure, here." He handed it to her.

"Thanks," she said, sniffed it, made a face, and quickly poured it into
the bathroom sink.  She returned and sat on a bed.

"Come over here," she said, patting the space next to her.

Toby shook his head.  "It's no use.  No use.  That one time in the
Philippines was just that, a one-time thing.  I just can't do it.

This is all a waste of time." He poured another scotch.  "You never did
tell me why Chet Griggs called."

"Well, he didn't call me because he was worried about any sexual
dysfunctions you might think you have.  He called me because you drink
too much."

"That pompous ass.  Who in hell gave him the right to mess in my life?"

He sipped the scotch.

"You know, for a brand new Air FORCE pilot-to-be, you're really quite
dim.  He thinks you are a valuable person." She gave him a down-turned
smile.  "So do I, I think you are very valuable.  But you drink too damn
much."

"That's not true.  I don't drink any more or less than any of the other
guys." He waved his scotch cup.

"Toby, it isn't necessarily how much you drink, it's what happens to you
when you do.  You lose control.  Your judgment goes bad.  And it happens
fast." She beat her fist on her thigh.

"You are an alcoholic.  When you're drunk, you get all strange.

Admit it, why don't you?  You get all funny.  Do you know what I'm
talking about?"

He snorted.  "No, I don't.  And you don't, either.  You don't know what
you're talking about." He moved to the chair next to the bed, and
spilled his drink as he sat down.  He cocked his head and smiled. "Well,
maybe a little bit.  Okay.  So what happens to me?  What do you mean,
'all funny?  Tiffy drew her knees up under her and smoothed her chemise.

"For one thing, you become morose and sullen."

"Nothing strange about that," he interrupted.  "Besides, I didn't
tonight."

"Maybe not, but you usually do.  You usually start mumbling about
Vietnam and Phil Travers and that girl.  See, even now you have
something of hers." Tiffy pointed to the pieces of jade suspended on a
gold chain around Toby's neck.

"Leave that, and her, and everything else out of this.  I don't even
know what we're talking about." Toby scowled as he spoke.  His face
reddened.  "You want to screw, or what?"

"Oh Toby, you look so angry and pouting.  You're such a little boy. Your
mood changes so fast.  I thought you wanted to know what I meant about
your drinking."

"Well, I don't.  I changed my mind.  I didn't ask you down here, you
know."

"I know that.  I'm here because, like Chet Griggs, I really like you and
want you to be happy.  You're quite a guy, but I don't think you know
that."

He snorted.  "My parents wouldn't quite agree with you.  To them 'quite
a guy' is someone who runs around Fauquier County, Virginia, in a
Cadillac between horse shows and big real estate deals."

"Doesn't the fact that you earned the Air FORCE Cross, that you're soon
to be an Air FORCE pilot, mean anything to them?

My God, what do they expect from you?"

"I already told you.  It's a world of Cadillacs and cul-de-sacs, and
they want me to be a permanent part of it.  Nothing less.  Anything
outside that world doesn't exist." He took another sip.

She looked at him, her soft brown eyes filled with tenderness.

He stared back.

"Ah," he said.  "I see more compassion in your eyes than passion.  You
look like a cocker spaniel that someone just smacked." He waved his
drink at her.  "What are you, big mama for all the little broken-wing
birds?  Yahh, you shouldn't have come to see me.  Waste of time.  I'm
not the guy you should tangle up with." He hunched over.

"Toby, don't be that way." She looked hurt.  "Aren't you sleepy yet?

Come to bed." She stood and folded the covers back.

"What do you want?  Leave me alone." He stood up, weaving from side to
side.

Tiffy got up and put her hands on his chest.  "Toby, oh Toby.

How can I get through to you?"

"You don't need to get through to me 'bout nothin'.  I'm telling you,
I'm not the guy you think I am.  I'm not the guy for you.  I I She
stepped back.  "Look, I like you.  Maybe I don't love you, but I like
you, very much, and I want to help you."

Toby blinked at her, owlishly, trying to focus.  His knees locked and
unlocked as he struggled to keep his balance.  He was fading rapidly.

"You're not getting a word of what I'm saying, are you?"

she said.  He didn't resist when she helped him out of his clothes and
into bed with her.  She held him, his head on her breast, until his
breathing deepened, then placed him gently on his own pillow.  She got
up and went out on the balcony for a smoke.

She stared at the distant waves without seeing them, her thoughts
solidifying.

Berg, you are one dumb bunny.  Leave this guy.  Leave him now.  You are
starting to maybe love him?  Bad, bad, bad.  Get back to L.A.  Fly, and
date, and fly some more.  This is a nowin deal.  Get out.  She nodded to
herself.  Do what he says, leave him.  If she felt the same way in the
morning, she would.

The next day, Saturday, Tiffy Berg flew back to her base at Los Angeles.

Late Sunday afternoon, sick and dizzy, Toby checked out of the Ramada.

He drove straight to San Antonio, stopping only for a six-pack of beer.

On a particularly lonely stretch of the highway, he had the Vette up to
125 mph.

1130 HOURS LOCAL, WEDNESDAY, 19 JULY 1967

OVAL Office.  THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON.  D.C.

The bathroom was larger than one in a deluxe room in a good hotel.  Not
gold-plated, but not cheap chrome, either.  The predominant color was
blue.  Blue-and-white four-inch Scallezi tiles covered the floor up to
the level of the towel racks, which held deep-pile terrycloth towels
ranging in size from hand to bath.

Double sinks were set side by side in Athenian marble.  Kohler Goldflow
spigots and single-flow spouts fed each basin.  The shower, with sliding
glass panels, was outsize.  It had four four-inch swiveling heads which
could be directed from three sides at the person showering.  In the
ceiling was mounted an eight horsepower exhaust fan between twin rows of
inset 48-inch fluorescent lighting tubes.  On the wall, within reach of
the oversize toilet, was a push-button intercom system.  Next to the
intercom hung a black wall phone with four lighted line buttons and a
hold button.  The toilet was a dark blue Kohler with a large capacity
tank.  Between the toilet and the shower was a magazine rack containing
the latest Time, Newsweek, and U.S.  News & World Report.

At the sound of a discreet beep, the big man seated on the toilet
pressed the intercom button.  Dark trousers circled his ankles like
leaves gathered at the base of a tree.  His bare legs were white and
hairless.  They looked like two poles sticking up from the leaves.

"Yes, Ethel.  What is it?"

"Mr.  President," the crisp female voice with barely a hint of a Texas
accent intoned, "General Whisenand is here for his ten o'clock
appointment."

"Show him in, show him in," the President's voice boomed from the
intercom box on Ethel's desk.  If the faint echo indicated to her that
the President was speaking from the bathroom, she gave no sign.  She
looked up at the white-haired, rather portly Air FORCE major general,
her face and voice betraying no hint of where her boss might be.

"Right now, sir?" she said.

"Yes, goddarnmit, right now," the President thundered.

Ethel's face remained expressionless.  She had been with LBJ since the
Senate, and was more than used to his temperamental excesses.

"You may go in now, General Whisenand," she said, and indicated the Oval
Office door to the right of her desk.  They were in the corridor
anteroom of the West Wing of the White House.  She noticed the general
carried, as usual, his battered brown leather envelope-style briefcase.

Tht!  USAAF imprint was barely visible on the flap of the Briefcase,
Navigational Satchel Type, MB-I, that had been issued to Second
Lieutenant Albert G.  ("Whitey") Whisenand when he had been a student
pilot in the United States Army Air FORCE at Randolph Army Base, Texas,
in the thirties.  Though his career started in fighters in the thirties,
Whitey had been sidelined to intelligence after a near fatal crash in
Korea.  He still bore burn scares that made his face look as if he had
just removed his oxygen mask after a long flight.

Once a week, Ethel had announced General Whisenand to the Oval Office,
where he saw the President in his capacity as the Special Advisor for
Air Support on LBJ's National Security Council.  It was usually on
Tuesday, just before the weekly luncheon where the President and his
civilian advisors picked the next targets in North Vietnam to be struck
by Air FORCE and Navy planes in an operation called Rolling Thunder. The
general was never invited to the luncheons, not since the incident 18
months ago.  The incident had revolved around the answer Whisenand had
given to a question posed to him by the President.

"Tell me," the President had asked, "how do you like my ability to run
an air war?"

When Whitey had finished informing his Commander in Chief just how badly
he was wasting American lives and airplanes, sending piecemeal attacks
on North Vietnamese supply points, there had been stunned silence among
those present, as they waited for the big Texan to explode.  Instead,
after narrow-eyed reflection, the President had thrown back his head in
a big guffaw and said, "Whitey, you old fart, you don't give an inch, do
you?

The President had realized he had on his hands an utterly honest
military officer who put integrity over career, who, regardless of what
the President wanted to hear, would tell the President what he should
hear.  At that point, LBJ had decided to move Major General Albert G.

Whisenand from his position in the Pentagon as Director of Operations
and Planning Special (Detached) to the Secretary of Defense, to the
position of Special Advisor to the President's National Security
Council.  LBJ had been vague about his new duties.  The best Whitey
could tell, he was to monitor and advise on the correct application of
air power in the Vietnam war.  He had not been used much in this
capacity He had become restive and discouraged, and had a faint
suspicion he was a patsy, so LBJ could refute those who claimed
civilians were running the whole war.  He could point to Major General
Albert Whisenand, a highly experienced military personage who was
advising him.

General Albert G.  ("Whitey") Whisenand opened the door and strode into
the Oval Office.

"Whitey, come in, come in." The President's cordial voice echoed from
behind the partially opened bathroom door.

"Good morning, Mr.  President," Whitey said.  He walked over to sit in
the leftmost leather wing chair in front of the President's desk.  He
sat with his back to the partially opened bathroom door.

"Open the door, open the door, Whitey," the President said, so I can see
you.  We have to talk."

Whitey stood, placed his old briefcase and hard-brimmed blue hat on the
credenza to the left of the bathroom door, and pushed it open.  He kept
his face devoid of expression as he looked at his Commander in Chief,
President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who sat on the blue Kohler, black
trousers around his feet, white shirt tucked under his armpits, red
necktie thrown over his left shoulder so as to not interfere with his
duties.  The seated man had a broad smile on his face.

Whitey returned to the chair and sat with his back to the President.  "I
hear you just fine, Mr.  President," he said, raising his voice
slightly.  Whitey was aware of the President's ploy.  He liked to assert
his maleness and position of power by talking to certain people while
seated on the "throne," as he called it in his Texas vernacular.  As did
King Louis XIVth, Whitey remembered, or was it the XVth, who sat on his
large toilet box covered with heavy robes while conferring with members
of his Court.  Undaunted, Whitey waited for the President's reply.

At 56, Whitey was old for a major general.  He held his active duty
commission at the sufferance of the United States Congress.

They remembered and appreciated him for his great ability as an
intelligence officer; he had verified the Russian missiles in Cuba.

They knew of his great integrity; he had warned Eisenhower, along with
General Matthew Ridgeway, not to involve American forces on the ground
with the French at Dien Bien Phu.  They appreciated his
straightforwardness in warning the DoD and Congress to stay out of
Southeast Asia, specifically, Vietnam.

Thus, most of the Congress had felt secure when Whitey had been assigned
to Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara as Director of
Operations and Plans (Detached).  His job had been to screen targets for
air strikes emanating from the unwieldy chain of command from Vietnam.

Air operations in South Vietnam were directed by COMUSMACV-Commander,
United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam-who was Army General
William Westmoreland.  COMUSMACV directed air operations through
Commander, Seventh Air FORCE, a USAF general.  Both commanders and their
offices were in the MACV compound on the sprawling Tan Son Nhut Air
Base, outside of Saigon.

Unlike those for South Vietnam, air operations in North Vietnam were
controlled by Admiral Grant Sharp as CINCPAC through his subordinates,
the Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet (CINCPACFLT), and the Commander in
Chief Pacific Air FORCE (CINCPACAF).  CINCPAC received his targets from
the President and his civilian strap-hangers.

CINCPACFLT relayed the orders to use naval air power to Commander Task
FORCE 77, a flotilla of U.S.  Navy carriers and supporting ships off the
coast of North Vietnam at a position called Yankee Station.

CINCPACAF relayed his orders to Commander, 7th Air FORCE, located at Tan
Son Nhut Air Base, Republic of Vietnam.

This unwieldy dual-chain of command, the lack of a single manager for
air power, cost lives and the loss of hundreds of air planes because of
duplication and lack of coordination.  in the early years, Navy and Air
FORCE fighters had even struck targets in adjacent areas, because they
hadn't known the other would be there at the same time.  Incidents such
as that had led to the Route Pack system, which divided North Vietnam
into seven geographical target areas assigned either to the Air FORCE or
the Navy.

Whitey's task, along with two subordinates, USAF Colonel Ralph Morgan
and Navy Captain Jim Tunner.  had been to massage the list for targets
that would not inflame the public, while inflicting maximum damage on
the North Vietnamese Communists.  They had immediately found the two
specifications to be incompatible.  In the long run, however, that made
no difference.

Regardless of their recommendations, the target list they rank ordered
and submitted to the President was mangled by the Tuesday civilian lunch
bunch.

Now Whitey had just returned from his second trip to Vietnam made at the
President's direction.

The first had been to determine why so many Air FORCE and Navy aircraft
were being lost over North Vietnam.  The answer he had given was simple.

The losses were due strictly to the rules of engagement that prevented
the Air FORCE and Navy from taking out the air defense system.  They
could not attack airfields or SAM (Surface-to-Air Missiles) sites, or
destroy MiGs on the ground.  Nor could they go after the supplies and
SAMs sitting openly on flatcars in the rail yards.  They were allowed to
evade them the best they could in the air at any time, but even that was
often a wash, because the strike scheduling, done by Lyndon Baines
Johnson and his Tuesday civilian luncheon group, put the American attack
airplanes in the air at predictable times coming from predictable
headings.

Whitey had just returned from his second trip two weeks ago.

He had been instructed by LBJ to report to him personally why all the
American military might, with all its technological advantage, couldn't
stop those little fellas from running a few rice bags and some bullets
into South Vietnam down that there trail of Ho's.

"All I'm asking for," the President had said, "is some plain old
everyday interdiction," pronouncing it " intradiction."

"That intradiction thing is something you air power guys been telling us
for years you can do so well.  Look how well it worked in Europe in
1944.  Why, ole Hitler couldn't move one boxcar 'cross France to his
troops defending the Normandy beach."

"Mr.  President," Whitey had responded, "the terrain was level, the
countryside friendly, the air defense negligible.  The case for the Ho
Chi Minh Trail is just the opposite.  The terrain is mountainous, the
countryside full of the enemy, and the defensive guns massive.

Furthermore, the roads in Europe were clearly defined, as were the rail
lines.  This is not true where the Trail runs through Laos and Cambodia,
and on into South Vietnam.  It isn't really a trail at all.  It is a
series of footpaths, oxcart ruts, and sometimes a dirt road not more
than eight feet wide.

There are hundreds and hundreds of miles of these, running like a
twisted cobweb.  They are rarely in the open.  Mostly, they are under
double and triple canopy.  With them are switchbacks, cat's eyes,
revetted truck parks, storage caves, and about four hundred thousand
workers whose only job is to fill in the bomb craters in a road of sand.

That, and sweeping up the aluminum of shotdown Air FORCE and Navy
fighters.  As primitive as it sounds, Intelligence estimates they can
have 200 tons on that road any given day.

Weeks before, Whitey had patiently explained that the tons of mat6fiel
run down the supply network that fanned out from North Vietnam through
Laos and Cambodia by thousands of trucks protected by hundreds of guns
could easily be stopped by cutting them off at the source before they
even got close to the Trail.

"You mean bomb Russia and China?" LBJ had all but yelled.

No, Whitey had explained.  Just cut the two rail lines that come from
China into North Vietnam, and prevent the supply ships from off-loading
by such measures as mining the harbors, mainly Haiphong.  That would
stop the supplies into Vietnam.

"They would soon run out of the mat6fiel to send down the Ho Chi Minh
Trail.  They would also run out of the antiaircraftgun ammunition and
SAMs they use to down American planes.

That," Whitey had concluded, "seems a reasonable and prudent way to
bring the North Vietnamese representatives to the negotiation table."

Attending the briefing that day two weeks past had been Secretary of
Defense Robert Strange McNamara.  McNamara did not much care for Major
General Albert G.  Whisenand, because the USAF general seemed
unimpressed with the Secretary's ways.

Black hair combed straight back, razor-eyed, in a crisp monotone,
McNamara had told Whitey that what Whitey proposed and the military
proposed, for that matter-was impossible, because it was against the
Rules of Engagement.

That the Rules of Engagement, ROE, as they were called, had taken on a
life of their own hadn't occurred to, much less bothered, LBJ or his
court.  Men like McNamara and his staff members were convinced they knew
more than the military.  They weren't about to let those warmongering
generals engulf the great United States in World War II1.  Not one of
those civilian men had ever seen combat.  Those that had served in the
military in WWII, such as McNamara and Johnson, had done so in supply
and logistics positions.

The toilet roared.  The President walked out, zipping up his trousers.

"I suppose you brought your 'black' board?" he asked.  He was referring
to the black-edged 8'b-by-11-inch poster board containing POW
information that Whitey Whisenand always carried.

"Yes, sir," Whitey said.  He opened the flap on his ancient briefcase
and dug out the acetate-covered poster board that he updated every day
with a grease pencil.  He carried it to all the briefings and meetings
he attended, and made a point of bringing it out whether or not he was a
participant, and whether or not such a presentation was appropriate.

Whitey knew it was always appropriate to know how many airmen were
sacrificing their lives while Washington bureaucrats debated the
sanctity of command, or the efficacy of sending messages to Ho Chi Minh
via the United States armed forces.  No one dared tell him different.

Major General Albert G.  Whisenand read the statistics to his Commander
in Chief, Lyndon Baines Johnson, President of the United States, in a
loud, clear voice.

MIAXIA POW AIRCRAFT USAF 358 199 759 USN 197 102 326 USMC 24 11 193 USA
125 45 379 (Helios)

TOTAL 704 357 1657

"Nearly one thousand pilots are gone, Mr.  President.  And Of airplanes,
Mr.  President, two hundred sixty-eight are F-105s, hundred sixty are
F-4s, and one hundred forty-three are A-4s.

There was silence for a moment, then the President spoke.

"Goddamn, Whitey, you always sound like the man at the tomb reading the
scroll of the dead - "

"Mr.  President, I feel like the man at the tomb reading the scroll of
the dead." He did not tell his boss that because of these losses and his
feeling of helplessness, he was a little more into the red wine each
night than his beloved wife, Sal, thought wise.

The President walked to his desk and sat down.  He put his big head in
his hands.  He pressed his eyes with his palms, then looked up at Whitey
with eyes of infinite sadness.

"You hurt me," he said quietly.  "You hurt me more than you know, every
time you do that.  And I get complaints about you.  I get complaints
that you do the same thing every damn time you get the chance.  You show
that damn board around.  A thousand pilots.  My God." The big Texan
stood up to his full 6-foot, 3-inch height.  "And you know what I tell
those complainers," his voice resounded.  "I tell the bastards that if
they don't like to hear what's happening to our boys then they got no
gawdamn business being in the govmint.  " He pounded the back of his
chair.  He was in possession of himself again.

Whitey judged the time right once again to bring up the subject of
prisoners of war.  "Mr.  President," he began, "I believe you should
consider plans to send in forces to rescue our prisoners of war.  We
both know that as long as Ho Chi Minh holds hundreds of our men, he has
the upper hand for negotiations.  It means nothing to him that we hold
thousands of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese prisoners.  He does not
acknowledge their existence.  He knows full well we value the life of
each man he holds.  Why else would we risk so many lives and airplanes
to rescue them when they are shot down?  Based on his record of not
giving anything away, I urge you to consider and approve large-scale
rescue plans."

The President looked out the French doors facing the Rose Garden for a
long time before he spoke.  "I cannot do it." He turned to face Whitey.

"You don't understand.  Sending rescue forces into North Vietnam is the
same as an invasion.  I know, I just know, there are secret treaties
between Russia and Red China to help North Vietnam if I cross a certain
line.  An invasion would bring Red China and Russia into the war.  You
don't know how many times I worry, when I pick the targets I let you
generals strike up North, that this or that one might be the very one
that triggers World War II1.  " The tall man bent over his desk.

His eyes flicked back and forth as he pawed among his papers, and he
finally seized one.

"I am pursuing another course.  Take this," he ordered.  "Read it." He
handed Whitey a letter on White House stationery.  "This is why I called
you over.  I want your opinion.  It's a draft, Of course," the President
said.  "Take a good look, particularly paragraphs six, seven, and
eight."

The letter was addressed to His Excellency, Ho Chi Minh, President,
Democratic Republic of Vietnam.  "Dear Mr.  President," it began.  After
some platitudes about "a just and peaceful" solution, it brought up
"direct talks in a secure setting."

Whitey studied the paragraphs the President had indicated.

In the past two weeks, I have noticed public statements by
representatives of your government suggesting that you would be prepared
to enter into direct bilateral talks with representatives of the US
Government, provided that we ceased "unconditionally" and permanently
our bombing operations against your country and all military actions
against it.  In the last day, serious and responsible parties have
assured us indirectly that this is in fact your proposal.

Let me frankly state that I see two great difficulties with this
proposal.  In view of your public position, such action on our part
would inevitably produce worldwide speculation that discussions were
under way and would impair the privacy and security of those
discussions.  Secondly, there would inevitably be grave concern on our
part whether your government would make use of such action by us to
improve its military position.  With these problems in mind, I am
prepared to move even further toward an ending of hostilities than your
government has proposed in either public statements or through private
diplomatic channels.  I am prepared to order a cessation of bombing
against your country and the stopping of further augmentation of US
forces in South Vietnam as soon as I am assured that infiltration into
South Vietnam by land and by sea has stopped.

These acts of restraint on both sides would, I believe, make it possible
for us to conduct serious and private discussions leading toward an
early peace.

As to the site of the bilateral discussions I propose, there are several
possibilities.  We could, for example, have our representatives meet in
Moscow where contacts have already occurred.

"Well, what do you think, Whitey?  Will the old rascal meet with us?  Do
you think this is the best way to approach him?"

LBJ took a cold Fresca from his small refrigerator and popped it open.

Whitey declined an offered can with a wave.

"I have two questions, sir," Whitey said.  "You mentioned statements by
North Vietnamese public officials.  I take it you have not received any
formal communication from Ho Chi Minh or a deputy?"

"I have not.  What is your second question?" the President asked.

"Based on the fact you have received no official communication from Ho,
what makes you think he will even respond to this letter, much less in a
favorable way?"

LBJ peered at Whitey over his glasses.  His eyes were no longer
friendly, his brow was deeply furrowed.

"Dammit, Whitey, why do you insist on putting my feet to the fire?" He
picked up his appointment book, pretended to study it, then slammed it
on his desk.  "I don't know if he will answer.  I don't know if he'll
agree.  I do know I haven't any other good ideas at the moment.  I do
have more pressure from the JCS to hit more targets in North Vietnam."

He stood up.

"And I do have the most pressure from these peacenik hippie people right
here in the United States.  From these people who want us to put our
tail between our legs and run like a whipped cur." He shook his finger
at Whitey.  "Whisenand, if you've got a better idea, I damn well want to
hear it."

Whitey sighed.  "Mr.  President.  My ideas are, as always, either go all
the way or get out.  I'm sure you are bored with my repeating that."

"No," the President said, "I'm not bored with your line."

He pointed outside.  ','But if I did either option, I could never be
their President again.  I do have a second term coming up, you know.

1630 HOURS LOCAL.  WEDNESDAY.  26 JULY 1967

CHOLON DISTRICT.  SAIGON ]REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Cholon was a city within itself, a Chinese city, located on the
southeastern edge of Saigon.  Ninety percent of the inhabitants were
ethnic Chinese, the remainder were East Indian, Burmese, and Vietnamese.

A contingent of American deserters there was rapidly growing.  A
combination of things made Cholon a haven for the unsavory: Any quantity
or quality of sin and drugs was on sale for modest prices; the area was
so dangerous for Vietnamese Quan Canh (QC) and American Military Police
(MPs) that a deserter, American or Vietnamese, could hide out forever;
and bribes up to 100,000 P were common from males wanting to avoid being
drafted into the Vietnamese army.

The man who held this disorderly and notorious ghetto together was the
Chief of Police of Precinct Five, Y.  Lim.  He had paid fifteen million
piasters, about 127,000 American dollars, to buy his post.  By ruthless
control of pimps, drugs, the black market, and visas, he was able to
bring in triple that amount each year into his personal coffers.

Lim was a contented man.  He kept an armed enclave at his precinct house
in the depths of Cholo'n.  There, he maintained his command post for all
his activities-legal, illegal, and pleasurable.  For pleasure, he kept
concubines for his use, and for the use of his favored friends.  When he
needed to travel, he and his three bodyguards were chauffeured around in
one of his three black Mercedes 26ODs.  For security purposes, the other
two Mercedes were kept moving at the same time in diverse places with
shadowy figures that could have been Lim and his guards.

To appease his deep-rooted Chinese sense of family, and because he
wanted to perpetuate the family line, he maintained an eighteen-room
villa on rue des Trois Fleurs in the exclusive northeastern section of
Saigon.  He kept his wife and four children at the villa, along with his
mother and two uncles.  A staff of nine tended to them.  They knew
little of his work in Cholon.

But Lim was unhappy.  He had a problem: how to move 175 tons of valuable
goods.  At five tons per truck, he needed fifteen trucks to carry the
Portland cement, ten trucks for the corrugated tin, and ten trucks for
the GI clothing.  Even in these loose times, thirty-five truckloads of
stolen goods was hefty and highly visible booty.  These valuable items
had to be moved from the Saigon Harbor docks within two days.  Failure
to do so would result in their rightful owner, the United States
Government, claiming them when the paper trail led some clerk to
discover the goods had already been unloaded and were just sitting on
the docks.

The United States Government had been told by the Saigon Port Authority
that the articles were still on some of the 19 ships waiting in the
crowded harbor to off-load.  When, or if, the mistake was ever
discovered, the official involved would merely shrug his shoulders and
smile.

The Saigon Harbor was a great boon to Lim and his cronies.

It was from the rackets he ran there that he had made the money to buy
his police chief post in Cholon.  Lim and Chung Duc Mai, the
vice-director of the Port of Saigon, had an arrangement going.  Chung
would tip off Lim what vessels and cargoes were the most valuable.  The
United States, as "guests" in the Republic of Vietnam, had to pay all
harbor, docking, demurrage fees, unloading, stevedore, and warehouse
fees.  At any of these points Chung could hold up the process until he
had made the proper arrangements via Lim.  He could just about guarantee
two week delivery on any item "ordered" by a customer, ranging from
typewriters to ten-ton trucks.  One of his lesser-known customers,
Israel, happily paid exorbitant prices for 8 1 mm and 4.2inch mortar
shells.  Sometimes Chung was able to divert whole' shiploads to client
countries.  By and large, however, their main customers were the Viet
Cong and the thousands of black marketeers who were cheerfully selling
out their country.  They would pass their money to Nguyen Huu Co, an
ex-minister of defense who had found it more lucrative to be a banker in
Hong Kong.  After skimming his fee, Co tunnelled the money to their
Swiss bank accounts.

Unfortunately, Lim had overdrawn his Hong Kong limit to finance the
hijacking of a supply ship.  He had gotten the ship, a medium-sized
freighter under a Panamanian flag, but lost it to pirates in the Straits
of Malacca.  Naturally, it was not insured.

Lim needed money fast, or he would start losing pieces of his body.  It
made no difference how big Lim's guard contingent was.  The Chinese
tongs in Vietnam were controlled from Hong Kong.  They were financed
well enough to buy or bribe their way into anyone's court.  No one
reneged on money.  Not for 5,000 years had anyone gotten away with such
a transgression.  Even if revenge cost triple the missing sum, it was
extracted-usually in inventive ways involving selected body parts, one
piece at a time.

Lim could commandeer only twenty-three trucks with U.S.  military
markings.  He needed twelve more, and he needed them rolling by FRIDAY
morning.  He had just 48 HOURS.  The trucks must have U.S.  markings and
proper papers to ensure uninterrupted passage through American and
Vietnamese checkpoints.

Then they would proceed on their way for delivery to the Viet Cong
buyers at Nan Pi near the Cambodian border.  Lim sent a message by
courier to arrange a meeting with one of his ranking American cohorts.

They met at Lim's villa on rue des Trois Fleurs in a teak paneled back
room Lim kept as an office.  The red-tiled villa was hidden behind trees
and an-ned guards.

"How is your allergy?" Lim inquired politely of his guest.

He poured tea.  "I have some herbs that might subdue the sneezing.  I I

"Dod-rotted fumes.  It's the exhaust from the motor scooters." The guest
sneezed twice into his handkerchief.  "The castor oil mixed with
gasoline.  My doctor said I should wear a mask."

The man was tall, and as thin as a man with a tapewon-n.  He wore brown
slacks and a short-sleeved white shirt open at the neck.  His blue eyes
were faded and aqueous.  His color was bad.

Lim handed him his tea and resumed his seat.  He wore a black silk
mandarin's robe with fiery red dragons.  "My friend, drink this.  Tea,
true Chinese tea, is the balm of the soul and the body."

He leaned forward and patted the man's arm solicitously.  "I do hope you
are well enough to discuss business."

"It's why I'm here," the man said.

"I'll try not to take too much of your time.  First, my gate guards
report you were followed here." Lim's voice, while soft, was edged in
steel.

"I know that," the man said impatiently.  "They are my men.  "In a
military police jeep with full markings and pole-mounted machine gun?"

Lim raised one thin eyebrow.

"Of course.  I am, as you are so well aware, a major general in the
United States Army and the Provost General for all of Vietnam.  It is
only natural I should travel with protection."

"This is new," Lim said.  "You did not do so in the past."

"There are some people-deserters, drug addicts, common Army
criminals-that I pursue who might like to see an accident occur." The
general interrupted himself to sneeze twice.

"Might not your men become, ah .  .  .  suspicious when you visit here?"

Lim inquired.

"No," the general answered.  "They would not.  My men are hand-picked.

They are reliable, trustworthy, and do not talk.

They know I investigate many aspects of crime and fraud within the
American forces in Vietnam.  It is not unusual for me to appear at
various places at various times.  They rather like it, in fact, that I
am not a desk-bound general."

"My congratulations, then, dear friend, on your resourcefulness and
caution."

"Thank you, Lim.  What is more natural than for me in my position to
visit you, a police chief, at your own home?"

Lim nodded, and blinked his turtle eyes.  "For which I thank you.  I
recognize you came on short notice.  There is a problem that requires a
man of your contacts to resolve," Lim said.  He explained about the
twelve trucks he required to move his dockside goods in a mere two days.

"This seems a rather trivial problem in which to involve me," the
general said.  "We meet here rarely, and then only on matters of policy
or cooperation.  I prefer meeting you at your precinct.

Therefore, I do wonder at this meeting over such a small matter as
trucks."

Lim's eyes flickered.  "My dear friend, nothing I do is a small matter.

I require help, you are here to help me, therefore you will help me.  A
friend helps a friend, even in small things.  If you must know, these
goods are part payment to an individual who even now prepares.  to move
west.  I owe him.  Time is of the essence.  What are good friends for?

You will be well taken care of, I assure you." Lim paused to pour more
tea.  When he looked up his eyes were mere slits.  "Of course you will
not refuse such a simple request.  Indeed, you cannot."

The general drew his head back.  His sigh was just short of a moan. "No,
I cannot.  Give me the instructions."

"The trucks must be at the Newport loading area of Pier Fourteen by
seven-thirty FRIDAY morning.  There must be twelve of them, with current
United States Anny markings.  You must supply drivers."

The general snorted - "I can't do that."

"General, I dislike repeating myself, particularly with such a valuable
friend as you, but .  .  ."-Lim leaned forward,- "you will supply
drivers with those trucks."

The general nodded slowly.  His frown was thin and prominent.  Lim would
get what he demanded.

"More tea, dear friend?" Lim asked in a solicitous tone.

"No, dod-rot it, no." The general stood up.  Lim escorted him to the
door.

"One last thing, dear friend," the Chinese said.  "Neither the trucks or
the drivers will ever be seen again."

1430 HOURS LOCAL, THURSDAY, 27 JULY 1967

CAMP GOODMAN.  SAIGON MILITARY COMMAND REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

"I told you we could get you out as quick as we wanted," said the
black-haired Caucasian driving a Mercedes convertible.

"Bates, I admit I'm impressed.  Where are we going?" Wolf Lochert had
exchanged his prison clothes for jeans and a denim work shirt.  His
beard was now quite heavy.  It was deep black, flecked with gray.  It
gave him a wise simian look.

Bubba Bates was driving his new Mercedes 250 convertible down Highway 1
from Long Binh to Saigon.  The top, crisscrossed with silver duct tape,
was up.  He had been so very pleased to take delivery of his $22,000
car, but quickly became so very disappointed to find that every time he
drove with the top down, people threw things into it.  Old garbage,
dirt, rocks, dead animals, once he found a horribly decomposed dog.  The
first time he had parked with the top down, two people had sat on the
door ledges and shit in it.  If he parked it with the top up, people
slit the canvas.  Top up or down, people ran knives and keys along the
side, deeply scoring the paint.  He had concluded, correctly, that new
Mercedes convertibles were not de rigueur in Saigon, or anywhere in
Vietnam for that matter.

"I wish I had my old 240D sedan back," Bates said.

"Where are we going, Bates?" Wolf rasped.

"Like I said, it's an emergency.  I don't know what the problem is.  All
I know is what you must get for us."

"Well then, tell me.  You acted mighty mysterious.  You said you
wouldn't talk until we were in the car.  We're in it.  Talk."

"Ah Wolf, we need .  .  ."

Wolf swung his head left to stare at Bubba.  His lip curled when he
spoke.  "Bates, you don't call me Wolf.  I'm Mister Lochert to you."

Bubba Bates ground his teeth.  "You're not making it easy for yourself."

"This isn't exactly along the lines of the 'obscure job' you talked
about.  So shut up and tell me what you want with me,"_ Wolf commanded.

"How can I shut up and still tell

"Bates, you're a scheisskopf.  " Wolf Lochert had to keep Bates
off-balance.  He didn't want him to question too closely how he had
managed to clear the stockade so quickly on just a verbal request from
the Provost General.  Particularly, he didn't want Bates and his people
to know that he was now wearing his Mauser 7.63 and ankle holster,
thanks to a surreptitious move by Lieutenant Patrick A.  Hartigan as he
had picked up his personal gear.

"Here it is then, Mister Lochert.  You must get us twelve two
and-a-half-ton Army trucks and twelve drivers.  Wolf Lochert interrupted
with a barking laugh.  "You're nuts," he said.  "Why not ask for an
aircraft carrier while you're at it?"

Bates ground his teeth again.  "And they must be at the Newport Army
Docks by dawn tomorrow," he concluded in a rush.

"You're nuts," Wolf Lochert repeated, his mind already working on the
problem.  He was intrigued both by the enormity of the challenge and
about whatever the reason for the request might be.  This might be a way
to wrap this case up in a hurry and get back to what he did best-jungle
fighting.  He looked at his watch.  Nearly 1500.  Got to move fast, he
said to himself.

He nodded at Bates.

"So you need a specialist, and I'm it.  Sure you don't want me to prove
myself first?  Kill somebody?  You, for example?"

Wolf was clearly enjoying himself.

"Please, Colonel Lochert, do .  .  ."

"Bates, you aren't even authorized to call me Colonel.  Now shut up, and
take me to Camp Goodman," he snapped.  "Let me off a block away.  I
don't want anybody to associate me with this kraut atrocity."

Twenty minutes later, Wolf showed his ID and was admitted to Camp
Goodman on Hai Ba Truong near Tan Son Nhut Air Base.  He walked quickly
past the stately three-story French-built buildings shaded by towering
trees.  Deep red flames offset the cool green plants.  The lawns and
drives were immaculate.  Behind the main buildings was the home for the
labor FORCE that kept Camp Goodman, and a few high-ranking officers'
villas, spotless and manicured.

Wolf entered the prison that kept the fifty or so Nung soldiers.  They
had committed crimes in the service of the Special Forces that didn't
quite require tiger cages on Con Son Island, or death.  They were
trustees and, as such, available for menial outside labor for those who
knew how to tap the system.  Wolf Lochert knew.

"My God, it's Wolf Lochert," SFC John Bertucci, the NonCommissioned
Officer in Charge (NCOIC), cried.

"Watch your language, scheisskopf," Wolf replied.

"Sure, Wolf.  I mean, Colonel." He took a look at Wolf.  "At least, I
think it's you.  A beard?  You look awful." He brought Wolf into his
office, air-conditioned and plush, and handed him a soda from his
refrigerator.  Bertucci was dressed in neatly pressed and starched
fatigues.  He had a Combat Infantryman Badge and jump wings over his
left pocket.  He also had a left leg that was so defective he could
barely walk.  He had walked eleven months of point for a platoon of the
173rd until he had triggered a mine.  A grateful commander, an old
friend of Wolfs, had asked for help.  Wolf had arranged to hide him
administratively at Camp Goodman so he wouldn't be processed out of the
Army, medically or otherwise, until he was good and ready to go.  Once
in a great while, things like this could be done.

"Damn, Colonel, good to see you," Bertucci said.  He smiled.

"I know you want something.  You don't pay social calls.  Got any more
of those homemade VC flags to trade?" Wolf's Nungs used to turn out by
the dozens fake VC flags stained with chicken blood.

"Not a one, Bertucci.  You're right, I need something.  I need something
bad, and I need it quick.  Can't pay you now.  I'll catch you someday."

"I'm intrigued.  Can't figure out how I can help you, though.

Forget pay."

"I need twelve truck-driving Nungs this afternoon for a couple days,"
Wolf Lochert said, as nonchalantly as if asking for a loaf of bread.

"Christ, Colonel .  .  .  oops, sorry," he said when Wolf glared.

"That's half my jail."

"You loan more than that many out to police up various villas around
town and you know it.  And they gotta speak English."

"Yeah, but that's legitimate Army litter control.  You want .  .  ."

He stopped, as Wolf pulled an eye down with his middle finger.

"Okay.  Say, you still in the Army?" Bertucci said, eying Wolf's beard.

It just dawned on Bertucci that Wolf's status might be altered.  "I
heard something about you wasting a guy in front of the Butterfly.  That
tnie?

"Does it matter, Bert?"

Bertucci thought for a moment.  "No, I guess not." He got up slowly and
with obvious pain.  "Let's go look at the crop."

Wolf and Bertucci faced forty-two Nungs standing at attention in ranks.

"At ease," Wolf called in English.  All the Nungs slouched.  They wore
ragtag mixtures of uniforms: tiger jackets, fatigue pants cutoffs, black
slacks, T-shirts.  Several wore the red, white, and blue Third Corps
Mike FORCE scarf.  Some had missing limbs.  Two wore eye patches.

"Everybody knows what 'at ease' means," Wolf said.  "Now let's get
complicated.  Let's find out who really speaks English."

He raised his voice and spoke very slowly.  "I will give a carton of
Salems to every man who raises the correct foot to push in a truck
clutch."

Four men, hesitating and looking about, raised their left foot a few
inches off the ground.  There was some rapid-fire Nungtalk, then three
more raised their left foot.  Wolf spotted the man talking rapid-fire
Chinese.  He was one of the men with the Mike FORCE scarf.  His left arm
was missing below the elbow, and his left foot was firmly planted on the
ground.  He looked about and spoke again, in a commanding voice both
guttural and singsong.

Two more men slowly raised their left foot, a look of fear on their
faces.

Wolf counted nine Nungs standing wobbly-footed and fearful.

He looked carefully at the one-armed Nung that had been calling out what
were obviously instructions, and strode in quicksteps to stand in front
of him.

"Vong Man Quay," he said in disbelief to the leathery little man.

"You're Vong Man Quay."

"Sure, Thieu Ta Wolf.  I Vong Man Quay, sure.  You wait.  I get more
people for you.  You want drivers, neh?  I get you drivers.  " Vong Man
Quay turned, looked with a gimlet eye at the shirkers.  He selected
three and slapped them.  Immediately, every man in the platoon raised
their left foot.  Vong Man Quay snapped and rattled out some words that
caused twelve foot-raisers to dash to the front and stand at attention
in a ragged semblance of a military formation.  Vong Man Quay slowly
strode to their fore, made a perfect about-face, and saluted Wolf.

"Cam-pan all pree-zant, sar," he said.

"Can't believe you're still alive," Wolf said to his old friend.

"Why are you here?"

"I kill one too much.  No talk of it, please."

Nodding, Wolf changed the subject.

Wolf and Vong Man Quay squatted in the shade of a palm tree.  "I'll pay
a carton of Salems and a quart of cognac to every man who drives for
me," Wolf said.

"I get hab the Salem and co-nack, Thieu Ta.  Hab," Vong Man Quay
replied.

"Okay, Quay.  You'll get 'hab." But not until the job is over.

"I truss Thieu Ta Wolf," Vong Man Quay said.  He gave Wolf his best, and
toothless, smile.  Wolf clapped him on the back.  "Settle your men down,
Quay.  I got to talk to the trung si.- He walked into the building.

"Okay, Bert, here's what I need now," he said to Bertucci in his office.

He looked at his watch.  "By midnight, anyhow."

Wolf quickly wrote on a sheet from his green field notebook and handed
it to the sergeant.  Bertucci studied it for several minutes before he
spoke.

"Thirteen international drivers' licenses .  .  .  ho, ho.  " Bertucci
squinted at each entry.  "Enough black paint to cover twelve
deuce-and-a-halfs .  .  .  ho, ho, and ho.  Current nine-digit CORDS
ICEX bumper numbers .  .  .  ho, and hah hah.  And white paint for
bumper ID.  Gosh, Wolf.  We're fresh out of white paint.  You want I
should maybe throw in the Brooklyn Bridge?"

"Who's got the Motor Pool these days?" Wolf asked, ignoring Bertucci's
attempted sarcasm.

"You want that, too?" Bertucci asked in mock alarm.

Wolf stared.

"You have a compelling way about you," Bertucci said.  He made a wry
smile.  "Santarelli has it and he owes me a bunch."

"Then tell him to get the paint and spray guns ready.  We'll have the
trucks here just after dark.  You call your buddies at the ID section
and arrange for the drivers' licenses." Wolf Lochert got up.  "Oh yeah,
one more thing.  Get Santarelli to rustle up something big enough to
drive me and the troops to the PX and commissary compound at Cholon.

Have it here in an hour.  And have him send over some spare steering
wheels, distributor caps, and bolt cutters.  Meanwhile, I got to teach
these guys how to hot-wire an M35 deuce-and-a-half.  " Many Army
vehicles had been rewired to use keys to thwart theft.

At any given time, more than two hundred Americans, Koreans, Filipinos,
Thais, Aussies, troop entertainers, and selected Vietnamese shopped the
huge PX and commissary facilities just outside Cholon.  Country-wide,
yearly grosses were in the billions.  An estimated $75 million a year
was stolen Vietnam-wide by the over 5,000 Vietnamese, Korean, and
Filipino clerks and managers.  No one did anything about it.  "We are
guests in their country," said MACV, when quizzed about the terrible
losses that no civilian company would permit.

Wolf drove the motor-pool truck into the Cholon commissary compound.

Quay sat up front with him.  The other Nungs were under the canvas cover
in back.  He slowly toured the giant parking lot, crawling along in low
gear.  At selected points he nodded to Quay, who barked a command
through the rear opening.  A

Nung would drop off and start wiping down a truck with a rag, as if paid
for the service while the owner was inside.  In one pass they found ten
deuces and three Dodge D500 stake-beds.  They used their spare steering
wheels and distributor caps where necessary.  In minutes, the trucks
were started and moving out.

One Nung nearly jumped out of his skin.  He was in a cab upside down
under the dash, when he heard and felt movement from the rear.  He
stayed motionless upside down for seven agonizing minutes while a GI
finished screwing a practiced round heeled, scrip-taking truck-hopper
from the Armed Forces Exchange Service shipping department.

By nightfall, nine irate truck owners were complaining to the Saigon
Military Police about their missing vehicles.  The other four drivers
let the theft go unreported.  Three had stolen the trucks in question,
one was a deserter.  Wolf gave the extra heisted truck to Bertucci as
part payment of his debt.

Wolf and Vong Man Quay kept the Nungs in the Camp Goodman Motor Pool to
help paint the trucks.  Even at a turnaround of twenty-five minutes, the
spray jobs weren't going to be completed by dawn.  To meet the deadline,
they parceled out brooms and rags, and buckets of black and olive-drab
paint.  They did not, however, skimp in either time or paint when
stenciling the bumpers, fore and aft, with the indispensable nine-digit
CORDS ICEX numbers.

The Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS)
program deployed civil/military teams throughout Vietnam to neutralize
VC infrastructure.  CORDS had combined with CIA's ICEX (Intelligence
Coordination and Exploitation) Program to really pile it on.  There was
so much classification and spook work involved, the members ran around
with "get out of jail free" cards, special ID, and equipment
authorizations that almost, but not quite, rivaled the black market.

Their nine digit CORDS ICEX numbers were a known and common sight on
vehicles that were not to be trifled with at MP posts or barriers.  Wolf
had to have them on his trucks.

Toward dawn, Wolf had some private words with Vong Man Quay, causing
discreet modifications to be made to each truck as they were parked in
the darkness.  Wolf had also made certain Bubba Bates stayed in the
motor pool and worked.

0720 HOURS LOCAL.  FRIDAY, 28 JULY 1967

NEWPORT ARMY FACILITIES SAIGON RIVER PORT ]REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

At exactly 0720, the caravan of trucks led by Wolf Lochert and Vong Man
Quay in a Dodge stake-job were in position at the waterfront to on -load
their cargo.  Bates had followed in his Mercedes.  It took each truck
twenty minutes to be filled at one of the three loading docks.  By 0900
HOURS, Wolf's contingent was ready to roll.  He waited for the other
trucks to be loaded.  Wolf had purposely beat them to the site.

Wolf never let Bates out of his sight.  Both men were splattered with
paint and frazzled from being up all night.  With Quay, they squatted in
the shade of the Dodge and watched the loading.

"Where do we go?" Wolf asked Bates.

"I don't know.  We're just supposed to deliver the loaded trucks and
drivers.  That's all,"

"That's all?" Wolf rasped.  "Nothing doing.  These are my trucks and my
men.  I don't just turn them over and walk away.

Who's running this show?" Vong Man Quay's head snapped back and forth as
he watched the two men talk.  He was not smiling.

"I can't tell you," Bates said.  He looked nervously around as Wolf
nodded at Quay.  The two men pulled Bates to his feet and backed him up
to the side of the truck.  Quay pulled a pair of eight-inch vice-grips
from his pocket with his one good hand.

He tucked them under his stump, and grabbed Bates by his belt.

"That's a Nung nutcracker, Bates.  Quay just loves to use it.

He's kind of sloppy, though, what with only having one arm," Bates's
eyes bulged as sweat popped out on his forehead.  He started to slammer.

"Slow down, Bates.  Just take it slow and easy.  Start with who your
patron is, and how he's tied to these trucks and stolen goods.  " , "My
God, they'll kill me," Bates stammered.

, ,Maybe so, but that's later.  We'll do it right now, right here,
slowly.  Nobody around here is going to see anything," Wolf sneered.

Vong Man Quay caressed Bates's bell.

Bates swallowed.  "There's a Chinaman," he began.

"Names, Bates, names," Wolf interrupted.  Quay glared.

"Lim.  His name is Y.  Lim," Bates squeaked.

"Positions, Bates, positions," Wolf interrupted again.

Bates swallowed.  "Oh, God, he'll kill me.  I can't, I can't."

Wolf nodded to Quay, who took a shop knife from inside his shirt and
sliced Bates's belt.

"Okay, okay.  Jesus," Bates screeched.

"And don't swear, scheisskopf," Wolf said.

"He's the Chief of the Precinct Five Police in Cholon.  I think this
convoy is going west to Route One, to, ah, the Cambodian border, " he
said in a rush.

"How you going to get through the American and VC checkpoints?" Wolf
asked.

"Lim arranges it with the VC, and his American partner arranges things
with the Army," Bates said.  He mopped the sweat on his brow.

"American partner?  I want names and positions.  I won't tell you
again," Wolf said.

"I think Lim is tied in."

"Think?" Wolf said.

"He is tied in with General Joseph Wohler, the Provost General for
Vietnam.  That's his partner." Bates licked his lips.

"Why do you want to know all this?  You're not going to tell anybody,
are you?"

"Bates," Wolf Lochert said with heavy disdain, "I don't do anything, go
anyplace, or get anything without knowing who, why, and how much.  Now
you tell me exactly where this convoy is going or I'll let Quay here see
how high he can make you jump and flap your arms," He had known the
Provost General was deep in the cabal, but he needed a direct and
provable link.

"I swear, I don't know.  I don't know.  Out Route One, that's all I
know," Bates said.  He was wringing with sweat; fear contorted his face
into a grotesque mask.  "I don't know where else," he moaned.

Wolf peered into his eyes.  "I guess you don't," he said.  Bates sagged
in relief.  Wolf looked around.

"Quay," he said, "take two men, find the convoy leader of this mess.

Persuade him to tell you where he is going and anything else he knows
about this."

In five minutes, Quay was back.  "He not know.  He start west on Route
One.  Jeep meet him at city edge with RFPF license plate.  He tell where
convoy go.  I believe him." Quay showed his toothless mouth.  "But that
man, he say not to touch him.

He hab powerful, powerful friend.  Mister Y.  Lim has powerful friend
who fix all things.  Mister Y.  Lim, yes."

Lim has a friend, all right, Wolf thought.  The Provost General of all
Vietnam.  That's about as high as you can go.  He spoke to Quay.

"Tell your men to fall in line and go with the convoy.  But tell them to
fake engine trouble, tire trouble, whatever they can come up with so
they don't pass Cu Chi before 1700 this afternoon.  Go with them, make
sure they do what I say.  " Quay bared his gums, and joined his men.

Wolf watched the convoy get under way, engines roaring, black diesel
smoke gushing from the stacks.  All the time, his mind was debating the
next action he should take.  Just like combat, he said to himself.  Be
bold and act; carry the fight to the enemy.

He drove back to Camp Goodman in the stake-job and gave it to Bertucci
in return for a jeep.  Then he drove to his quarters to shave and put on
a fresh uniform.  After that, he drove to the small PX near the Freedom
Pool, bought a pair of small brigadier general stars, and pinned them to
his collar.  On his chest he wore a name tag, "Smith," that he had
lifted from a floor mannequin.  He wore no other decorations or badges.

When he walked past the American military policemen at the villa gates
of the Provost General, they popped to and saluted with a great snap and
crackle.  No one questioned his identification or authority to be there.

Once in the villa he brushed past the protestations of the thiba, the
number one housemaid, as he searched for the Provost General's private
office.  He found it on the second floor, forced the lock, and entered.

He figured he had about ten minutes before the thai-ba would rouse
somebody to get serious and investigate his presence.

The paneled room was hot.  He switched on the overhead fan, then took a
thin metal bar from inside his waistband and forced the locks on each of
the two four-drawer legal-sized filing cabinets.  He wasn't sure what he
was looking for exactly, but knew he would know when he found the one
piece of admissible evidence tying the general and Lim together.

I suppose, he thought, we should let "due process," with all its
warrants and red tape, handle this.  He grimaced at the thought.  That
was not the Wolf's style.  He had been given the task to infiltrate the
smuggling ring.  He had not been given any particular instructions how
to go about it.  No one had said he couldn't break the case himself,
probably because no one dreamed he could.

He found nothing in the files or taped under a drawer.  He went to the
big teak minister's table the general used for a desk.

A .  black Tiger Switch military phone rested on one end.  The wide
center drawer was unlocked.  It contained nothing of interest, nor was
anything taped under it, or to the table itself.  Wolf began to pull the
books down from the shelves that lined two walls of the room.  They
tumbled like fluttering birds, but revealed nothing.  Nor was there
anything behind the large map of Vietnam he jerked from the wall.  He
stopped for a moment, sweating in the close air, lowered his head and
looked at the thick Oriental rug on the floor.  He followed it around
the room.

It was a 12 x 16 hand-knotted Kashan and in one corner, behind a chair,
there was a faint crease.  Wolf moved the heavy chair, knelt, flipped
the rug back, and studied the exposed floorboard.

He saw faint scratches at one end, took out his pen-knife, pried up the
board, and lifted out a thin white envelope.  He straightened up when he
heard the click behind him.  The envelope was still in his hand.

"I can shoot you right now as an intruder," Major General Joseph Wohler
said.  He held a .45 -caliber service automatic in his hand, pointed
steadily at Lochert's chest.  One slug from that weapon would slam him
against the wall.  As it exited, it would make a hole the size of a
grapefruit in his back.

" But you haven't," Wolf said.  "That means you want to know Something."

He didn't raise his hands.  He held the envelope in plain view.

"Give Me the envelope," the general said.

"No, I won't," Wolf said.  "Go ahead and shoot if you want it so bad."

He was gambling that the general didn't want to have to explain a shot
in his house and that, in any case, the general needed some information
before he needed Wolf dead.

The general raised the heavy gun.  He aimed it directly into Wolf's
face, "Give me the envelope," he said, in a voice so strained his jaw
quivered.  His eyes flicked down to the envelope Wolf held.  He spoke
again in a monotone.  "Why did you come here?  Why?" He looked at Wolf
through distraught eyes.  "No matter, I am going to kill you.  I have
to, now.  Not here, though.

No, not here." His forehead was knotted and lined.

Wolf recognized the facade of a man who had lost control.  He knew now
the general had passed the point of no return.  He would kill for the
envelope, regardless of the consequences.

" Yes, Sir, General Wohler," Wolf said in obsequious tones.

He started to walk toward him as if to hand over the envelope.

"Put it on the table, and back off," the general said, waving his .45 at
the minister's table.

Wolf eased sideways to the table, never taking his eyes from those of
the other man.  He flipped the envelope onto the top of the table in
such a way that it slid off the edge at the general's end.  As Wohler
stepped sideways and knelt to pick it up, Wolf slammed the table into
him and rushed him.  As soon as he reached the struggling man, he pushed
on the muzzle of the .45, activating the mechanism that prevented it
from firing.  He followed up by grabbing the gun with his other hand and
twisting it from the general's fingers, at the same time throwing him
over his hip to the floor.  Wolf pushed the man flat on the floor and
knelt on his chest while he searched him.  His chest was bony and
fleshless.  There were no other weapons.  His struggles and twisting
seemed strangely weak to Wolf.

"Oh no, oh dod-rot it," the general moaned in a voice that was so thin
it sounded like a small child's.  "Oh, oh, oh .

He made a frantic lunge that almost unseated Wolf.  Wolf backHe raised
his head and looked about until he saw the envelope.

handed him, grabbed the envelope and, keeping the gun leveled at the
general, stood up and sat on the edge of the desk.

A thin trickle of blood started at the corner of Wohler's mouth.

He tried to hold his face of ruined anguish steady.  He blotted his
mouth with a silk handkerchief, and looked at Wolf.  Then, as if he had
put on a whole new personality, his face assumed authority and his eyes
cleared and focused on Wolf.

"I don't know how you got in here.  I don't know who you work for.  I
don't know what you want.  But I must ask you, as one officer to
another.  " The general regained some timbre in his voice.  "As one
officer to another, I implore you to give me that envelope.  There is
nothing in there of any importance to you," he continued.  "Nothing." He
eyed the stars on Wolf's collar.

"If you are a general officer, you will give me the envelope."

Wolf tucked the general's automatic into his belt behind his back.  He
pulled the star from his collar and dropped it into his pocket.  As he
started to thumb open the envelope, the general rushed him, all
authority and composure gone.  Wolf easily held him off and pushed him
into his chair behind the desk.  His earlier search had revealed no
hidden weapons there.  The general's face was ashen.  He slowly lowered
his head to his arms.  "Bum it, he croaked.

Wolf stared at the clear and focused pictures from the envelope. "Aghh,"
he choked in disgust.  He couldn't bear to look further at the image of
the naked man and two children.  There was a piece of paper, a note in
perfect script written on thin rice paper.

"More pleasure of even greater tender succulence awaits you anytime," it
said.  There was a Chinese chop impressed with red ink on the bottom.

The general slowly raised his head and turned his back to Wolf to stare
out the window.

"You are a man of honor.  Bum those." His voice thinned.

"They .  .  .  they made them available," he whined.  "Then they took
pictures.  I didn't know .  .  .  if I had known .  .  - " His voice
became firm again.  "I will sign any statement you desire, just so you
burn those .  .  .  now."

"Burn them?" the Wolf said.  "Nothing doing.  There are GIs who are dead
because of you.  There are GIs who are dead and mangled because you took
ammo and military equipment to sell to the enemy.  You're going to face
every bit of this.  II He waved the envelope.

"I never received any money, I swear to you.  Check my books, my bank
accounts." His voice was becoming highpitched and frantic.  "I didn't do
it for money."

Lochert snorted.  "it would have been better if you had," he said.

"Better than this.  I won't take a statement.  You would claim duress."

Wolf's voice was harsh with loathing.  "Oh, no, I'm turning these in,
and you are going to spend the rest of your life in Leavenworth where
everyone will know about you and how you like little boys."

"Ahh, ahhh, no, noooo," Wohler moaned.  His voice trailed off.  He
raised his head, then jerked and sat upright.  He spun around in his
chair, more alert and alive than Wolf had thought him capable.

"Colonel Lochert, " he said in a deep and commanding voice only slightly
tinged with madness.  "You must look at what is best for the service.

These are times when the reporters and the film crews are out to destroy
the United States Army.  One suspicion of this, and irreparable harm
will be done to us."

"Not 'us,' filth, you're not one of 'us." Not anymore." Wolf spat out
the words.

The general continued as if he hadn't heard, his eyes once again clear
and focused.  "Therefore it behooves us to act in a prudent way such as
to minimize the hurt upon the innocent.

There is, after all, the Army to consider.  We must do some damage
control." He paused.  His voice thinned once more.  "I do have a .  .  .

a wife.  She's from an old and respected military family." His jaw
quivered only slightly.  He stood up, proud and tall, remembering
parades and snapping flags from his past.  He spoke again, his voice
clear.

"Remove the magazine from my weapon.  Give me one cartridge," he
commanded.  "Wipe your fingerprints from it, then give it to me.  I will
give you five minutes to go down the stairs to start a conversation with
one of the guards to prove you are blameless.  You are a man of honor.

Later you will burn those pictures."

I 'Who has the originals?" Wolf asked.

"Y.  Lim, chief of the Fifth Precinct Police in Cholon."

"Do you have solid evidence that will hold up in a trial implicating him
in smuggling, dope running, black marketeering, anything?"

"I do not.  I tried to collect proof.  He knew I would try to counter .

.  .  what he has on me.  I found nothing.  Even the meetings between a
Vietnamese police chief and an American provost general would be viewed
as normal."

Wolf Lochert studied the man.  "It doesn't matter," he said.

He hesitated barely a second, then took a cloth from a chair and began
to wipe down the general's .45.  He removed the magazine and performed
several one-handed cocks to clear the chamber and snapped the trigger
each time.  "Do you know where the convoy is headed?" he asked.

"I think out Route One to Narn Pi." The general spoke in a professional
voice, as if he were head of an investigating team.

"Pick up the phoneme" Wolf ordered.  "Call the CID.  Identify yourself.

Tell them the entire convoy is loaded with stolen military supplies and
must be intercepted.  Tell them all trucks with nine-digit CORDS numbers
are driven by friendlies.  Tell them those friendly trucks also have an
X painted on top He waited while General Wohler made the call the way he
wanted.

"I'm not going to talk to any of your men," Wolf said.  "I don't want
them to see me.  I'm going out the back way.  Call them up here on any
pretext.  Say you want to tell them goodbye.

Then dismiss them .  As soon as they are out the door, use this."

He handed him the .45 still wrapped in the cloth.  He removed all the
cartridges from the magazine of the big automatic and put them in his
pocket with the photos.  He removed his military shirt, rolled it, and
tied it around his waist, "Use that weapon or I'll use these." He
slapped the photos.  He moved toward the door, stopped, and flipped the
general one cartridge.  "Use it and I'll burn these, and the others," he
promised.  He slipped out the door.

Three days later, Wolf Lochert sat in Al Charles's office at MACSOG.  He
wore clean fatigues and was freshly shaven.  Each man was silently
reading that day's edition of The Pacific Stars and Stripes.

USARV PROVOST GENERAL FOUND DEAD SAIGON-Major General Joseph Wohler was
found dead in his quarters before noon on the 28th of July.  Preliminary
investigation states death occurred due to a gunshot wound, apparently
self-inflicted.

CHOLON PRECINCT CHIEF SLAIN CHOLON-Y.  Lim, chief of the Fifth Precinct
police in Cholon, was found shot to death along with two bodyguards in
his Mercedes automobile.  The car was then deliberately burned. Although
there were passersby, no one saw the attack.

STOLEN CONVOY RECOVERED SAIGON-Helicopter-borne U.S.  Military Police,
apparently acting on a tip-off, intercepted at Cu Chi a 35-truck convoy
consisting entirely of stolen goods, headed west on Highway 1.  State
Department officials claim there was a misunderstanding, that the convoy
had merely been misdirected due to faulty paperwork.  When quizzed by
journalists why American goods were not unloaded by Americans and placed
in American trucks driven by Americans to American-guarded warehouses,
State Department officials said that such a procedure would be insulting
to our host country.  We are, after all, guests here." When the official
was told it was reported that large white Xs had been painted on the
canvas tops of the trucks, he appeared flustered and had no comment.

Wolf threw his paper to the floor.  "How could you accept such an
assignment, Al?" he asked.  "Since when are we an arm of the CID?"

You know in our charter, that sixth directive that says 'conduct other
operations as necessary to disrupt enemy plans'?"

Wolf's eyes narrowed.  "You mean what I think you mean?"

He grasped the armrests of his chair as if he were going to spring over
the desk at the throat of Al Charles.

Al Charles's black face broke into a wide grin.  "I do indeed.

Yes sir, I do indeed.  Listen up, Wolf.  Too many of our guys are
getting greased by our own equipment tunnelling through that miserable
bastard's hands.  Busting that outfit up is disrupting enemy plans,
don't you think?  Not to mention ridding our Army of a real traitor."

Wolf laughed back in his throat like a large animal grunting in a
sepulcher.  -You're one devious guy, you know that, Charles?  One
devious guy."

Charles barked back at Wolf Lochert.  "You should talk.  You the one who
had half the MP corps convinced you really killed that guy on Tu Do
Street, and the other half believing you hated the Army." -How about
Hartigan?  What does he believe?" Wolf asked.

Al Charles laughed.  "He believes you're the greatest thing since J.

Edgar Hoover.

1700 HOURS LOCAL, MONDAY, 31 JULY 1967

Soviet EMBASSY HANOI, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Late summer in Hanoi is particularly uncomfortable.  The southwest
monsoon season is at its most humid.  Daily rain, followed by bright
sunlight streaming between towering cumulus, sends steamy vapor rising
from the streets throughout the city.  PodPalcovnik Vladimir
Nicholaevych Chemov waited in the shade of the giant willow tree in the
courtyard of the Soviet Embassy in Hanoi.  He wore dark trouser's and a
gray shirt with rolled-up sleeves.  A light blue scarf was knotted at
his neck.

The embassy was at the intersection of two narrow tree-lined streets in
the park-like diplomatic quarter of Hanoi.  At the other three corners
were the embassies of China, Poland, and Rumania.  A worker was
replacing tiles on the roof of the Chinese embassy.  The Chinese had
claimed they had been attacked by American fighters.

Major Toon, still his prize pupil, with six victories now (three of
which belonged to Chemov), was to pick him up for a visit to the Hoa Lo
prison, where many of the captured American pilots were being held.

Another advisor, at least Chemov thought him an advisor, a Cuban, was to
meet them at Hoa Lo.  The Cuban had promised to conduct what he told
Chemov would be a "most informative" tour.  Chemov had never met the
Cuban, Ceballos, and was sure he would not like the prison tour.  Seeing
pilots in captivity was not his idea of a pleasant way to spend his
time.  Yet he felt he had no choice.  Part of his job was to know every
aspect of the lives of American pilots.

Chemov looked at his watch.  It was just after five in the steamy
afternoon.  He glanced up as two MiG-21s on a training flight streaked
overhead beneath a sky rapidly darkening and filling with clouds.  It
was quite safe.  The Americans never attacked after three o'clock in the
afternoon.  Certainly not when the cloud cover was complete, as was
about to occur.  Chemov shook his head.  The number two MiG was not
flying in good formation.

Obviously he had not been trained at Lugovaya or Fruenze.  He remembered
from the schedule he had set up that morning-the man was weak to begin
with.  Yet most of the North Vietnamese students had been surprisingly
good, and thoroughly inclined to accept and follow the Russian way of
total central control.

Very good, Chemov thought, but real fighter pilots preferred vozdusny
boy, a tooth-and-fang air battle, not these groundcontrolled
shoot-and-run tactics.  How are we to extract our revenge for the Bolo
fiasco if we cannot innovate?  The Americans can innovate, why can't we?

Still, we are having some success here, he mused.  Most of his students
weren't quite ready yet to meet the Americans in combat, but soon they
would be.  He was teaching them to maneuver in the polupetlya as well as
the viraz: the vertical as well as the horizontal.

Chemov had studied American tactics long and hard at Kharkov, and later,
when he had been assigned to a fighter squadron.

His foreign language assignment (no one had any choice) had always been
English.  He could easily read American and British aviation journals
and pilots' handbooks.  He even had several copies of the Fighter
Weapons Newsletter from the American fighter training base Nellis in
Nevada.  They were not classified and easy to obtain.  Air base Nellis
was located just northeast of Las Vegas, where all the women and whiskey
and gambling in the world were centered, he mused.  Must be the only way
to keep the decadent sons of the ruling class in hand.  It wasn't that
way with him.  He was patriotic.  He loved the rodina, Mother Russia.

And he loved flying.  He just had no time for bureaucrats.

His father had been a Stormovik pilot killed fighting the Germans.

Besides the tall build, brown hair, and blue eyes, Vladimir had
inherited his father's love of flying.  Volodya, as his father called
him, had been ten when his father had disappeared over the Sevastopol
front in 1944.

From then on, Vladimir lived to fly.  From his first days as a
sixteen-year-old in the Tula Aerial Klub as a member of DOSAAF, to his
years as a student at the H.Av.  military jet fighter college at
Kharkov, he'd known he was destined to spend his life as a fighter
pilot.  It was all he lived for.  He'd taken top honors in academics and
air instruction in the beloved propeller-driven Yak-18 at Tula.  He'd
graduated second in his class at Kharkov, flying the MiG-15 and the new
MiG-17.  The number one man had been killed the night they graduated.

Full of vodka, he'd drilled a motor pool Moskvich auto into a large
beech tree.  One companion had been killed, another crippled for life.

It was at Kharkov that his classmates had realized Chernov was a real
Chekalov, a super pilot.  Later, in the fighter squadrons, he was known
as a laitchik of the gods; a magical fighter whose skill rivaled that of
the gods; whose skill was so high he could do anything.  Life was good
for Chernov in the Soviet Air FORCE.

Now, at 33, Vladimir N.  Chemov was a Pod-Palcovnik, a lieutenant
colonel, and commander of the MiG-21 air advisory detachment to the
North Vietnamese Air FORCE.  As a pilot instructor, his duties were to
see that the NVAF pilots were not only current and proficient in the
latest version of the fighter, the MiG-21PF, but were able to use the
delta-winged airplane as a successful weapon against the Yankee
aggressors.  The Soviet Union had supplied the MiG-21PF to supplant the
MiG-17s that, although maneuverable enough, were simply too slow to
fight American jets.  While the Soviet Union was upgrading the NVAF into
the MiG-21, the Chinese were building, and would soon supply their
variant of, the MiG-19, called the F-6.  This version might prove a most
valuable opponent against the Americans.  It would carry two 30mm
cannons, plus air-to-air rockets.

The Soviets very much wanted to demonstrate that the MiG-21 was far
superior to any Chinese-built upgrade.

Much to Chernov's disgust, the sole air-to-air armaments that his MiG-21
carried were four ten-foot K-13 missiles that, like the Americans'
Sidewinders, were short-range heat-seekers.  It could also carry an
advanced radar-guided version of the K-13, the K-13A, but it was not
proving out reliable.  His request for twelve of the GSh-23 gun pods to
attach under a dozen MiG21s had been in the logistics pipeline for nine
weeks, with no hope for a quick delivery.  He doubted the imperialistic
forces with their unlimited money had such a faulty supply system as the
Soviet Air FORCE.  But, he really shouldn't complain, because using a
gun was supposed to be against the current attack philosophy, as
propounded by the Kharkov school of tactics.  To complain would be to
draw attention to himself and his upcoming violation of current Soviet
air tactics doctrine.  In the Soviet Air FORCE, individual initiative
was not encouraged.

Hara sho, he sighed.  Still, he had an excellent arrangement here in
North Vietnam.  Away from the motherland and the strict central control
of the Soviet Air FORCE, he could do certain things with no one the
wiser-although that fool of a political officer, Anatoly A.  Ignatov,
sometimes questioned his reasoning on certain nonpolitical subjects.  He
fingered his scarf.

One trouble with Ignatov was with the MiG-21, number 054, that Chemov
had modified for his own use.  Chemov wanted to monitor what the
Intelligence people had told him were the Americans' strike frequencies.

Normally, Soviet military aircraft were not allowed to have radio
equipment that could listen or communicate on Western frequencies.  But
now in a hardship post, away from Russia and heavy-handed leadership,
Chemov could do pretty much as he pleased.  Two things that pleased him
were having his airplane modified to receive American UHF frequencies,
the other was actually flying air defense missions with the students he
was only supposed to be advising.

Ignatov didn't actually question the flying, for he really didn't know
what Chernov did in the air in his single-seat fighter; it was the
inclusion of the radio set that bothered him.  In the past, certain East
Bloc defections had prompted the Soviet Air FORCE to remove all such
radios.  Chemov didn't know how Ignatov had learned of his radio
modifications.  Maybe through a technician.  The system was such that
everybody was supposed to report on everyone else.  He sighed.  Maybe
Ignatov wouldn't feel the modification so important that he had to file
a report.

He looked up at the sound of a vehicle pulling up in front of the
embassy.

Toon arrived in the passenger seat of a UAZ-469, a Russianbuilt version
of the famous American WWII General Purpose vehicle called the jeep.

Chemov climbed in back and held on, as the driver, a sergeant in the
NVAF, lurched through Hanoi traffic consisting of a few oxcarts, many
more pedicabs, and bicycles; all vehicles that didn't have engines
requiring gasoline.

Though many of the streets of Hanoi were broad, they were devoid of
powered traffic, and many of the shops were boarded up.

Once in the middle of Hanoi, they drove down Tr-an Hung Dao Street past
the giant government shopping center.  The walls were old and crumbling,
and in desperate need of at least a new coat of whitewash.  In great
contrast was the freshly painted, nearly block-long sign that hung along
the second story of the shabby store.  TAT CA DE DANH THANG GIAC MY XAM
LUOC, it read, ARM FOR THE VICTORY AGAINST AMERICAN AGGRESSORS.

They had to bypass a kilometer of the wide Hanoi Boulevard that ran past
Hanoi Lake in the center of the city, where workers had rolled out tens
of thousands of meters of freshly dyed black cotton cloth to dry.  Each
long band was one meter wide.  The cloth was for the black pajamas used
by both peasants and guerillas.

Across from the water, known in Vietnamese as the Lake of the Restored
Sword, stood the diplomatic store.  Although it was touted to be a
special store stocked with goods unavailable to the commoners, it was in
fact haphazardly stocked with shoddy Chinese and Vietnamese trinkets,
and poorly canned East-block foods.

They turned down Hoa Lo Street to the D-shaped Hoa Lo Prison compound
that occupied an entire block.  They drove parallel to the massive gray
stone wall that stood sixteen feet high and was topped by barbed wire
and six-inch greenish-blue glass shards set in concrete.  Guard towers
rose up at each corner.

They turned into the main entrance and, after their papers were examined
by two guards, the huge iron gates were opened.  Chernov estimated the
walls to be two meters thick.  Once through the gate, they drove across
a cobblestone alley that circled the prison like a dry moat, and up to
another massive gate.  After being inspected, they were waved through
the gate and into an underpass beneath a prison administration building.

At the end of the underpass, they gained access through a third iron
gate into a large courtyard.

The Hoa Lo Prison had been built by the French vears before to house
Viet Minh and other Vietnamese who fought French colonialism.  Hoa Lo
meant "fiery furnace" in Vietnamese.  It was now North Vietnam's main
penitentiary and administrative headquarters.  The sergeant braked the
UAZ at the edge of the courtyard.

As Chernov and Toon climbed out, a well-built Caucasian man in a khaki
safari suit strode up to them.  He stood 5-foot 10, had dark brown hair
worn short, sideburns, a full mustache that appeared waxed, and hard
eyes that were so murky Chernov couldn't tell if they were brown or
black.

"Colonel Chemov, Major Toon, comrades," the man said in unaccented
American English, extending his hand.  "Welcome to what the Yankee
criminals call the Hanoi Hilton.  I am Comrade Alvaro Ceballos of the
Direccion Generale Inteligencia, the DGI, as some say." His hand,
surprisingly big even for such a large man, felt moist yet hard to
Chernov.  His safari shirt was dark with circular sweat stains.  He
appeared to be in his midthirties.

"I know you both speak English," he said.  "Far better than I speak
Vietnamese or Russian.  I hope you don't mind conversing in this
language.  It is good practice, is it not?" Chemov and Toon agreed.

They followed the Cuban to his office on the second floor of the
administrative building, a stricture whose ancient whitewash was
streaked with mold and stain.  Two ceiling fans barely stirred the heavy
air.  On a table between two windows were arranged soda, tea, and vodka
in plastic liter bottles; biscuits, nuts, and freshly sliced apples were
on separate dishes.  Two freshly opened packs of Marlboro cigarettes lay
next to the vodka.

The windows overlooked the courtyard and the one-story buildings in the
compound.  Chemov saw a few figures, dressed in ragged blue and white
striped pajama-like clothes, being prodded by khaki-clad guards wearing
green pith helmets and carrying bamboo batons.  Occasionally a guard
would yell at a prisoner and strike him with the baton.  Prisoners
meeting guards walking toward them had to bow or were beaten, Chemov
noted.

"Help yourself, comrades," Ceballos said, waving toward the table, "and
be seated.  " Toon poured some of the tepid tea into a cup.  Chemov
selected the bottled soda.  He and his Russian contingent had learned to
drink liquid only from bottles or cans, not anything that might be from
a water tap.  The Hanoi water system was anything but safe.  Chemov and
Toon took chairs next to the desk where Ceballos had seated himself.  He
took out a box of Havana cigars and offered them with an expansive
gesture.  Both visitors declined.  Toon did not smoke; Chemov dug out
his own Russian cigarettes.  He had taken a dislike to this hot-spit
Cuban and did not want to give him the satisfaction of accepting his
Cuban cigars or his American cigarettes.

"Why did I ask you here?" Ceballos said.  "I will tell you.

Because it is in the spirit of mutual cooperation between Havana and
Moscow to aid Hanoi in its heroic struggle--he nodded at Toon, who did
not acknowledge-"against the Yankee imperialistic forces.  We can be of
communal aid to each other, Now, how can we be of communal aid?  I will
tell you." Ceballos took a scratched Austrian lighter from his pocket
and inhaled long, satisfying draughts from his cigar after he lit up.

The smoke drifted sluggishly along with the downdraft from the fans.

"How can we be of communal aid?" Ceballos repeated.  "By the exchange of
information.  Now, what information can we exchange?  I will tell you.

It is quite simple.  Do you know what it is?" He looked expectantly at
the two pilots.

Buckets of bullshit, Chernov said to himself.  Who is this pig's
blowhole?

"Comrade Ceballos, " Vladimir Chernov said, "I truly appreciate your
invitation, your hospitality, and the idea that you wish a communal
interchange.  Would you be so kind as to get to the point?" He looked at
his watch.  "Major Toon and I are due at the field in an hour," he lied.

Ceballos's eyes slitted.  "All right, Colonel Chernov.  Perhaps I had
better show you.  Come with me.  " He seemed to have forgotten Major
Toon was even in the room.  Chemov motioned to the Vietnamese.  They
followed Ceballos out the door and down the stairs.  Ceballos led them
diagonally across the compound past two large flower beds that had
surprising color, as if the guards and administrators needed to show
vitality in the grim surroundings.  In a mustard-colored one-story
building, they entered an office where they were met by two Vietnamese
men, one in an officer's uniform, the other-a man with little piglike
eyes-in loose-fitting khakis with no insignia.  The Cuban introduced the
officer as Colonel Nam.  He was thin, gray-headed and held a cigarette
in fingers yellow and wrinkled by tobacco.

Colonel Nam nodded.  "We ready," he said, his accent heavy.

"Follow, please." It was obvious he had been expecting Ceballos and his
party.

They fell in behind Nam as he walked from his office across a narrow
corridor, through French doors with opaque windows into a room numbered
19' The'stench almost made Chemov gag' The room was, Chemov guessed,
seven meter's by ten, and dizzying to the senses.  The walls and the
ceiling were covered with white plaster covered with symmetrical
sound-absorbing knobs protruding from all the surfaces.  The knobs and
walls were stained and evenly splashed with red up to eye level, as if
painted by some bizarre artist.  Chemov looked up.  Some spurts dotted
up to the ceiling.  A meat-hook was firmly attached to a supporting
frame on the ceiling.  At the far end of the room, he saw a long
conference table covered by a blue drape.  At first glance, he thought a
long, bulky package lay in front of the table.  When he focused on it,
he felt the bile rise in his throat.

It was a naked man grotesquely bound with green straps seated on the
concrete floor.  His arms were lashed behind him, one against another,
palms together, all the way to his shoulders, which looked dislocated.

His arms protruded in the air behind him, like a handle to his upper
body.  His torso and head were pulled and tied so far forward over his
straight legs that his toes were jammed into his mouth.  His position
was so rigid he couldn't even smash his head on the floor to induce
unconsciousness.  The man, who had voided from every orifice in his
body, appeared dead.  As they walked closer, Chemov saw he was alive,
although rags were stuffed into his mouth, and his eyes were bulging in
an effort to breathe.

"He surrender thirty minutes already," Colonel Nam said proudly.  "But
we leave him for you to arrive.  He talk to you now."

"I have been working on this criminal for some time," Ceballos told
Chernov.  "He is a navigator from an electronic B-66 airplane.  He wants
to tell us how his equipment is supposed to decoy the Hanoi air defense
missiles.  " He squatted by the man.

"You are ready, now, aren't you, Bomar?" he said in a soothing
conversational voice.  "Tell me you are ready," He drew back.  "You poor
fellow, you can't talk, can you)" Ceballos winked at Chernov and jerked
the rags from the man's mouth.

Instantly, Bomar sucked in great draughts of air and exhaled in rapid
wheezing and cracked moans.  "Tell me you are ready, Bomar.  Tell me."

"I .  .  .  am .  .  .  ready," the bent figure said in a voice so
cracked and faint that Chernov barely heard it.

"What did you say, old chap?" Ceballos said.  "We can't hear you.  Are
you truly ready?" He got to his feet and, balancing carefully, stepped
on the man's neck.  He had to wave his arms like a tightrope walker to
keep his balance.  Chernov's skin crawled as he heard the crunch of bone
and cartilage cracking, and a continuing croak broken only by sobs for
breath from the twisted creature beneath Ceballos's feet.

"Ready .  .  .  ready .  .  .  reaaaaadEEEE," he heard the man scream
with a massive effort.

Ceballos stepped down and motioned the pig-eyed guard to free the man.

It took the guard fully five minutes to remove the tightly wound straps.

When free, the man could not move.  He lay on the floor and breathed in
hoarse, rattling gasps.

Chernov could see he was white and purple and bloody over his entire
body.  His arms were almost black where they had been wrapped by the
straps.  He looked like a partially decomposed corpse.  He was smeared
with blood and dried excrement.  He smelled worse than a decomposed pig
in a barnyard, Chernov thought.  What type of human could do this to
another, he wondered, repulsed beyond anything he had ever felt.  He
slowly untied his scarf and put it into his pocket, as if it would be
sullied by being at such a terrible and degrading spectacle.

"Sit up, Bomar, sit up, for God's sake, man.  Sit up so we can see you."

Ceballos went to sit at the far side of the conference table.  "over
here," he said to Chernov and Toon, who took chairs behind him, each
with an impassive face.  The wretched navigator raised himself from the
floor and swung slowly and painfully to a sitting position.

"On the stool, on the stool.  You know what to do." The man crawled and
inched his way to a low three-legged stool in front of the conference
table.  In great pain, he rolled and jerked himself up onto it.

"We've spent a lot of time together, haven't we, Bomar?"

The man swayed on the stool, his eyes half-closed.  "HAVEN'T WE, BOMAR?

" Ceballos screamed so suddenly Chernov thought he had gone insane.

"Yeah," Bomar croaked.

"And I'm tired of fucking with you.  Today is the day you talk or I will
put you back in the ropes and throw your body in the latrine pit.  You
said you are ready.  It is your choice.  LOOK AT ME,- he suddenly
screamed.  "WHICH IS IT?  Bomar's head came up.  From a long way out, he
focused his eyes on Ceballos.  They seemed to clear.  Chernov stared,
torn between revulsion and pity for this creature who was so obviously
in unbearable pain, who was obviously facing more un low bearable pain
and even death, and who was struggling to say something.

Chernov turned to Ceballos and spoke in a low voice.  "I do not think he
is in any condition to tell us anything.  Let him rest.

He can talk tomorrow."

"Not tomorrow.  Oh no, NOT TOMORROW," Ceballos screamed.  "Now, Bomar,
NOW.  TALK TO ME NOW!"

Bomar's head came up.  He painfully pushed words through his crushed and
dried throat.  His pain-racked eyes focused first on the Cuban, then on
Chernov.

"Up .  .  .  yours .  .  .  Fidel .  .  .  you .  .  .  too .  .  .

Russian .  .  .

prick." Then he fainted and fell backwards off the stool, his bowels
involuntarily voiding a trickle of black scum.

1815 HOURS LOCAL, MONDAY.  31 JULY 1967

HOA Lo PRISON.  HANoi DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

"Some of these criminals are crazy," Ceballos said when they were back
in his office.  "They don't understand.  They are losing the war.  The
protest movement back home will blow their fucking El Presidente Johnson
to hell.  They even send people here to wish us good luck in our
righteous struggle.  Even now there is a Quaker Friends boat in the
harbor come to bring good wishes and crates of whole blood for our
hospitals.  Swedish and British ships bring us goods.  American senators
and doctors condemn the war.  Bertrand Russell holds condemnation trials
in England.

The whole world is on our side." Ceballos walked to the window and
stared at the courtyard as rain swept down from the north.  "What is the
matter with these criminals?  Can't they see they can go home if they
cooperate?" After a moment, he turned to Chernov.

"Here is how you can help.  I told you I would tell you.  Help me quiz
these criminals, that is how you can help.  You know technical things to
ask.  Do it correctly and we do not have to use ropes and straps.  Even
now I gather articles from influential American people to show these
criminals how their own countrymen hate the unjust and murderous bombing
they have been conducting on the peace-loving peoples of the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam." Ceballos sounded like he had long rehearsed his
speech.

Chernov noisily cleared his throat.  "Comrade Ceballos, we must go." He
stood up.

" A moment.  Hear me out.  We hold over three hundred sixty American
criminals here at Hoa Lo and at six other prisons.

Don't you know we can get any information we want?  It is not difficult.

We already have one gringo-you know what a gringo is?  It is what we
call Yankees, gringos.  We have one gringo Marine lieutenant colonel who
quickly saw the error of his ways and is being very cooperative.  He
supplies letters and broadcasts of great propaganda value, and some
tactical information which is valueless, although he doesn't know it,
because it is what we already know." Ceballos examined his cigar.  "But
you see, how you can be of immense value?  You your very self, is by
asking these Yankee air pirates questions of a technical nature.

Questions-about their airplanes, and their tactics, and their radar, and
their weapons." He laughed.  "But you know what to ask.  Who am I to
tell a man of your stature what information he needs to know of enemy
capabilities?  Indeed, who am I?  He leaned forward, chin outthrust,
eyes rolling.  "I'll tell you who I am.  I am a simple soldier in the
great socialist army, the vanguard of communism that someday will
liberate the entire world.  That's who I am." He sat back and inhaled
happily.

"And you, who are you?  I'll tell you who you are.  You are a soldier in
the same army, struggling for the same goals, devoted to the same
cause-the same grand cause.  A cause for which you will help in whatever
way you can.  And one of those ways is to help me extract information
from these gringo air pirates.

Let us examine the value of this information.  Not only can you pass it
on to your students defending their cherished homeland, but you can send
it direct to Moscow.  Would not they be happy with current information
about the Yankee air fleet?  And wouldn't they reward you appropriately?

I'll tell you they would." Ceballos took another cigar.  He spent a
moment lighting it.

Chemov had heard fragments of the long, droning speeches of Castro and
thought it must be something all Cubans liked to do.  Then he thought of
his inquiry to the GRU about the apparent failures of the American
missiles.  So far there had been no answer.  He could not conceive of
telling this to Ceballos, for it would provide the Cuban with a natural
opening'with which to prod him.

"Of course," the Cuban said, "Comrade Ignatov would also be most
appreciative of your assistance.  Not so much for helping me accomplish
my mission, but for gaining the information so vital to the defense of
Hanoi.  Information which would also be vital to the knowledge of the
great Soviet air fleet." Ceballos slowly streamed smoke from his lips as
if he were gently blowing out a match.  He suddenly leaned forward.

"Diametrically, Comrade Ignatov would not be appreciative of any lack of
endeavor on your part, would he now, Colonel Chemov?  As the head of the
political directorate for the Hanoi detachments, he reports directly to
the Leninist Central Committee, does he not?  Of course he does.  Is it
not true that favorable or unfavorable communications from the Committee
bear heavy weight on both your promotions and assignments?  Of course it
is true.  How do I know all this?" Ceballos sat back and smiled.  "I
have studied your spravochnik, your officer's handbook put out by
Voyenizdal, the publishing house for the Soviet Ministry of Defense.

Each officer must have one in his library.  Oh, yes.  I have done my
studies.  " He sat back and looked hard at Chemov.

2145 HOURS LOCAL.  MONDAY, 31 JULY 1967

SOVIET PRIVATE CLUB SWALLOW HANOI, DEMOCRATIC ]REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Vladimir Chemov poured another vodka and returned to his seat in the
overstuffed chair.  The room was large and crowded with worn furniture
that was sodden with humidity.  The floors were cool marble.  It was on
the second floor of the Russian Cultural Center.  The magazine racks
held issues of Tekhnika i Vooruzhenie, the technology and armaments
magazine, the Voenniy Vestnik, the military herald for officers, and one
or two untouched copies of Sovietskii Voin, a dull book of military pulp
fiction and pinup pictures of pretty Russian girls in heavy folk
costumes.  The most sought after military magazines were the East German
Armee Rundschau and the Polish Zolnierz Polski, both of which ran photos
of bare-breasted girls that rivaled the forbidden and decadent American
Playboy magazine.

Chemov thumbed through a new copy of Aviatsiya i Kosmonavtika, a
magazine on current aviation and space subjects he considered quite
readable.  A record player was quietly playing some popular Moscow
music.  Polish air conditioners set high up in the whitewashed walls
chugged and strained to reduce humidity in the room.  Chemov had traded
souvenirs from crashed American planes for the machines with members of
the Polish Embassy.  Still-life paintings of forests and snow-covered
mountain peaks adorned the walls.  Cigarette smoke from four men playing
cards hung heavy in the room.  They laughed as they slapped cards down.

Several other men, advisors and support cadre, were scattered about
reading or writing letters.  A large minister's table held plastic liter
bottles of Borzumhi mineral water, Moskovskaya vodka, and orange soda.

Several plates with crumbs from tinned snacks from Rumania were
scattered about.

Anatoly Alexei Ignatov entered the room, poured a shot of vodka and a
glass of tea, spied Chemov and seated himself in the plump chair next to
him.  Ignatov, as the political officer, was a sotrudnik, meaning he was
an employee of the state but with special Communist party privileges. He
had a red stripe across his identification card that was a symbol of a
high security clearance and permission to go anywhere.  He could go
through Russian customs without checks, board Russian planes free, enter
Russian movies free, and enjoy unrestricted shopping privileges in
Moscow.  He used these privileges to his utmost.

"Health," Ignatov said, and tossed his vodka down.  He smacked his lips
and sucked on the tea.

"How was your tour with Comrade Ceballos to see the imperialist
criminals?" he inquired conversationally.

"He is a zealot who uses vile methods to get the Americans to talk,"
Chemov replied, surprised at the sharp tone in his voice.  It wasn't
wise, he reminded himself, to be so truthful with the political officer.

Everything he said might well be written down and filed in a dossier at
KGB headquarters on Derzinsky Square in Moscow.

"Nonetheless," Ignatov said in a pedantic voice, "he performs valuable
work for the revolution.  You know full well MarxistLeninist teachings
clearly state that'whatever must be done must be done to further the
cause of true communism."

"You are correct, comrade," Chemov said, "but the Soviet Union is also a
signer of the Geneva Convention concerning the treatment of prisoners of
war, as is North Vietnam.  They are badly mistreating these men, "
Chemov said.

"And you are also correct, comrade.  The rodina, Mother Russia, and the
North Vietnamese are signatories, but this is not a war.  The Americans
themselves have not declared war, so .  .  .  it is not a war.
Therefore, those scum who bombed this country are criminals, war
criminals, who have committed crimes against humanity and must be
treated as such."

Ignatov had a chubby face.  When he spoke, his mouth opened and closed,
Chemov thought, like the mouth of a fish sucking in water.

"Why must they be treated that way?  They have no information of
military value.  Thor's balls, we probably have more of military value
in forgotten files than these men will ever know.

This is not a tactical situation where lives or territory can be saved
by rapid intelligence acquisition." Chemov took a heavy pull at his
vodka.

"There are other considerations, comrade," Anatoly Ignatov said in an
officious tone.  He looked somber.

Chernov turned to face him.  "Buckets of bullshit.  Other
considerations.  You mean propaganda value?  What propaganda value is
there in photographs of emaciated automatons who bow to the camera and
say they are repentant of the grave crimes they have committed against
the peace-loving people of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.  Everyone
knows Americans don't talk like that."

"And you shouldn't talk like that, either, comrade colonel.

Your tongue is sharp tonight.  It might do for you to review the basic
tenets of your officer's spravochnik as it regards the principles of
conscious military thought and good discipline." With that, Ignatov
excused himself and walked out, after saying he had some reports to
study.  Chernov saw with amusement the covert glances, as every man in
the room watched the political officer leave.  A collective sigh went up
when the door closed behind him.

That's the second time today I've been admonished to study my officer's
handbook, Chernov thought.  Keep this up and I will be a candidate for a
psychiatric examination.

1645 HOURS LOCAL.  FRIDAY.  26 AUGUST 1967

Room 4E960, THE PENTAGON WASHINGTON.  D.C.

Major General Albert G.  ("Whitey") Whisenand sat alone in his Pentagon
office sipping black coffee from a thick mug.  A late afternoon
thunderstorm spattered soundless rain against the thick windows.  All
the lights were on to stave off the outside gloom.  He picked up the
black phone on his desk and dialed his home.  His wife, Sal, answered.

"I'm going to be late, dear wife," Whitey said.  He rubbed his left eye
with the flat of his palm as he talked.

"Again?" she said with infinite patience.  After twenty-five years of
marriage, Whitey had yet to be a nine-to-five worker.

Few career military personnel were.  "You sound worried," she added.

"Things are brewing," he said.  There was an air of tension in the upper
corridors of the Pentagon.  He couldn't tell her over the phone what he
thought was about to happen.  "I'll call you before I leave." They
exchanged "I love you's" and he hung up, then checked his watch.  It was
time.  He strode down the hall to the office of the Chief of Staff of
the United States Air FORCE (CSAF), Room 4E924.  One of the aides
ushered him from the secretarial room into the large office.

"You look worried, Whitey," CSAF said.  He walked over to shake hands,
then they headed toward the couch and coffee table.  Whitey sat down on
the leather couch.

"Thanks.  My wife said I sounded worried, now you say I look worried."

In truth, beneath the brown matte of his burn scars, Whitey's face was
pink and senatorially benign.

"I am more than worried," CSAF said.  He sat in a deep leather-covered
armchair and rubbed his forehead.  "I'm sick of it.  Sick of it all." He
was an aviator, highly experienced in bombers and fighters.  Now he
looked worn and bent with the burden of problems far more threatening
than just his own death in combat.  The loss of Air FORCE men in Hanoi
showed in his face.  Once a man of humor and grace, he now wore a
perpetual frown, and his kind eyes were sad and wrinkled.  His name was
John McConnell.  He rose to his feet and began to pace.

"I asked you to stop by for two reasons.  You're close to the Chairman,
and you're certainly close to the President." Whitey had been a West
Point classmate of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"The Chairman is getting close to the edge," CSAF said.

"He is shocked by what he considers to be McNamara's lies before the
Stennis Committee yesterday.  The Chairman was sure the testimony he
gave to the committee himself, before McNamara spoke, would FORCE
Congress to act.  When he told the committee the administration policy
would fail unless the military was allowed to go to Haiphong to stop the
flow of supplies into South Vietnam, that the conduct of the air war was
all wrong, he expected the uproar would FORCE the President to get
things moving, one way or the other.  Either prosecute the war properly
or get out of Vietnam entirely.  Now, I don't know what's going to
happen."

Whitey remembered McNamara's words the day before.  Hair slicked
straight back, steel-rimmed glasses shining in the lights, his voice
cool and in control, McNamara had said, "I welcome this opportunity to
discuss with you our conduct of the air war in North Vietnam," and then
proceeded to contradict everything the Chairman had said.

As USAF General Perry had remarked afterward to Whitey, "Now he's done
it.  He has broken the unofficial contract between civilian leaders and
military officers.  The military has always sworn to obey the civilians
without question, in return for the civilian leadership not squandering
military lives.  But what does McNamara call this?"

The red line from the Chairman's phone rang once on the desk of the
CSAF.  He picked it up and identified himself, then fis tened with
furrowed brows.  "Yes, General," he said, and nodded at the spoken
instructions, glancing at the clock on the wall.

"Yes, sir, I understand.  I'll be there," he said, and hung up.

He remained standing.

"This is most unusual," he said.  "The Chairman wants all the service
Chiefs to his office immediately.  You know what a stickler he is for
procedure and precedence.  We always meet in the Tank, never in his
office." The Tank was the large windowless room in the Pentagon used for
formal JCS meetings.  "And he said no aides and no notes.  Most
unusual."

0145 HOURS LOCAL.  SATURDAY, 27 AUGUST 1967

QUARTERS Two.  FORT MYERS Amy POST ARLINGTON.  VIRGINIA

Very early the next morning, the call came to Whitey just after one.

From years of practice, he surfaced quickly from deep sleep and was
alert in seconds.

"Do you know who this is?" the deep and measured voice asked.

Whitey was astounded.  "Yes, sir, I do."

"I would like you to come to my quarters .  .  .  right now.  Can you do
that?"

Whitey nodded.  "Yes, sir," he said.  "I'll be there in less than thirty
minutes."

He kissed Sal, who muttered something unintelligible, slipped into some
old slacks and a pullover, and heated up some old Brenny's coffee, which
he sipped as he drove to Fort Myers on the hill above Arlington
Cemetery.  The sentry at the main gate saluted and waved him on post.

The late thunderstorms had cleared up, leaving the August night steamy
and without a breeze.  Minutes later, he pulled in front of one of the
two large red brick houses on Washington Drive at the top of the hill
overlooking Wright Gate and due east across the Potomac.  Quarters One,
with its two ancient cannons parallel to the walk, was traditionally
reserved for the Chief of Staff of the United States Army; Quarters Two
for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.  Most Chairmen selected from the
Army chose to live there.  The houses were equal.  However, the houses
farther up on Grant Avenue had better views.

Inside, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff waved Whitey to a
chair in the study, the windows of which looked down on the Iwo Jima
Memorial and the city.  In the distance, the lights of Washington glowed
with moist halos.  He seemed impatient to speak.

"We all agreed, this afternoon," he began without preamble, "and I am to
call a press conference this morning to announce our decision.  " He
stood looking intently at Whitey.  He was a tall man, and thin.  His
years of Army life and constant critical decisions showed on every line
in his face.  His brown eyes looked anguished and unutterably tired.  He
hadn't told anyone, but he had been suffering chest pains recently of a
kind he had never experienced before.

"I am to announce that we are going to resign.  All of us, together. All
the service chiefs and myself.  I am to tell the press that the reason
is the unconscionable way Johnson and McNamara are throwing away
American lives on a war we are not allowed to win." He spoke the words
slowly and with great pain.

Whitey viewed him without blinking.  He had known the general for years
and had seen him rise in rank and authority, well past himself.  The
Chairman had been a young aide when Whitey had sided with Army General
Matt Ridgeway and told President Eisenhower that supporting colonial
powers in Asia such as France was not good policy.  The Chairman had
told Whitey then, and many times subsequently, how much he admired his
honest and candid way of expressing himself.

"Do you want a drink?" the Chairman interrupted himself.

"Coffee?" He indicated a carafe.

"Yes, sir, coffee," Whitey said.  The Chairman poured.  The action
seemed to put the Chairman more in charge of himself.

"Now I'm on the fence, Whitey.  I'm not so sure we should resign." He
pursed his lips.  "It smacks of mutiny.  It goes against anything I've
ever been taught.  Or anything I've taught others, for that matter." He
sighed, and turned to gaze out the window overlooking Washington.  "And
if we do resign, they'll just get somebody new.  " He was silent for a
moment, then turned to face Whitey.

"By now, you've probably guessed why I asked you here," he said.  "I
know how the Chiefs feel.  I need your opinion.

You're close to the President, and I think you could predict how the
Secretary of Defense will react.  What will they do?"

Whitey walked to the window.  He stood, looking out for a few seconds at
the darkness that was Arlington Cemetery.  He knew every man sleeping
there, and in the hundreds of tended cemeteries and lost graves of
American soldiers throughout the world.  These men slept knowing that
before they'd died they could trust their leaders.  He turned to face
the Chairman.

"You are correct," he said.  "They would just replace you with someone
new who would do what they say.  And you would prove the protesters
correct-ect-even though for vastly different reasons.  Further, you are,
all of you, too knowledgeable about what is going on to pull out now.

There are many subtleties, and you know them.  Stay and fight."

The Chairman stiffened and managed a smile.  "I thought you would feel
that way.  It's what has been on my mind these last few HOURS.  I needed
to be sure.  I will reconvene the JCS first thing this morning and tell
them I've changed my mind.  There will be no resignations." With that,
Army General Earle Wheeler looked more resolute than he had all week.

It was three in the morning when Major General Albert G.  Whisenand
walked into his house.  He went into the music room, decanted six ounces
of a harsh Chianti, flipped a switch and placed the needle at the
beginning of the worn Gilbert and Sullivan record.  The jaunty words of
"A Modem Major General" spread through the room.  He slowly rocked his
head from side to side.

Sal opened the double door and walked in.  She wore her old silk robe
over her negligee.

"Oh, my dear, you look so sad," she said, her brow wrinkled with
concern.  "What is it?  What happened?"

Whitey quickly outlined the events at the house of the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff.  He took a deep draught of the wine.

"And then, my dear, I lied to my Chief.  I lied to him." He finished the
wine in his glass.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I would have resigned."

0800 HOURS LOCAL.  FRIDAY, 29 SEPTEMBER 1967

PARADE GROUND RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE SAN ANTONIO, TExAs

In a brief ceremony, wings were awarded and class standings recognized
for the graduating pilot training class.  It was time now for the
pee-rade.  As with all parades at a military function, the "Pass in
Review" is the most important command.  When given by the senior
officer, the band immediately strikes up a usa's "Semper Fideles," and
wheels marching tune, usually So der shouts into .  proper marching
order.  The student wing comman a mighty WING, foh-WAAAARD .  .  .

HARCH, which is echoed down the line to the squadron and flight
commanders, and the parade begins.  Each man starts out on his left
foot, which he synchronizes to the beat of the drum.  That is why the
troops in the rear of a long parade are not in step with the lead
element: They hear the drumbeat a split-second later.

The parade got under way, The marching band was in fine tune.  When it
swung into the last 32 bars of Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever," the
134 officers and airmen immediately sang to themselves the familiar
words about their webbed-footed friends.  Same effect at the next piece,
Bagley's "National Emblem": They hummed about why the monkey wrapped his
tail around the flagpole.

Colonel John Walker stood in the reviewing stand taking and returning
the salute of the men leading the elements passing in review.  September
is extraordinarily hot in Texas, and by noon each day the drill field at
Randolph Air FORCE Base would be blistering enough to melt an iceberg.

Graduation ceremonies in the summer months were always scheduled early
enough so that the field could be cleared no later than nine-thirty.

Ever since the austerity program that had been promulgated (Colonel
Walker loved that word) by the Chief of Staff, graduation ceremonies had
been held in the air-conditioned comfort of the base theater.  But this
graduating class had been special, so Paragraph 3, CSAF message 280832Z
Dec 66, SUBJECT

(U) INCREASED PILOT PRODUCTION, had been waived.

Thus all the student pilots, in addition to the graduating class, were
marching around the parade grounds.

The class was special because one Captain Toby Parker was a member, and
he was off to the Vietnam war.  Many of the rest of his class would be
off to war also, once they completed the various upgrading assignments
to fighters, tankers, trainers, or bombers.  Although Parker's academic
and military record in his class was deplorable, he did stand number one
in terms of flying ability.  The Randolph public affairs people, goosed
by direct orders from their boss in the Pentagon, had invited as much of
the LOCAL and national members of the press and TV as they could find in
their handbooks.  The results had been dismal.  One national network,
CBS, had sent a team, based on a rumor there would be a Vietnam protest
sit-in at the main gate to Randolph, but that hadn't materialized.

Texans take their wars and their military men seriously, No protester
was anxious to test that disposition with the San Antonio police, the
Texas State Highway Patrol, and the Air Police.  One LOCAL radio station
had shown up, as had a reporter from the San Antonio Express-News.

Toby Parker's parents from Fauquier County, Virginia (real estate-second
largest holdings in the county), were there.  They were planning a
little write-up in the Fauquier Democrat and maybe a short piece in
Chronicle of the Horse (Toby was a well known horseman), but those
little pieces wouldn't count as far as the Air FORCE was concerned.

However, a documentary team from the Audio-Visual Service unit at Norton
AFB, California, was on hand to film the event and interview Parker for
the USAF's monthly "Air FORCE Now" programs.

"Congratulations," Colonel John Walker had said, and handed Toby his
graduation certificate and his aeronautical orders.

HEADQUARTERS AIR TRAINING COMMAND

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

Randolph Air FORCE Base, Texas AERONAUTICAL ORDERS NUMBER 314 26
September 1967

1.  The following officer, 3510th Flying Training Wing, ATC, Randolph
AFB, Tex, is granted the aeronautical rating of PILOT, effective 29 Sep
67, under provisions of paragraph 4b (1) (a), Chapter 1, AFM 35-13 and
CSAF

message 280832Z Dec 66 (as amended) to Commander ATC, and is hereby
required to participate frequently and regularly in aerial flight in
such rating under provisions of Executive Order 10152, 17 Aug 50, and
Chapter 2, AFM 35-13.

CAPT TOBY G.  PARKER, USAF, SSN FV41296248 OFFICIAL: ROBERT J.  GRAHAM
HEADQUARTERS AIR TRAINING COMMAND USAF Lieutenant General, Commander
David A.  Anderson Lieutenant Colonel, USAF Adjutant

When the parade was over, the field cleared rapidly as the Texas sun
seared the grounds.

During and after the ceremonies, the Parkers had watched with momentary
pride as Toby, resplendent in Class A khakis, was presented his wings.

They had yet to get over being cross about the fact that their son
seemed to have selected a life in the military.  "Oh, dear," his mother
had once said, "it's all so dreary, running around in uniforms and
everything.  Why don't you just join your father's firm and sell and
ride and sail like everyone else?" (Toby had been a junior Star class
champion sailor on the Chesapeake Bay.)  The Parkers had enjoyed the
LOCAL headlines when he had returned from Vietnam the previous December
as an authentic war hero.  They were, however, a little bewildered at
his casual acceptance of it all.  Particularly his graduating from pilot
training.

"Mom, Dad, I appreciate your coming down, I really do.  But it's no big
thing," he said after the ceremony, as he drove them to the civilian
airport.  He packed them off on their return flight, his mother slim and
fussy, his father permanently red-faced and heavy.  Both were known as
good riders in the Woodsford Hunt, which they had practically formed
themselves.  Toby had asked if they wished to stay in San Antonio a few
more days.  "Oh, no," his mother had replied.  "We couldn't possibly.

Our farrier, Lee Rose, is coming at nine Monday morning.  If we're not
there exactly on time, he will never shoe our horses again."

Toby had grinned.  He remembered Lee Rose as a grizzled combat veteran
from the Korean War who brooked no nonsense from his clients.

At the airport, Toby turned in the four-door sedan he had rented the day
before to drive his folks around, and retrieved his red Corvette.  He
remembered with great pleasure when he and his pal, Court Bannister, had
bought Corvettes in Las Vegas last December, after they had returned
from their tour of duty in Vietnam.  Court's father had thrown a ten-day
party that was still a blur in his memory.  He smiled in recollection as
he drove skillfully but fast back to his BOQ.  He planned to start the
700mile trip to Huriburt Field at Fort Walton Beach in Florida that
afternoon.

1815 HOURS LOCAL, FRIDAY, 6 OCTOBER 1967

DONKIN'S INN MARINA DEL RAY, CALIFORNIA

The floor-to-ceiling windows behind the bar at Donkin's Inn looked out
over the forest of bobbing and rocking masts that flashed in the late
afternoon sun.  They belonged to the hundred or so boats tied to the
marina piers.  Inside, Donkin's was crowded as usual with the serious
hunters of flesh.  The men, mid-twenties to early thirties, were
roaming, drinks in hand.

Those dressed in expensive clothes, the blazers and yacht caps, could
barely make the rent payments for their one-bedroom Santa Monica
apartments.  Those in dockers and worn jeans were usually the ones who
owned the 40-foot Wheelers and the two masted yawls that stretched out
over sixty feet-and usually several apartment buildings-in Santa Monica.

The girls, early twenties to early thirties, wore inexpensive blouses
and miniskirts.  They were fun girls who worked hard and played hard,
and who demanded and received respect.

Court wasn't interested in any of them, though.  He was waiting for
Susan Boyle.  He had met Susan on his return flight aboard an American
Airlines contract flight from Vietnam.  She was bold, blonde, buxom, a
sun-brown Manhattan Beach girl with sleek lines and a leonine mane of
hair.  And she liked to laugh.

Court had been seeing her for several months.

He had just finished the three-month upgrade course at George Air FORCE
Base, a two-hour drive from Los Angeles.  He had learned to fly and
fight the big F-4 Phantom, but not as well as he would have liked.

He took a table on the patio next to one of the marina docks.

The boats moved gently and creaked as they rocked in the light chop. Two
female joggers trotted by, breasts and ponytails bobbing, looking gaunt
and intense.  A few minutes later, Susan Boyle walked up the steps.  Her
contrast to the joggers was startling.

"My God, you look stunning.  No, ravishing is the word.  You look
ravishing," he said.  She did.  She wore tan high heels with matching
chamois miniskirt, and a form-fitting light cotton shirt with rolled-up
sleeves and collar open to just above her breasts.

He could see the white silk of her brassiere.  Her wide, generous smile
framed even teeth, though her two upper center teeth were just slightly
larger than the others, which gave her a look of permanent eager
interest.  Her tawny hair tumbled down her back; her brown eyes were
warm and shiny.

Susan Boyle had the special confidence of those girls who chose the
California beach as a place to live.  The unconscious competition among
the lithe and leggy beach girls pervades their walk, the way they hold
their head, their direct eyes; they are girls who achieve things.  The
beach doesn't make them that way, it draws them forward while the less
confident hang back.

Those who move close to the water without those instinctive talents
become discontented and move inland.  It's a process of natural
selection for both achievers and beauty.

"Ravish me, then," Susan Boyle said, and leaned forward to kiss him, "or
I'll ravish you.  But whatever we do, let's get going quickly, beast.

I've got all my night things in the car."

She stroked his cheek, her eyes roguish and sensual.  They had two white
wines, a shrimp cocktail, and departed, Court in his Corvette, Susan in
her golden Porsche.  They were to spend the night at Court's beach place
in Venice, then drive leisurely through the desert to George Air FORCE
Base the next day.  That night they were to attend the formal graduation
dining-in for Court's F-4 upgrade class in the Officer's Club.

2045 HOURS LOCAL, FRIDAY, 6 OCTOBER 1967

OCEAN FRONT WALK VENICE.  CALIFORNIA

The white-topped surf splashed soft thunder on the smooth sandy beach
which lay between Marina del Rey and Santa Monica in the area called
Venice.  The foaming water glowed phosphorescent in the moonlight.  Out
to sea, small night thunderstorms were building.  Tentative
cloud-to-cloud lightning illuminated them like ghostly galleons of the
air.  Court and Susan parked their cars in the lot next to the two-story
building fronting the ocean, then climbed the back stairs to his
apartment.  It stretched from the kitchen straight through the living
room and bedroom to a sumptuous balcony overlooking the beach.

In the wide living room, Court lit two big candles, and turned on the FM
to some slow California swing.  They embraced, hard and breathless.

Court got a jug of wine from the small refrigerator, and they walked
forward into the bedroom.  The farthest wall was all glass, long drapes,
and a wide sliding door out to the balcony.

"Race you," she said.  In seconds, their clothes were scattered on the
floor and they were in the big king-size bed nuzzling and grasping,
tangled in the black satin sheets.

It was close to midnight before they slept, damp and entwined in each
other's arms.  The thunderstorms, rumbling and mumbling as they
dissipated, had decided to save their power for another time.  The
hypnotic surf beat continued.  At five-thirty, they awoke.  Court made
coffee, and they shared a cigarette in the soft light of a candle.

"Ah, this is so great.  Three days of you," she said, and hugged him.

"When do you actually have to ship out, Court?"

"Soon." He looked at her.  "I don't have to ship out, you know.  I'm
shipping out because I want to.  I leave from Travis in four days."

She drew back, slightly.  "You volunteered?"

"Yeah, guess I did," he said, remembering his problems at Edwards.

"Sure, I'm a volunteer."

"Again?" she said.  "Seems to me you said you volunteered the first
time."

"That's true.

"But I don't recall you telling me you volunteered this time."

Her mouth turned down.  "What for?  Why are you going back?

You said yourself you didn't have to.  So why?" She sat up, and hugged
her knees.

Court propped himself on an elbow and reached for his Luckies.  "This
doesn't sound like your basic after-sex conversation." He lit a
cigarette.

"Don't change the subject.  Why are you going back?"

Court got up and padded to the open balcony door.  The surf was low now,
white and rhythmic; it was an old friend you could always count on to be
there.  The air was warmer than he expected.  In the far right corner,
next to the railing, was a round white wicker table and two recliner
chairs.  The railing shadowed the light from the street-lamps below.

Susan got up to stand in the doorway next to him.  He put out his
cigarette and breathed deep of the damp and salty night air.  It smelled
of rain.

"I just have to, that's all."

"Hero stuff?" she asked.  "I thought you were deeper than that."

"There's some of that, sure.  Scratch the surface of any fighter pilot
and you'll find many things.  One is being a bit of a her-O."

He gave her a half smile she could barely see in the dark.  "That might
have been one of the many reasons the first time I went.

And I suppose it flavors a little bit of my feelings now, but it is more
than that, much more."

"What, then?"

"It's still going on.  I thought it would be over by now, but it's still
going on.  So I have to go back."

"You thought the war would be over?  Why on earth did you think that?

Westmoreland is begging Johnson for even more troops to be sent to him
in Vietnam."

Leaving him, Susan walked out on the balcony and, still nude, sat in the
shadowed corner facing Court.  She stretched her legs out, crossed her
ankles, then tossed her head so her hair hung down on her right
shoulder.  She lit a cigarette.  The flare of the match illuminated her
body in red and gold.  Black shadows danced beneath her breasts, drawing
attention to the dark vee of her thighs.  The image stayed in Court's
mind as the flame died, and the odor of sulphur blew away.  He went and
knelt next to her, and, cupping her face with his hands, kissed her. She
tasted salty, and he breathed her fragrance from their lovemaking. He
nuzzled her neck, and the curves of her breasts.  They were firm and
moist, and cooling in the air.

She tried to push him away.  "You haven't answered my question."

"All you do is come up with questions." He bent over her.

"God, woman, but you taste good, and smell good," he said, his voice
muffled from the hollow between her shoulder and her neck.

Susan sighed, and shivered, "Ah God, Court.  You're getting to me
again," she said.  She quickly stubbed out her cigarette, and they
kissed, deep and hungrily.  He crouched by her chair and slid his hands
under the curve of her knees and behind her back.

"Oh, I'm too heavy.  Court, I'm too heavy." She laughed low in her
throat.

"Not tonight.  Not here, not for me.  I'm Supercock, remember?" He
laughed, and swung her up easily and started for the bedroom.  She put
her arms around his neck and nuzzled his chest.

Later, they lay side by side, cigarettes glowing.  The dawn was gray;
soft rain had started, straight down and gentle.

"Okay," Susan said, "so you have to go back.  That tells me nothing. You
have to go back because you like little slant-eyed girls?  You have to
go back because you like the sixty-five bucks a month combat pay? You
have to go back because you like flying airplanes while somebody is
shooting at you?" She thought for a moment, then pulled herself up on an
elbow.  "Or is it the other way around?  You like to shoot at people?"

"All of the above," he said.  He flicked his Lucky into the ashtray on
his bare chest.

"Don't be a smartass, " she said.  She tossed her head.  "Maybe you just
like the combat.  Maybe you like the thrill "All of the above," he said
again.

She sat up.  "That's horseshit, and you know it," she snapped "You're
just fooling around.  I want to know why you said you have to go back as
if it were some kind of a .  .  .  a - - ."

"Duty?" he said.  "Some kind of a duty Is that what you meant?" His
voice became harsh.

"No, death wish.  That's what I meant, death wish."

"Well, horseshit to you too, lady," he said, getting up.  He carefully
poured another wine and took a deep swallow.  He put on a robe from the
closet, and tossed her one.  She put it over her shoulders and drew her
knees up.

"Well then, answer my damn question," Susan said.

"What question?"

"Good God, Bannister, you're acting like a little kid who has to answer
to his mother what he was doing in the bathroom so long - "

Court laughed.  "What an analogy." He shook his head.  "You and Doc
Russell.  You're just alike, you know.  He was our flight surgeon at
Bien Hoa.  Always asking the same questions you are.

Why this, why that.  Said he wanted to know what made fighter pilots
tick."

"I know what makes you tick," she said, and flicked his maleness.

"Again?" he leered.

She sat back and crossed her legs with exaggerated movements.  "Nothing
doing.  Absolutely nothing doing until you tell me."

:'That's extortion."

"Okay, then, tell me and we'll screw,"

:'That's bribery."

"You don't want to tell me, do you?"

"No."

"Don't trust me?"

."Oh hell, Susan, of course I trust you.  I trust you not to
understand."

She jerked as if struck.  She grabbed her pack, lit another cigarette,
and blew an angry puff in the air.  "Okay, Court, then let me tell you.

I know exactly what it is you won't tell me." She got up and wrapped the
robe around her, yanked the belt tight.

She crossed her arms.  "I fly, too, you know.  I've been to Vietnam,
too, you know." She waved away the wine Court offered.

"You want to go back because your buddies are there,, and you don't feel
tight being here fat-catting it on the beach.  You feel guilty here."

She snorted.  "Now isn't that the truth?  Hell, I know it is. Bannister,
you wear guilt like a hair shirt.  And you hide it about as well as
knights hid their armor."

I He turned toward her.  "I like that analogy, about the armor, mean,
but I don't like its basic premise.  What makes you think I feel
guilty?" he asked, his voice becoming harsh again.  "I don't feel the
least bit guilty.  You know, that's a helluva connection.  I'll bet you
didn't come up with that idea just flying MAC contract to Vietnam and
back."

"I never told you?  My dad was career brownshoe Navy.  He flew Hellcats
off the Lex in World War Two, and Panthers in Korea.  He told me things.

One night we got blitzed together down in San Diego.  At North Island.

He told me a lot of things that he said he could never tell Mom."

"What things?  Why couldn't he tell her?"

"About volunteering.  He always lied to her about volunteering.  He
always said he had to go.  He never told her he was a constant
volunteer.  " Her voice sounded tender and critical at the same time.

"Well, he was right.  I understand that," Court said.  "That's how it
was with Charmaine.  She wasn't even pleased I was working so hard at
ASU to get into the astronaut program.  By the time I went to combat, we
were divorced."

"You haven't really said why, Court.  Dad told me he volunteered, but it
never occurred to me to ask him why." She sighed.  "I guess I believed
all those World War Two movies where the hero always volunteers.  It's
what you do, isn't it?  No questions asked."

"You're making a lot of this," Court said.

"And you're being evasive," Susan said.

"Okay, I'll try to tell you." He blew out a huge cloud of cigarette
smoke.  "Yeah, it's what I do.  I've been drawing flight pay all these
years, flying Uncle Sam's best.  And it's time to do what I've been
training to do, and, incidentally, what I do best.

I'm like an insurance policy.  The government invests in me and a couple
of hundred other guys so we can go fight if we have to." He almost said
"so we can go kill people with airplanes," but thought better of it. But
that was his job.  He knew peace was not his profession.  He picked up
where he left off.  "We have a lot of fun cavorting around the world
learning, but there is always the possibility the day may come when
Uncle Sam cashes you in for the return on his money.  That's how it is
At least that's one of the reasons I'm going back.  There's another
reason."

"Which is?" she said.

"The guys are still there."

"What guys?" she insisted.  "Tell me.  What guys?  Your brother? Father,
maybe.  Come on, what guys?" Her voice was harsh and insistent. He could
see a glint of tears in her eyes.

"Hey, take it easy," he said.  She twisted away when he tried to stroke
her back.  "The guys, just the guys.  The pilots, the GIs, the people in
the Hanoi Hilton.  I want to be with them."

He lit another cigarette.  "They are the only people in the world I give
a damn about."

"You don't even know more than a dozen, or so," she said.

"No, you're, wrong.  I know them all.  And they know me.  We know each
other," he said.

"You sound just like my dad.  Like a member of some big goddamn
fraternity with secret signs and ways to recognize each other.  " She
looked angry.

"Come off it, Susan." He tried to change the subject.  "How about your
dad?  What happened to him?  Is he still alive?"

Susan made an inverted smile.  She walked to the sliding doors and
looked out over the water.  The rain had increased.  Silver from the
sand and the sea.  "No," she said, "He's not alive.  He crashed at night
into the Med.  Just flew into the sea behind a carrier while lined up
for a night trap." Her voice cracked.  "The dumb shit, he was just like
you.  He said he had to be with his guys.  Oldest CAG in the Nav - No
deep draft command for him.  Fly, y fly, fly.  And that's just what will
happen to You.  You'll fly and fly and fly until you bust your ass." She
whirled to face him, her face angry.  "But you don't believe that, do
you?  Maybe the other guy will get it, but not nice old you.

Oh, no, not sweet lovable pink-body you.  You're just like him.

You think you are invincible.  So did he.  So did my father, Commander
Tug Boyle, You Ess fucking Enn, deceased." She tossed her head back, her
lioness hair flowing.  Her lips were white, and drawn back.  She brushed
hot tears from her eyes.

"Well," she said, her voice becoming stronger.  "Nothing like a little
cry to clear the air." She nodded to herself, lips pursed.  "To hell
with your dining-in.  I'm going home.  Don't follow me.  Don't call me.

Don't see me again.  Go play war with your fly-boy buddies.  I knew
there was a reason not to start seeing you, and I just remembered what
it is.  You put it so nicely.  You're an insurance policy running around
looking for someone to cash you in.  Well, Buster, I ain't gonna be
around when you get cashed in.  Nothing doing.  I won't touch you or
your dip-shit policy.  So long, fly-boy."

He heard the refined snarl of her Porsche through the rain as she worked
her way through the gears leaving the alley.

He took the rest of his wine and walked to the balcony door.

He could still smell the tang of their lovemaking.  He drank deeply
from.  the thin crystal goblet, and walked out on the balcony.  The rain
plastered his hair.  He felt lonely and morose.  He shivered.

She is only half-right, he knew, only half-right.  The other half, he
could barely acknowledge or confront within himself, much less to her.

Odd thing is, she had almost caught his secret.

He started to play the game he had invented a short time after returning
from his first combat tour.  A game where he could take out a
well-buried thought from its compartment, examine it dispassionately,
and stow it securely at his leisure.  Now he let the thought, the
secret, bubble up.  Then it came, rushing out unchecked at full power,
smacking him with an intensity for which he was unprepared.  His teeth
started to chatter.  He couldn't control or diminish his emotion.  He
shivered as he was flooded with a punishing reaction.

Dominant was the unpleasant reality that he was beginning to like
combat.  To like it all.  The flying on the edge, the troops, the
heightened awareness.  It was like a high.  He had heard of adrenaline
highs.  Maybe that's what it was, maybe he was hooked.

His mind moved quickly to the next postulate: There was nothing in the
stateside Air FORCE for him.  Being an astronaut was out.  The next
thought marched into his mind in an orderly fashion.  There is no one
person in the States to keep me here.  I am not in love.  A tremor ran
through him.  Christ, what a realization.  He surprised himself as he
drew a choking breath.  The rain streamed on his face.  I am not in
love, he thought.  I'm not in love.  A wave of loneliness almost buckled
his knees.  Loneliness for a mixture of things, he realized.  On one
hand, he wanted the deep love and sense of permanency, with a wife and
children, which he had never had; on the other hand, he liked living on
the edge and the sense of doing something important with comrades he
respected highly.  That sums it up, he thought.

I have no reason to be here anymore.  I want to go back.  I have to go
back.

I can't stop these thoughts, and I don't want to.  Got to play this one
out.  There's more to going back to Vietnam than being hooked on combat
and not being in love, he chastised himself.

Court shook his head, as if to clear away buzzing insects.

Okay, admit it.  Yeah, there is more than just that.  It's the beast in
the cage.  I have this fucking beast in me.  I have to let it out of the
cage to do my job in combat, then try to stuff it back in when the tour
is over.  It's heady stuff, when the beast is out.

You can get drunk on it; that's it, the high.  Pretty soon, maybe that's
all you want to do.  Then you're lost, there is no coming back.  The
rain felt colder.  He shivered again, in constant tremors now, yet he
knew it was more from emotion than cold.  His racing thoughts began to
slow.  He drew a deep breath, and realized with surprise that, as he
calmed, he felt unutterably sad.

Waves of melancholy swept him as he felt the rain beating down, straight
and cold.  He loved the rain and the raw energy of crashing storms.  I'm
going to die in the rain.  Too much has happened to me in the rain.  I'm
going to die in the rain.  He knew that would someday happen.

He shook his head once more, and forced a laugh through his shivers.  He
raised his glass to the sea.

"Bannister, old man," he boomed out, "here's to it, and the bloody hell
with thinking about it." He tossed off the wine.

Deep down, he knew he was faking it.  But there was no other way.  You
had to gut out moments like this.  He'd seen.  it before, in other
pilots who had felt a premonition.  Too often it became a
self-fulfilling prophecy.  Such thoughts could leave a sour residue that
might surface at moments of total danger, distracting one or, worse,
making one give up.  Time's up; life isn't worth such agony.  Easier
just to quit.  So you had to fake it and not go too deep.  You had to
gut it out and be invincible.  He laughed at it all.  He had to.

At noon he called Nancy Lewis at her Manhattan Beach apartment.  It was
warm now, and sunny.  Secret thoughts of the night before were safely
stowed, and a temporary patch placed over the pain of Susan's walking
out.  He stood holding the phone at the end of the extension cord and
looking over the water from the balcony of his Venice apartment.  The
rain was long gone, the sun high and bright.  The sand had dried to
virgin smoothness.

He had some good Mamas and the Papas swing on the FM, and was doing
reasonably well blocking last night; the rain, the thoughts, Susan
Boyle.  He tried to concentrate on Nancy Lewis 'Hi, it's Court.  How
about going to the beach for a beer?"'

She hesitated a fraction, then answered in a low voice.  "Court, it
would be good to see you, but I don't want to go out They had had some
intense days together during his first tour.

He had met her at Bien Hoa, when she'd been a stewardess on a civilian
airliner with an engine problem that had landed at his military base.

She had told him she had volunteered for the Vietnam flights, hoping the
closeness would help her search for information about her Special Forces
husband who was missing in action, but presumed dead.

Later, after her husband had been officially declared dead, Court and
Nancy had met at Clark Air Base in the Philippines.

For three days, they had talked and explored each other's feelings ,
then embraced in mutual trust and need.  That had been last year.  He
had seen her a few times this year, but always just for a quiet dinner.

"It's not the same now, Court.  I've started dreaming of Brad, and he's
always calling me." She was silent for a moment.  "I rea Ily do hear
him, you know.  Am I going out of my mind?

That isn't the only thing that's been happening to me." Her words.  came
faster.  "I'm sometimes so sure he is just in the other room.  Then .  .

.  there were other things, horrible things, that used to happen when I
flew to Vietnam.  That's why I had to quit.  I'm not flying MAC." Flying
MAC meant crewing the Braniff flights chartered by the USAF Military
Airlift Command to deliver GIs to and from Vietnam.  "I just can't take
it anymore."

"What do you mean?" Court asked.  -It's not like the front end crew,"
she said.  "They don't get involved.  They don't even see the kids.  But
we feed them when they're hungry and cover them when they sleep.  We
listen to them when they are lonely and sometimes .  .  .  cry with
them."

He heard her voice catch.  "All those boys, those young boys.  I don't
mind bringing them home.  I like that.  If that was all I had to fly, I
would do it forever.  Bring them fresh milk to drink on the plane, and
talk to them.  Yes, I could do that, I could bring them home.  I just
can't take them over there," she said, simply.  "I just can't do it.

Isn't that silly?  It started on a flight out there two months ago.  I
looked down the rows of these young men, and .  .  .  I saw who wasn't
coming back.  I mean I could tell who was going to die in Vietnam.

Believe me, I'm not crazy.  But I .  .  .  I couldn't see their faces.

One out of every three or four boys, I couldn't focus on their faces. It
was all blurry and that meant they were going to die, don't you see?"

"Nancy, I'm no psychiatrist-"

She interrupted.  " 'I'm no psychiatrist, but." That was your next word,
wasn't it?  But."

"Yes," he said.  He began to feel decidedly uncomfortable.

Between Susan Boyle and her dead Navy pilot father, and Nancy Lewis
seeing her dead soldiers, he was rapidly becoming depressed and-he
didn't want to admit it-a little unnerved by it all.

Nuts, he said to himself.  This is a typical Saturday morning after a
boozy FRIDAY night when I broke up with my girl.  I'm just a little
wobbly, that's all.  All I'm trying to do now is fix myself up for
Saturday night.  He sighed inwardly.  And it ain't working out quite as
well as I had hoped.  He brought his thoughts back to Nancy Lewis.  He
put what he hoped was a cheery yet comforting tone in his voice.

"Hey, you did right by getting off MAC contract.  Don't go back.  Your
mind was trying to tell you something.  It flat ut was telling you to
quit that kind of flying.  That all.  So, you did quit that kind of
flying.  Now you'll be okay."

Court made it back to George in less than two HOURS.  Top down on the
Corvette, he yelled obscenities into the wind.  He turned some Jefferson
Airplane up so loud he felt it in his molars.  Grace Slick belted it
out.

"FEED YOUR HEAD .  .  .  FEED YOUR HEAD"

Bannister, you are a bonehead and a coward.  That woman needed your
help, and you bugged out.

Yeah, he said to himself, I bugged out because there was death all over
the place.  A tremor ran down his spine.  He clenched his teeth.  He
refused to admit to himself that he was afraid she might look at him and
not see his face.

0730 HOURS LOCAL, MONDAY, 9 OCTober 1967,

HURLBURT FIELD FORT WALTON BEACH.  FLORIDA

The United States Air FORCE decides what to title their installations by
dividing them into major installations called Air FORCE Base (large,
combat-related, U.S.  property), and minor installations called Air
FORCE Station (small, not U.S.  property).  There are also support sites
(radar or radio relay, missile tracking, etc.)  The names of the bases,
Randolph, Edwards, Hurlburt, are in honor of men who died performing an
aerial task, sometimes routine, sometimes outstanding, for the United
States Air FORCE.

Those of lesser stature are enshrined by having streets named after them
on various bases.  In between are individuals who did great things and
who are recognized by having a building or an auditorium or a barracks
named after them.

The "Field" of Hurlburt Field is an exception.  Not even the P.A. people
know why it is a "field."

Captain Toby G.  Parker was assigned to the 4409th Combat Crew Training
Squadron (CCTS) at Hurlburt Field, Florida, to learn how to fly the
Cessna model 337 Super Skyrnaster, which the Air FORCE designated the
O-2A.  He had signed in at Wing Headquarters two days before, on
Saturday, the seventh of October.  He had been given a welcome packet,
and directed to Base Housing for quarters assignment.  An hour later, he
had found the Officer's Club across Highway 98 from the field, and was
on the patio drinking beer.  Two HOURS later, he was at the Eglin Beach
Club farther east on Highway 98.  With him were two new friends,
captains, fresh from signing in for the same training course.  They met
at the O-Club.

There were girls there that afternoon, brown and warm, with flowing
Southern accents.  The three captains, full of beer and courage, went
into the pursuit mode, They talked with many and danced with a few after
the sun went down, trying out variations of their repertoire that just
might lead to a friendly seduction.

Among the jovial crowd were obvious pairings and re-pairings, and the
shared laughter of well-known jokes and jargon as they danced and drank
in the warm Gulf air.

The fighter pilots from Eglin Air FORCE Base seemed to have the edge,
mainly because they knew most of the girls.  To show their displeasure,
the O-2 pilots gathered and howled at the stuffed marlin on the far
wall.  The tradition had started, it was said, as a pointless ritual
exclusively for Hurlburt pilots.  There was a bonus.  This nonsensical
performance never failed to in duce one or more girls to inquire
laughingly, is

"Just what is that all about?" The pilot's answer depended on the
intensity of the girl's question and the interest level in her eyes.

Toby, neither dancing nor pursuing, attracted more female attention at
the bar than his two hunting classmates.  He looked boyish and wistful.

His remoteness attracted a few girls who were just a little tired of
eager hot rocks who talked so much of flying and nothing else.  Toby
bought the girls drinks and let them flutter and flash around him.  His
two new pals suddenly realized he was the candle to the delicate
Southern moths, and came swooping in like night birds for the kill.

Quickly accommodating to what seemed to them Toby's winning style, they
adopted a morose and brooding demeanor and drank until their eyes
crossed and they had to excuse themselves to go into the parking lot and
throw up.

On Sunday, the three of them dried out on the beach, passed a football,
and talked about their backgrounds and upcoming FAC assignments.  The
captains, Roy Thomas and Gerry Draper, had been B-52 copilots and were
more than happy to fly something they were in command of-even something
as small as the Oscar Pig, as the underpowered, prop-driven Cessna O-2A
was nicknamed.

The O-2A had two Continental 210lip engines mounted fore and aft of the
cockpit, a push-pull arrangement, and side-by-side seating.  It had a
high wing, retractable landing gear, and a control wheel instead of a
stick.  It weighed two tons full up with pilot, fuel, and armament.  To
improve visibility, the USAF had installed large plastic panels over the
pilot's head.  The wingshad been strengthened to allow four hard points
for the attachment of pods of marking rockets or light machine guns. The
2,75-inch marking rockets had warheads of white phosphorus, nicknamed
Willy Pete, that exploded into a huge cloud of dense white smoke to
attract the eyes of the fast, high-flying jet pilots.

From that point of mutual reference, the forward air controller (FAC)
pilot would give instructions as to where the strike pilots were to
place their ordnance.  When the strike was called to provide close
support for American or Vietnamese troops, the FAC was in radio contact
with the ground commander.  Only when the ground troops were clearly
located would the FAC place the ordnance where they wanted the strike.

From tiny strips spotted all over Vietnam, the FACs flew over Vietnam
and Laos, searcht targets, patrolling roads, and spotting ambush sites
for ing ou advancing American troops.  Other times, in a free fire zone,
or on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the FAC would seek out and destroy with
strike aircraft what he knew to be enemy positions.

The O-2A was an interim replacement for the tiny O- I E, until the
larger, faster turbo-prop OV-10 was ready to take over the FAC mission.

The FAC airplanes carried three radios: UHF and VHF transmitters for
talk between airplanes and air base control sites, and an FM set in the
25- to 75-megacycle range to talk with ground troops.  They also carried
an AM navigational set that received broadcasts in the civilian 540- to
1640-kilocycle range.  The cruise speed of the Oscar Pig was 125 knots,
about 145 mph.  Cessna had a contract to deliver 346 of the O-2s to the
USAF.

Though Thomas and Draper had heard of Toby Parker receiving the Air
FORCE Cross for bravery under fire flying an O-1, they didn't bring the
subject up.  They lay on towels spread on the hot sand, talking
aimlessly, never revealing their dreams to be a combat hero like Toby.

The next morning, Monday, at 0700, the three officers reported to the
academic building for a welcome speech from the Commandant of the FAC
school.  Following his words were a series of school orientation
lectures.  By 0800, still gingerly protecting a throbbing head, Toby
Parker started the upgrade course for the O-2 Forward Air Controller
program.

Five days later, he was arrested by the Fort Walton Beach police for
speeding and drunken driving.

1330 HOURS LOCAL, MONDAY.  9 OCTOBER 1967

Los ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT CALIFORNIA

At the back ramp of the, cargo area, away from the bustling passenger
gates, the Boeing 707s off-load Americans coming home from the Vietnam
war.  There are no stewardesses.  There are not even any passenger seats
on these airplanes.  The only stairs are up front, for the three-man
crew.  The returning soldiers are taken off the plane, a freighter, four
at a time, by tall Case440 forklifts.

Ramon tried to meet every plane.  His friend, Stapka, who worked at the
airplane wash rack, would get the schedule.  The two of them would stand
together, slick their hair back, arrange their clothes, and salute the
men who had fought for their beloved country.  Ramon, gatekeeper at the
Braniff employee parking lot, was from Honduras; Stapka from Hungary.

At first, the tow tractor drivers and cargo handlers chuckled and made
fun of them.  Then one day a handler straightened up from his labors,
and put his hand over his heart as a freighter taxied by.  Another
joined him, and another.  In a few weeks, it was a ritual that was
observed by all the ramp and line crew.

Every air freighter bringing war dead home was met with reverence and
salutes.  Soon, pilots were taping small American flags and gold stars
to the side window of their cockpits.  The linemen never spoke of this
among themselves when they had their beers in the LOCAL taverns after
work.

Susan Boyle of American Airlines was exhausted.  She had worked the
grueling Boston-New York-Chicago trip Sunday.

Her short layover at the Airport Hotel at O'Hare had been fretful and
sleepless.  She had tossed and pounded her pillow, and generally
discomforted her roommate as she thought about Court Bannister.  Damn
him and his fighters.  Then the double-leg fro in O'Hare to Memphis to
Los Angeles had taken what reserve she had remaining.  She sat now,
weary and frazzled, in the crew bus, as it threaded its way from her 727
along the ramp to American's operations office.

She felt leaden and dispirited.  Her head nodded as her eyes began to
close.  God, what am I going to do about Court?  she asked herself for
the forty-fifth time.  I don't know if I love him or what, but I miss
that big bastard.  I want to be with him.  He makes me feel so .  .  .

girlish and sleek.  And I am so lonesome.

But I won't call; nothing doing.  Better, smarter this way.  I'll forget
him.  Her eyes slowly closed.  Her head snapped up as the bus stopped
for a taxiing freighter.  She looked out and saw the amp people at
attention, right hand holding work caps over their hearts.  She had
heard of this.  The other crew members in her bus saw the tribute to the
returning soldiers and fell silent.

Susan watched the freighter head toward the blocks by a large open
hangar where other freighters from Vietnam had unloaded.

Inside she saw the stacks of silver-gray aluminum caskets.  She caught
her breath as a chill ran down her neck.  She tightened her lips. Court,
oh God, I've got to talk to him.

1530 HOURS LOCAL, MONDAY, 9 OCTOBER 1967

PENTHOUSE A, SILVER SCREEN HOTEL LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

Sam Bannister could never be mistaken for anything but what he was, and
what he had been: a stunningly handsome sword wielding buccaneer who had
aged extremely well.  He still looked as if he could fight pirates to a
standstill after swinging to the deck from the yardarm.  He stood
six-foot-four.  His broad shoulders tapered into a trim waistline and
narrow hips.  His nose and lips were thin, a millimeter short of being
sharp.  His blond hair was combed to one side in studied carelessness.

The slight cowlick in back at the part was one of the many endearing
things about Silk Screen Sam that brought out the motherly and
protective instincts in women.  He was well into his mid-fifties and
looked a trim forty.

His white canvas slacks and white denim shirt open at the neck
accentuated his tan.  Around his neck, he wore a heavy chain of 18-karat
braided gold from which hung a large curved tiger's tooth mounted in
cheap brass, and a slender gold alligator with movable jaws.  Court had
sent him the tiger's tooth during the time he'd flown F-105s over Hanoi.

It was a Thai talisman against shoot-downs, the common cold, and VD.

Shawn had sent the alligator from Saigon.  It was a roach clip.

During World War II, Sam Bannister had been a gunner on B-17s of the
Eighth Air FORCE.  Afterward he had picked up his acting career, made
several highly successful adventure movies, and, with an old high school
chum, invested this money in movies for TV and California and Nevada
desert real estate.  It had all worked out.

Court and his father sat on huge white chairs in the vast living room of
Sam's twentieth-floor penthouse.  Floor to ceiling tinted glass
overlooked Las Vegas on one side, and the desert on the other.  They
drank scotch and reminisced.

Court was talking of Toby Parker and his red Corvette.  He wondered how
Toby was doing since a year ago when they had both bought their
Corvettes at Geisen's here in Las Vegas.  Toby had plenty of family
income to add to his back pay to purchase the Vette for cash.  So had
Court.  They had just returned from a year's tour of duty in Vietnam.

Sam Bannister had thrown a week-long party for Court and his two
friends, Toby Parker and Wolf Lochert.  Toby had been drunk most of the
time, and Wolf Lochert had followed the dancer Charmaine around like a
love struck teenager.  Whereas Charmaine seemed fond of Wolf
Lochert-even attracted to him-she showed him nothing more than Las
Vegas.  Wolf didn't really expect more under the circumstances;
Char-maine was, after all, Court Bannister's ex-wife.

Midst much laughter and nostalgia, Sam had given back to Court the old
Stetson hat Court had bought for the unheard-of sum of forty dollars as
a teenager when he had been riding in Grade B westerns.  He was wearing
it now, the Stetson Sun Ranger, brim pulled low.  He finished talking
about Toby and was silent.

Sam Bannister looked at his son.  "Tell me why you wanted to upgrade
into the F-4."

"That's obvious, Dad.  I'm a fighter pilot, it's a fighter, I'm on my
way to combat.  What more can I say?"

"Say more."

"I thought it was obvious," Court said.  "I want to fight the best way I
can."

"And .  .  .  ?"

to make ace.  Four more "And the F-4 is the plane for me MiGs and I'll
be the first ace in the Vietnam war."

"There's more to a war than just making ace "Not for me there isn't,"
Court said.

Sam Bannister looked reflective, He stared at his son for a few seconds.

"I'll ask you the same question at the end of your combat tour.  We'll
see what your answer is then." He sipped his drink, and changed the
subject.  "I'd like to take you

"What time is your plane?" Sam asked.

out in the Lear, you know."

"Never mind, Dad.  I don't like prolonged goodbyes.  I get Western from
McCarran at six-thirty tonight to San Francisco, then up to Travis Air
FORCE Base by bus for an early takeoff tomorrow.  A day and a half later
I'll be in Thailand."

Sam Bannister looked at his son.  "Considering this is your last night
in the States before a year in Asia, you aren't exactly whooping it up."

He waved his hand expansively toward Las Vegas.  "So many girls, so
little time," he grinned.

The phone buzzed.  Court was still chuckling as he picked it up. Earlier
that day, he had thanked his dad for the offer of any girl in town over
five-ten and under twenty-five.  He answered the phone.  Terry Holt, his
father's majordomo, said it was for Court, from a personnel officer of
the United States Air FORCE.

Puzzled, Court said to connect the caller.

"Oh, Court, I'm so glad I found you," Susan Boyle said in a relieved
voice.  -I'm so sorry for the other night."

"Good God, woman, how did you find me?" Court's voice was a bit thick
from the scotch.  Your dad

"Your Venice phone is disconnected, so I thought would know.  I told the
secretary it was urgent, that I was from the Air FORCE personnel office.

it worked.  Oh, Court, damnit to hell anyhow.  I can't let you go like
this without making it right between us - "

Court looked at his watch.  "Stand by," he ordered, then thought better
of it.  "I mean, hold on a minute." He punched the "hold" button.  He
looked at his father with a broad smile.

"Hey, Dad.  Can I use the Lear tonight?" His father grinned.

"I'll pick you up at LAX, then you can go up to Travis with me," Court
said into the telephone.

"Oh, Court, I can't.  I go out early in the morning.  I'll write.

I promise.  I'll write." The tears were just behind her voice, making it
hoarse.  She saw the caskets.  "But I'll get over to Asia to see you.

I'll get back on MAC flying.  Count on it."

1730 HOURS LOCAL, 10 OCTOBER 1967

SAIGON-VUNG TAU HIGHWAY QL 15) REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Lieutenant Colonel Wolfgang Xavier Lochert, green beret scrunched over
his left eye, was singing at the top of his lungs He was singing into
the sixty-mile-per-hour Wind streaming over' the top of the flattened
screen of the black jeep he was driving ' Actually, it wasn't singing,
it was humming, very forceful hum_ ming.  DEE DEE DUM, DEE DA DA DUM was
Wolf's way of rendering Barry Sadler's "Ballad of the C ireen Berets."

Wolf was singing/humming because he was very, very happy.

The cause of his happiness was sitting next to him, handcuffed to the
handhold bar on the panel in front of him.

"Colonel Lochert," Curtis Bubba Bates screamed, his words torn away by
the wind.  "My God, Colonel, why don't you answer me?" He twisted his
hands against the bar.

Lochert gave him a casual backhand that made Bates's head loll.  "Don't
swear, scheisskopf."

The jungle was closing in on the road.  It was hardtop that had once
been heavily traveled by wealthy Frenchmen as they drove to and from
their expensive villas at the sandy cove of Vung Tau, which they called
Cap Saint Jacques.  Now it was far too dangerous to be on the road in
anything other than an armed convoy-and then only during daylight.  In
less than an hour, it would be dark - Through a break, Wolf saw a high
point off to one side that he was sure was a Viet Cong observation post.

Humming loudly, he pulled over to the side and stopped.  He switched off
the ignition, jumped out, and jabbed the point of his K-bar knife into
the right rear tire.  There was the sound of a vehicle on the road, from
the way they had come.  Then Wolf unscrewed the valve from the
rear-mounted spare.  Bubba Bates squeaked as the air began to hiiss out
of the two tires.

"Colonel, please .

He stopped as Wolf Lochert removed the cuffs.  "Out," Wolf commanded.

"Wha .  .  .  what .  .  .  ?"

"Out." Wolf pulled a package from the back floorboards, and threw it at
Bates.  "Put these on." Now his voice was flat and gravelly.  He was not
smiling.  Sweat was soaking Bates's face.

His hands trembled as he began gingerly to pull clothes from the
package.  They were the summer khakis of a major.  The insignia and
badges said the wearer was a staff intelligence officer with MACV.

A second jeep, driven by one man in jungle fatigues, pulled up behind.

He stepped out, cradling an M-16 under his arm, and stood grinning.  It
was SFC John Bertucci.

"Quickly," Wolf snapped at Bates, who was struggling into !h lothes.

When he was dressed, Wolf took a black GI issue briefcase from the
second jeep, then a pint of Jim Beam from the briefcase and handed it to
Bates.

"Drink."

"Oh my God .  .  .  oh, I mean, I'm sorry.  Oh Jesus-I'm sorry, I'm
sorry-are you going to shoot me?" His voice was frantic and
high-pitched.

" Drink.  " Wolf's voice was like a slap in the face.  Bates took a
tentative pull.  "More.  Finish it." As Bates guzzled, Wolf examined the
contents of the briefcase.  It was half full of documents and folders,
many stamped with red "Secret" and "Top Secret" labels.  There was a set
of GI dog tags on a chain.

"Hurry up, Wolf," Bertucci said.  "It's going to be dark in less than
twenty minutes."

Wolf leaned forward and tapped the bottom of the bottle, causing the
last of the liquor to spill down the front of Bates's uniform shirt.

Then Wolf unstrapped the jack and wedged it incorrectly under the jeep
frame.  He straightened up, took the dog tags and pulled them over
Bates's head.  The tags said Curtis Bates was an O+ Protestant with a
regular officer's serial number.  Wolf closed the briefcase and put it
on the passenger's seat of the jeep.  Bates held on to the fender to
keep from falling.  His eyes looked glassy, and his head wobbled.  The
jungle noise grew louder.

"You're not going to sh-shoot me?"

Lochert didn't answer.  He turned his back and strode to the jeep as
Bertucci jumped in and started the engine.  He sensed movement in the
jungle.

.  - .  " Bates started after them, wobbling badly.  Ignoring him,
Bertucci made a tight U-Turn and started back toward Saigon.  With a
sickening shock, the awful truth dawned on Bubba Bates.  He lurched
after the jeep as it faded in the distance.  He fell, his legs still
pumping.

"Shoot me," he screamed in a hoarse voice.  "Shoot me."

0930 HOURS LOCAL.  WEDNESDAY, II OCTOBER 1967

REZENTURA.  SOVIET EMBASSY HANOI.  DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Ambassador Boris Orlik appeared to listen intently, as he always did, at
the briefing given by each member of his civilian and military staff.

The eight of them sat around a long table in a surveillance-proof
section called the referentory on the third floor of the embassy
building.  Orlik was a portly man, with white hair and a square face
covered with thick folds of dough-colored flesh.  Although he was the
titular head of the Soviet Embassy, control really belonged to the
rezident, KGB Colonel Pave!

Predvechnikov, whose power transcended that of the Ambassador, or any
member of his staff.  On his word, anyone, from the Ambassador on down,
could be recalled to Moscow.  Predvech nikov could, in fact, dispose of
any Soviet diplomat, general, doctor, or specialist who worked in the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

At the weekly briefing, each attendee had to outline for Ambassador
Orlik what was happening in his area of expertise.  Not that the
Ambassador absorbed it all-he didn't.  But it was a required protocol
that, if not upheld, would cause deep grumbling from the KGB rezident
and the communist party officer, Anatoly A.  Ignatov.

The Naval attache gave his five minutes on the disposition of the
American Task FORCE of seventeen ships off the coast in the South China
Sea.  He reeled off the tonnage of military supplies brought into
Haiphong harbor by Soviet and Warsaw Pact ships, and -the tonnage of
machinery and medical supplies brought in by ships of Swedish, British,
and Japanese origins, and other countries trading with the North
Vietnamese communists.  "At any given time," he said, "we have ten ships
in Haiphong harbor, and five in Cam Hoa.  Fortunately, the Americans are
not allowed to attack any of these vessels, nor place water mines in the
harbor.  Therefore, we expect this type of access to continue unabated,
and the weekly tonnage to increase.

"How can you say that?" the Ambassador rumbled.  "How do you know the
Americans don't have a plan to sink the ships?

Or at least the dredge.  Haiphong is so full of river silt that it has
to be dredged every day.  If the dredge were sunk, or a few ships sunk
at the harbor mouth, the harbor would be closed forever.

Or what if they bombed the dikes holding the river?  Hanoi would be
under ten feet of water."

"Comrade Ambassador," the Naval attach said, "your military expertise
is profound, as witnessed by your shrewd questions.  Our analysts have
asked the same questions.  In fact, the first six months of this war, in
1964 and 1965, we fully expected these things to happen.  It even seemed
like it would happen when Johnson sent in American Navy bombers to
attack after that stupid blunder by the Vietnamese Navy."

"Oh, yes," Ambassador Orlik said.  "Some Vietnamese torU VVaL3 ."1VL at
some American ships, didn't they?  Now why did they do that?  I seem to
recall our giving explicit instructions to the contrary."

"The answer, esteemed Comrade Ambassador, is that we cannot always tell
Comrade Ho Chi Minh exactly what to do.  In other words, he does not
always take our advice."

"We control his supplies," Orlik said in a peevish voice.

"We can stop them whenever we wish.  That should bring the little man
around."

"Were it that simple, Comrade Ambassador." The Naval attach sighed.

This was at least the tenth time he had explained exactly the same thing
in exactly the same way to the Ambassador.  The man simply was not
capable of retaining what he was told.  It was no secret that he started
on his vodka by ten in the morning.

"It is a Party directive," the Naval attach continued, "that we supply
all that is necessary, but not apply the type of pressure that could
cause a split with our esteemed colleagues of North Vietnam. Personally,
I don't think Ho Chi Minh gave exact instructions to the Navy to attack
the American destroyers.  I think the attacks came as a result of a
LOCAL commander's decision to see how serious the Americans were in
steaming off the coast."

The attack in 1964, which President Johnson had used as a casus belli,
set up the Tonkin Gulf Resolution.

Chemov was growing fidgety.  He sneaked a look at his watch.

He was due to fly early that afternoon.  There was one more briefing
before his turn, and it took almost half an hour to drive to Gia Lam,
where the MiGs were parked.

The Army attache rose and gleefully listed the tonnage of the matdriel
arriving by the two rail lines from China: 600 tons per week.  New
vehicles, trucks, artillery, and SAMs arrived daily to flood the city.

They were even parked outside the Canadian and British missions.  The
attach was positively gloating as he read off the figures for the
matdriel flowing south along the Truong Son route, which the Americans
called the Ho Chi Minh Trail: 350 tons per week.

Then it was Chemov's turn to give the latest status of the Hanoi air
defense system.

"Comrade Ambassador, and comrades," he began.  "During a one-week period
ending yesterday, there were twenty-two air strikes against North
Vietnam.  Each strike was composed of thirty to forty aircraft.  Seven
strikes were prosecuted by the American Navy, fifteen by their Air
FORCE.  Although our Vietnamese comrades claim seventeen Americans were
shot down, the actual losses were ten: six by antiaircraft fire, one by
SA-2s, two by MiG aerial action, and one that appears to have gone out
of control and crashed."

"What is the ratio, Comrade Chemov," the Army attach began, "between
the number of sorties our fighters fly and the number of Americans shot
down?"

It was a point that Chernov did not want to address.  It was difficult
training the Vietnamese.  Not that they weren't good pilot material, but
bureaucracy limited their training.  He could not requisition enough
fuel or ammunition for sufficient training sorties to raise the
Vietnamese to a level of competence approaching that of the Americans.

That was why he had started flying on combat missions with the pilots he
was advising.  He needed the time in the air for further training.  From
there it had been easy for him to progress to actual aerial combat with
the Americans.  How could he "advise" his "students" if he did not
partake in the actual sweat and strain of combat with them?

As it was now, however, the ratio of sorties to planes was about thirty
sorties to one American shot down.  He was asked the next dreaded
question '

"How many American aircraft shot down for each one of ours?  " .  "That
is not a good subject," Chemov replied.  "At this time it is barely one
of theirs for one of ours." At least it was better than fifteen years
earlier in Korea.  Then, North Korean and Chinese pilots and airplanes
had been blown out of the sky at the appalling rate of twelve friendly
aircraft for one enemy American.

"How are these American pilots?" Predvechnikov asked.

Chemov took a deep breath.  He was torn between telling the truth or
merely telling what they wanted to hear.  He decided on the truth.

"They are very, very good," he said.  "Most have exceptionally high time
in their aircraft, and employ them in an extremely professional manner.

They seem to like to fight other aircraft, and do not run if
outnumbered.  Strange, though, sometimes they are in a position to shoot
at one of our aircraft, and they do not We are trying to gather
intelligence on why this is so." The' rezident made a note.  Chemov
continued.

"Their bomber pilots seem to be nerveless.  Regardless of the
antiaircraft fire we put up, they dive to the attack.  Then there is the
American mania for rescue.  They will lose two pilots to recover one."

"How do you suppose such a decadent society produces such seemingly
dedicated men?" Orlik mumbled.

I 'Salary," Anatoly Ignatov broke in.  Chemov I s accolades for American
airmen had gone far enough, the political officer decided.  "Americans
will do anything if you pay them enough."

The chief military attach spoke up.  "About the deplorable shoot-down
ratio, you must do better, comrade," he said, as if it were Chemov's
fault personally.  "The victories of our Vietnamese comrades must be
increased.

"You must understand, Comrade Chief Military Attache," Chemov said, "the
Vietnamese air defense forces cause the Americans to use from 25 to 50
percent of their aircraft on any one strike to protect their bombers by
attacking our defense forces.  This means they are not bombers.

Furthermore, many of the bombers have to jettison their weapons when
they are attacked before they reach the target.  When intercepted
property, sometimes as many as half of the attacking FORCE jettison.  I
would remind you, comrade, one does not have to shoot an airplane down
to render it ineffective."

"I give that point to you, Comrade Colonel Chemov.  But is it not better
to destroy, than merely deter?" the Comrade Chief Military Attache said.

He continued before Chernov could answer.  "What then of our SA-2
surface-to-air missiles?  What results do we have?"

Chernov actively disliked this pig's blowhole.  As the chief, he was
also the head of the GRU, the Soviet military intelligence arm.  He was
a fat, arrogant man with a face like a rotting potato who, in Chernov's
eye, sucked up to the Ambassador like a bitch in heat.  Further, the GRU
man obviously disliked the Soviet Air FORCE in general, and fighter
pilot Vladimir Nicholaevych Chernov in particular.

"Let us go back two years when the Americans started attacking," Chemov
said.  "In 1965, the SA-2 shot down 11 Americans.  Last year, 1966, it
shot down 31.  So far this year, we have shot down 42 Americans.  He
hoped desperately they would not ask how many SAM missiles it took to
bring down one airplane.  The ratio was appalling.  He remembered the
air defense artillery classes he had attended before his posting as
advisor.  The instructors had said they were sure an SA-2 SAM would
claim 70 to 80 percent kills.

What a joke.  A Soviet artillery lieutenant advising the SA-2
installations had told him the Vietnamese fired the big missiles like
machine guns, that they had little discipline.  Nor would they take
advice from their advisors.  It had taken exactly 3,691 SA-2 missiles to
shoot down 84 American aircraft-a 2.2 percent kill ratio.  Even that was
going down as the Americans developed their electronic countermeasure
systems to spoof the missile radar.

"What about the antiaircraft batteries?  What is their score?" the
Ambassador asked.

"Very high, over eighty percent of all Americans shot down are by the
guns," Chemov replied.  "Mind you, to achieve this score, about 25
metric tons of ordnance detonates in the air each month."

For safety, everyone stayed in their shelter for an extra four minutes
after the all-clear sounded.  During that time, the streets and
buildings tinkled and rang with shrapnel pieces that fell from the sky
like steel rain.  Occasionally, a faulty SA-2 crashed back and exploded
in a residential district or an enemy airplane fell in town.  In those
cases, the propaganda ministry had its cameras out to record the latest
incidence of "indiscriminate bombing by the Yankee air pirates."

"That is a certainty," said the Ambassador, "that so many tons are blown
up above our heads.  " The men at the table nodded as if his redundant
remarks were of grave importance.  The Ambassador turned to the chief
military attache.  "I believe it is your turn to update the situation,
comrade.  " The GRU man arose.  He started his briefing with an
admonition.

"My subject today is classified as Secret, Level Two.  You must not
repeat this to those who are not directly involved.  Yet, in time, as
the strategy I am about to discuss becomes clear, you may speak more
freely, but only among yourselves."

It was what he always said before his current strategy briefings.

Chernov kept a straight face as he listened to its inconsistencies.

Classified, but you can talk about it .  .  .  but only when it became
clear.  Ridiculous, Chcrnov thought.  Regardless, his face was without
expression.  He remembered hearing these types of lectures before with
his old friend Igor Smirnov of his MiG-17 days.  They had been friends
since DOSAAF.  They would look and roll their eyes and wink at each
other when the bureaucrats tuned up.  Now, there was no one in Hanoi he
could confide in.

Closeness was politically risky.  One never knew who would report what
to the political officer in an attempt to curry favor.

The GRU blowhole continued.

"General Vo Nguyen Giap has released his current plan for an attack
strategy against the imperialists.  He has released it, I should add,
after our study and approval.  Although I suspect our approval-or indeed
our nonapproval-is of little consequence to the man.  His plan is in
three phases.  In the first, National Liberation Front guerrillas will
make frontal assaults against enemy bases, such as the Marines at Con
Thien and Gio Linh."

He pointed to the positions in South Vietnam near the DMZ.

"The purpose is to draw the imperialists away from their coastal
positions and from populated enclaves.  The second phase includes the
righteous uprising of the peasant and city dwellers against the
imperialists and their puppet government.  The NLF guerrillas will equip
and lead this spontaneous uprising.  The third phase will see General
Giap mounting one or more decisive battles in the northern provinces."

"What forces does he have at his disposal?" Ambassador Orlik asked.  He
wanted the truth, not the popular lie.  He knew the official line
perfectly: There was a civil war in the south of Vietnam, peasant
against landowner and corrupt government; it was supported with a few
supplies from the north.  And, the North Vietnamese emphatically said to
the world at large, there were no northern troops in South Vietnam.  The
National Liberation Front was purely a spontaneous group mounting a just
struggle against their oppressors.  The North Vietnamese and the Soviets
had gone to painstaking detail to establish the ruse for international
consumption.  They had succeeded beyond their dreams.

"General Giap has thirty-seven battalions," the GRU man said, "which is
about 18,000 men, and hundreds of artillery inces.  Giap pieces, up to
152imn, for his use in the northern prov reports his troops are well dug
in and have not been discovered by either imperialist photo
reconnaissance or ground agents."

"How does he know they have not been discovered?" the Ambassador asked.

Even Chernov laughed inwardly at the stupidity of that question.  It was
well-known the communications networks of the Americans and their
Vietnamese cohorts were riddled with the ears and eyes of the NLF.  'So
much so, in fact, that the Soviet advisors referred to American
communications as the mezdunarodneay telefort, "World Telephone."

"Comrade Ambassador," the GRU colonel said, not unkindly, "we know
everything that goes on in the American camps and units.  Our
information comes from Vietnamese shoe shine boys and officers in the
military, bar-girls, our Eastern Bloc allies, and poor American
communications security." He laughed.  "What they cannot supply, we get
from Western magazines and newspapers.  Why, KGB and GRU subscription
rates total hundreds of thousands of rubles.  of course, that saves
millions in research work by our people.  " The Ambassador nodded.

The subscriptions were actually paid for in Western currency.  Outside
of East Bloc countries, the ruble was worthless.

leted, Chernov tried to slip out When the briefing was comp the door to
make his flight line appointment.  The usual afternoon American raid was
due soon, and he wanted to be airborne to meet the attackers.  He was
barely out the door and into the hallway when Anatoly Ignatov took him
by the arm.

"Ah, Comrade Colonel.  Very nice briefing." His voice became almost
conspiratorial.  "I must see you.  Can you come to my office now?  It is
quite urgent."

Chemov looked at his watch.  "Comrade Ignatov, I am overdue at the
airfield at Gia Lam as it is.  I cannot stop."

Ignatov frowned.  "You are a busy man, comrade.  But you Must never be
too busy for Party affairs," he said.

Chemov felt his stomach tighten.  "Party affairs" was the euphemism for
subject matters that invariably involved detrimental information passed
by a stukach.  What did Ignatov know?

"I will see you now," Chemov said.  He followed Ignatov down the hall.

Since the first grade in Moscow, Chernov had been brought up in a snitch
and self-confession atmosphere.  He remembered being an Oktyabryata, a
child of the revolution.  Octoberites had to live Up to Party standards
so as to join the next link in the training chain, the Young Pioneers,
The thirty children in his class had been divided into "links" of ten,
each with a link leader under command of the class leader.  At the
beginning of the school day, each link leader would dutifully report the
failings of his link to the entire class.  "Boris picked his nose.

Vladimir sang in the march.  Yelena wore dirty stockings."

After they grew up, the link leader snatchers entered into the vast,
faceless bureaucracy that toiled away at impossible quotas.

The good snatchers, derisively called stukachi, went into factories, the
military, and the countless other places that needed paid informers.

They were easy to spot, for they were the ones who got promoted even
though incompetent; the ones who drove one of the few cars around and
had high privileges.  Chemov had never been a good link leader, but his
outstanding academic grades and athletic ability combined with his
perfect "New Soviet Man" looks of brown hair and blue eyes carried more
than just the day for him.  He was thought of as a model Communist
youth, and was monitored and swept forward under ever increasing
scrutiny.

.  "Comrade Chernov, thank you for giving of your valuable time.  I know
you have a busy schedule," Ignatov said.  He moved to sit behind his
desk.

"I do, comrade.  I must be at the airfield by noon," Chernov said.  On
one hand, Chemov was irked.  It was a half hour's steamy drive from the
Soviet Embassy to the Gia Lam airfield.

On the other hand, Chernov had a healthy respect for the immense power
wielded by this or any other CPSU official.

"What do you want to see me about?" he asked.

"I have here a document of interest to you, comrade." Chernov read the
sheet Ignatov pushed rwa "Report on V.  N.  Chernov's Character in
Hanoi, DRV, " it was titled.  "V.  N.  Chernov was squadron commander of
Field Training Detachment, MiG-21PF.  He conducted training and
development of Vietnamese Air FORCE pilots and radar tacticians.  His
activities in this direction should be regarded as of great value.  " It
ended there.

"You will notice," Ignatov said, "the character report is not finished.

It does not include my assessment of your MarxistLeninist activities. It
does not include whether or not you are upholding the standards of
international communism.  " He looked sharply at Chernov.  "It has come
to my attention that you are spending too much time flying and not
enough time conducting ground training.  Further, Comrade Ceballos has
stated you are not cooperative with his investigations of American air
secrets." He paused, as if waiting for Chemov to protest.  He continued.

"You must ask yourself if your activities are in the best interests of
the Party." He took the report back.

"What I want you to do, Comrade Chemov, is to give deep thought to your
feelings and actions.  Are they truly in accordance with Party needs?

Perhaps, Comrade Colonel, we need to have a self-confession session
wherein we probe your innermost thoughts and beliefs." Chemov thought
Ignatov looked and acted like all the stukachi in the Communist party:
fanatically gaunt and zealously jealous.  They were always the ones, as
children, that had stood on the edge of things, picking their pimples
and watching with cruel and envious eyes those who were active and
achieved things.

Self-confession, pah!

1430 HOURS LOCAL.  WEDNESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 1967

AIRBORNE IN A MiG-21 over HANOI DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

On the flight line, Chernov conferred with Toon and Vong.  Instead of
wearing his normal dark blue flight suit, he had requisitioned the
largest of the Vietnamese dark-brown Chinese-made suits.  He did not
want to be visible as a Russian pilot, at least not from a distance.

And, in a more practical sense, were he ever to bail out, he did not
want to be mistaken for an Amen-can by the villagers.  For prestige
purposes, the Soviet Air FORCE had supplied the NVAF with full-pressure
suits to fly the MiG-21s as if they were rocket ships.  Since full
pressure was only necessary over 63,000 feet, where the low pressure
causes blood to boil at body temperature, no one wore them.  The face
masks were suffocating and the tight-laced coveralls uncomfortable. They
dressed, instead, in the lightweight cotton coveralls made in China.

Chernov did continue to wear his forin-fitted blue helmet.

Chernov told Toon to lead their flight of three today.  Toon smiled
widely, and began his briefing to his two wingmen.  He spoke a mixture
of French and English because Chernov didn't speak enough Vietnamese to
comprehend a technical briefing, "We will take off under control of
Hanoi Radar," Toon began.  "They will position us west of the sector to
await the enemy.  This time, after we take off, we will fly very low and
seek cover behind the hills.  Hanoi Radar will pass us off to Victory
Intercept Control, who will tell us when the Americans are in the best
position for us to commence the attack.  Upon my signal, we will advance
power to the maximum, gain airspeed, then fly up and behind the
Americans.  From there, when your instruments give you the proper
signal, you will fire your missiles all at once.  I will then command
you to dive away, to the left or right as I specify, to return to ground
level as fast as possible.

This entire plan is coordinated with the air defense batteries.

There will be three more flights of three at two-minute intervals behind
us.  If your missiles will not fire or if you see they do not guide, you
will not go in for a gun attack." Chernov had finally secured three
GSh-23 gun pod packages for him and his prize pupils to mount on their
airplanes.  "No gun attack.  To do so is to get too close and risk
taking a hit from either a ground battery or a missile from the flights
behind us.  You must be clear, ry so the flights behind you can fire
their missiles." Toon tapped the map at the spots where the AAA guns
were located.  "We must be particularly careful not to fly in the cone
of antiaircraft fire.

After what happened to Lieutenant Thanh of the 26th Air Defense Battery,
they will be shooting at anything.  When the fire coordinator called for
each battery to fire at once, Thanh would hold back his battery one or
two seconds.  That way when the Yankees dove in, they would see someone
else's muzzle flashes to attack.  Thanh was shot this morning for
cowardice.  His sector commander was censured for lack of vigilance in
leadership."

Toon looked at his watch.  It was 1430 HOURS.  The American afternoon
raid usually appeared at 1500.  He nodded.  The three pilots touched
hands and went to their planes.  Each of their MiG-21s, the PF model,
was equipped with two K-13 heatseeking missiles on wing stations and
(thanks to Chernov) one GSh-23mm gun with 200 rounds of ammunition under
the belly.

Chemov still did not want his "students" to use the gun unless it was an
easy kill, or a last-ditch maneuver.  He, himself, could hardly wait to
get into a gunfight.  When the members of the flight had started and
checked in, Toon called for instructions from the control tower.

"This is Ba Ch'in Hai flight with three airplanes.  Request permission
to taxi," he transmitted.

"BaCh'in Hai flight, you have permission," the control tower answered.

"Understood.  I am executing," Toon replied, and advanced the throttle.

Unlike American ground control, Vietnamese pilots are expected to know
the prevailing wind and to pick the active runway.  This method
sometimes caused confusion.  Once on the runway, Toon and his wingmen
advanced their throttles and selected afterburner range.  Their flight
call sign, Ba Ch'in Hai, was Vietnamese for the big numbers 392 painted
on Toon's MiG-21.

"Ba Ch'in Hai flight, you have afterburners.  You are cleared to take
off."

"Understood.  I am executing," Toon said, using the Russian style of
communication.  At ten-second intervals, Vong and Chernov followed Toon
into the air.  Minutes later, they closed to fly in a loose trail
formation on his airplane.  Toon leveled at 300 meters above the ground
and brought his throttle back to maintain 650 kilometers per hour, about
360 knots.  He contacted Victory Intercept Control.

"I see you clear," Victory said.  "Turn to one four zero degrees, Ba
Ch'in Hai.  Stay at your present altitude.  Mui lo inbound at 8,000
meters.  They will be over the river in twelve minutes." The controller
used the slang term mui lo, meaning "long-noses, " for the Americans.

Toon led his flight to the low hills, -where they could duck into a
valley and become invisible to the American airborne radar that bore the
call sign College Eye.  Chernov had turned on his modified radio to hear
College Eye warn the approaching strike FORCE.

"Bandits, bandits." College Eye's radio transmissions were much more
powerful than Victory Control's.  "Bandits airborne one four zero from
the bull's eye.  Gone off scope.  Lost contact.

Watch Banana Valley.  Repeat, watch Banana Valley."

Chemov knew Banana Valley was the slang name the Yankees used for the
very area in which they planned to orbit and await the strike FORCE.

"Hara sho," he said to himself.  It makes no difference.  The F4 Phantom
patrol planes won't come down, because they don't have the fuel.  If
Toon attacks the bombers correctly, probably a mix of F-4s and F-105
Thunderchiefs, they may release their bombs early.  Even if we don't
shoot one down, we have kept the Yankees from attacking their target.

Under Toon's direction, all three planes had throttled back to burn as
little fuel as possible.  The MiG-21 was a great fuel guzzler, even more
than most jets, especially at their low altitude of 300 meters.  Chemov
followed Vong and Toon as Toon set up a wide turning circle.  In doing
as Chemov had taught, Toon ensured that all three planes in the flight
had sight of one an other.  If they were attacked, each could defend the
plane in front of him.  It was a standard defensive wheel tactic Chemov
had developed for his protdg6s from a World War I ace called Luf berry.

Their fuel was down to twelve minutes remaining when Victory Control
finally called them.

"Mui lo approaching your position from the southwest at 5,000 meters and
descending."

Toon acknowledged, and slowly pushed his throttle up.  Vong and Toon did
the same to stay in position.  Toon had to gain airspeed at the expense
of fuel to climb up and attack from the rear of the American strike
FORCE at just the correct moment.

Chemov looked up in time to see the American FORCE passing overhead.

There were four F-105 Thunderchiefs in two flights of two.  His
experienced eyes recognized the shapes of the cluster bomb units and
bombs they carried to attack the missile and antiaircraft gun sites
around the target area.  Behind them were twelve more Thunderchiefs,
each carrying nine 750-pound bombs for a hard target.  The Americans
flew in three flights of four each.

Chemov added more throttle to stay in position.  He looked first north,
then south, of the strike formation.  It was standard American practice
to place F-4 Phantoms nearby to escort the F-105s that carried the
bombs.  Now Toon was at full throttle, as were Vong and Chemov to stay
with him.

"Ba Ch'in Hai, go to attack throttle," Toon transmitted.

All three pilots moved their throttles into the afterburner range and
accelerated to Mach 1, the speed of sound.  All three planes bucked and
vibrated from .96 Mach to 1.0, a bad unsolved characteristic of the
MiG-21, then smoothed out.  Their airspeed indicators registered 1,200
kilometers per hour.  The F-105s had passed overhead without seeing
them.  Toon had judged correctly when to advance the speed of the three
MiGs.  He started the flight upward.  As briefed, each man would select
a target, lock his missiles on, fire when five kilometers from the enemy
airplane, then dive away.

Chemov looked past Toon and Vong to select a suitable F-105 target.

Every ten seconds, he had to twist and throw a wing down to look behind
him.  The cockpit and canopy of MiG-21s was arranged such that the pilot
had no rearward visibility.  As he drew closer to the F-105s, he no
longer had the time to do this, nor did he have a wingman protecting his
tail, now that they were strung out in attack formation.  All he could
do was glance into the two rear mirrors mounted on his canopy bow to
check his tail.  Soviet philosophy at the time of the MiG-21 design had
been to use only missiles against attacking American bombers; there was
no reason to look behind, since they were not in a dogfight and no one
would be there.  The United States Navy had felt the same way twelve
years before about the fleet defense role of the F4 Phantom.  It would
carry missiles only to attack bombers in straight and level set-piece
radar intercepts.

He saw the four specks that would be the next flight of F-105s inbound
to the target with a full load of bombs.  Ideally, Chemov thought, all
four Thunderchiefs behind him would jettison their bombs to attack his
flight, then ignite their afterburners for extra thrust to catch him. It
would be a foolish move, because he was already beyond Mach 1.  Then,
while they wasted their bombs trying to catch up, he and his flight
would shoot down three of the four in front and dive away to safety.  He
looked at his fuel gauge.  He had just enough to hold course for one
more minute, fire his missiles, then dive away for the sanctuary of his
air base, where he knew the Americans were forbidden to attack.  He
concentrated on the reticle of his gunsight projected on the forward
windscreen.  Again, he damned the Soviet Airplane Bureau.  Why they had
put thick bulletproof glass in front could be known only to some obscure
aero-engineer.  The chances of it ever deflecting a shell fired at him
from head-on was nil, while the thickness of the glass reduced his
forward visibility to five kilometers.  Ridiculous.

He selected the far left airplane.  He could see Toon and Vong behind
the two on the right.  His missile-tracking system gave a warning growl
in his headset that it was starting to track the heat of the F-105 in
front.  He was closing rapidly.  It was important to be at exactly the
correct range and not have excess side loads or bank angles if his
missile was to fire clean and stay locked on, and not wander aimlessly
because it had broken lock.  He made one last glance to the mirrors to
be sure he was safe-and his heart froze.  The four specks he had assumed
were F-105s were actually four F-4 Phantom fighters that had sandwiched
themselves between the attacking F-105 flights, hoping Victory Control
would think they were bombers.  The ruse had worked.

Now the four enemy were attacking Chernov and his two pilots.

Victory Control had not been skilled enough to see the difference on
their radar scope.  He shouted a warning on the radio.  It was Bolo all
over again.

"Ba Ch'in Hai flight, enemy behind, enemy behind.  Left, sharp left .  .

.  now," he commanded.  Immediately, all three MiGs broke sharply left
to escape the four Phantoms tracking them.  Chernov had seen enough to
know they were D-model F-4s carrying heat-seekers and radar missiles.

The high Mach number at which all three MiGs flew caused their turn to
be wide, because the MiG-21 control system was set so the pilot could
not pull the stick back far enough to cause a high-speed stall.  That
meant the pilot could not get the maximum performance from his airplane.

The attacking F-4s, Chemov saw, were looking at free meat.  From their
position, the Americans could easily stay inside the turn radius of the
MiGs and bring their noses to bear on each one.

"Get down," he yelled.  "Fly at ground level to base airfield." The
order was too late for Vong.  He had started to trade his airspeed for
altitude, which would have enabled him to turn sharper and meet the F4s
head-on.  An aggressive but foolish move, Chemov registered.  He and
Toon hugged the ground with what remaining drops of fuel they had.

Chemov kept checking his mirrors.  He saw the long plume of rocket smoke
as at least four, maybe five, missiles streaked toward Vong's airplane.

The last he saw before they topped the low hills was a brilliant flash
as Vong's airplane exploded.  He knew the F4s had lost sight of him and
Toon in the excitement of chasing and shooting down Vong.

"Do you desire a vector to base, Ba Ch'in Hai flight?" Victory Control
asked in a contrite voice.

Toon reeled off a string of Vietnamese at them that made clear reference
to their illegitimate canine ancestry, and their crosseyed inability to
warn them of attacking nrui lose.  He then demanded the controller tell
him his number.  It was nam bay-five three.  Victory Control was silent
as Chernov and Toon landed at Gia Lam with barely enough fuel to taxi
clear of the runway.

"Quickly," Chernov shouted to the ground controller.  "Give us fuel and
we will fly again." He and Toon stayed in their cockpits while the
refueling hoses were lifted to the three fuel tank openings.

Chemov had studied American airplanes.  Ever since the F-86 fighter,
they all had single-point refueling systems, which allowed the airplane
to be filled up from one hose under pressure.

He and Toon tried to remain calm as they waited for the outmoded gravity
tanks of their fighters to fill.  Yet theirs was an advantage.  All well
and good for the Americans with their fancy gear; it took a special
refueling truck, hose, and nozzle, whereas the MiG-21 could be refueled
anyplace by anybody, even by hand on a desert field from a barrel.  That
was an advantage of simplicity the Americans didn't seem to care for.

Twenty minutes later, they were airborne, Toon leading.

"Two one zero degrees, Ba Ch'in Hai flight," a new and authoritative
controller's voice said.  "Climb to twelve thousand meters.  The enemy
is off target and heading west.  You will intercept in six minutes.

Confirm missile switches."

"Executing.  Confirm switches," Toon replied.

"Switches confirmed," Chernov repeated.

The F-105s had egressed several minutes before, but the last of the
attacking F4s were orbiting the parachute of a pilot downed by AAA fire.

Chernov knew the F4s had to be low on fuel.  In any case, they never
rescued their pilots this far north.

No helicopter could get through the heavy flak.  Soon it would be too
dark to do anything, regardless.

The sky to the west was clear.  Toon stayed low to remain in the
shadows.  They both saw the black smoke trails of the unburnt fuel from
the Americans' J-79 engines built by General Electric.  Small
consolation, Chernov said to himself, but the telltale smoke did point
like curving arrows to his American Air FORCE targets.  He had long ago
noticed the American Navy had almost solved that particular problem.

Chemov reached up and turned his gunsight on, then lowered his hand to
the right panel to put his missile switches on.  He selected single
fire, and checked that his coolant switch was on to prepare the head
of his missile.

Toon and Chemov swept in on the two Americans just as they were leaving
the downed pilot.  The College Eye transmission was loud as it warned
the two F-4 pilots about the approaching MiGs, but it was too late for
the one closest to Chernov.  His K-13 missile was at a high-pitched
scream, telling Chemov it had locked on to the Phantom's tailpipe heat.

Although the sun was in that direction, Chemov knew the tone was too
loud to be locked on to the diffused heat of the setting sun.  He
pressed the firing button on the control stick twice to launch two
missiles i The Phantom he had shot at must have spotted him, for it
turned sharply into the attacking missiles.  Chcmov cursed in disgust as
the first missile bored straight ahead and didn't try to turn with the
American airplane.  It had lost its lock.  He quickly fired a third and
fourth in desperation.  Then cursed again at his wastefulness, as the
second missile impacted the tail of the big Phantom, blowing off pieces
and igniting a huge stream of white flame.

The American plane continued westward as the trailing flame got bigger.

Then, as it started to roll uncontrollably, he saw two figures eject
from the crippled airplane.  Keeping an eye in the direction he knew the
parachutes would be opening, he saw Toon turning back from chasing the
other F-4.  He hadn't gotten close enough to shoot and had had to turn
back because he was low on fuel.  Chernov and Toon orbited the
descending parachutes.

Toon radioed the coordinates to Victory Control.  Chernov pulled in
tighter as he orbited the chutes.  He felt a sudden urge to look at the
men he had just shot down.  One man hung limp in his parachute,
unconscious or dead.  He slipped over toward the other, careful that his
maneuvers didn't upset or spill either chute.

Chernov grinned when he saw what the second man was doing.  He had a
pistol out and was shooting at him.

"That is a fighting man," Chernov transmitted to Toon.

They were at 1,500 meters now.  Chemov looked down.  He saw the rice
paddies below the two men.  Villagers were gathered to capture the two
flyers.  They knew they were Americans, because the parachute canopies
were white.  All the Vietnamese canopies were either bright orange and
white in a square pattern or a dirty yellow color.  over 700 American
airplanes had been shot down up North.  The villagers knew their
canopies.  Chemov had visions of the torture awaiting the men, if they
survived the beatings at the hands of the villagers.  He stopped
grinning.

1915 HOURS LOCAL.  WEDNESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 1967

OFFICE OF THE FIGHTER REGIMENTAL COMMANDER NORTH VIETNAMESE AIR FORCE
HANOI, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Dai Ta (Colonel) Nguyen Van Huu was the fighter regiment commander of
the North Vietnamese Air FORCE.  He was a tall man, thin and grave, His
almond-shaped eyes were black and somber as he listened to Pod-Palcovnik
Vladimir Nicholaevych Chemov debrief the events of the day.  Major Toon
was also present.  They were in the colonel's office at regimental
headquarters, and sat in dim light in front of the colonel's wooden
desk.

The afternoon raid results were inconclusive.  Two F-105s had by
Chemov's been shot down by ground fire, one F-4 shot down MiG-21.  One
MiG-21, Vong's, had been lost to an attacking F-4, determined by its
call sign to be from the American air base Thailand.  Vong had paranamed
Ubon Ratchitani in northern chuted out successfully, and was even now in
a tnick returning him to the Gia Lam air base.  Colonel Huu and Chernov
were discussing tactics.  So far, Toon had said nothing.

"The Americans," Chernov said , "tried an old mischief today.  They
placed one flight of defending F-4s between the first two F-105 flights
at the same altitude and airspeed.  Victory Control did not break them
out soon enough, even though they started to descend faster than the
F-105 bombers.  One of them shot Vong.  The others disnipted an attack
Toon and I were making on three Thunderchiefs.  We had to disengage.

They lost us in the ground clutter."

Colonel Huu fixed Chemov with a malevolent eye.  "American tactics
aside, you flew today," he accused.

"I fly most every day, Colonel," Chemov said respectfully.

"Do not throw dice with me.  You do not fly to one side, observing.  You
fly combat.  That is expressly against the agreement between our
governments.  If the Yankees were to find out, they would inflame world
opinion against us.  We have problems enough.  You will not fly combat.

I warn you."

"With the greatest of respect, Dai Ta Huu, may I be permitted to speak?

" Toon asked Colonel Huu.  Huu dipped his chin a quarter-inch in assent.

"This man Chcmov has been of inestimable service to our air FORCE.  You
yourself knew him as the best instructor at Fruenze.

Here and now, there are nearly one hundred Soviet pilots 'advising' us,
but this Chernov has taught us more by example than all the Russian
long-noses who sit around 'and drink vodka and try to defile our women.

Or those flat-faced North Korean imbeciles who barely know a pitot tube
from a pissoir.  Chernov is not like that.  He helps us, Dai Ta.  To
ground him is to ground the hawk, it is to break the wing of the
falcon."

Hara sho, Chemov said to himself in surprise.  Toon is eloquent far
beyond what I had imagined.  He stopped a beginning smile.

" He is not 'grounded,' as you put it," Huu said.  "Nor is it for you to
tell me what I can or cannot do." His face was impassive as he stared at
Toon, who at first kept his eyes lowered.

Then Toon's face became rock hard.  He stood up and assumed a position
of rigid attention.

" I must make a confession," he began.  "I did not shoot down all six ..

."

"You have no permission to make a confession," Huu interrupted in a
monotone, his face without expression.

Toon tightened his lips.  A thin veil of sweat broke out on his upper
lip.  "I respectfully request permission to make a confession, Dai Ta
Huu," he said in a strained voice.

Huu sighed.  "Sit down, Toon, have some tea and be quiet.  I know what
you want to confess, and I don't want the words spoken, now or ever.

This is not a time for self-confession."

Dai Tan guyen Van Huu leaned forward and poured fresh tea, starting
with Toon.  "We must relax," he said.  "Perhaps I was imprudent to talk
about your flying, Comrade Colonel Chemov.

After all, you did have a victory.  We will leave that subject for now."

He sipped his tea.  "Please," he said, pointing to Cher nov's cup.

"We will discuss tactics only.  My MiG-17 and MiG-19 pilots are doing
better than my MiG-21 pilots, but all of them could be doing better.  I
want you," he said to Chemov, "to tell me what you and your government
can do to make my pilots more able in our fighter aircraft."

Chemov took out his red notebook and outlined for the fighter regiment
commander the ideas he had written down.

"Comrade Colonel," he began.  "The men must fly more.

They must train more with live missiles and guns.  They must have better
coordination from Victory Control.  And they must know their families
are safe from the Yankee air raids when they are in the air." He paused.

"And I must fly more with them,"

he added.

Dai Ta Huu arose and walked to the window.  He looked out over the
darkened airfield.  The dim light from the bulb on his desk lamp barely
contoured his body.  He wore a tan two-piece uniform made of thin
cotton.  The red rank badges on his collar .  old and faded.  He sighed,
and lit a thick French Gaulois were cigarette with a flaring wooden
match.  There were no blackout requirements.  The Yankees never attacked
at night.  Huu sighed, and turned to face Chemov.

"You show an ignorance of your own logistics system," he said.  "We can
get barely enough fuel and ammunition to mount what few defensive
missions we can.  However, I can ensure that coordination with Victory
Control will be better.  I will assign Vong to spend one month there as
punishment for his stupidity today." He puffed on his cigarette. "Family
safety concerns us all.  Yet there is nothing we can or will do. We must
all drink from the same cup." He eyed Chemov.  "And you cannot fly more.
You fly too much even now.  I cannot afford the fuel, much less the risk
of discovery."

"I beg your pardon then, Colonel Huu, " Chemov said, "since there can be
no additional training, I have an airborne attack plan to suggest.  Your
pilots can get training while actually flying air defense missions
against the imperialists."

Huu nodded.  "You may speak of this plan," he said.

"In addition to the regularly scheduled training flights, I will fly in
the defense missions as an airborne director.  We have seen that even
the best controllers in Victory Control can make mistakes.  They have
only their radar scopes to monitor.  They cannot place the air battle
into proper context.  They cannot readily tell an American F4 from an
A4, a fighter from a bomber, much less their intentions.  As an airborne
director, off to one side, I can see these things and direct the
defending elements into proper position.  Victory Control can, of
course, keep me informed of distant threats."

Huu regarded Chemov steadily.  Direct eye contact was not something that
Vietnamese normally do.  Yet Chemov had seen it practiced by
combat-hardened Vietnamese military men as if they were beyond any
cultural mores or protocol.

"I authorize you to try your system," he said, "but understand, I want
no dueling, no prolonged fights against the Yankee air pirates." He
scribbled some notes, then looked up.  Once again, he fixed Chemov with
a stern look.  "Do not let me catch you flying combat," he said.

"There is another subject," Chernov said.  "We must be permitted to
launch attack sorties against the radar warning planes the Yankees fly
over Laos and the South China Sea.  They have slow, four-engined
propeller C-121 airplanes that carry radar to warn the enemy as we try
to intercept them.  They also have B-66 airplanes over Laos to perform
electronic warfare.  It would be a simple matter indeed to eliminate
these craft."

For the first time, Huu's eyes flashed.  "You will not tell me what we
will do.  We have our own policies and our own reasons.  It is not for
you to dictate what tactics we will use to achieve our goals." He did
something Vietnamese rarely do, he displayed emotion by slamming his
fist down.  Huu was, after all, a fighter pilot used to being obeyed.

"If we attack these planes outside of our borders, then we can no longer
count on world opinion to regard us as simple people defending our
homeland from the Yankee juggernaut.  It is for that reason we will not
pen-nit our air forces to strike and bomb Yankee bases close to the
Demilitarized Zone." He leaned toward Chernov.  "Understand, Comrade
Pod-Palcovnik Chemov," he spoke in a deliberate voice, "we will do two
things in our heroic struggle against the imperialist forces: we will
maintain favorable public opinion, and we shall win the struggle.  It is
better we lose ten bridges, twenty MiGs, one hundred thousand people,
before we lose the favorable opinion of the world.  For that opinion is
worth many regiments of airplanes, hundreds of ships sailing to our
country with military equipment, many thousands of rail cars filled with
supplies." He drew a thin smile across his lips.  "Of course, it will be
just the opposite with the mui-lo imperialist aggressors.  They are
already losing world opinion, and they will lose the war.  If not soon,
then later.  No matter, they will lose.

We can wait while they destroy themselves in their own country and in
the eyes of the world.  We can wait.  We will win."

Chemov was silent.  He knew the intense colonel was dead serious.

The ancient black telephone on his desk gave two short rings.

Huu answered with his name, listened for a few seconds, and spoke a few
words in Vietnamese.  He held his hand over the mouthpiece.  He looked
at Chernov, his eyes inscrutable.

"Sefior Ceballos is waiting for you downstairs.  He wants to escort you
to Hoa Lo to meet one of the American flyers shot down today."

Chernov went pale.  "I do not wish to see him," he said.

Hun looked quizzical, but nodded.  He spoke into the phone and hung up.

"You do not like him?" he asked.

Chemov moistened his lips.  "I do not," he said.

Huu spoke, his eyes veiled.  "I know what he does.  I said you were not
available

0730 HOURS LOCAL, FRIDAY, 13 OCTOBER 1967

BRIEFING ]ROOM, HEADQUARTERS 8TH TACTICAL FIGHTER WING UBON ROYAL THAI
AIR FORCE BASE KINGDOM OF THAILAND

By 1965, it had become apparent that more American aircraft were needed
to engage in the air war in North Vietnam and Laos.  The number of air
bases in South Vietnam close enough to hit the northern targets were too
few.  To increase the number of strike aircraft located in Thailand from
a token FORCE, the State Department and the Thai government had met and
hammered out the details.  As a result, the Department of Defense had
directed the USAF to enlarge and operate from seven Royal Thai Air FORCE
bases.  The five strike bases were Korat, Nakhom Phanom, Tahkli, Udorn,
and Ubon; the two support bases were U Tapao and a section of the
civilian airport Don Muang outside of Bangkok.  At the request of the
Thai government, command of the forces had to be by a USAF officer
actually stationed in Thailand.  This situation, of course, made the
commander subject to the U.S.  Ambassador, the highest-ranking U.S.

official in the country.  The USAF had complied and placed a major
general at Udorn to command the USAF.  He, of course, responded to
orders from CINCPAC in Hawaii, who was in charge of all air campaigns
against North Vietnam.  The U.S.  Ambassador to Thailand, as was the
case in South Vietnam, did not assume operational control of the
military.  Out of range of rockets and sapper attacks, and in range of
towns with calm and friendly Thais, the USAF bases in Thailand were
considered good duty.

If you must go to war ...  Ubon Royal Thai Air FORCE Base at Ubon was
one such base.

Quartered there was the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing with 72 F-4 Phantoms
built by McDonnell Douglas.  For a fighter, the Phantom was the heaviest
around.  It weighed more than a World War II B-17 bomber, and it carried
three times as much ordnance.  Its two jet engines put out 700 percent
more horsepower than the four piston engines on the B-17.  Yet its crew
was two men; the B-17 had a crew of ten.  Of course, the B-17 cost 276
thousand in 1943 dollars, the F-4 cost 2.4 million in 1967 dollars.

"Fuck you, fuck you" sounded loud and clear.  The cry startled Court
Bannister and the other new crew members in the front seats of the
briefing room at Ubon Royal Thai Air FORCE Base.  The command came in a
rising and falling high-pitched voice from the curtained wings of the
stage in the big briefing room.  On stage, the Wing Weapons Officer,
Major Algernon Albeit ("Flak") Apple, briefing the newly arrived pilots
and backseaters, laughed and explained.  Because Apple had previous F-4
time, he had gone through the short F-4 refresher course at George AFB,
then straight to Ubon.

"That's George, our good luck gecko," Apple said.  He was wearing his
K-211 green bag flight suit, as was Bannister and the other air crew
members sitting in the audience.  "He's a six-inch lizard that has the
run of the stage.  His comments are not necessarily those of the wing
commander, nor are they in any way to be construed as a critique of my
orientation lecture.  He's been here since the place was built.  As long
as he tells off the briefer, we have a good mission.  If we don't hear
from him, we get worried.  Last January, for Operation Bolo, he read off
everybody from Colonel Olds to the tech sergeant briefing the weather.

Maybe you heard what happened that day.  The Eighth shot down seven MiGs
with no losses of our own.  Two weeks later, George was out chasing a
lady gecko or doing whatever gentlemen geckos do, and didn't make the
briefing.  We lost three that day to ground fire."

Apple pulled out one of several 8 X 4-foot chart sections resting on
slotted tracks in the wings.  "I am going to tell you about the base,
our mission, and the town." He pointed to a map of Thailand.  -Ubon is
one of seven air bases used by Americans in Thailand.  We are here at
the sufferance of the King and the Prime Minister.  Thailand has a
military government that can toss us out anytime.  Note that it was only
last March they admitted we were here flying missions into North
Vietnam.  Remember, gentlemen, Ubon Ratchitani belongs to the Royal Thai
Air FORCE.  We are guests here.  Conduct yourselves accordingly."

He pulled out the fighter wing composition chart.  "Your chain of
command is through your flight commander, your operations officer, your
squadron commander, then the DO-the Director of Operations-and ends with
the wing commander.  Our Wing Commander is Colonel Delbert L.  Crepens.

He is flying right now.  As soon as he lands, he will stop by to say
hello.  In case you didn't know, Colonel Crepens just took over the 8th
last week when Colonel Pell was shot down up north.  We've had some bad
luck.  Colonel Pell had just replaced Colonel Olds, who had rotated back
to the States to become Commandant of Cadets at the Air FORCE Academy.

Pell was on his second mission when he got nailed stooging around at
5,000 feet looking for MiGs." Apple looked carefully at his audience.

"OfFering yourself up as a target is not the way to attack MiGs and be a
hero.  Particularly offering yourself as a low and slow target," he
added dryly.

He pointed to the organizational chart.  "Our DO is Colonel Stan Bryce.

He and Colonel Crepens have about 5,000 people to oversee in this wing.

We have four fighter squadrons.  Three work in the daytime, one-the
497th Night Owls-is a dedicated night attack squadron." There were some
puckered orifices when he mentioned the Night Owls.  No pilot enjoyed
dive bombing at night among karst mountains that rose a mile in the air
around the target area.  The new guys, FNGs, hadn't been assigned to a
unit yet, and were fervently hoping it would be one of the day
squadrons.

"Now, about our mission," Apple said.  "Our mission is to gain and
maintain air superiority over North Vietnam and Laos; to interdict enemy
lines of communications, which is a fancy way of saying to stop supplies
that flow to or down the Ho Chi Minh Trail; and to respond as ordered to
certain other missions.

Those other missions, gentlemen, are classified Secret.  They can be
anything from supporting Laotian ground troops to providing air cover
for extraction of clandestine American operations in North Vietnam or
Laos.  " He stopped talking and pointed to the raised hand of a young
captain.

"Those clandestine American operations.  Does that mean we have
Americans on the ground in Laos and North Vietnam?" he asked.

Flak Apple grinned.  "That's a 'need to know' subject right now.  You'll
get more information if you are ever lucky enough to be fragged for one
of these missions."

"Lucky?" the captain persisted.

"Sure, 'lucky,' " Apple said.  "All of our missions are against enemy
installations, supplies, rail lines, stuff like that.  On these
missions, you are for some real, live Americans on the ground.

Kind of personalizes things." He leaned forward and spoke in a
confidential manner.  "I can tell you this.  If you are ever unlucky
enough to be shot down, you would be mighty happy to see one of those
gentlemen offering you a ticket home.  They could be Navy SEALs; but
most likely Green Berets."

Apple continued his orientation briefing.  He outlined the maintenance,
munitions, intelligence, and weather organizations that supported the
four F4 fighter squadrons assigned to the wing.  Flak Apple came from
behind the podium to stand at the edge of the stage.  He surveyed the
new F-4 crew members.

"You are going to be very busy," Apple said, "busier than perhaps any
other time of your flying careers.  The war is a 24hour operation.  We
fly or don't fly by the frag: order that comes in every night from the
Frag Shop at Tan Son Nhut.  In case you didn't know, the 'frag order' is
that fragment of the daily operations order that tells us what targets
to strike, what ordnance to strike them with, and the TOT, time on
target, meaning exactly what hour and minute to strike.  The frag comes
in by teletype and is broken out by our wing operations people-people
like me, your friendly wing weapons officer.  The frags are measured out
to each squadron, then your friendly squadron operations officer assigns
the aircrews to fly them.  The schedule for the next day is posted in
the Officer's Club.  If the missions are big and hairy, and are
scheduled to go up north with a gaggle of airplanes, we brief the
mission in here.  Individual flight briefings are held in the squadron
buildings afterward.  In addition to flying, you will pull extra duties
that depend on your experience.

You lieutenants pull squadron duty officer, which means you man the
operations desk and help the ops officer keep every mission posted. Next
level, the captains, pull mobile control out on the end of the runway or
in the control tower.  You report problems with the airfield, you make
sure every airplane is buttoned up before takeoff, and you make sure
every airplane has their gear down for landing.  Next and hairiest, is
SOF-Supervisor of Flying.  You experienced guys pull that up here in
Wing Headquarters in the Command Post.  The SOF oversees all the flying
operations and makes decisions such as who goes where in an emergency.

It is not for the faint hearts.  In the air you got your ass hung out.

As SOF, your career is hung out a mile.  One faulty decision, and
goodbye fighters." He looked around.  "You captains can relax.  SOF is
for majors and above." He pushed one chart board in, and pulled another
out.

"Our navigation facilities are the Ubon TACAN on Channel 93, Lion is the
call sign for our LOCAL radar control, and Invert is the call sign of
the radar that will see you over the fence into the Steel Tiger portion
of Laos.  over northern Laos in the Plaine des Jarres or North Vietnam,
you will run into other call signs that will be briefed as the missions
are fragged." He pointed to another chart.

"We carry a lot of bombs, not many rockets, Cluster Bomb Units, napalm
once in a while, and air-to-air missiles and/or the pistol, depending on
the mission we are fragged for.  The pistol, which hopefully you all got
a chance to use in your upgrade program, is the one-ton SUU-16 20
millimeter cannon we hang under the centerline.  It carries 1150 rounds.

If you're too close to get your MiG with a missile, stick this pistol in
there and hose 'em down.  It's made gatling-style, and can squirt off
6,000 rounds of twenty mike-mike per minute.  We don't always carry it.

Depending on the mission, we may carry a 600-gallon drop tank in the
centerline position.  Soon we will be getting the Electronic
Countermeasure pod (ECM1.  For missiles, we almost always have the
radar-guided Sparrow in the wells." The F4 had four slender recesses
under its fuselage to house the AIM-7 Sparrow.  He pulled out a chart of
North Vietnam with many red circles around major cities, railheads, and
bridges.

"About enemy defenses.  They range from MiGs and SAMsthe surface-to-air
missiles-up north, to kids with slingshots in the south.  In between are
12.7s, 23, 37, 87, and 100 millimeter guns.  Most are radar-directed.

Some, like the four-barrel ZSU4 23mm and the quad ZPU-14.5mm, can be
manually controlled and the gunners are damn good.  Give 'em half a
chance and they'll stitch you from one end to the other.  You studied
MiGs during upgrade.  Then there are the SAMs.  You'll get special
briefings on them."

He pulled out a photo of a two-seater F-105 bristling with antennas and
weapons.  "These are the Wild Weasels.  They go in before anybody else
to take out as much of the air defense system as they can.  Primarily,
they home in on the radar that directs the guns and the SAM sites.  The
Weasels, the Sandys, and the Jolly Greens are the ballsiest guys over
here.  The Weasels go after the guns that shoot at you; the Sandys,
flying that old A- I prop job, protect you if you are shot down; and the
Jolly Greens come in with helicopters to rescue you.  No Weasel, Sandy,
or Jolly buys a drink in our club.  You guys got any questions so far?"

Flak Apple asked.

"Yeah, how do I get transferred out of this chickenshit outfit?

And if I can't get transferred out, how do I get laid around here'?

What's the town like?" Heads turned to look at the questioner, a
white-haired captain with the name Partin on his name tag.  He was as
leathery as an old Texas saddle.  Apple ignored the flippancy of the
question and gave a straight account of the town of Ubon.

"The town of Ubon is located just outside the main gate of the air base.

It's a nice quiet town with many trees, paved streets, and industrious
people.  The housing runs the gamut.  There are corrugated tin hootches
on dusty streets that hold newly arrived peasants working for the
Americans.  Deeper in town, near the Mon River, are many nice houses and
a few marble villas under palm trees.  There are religious structures
called wats.  They are temples for the Buddhist monks.  In the main
section are several tailors for GI clothing, and some restaurants,
ranging from pizza parlors to an old Frenchman's place.  Also down there
is a U.S.  Government AID office and some Peace Corps people.  There are
even two small hotels.  There are buses, some hard-packed dirt streets
that stream water during the monsoon season, a large market, and the Mun
River curving through town.  And there are scattered beer joints and
bars with girls for the GIs.  We of the Eighth Tac Fighter Wing also
help support the Saint Joseph Orphanage on Palochai Road."

Apple pirouetted his bulky body to show his well-tailored flight suit.

"Rajah Wongsee makes these and your party suits for you.

At a price, of course." Finished with his display, he turned and pulled
out a large aeronautical chart of the entire Southeast Asian area.

"Back to business.  We've two kinds of weather here," he said.  "Hot and
dry, and hot and wet.  The weather in this part of up-country Thailand
is either in the monsoon or dry season', six months' heavy rain, then
six months of heat and dust.  Gentlemen, the weather can kill you as
fast as the guns and the karst.

A navigator raised his hand.  "What's karst?"

"Before I answer, let me welcome you and the other navigator to the 8th.

You guys are called a GIB, guy in back.  Up until now, we have had
pilots back there, not navs.  It's about time we aot some navs assigned
here." Flak Apple smiled.  The navigators did not smile back.  They had
been hastily recruited from the Air Defense Command, and were not at all
sure what they had gotten into.

"To answer your question, karst is a limestone outcropping that juts up
all over the northern part of Thailand, Laos, and western North Vietnam.

It assumes bizarre shapes and is ridd , I - d with caves and guns.  The
bad guys are in 'em like fleas on a hog.  Some have so many guns poking
from them they look like battleships.  When we go north over Hanoi or
the Pack Six targets, we fly a couple of miles over the top of them. But
when we are on the Trail, we're down among 'em.  And that's bad, because
they look down on the Trail and can give you a good hosing."

"What's Pack Six?" a lieutenant asked.

"The powers that be have divided all North Vietnam into seven areas that
are assigned to either the Air FORCE or the Navy." He pulled out a large
map of North Vietnam.  "The DMZ is the Demilitarized Zone which divides
North from South Vietnam." He used his pointer on the map.  "The Route
Package system starts at the DMZ with Pack One and runs north for about
sixty miles.  The Air FORCE is responsible for Pack One.  Heading
farther north are Two, Three, and Four, which belong to the Navy.  The
USAF has Five.  The Hanoi area is split int S;

0 Alpha, which the USAF is responsible for, and Six Bravo, which the
Navy has."

"Why is North Vietnam so divvied up?  Seems complicated, a major said.

"It is," Flak said.  "Our illustrious Air FORCE and Navy have yet to
agree to a single manager of air power.  Unfortunately, this means there
isn't always a combined effort against Uncle Ho.  Our targets come from
the President down through the JCS, who sends them to CINCPAC in Hawaii.

There, they a re split between 7th Air FORCE at Tan Son Nhut in Saigon,
and the Navy's Task FORCE 77, which is composed of carriers and support
ships at Yankee Station, here, and Dixie Station, there." Flak pointed
to the two spots in international waters in the South China Sea where
Navy carriers launched strikes against North and South Vietnam.  Wheels
have," Apple said, "Regardless of the problems the we jocks make it
work.  It's simple.  Our job is to fly and to fight, and don't forget
it." He consulted a piece of paper.  "One last thing, the personnel
people want me to remind you to keep your Emergency Data Form 246
current, and the hospital people want me to remind you to take your
malaria pills every day."

A tall man wearing the eagles of a full colonel walked on the stage from
the wing next to Flak Apple.  Apple called the troops to attention.

At ease," the colonel said, "be seated.  I'm Colonel De Crepens, your
new wing commander.  I say new for two reasons-you are new here and so
am I.  " Delbert L.  Crepens had light brown hair cut short, a long,
narrow face, and thin features.

The lines on his face suggested he was always listening for a sound
others might not hear.  His eyes were pale blue, almost watery.  His
flight suit was stained dark with sweat where his G-suit had covered his
legs and belly.

He continued.  "There has been some bad luck here in the past.  But
that's over now.  There is more to our job than just flying and
fighting.  I have been sent up here personally by General Raimer, the
Director of Operations for 7th Air FORCE, to see that this wing regains
its position as the top wing in Southeast Asia.

.  Court Bannister raised his hand.  Colonel Crepens looked surprised.

"Yes?" he said.

"Sir, I thought the Eighth already was the top wing in South east Asia.

It's shot down more MiGs than any other wing, and has a higher
in-commission rate for its airplanes than anyone else."

"Well, son .  .  .  what is your name?" Crepens asked.

"Bannister, sir."

"Well, Major Bannister, there is more to having the best wing than
shooting down airplanes.  For example, our relations with the town of
Ubon are not good.  Too many of our people are creating drunken scenes.

We have too many reports from the Is in Bangkok about drunkenness and
officer's and NCO's hotel.

rowdy parties of our people." He frowned as he consulted some notes.

"The base hospital reports the Eighth has the second highest VD rate in
the Command.  In our officer and NCO clubs, there is frequent damage due
to drunken parties.  Just last week, there was an incident concerning
our pilots against two colonels from Seventh Air FORCE, who were here on
an inspection tour.

The colonels report several of the pilots were disrespectful and raucous
in the Officer's Club." Colonel Delbert L.  Crepens surveyed his
audience.  He tilted his chin up in the unconscious but unmistakable
gesture of a man looking down his nose at something a bit rancid.  His
pale blue eyes darted over the seated audience.

"I am starting some new policies.  Since you are new, you will'hear them
first.  MY first policy involves aircraft utilization.

BAed upon instructions from the Secretary of Defense, I wish to double
up on maintenance men on each aircraft rather than request more aircraft
from the States.  This plan I call Rapid Roger.  Rapid for the speed in
which we will perform, and Roger for our willingness to do it.  " He
made a benign smile, then took on a serious air.

"My second policy regards personnel.  It is as follows: The Officer's
Club and the NCO Club will serve drinks only between the HOURS of 1700
and 2000 instead of the current policy of twenty-four HOURS open bar.

Regarding drinks, there will be a chit system such that no officer or
NCO can have more than two drinks of hard liquor or three beers in any
twenty-four-hour period.  " He paused and looked around as if expecting
some dissension.  The pilots and navigators exchanged glances and
eye-rolls.

No one dared voice their astonishment over such an outrageous
restraining order.

In a combat zone, the NCO and Officer's Clubs were the family dining
room, the lounge, the LOCAL pub, the living room, the corner drugstore,
and the social gathering place for the troops.

There was no other facility so all-inclusive.  Everyone lived a
bachelor's existence on a combat air base.  Outside of work at the
flight line, there was a hobby shop or two (wood and leather a base gym
(weights, basketball, racquetball), the movie theater (hot and crowded
during two shows a day), and that was it.  The clubs were everything. It
was taken for granted that people would get drunk and blow off the steam
they had accumulated while flying long and hazardous combat missions, or
maintaining the planes that flew those missions.  To restrict the bar
service was like removing the engine from an airplane and still
expecting it to fly.

Whatever response Colonel Crepens expected from his audience did not
materialize.  There was only silence.  Abruptly, George the gecko
decided to let the world know what he thought of Colonel Crepens and his
restrictive policies.

"Fuck you, fuck you," he said, then "fuck you, fuck you," again for good
measure.  Colonel Crepens's eyes widened.  Up to this point in his short
tenure on the fighter base, no one had informed him about George the
good luck gecko.  He turned to Flak Apple, whose black face was anything
but composed.

"Ah, sir," Apple began, barely able to talk, "that's our good luck
guh-guh .  .  ." Flak was losing it and he knew it.  I'GuhCHOO, II he
faked a giant sneeze, and whipped out a bandanna to cover his face.  The
members of the audience bit down on fingers, pencils, even tongues, in
an effort to be quiet.  Each knew that if even one so much as tittered,
it would spread and the whole place would come apart in a storm of
guffaws.

Colonel Delbert L.  Crepens made his first wise move since mounting the
stage; he left the stage.  Flak Apple called the auditorium to attention
for the departing wing commander.

"What in hell have I walked into?" Court Bannister asked Flak Apple.

Apple's briefing was just completed.  They sat in his small office in
wing headquarters.  The green compa-board walls were covered with blowup
pictures of F-4 armament and radar panels.

"I dunno, Court.  This guy is an unknown," Flak Apple said.

"As far as I can tell, he never was a DO in a wing, or even a squadron
commander.  I wonder just how much squadron time he has.  All I know is,
before coming up here he worked in Blue Chip, the command post down at
Seventh.  His reaction to old George was not a particularly good
indicator of his sense of humor.  Ah, well, such is life in the service
of our country." He leaned his chair against the back wall.  "Do you
have a squadron assignment yet?" Apple asked.

"No.  I have an appointment with the DO, Colonel Bryce, at 1400.  I
guess I'll find out then.  What's he like?"

II Stan the Man?  He's a great guy.  Everybody likes him.  He's new.

Only been here three weeks.  Came in from a job in the Pentagon.  He's
got a great fighter background.  Flew '96s in Korea.  It's his first
tour, but I think he'll be okay."

"Flak, how you been doing?  Got any MiGs yet?" Court asked.

"Shit, no.  All they want us to do is bomb, bomb, bomb.  I've had only
three knockdown fights.  Got me one damaged and one probable.  They got
some new tactics and some new shit-hot jocks in MiG-19s and MiG-21s that
are giving us fits.  They've got GC1, ground controlled intercepts by
radar, and some very aggressive people both at the scopes and in the
cockpit.  As you know, we don't have any GC1.  We do have a couple big
fourengined radar prop jobs hanging over Laos and sometimes the South
China Sea trying to give us MiG warming.  Their call sign is College
Eye.  The Navy has a destroyer out there doing the same thing, call sign
Crown.  But they have spots they just can't see.  Anything under ten
thousand feet more than fifty miles inland, for example.  That's where
most of the MiG bases are located." Flak Apple got up and walked to the
large map of Southeast Asia.  He indicated with the flat of his hand the
area near Hanoi where U.S.  radar coverage was available only when the
USAF EC-121s were airborne.  Then he pulled out pictures of the two
types of air-to-air missiles the F-4 could carry; the radar-guided AIM-7
Sparrow, and the heat-seeking AIM-9 Sidewinder.

"We got missile problems," he said.  "The parameters under which we must
fly to successfully launch them are unrealistic.

Pull too many Gs, be in the slightest slip or skid, be too close or too
far to the plane you're shooting at, don't cool the seeker head enough;
any of those and the missiles go nuts.  Sometimes they just come off and
don't do anything, even if you're in the firing envelope." He leaned his
hip on the desk.  "Thank God we got the pistol.  Maybe we're not
fighting as many MiGs as we'd like, but at least we got the cannon to
back up the crappy missiles.  Oh yeah, one other thing, you can't shoot
until you have a positive identification on the bird you're attacking.

That causes a lot of lost opportunities to fire radar missiles in headon
attacks from 30 miles.  But until we get a positive way to instantly ID
friend from foe-a MiG-21 and a Navy A-4 lookalike-we've got to bore in
close to get the Mark 1, Mod 0 eyeball on the target.  That's the way it
is."

"What about the new MiG tactics?" Court asked.

"Let me tell you.  When Olds had the wing, we got eighteen MiGs for a
loss of only three F-4s.  That's six of theirs to one of ours, Since he
left here, things have turned to shit," Apple said.

"Why?" Court asked.  He pulled his Luckies an his left sleeve pocket d
lighter from and lit up.  -ocessing from

"The new MiG tactics, and bad intelligence pr Seventh Air FORCE. Besides
the six F-4s we've lost to MiGs, we've lost another thirty-one to ground
fire."

"My God," Court said.  "That's more than two squadrons of airplanes in
less than a year.  How many pilots did we get back?"

"Less than half.  About thirty went down in Pack Six and we only got six
out."

"How come?" Court asked.

"You just can't take those big Jolly Green helicopters into Pack Six.

There are too many guns.  Plus it takes a long time for them to get
there at a hundred fifty miles per hour, They stage out of Lima Sites in
Laos near the North Vietnamese border.

But they can't make the Pack Six area fast enough.  If you can't get a
guy out in the first fifteen minutes he's down, you're going to get
trouble.  The bad guys close in, capture or kill him, and set up a flak
trap." Flak Apple blew out a stream of air.  "It's a bitch.  By the way
Court, do me a favor."

"Sure, what?"

"Put that cigarette out.  The smoke is bad for my lungs."

1400 HOURS LOCAL.  FRIDAY, 13 OCTOBER 1967

OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS 8TH TACTICAL FIGHTER WING UBON
ROYAL THm AIR FORCE BASE KINGDOM OF THAILAND

Colonel Stanley D.  Bryce had a twelve-pound, cast-iron bulldog on the
shelf behind his desk.  He had won it as the star football player at the
University of Georgia in 1948.  On his desk was a large teak plaque with
his name and a pair of pilot's wings topped by a wreath around a star,
which indicated Bryce was a command pilot.  An Air FORCE pilot had to
fly for 15 years and amass 2,000 HOURS as a fighter pilot before he was
awarded command pilot wings.  Stan the Man, as he liked to be called,
was six feet even, had smooth black hair combed flat, gray eyes, and
broad shoulders.  His face was square and pleasant in the Slavic fashion
, his presence commanding.  He offered a cigarette to the man sitting in
front of his desk, Major Court Bannister, who thanked him, and said no.

Bryce smiled as he tapped Court's Form 5 Flying Records and his 201
Personnel file laying in front of him.

He pointed to one order in particular.  "Every fighter pilot worth his
salt would like his name on this."

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE HEADQUARTERS SEVENTH AIR FORCE (PACAF)

APO SAN FRANCISCO 96307

18 DECEMBER 1966

1.  Announcement is hereby made to credit CAPTAIN COURTLAND EdM.

BANNISTER, A03021953, 531st Tae Ftr Sqdn with I MiG-19 destroyed in
aerial combat on 29 September 1966.  Authority: Minutes of Hq 7AF Enemy
Aircraft Claims Evaluation Board, 15 Sept 66.

FOR THE COMMANDER DISTRIBUTION

PACAF (DPSP)

7AF (DO)

3RD TFW, GEORGE D.  WILLIAMS, Capt.  USAF 531 TFS Chief, Publishing
Division DASPO Directorate of Admn Services DPSA

"Mighty impressive, Court.  One tour in Vietnam, one MiG to your credit,
recently promoted to major, graduate of Edwards.  We are glad you are
assigned here to the Eighth.  You'll be an asset, I know.  " Bryce sat
back and regarded Court with a genial expression.  "I haven't quite
decided where in the wing to assign you.  I have open slots in the
standardization and evaluation shop here in Wing Headquarters and two
flight commander slots opening up soon in the squadrons.  But,
regardless of where you wind up, I want to put you on flight test
orders.  We need experienced guys like you to fly and check the birds
that come from our maintenance hangar." He leaned back, and smiled.  "At
any rate, I personally want to fly with you.  Today.  Now, in fact."

He stood up.  "Get your gear, meet me in front of Wing Ops in thirty
minutes.  I've got a bird standing by, a very special bird I think you
will like."

Court wondered why Bryce wanted to fly with him.  It was on practice for
a DO to fly with higher-ranking people Comm when they first arrived in a
wing.  The purpose was to evaluate the man's abilities personally before
assigning him an important command slot such as squadron operations
officer or squadron commander, or chief of a slot in Wing Headquarters.

Prospective flight commanders, however, like Court, were evaluated in
the squadron, usually by the ops officer.

An hour later, Court was in the front seat of a clean F-41), tail number
753, climbing at 20,000 feet per minute through clear air toward the
Laotian border.  Clean meant no external fuel tanks, bombs, or racks
under the wings.  Fighter pilots love clean birds because they are fresh
and slick, and very fast and responsive to the controls.  This airplane
was right from a maintenance overhaul.

It was special, all right.  Under the left canopy frame was painted
Court's name, and on each side of the nose was painted a large white
cowboy hat.  On the big metal slab leading to the left engine was
painted a red star, signifying the pilot had a MiG kill to his credit.

It was all a bit dazzling and discomforting to be singled out for what
he knew was special treatment.  Where was it going to lead?  The cowboy
hat, well, he did wear his old Stetson Sun Ranger once in a while, but,
hell .  .  .

Court mumbled something about thanks, which Stan the Man brushed off
with a big grin.  Got to take care of our troops, he had said.  Why me?

Court wondered.  He had a suspicion that if his name wasn't Bannister,
it would be weeks before an airplane would be available.  Most of the
other F-4s that belonged to squadron and flight commanders, and to the
old heads, were assigned and labeled.  He'd seen "Protester's Protector"
and "Betty Sue" in the revetments on either side of him as he had taxied
out.  They, like all the other F-4s in the Wing, had WP painted on the
tail to indicate that they were from the 8th Tac Fighter Wing at Ubon.

The 8th was known as the Wolf Pack, WP was one of the few times tail ID
made sense.  But a cowboy hat?

On the ground, Bryce had explained that what he wanted him to do during
the flight was perform an FCF, the functional flight check required
after extensive maintenance had been performed on an F-4.  Once in the
air, Bryce, from the rear cockpit, read off the FCF checklist for each
item.

At 40,000 feet over Laos, according to the checklist, Court accelerated
to Mach 2, pulled back on the stick, zoomed to 53,000 feet, rolled
inverted, and pulled it through in a dive back toward the earth.  From
that ten-mile altitude, the curvature of the earth was visible in the
hazy purple.  He filled out the flight card on his kneeboard as he made
tight turns, exercised all the avionic and hydraulic systems, and
pronounced the aircraft safe for flight.  Bryce pointed out a few
terrain features to the east that he said were prominent landmarks along
the Ho Chi Minh Trail.  Within thirty minutes, they were back on the
ground, taxiing into the revetment for his big Phantom.

Several maintenance people gathered around as he shut down the engines.

The crew chief, Sergeant Shanahan, climbed up the ladder he placed next
to the fuselage.  Court had noticed his name on the other side of the
canopy.  Court put his helmet on the canopy bow, unstrapped, and started
to climb down.

"Hold it a minute, Court," Bryce said from the rear.  "We need some
pictures for this occasion." He motioned to two fatigue-clad figures
standing against the revetment wall, away from the maintenance people.

One held a large Grallex camera.

He started snapping pictures as he came forward.  Still on the ladder,
Bryce grabbed Court's hand and shook it while grinning into the lens as
the flashbulb popped.

"Now let's get a couple by the nose of the airplane," Bryce said.  Court
followed instructions without speaking.  After the picture-taking, the
second man held a microphone from a tape recorder to Bryce's face.

"We have made history for the 8th Tac Fighter Wing.  I have just checked
out MiG killer Major Court Bannister as a Wing test pilot.  At the same
time I instructed him on his first combat mission," Bryce said.  He
moved next to Court and put his arm across his shoulders.  The flashbulb
went off twice more.

The man with the microphone moved in on Court.  "What's the significance
of the cowboy hat, Major?"

While Court stood there with a dumb look on his face, trying to say
something other than it was a gross embarrassment, Colonel Stan the Man
Bryce stepped forward and said it was obvious.  "The significance is
that old Cowboy Court not only kills MiGs, he used to ride in western
movies." The public affairs officer looked doubtful, but compliant.

After all, this was the DO.  One does what the DO wants.

In the crew van on the way back, Bryce told Court he'd flown a good
flight.

"After you get checked out with the 433rd, I'd like you to work in Wing
Headquarters for a while," he added.

Court nodded.  "Yes, sir," he said in a low tone.  No line fighter pilot
enjoyed working in the headquarters section unless he was highly
experienced and in charge of a tactics branch or something similar that
required daily combat flying.  "In what capacity?" he asked.

"I'll let you know," Colonel Stan the Man Bryce said.

"I'm not much of a paper shuffler, so if it's all the same to you,
Colonel, it's got to be in a full flying capacity," Court said.  He was
pressing and he knew it.  But, he rationalized, I didn't go to all that
trouble to get back over here just to hang out at Wing Headquarters.

"It will be," Bryce replied.  "It surely will be."

2045 HOURS LOCAL, FRIDAY, 13 OCTOBER 1967

OFFICER'S CLUB, 8TH TACTICAL FIGHTER WING UBON ROYAL THAI AIR FORCE BASE
KINGDOM OF THAILAND

The word was out.  Normally, over fifty patrons were in the dining room
or at the bar of the Officer's Club.  Tonight, merely twelve officers
were present.  The atmosphere was sullen and sour.  "The hell with it,"
one of two captains said.  "Let's make for the hootch - " Two majors in
for the night with a bent airplane asked what in hell was going on.  The
captains explained about the booze ban, and invited them to the squadron
hootch for a drink.

It was custom, tradition, common sense, and just plain efficient to have
a bar or two in the hootch area.  in fact, each of the four fighter
squadrons had fabricated their own bar in the covered patio and
breezeway area joining their wooden motellike barracks.  Lieutenants
were four to a room, captains and majors two to a room, one single for
the lieutenant colonel operations officer.  Community showers and
toilets were down the screened-in hall.  The lieutenant colonel squadron
commander was allotted half a house trailer in another compound.

The bars they built between the buildings were elaborate affairs with
refrigerators and quality stereo systems.  In the town of Ubon.  the
pilots had bought tables, chairs, and couches, and rolls of mesh to
screen off the breezeway.  The walls and ceilings were loaded with
memorabilia fighter crews like to keep around: flags, pictures, weapons.

All of it humorous.  Framed in bamboo was a quote made by de Tocqueville
in 1835 that always incited favorable comment:

"The journalists of the United States are generally in a very humble
position, with a scanty education and a vulgar turn of mind .  .  .  the
characteristics of the American journalist consist in an open and coarse
appeal to the passions of the readers; he abandons principles to assail
the characters of individuals, to track them in private life and
disclose all their weaknesses and vices.  Nothing could be more
deplorable .

Well-kept lawns maintained by battalions of Thai workers covered the
officers' quarters as well as the whole air base, making the community
of five thousand American men and nine women very attractive.  Were it
not for the imminent death or capture of several of its inhabitants each
month, Ubon Royal Thai Air FORCE Base could almost be considered an
exclusive country club.

The four men walked into the hootch bar complaining bitterly about the
ban on liquor in the officer's clubs.  "Well, hell, the NCOs don't like
it any more than we do," someone yelled at them.  "They're still doing
their job."

Flak Apple and Court Bannister sat side by side in deep lawn chairs.

They were talking as they gazed absently through the screens at the
lighted walkways and roads extending from the hootch area.  The overhead
fan stirred the cool night air.  Each had a cold bottle of beer in his
hand.  On the stereo, the Mamas and the Papas sang convincingly about
the joy of going where you wanta, wanta go.

"I've walked into some weird stuff here," Court said.  "First, a CO that
doesn't believe in booze, then a DO that believes in logging a combat
mission just because you cross the fence into Laos on a maintenance
check flight.  The hell of it is, he hasn't assigned me to a squadron
yet.  Said I'll be working in Wing."

"Court, let me tell you something," Flak began.  "Stan the Man Bryce is
a great guy.  He'll take care of you, you'll see.

He's sharp and he likes to have sharp guys around him."

"He's taking care of me, all right.  You heard about that bird he had
all rigged up for me?  I'm not so sure I want to be that close to him-or
let him get that close to me."

"Don't worry about it.  Maybe I can get him to put you in my shop," Flak
said.  "As far as Crepens is concerned, he'd better rescind that
no-booze order damn quick or there'll be war fight on this little old
air patch."

Court sighed.  "Yeah, I suppose so.  There's another thing," he said. "I
just don't function well with a guy in back.  A couple times in training
my GIB misread an altimeter or talked when he should have been
listening.  Damned distracting." Court put down his beer bottle.  "There
is something else, or maybe it's related, Flak.  But I don't fly the
airplane quite as I would like.

Something keeps me from pushing just a little farther.  I don't feel
like I really know the bird yet.  Everything I've flown so far I've spun
and stop-cocked at one time or another, just to practice Court had just
revealed a practice he recovery and airstarts.

had used, quite illegally, since he was a cadet.  No fighter squadron
taught or permitted such things; intentionally switching.  off an engine
to learn the airstart procedures, or deliberately putting recovers.  Had
he been an aircraft into a spin to see how well it caught, he probably
would have been grounded.  Yet this pracg out of airplanes with the
Special Forces, tice, like his jumpin he regarded as prudent kinetic and
antipanic insurance against the day-that would most surely arrive-when
he had to do it under unexpected and adverse conditions.

Flak nodded.  "You've got to remember, you're a bomber pilot now," he
said.  "You have a crew to look after.  You can't hang it out like you
used to in single-seaters, because it isn't just your life at stake
anymore."

"Shit," Court said.  "You would have to appeal to my decency."

"I'll appeal to more than that," Apple said.  "As far as a back-seater
is concerned, you'll get used to having one.  Try a night mission on the
Ho Chi Minh Trail without one, and see how far you get.  Or a MiG CAP
without an extra set of eyeballs.

You'll see.  A GIB can make you a hero or he can make you a bum.  He can
save your life or he can get you killed.  He is as important to the
proper use of that airplane as your control stick.

More so, in fact.  You get your stick shot away, he can use his to bring
you home."

Court shook his head.  "Look," he said.  "I've been around this fighter
business a long time.  I'm up from the single-seaters the F-86 and the
F-100.  I'm used to doing my own planning, preflighting, airborne
eyeballing, radio calls, and all the rest.

Even my own panicking, without help from anybody else.  if that guy back
there wants to tune the radio and radar set for me, more power to him.

But don't expect me to rely upon his superior airmanship to get me out
of tight spots." Court laughed.

"Come on, Flak.  These guys are brand-new pilots.  They came here
directly from pilot training.  They barely know how to fly, much less
fight.  While I'm at it, why in hell is the Air FORCE putting pilots in
the back seat of the F-4, anyhow?  The Navy doesn't, and that's who we
got the airplane from.  They put RlOs back there, Radar Intercept
Officers.  If we must have a rear pit, why not put a navigator back
there?  At least he wants to be the best there is in the back seat.  All
a pilot wants to do is get the hell out of there to a front-seat
assignment someplace." Court shook his head in disgust.

"Maybe they put pilots back there," Flak Apple said, "because there's a
stick back there.  Who knows?  The fact remains, you have an extra set
of eyeballs, an extra pair of hands, and an extra brain to draw from.

Use 'em.  Use 'em all.  It's plain dumb to only use half a fighting
tool.  You wouldn't fire an automatic weapon on just semiauto, would
you?"

"Point taken," Court said.

"Or deliberately not use your wingman.

"I would not.  Another point taken," Court said.

"Besides, we are already getting navs.  " Flak finished his beer.

"Another?" he asked.

"No.  I've got an oh-dark-thirty get up and go," Court said.

"Who you flying with?" Flak asked.

"The 433rd.  I'm going to fly two sorties a day for the next four days
with them," Court said.

"They're the best, those 433rd guys," Flak said.  "I'll get on the
schedule with you.  I can pick and choose, you know, since I'm the Wing
Weapons Officer.  I get to fly with anyone I think necessary.  Maybe
we'll run into Colonel Tomb."

"Who's he?" Court asked.

"Just North Vietnam's first ace, that's all.  The intelligence on him is
a little spotty.  They think he's got three Thuds and two Ek___ Phantoms
so far.  He and a guy named Van Bay or Vong something are supposed to be
the twin terrors of the skies.  They run two MiG-21s around like they
were on wires, and saw anything in half they can get between them.  The
guys flying MiG CAP in Pack Six are getting a bit nervous.  What did you
say you were flying tomorrow?"

"I didn't.  It's combat air patrol.  MiG CAP in the only place that
counts, Pack Six."

Flak looked at his friend, his dark eyes sober and concerned.

"You ready?" he asked.

"Yeah," Court said.  "I'm ready."

"Out check," Flak Apple said.  palms down.

Court held both arms and hands straight out, Flak examined them for
tremors.

"Steady as a rock," he said, "steady as a rock."

HIs stomach twitched.  "You expected less?" he said.

Court

1130 HOURS LOCAL, SATURDAY.  14 OCTOBER 1967

OKALOOSA COUNTY JAIL FORT WALTON BEACH, FLORIDA

Toby Parker's first awareness was the sound of his own name.

He blinked, and opened gummy eyes that felt swollen and full of tiny
bits of sand.  He found himself lying on a concrete floor against a wall
painted a bilious green.  His head throbbed, his mouth tasted like
rotten fish, he smelled of sour sweat and vomit.

He wore soiled khaki pants and a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves. Six
other souls in various states of alcoholic disrepair occupied sections
of the 12 X 12-foot concrete floor that slanted toward a drain in the
center.

"Parker, Toby G.,- the voice intoned once more.

"Yeah," Toby said.  He pushed to a sitting position.  In sudden concern,
his hand darted under his shirt.  He felt the jade piece, and relaxed.

"over here," the voice said.  A deputy in a brown uniform unlocked the
heavy barred door, and motioned him out.  Toby struggled to his feet,
staggered to the door, and followed him down the corridor.  The deputy
walked with quick, clean steps.

His metal name tag said his name was DuBois.  Toby had to trot to keep
up, causing his head to jangle and throb.  DuBois led him through an
office door.

In the administration room, Toby's two classmates, Roy Thomas and Gerry
Draper, were waiting.  Each wore Bermuda shorts and colored T-shirts.

Their eyes were hidden behind USAF aviator's sunglasses.  Toby initialed
the receipt as the clerk returned his personal effects.  He had no
memory of being booked, searched, and relieved of his possessions.

"over here," Deputy DuBois said.  Toby walked to his desk.

"Sign this."

Toby looked over the hold-harmless form that certified he had not been
harassed or unfairly treated in any way.  He signed it.

The deputy handed him the recipient's copy of his tickets for speeding
and drunken driving.

"See here," the deputy said, pointing with his pencil at a line on the
yellow form.  "Says you gotta be in court nine AM Tuesday the 17th for
disposition."

Toby studied the form.  "Do I have an alternative?  " he asked.

"Can't I just pay a fine or something?"

The deputy looked up.  "No.  You were arrested and booked.

These guys--he indicated the two captains--just paid your bail bond.

You're lucky the judge has a light schedule, so you can get your hearing
in court in two days.  Gimme fifty bucks and I'll give you a receipt for
your car.  It's over at the Impound on Racetrack Road."

Outside, Toby blinked in the brilliant sunlight.  Gerry Draper said he
was headed back to the Club.  Roy drove Toby to get his car.  He filled
out the paperwork, paid the fine, and drove away, Roy in trail.

At a filling station, Toby sponged himself and put on an old polo shirt
and sweat pants he had fished from behind his back seat.  They decided
to go to the Sand Flea on Okaloosa Island for a late lunch.

"Bloody Mary?" Roy asked Toby when they were seated.

Toby nodded, too shaky to speak.  He felt better after he had drunk two
in quick succession.

"What happened, Roy?  The last I remember is being at Bacon's," he
said.

"Good old Bacon's by the Sea.  From there we started the usual FRIDAY
night races.  All the guys with Jags and Corvettes were dragging on
Highway 98, west of the town of Mary Esther.

You did just great, until you said we should race east into Fort Walton.

You won.  You sprang every trap all the way into town.

They must have radioed ahead.  We dropped back and watched.

Four with all lights on behind you, and one crosswise in front.  You
finally stopped.  They locked you up right then.  You were very
dignified and polite." He stopped and looked past Toby at the door.

A man was striding purposefully toward their table.  It was Deputy
DuBois, still wearing his uniform from the county jail His mouth was
etched in a thin line.  The other diners stared.

Uninvited, he pulled over a chair and sat down.  He threw some crumpled
paper onto the table in front of Toby.  Toby hesitated, then picked up
the ball and smoothed it out.  It was the administrative and court copy
of his speeding and DWI tickets.  He looked up in confusion.

"Captain," the man said, and removed his sunglasses.  His face was stern
and severe, his eyes hard and angry.  He looked to be in his late
twenties.  "I know who you are.  Your friends explained a few things to
me and my boss just now.  My brother was killed in the Air FORCE in
Vietnam.  Your friends told me how you helped save some soldiers, and
how you lost a friend, Captain Travers.  Because of that, I am tearing
this ticket up."

Toby looked stricken as the memory of the dead Phil Travers flooded his
hungover and unguarded mind.

He poked the papers into Toby's hand.  "I don't do it much, tearing up
tickets like this."

Toby tried to thank him.  DuBois brushed it aside.  His face was stern.

"I didn't do it for you.  I did it for those guys you saved.  And your
dead friend, Captain Travers.  " The deputy flicked the tickets with his
thumb and forefinger.  "But what would they think of this?" His voice
became harsher.  "What would Captain Travers think if he saw you in the
drunk tank laying in your own puke?  He'd think you were a disgrace to
the Air FORCE.  I know I do.  I think you are a disgrace to my brother's
Air FORCE.  What gives you the right to disgrace my brother's Air FORCE?

You didn't earn that right in the back seat of Captain Travers's
airplane.  Your Air FORCE Cross doesn't give you the right to do that.

You have military ID in your pocket that says you are an officer in the
United States Air FORCE.  Start acting like one Captain, or get the
goddammit-to-hell out of the military.  An you can bet if you come to
the jail again, you'll spend a lot more time in the drunk tank.  Do you
copy, sir?" Deputy DuBois stood up.  He nodded sharply, turned on his
heel, and strode off with quick, angry steps.

Toby Parker's face was flaming red.,He felt bile rise in his throat,
jumped up, and barely made it to the men's room in time.

For long minutes he racked and spat until nothing came up.

Sweat poured from his body.  His belly was cramped and knotted.  After a
while, he splashed water on his face, and returned to the table.  He
emptied both their water glasses, slowly and carefully.  Roy Thomas said
nothing.  Toby wiped his mouth and pushed his chair back.

"I feel like shit," he said.

"You look like shit," Roy said.

Toby pushed away the now cold scrambled eggs.

"That's it," he said.  "No more."

"Those eggs do look a little greasy," Roy said.

"No, I mean booze.  I've had it.  I quit."

Toby said he wanted to be alone.  He took Roy to his car, then drove to
a secluded spot on the beach.  He locked his shoes and socks and wallet
in his car.  He walked to the shoreline.  The waves rolled and crashed
with soothing regularity.  Sea gulls swooped and called.  He started
walking east.  The sand squeaked as his heels dug little divots.  He
walked faster, and faster, then he was running.  He ran and ran, leaping
over driftwood and culverts, splashing in a wave that rolled up higher
than the others.  And he ran.  He had no concept of time, he didn't see
what was ahead, and he didn't care.  When his legs felt leaden and
uncontrollable, he slowed to a fast walk, then ran some more.

Several times he stopped to retch.  Then he would plunge into the water
to wash away the stink and sweat.  Soon there was nothing but spasms and
pain, and looping spit.  And still he ran.

And when he could run no more and his world was red and gasping, when
his lungs felt torn and shredded, when his legs finally gave out and he
fell sprawling in the sand, he felt his first shred of self-respect.

He lay on his back until he could breathe normally.  Then he arose, and
took up an easy jog back the way he had come.  Four miles later, he came
to a long concrete-and-metal fishing dock that extended over the Gulf.

He didn't remember passing it.  The evening sun was low and fat on the
horizon.

Still barefoot, he walked to the end of the dock.  The metal drain bars
hurt his feet.  Sea gulls soared and swooped, crying for food.  He
focused way out and for several minutes watched the waves make up and
roll shoreward.  Without taking his gaze from the horizon, he slowly
took the gold chain and jade from his neck and curled it into a heavy
mass in his hand.

He held it to his lips for a moment, then hurled it so far out over the
water the splash was lost in the waves.

1600 HOURS LOCAL, SUNDAY, 15 OCTOBER 1967

CIVILIAN FLIGHT RAMP, TAN SON NHUT AIRPORT SAIGON.  REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Shawn Bannister stood for a moment on the top Of the Steps to the Pan
American Boeing 707.  His khaki safari was wrinkled and limp.  He needed
a shave after his thirty-six HOURS enroute from San Francisco to Saigon
via Honolulu and Guam.  His blond hair was long and curled over his
ears.  He wore his gold chain with the gold alligator roach clip
attached.

He glanced over the civilian and military flight ramp from which he had
departed barely ten months ago.  The dissonance and stridency of the
noise was exactly as he remembered.  The hiss of auxiliary power units,
the tearing roar of jet fighters taking off from one of the dual
runways, the throb of blades from Army helicopters landing to the east
side of the base, these were the sounds he remembered.  The oily
kerosene smell of the jet engines was as nauseating as ever.

Now, he had finally returned to Vietnam both as a journalist and a man
dedicated to the cause of world peace.  Becky Blinn and her friend
Alexander Torpin had spent many weeks teaching him.  They also had
smoked tons of some really good shit.

He started down the steps as someone from behind commanded him to
"Allez, allez, 90, go.  The 707 was parked in line with Air France and
Air Cambodge airliners, an Air Vietnam DC-3, and a Braniff MAC contract
Boeing 707.  Extending in both directions, in rows of revetments made of
corrugated steel and sand, were many types of military aircraft.

Civilian airliners taxied and took off, intermingled with military
fighters and transports.  Civilian passengers saw helmeted pilots in the
cockpits of their bomb-laden fighters waiting for takeoff to fly a
combat mission.

A recent rain shower had left a thin film of water, which was quickly
turning to a steamy vapor.  Shawn Bannister walked across the concrete
ramp to the two-story civilian terminal.  Inside, after an interminable
delay at Immigration, he crossed to the baggage pile and claimed his one
suitcase.  At customs, he watched the agent run his hand several times
along the smooth and expensive brown leather.  Shawn Bannister finally
caught on and passed a five-dollar bill to the man.  No one seemed to
care about the obviousness of the transaction.  It hadn't been so
obvious before, Shawn Bannister said to himself.

He was happily surprised to see his name spelled out with grease pencil
on a piece of cardboard held by a slender Vietnamese man with a badly
scarred left arm.  He wore black trousers and a white shirt with short
sleeves.  Maybe the Sun is getting organized, after all, he thought.  He
walked up to the man.

"I'm Bannister," he said, pointing to the sign.

"And I am Nguyen Tri from the Caravelle Hotel," the man replied in
passable English.

"The Caravelle," Shawn replied.  "I didn't advance book a room there.

Aren't you from the California Sun?"

"I am to take you to the Caravelle, " the man repeated.  Shawn Bannister
seemed to hesitate.  "Alexander Torpin said to make you comfortable,"
Nguyen Tri added.

1530 HOURS LOCAL, MONDAY.  16 OCTOBER 1967

JOINT UNITED STATES PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICE (JUSPAO) SAIGON, REPUBLIC OF
VIETNAM

The first stop for any newsie who wanted to be accredited and be issued
his Wahoo card, also known as the JC card , was the Joint United States
Public Affairs Office, known best by its acronym, JUSPAO.  The magic
ACOI Form 3 was called the Wahoo or JC card because when the new
recipients got one and reAlized the incredible freedom it gave them,
they either belted out "Wahoo," or "Jesus Christ, I don't believe it."

JUSPAO was run by Barry Zorthian, a Yalie and ex-Marine.

His organization had expanded to fill a six-story, French-style building
(definitely not Le Corbusier) on the corner of Le Loi and Nguyen Hue
streets.  Next door was the Rex Hotel, used for officer's billets.

JUSPAO's roster would do justice to a small American town.  Fully six
hundred people, American civilians and military, and Vietnamese, worked
to spread the good word among the world's populace.

Shawn Bannister registered and was given his card.  He looked at the
handout he was given with his new credentials.  It said that by March of
1967, there were 480 newsmen-which included newspapers, magazines, TV,
and radio-with credentials in Vietnam.  Of this number, 393 were
Americans; the remainder were Vietnamese, British, Japanese, Koreans,
Filipinos, and New Zealanders.  He didn't know it, but only about 30
percent of these men and women were hard-core news gatherers who would
hump the boonies and share foxholes to be with the troops, to see what
was happening.  However, so many of these hardcore journalists and
photographers had been killed or wounded, that the news profession was
taking losses proportionally far greater than the GIs.

When he was finished at 1645, Shawn decided to attend the official
briefing at JUSPAO, the Five O'Clock Follies.

The Follies was the derisive name given to daily news sessions held in
the JUSPAO 200-seat auditorium.  Each day the United States Embassy
people, Zorthian's United States Information Services (USIS) people, and
the military gave journalists briefings on how they wanted them to think
the war was going.  Each had his own distinctively marked podium on the
stage.  Shawn Bannister entered the auditorium.

It was 1800 HOURS when he exited the JUSPAO building, blinking in the
late sunshine.  The air was steamy from a passing shower.  Shawn checked
his watch.  He was to meet Nguyen Tni, and he was unsure what was to
happen that evening.  The briefing had been terribly boring, and
contained no information of substance.  The crowd of journalists, he had
noted, was unruly, and as boisterous as teenagers at a Saturday matinee.

.  He walked the short blocks from the JUSPAO building down Le Loi to
the Caravelle.  The scene hadn't changed since he 4ad walked the same
streets ten months ago with his godfather, USAF Major General Albert G.

Whitey Whisenand.  Women vendors in black silk baggy trousers and white
short-sleeved blouses still sold black market and stolen goods from
their storefronts, or from bamboo mats laid on the sidewalk.  Consumer
goods such as watches and radios, booze and boots were out front.  In
the back of a store, one could negotiate for an M-16 rifle, hand
grenades, or even more lethal merchandise.  In-between were shops
selling tailor-made suits, cameras, Honda and Vespa scooters, and other
commodities essential for the good life in a war zone.  Little boys ran
dodging and skipping through the crowd peddling their sisters or
stealing watches from the wrists and pens from the pockets of unwary
strollers.

"My God, Artie.  You see that slope kid?  He came out of nowhere running
like a stripe-assed ape, and he ripped off my shirt pocket as he went
by.  Got two pens and a pencil.  Cheap stuff, but my God, what a trick."

"Watch out for the ones on Hondas who snatch watches right off your
wrist," Artie said as they passed out of Shawn's earshot.

The castor oil exhaust fumes from the thousands of scooters in the
street piled a layer of blue smoke and noxious vapor up to waist level.

Strident taxi and cyclo horns added a discordant layer of sound to the
thrum of traffic.  Saigon was no longer the Pearl of the Orient.  Saigon
was now the forsaken courtesan, reduced to making her living in the
streets.

Shawn wasn't in Vietnam for the money.  He didn't need it.

Even if he was giving one thousand dollars a month to the movement,
there was still plenty left over from the five-thousand dollar-a-month
trust his father had set up for him.  It was the same with his
half-brother, Courtland.  He knew Court didn't need his Air FORCE
salary.  In fact, in Shawn's mind, it didn't seem as if Court needed
anything from anybody.

The rivalry with Court had always been one-sided, for Court had never
tried to outdo Shawn.  Yet once Shawn had come to an age where he'd
realized he and Court were not just of different mothers, but of
different temperament and outlook altogether, he had begun to hate his
half-brother.

Shawn hated Court's self-assurance, and he hated Court's taciturn
response when he would try to antagonize him.  Most of all, he hated
Court's relationship with their father, Sam Bannister.  When Court was
to receive his pilot wings in the Air FORCE, Shawn had had an angry
fight with Sam, who had taken it for granted Shawn would go with him to
Court's graduation.  Shawn knew he could not bear to see his
half-brother in his moment of accomplishment.  He had gone on a
three-week hinge that had ended in a Paris jail for starting a fight in
Maxim's, an exclusive Paris restaurant.  When Sam had come over in an
attempt to straighten him up, he had said the worst possible words of
all to the rebellious Shawn: "Why don't you try to be more like your
brother?"

Ever since that time, Shawn had spent most of his time and efforts doing
the opposite of his goody-goody half-brother.  While Court flew
airplanes, Shawn drove motorcycles, expertly and with abandon.  When
Court got married, Shawn made intemation'al headlines by being the
corespondent in a divorce scandal involving a Greek tycoon and his young
wife.  When Court got posted to Vietnam, Shawn got hired by the antiwar
California Sun to cover the war in Vietnam.  It wasn't common knowledge
outside of the editor's office, but Shawn had agreed to cover his own
expenses if the editor would just hire him.  The editor, no fool, had
said, well, hell yes.  And now, with his purpose more clearly defined,
he could truly contribute to not just the Sun, but to mankind.

Shawn took the creaking elevator to his fourth-floor room at the
Caravelle Hotel.  He turned on the overhead fan, poured himself a glass
of the tepid water from a vacuum jug, and for a few minutes stared out
the window down on Tu Do Street.  The crowd was thick with GIs surging
from bar to bar, buying Saigon Tea for the bar-girls, looking for love
by the hour, or minute.  He was too tense to focus on the scene.  His
hand jerked when he heard the soft knock on the door.

Nguyen Tri smiled as he shook hands with Shawn.  "It is good to see you
again," he said.  "You received your JUSPAO pass without any difficulty,
I trust."

Shawn assured him he had the pass, directed him to sit on the wooden
chair next to the small desk, and took a place near the window.

.  "First," Nguyen Tri said, "I want to tell you how we appreciate the
hard work you and the other members of the California Sun are expending
on our behalf."

"Wait a minute," Shawn interrupted, "what do you mean, 'we' appreciate,
and 'out' behalf?  Who is this 'we' you're talking about?  "

Nguyen Tri smiled again, his face a study of genial watchfulness.  He
seemed to be measuring the American's capacity for information.  He
chose his words carefully.

' 'The 'we,' " he said, "is any right-thinking Vietnamese and
peace-loving person of the world.  We want this terrible war over sooner
than you do.  But we want to finish it ourselves.  As you yourself have
said so many times in your very excellent articles, this is a civil war.

Foreign intervention is neither wanted nor necessary - "

"We are the foreigners," Shawn said.  Alexander Torpin had taught him
all about this in Berkeley.

"Of course," Tri replied.  "As you have so amply pointed out, and I
quote one of your articles: 'The South Vietnamese must be left to settle
their differences in a political manner, not in a war forced on them by
American self-interest." That was very well said, Mr.  Bannister."

Shawn vaguely remembered the statement as one of many he had written in
the stories he'd filed last year from Saigon.  He rarely went out into
the field.  He was neither inclined to nor was he under pressure from
the Sun's home office in California to do so.  They were content to have
the famous Bannister name on their masthead as their man in war-torn
Vietnam.  They didn't care if he picked up the majority of his text from
Vietnamese stringers at Givral's coffee shop or the Caf6 Pagode, and
from GIs on Tu Do Street for whom he bought drinks.  He hadn't paid a
lot of attention to his copy as he wrote.  It had turned out he was a
natural writer, and as long as his themes of antiheroes, antiwar, and
antimilitary went along the lines and current trend his editor wanted,
everybody was content.  Text on battle scenes and true warriors was not
in vogue; text about crazed GIs and bumbling generals was very much in
demand.

"Yes," Shawn said to Nguyen Tri, "I remember those words."

"Do you believe them?" Tri asked.

"Sure," Shawn replied, his voice noncommittal.  "I believe them.  I
wrote them, didn't I?  Why do you ask?" He wanted to light up a joint.

He had a feeling he knew where this conversation was going.  For the
moment, his time with Becky Blinn and Alexander Torpin seemed rather
vague.

Nguyen Tri moistened his lips.  "If you believe those sentiments, then
you obviously would be of a mind to help save innocent lives.  Innocent
lives of Vietnamese, but more important, innocent lives of the young
Americans who are forced to come here by a government that cares only
for conquest." He studied Shawn.  "You want to save lives, don't you?"

"Well, sure," Shawn said.  He suddenly walked to his kit on the bed, and
jerked open the straps.  "Look, I hope you don't mind if I smoke."

"Not at all," Nguyen Tri replied.  This was going better than he had
expected.  "In fact," he said, "I brought some very good cigarettes for
you." He took a Marlboro flip-top box from a small black satchel, and
handed it to Shawn.  He opened the cover and sniffed.

Smells like good shit, he said, and grinned.  Alexander Torpin had
obviously told Nguyen Tri all about him, Shawn thought.

In seconds, he had a deep draft of Buddha's Burmese Best deep in his
lungs.  He slowly let it seep out.  He sat on the edge of the bed and
took another.  Soon, he sat back against the headboard, his feet crossed
at the ankles.  He eased another long puff through his nostrils.  Now he
felt better able to handle this friend of Torpin's.  It was all coming
back: his revelations, his commitments.

' 'Okay, Tri," he said.  "Sure, I want to save lives, but I gotta have a
story to file, you understand?"

Tri grinned back and bobbed his head.  "Yes," he said, "yes, I
understand, How would you like an exclusive interview with one of the
leaders of the Viet Cong underground right here in Saigon?  " Shawn
Bannister sat bolt upright.

"Christ, yes," he said.  "How soon can I get it?"

"Tomorrow morning," Nguyen Tri replied.  "I'll pick you up in front of
the hotel at seven-thirty.  No camera," he warned.

Shawn's heart was pounding.  "I'll be there.  Christ, yes.  I'll be
there."

1600 HOURS LOCAL, MONDAY, 16 OCTOBER 1967

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Room 3E880, THE PENTAGON WASHINGTON.

D.C.

"I know I have my critics," Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara
said.  He stood looking from his window over the Potomac River to the
Tidal Basin.  McNamara was dressed in a three-piece black worsted wool
with narrow gray pinstripes.  His impassive face looked as unlined and
as animated as a blank computer screen.  His fimless steel-framed
glasses were spotless, and occasionally hid his eyes behind reflected
light.  The frames melded into his black hair combed straight back in
the 1920S style, and held in place, it was rumored, by a substance
called Staycomb.  The person he was speaking to, USAF Major General
Albeit G.  ("Whitey") Whisenand, stood in front of the Secretary's large
desk.  Whitey wore his Class A blue uniform.  McNamara turned from the
window to face him.

"Yes, I know I have critics," he repeated.  "They say I am a er
grabber." He tossed his head, eyes inscrutable behind his steel-rimmed
glasses.  "But knowledge is power.  I provide knowledge.  I provide them
knowledge so they will have more power.  Can't they see that?  It worked
so well at Ford Motors.  I took control from the wasteful production
people and gave it to the accountants.  After all, the bottom line on
the financial report is the only way to judge the efficacy of an
operation, be it civilian or military.  It takes knowledge to get that
result.  Total knowledge of input, throughput, and output.  All that is
important.  That is from where power flows." He pursed his I ips.  "Can
you see that point, General Whisenand?  Can you see that I provide the
knowledge that gives them the power?"

"Mr.  Secretary, are you referring to the Joint Chiefs of Staff when you
say 'they'?"

McNamara nodded in the affirmative.  "Yes, I am.  Of course.

I have provided the Department of Defense with a planning
programming-budgeting system never before seen in the military so I have
implanted civilian control.

hierarchy.  of course, to do Napo,16on is quoted as saying that war is
too important to leave to the generals.  I believe that.  I also believe
that budgeting is too important to leave to the generals." He made a
stretching movement with his lips that he truly expected to be regarded
as a smile.

"But I didn't call you up here to discuss budgeting, General.

I want to show you something.  " He walked to an easel on a metal
tripod.  He flipped up a white cloth covering, revealing a big chart on
poster board.  A large graph had two lines snaking up: One depicted
bombs dropped on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the other showed supplies moved
from North Vietnam to South Vietnam down the Trail.  Both were plotted
against a time line.

McNamara tapped the graph with a pointer.

, 'When these two lines cross over, when the tonnage of bombs we drop is
greater than that of the tonnage moved down the Trail, we will have
begun to win the war," he said.  "Numbers never lie.  I want you to
agree with this display, then we will take it over to the President."

Whitey studied the chart.  "I agree with the graph," he said.

The Secretary of Defense looked momentarily surprised, as if he had
expected a different answer.  "Now I want to show you mine.  " Whitey
brought out his updated blackboard with the POW/MIA summary totalling
1,000 pilots lost and 1,700 airplanes destroyed.  McNamara dismissed the
board with a wave.

"When compared under the statistics of the sorties flown," he said, "the
losses are still within the mean of probability and therefore
acceptable.

The Secretary was chauffeured to the White House in his black Lincoln
Continental limousine.  General Whisenand followed in a blue Dodge sedan
from the Motor Pool, driven by an Air FORCE Staff Sergeant.  They
trooped into the President's office, where, without preamble, the
Secretary of Defense began his briefing to the Commander in Chief.

"We are, I believe, turning the corner to victory," McNamara began.  His
eyes were alert and shining.

Robert Strange McNamara launched into twenty minutes of logistics
figures, bomb tonnage, body counts, troops in country, and the myriad
other particulars he could extract from his extraordinary memory.

Flipping through charts, his excruciating details even covered how much
barbed wire went into Vietnam, and how many written reports came out.

Toward the end, he brought out a chart depicting the reasons for sending
more American troops to Vietnam.  Whitey recognized the quantifying
percentages as those advanced by a former assistant to McNamara.  They
were: REASONS TO INCREASE TROOP STRENGTH IN SVN 70% for American
prestige by not being defeated 20% for keeping South Vietnam free from
Red China 10% for a better life for the South Vietnamese His final chart
was one he had shown Whitey in his office in the Pentagon.  He traced
the proposed meeting of the two lines of the Ho Chi Minh Trail showing
when U.S.  forces would start winning the war.

"Even General Whisenand agrees this is correct," he said, indicating
Whitey.  The President looked at Whitey, who spoke.

"No, sir, I do not," Whitey said.

"You did just a moment ago in my office," the Secretary said, with some
irritation.

"Sir," he began, " I agree with the accuracy of the totals for bombs
dropped, and I suppose the figures for tons of supplies moved down the
Trail are accurate.  What I do not agree with is your basic premise that
we will start winning when the lines cross."

"But the facts are here, General.  You cannot dispute facts," McNamara
said.

The President looked from man to man as each spoke, as if he were at a
tennis match.  He enjoyed playing two people off against each other,
figuring, often correctly, that it was a method of getting to the truth,
the nut gut, as he called it.

Whitey faced McNamara.  "Sir, with all respect for your efforts, I must
tell you some facts.  You say you like and admire facts.  I have some
facts that, I'm afraid, you will neither like nor admire." Whitey took a
deep breath.  "You are demanding statistics on pacification.  Further
you want to know the exact amounts of supplies moving down the Trail.

You demand quantification of guerrilla activities.  You demand
after-action reports.

You want to know tonnages of bombs dropped.  You want body counts.  All
of these figures go into this graph and the others you just showed us.

Mr.  Secretary, I must tell you, you are getting garbage.  These figures
simply are not accurate.  They range from outright lies to inflation and
to duplication.  The men in the field sed for figures.  Regardless of
what they are doing, they are pres have to stop and fill out some sort
of report you have ordered.

So they do what any soldier in a battlefield condition does, they say
anything to get headquarters off their back and the paperwork done.

Then, at headquarters, the officers there don't want to be the messenger
with bad news, so they pass it on, implying the information is accurate.

Perhaps some even believe it is accurate.  However, those who doubt and
say the war is not going well are accused of negative thinking and are
transferred out, often to the detriment of their careers.  You are
manufacturing a corps of professional liars." Whitey.  felt he had
worked himself into quite an exhibition of outrage.  Yet McNamara seemed
to ignore his accusations.

"Every quantitative measurement we have shows we are winning this war,"
McNamara said in a crisp voice to President Johnson, as if General
Whisenand wasn't present in the office.

The President stood up and placed his hands, made into fists, on top of
his desk.

"You've got to go back," he said in a loud voice, looking directly at
Whitey.  He walked around the desk to the fireplace, where he began
pacing back and forth.  He stomped his heels down hard as he made each
turn.  "I don't know what's going on over there.  Hell, I don't even
know what's going'on over here.  Everybody's lying to me.  Get your ass
over there, Whisenand, and find out the truth."

Whitey and McNamara avoided each other's eyes.  Never the best of
friends, and certainly at odds over policy, they had no intention of
becoming codefendants in the kangaroo court the President was conducting
with his lashing sarcasm.

The President wasn't done.  His anger was just igniting.

"It's that Fulbright and all those liberals on the Hill," he said,
himself a liberal of great renown.  "They're all yelling at me about
Vietnam." He stopped and looked at the two men.

"Why?" he asked in a voice made of gravel.  He resumed his pacing. "I'll
tell you why.  Because I never went to Harvard.

That's why.  Because I wasn't John F.  Kennedy.  Because my Great
Society program is accomplishing more than Kennedy's New Frontier ever
did.  " He waggled his finger at the two men.

"You see, they had to find some issue on which to turn against me, and
they found it in Vietnam." He snorted.  "That Fulbright, he joined the
ranks of the dissenters.  He was never satisfied with any President that
didn't make him Secretary of State.  " He stopped pacing and walked over
to the two men.  He grabbed Whitey by the arm.  At six-foot-three, he
towered more than five inches over the general.

"You get over there," he said, "and-" He seemed to be looking for a
mandate.  McNamara supplied one.

"Give us your military judgment as to the prospects for a successful
conclusion of the conflict in a reasonable period of time," McNamara
said.

The President dropped Whitey's arm to face his Secretary of Defense.

"Oh, my God, perfessor, I just want to find out if we're winning or
losing," Johnson said.  He shook his massive head like a lion trying to
dislodge an ear mite.  He walked away from both of them to the window
behind his desk.  He looked out over the lawn for a moment, then turned
back to the room.

"There is one thing you ought to know," he said.  "Vietnam is like being
in an airplane without a parachute when all the engines go out.  If you
jump, you'll probably be killed, and if you stay in, you'll crash and
probably burn.  That's what it is."

He fixed Whitey with a penetrating look.

"Get over there, Whisenand.  I'll sign the orders personally.

Find out if the goddamn airplane is going to crash and, if so, when.

0730 HOURS LOCAL, TUESDAY, 17 OCTOBER 1967

Room 422, CARAvELLE HOTEL SAIGON.  ]REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Nguyen Tri, in company with a Vietnamese driver in an old black Citroin
automobile, was waiting for Shawn.  He made no introductions.  After a
few blocks, Tri apologized, produced a piece of dark muslin, and said it
was necessary to blindfold Shawn.  From that point, it seemed to Shawn
he was driven in circles around the city.  He heard traffic sounds
increase, then fade altogether, then sound again.  He heard the rattle
of boards as they crossed what sounded like rickety bridges.  When they
finally stopped, Shawn was helped from the car into what he guessed was
an alley, the cement seemed gritty and trash-ridden under his feet.  He
was steered through a door that reverberated like cheap corrugated tin.

They went into a room smelling of nuoc-nzam, then he was led through
another room, down some stairs, then carefully down a narrow ladder into
a confined area that was cool and smelled of damp earth.  They walked
for several steps.  Shawn felt the presence of walls close on each side.

They pushed his head down to enter a room, and removed the blindfold.

Tri showed him a small canvas-and-wood folding chair and he sat, facing
a sheet of cheap cotton hanging from a line strung between the wooden
walls.  There were no windows.  A bare light bulb hung from the cheap
plywood ceiling.

"Welcome to the city headquarters of the Delta Two Battalion of the
First Regiment of the People's National Liberation Front,"

Tri said.  He stood next to Shawn.  "You can understand our security
precautions, I'm sure." He pointed at the hanging sheet.

"Behind the screen is Trung Ta Nguyen Van Tung, that is, Lieutenant
Colonel Nguyen Van Tung.  I am your interpreter.

You may ask any question you wish."

Shawn was caught totally unaware.  It had never occurred to him to
prepare a list of questions.  He thought quickly.

"Will you win the war?" he asked.  Short, rapid-fire sentences rattled
around the room like rifle fire.

"It is not a war, it is a political struggle to unify Vietnam against
foreign aggressors," Tri translated.

"But there are guns and bombs, and people are getting blown up and
shot," Shawn persisted.  "That is war."

"The Americans are waging a war against the Vietnamese people.  It is a
war they will not win," Tri translated.

"How do you know the Americans will not win?" Shawn asked.

"The Americans will not win because they have no stomach for protracted
conflict; they want immediate results.  The Americans cannot win because
they cannot impose their will on the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese
people, who only want a free country.  It is exactly as your revolution.

You did not want a foreign power on your land telling you to pay taxes
and homage to a king thousands of miles away."

Shawn did not wish to say that there was no analogy between the English
colonists of America, and the country from which they had escaped
persecution.

The question-and-answer session continued for another twenty minutes.

Then Van Tung went off on a long diatribe that Shawn had decided was all
a rehash of standard propaganda, worthy of maybe a few lines.  His mind
wandered while the Vietnamese droned on.  He began figuring how he could
capitalize on his personal experiences of the underground visit.  Maybe
he could work in some heroic dodging of bullets or mortars.  It was too
bad no one was shooting in Cholon these days.

He was jolted out of his reverie when the Viet Cong leader asked,
through Tri, if he wanted to view an important attack, one that would be
decisive and war-changing; an attack that would make the fall of the
French-held Dien Bien Phu look insignificant by way of comparison.

"Where?  What kind of an attack?  When?  Viet Cong only, or in
conjunction with North Vietnamese regulars?" Shawn asked through Nguyen
Tfi.  Shawn was excited.  This could be a big scoop.  Maybe he didn't
need the money, but he did need the prestige and glory that went with a
major story.

"Colonel Nguyen Van Tung said the event will be soon," Tri said.  "Maybe
in a few weeks.  In the meantime, you can show your devotion to the
cause-"

"Devotion to the cause?" Shawn interrupted.  He stared at Tri.  "I'm not
devoted to any cause.  What do you mean?" He was afraid he knew damn
good and well what the Viet Cong.  colonel meant.  Ever since the weeks
with Becky Blinn and Alexander Torpin, he'd felt himself recklessly
slipping into something quite dangerous.  While there was a thrill to it
like he had never before experienced, he wasn't sure of the outcome. His
heart began to pound.  He made a mental note to tell his accountant to
shut off the money he sent Becky Blinn and her friends.

Nguyen Tri moistened his lips.  "I am sorry, my new friend, I merely
meant that since you strive to be an unbiased reporter, you are
obviously devoted to the cause of .  He seemed to search for a word in
his otherwise excellent English vocabulary.  ".  .  .  truth," he
finished.

"Truth," Shawn repeated.  "Okay, so I'm devoted to the cause of truth.

I'll tell the story as I see it.  Now, how do I show my devotion to the
truth?"

Nguyen Thi said something to Colonel Nguyen Van Tung, who replied in a
short sentence.  "Write the story as you see fit of this interview," Tri
said.  "There is something else.  We can speak of that on our way back
to the hotel.  Colonel Tung is busy, we must depart." When they stood
up, Shawn caught sight of two men behind the curtain.

After Shawn and Nguyen Tri left the cave room, Colonel Nguyen Van Tung
sat back and offered a cigarette from a thick blue package of French
Gaulois to the man sitting next to him.

The man, code-named 7han Lan, the Lizard, was one of the top NVA men
undercover in South Vietnam.  The man waved the cigarette away.

"I do not smoke," Huey Dan said.

1415 HOURS LOCAL.  THURSDAY, 19 OCTOBER 1967

Hickam AIR FORCE BASE HAWAII

The early afternoon sun was painfully bright as the passengers
disembarked down the mobile steps from the C-135.  Whitey, as ranking
passenger, was in the lead.  After meeting with LBJ, he'd sent a
back-channel message to CINCPAC, advising him of his arrival and asking
for a meeting.  He wore lightweight summer blues, and his ancient
navigator's briefcase dangled from his left hand.  With his right hand,
he pulled a pair of jet pilot's sunglasses from an inside pocket of his
tunic.

A USAF brigadier general who seemed familiar to Whitey saluted and
escorted him to a blue staff car.  They sat chatting while the driver
retrieved Whitey's two B-4 bags.

"Yessir," the brigadier said, "I was one of the action officers in the
Pentagon when you were in the Intelligence section."

Whitey remembered the brigadier then as an eager man who was always
smiling and saying "can do.  " After a twenty-minute ride, he ushered
Whitey into the office of the Commander in Chief, Pacific Forces,
Admiral Sharp, on the Camp H.  M.  Smith facilities, and departed.

U.  S.  G.  Sharp, Annapolis 1927, was a slight man with surprisingly
broad shoulders.  He had gray hair, a quick smile, and spoke with quiet
articulation.  His nickname since Academy days had been Oley.  He wore
the service white uniform with open collar.  Had he so chosen, he could
have worn all ten rows of his ribbons.

His huge office was furnished with a desk and conference table at one
end, and a living room ensemble of light tan rattan furniture at the
other.  Considering the building was on a hill overlooking Pearl Harbor,
the view was limited.  The two officers sat facing each other across the
rattan coffee table.  A steward served tall glasses of iced tea.  The
two senior officers quickly disposed of the family inquiry niceties and
got down to business.

"Whitey," the Admiral said, "your message was just a bit vague about the
reasons for this trip.  Are you permitted to elucidate?

"Of course, Oley.  It's quite simple, actually.  The boss wants to know
if we are winning or losing in Vietnam." Whitey sipped his coffee.

Admiral U.  S.  Grant Sharp looked at Whitey with some amusement.  "Have
you been reading my weekly message traffic to the Joint Chiefs of Staff
regarding the air war portion?"

"Yes, I have," Whitey responded.  "So I know that every week you request
permission to hit the hard-core targets in North Vietnam."

"Let me tell you what I think about Washington and the White House," the
Admiral said.  His quiet manner gave no hint of the condemnation he was
about to articulate.

"First off, when the government puts its military in a shooting
situation, the American people want to know why; they want sound
tactics; they want casualties kept to a minimum; and above all--he
pounded his fist on his knee--they want to win."

Admiral U.  S.  G.  Sharp stood up.

"Regardless of that, Washington policy-makers have evolved and developed
the policies of gradualism, flexible response, on again, off-again
bombing, negotiated victory-as if Ho would respond like a right-thinking
Christian man-and cut and run."

He put his glass down with a bang.  His lower jaw came up like a
bulldog.

"I'll go a step further.  It's Johnson who has, himself, a personal
stnategy of equivocation.  He blows hot and cold.  He cannot make up his
mind.  He tries to apply the strategy of domestic policy and
politics-consensus and compromise-to the battlefields of Vietnam, where
firepower alone is the arbitrator.  He has built his so-called strategy
on faulty assumptions." Oley Sharp's eyes flashed.  "He has not tapped
the strengths of his country.  His right-hand man, his architect, is the
arrogant academician McNamara, who surrounds himself with civilian
theorists who have no military background, either in uniform or, believe
it or not, in classroom study.  These men are brilliant statisticians,
theoretical analysts, computer experts who scom the military-the very
core of the experience they so desperately lack.  They have little use
for what they call the military mind.

They are second- and third-level political appointees with great
authority who are not accountable, except to the man they work for.  Let
me tell you, Whitey, these men override, subvert, compromise, distort,
and destroy opposing points of view.  They follow their boss.  McNamara
has consistently discarded the advice of his military advisors.  So of
course his subordinates do the same.  " Although Sharp's eyes flashed
throughout his diatribe, he neither raised his voice nor became shrill.

However, Whitey noted, his voice did become as brittle and harsh as a
nail scratching concrete.  The Admiral continued.

"We have yet," he said, "to use air power to its fullest in Vietnam.  I
don't mean to say air power is the only or total key to winning this or
any other war.  Air power did not win World War Two, although we could
not have won without it.  The big Operation Strangle during the Korean
War did not successfully cut the Red Chinese supply lines.  But now,
today, we have a large, professional FORCE of Navy and Air FORCE
aircraft that can bring this war to a faster conclusion with fewer
casualties on both sides."

"Oley," Whitey said, "you are preaching to the choir.  I am going to
change the subject." He leaned forward.  "Listen, I have some news for
you.  I don't know if it's good news or bad news.  I do know it is very
confidential news."

"There is very little confidential news about the war I don't know," the
Admiral said with some tartness.

Whitey chuckled.  "I know that.  This is quite different.  Johnson is
going to get rid of McNamara."

The Admiral raised his chin sharply and studied Whitey's face through
slitted eyes.  "I can tell you aren't joking," he said.

"Why and when?  Did he tell you personally?"

"To answer in reverse order," Whitey said.  "No, the President did not
tell me personally.  As an old intelligence officer, I'm ninety-nine
percent sure it will happen.  As to why: I suspect the protest movement
has gotten to McNamara.  I know the war has got to him-he has made eight
trips to SEA so far-and probably even the statistics have gotten to him.

I don't think he can last much longer.  He was very petty in front of
the Stennis committee.  Kind of reminded me of the Queeg court-martial
scene where the old boy bogs himself in details and recriminations.  He
seems obsessively precise.  Once he actually asked them to stand by
while he consulted his memory." At any rate, I think he will be out of
office .  .  .  and very soon."

"Great Scott," Admiral Sharp said.  "Won't that give the world something
to say?  The first American Secretary of War to be fired."

"They call them Secretary of Defense now, Oley, or haven't you heard?  "
Whitey gave a delighted chuckle.  "But it won't come out in public that
he is fired.  It never does.  McNamara will request retirement for ill
health, or get promoted upstairs.

Anything but fired." The steward entered and replenished their iced tea.

"Break, break, new subject," Oley Sharp said.  "I have been reading the
classified test reports on that MiG-21 we got from the Israelis.

Interesting.  It's not as good an airplane as we had thought, is it?"

"No," Whitey said, "it is not.  But there sure are a lot of them.  The
test report was made into a classified movie short tilled Throw a Nickel
on the Grass.  We've sent copies to all the fighter wings.  The film
describes how the MiG-21 has poor forward and aft visibility, how the
gunsight begins to fail when the pilot pulls more than four Gs, and how
badly the plane behaves when a pilot wants to reverse a turn."

"What has definitely gotten my attention in the Hanoi area," the Admiral
said, "is not how poorly the MiG-21 tights under certain conditions,
just the opposite.  The tactics and strategies are changing.  The North
Vietnamese pilots are becoming more aggressive, they are putting up more
planes, and they are coordinating their tactics better among themselves
as well as with the AAA and SAM rings around the target areas.  They are
hitting our guys much harder and smarter now than before.  If they keep
that up, we may well lose more airplanes," the Admiral concluded.

"Wait until the press picks up on that," Whitey said.  "I see trouble
there and, ultimately, from public opinion.  Which, by the way, LBJ is
deathly afraid of."

"I agree," Admiral Sharp said.  "We are not stopping the war in the
south because we are not stopping the supplies up north, but we are
losing more airplanes." He stood up.  "I can see it now.  The reporters
will ask some poor guy at the Five O'Clock Follies why we are losing
more fighters over Hanoi.  And the poor guy will say it is because there
are more MiGs in the air, and because they are more aggressive.  The
reporter will then ask, 'Well, sure, but why don't we just bomb their
airfields and, since I'm asking questions, how come these little guys
are beating big strong American men in aerial combat?" What do you
suppose the MACV press man will say to that?"

Whitey gave a bitter chuckle.  "He'll say, 'Because (a), we aren't
permitted to strike their airfields, and (b), we haven't been training
our new fighter pilots well enough, because we don't want to take the
chance they may have an accident while they dogfight each other."

Admiral Sharp nodded, a sour look on his face.  "Yes, that's how it will
be, sure it will," he said in a voice loaded with sarcasm.  The Admiral
looked up, and sighed.  "I haven't been much help, I'm afraid.  I'm
sorry I can't give you a better picture." He stood up and paced a few
steps.  "Are you sure you want me to give you an answer to your basic
question?"

Whitey nodded, lips drawn tight.  He was afraid he knew exactly what was
coming.  He was right.

"It isn't because of equipment problems, that can be solved.

It is because of the lack of national will.  We are losing the war",
Admiral U.  S.  Grant Sharp, CINCPAC, said emphatically.

"It's a two-way street, Oley," Whitey said.  "Congress can give the
people national will; or the people can generate it themselves and pass
it back to Congress.  Neither is happening."

"That's correct," the Admiral said.  "And so for the first time in our
history we are losing a war that should already be won

0630 HOURS LOCAL.  MONDAY, 23 OCTOBER 1967

MAIN Briefing Room, 8TH TACTICAL FIGHTER WING UBON ROYAL THAI AIR FORCE
BASE THAILAND

"It's only coincidence my name is George," Captain Richard C. Hostettler
said from the podium, as George the gecko burped out one of his better
"fuck you" soliloquies.

Hostettler was lying.  He had never been called George.  But, as one of
the Intelligence Officers of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, his job was
to get the crewmen he was about to brief for mission alive and, if not
happy, then alert.  Little jokes -hurt.  Nude girls on the slide
projector, rousing marches on his portable tape recorder, imitations of
how John Wayne or Lee Marvin would brief their Marine platoon before
hitting Guadal canal or Tarawa.  Two days ago, he had hidden a whoopee
cushion in the podium and pressed it in cadence with Colonel Crepens's
footsteps as the colonel had walked across the stage.

Crepens had slashed a ghastly smile, to show he was one of the boys.

That evening, Crepens had appointed Hostettler to the career-broadening
extra duty as Club Officer of the Ubon Royal Thai Air FORCE Base
Officer's Open Mess.  (The previous Club Officer, a nonrated lieutenant,
had been shipped home early, a broken man.  He simply had not been able
to maintain the Officer's Club in the decorum and manner he had been
taught at Hotel and Food Manager's College.)

Hostettler, Richard C., five-foot-ten, two hundred twenty pounds, former
guard at West Point, former assistant line coach at the Air FORCE
Academy, anticipated no trouble with his extra duty.  A product of
Plano, Texas, he also did a credible Mickey Mouse imitation.

There were twenty F-4s scheduled on the flight roster board.

Four flights of four each, and one spare for each flight.  It was a
massive effort.  Since the 8th was required to fly around the clock,
usually only 10 or 12 F-4s were on each flight roster.  The flight call
signs were Rambler, Buick, Chevy, and Ford.  The call signs had to be
easy to pronounce and of significant difference so they wouldn't be
confused in the heat of battle.  Seventh Air FORCE said they were going
to go random someday, but as yet hadn't got the computer working.  Two
flights were bombers, two were MiG cappers.  Court got a chill of
expectation when he saw that he was a MiG capper in Buick, Flak Apple's
flight.

Hostettler pulled the first of four of his sideboards out from the
wings.  It was covered with a cloth flap.  He pulled a sombrero from
inside the podium, squared his already square massive shoulders,' tugged
at the waistband of his fatigues, rolled bowlegged to the front of the
stage, and let go a moderately horrendous chili belch.  (He made his own
chili, and frequently downed two bowls for breakfast.)

"Thirty-seven millimeter," a lieutenant yelled from the assembled
aircrew.  "Naah, fifty-seven, at least," a captain said.

"Yeah, 57 millimeter," two GIBs agreed, with some dismay.

Hostettler's belches were measured in terms of the diameters of the
various antiaircraft shells that were fired at the aircrews flying over
enemy-held Laos and North Vietnam.  He tried to make the size of his
belch indicate the size of AAA fire the F-4 air crew would meet that day
over the preselected target.

Hostettler nodded.  "Okay, I'll buy that.  Fifty-seven millimeter.  How
about this one?" He shoved his hat back and rumbled out a belch of
extraordinary volume and substantial timbre.

Before the troops could react, he blasted another of thunderous
proportion.  Some swore later they saw the walls reverberate and the
curtains fly out slightly.  The troops groaned.

"Oh, shit," someone said, "not eight-fives and one hundreds.  " Nobody
disputed the caliber, least of all Hostettler, who turned around, bent
over, and fatted in generous and sonorous length.

"SAMs," his audience said in one breath.

"Now that you know what, I'll show you where," Hostettler said.  He
ripped the cover from the board.  A three-page Playboy centerfold faced
North Vietnam.  Wolf whistles and cheers from the crew.  "It's a hairy
one," Richard C.  ("George") Hostettler said.

He showed the pilots their target: the Canal des Rapides bridge that
carried both the highway and the northeast railway running between Hanoi
and China.

"This is a JCS target, gents," Hostettler said.  "That means the Joint
Chiefs of Staff have finally convinced the White House that destroying
this truck and railroad bridge will significantly help stop the war
supplies flowing south into South Vietnam."

" Now, that is brilliant reasoning for one target.  Why in hell can't we
take out all the fucking bridges?" a sardonic voice from the massed
aircrew asked.  Court thought it sounded like Partin.

Hostettler strode to the center of the stage.  He stood at rigid
attention.  "Gentlemen," he said in a thick British accent, "ours is not
to reason why, ours is but to fly and die." He resumed his briefing.

There were, he pointed out, about 950 guns from 37mm to 85mm, in and
around the immediate area of the bridge, which was well in the Hanoi
inner air defense ring of an additional 3,600 guns and 225 radars.  And
there were SAMs.  "You know how mobile the SAMs are," he said.  "They
can be taken down or put up in less than twenty-four HOURS, search and
lock-on radar included.  So expect plenty of SAM launches."

He traced the ingress route, this time from the east over the water to
the target, which was five miles north of the Hanoi area.  Going into
the Hanoi ring, in the Route Package Six area, was known as going
Downtown.  Of the 9,000 guns in North Vietnam, Hostettler explained,
fully 6,000 were within the Hanoi 30-mile outer ring.  That did not
include the 156 SA-2 sites that could fire up to 100 surface-to-air
missiles each, every day.

The Russians supply them well, he said.

There was, however, no way to get an accurate count of the rifles fired
at attacking planes.  The estimate ran from one-quarter to one-third of
a million.  It was known that even female garment factory workers were
issued rifles, usually Chinese-built 7.62mm (.30 caliber) rifles, that
they hauled out when the sirens went off.  They'd lay on their backs and
shoot at anything that flew overhead: MiGs, F-4s, di-ones, even the
International Control Commission transport carrying neutral dignitaries.

If it was in the air, it was an enemy.  Some young ladies and other
workers suffered from lost eyes and other indentations, as the products
of their weapons succumbed to gravity and returned whence they had
originated at a great velocity.

The factory gunners claimed scores of planes a week.  The North
Vietnamese government did nothing to discourage such absurdities.  They
knew full well that just firing the guns was a morale-building and
hate-strengthening device.  In actuality, the third of a million or so
guns averaged about one fighter aircraft per month.  The 6,000 guns
around Hanoi, that monthly exploded 25 tons of steel in the air,
averaged 25 fighter aircraft per month.  Neither the girls nor the
gunners ever questioned why the American long-noses, the Yankee air
pirates, didn't blast out of existence the means to bring such ample
supplies of guns and ammunition to North Vietnam.  They merely blasted
happily away and claimed four times their actual count.

After Hostettler briefed the guns, he covered the safest bailout s.  Go
feet wet if you want a Navy pickup.  Go west, young area man, to Laos,
maybe stretch it into Thailand, if you want to be rescued by a USAF
Jolly Green Giant helicopter.  Feet wet was closest.

Hostettler drew imaginary pistols from his imaginary holsters and fired
his fingers in the air.

"MiGs," his audience said.

"MiGs," Hostettler agreed.  He pointed to the map.  "You guys know where
they come from.  Bac Mai, Phuc Yen, Kep.

And of course Gia Lam, just northeast of Hanoi.  In fact, your target
today is between Gia Lam at Hanoi and Kep farther up the rail line.  You
can't hit those air bases, though.  That's naughty.  North Vietnam might
sever diplomatic relations with us." His sarcasm was not lost.  The
pilots booed and hissed at such an unfriendly reaction from North
Vietnam.

Hostettler ran through the code words and two-letter identifiers for
various activities and areas: Hotel Mike meant MiG CAP, Kilo Romeo stood
for a divert to another target, Whiskey Victor for a MiG reaction, and
so on for 53 other items.  The pilots didn't have to memorize these
codes.  Hostettler handed out blue cards for their kneeboards, with all
the information preprinted on them.  A second card had frequencies for
the radar sites, codes to set in their radar transponders when in
certain areas, and other tactical frequencies for airborne command
posts, ground sites, and secret rescue sites and helicopters.  Each card
was valid for only one day.

As soon as the pilots cleared the target area, they were to call College
Eye, the orbiting EC-121D four-engined prop plane with warning radar on
board.  First word of successful, or unsuccessful, strikes and enemy
reactions to the strike were relayed to College Eye by the code words on
the blue card.  College Eye flashed the information back to 7th Air
FORCE via either Teaball in northern Thailand or Motel near the DMZ.

Soon, Hostettler's briefing was over.  "Any questions?" he asked.  He
pointed to a lieutenant's raised hand.

"Yeah, George.  You're the club officer.  Is that no-booze bullshit
still on?"

Hostettler winced.  That was the one soft area he had yet to fix up.

Colonel Crepens had been steadfast in his refusal even to consider
reversing his prohibition order.

"Yeah," he said, "it is." He pulled his sombrero lower.

"Tell you what, guys," he brightened.  "I'll whomp up some good ole
Tex-Mex hundert-proof chili for you special this afternoon.  " The
pilots gave a mixed review of cheers and groans.

Hostettler didn't care.  He was giving information to men who were going
on a mission from which a few might not return.  He wanted to keep the
scene light and as happy as possible, while impressing upon them what
they needed to know.

Stormy, the weather briefer, was next.  Cloud coverage in the target
area could range from one half to full overcast, he said.

Cloud bases about 4,000 feet, tops about 10,000 feet.  Visibility in
North Vietnam limited by clouds and haze caused by humidity.  Late
afternoon thunderstorms probable.  Refueling area clouds were eight to
ten thousand, scattered to broken.  Condensation level starts at 33,000.

That information was vital, Depending on temperature and humidity, the
hot gases from a jet engine condense out water vapor into a miles-long
streaming white arrow pointing to the originator.  These arrows were
called contrails.  Once in the target area, however, the fighters never
flew that high.  They couldn't see the SAM launches or bomb with any
accuracy from 6 miles up.

At lower altitudes, fighters make another trail, a fleeting one called a
vortex trail.  It occurs in certain humidity conditions.  A high-G turn
causes a sudden low pressure area over a wing, turning the water vapor
into visible white streams coming from the wing tips or the wing roots
of the airplane.  Either trail brings unwanted attention to the
offending aircraft.

When Stormy was finished, the strike commander, a major from the 435th
Squadron, got up to brief on overall strike tactics.

"Today the collective call sign is Apache.  Half of you are MiG cappers,
half are bombers." The strike commander pulled out the maps and charts.

"We're coming in from the water route," he said.

The Hanoi area could be approached from any direction, except north from
Red China.  The U.S.  Navy always came from the east, because Task FORCE
77 was cruising east of the North Vietnamese land mass.  The USAF
frequently came from the south and southwest because that's where its
bases were located.

However, for the fighters, flying in the last couple hundred miles
became a contest to find new ways to surprise the gunners.  Rather than
drilling straight across Laos directly into North Vietnam, which was the
closest direction, the USAF strike forces frequently went feet wet. Feet
wet was the call they used any time they flew over water, in this case
the South China Sea.

Today the Ubon strike FORCE was cutting across Laos and the DMZ on a
northeast heading to meet their tankers over the water.  Once tanked up,
they would turn almost due north to just abeam of Haiphong.  They would
maintain Apache strike FORCE integrity until they broke to the west to
make for the target.  At that time, the strike FORCE would break up into
individual flights of four.  The two lead flights, Rambler and Buick,
were the MiG cappers.  Chevy and Ford were bombers.  From there, the
bombers were to dart inland to hit the bridge.  The MiG cappers were to
be a blocking FORCE for the bombers, deflect attacks from the bombers,
and kill any MiG foolish enough to press an attack.

The F-105 Wild Weasel SAM killers would be in just ahead of the bombers.

The TOT (time over target) for the Ubon bombers was one minute after the
Thuds from Tahkli had attacked.  The Tahkfi Thuds were capped by F-4s
from Da Nang.  Egress was straight south to swing around Hanoi, then
back east over the water.  SAC didn't have enough tankers to have a
second set available for a westerly egress.  In case of bad weather, the
alternate target was some easy, flat LOCs, Lines of Communications-the
fancy word for roads-in Pack One, the relatively safe area just north of
the DMZ.

The Apache strike FORCE commander traced the altitudes and positions
over water where the KC-135 tankers, call signs Tan and Purple, would
hold oval orbits to refuel the inbound strike FORCE.  The crews copied
the altitudes, radio frequencies, and call signs (always colors-Red,
White, Cherry, Peach, and others, up to a possibility of twelve
different tracks).  The over-water tanks were always coded Tan and
Purple.

"Last year," the FORCE commander said, "the Thuds had fifty-six percent
bomb-load jettison because of MiG attacks.  These days, we put up you
MiG cappers to drive away the MiGs so the bombers can go to work.  Now,
you guys who are carrying bombs today, you listen up.  I know you'd
rather go after MiGs, but the F-4 is also a good bomber, so today it's
your turn in the barrel.  Don't get antsy.  Don't jettison your load
just because someone calls out he sees MiGs.  Jettison only if you
actually have a guy making a pass at you from behind your three-nine
line pulling lead, and the only way out is to dump your bombs.

You'll get plenty of chances on future missions to be a MiG capper and
go after your own kills.  " If you drew a line between the three and the
nine on a clock face, with the airplane in the center facing twelve
o'clock, you had a three-nine line.  An aircraft behind that line could
be in an attack position.

The strike FORCE commander consulted his notes.  "Base altitude today is
6,000 feet." That meant all references to altitude were added to the
base reference.  For example, thirteen thousand feet would be reported
as base plus seven.  He finished up by telling the troops to stay the
hell off the radio unless they had something really important to say,
like MiGs or Mayday, the international distress call.  "Okay, Apache,"
he said in a quiet voice, "let's go get 'em.

Wing, Tench-HUT," someone called, as Colonel Crepens walked onto the
stage.  "At ease, gentlemen," he said.  "Please be seated.  " He stood
behind the podium, and looked out over the audience.

"Men," he said, "I know it's a tough one today.  But I know you are
tough men." His gaze swept rapidly across each crew member.  "Just
remember, we of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing want to be proud of each
and every one of you." He assumed a steely-eyed expression.  "When the
going gets tough, the tough get going.  And I know you are tough.

Apache, let's go get 'em." He waved a fist in the air, then added: "But,
remember, fly safely." While his audience pondered that bit of
paradoxical advice, he strode off the stage.  The strike FORCE commander
dismissed the aircrews.

The men arose with a low murmur of conversation to go to their own
squadron areas for final briefings by their own flight commanders. Court
Bannister walked out with Flak Apple, the Buick flight leader.

"How many missions you got now?" Apple asked.

"Fifteen," Court said.  "They were about half bombing and half MiG
capping.  A couple of the strikes were hairy.  I've had two MiG
engagements, nothing conclusive.  Those damn things are so small.  They
dive away like minnows and we can't chase them, because we're too low on
fuel.  But most of the time we stooged around over the overcast west of
Hanoi waiting for MiGs that never showed up.  I flew with Colonel Bryce
most of the time after my theater checkout.  But I'm still not assigned
to a squadron.  The Wing Ops people are scheduling me pretty much as
they see fit."

There were four Phantoms and one spare in Buick flight, resulting in
nine men following Flak Apple into the tiny flight briefing room, which
was one of four in the 433rd Squadron building.  In seconds the air was
thick and blue with cigarette smoke.

"Gentlemen," Flak Apple began, "welcome to another opportunity to smite
the enemy with superior American know-how and technology.  Anybody who
comes back with an arrow stuck in his airplane will be severely
chastised for flying too low."

Chuckles and catcalls sounded from his flight members.

Apple quickly sketched on the blackboard how he wanted the members of
Buick flight to position themselves.  A standard USAF four-ship flight
consisted of two elements of two ships each.  Apple drew four ships,
spaced like the four fingers of the right hand, minus the thumb.  The
middle finger represented the flight leader, Buick One; the index finger
to the left was his wingman, Buick Two.  They constituted the lead
element.  On the right side was his element leader, Buick Three, and to
the right of Buick Three, his wingman, Buick Four.  This was sometimes
referred to as the finger-four formation.

"I'm Buick Lead, Bannister here is Buick Three." He listed the two men,
young captains, who were the wingmen, Buick Two and Four.  "Our job is
to keep the MIGs off the bombers' backs.  We deploy just south of the
target area to block the MiGs coming up from Gia Lam, Hoa Loc, and Kep.

Court, keep your element fifteen hundred feet higher, and position
yourself upsun from us with every turn.  Wingmen, you fly forty-five
degrees back, and five hundred feet out.  Protect your lead's ass."

He pointed to the flight lineup.  "Our load today is four AIM-9s, four
AIM-7s, and the centerline gun with 1, 150 rounds."

"College Eye will give you the radar words from their orbit to the west.

The Navy radar coverage from some ships to the cast in the Gulf is
Crown."

He reviewed the visual signals they would use to maintain radio silence.

Tap headset, hold up number of fingers for a radio channel change;
drinking motion of thumb extended from fist to ask for fuel remaining,
hold number of fingers up in reply to equal thousands of pounds; the
HEFOE system for problems, one finger for hydraulic, two for electrical,
three for fuel, four for oxygen, five for engine.  Since there really
weren't man ways to surprise the enemy, the system was rarely used
except as a way to demonstrate radio -discipline when flying to or from
the target area.

"We'll take off single ship," Apple said, "at ten-second intervals, I'll
come out of burner at 350 knots indicated airspeed, and throttle back a
couple percent to give you a chance to catch up.  If we're in the soup,
hold a three-mile radar trail position.

We'll join up on top of the overcast.  We'll hit Lemon tanker over Laos
at 20,000 feet, off-load 10,000 pounds each.  Primary frequency is
229.2, backup is 234.  1.  We'll hit the same tank on our way home and
take on 5,000 pounds.  over water, we'll top off with Tan and Purple
tanks.  " He looked around the flight room.  "We got eight pairs of
eyeballs in this flight, guys, let's use 'em.  Any questions?  "

There were no questions.  The men made their trip to the latrine for
that last-minute nervous pee, then gathered in the personal equipment
room to get their flight gear from their lockers and the parachute rack.

Court pulled his back-seater, Ev Stem, off to one side.  It was the
first time they had flown together.  "We haven't had much chance to
talk," he said to the young second lieutenant, a brandnew pilot.  "But
maybe that's okay.  Tune the radios, set up the radar and the navigation
gear, help me with the checklists, and call out the bogies.  Outside of
that, don't talk." The lieutenant nodded, his face a study of
narrow-eyed coldness.  "Oh yeah," Court said, "one last thing.  If I say
bail out or eject, and you ask 'what?,' you'll be talking to yourself."

The PE room was crowded with men getting prepared.  Everyone already had
his flight suit and boots on.  They removed all personal items such as
wallets or letters.  The only identification each carried was his
military ID card, his dog tags showing name, serial number, religion,
and blood type, and the Geneva Convention card.  This card was supposed
to promote treatment in accordance with the recognized International
Prisoner of War Conference held in Geneva in 1954.  Since the United
States had not declared war on North Vietnam, most pilots didn't bother
with the card.  There was absolutely no evidence a two- y-three-inch tan
card had ever convinced the North Vietnamese to treat the shot-down
pilot with anything resembling humane treatment.

In fact, word was spreading, to be a prisoner in the Hanoi Hilton meant
a lifetime of vile torture and death.  As yet, the Departof Defense had
not seen fit to inform the American public ment of this hideous fact.

Many crew members carried items of survival above and beyond what was in
the survival kit attached to their parachutes.

Extra silk escape maps, blood chits, matches, lighters, cigarettes, were
common items.  Most pilots left their class rings and wedding rings in
their lockers, many for sentimental reasons they wanted a loved one to
have them if they didn't come backothers because they knew a screw-up on
bailout or during a parachute landing, where a ring could get caught in
a projection, would tear the whole finger off.  Conversely, other men
had had rings and bracelets of gold made, because they thought they
could use them as barter in an escape situation.

Flak commented on Court's olive-drab T-shirt.  Then he noticed that
Court's dog tags were taped together.  "Now why in hell weren't we
briefed on that?" he said.  "Makes so much sense if you're sneaking
through the jungle with an NVA patrol after your ass, not to have those
tags jingling around."

"Got the idea from the Army," Court said.  "Got the T-shirts from the
Army clothing sales."

"Here's a trick you haven't seen," Flak said.  He pulled out two cloth
skullcaps and gave one to Court.  "Soaks up the sweat from building up
in your hair and running into your eyes." He gave a thumbs-up sign.

"Say, how's that cowboy hat bird of yours doing?  Got a name for it
yet?"

"Sergeant Shanahan keeps it up," Court said.  "Says it's his lucky bird.

He's hit two jackpots on the NCO club slots since he took it over.  And
no, no name."

"Well, I hope you hit some jackpots.  See you when we RTB, Flak said.

"RTB?" Court said with lifted eyebrows.

"Yeah, RTB.  Return to base.  This base.  Ubon.  See you when we come
home."

It was still dark in the predawn morning as the crew van, like a large
open-backed bread truck with benches on both sides delivered the crews
to their airplanes.  All along the wide concrete ramp, floodlights on
tall poles illuminated the scores of revetments holding the large F-4
Phantoms.  Huge, sparrow-sized flying insects rattled and banged into
the bulbs.  A Thai or two underneath tried to catch them, as they were
considered great delicacies.  Beyond the revetments, which disappeared
in the shadows, were rows of light gray propeller-driven Thai Air FORCE
T-28 aircraft.

As the van stopped at their airplane, each crew member climbed down,
carrying a large bag stuffed with his helmet, gloves, and kneeboards
with flight cards clipped to them.  Each wore his G-suit, green mesh
survival vest, holster with .38 and ammo, and several baby bottles full
of ice, which would melt in the stifling heat by the time the pilot was
ready for takeoff.  A quick drink before takeoff and in the target area
soothed many a cotton-dry mouth.  After bailout in enemy territory, it
was a life or-death item, second only to a survival radio.

Each pilot carried three survival radios.  One was an automatic beeper
that was activated when his parachute deployed on bailout.  It sounded
an unnerving whoop-whoop over 243.0 megacycles, the radio frequency
reserved for guard channel.  The other two radios, RT-10s, were
hand-held, and could transmit on guard channel or one other frequency.

They were the size of two cigarette packs.  One was inserted into the
survival pack that was in the seat cushion of the pilot's airplane.  The
other he carried in his survival vest for easy access.  A few
enterprising crew members had a third radio in a G-suit pocket.  Without
a survival radio, there was absolutely no hope of a helicopter rescue if
you were shot down in North Vietnam or Laos.  Other rescue gear included
large day-night flares, and a small red metal flare device the size of a
fountain pen that could shoot a small red tracerlike flare 300 & feet
straight up.

Court Bannister and Ev Stem walked through the coolness to their
airplane, F-413, tail number 753.  Court handed Sergeant Shanahan his
helmet bag, and started the preflight without assigning any duties to
Ev.  Using his flashlight, he checked the general condition of the
airplane, shook the missiles on their mounts, rapped the fuel tanks,
peered up the twin tailpipes three feet in diameter, and looked at the
Form 781 maintenance log the crew chief held out for him.  There were no
write-ups or discrepancies.

"Ready to go?" Ev Stem had silently followed him around during the
preflight.  He had made no comments about the white hat or the red star.

"No, sir, I'm not," the young man replied in a quiet but firm voice.

Court stared at him in the muted glare of the ramp lights.

"You sick?" he asked.

"No, sir, I'm not.  I just want to get something straight between us
before we fly." His eyes glittered in the dark.  His jaw was firm and
resolute.

"I don't want to be in your back seat any more than you even want a back
seat.  I wanted the front seat, I wanted Thuds, I wanted F-100s, I
wanted A-Is, I wanted 0-1s, I wanted anything where I was the pilot in
command.  The Air FORCE just spent a whole shitpot of money teaching me
how to fly, then they stuffed me in that goddamn pit." He pointed up to
the back seat of the big Phantom.  "Shit, that's what navigators are
for.

You think I like drilling around the sky with some yahoo in front that
maybe never flew a fighter before?"

"I'm not exactly some yahoo that never flew fighters before," Court
said.

"No, sir, I know you are not.  But yesterday I flew with an ex-math prof
from the Air FORCE Academy that hadn't been on his back since pilot
training ten years ago.  I had to recover the airplane for him when he
went inverted in a cloud." He shook his head.  "I guess I'm a little
ticklish.  So when you tell me to shut up and don't touch anything when
we're going on a mission against MiGs, I just have to say something."

Court studied his GIB.  "Okay, Ev,- he said.  "I think maybe I
understand.  I'm a little slow sometimes.  Bear with me." He slapped Ev
on the shoulder.  "Okay, Tiger.  Let's go kill some MiGs.

0945 HOURS LOCAL, MONDAY, 23 OCTOBER 1967

GiA LAM AIRFIELD, HANOI DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Pod-Palcovnik Vladimir Nicholaevych Chemov stood in front of the
blackboard with a piece of chalk in his hand.  The board was full of
swirling lines and little x's representing airplane positions.  Toon and
Van Bay sat at a table watching him.  Chemov had just gone over the
refinements of the new attack method.

Victory Control would hold back SAMs and the big guns to better
coordinate the MiG attacks.  The MiG-19s would swoop down from an
altitude above and behind the attacking Yankees; Chemov's MiG-21s would
accelerate and zoom up from low and behind-called the deep-six position.

Victory Control would keep him informed of the inbound progress of the
enemy fighters.

Each MiG-21 carried two heat-seeking K-13 missiles, two K-13A
radar-homing missiles, and a 23mm gun in a belly pod.  The K-13 was
identical to the American AIM-9 Sidewinder; it was ten feet long and had
a thirteen-pound warhead.  Its range was not quite four miles.  The
radar missile was an advanced version of the K-13, and slightly larger.

There were only 200 rounds for the 23mm cannon.  When Chemov was
satisfied they had absorbed as much as they could and would apply the
new maneuvers, he dismissed the two Vietnamese.

He sat for a moment after they trooped out.  He had been avoiding the
embassy and Ignatov by spending almost all his waking HOURS at the air
base.  Political Officer Ignatov was a serious threat, very serious. Why
he seemed to have singled out Chernov wasn't particularly puzzling. He
was a civilian stukach.

Not of the military, he didn't understand that military men,
particularly fighter pilots, had certain considerations that had to be
satisfied or there would be no Party to protect.  Being dedicated to a
job one loved was one of those considerations.  He checked his
watch-time to leave that pig and his spiteful tyranny behind.

He picked up his flight gear, and walked out the door.

An hour later, Chernov's three MiG-21s roared off from the Gia Lam
runway, afterburners trailing flame, to intercept the inbound Yankee
fighters and bombers.  Each pilot had turned on his SRO-2M
identification radar, allowing Victory Control to differentiate them
from the enemy on their radar scopes.  Chernov was leading, Van Bay and
Toon were his wingmen.  Their call sign was Khong Nam Bon, Vietnamese
for 054, the three numbers painted on the nose of Chernov's aircraft.

The KG17s and -19s were getting airborne from other bases to go to their
intercept stations.  Timing was critical.  Although Chemov and his
flight each carried external fuel tanks, they would._have to jettison
them before attacking.  From then on, fuel was at a premium.  Internal
fuel in the MiG-21 was barely thirty minutes at low-altitude flying at
best fighting speed.

"I have contact with Khong Nam Bon," Victory Control said.

"Nhan biet, " Chemov said in his terrible Vietnamese, trying to maintain
the fiction no Soviet was airborne.  The words meant he understood and
acknowledged the transmission.

Chernov wore his standard Soviet Air FORCE VVS light blue flight helmet
with built-in headset, visor, and fasteners for his oxygen mask on each
side.  The North Vietnamese pilots still wore their old leather flying
helmets with built-in headsets under their wide, round, hard hats.  Like
American jet pilots, the microphone for their radios was built into the
oxygen mask.  All three pilots wore Soviet Air FORCE VVS issue flight
coveralls and G-suits.  Victory Control started feeding them intercept
information as soon as their wheels were retracted and tucked into the
gear wells.

Victory Control picked them up.  "One flight mass, Thunderchief
characteristics, situated west and heading easterly at six thousand
meters, descending slowly." Victory Control paused, then transmitted.

"One flight mass, Phantom characteristics, situated east heading
northerly.  Flashlight and Dart activated inner Goalpost ring." Goalpost
was the code word for the ten-mile defensive ring around Hanoi,
Flashlight was code for all AAA guns, Dart meant SAMs.  Other areas of
North Vietnam were code-named by sectors in a grid.  Sector DI was the
grid square over the Canal des Rapides bridge.  Victory Control had to
let its MiG fighters know when and where Flashlight (AAA) or Dart (SAMs)
was active, so they would not be shot down by their own air defense
weapons.  Goalpost was always hot, and would shoot at anything.  A
senior air defense commander directed the air battle from his position
in front of a large radar screen at Victory Control.  Although the big
search radars for Victory Control were above ground, the command post
where the Air Combat Director and all the controllers sat was under 100
feet of earth.

"Has the enemy committed yet?" Chemov asked.

"No, Khong Nam Bon flight.  Take up defensive orbit now Chemov signaled
his flight to fall into trail behind him.  He started a lazy left bank,
throttle back to conserve fuel.  He maintained an altitude of 150
meters, about 500 feet.  Victory Control positioned eight MiG-19s east
of Goalpost at 8,000 meters.  The fighter director knew that the
shipbome Crown radar would not see them that far inland.  He also knew
the radar carried by the approaching Thunderchief fighters was not good
enough to discriminate and find his orbiting airplanes, neither the
MiG-2 Is at low altitude nor the MiG-19s higher up.  The F-105 was,
after all, an airplane designed as a nuclear bomber and therefore had
ground-mapping capabilities with its radar, not capabilities for aerial
attack.  In the air, it could barely differentiate a thunderstorm, much
less an airplane.  Conversely, the F-4, designed as an interceptor for
the United States Navy, had a reasonably good air-to-air radar, and
reasonably good ground-mapping radar; good if not overtaxed or exposed
to too much heat and humidity.

The Apache strike FORCE commander wheeled his mass of sixteen F-4s left
to a heading of 342 degrees, and waggled his wings in the prearranged
signal for Apache FORCE to split up into individual flights.  They did,
and switched their radios to the strike frequency, which both the Thuds
from Tahkli and the Phantoms from Da Nang were already using to strike
the bridge.

The four flights split into prearranged positions.

Victory Control called Chernov.  "We now see them.  Steer for Grid
Sector HI for positioning.  Steer heading zero five zero, Khong Nam Bon
flight.  One Phantom mass is approaching from the east at 5,000 meters.

This flight mass is splitting vertically; half is descending slowly,
half remaining at altitude.  Both flight masses headed toward Goalpost
vicinity." Their altitudes were between 6,000 meters-15,000 to 18,000
feet.  These were the least dangerous altitudes to commence an attack.

"Understood, I am executing," Chemov said in his terrible Vietnamese. He
swung his flight to the northeast, keeping low to avoid the searching
American radar beams emanating from the Navy radar ship.  He hoped his
flight of three MiG-2 Is would be lost in the ground clutter that
appeared on the screens of the Phantoms when the Americans searched in
his direction.  The in the nose of each F-4 in the inbound Phantom
flight would be searching for the tiniest blip that meant a defending
airplane.  If they were spotted, Chernov knew, the escort elements of
the attackers would try to place themselves between his MiG flight and
the F-4 bombers they were trying to protect.

From that position, the Americans would attack.

"Switches on"' Chernov transmitted.  The liquid nitrogen necessary to
reduce the temperature of the seeker head of his missiles only lasted a
few minutes, and had to be conserved.

Although the K- 1 3 was a copy of the American AIM-9 infrared missile,
it needed to cool its IR seeker head just before use.  The American
AIM-4 missile had the same problem.  Overeager pilots switching it on
too early lost the effect and their missiles ran wild.  At that, the
pilot had to be close to the heat source, the enemy tailpipe, and had to
be sure the sun or ground reflection or a smokestack was not a better
source of heat for the missile's "eye." Chemov didn't like having to
remind his pilots of something he felt they should do automatically. Yet
experience told him that in the heat of combat, men at war did strange
things.  Improper switch setting was a major concern.  Better to lose
radio silence than a missile that had been fired incorrectly at a
critical time.

Flak Apple fishtailed his F-4.  Each flight member moved away from Flak
who then pushed over and headed down.  He would level out at about 4,000
feet above the ground, while Two, Three, and Four would stair-step up at
1,500-foot increments.

They also spread out, putting 1,200 feet laterally between airplanes. As
they pushed over, trading altitude for airspeed, their Mach meters
showed they were flying at 95 percent of the speed of sound.  On their
radios, they heard the terse calls of the attacking Thuds and their
protecting Da Nang Phantoms.  Each Buick flight member put his weapons
switches on.

Ahead, the sky was more clear than forecast.  There were only some
scattered cloud layers instead of the soupy mess usually encountered
this time of year.  They could see the Thuds diving to the attack, like
runaway locomotives.  They did not see the air battle farther west,
where Victory Control had already steered the MiG-17s and -19s from Yen
Bai and Phuc Yen behind the Thunderchief mass.  Upon orders, the MiGs
had swooped down from a higher altitude upon the Thunderchiefs.  But
Victory Control had vectored them down to the attack too late.  The
Thuds had pulled away from them with ease without jettisoning their
bombs, while the Da Nang F-4s turned to intercept the attacking MiGs.

A rolling furball of fighter planes ensued west of Hanoi as the Da Nang
Phantoms went after the MiGs, who did everything they could do to avoid
getting involved in a maneuvering dogfight.  When the Phantoms attacked,
the less experienced MiG pilots pulled into a defensive circle-like that
used by settlers' wagons when attacked by Indians-to cover each other.

Any Phantom trying to break in ran the risk of the next MiG back in the
wheel firing a missile at him.  The MiGs could outlast the Phantoms,
they had more fuel, and were close to their own bases.

In a worst-case situation, they could even break for China, fifteen
minutes' flying time away, where no American dare follow.

The more experienced pilots had dashed successfully either to a base for
fuel if they needed it, or to a reattack position if they didn't.

Near the target, Rambler headed northeast to screen for MiGs from Kep, a
few miles up the rail line from the Canal des Rapides bridge.  Flak took
Buick flight to screen for MiGs from Gia Lam, southwest of the bridge.

"You got anything?" Flak Apple asked for the tenth time to his
back-seater, whose head was buried in his radar scope.

"Negative," the young lieutenant named Pete replied.

From the north, Victory Control steered the MiG-19s from Kep southwest
toward the Ubon F-4 bombers.  To the south, Chemov's flight stayed low.

From nearly twenty miles away, he saw the inbound F-4s painted against
the sky by their smoke trails.  He smiled.  His MiG was one-half the
size, and made no smoke.  They would never see him until it was too
late.  Chemov wanted to attack the bombers from the rear, so his
heat-seeking missiles could easily find the hot tailpipes.  But the
bombers were rapidly approaching the bridge.  He had no choice.  He
would have to make a frontal attack from below.  He switched to his
radar missiles.  The on-board radar illuminated the target with pulses
that bounced back to his missile.  He told Khong Nam Bon flight to go
radar.

"MiGs, MiGs, ten o'clock low, " Ev Stem yelled over the radio from
Court's back seat, as his radar warning gear picked up the electronic
emanations from Khong Nam Bon flight.

"Who's ten low?" Rambler shot back '

"Buick Three.  Ten low from Buick Three," Court cut in, chagrined
his'back-seater had fouled up his MiG warning.

Chemov signaled Toon and Van Bay to drop their fuel tanks, engage their
afterburners, and spread out for attack.  He then gave instructions to
Victory Control where to deploy the other MiGs.  He might be an airborne
flight director, but that didn't mean he couldn't fight.

"I got 'em, nine low.  Buick Three rolling in," Court said.

He punched off his fuel tanks, rechecked his switches to fire the
radar-guided Sparrow, and rolled hard left and down.  Buick Four, his
wingman, did the same.  "Go radar," Court yelled into the intercom at
Ev.  That meant he wanted to shoot a Sparrow head-on at one of the
attacking MiGs.  The heat-seeking Sidewinder, like Chemov's K-13
missile, was useless in a frontal attack.

Court had the dot of the gunsight reticle directly on the middle of the
three climbing MiGs.  Both planes were head-on, each splitting the air
close to the speed of sound at a closure rate of 2,500 feet per second.

They were four miles from each other.

Minimum range for the radar missile was one mile.  Each man had three
seconds to acquire, lock, shoot.

"Lock on, in range, shoot, shoot," Ev said in a high register.

This was his first air combat.

Court locked out the automatic sequence circuit of his fire control
system.  "Interlocks in" meant the fire control system would fire the
missiles when its computer felt the logic was right.  It would require
nearly four seconds to settle down and tell the Sparrow it could launch.

Court wanted the missile to fire the instant he squeezed the trigger,
"interlocks out."

Chemov hissed in exasperation.  Head-on, he could not see the plunging
Phantoms.  The bulletproof glass directly in front of him was too thick.

And it was almost impossible to see the weak trace of his intercept
radar in daylight on the small screen on his panel.  Then the fire
control system signaled his radar missile was locked on and ready to
fire.  He pressed the firing button on top of the stick, then
immediately switched to his 23mm cannon.

At the same time, the AIM-7 Sparrow missile in the left bay of Court's
F-41) dropped out of the well, but the rocket motor failed to ignite. It
fell out of the sky, useless.  By the time he sensed the missile had
failed, he had one and one-half seconds remaining before collision.  At
the same time, a missile zoomed out from under the belly of the middle
MiG and arced directly down out of control, disappearing from view.

Court savagely squeezed his trigger again and fired a second Sparrow. He
knew it wouldn't guide, but he hoped it would go ballistic like a bullet
and strike the MiG, or at least intimidate him.  Then he sliced up and
left, away from the MiG dead ahead.

As he did so, he saw red golf balls spurting directly at him from the
nose of the MiG.  He had no idea what had happened to the unguided
Sparrow he had fired at him.  Court's wingman, Buick Four, hung
desperately aft and inside his turn.  Just then, Flak Apple rolled
inverted, and saw the MiG-21 on his left turn after Court's Phantom.

When Chernov's radar missile failed, he grunted and switched to his 23mm
gun and fired.  Thirty-six of the shells punched through the air, like
foot-long segments of one-inch steel rods.

Just as quickly, he cursed and removed his finger from the trigger.  He
could not turn farther right sharp enough to keep his gunsight on
Court's airplane.  He paid no attention to the second missile from the
enemy plane; he could see it wasn't locked on him.  He told Toon to take
the Phantom he'd just fired at, and pulled up to face the high Phantom,
which was Flak Apple.

Toon obeyed, and zoomed into a hard right turn after Court.

"Buick Three, you got one rolling in at your six," Flak yelled.

His voice overrode the other excited calls in the air.

"Say again for Buick Three," Court transmitted.

"Check your-" Flak started and was cut out by a booming voice on guard
channel.  "SASSAFRAS, SASSAFRAS, SASSAFRAS.  BASE PLUS SIX, BASE PLUS
SIX.  OMAHA, OMAHA, OMAHA.  SASSAFRAS, BASE PLUS SIX, OMAHA."

Those code words on guard channel from College Eye blew everything and
everyone off the air.  No one could talk.  It was almost worse then
enemy jamming.  Each pilot tried to remember what the fuck "sassafras"
stood for that day.  And what the hell direction was Omaha from Hanoi.

And, Base was what?  Fucking stupid.  The MiGs knew where the hell they
were.  Why couldn't we be told in the clear?

"Jesus Christ, Cee Eye, shut the fuck up," someone snapped in the awed
silence.  Then the air went full pandemonium.

"Ford, break right, break right .  .  .  Three's off.....  MiGs Rambler
.  .  .  MiGs north .  .  .  I got him, I got him.....  get away, he's
mine .  .  .  shit, shit, I GOT ONE HAHAHA I GOT ONE .  .  .  shut up
and get another .  .  .  at your six Buick Three .  .  .tally ho .  .  .

It was every man for himself.  Flight integrity went by the board;
wingmen desperately moved stick and throttles as they tried to follow
their leader through six-G turns and zero-G rudder reversals, yet still
look around to protect their own tails.

over by Phuc Yen, after putting his bombs on target, a Thud sawed a
MiG-17 in half with his 20mm M-61 Vulcan cannon.

Up north of the Canal des Rapides bridge, Chevy Four took three rounds
of 30mm from a MiG-19 in his left engine.  He shut it down and headed
out to sea as Chevy Three blew the -19 off his tail with a Sidewinder.

Chevy Four was last seen headed due east toward the Gulf.  He didn't
answer radio calls from his leader.

Rambler flight had split up, Lead and Two went after the MiGs chasing
Ford flight.  The UHF radio of Rambler Four went unserviceable in a hard
turn, so no one heard his call to warn his leader a MiG-19 was rolling
in on him.  Undaunted, Rambler Four pulled into the MiG and hosed off a
Sparrow in his general direction.  The MiG-19 pilot ejected while the
Sparrow was still 1,000 feet away.  The missile missed the pilotless MiG
by two hundred feet and flew another three seconds before
selfdestructing.  The pilotless MiG-19 went into a diving spiral and
crashed into the marketplace of a village east of the Canal des Rapides
bridge.

Ev Stem told Court in no uncertain terms that a MiG-21 had rolled in on
their tail.  At that very moment, red golf balls started zipping
underneath their turning Phantom.  It was Toon.

"He ain't pulling lead," Court panted, racking it tight into a climbing
turn.  He banged both throttles outboard to engage the afterburners,
which nearly doubled his engine thrust.  He pulled up, rolled, unloaded,
pushed down, and nosed after the MiG-21 flown by Toon.  Court pulled
seven Gs to try to stay with the turning MiG-21.  He switched to Heat,
unloaded his Gs so fast his feet flew off the rudder pedals, fired two
AIM-9 Sidewinders, then immediately pulled the Gs back on.  Both
missiles flew under his nose and disappeared.

Without looking, he reached down and flipped his armament selector
switch to Guns.  He eased in enough back pressure to place his gunsight
ahead of the MiG-21 flown by Toon, and felt the first nibble of the
stall and snap that would spell departure, and a forced bailout over
enemy territory.  He disregarded the angle-of-attack warning noise (a
visual and audible stall warning device), shut Ev's warning yells out of
his ears, and pulled the trigger activating the 20mm gun strapped to his
belly.  He saw sparkles as his rounds began impacting on Toon's right
wing.

Then he had to ease forward on his control stick to unload his heavy
G-FORCE as his Phantom started to enter a high-speed stall.

He released the trigger, as his tracers started to arc under the MiG-21.

He never saw that airplane again.

"Goddamn, Major," Ev Stem panted.  "You try that again and I won't fly
with you.  You almost lost the bird.  I don't fancy a stay at the Hanoi
Hilton just because you want to make ace."

Court didn't trust himself to speak.  He remembered his dad's warning
about his motivation; and he remembered Flak's words about flying with
GIBs.  He and Ev Stem just had to work something out.

To the north, Flak and Chernov went around twice shooting at each other,
neither scoring.  When Flak discovered he was fired out, he accelerated
away from the fight.  Flak's wingman, Buick Two, never got in a shot. He
had to work too hard to stay on Flak's wing.

Chemov in 054 didn't have enough fuel to chase them.  He dove toward Gia
Lam and found himself in a perfect deflection shot at an F-4 climbing
out all by itself.  He bored in and placed over fifty rounds from his
23mm cannon into the center of the F-4.  It was as if the Phantom had
never seen him.  It went straight down, trailing a great sheet of fire
and black smoke.  Five minutes later, Chemov entered the landing pattern
at Gia Lam, unscathed.

over by the bridge, two Thud 750-pound Mk-l 17 bombs and one Phantom
1,000-pound Mk-83 bomb had impacted in the water close enough to the
bridge to cause structural damage.  The remaining 24 bombs cratered the
approaches and blew holes in the water.

Of the 22 MiGs scrambled against the attacking Americans, 19 landed, 3
with heavy damage.

Of the 10 F-4s from Da Nang, 9 returned.  Someone reported two chutes
fifty miles east of the target near Thud Ridge.  All 16 Thuds made it
out of the battle area.  One Thud pilot had to recover at Udorn, near
Laos, when his plumbing system wouldn't accept fuel from a tanker.

Of the 16 F-4s that had launched from Ubon, 14 returned.  No one had
seen or heard from Ford Four.  Chevy Four, whose radio had been shot
out, recovered at Da Nang on one engine.  Chevy Three Bravo, Chevy
Three's GIB, was taken to the base hospital with 37mm AAA fragments in
his left arm.

The North Vietnamese claimed eight Yankee air pirates blasted out of the
air, and no losses of their own.  Seventh Air FORCE claimed two positive
victories and one probable, and said one American airplane was missing.

1430 HOURS LOCAL, Monday, 23 OCTOBER 1967

MAiN BRIMNG BOOK.  5TH TAcTICAL FIGHTER WING UBON ROYAL THAI AIR FORCE
BASE KINGDOM OF THAILAND

After the intelligence debriefing, the Apache strike FORCE commander
convened the remaining 28 members in the auditorium.

Hostettler sat on a large supply case on one side of the stage and took
notes.  The major who had led the strike FORCE paced the stage.  There
wasn't a sound from the audience.

"Pure cluster fuck," he said.

"Not for me, it wasn't," Rambler Four said.  He had a wide grin on his
face.  Although official confirmation hadn't come back through channels
from 7th Air FORCE in Saigon, enough pilots had seen the MiG-19 go down
so that his kill was confirmed.

His name was Chet Griggs.

"Excepting Griggs," the major said.  "Foran ATC puke, you done good," he
said to Griggs.  "You too, Bannister.  You got a damage.  Maybe Truncate
will confirm a kill." Truncate was a clandestine listening post full of
translators who monitored North Vietnamese ground and aerial
transmissions.  "Then there's the rest of us.  We didn't do so good."

Most of the aircrew nodded.  He pulled out a blackboard.

I Let's start with their side.  What did the bad guys do right?"

"They got outta bed," a GIB lieutenant said.  The major waited.

"Didn't anybody notice anything strange?" he asked.

"Yeah," Court said.  "I did.  I never saw a SAM or any Triple A over
23mm in size the whole time."

The MiGs were everywhere, they agreed, except for downtown Hanoi, where
no MiGs ever flew, nor were they by the 23mm sites at the bridge.

"This has never happened before.  Up to two months ago, we were bagging
MiGs.  We got thirty-two in April, May and June.

Then they didn't come up for two months.  Now it's only one for one.

They're more aggressive, they're using different tactics, and they're
coming in with more coordination.  We've got to work up some new methods
of our own before we go back up there."

The major drew a deep breath.  "Okay," he said.  "Now let's look at it
from our side.  Let's start from the top.  What went wrong?  "

"I got outta.  bed," the GIB lieutenant shot back.  "The sun rose,"
another piped up.  The major curled his upper lip.

"They knew we were coming," Ford Three said.  The major wrote it on the
board.

"Too many radio calls," someone said.

"That welded wing formation is too restrictive.  It worked okay in props
when things were slower.  Now the wingman spends all his time hanging on
to his leader, when maybe he should be looking around.  That MiG-21
leader passed a potential kill off to his wingman.  We should, too.  I
think the Navy is looking into this.  They call it the Loose Deuce."

Robin Olds had done away with welded wing.  Colonel Delbert L.  Crepens
had brought it back.

"Hell, I'm not sure that's working, either," Partin called out from the
audience.

Court and Flak sat side by side as the complaints mounted.  The list
grew: too many code words, too much chatter-especially on Guard-College
Eye MiG codes useless, the F-4 engines smoked too much, not enough fuel,
faulty gun cameras, and missiles not worth a shit.  Finally the Apache
strike FORCE leader spread his hands.

"Okay, I hear you, " he said.  "Now let's look at the results.

He made some quick sketches on the board.  "One bird missing, one
severely damaged, one man in the hospital, and all we did was shoot down
one MiG and damage another.  Piss-poor, guys.

Piss-poor.  Major Apple, you're the Wing Weapons Officer.  What do you
think?"

Flak Apple got up and walked up on the stage.  He looked out over the
audience, hands on hips.  "How about it, guys, what's the problem?  I
want to hear it from you.  How come we had such a bad day?"

No one answered.  Hostettler stirred.  "Major Apple," he said, and stood
up.  "May I propose a solution to the problem at hand?  "

"Sure, George," Flak said, surprised.  "But I didn't know we had a
problem."

"Sure you do.  The guys won't talk.  You put fighter pilots in a big
auditorium and they won't talk.  Put them at the bar and they will talk
your wristwatch off.  So, voilti.- Big "George" Hostettler leaned over
and with a flourish, lifted up what he had been sitting on: a dummy
packing case.  Ur4emeath were six cases of frosty Budweiser beer.

An hour later, Flak and the major had all the answers they wanted.  They
boiled down to three factors: bad equipment and bad tactics, multiplied
by bad morale, equals bad results.

The bad equipment was the missile problem: Sparrows that fizzled, and
short-range Sidewinders that could only e fired from the rear under
perfect conditions.  Flak would talk to the Sparrow technical
representative in Saigon.  New tactics could be experimented with right
away-legally or not, the next flight, in fact.

The bad morale was a serious command problem: No wing commander in his
right mind shuts off the booze.  No one had a solution to that, except
hang out more in the hootch bars, or go to downtown Ubon.

"There is one little thing more," the Apache FORCE commander said.  He
shook his head.  "We did not destroy the target we were sent after." He
shook his head.  "Our prime mission was not to kill MiGs.  Our primary
mission was to destroy an enemy line of communication, in this case a vF
important bridge, the Canal des Rapides bridge.  Killing Mi was
ancillary to that little detail.  Now we will have to go back and do it
all over again.  Think on that awhile." There was dead silence.

"Well, that was half our prime mission," Flak Apple said.

"The other half was to make sure none of those Thuds front Tahkli was
shot down by MiGs.  We succeeded with that one .  with a little help
from the Da Nang Phantoms."

The silence remained.  Then someone noticed.  "Hey," he said.

"We haven't heard from George the gecko."

Hostettler looked very serious.  He licked his lips.  "I didn't want to
tell you, guys, but Colonel Crepens had Base Engineering in here to trap
and kill George."

1545 HOURS LOCAL, MONDAY, 23 OCTOBER 1967

GiA LAM AIRFIELD.  Hmoz DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Vladimir Chemov and Toon stood at attention in front of Colonel Nguyen
Van Huu.  Toon's face was scratched and he had a bandage on his hand.

"What went wrong?" Huu hissed.  "You assured me the new tactics would
work.  I sat in the radar control command post and saw how we lost many,
many opportunities to defeat the Americans.  " He looked disdainfully at
Chemov.  "Real Laitchik, you, Chemov.  Yes, I know they refer to you as
a real Laitchik.  What will your superiors call you when they find out
that not only were you flying when you were specifically ordered not to,
but that - one of your men was shot down?  Everyone fired out their
missiles and cannon," he narrowed his eyes, "yet only one victory was
scored by our airplanes.  The one plane shot down by our ground guns is
not important here."

Chemov decided not to bring it up that the luckless F-4 was his victory.

And of course, Kirsanov had said he would be on his own.  He regarded
Huu calmly.

Huu was unlike most North Vietnamese men.  He was a mtisse, a mixture of
French and Vietnamese.  A product of the French Military Academy at St.

Cyr, then the French Flying School, he was a direct man, used to having
his way.  He had learned to fly MiGs in Russia, and was frequently at
odds with his contemporaries, who were now generals in the North
Vietnamese Army.  He looked at Chemov with angry eyes.

Chemov met his gaze.  "Comrade Colonel, I must respectfully point out a
truth to you.  The imperialists did not destroy the target, the bridge
over the Canal des Rapides.  Even now, both rail and truck traffic flows
across the bridge."

Huu regarded the Russian thoughtfully.  Finally, he spoke.

"Stand at ease, come over here." Huu walked from behind his desk to the
low rattan table on which he maintained his tea set.

He sat for a moment, then poured three cups.  "Yes, Comrade Colonel
Chemov, your point is made.  And I know you are the one who downed the
Yankee air pirate." He waved a hand to indicate that Toon and Chemov
were to take a cup and be seated.

"But, I must point out a truth to you.  Regardless of what the
propagandists say, we lost two airplanes in air battle today to the
Yankees' one.  You are leading a FORCE with airplanes more maneuverable
than the Americans', under a radar control they do not have, yet your
kill ratio has not significantly improved."

Chemov noted Huu's use of the words "leading a FORCE." It implied Huu
accepted Chemov not only flying combat missions, but actually leading
attack flights.  He also noted Huu hadn't made any suggestion to ground
him.  Maybe Huu would be content with just castigating him verbally,
here and now.  If a report went to the embassy, he would be through. Off
to Chita.  Hara sho, Chemov thought, I will do my job the best way I see
to do it.  If it means flying combat, I will fly combat.  He knew he
must choose his words carefully.  At the same time, he had to tell him
the Vietnamese pilots were not performing as well as they should.

"To continue truisms," Chernov began, "we must consider the Vietnamese
pilots who fly so valiantly.  These pilots are defending their homeland.

If these pilots are shot down, they will be rescued and feted by their
own countrymen.  They do not face capture.  So, Comrade Colonel Huu, is
it not just possible they could fly a bit more valiantly?  I myself know
of one man, a MiG-19 pilot, who catapulted himself from his airplane
before it was struck." Major Toon nodded in agreement.

"That man," Huu said, his voice scornful, "is even now locked into a
hole in the ground to contemplate his cowardly ways.  I intend to have
him shot one week from today." He looked at Chemov.  "You have
identified a problem that is not entirely of our making.  The training
in Russia is not sufficient.

My men are not as confident in their airplanes as they should be."

Chemov nodded.  "That may be, Comrade Colonel.  Yet the Soviet Union has
allocated as many HOURS as it can to train men who are supposed to know
how to fly before they get there.  I myself have had students from your
country who can fly only on clear days.  They had never received any
instructional flight time on how to fly by instruments in bad weat er."

Colonel Huu did not speak.  He sipped his tea, then slowly placed the
cup precisely on the tray.  "All right, Comrade Colonel Chemov," he
said.  "I will grant you four more weeks to continue to exercise your
new attack plans."

"I need to be sure Victory Control will follow my orders," Chemov said.

"Their timing is crucial to my plans."

Huu's eyes became mere slits.  "They will obey, I assure you.

But know well, that if your tactics fail to improve the ratio of enemy
fighters downed, I will be forced to take action to have you replaced.

2030 HOURS LOCAL.  MONDAY, 23 OCTOBER 1967

UBON ]ROYAL THAi Am -FORCE BASE KINGDOM OF THAILAND

Still laughing and feeling good, Court and Flak took a beer and settled
into their lawn chairs in the dark.  When they had returned from the
afternoon mission, they had been told that Truncate had verified Court's
MiG-21.  Court had jammed his Stetson on and, with the other MiG killer,
bought the bar at the Officer's Club, the NCO Club, and the Airman's
Club, as MiG killers were expected to do.  There was some halfhearted
talk about the booze restriction and chit system.  Two tech sergeants
solved that by putting the dozens of cases of beer Court bought into a
Dodge carryall from the Motor Pool, and then handing them out in the
parking lots next to the clubs.  Ev Stem, who as Court's backseater was
also credited with a MiG, had not gone around with Court.  He sent money
along with another GIB to buy his share of the beer.  Neither Court nor
Flak drank as much as they wanted.  Each had an early go the next day.

fo Not bad, not bad at all," Flak said, 'considering you never ught a
MiG before.  Too bad we don't have some at George to use."

"Right," Court said.  "It doesn't do much good to fight an airplane with
the same characteristics as the one you're flying.

You need to fight a different kind, preferably a better one.  At George,
they should be fighting the Navy's A-4.  It's small, maneuverable, and
looks like a MiG-21.  For that matter, maybe we should be fighting our
own T-38s.  They're small and maneuverable, too.  Point is, learning how
to shoot down F-4s didn't do us much good.  At least not yet.  Who knows
who we'll be fighting in the future?  I hear there are some guys over at
Nellis right now who are putting their careers on the line to improve
our fighter-versus-fighter training."

"You'd think the Air FORCE would automatically want to set up the best
training possible," Flak said.

"True," Court replied.  "However, after that SAC General Sweeny took
over TAC and introduced the management control system, things went to
hell.  Flying safety became more important than mission accomplishment.

It got so bad I peeled out for a while and did some time as an
instructor at Squadron Officer School.  I remember one of my students
from Luke telling me about the MCS program.  He was a motor pool
officer.  Seems the year before, his boss had said the half-ton trucks
would all drive a total of 228,000 miles.  When it came time for the
inspection a year later, they were about 16,000 miles short.  Instead of
getting a commendation for saving mileage, they stood not only to lose
points for failure to make their goal, but to lose that much mileage
from the next year's budget.  So he put a shift of drivers on to drive
two pickups round and round the perimeter road for a week.  Made his
budget allowance fall in line."

"Yeah, same thing worked with airplanes," Flak Apple said.

"Lose an airplane to an accident and the wing commander would be at
attention in front of that general explaining as if he were a cadet in
front of the merit committee.  Unfortunately, realistic training for
air-to-air or air-to-ground has losses.  So the wing commanders cut down
on the realism and kept their jobs.  Nonetheless, under MCS somebody
always got fired,"

"I know," Court said.  "The wing commander on the bottom of the list,
regardless of how well he had done.  Management by fear.  It made
professional liars out of good men."

"And we have a lot of dead and captured fighter pilots in Vietnam
because of that method," Flak said with great disgust.

"The trouble is, a lot of the current fighter wing commanders were
brought up under that system," Court said.

Flak took a swallow of beer.  "Yeah," he said.  "About that GIB of
yours, what's his problem?"

"Says I hang it out too much." Court took a pull at his beer can. "Hell,
Flak, I was inside the envelope.  You know, I was trained to make a
living at stalling airplanes.  Besides, in combat you got to hang it out
if you want to do your job."

"I can fix you up with a new GIB,- Flak said.

"No, thanks.  I'll stay with what I've got.  Maybe I should let him fly
more." His Zippo flared and illuminated his face as he lit a cigarette.

"Starting tomorrow, I'll give him every other takeoff and landing.  And
refueling, hell, he can have all of those." He sank smoke deep into his
lungs.  "Say, Flak, is it as bad as the debrief today said?  Are we
really screwing up?"

"Considering we have so many new guys, no.  In fact, we are beating the
odds.  Usually we lost about ten percent of the new guys in their first
ten missions over Hanoi.  That's probably what happened to Ford Four
this morning.  They just don't have SA yet."

A factor that old head fighter pilots had-situational awareness-was
sometimes referred to as SA.  While indeed the manipulation of the
controls had to be as automatic as bike riding-the pilot merely thinks
where he wants his airplane to be and it goes there-a fighter pilot has
to have the ability to think in five dimensions.  He must see and move
up and down, front and back, left and right.  With that, he must couple
real time-where things are now-and projected time-where things will be
in the future.  Then on top of visualizing where the object, an enemy
fighter, will be in the future, he must predict the thoughts of the
pilot of that fighter.  Where does the enemy pilot want his airplane to
be?  In an engagement, opposing pilots have about thirty seconds of
maneuvering before one starts predicting the other.

"We are running a little ahead of the game, though," Flak said.  "We've
only lost one.  And then there's you."

"Me?  What about me?" Court said.

"You beat the odds.  You didn't get shot down in your first ten
missions.  In fact, oh fearless one, you have shot down some other guy
whose SA was tried and found wanting."

Court grinned.  "Yeah, roger that."

"Tell you what," Flak said.

"What?"

"I'm fragged to attend a TAC fighter conference in Saigon this FRIDAY. I
think you should go with me.  I got a Phantom scheduled."

"Are you sure?" Court asked.

"Yeah.  I need a back-seater and someone to carry my bags."

"Cotton bales, Apple.  Remember the cotton bales."

"Okay," Flak said.  "Walk then."

0745 HOURS LOCAL.  TUESDAY, 24 OCTOBER 1967

AIRBORNE IN AN O-2 aircraft FRom HURLBURT FIELD.  FLORIDA

Captain Toby G.  Parker held his O-2A aircraft poised over the edge of
the giant gunnery range east of Eglin Air FORCE Base in Florida.  He sat
in the left seat-the aircraft commander's seat.

In the right was a check pilot who sat silent and observant.  on the
left windscreen at eye level were several short lines drawn in grease
pencil to use as horizon reminders in a dive or for nose-high rocket
launches.  Toby set the firing switches for the two rocket pods he
carried under the wings of the airplane.  Each pod held seven white
phosphorous rockets.  He looked down on the ground at the tree line
where he had spotted two trucks hidden by foliage.  He had been on the
scene for only eight minutes and was quietly proud that he had
discovered the targets so fast.

e tightened the chin strap of his helmet to pull it closer to his ears,
and adjusted his boom mike closer to his mouth.  The shrieking whine of
a dynamotor buried in the radio gear behind his head was a constant
irritant and could hamper radio communications.  He punched the
microphone button on the control wheel to talk to the two inbound F-4s.

"Delta flight, I have a concealed truck park for you today.

Target elevation is fifty feet above sea level, winds are from the south
at four knots, altimeter setting is two niner eight niner, safe bailout
area is two five miles due east."

Parker unkeyed the microphone for two seconds.  It was not wise in
combat to tie up the radio for more than a few seconds at a time.  A
call for help, sudden ground fire, or any of a dozen emergency
transmissions might need to be made.  Parker keyed again, and told Delta
leader where the ground fire was coming from, and from what direction to
roll in and off the target.

The leader of the two F-4s in Delta flight acknowledged he had the
information.  Toby responded he was rolling in to mark the target.

Toby pointed his aircraft toward the ground in a steep dive, checked his
airspeed, checked his dive angle on the horizon, adjusted for the light
crosswind, and fired one 2.75-inch marking rocket.  It shot out from
under the wing with a bang, and impacted under the foliage exactly
between the trucks.  Toby pulled up to the left, looked back at his
smoke, then radioed the orbiting fighters who were carrying racks of
33-pound practice bombs.

"Okay, Delta flight, hit my smoke."

The instructor pilot, a major, held a clipboard on his lap with several
pages of TAC Forrn 88, titled "Individual Training Mission Grade." The
fourteen categories of the grade sheet ran from Mission Planning, Ground
Operations, and Preflight, through Navigation, Ordnance Delivery, FAC
Procedures, and Emergency Procedures.  There was room for other items
such as Flight Discipline, Takeoff and Landings, and Radio Procedures.

Before takeoff, the major had told Toby to pretend he wasn't there.

Toby was doing just that.  So far, the major had said nothing.

Every time Toby made a radio call or a maneuver, or fired a rocket, the
major made marks on the grade sheet.

The flight was Captain Toby Parker's final check ride for day flights as
he neared the end of his Forward Air Controller course.

If he passed this one, the remaining weeks would be taken up with night
FAC training, cross-country flying, and academic studies.

Delta flight hit the billowing white smoke from Toby's rocket.

When they were out of bombs, he called them in on strafe runs.

They finished their runs and were cleared off range by Toby.  As the
morning passed, three more flights hit Toby's smoke as he placed Willy
Petes at the proper places next to the fabricated targets on the gunnery
range.  If a FAC had to hit 100 meters north of his smoke, or 50 meters
east, it meant he hadn't put his marking rocket exactly where he had
intended.  Sometimes, though, it worked out that the FAC saw an
additional target in the area, then he'd give a distance and heading
from his smoke.

Other times, the smoke dissipated quickly, at which point the FAC would
either put a new smoke in, or tell the strike flight members where to
place their bombs in relation to the bomb dropped from the plane ahead
of them.  FACs hoarded their fourteen smoke rockets; they never knew
when several new targets might crop up.  But when they did shoot, the
proudest call a FAC could make was, "Hit my smoke."

As the last flight departed, Toby checked out with the gunnery officer
of Range 74.  He headed south out over the water, then turned west
toward the Brooks bridge, the initial point for landing on runway 36 at
Hurlburt Field.  The bridge spanned the water from Okaloosa Island to
the coast of the Florida panhandle.

Toby flew at exactly 1,000 feet over the Gulf of Mexico.  His airspeed
indicator read exactly 140 knots.  The sun was just beginning to bake
the salt air over the blue water.  The southern horizon stretched to
shimmering azure, as moisture caused slight curves and bends in the
light rays.  On his westerly heading, Parker paralleled the island.

Under his right wing, the sandy beach was a wide strip of the purest
white.  The Eglin Officer's Beach Club, scene of much panting and racing
around, stood out like the cinder block monstrosity it was.  Yet, as
thousands of pilots could verify, there was no greater place to fall in
love .  .  .  for a night, at least.  Toby hadn't been back there to
howl at the marlin since he'd first arrived.

Toby looked out each window, and behind, checking traffic.

A few A-1 Skyraiders and O-2 aircraft were also headed toward the bridge
checkpoint.  Flights of F-4s roared off from Eglin Air FORCE Base.  Toby
was well under them as they zoomed to altitude.  After he reported to
the Hurlburt Tower that he was crossing the Brooks bridge, the major in
the right seat spoke for the first time in two HOURS.

"Very nice flight, Parker," he said.  "You're as good as everyone says.

But you know, we didn't have time for any acrobatics.  Let's see you do
a loop with this old crock."

Parker didn't respond.  He maintained his heading toward Hurlburt.

"Go ahead, loop it.  This is fun time now.  The test is over.

You passed with the highest grade, all 'Fours.  Toby didn't turn his
head.

"Hey, Parker." The major tapped Toby on the shoulder.

"Didn't you hear me?  Let's see you do a loop." Toby checked his
instruments and his position.  He was lining up nicely for the traffic
pattern.  He made no indication he heard the major talking.

"What's the matter, Parker?  Don't think you can crank this thing
around?  Maybe you're not as shit hot as I heard, after all."

Toby carefully cleared the area, bored straight ahead to the landing
pattern at Hurlburt, and set the Oscar Pig down so smooth the tires
didn't squeak.  He taxied in and shut down.  In the squadron building,
the major listened to Toby debrief the intelligence officer.  Afterward,
he off handedly told Toby he had made a good flight, and left the
squadron area.

The major went directly to the office of the Director of Operations, a
colonel, in the Headquarters of the Special Operations Wing that
conducted the training at Hurlburt.

"Well?" the DO said, as the major walked in.

"It was as fine a flight as I've ever been on, Colonel," the major said.

He was from the Standardization and Evaluation shop at the Headquarters
of the Tactical Air Command in Virginia.

"Any deviations?" the DO asked.

"No, sir.  Not a one.  I tried to get him to play around, but he wasn't
having any.  He earned top grades in all phases.  He's smart, sharp, and
has a natural touch for airplanes.  Too bad he's not in fighters."

"He's lucky to be in O-2s," the Hurlburt DO said.  "If there hadn't been
pressure from the top, he wouldn't even be in the Air FORCE."

An order had come from the USAF Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations
(DCS OPS) in the Pentagon to TAC Headquarters, requesting special
assessment of Captain Toby G.  Parker.  As a result, TAC had sent the
major to Hurlburt to fly with him.

"We've got to take care of mavericks," the major said.

"Someday they might become heroes."

"Parker is already a hero," the DO said.  "We just don't want him to
become any more of a maverick.  He has a bad reputation to live down.

Funny thing, as many people as there are that want him out of the Air
FORCE, there are even more who want him in.  "I know," the major said.

"We've been tracking him.  He's been right on the edge of disaster all
the time.  Parker has had a lot of publicity.  So far it's been good.

"We an thank the Public Affairs people for that.  They know who to talk
to and what to say," the DO said.

"Too bad it doesn't work that way in Vietnam." He reached for the phone
to tell the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations in the Pentagon that
Parker was sober, sharp, and still in the Air FORCE.

1600 HOURS LOCAL.  THURSDAY.  26 OCTOBER 1967

ROOM 422, CARAvELLE HOTEL SAIGON.  REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

For the tenth time, Shawn Bannister was studying the congratulatory
cables when Nguyen Tri knocked on his door.

"Christ, Tri, just look at these," Shawn said after he let the
Vietnamese in.  Tri read several of the telegrams about Shawn's article
on Colonel Tung and the VC in Cholon.

"Extraordinary in-depth reporting from other side," said CBS.

"Journalistic first," said AP.

"Pulitzer Prize material.  More, more.  Name your price," said the
editor of the California Sun.

"They are very nice," Tri said.  He nodded, delighted with Bannister's
elation.  He took a small newspaper-wrapped package from his satchel.

"Here," he said, "is a little present from a friend."

"I can get my own, you know," Shawn said.  He unwrapped the package of
four Marlboro flip-top boxes full of expertly rolled Buddha's Bun-nese
Best marijuana cigarettes with a hash kicker.

"Of course you can.  Give these to your friends, if you wish," Tri said.

"It is a small matter.  The big matter is the very excellent words you
wrote about the interview with the commander."

Shawn had titled the article "Why America Cannot Win in Vietnam." His
interview with the Viet Cong commander had been headline-grabbing
material.  Never before had an American interviewed the famous Colonel
Nguyen Van Tung of the First Viet Cong Regiment, much less recorded his
strategy on why and how the Viet Cong would prevail.  The junior
Democratic senator from California was so impressed, he had printed it
in the Congressional Record.  Because of the success of the article, the
California Sun had come into its own as a major antiwar newspaper.

Additionally, Shawn's thrilling account of his blindfolded trip around
Saigon, and into the dank tunnels and caves somewhere in Cholon city,
proved, it was editorialized, that the Viet Cong could come and go as
they pleased.

At the close of the article, Shawn hinted at another big story to come
from the same source.

For five days after he had written and filed the story, Shawn had raced
around Saigon on a nervous high.  He'd gone through two and three girls
a day, and two and three packages of the Three Bees, as he called
Buddha's Burmese Best.  Several TV newsmen had asked for an interview
with him.  He'd given them one.  To dress it up, he'd worn a camouflaged
tiger suit, complete with floppy hat.  To emphasize his complete and
undying sympathy for the American troops, he'd held an M-16.

The interview hadn't gone as well as he had hoped.  The brash American
TV reporters had thought him silly and famous to be dressed like a
combat warrior.  Not one second of the interview made the TV screens in
the living rooms of the American people.

Shawn had also received a cablegram, more informative than
congratulatory, from his godfather, Major General Albert G.  Whisenand.

Uncle Albert, as Shawn had always called him, congratulated him on the
success of his article, but did not mention the content.  Instead,
Whitey said he would be in Saigon for a MACV meeting later in the week.
He would leave a message at Shawn's hotel about meeting for dinner.
Shawn was apprehensive about meeting with his godfather, whom he
regarded as a shrewd and discerning judge of character.

"Yes, my American friend," Tri said, "your article was excellent.  Your
colleagues, indeed, even your senator was pleased.

You are telling the truth." Nguyen Tri smiled.  "I know you have been
very busy.  Have you had time to consider my suggestions about your next
story?"

Shawn's jaw tightened.  After Tri had removed the blindfold in the car
returning from the interview, he had talked about the American presence
in Thailand.  Tri had told Shawn there were forty thousand American
airmen stationed at seven air bases to support the bombing of Laos and
North Vietnam.  The American people hardly knew about it, Tri had said.

He suggested Shawn might want to look into it.  He could do so by
spending some time near an American air base.

"Yes, but what of the big important attack Colonel Tung told me about?"

"Not yet," Tri said.  "Not yet.  In the meantime, are you interested in
the Laotian bombing story?"

"I'm interested," Shawn said.  "It's for the story, right?  No -strings
attached, right?"

"Strings attached?  What does that mean?" Tri asked.

"I mean, you won't .  .  .  ah, want anything from me, will you?  "

"Want anything?" Tri repeated "We didn't want anything from you before,
did we?  Why should we want anything now?"

He laughed.  "No, my friend.  We do not want anything other than the
truth.  I know just the Thai village you should go to.  I have a friend
there who will help you find the truth."

"All right," Shawn said.  "I might go.  What's the name of the village?"

-Ubon Ratchitani," Nguyen Tri said.

0700 HOURS LOCAL.  FRIDAY, 27 OCTOBER 1967

CommANDERs BRIEFING Room, 7TH AIR FORCE TAN SON NHUT AIR BASE SAIGON.

REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Court Bannister and Flak Apple stood by the large urn at the coffee bar
near the briefing room in 7th Air FORCE Headquarters.

Flak sipped from his steaming mug.  His face brightened.

"Wasn't that something about all those geckos in Colonel Crepens's
trailer?" After George had been killed, several lieutenants with a
snootful had decided their wing commander needed to get to know geckos.

They had bought 200-some for three baht each in the town of Ubon and let
them loose in the good colonel's trailer.  For good measure they had
left hundreds of empty beer bottles as well.

"Take care of the troops, and they'll take care of you," Court said.  "I
hear Hostettler headed off the OSI and AP investigation Crepens wanted."

He glanced at his watch.  "Time to go."

They walked into the small auditorium and took seats.  They were
surrounded by fighter pilots from the four F-4 wings in Southeast Asia:
two based in Thailand, two based in South Vietnam.  The men chosen to
attend the symposium were from the Operations and Plans section of their
wings.  The Director of Operations, 7th Air FORCE, a two-star general
named Gordon Rairner, gave a one-minute welcoming speech, then left the
stage.  The next speaker, a colonel from Combat Operations, got down to
business.  He spoke in measured tones.

"Gentlemen, we have so many different air wars going on at the same time
that even the communists don't believe it.  Yet, in spite of the fact we
have been at it three years now, there is no single manager.  The White
House runs the war up north through CINCPAC using USAF, Navy, and Marine
aircraft; the MACV runs the war down south using USAF, Navy, and Marine
airplanes.  I'm not going into detail on that at this time.  Just know
that it exists.  Maybe someday we will have a coordinated air effort
without restrictions." He looked over his audience of alert fighter
pilots.  "But I doubt it," he said.

He put a page on the viewgraph.  "But, we aren't here to talk about
restrictions today.  First, I will give you the broad outline of the
simultaneous air wars we are conducting, then we will narrow down to the
problem we are here to discuss today." The viewgraph was titled AIR
COMBAT OPERATIONS 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.  B-52s run by the Strategic Air Command (SAC)

Naval air war flown off the Task FORCE 77 carriers Marine air war
supporting Marine units Army helicopter war supporting Army units Close
Air Support (CAS) missions flown for the Army Interdiction in Laos
against the Ho Chi Minh Trail Strategic bombing in North Vietnam Combat
Air Patrols (CAPs) against MiGs in North Viet nam

"There are variations on these themes," he said, using a pointer.  "The
Navy does supply some CAS for the Army in South Vietnam; the USAF, the
Navy, and the Marines do some CAS in Laos for the friendly Laotian
troops, and the like.  But our theme here today concentrates on Number
Eight: MiG CAPs in North Vietnam." He put up maps depicting the MiG
bases in Route Package Six.

"You must remember, our primary purpose up North isn't to shoot down
MiGs.  We do that to gain and maintain air superiority.  Our primary
purpose is to destroy strategic targets such that the North Vietnamese
cannot send supplies and troops to South Vietnam."

Court raised his hand.  "The MiG shot down today is not a threat
tomorrow," he said.

"The target destroyed today is a target we don't have to hit tomorrow,"
the colonel replied.  He pointed to a hard-eyed major who had also
raised his hand.

"If the targets are strategic, why are we sending tactical fighters to
destroy them?  Why don't we send strategic bombers like the B-52 from
the Strategic Air Command?" the major asked.

The name on his flight suit was P.  Combine.

The colonel pursed his lips.  "Because," he began, "the B-52s are too
vulnerable.  We don't think the American public would stand for an
airplane that big and expensive being lost to enemy action up north.

Furthermore, world opinion wouldn't stand for big bombers blasting poor,
tiny, defenseless, peace-loving North Vietnam."

"That sounds like so much horseshit," Court Bannister cut in.  He stood
up.  "I thought SAC has all those magic whiz-bangs on their big birds.

They've been saying for years they're invincible with all that
electronic warfare equipment they have.  That should make the '52 less
vulnerable than the Thuds and Phantoms we're losing.  And the American
public doesn't seem to be particularly concerned that we've already lost
hundreds of airplanes up north so far.  So what the hell difference does
world opinion make?  They're against us now, and will be in the future,
no matter what we do."

The colonel shrugged.  "We only execute the frag down here at Saigon, we
don't write it, much less argue about it.  But 1 agree.  It's a hell of
a war where TAC airplanes are used on SAC targets and vice versa."

"Look, we aren't going to get the frapping BUFFs, " Flak Apple said.  He
referred to the B-52, as all fighter pilots did, with the initials for
Big Ugly Fat Fucker.  "Let's concentrate on making better what we do
have.  How about the Sparrow missile?

Some won't fire, and those that do often can't hold a radar lock."

The colonel flipped a new viewgraph on the projector.

"McDonnell Douglas is coming in with a modification to the AN/APQ-109
fire control radar on the F-4.  The mod should provide a stronger signal
bouncing off the bogey for the Sparrow to home in on.  The Tech order
should be in the field by the end of this week.  Regarding the Sparrow
motor, the company has a tighter, better-packed rocket motor due out
that has longer shelf life and better reliability.  The company tech rep
is here today to talk about system reliability." The colonel motioned to
a civilian sitting in the front row.  "Mr.  Bouk, I think this would be
an appropriate time for a few words from you.  Would you come up here,
please?  "

Ned Bouk, called Sailor since his days in the Navy as a gunnery officer,
walked to the stage with jaunty steps.  He stood a little under
five-ten, had brown wavy hair, a fouled anchor tattoo on his left arm,
and a toothy smile.  Court thought he would look right at home in a
third-rate used-car lot.

"Gentlemen, I am glad to be here," he said.  "We are proud of our
missile.  The finest engineering, craftsmanship, and quality control
have all come together to bring you America's finest air-to-air weapon.

We believe in product reliability."

"Reliability.  Well, then," the hard-eyed major named Combine said,
"what I want to know is, which ones will fire, and which ones won't.

Tell us, and we'll just drop those that won't fire on the bad guys, and
shoot the others at them like we're supposed to."

Sailor Bouk looked at the major with dismay.  He had been warned by his
area manager to keep his mouth shut, and stay out of the limelight.

"Gentlemen," Sailor Bouk soothed, "I can only tell you, lab test after
lab test, and all the flight tests, proved our missile ninety-four
percent reliable.  No other missile comes close to that figure."

P.  Combine stood up.  His cotton flight suit was so worn it looked
paper-thin.  "Are you telling us it's pilot error?  That we don't place
our switches correctly?"

"Ah, well, maybe," Bouk said.  The used-car saleman looked like he had
just been served a summons by a city inspector.

"Maybe also sorne of the pilots are firing too soon or too late, or out
of the missile firing envelope.  Or maybe the armament people don't
store them well enough.  Maybe the loaders don't connect a cannon plug
correct.  There are many things that can go wrong." Bouk smiled.  He
scratched his chin.  "Tell you guys what-big beer blast at the O-Club
tonight after the symposium.

I'm buying.  We'll talk about all this over there."

P.  Combine snorted, and sat down.  The remainder of the symposium was
nothing more than a reiteration of the problems everyone had known
about.  The suggestions included getting more guns strapped on the
Phantom, even some on the wing stations;

more pressure on the contractors to improve missile quality control;
less code words used by the College Eye control radar in the heat of
combat; less rigid control from Seventh Air FORCE; and more autonomy for
the individual fighter wings to develop their own tactics.

The colonel in charge of the symposium said he would get the notes typed
up, and forwarded to Major General Raimer for his perusal.  Copies would
be sent to each attendee.

"What a big waste of time," Flak said as they walked out.

"I think it was just another of those square-filling exercises somebody
high up wants so they can say they solicit feedback from the field,"
agreed Combine.  His back-seater, a second lieutenant pilot, nodded his
head in agreement.

"Notes to the Director of Operations don't do any good," Court said. "He
should have been here in person."

"Do you really think so?" a senatorial voice said behind them.

Court whirled.  He recognized the voice.  It was his father's cousin.

"Yes, sir," he said to Major General Albert G.  Whisenand.

Whitey Whisenand carried the four fighter pilots in his staff car to his
private quarters, a snug, air-conditioned trailer with bedroom and
sitting room.  He said he wanted to hold a private symposium.  At first,
Flak Apple and P.  Combine were suspicious as to just who he was, or
whom he represented.  Whitey said he was in theater to study a few
things.  Talking to the lads would help, he said.

Court, so far, had not acted in any manner other than as a younger
officer would act to a superior officer that he knew from somewhere.

Court and Whitey had an understanding.  No one knew Whitey was Sam
Bannister's cousin.  In uniform, neither referred to the other at any
time except in an official capacity.

"I'm Whitey Whisenand.  I'm from the office of the President of the
United States," he began.  He wanted to put these young officers at
their ease.  "When I'm in the White House, I represent you.  When I am
out here in the field, I represent our Commander in Chief.  Any
questions?"

There were none, so Whitey skillfully led them past their natural
reticence in front of a general officer who was unknown in fighter
circles.  Had they been of an intelligence background, they would have
known of his legendary feats since his days with the Bletchley bunch in
England in World War II, and of his special operations after his F-80
crash in Korea.  They had no idea he was one of the early advocates
behind the U-2, SR-71, and remote-controlled drones that were flying
over North Vietnam at that very moment gathering intelligence.  Whitey
charmed them, and soon they were easily rehashing what had been said
with the colonel from 7th Air FORCE Operations at the symposium.

P.  Combine launched a few choice words about problems with fighting the
F-4.  Mainly, he was unhappy with the missiles, and the front seat
ejection system.  The missiles were unreliable, he said.  And, even
though the pilot and his GIB might have just agreed on the intercom to
eject from a crippled F-4, too many times the front-seater never ejected
after his back-seater punched out.  There should be a command ejection
system for the backseater, he said, so that when he ejected, the
front-seater would be punched out automatically.

For the first time, Whitey spoke up.  "MacAir is on top of all those,"
he said.  He was referring to the McDonnell Douglas Aircraft
Corporation, the company that manufactured the F-4 Phantom.

"Modifications fixing those problems are well under way.  They will be
in the field very soon.  Let's hear some more details about the
Sidewinder and the Sparrow.  What's the PK?Whitey was asking for the
probability of kill per missile fired.

"About thirty-seven percent, sir," Flak Apple said.  "We lose about half
from firing missiles out of the proper flight envelope, and the other
half from malfunctions.  Either the motor doesn't fire, or the missile
won't guide, or the proximity fuse failed.

One of our guys had a Sidewinder zoom about five feet over the canopy of
a MiG- 19 and not explode." He was not smiling when he told the story.

Whitey looked at the men.  "All I can tell you about that is, you
gentlemen are doing a great job with a Navy missile designed for high
altitude, straight-and-level shooting against nonmaneuvering bombers."

He flashed a rueful smile.  "If we in the Air FORCE had been more on the
ball, we would have a builtin gun in the F-4 and a more maneuverable
missile.  All I can say is, you've got the strap-on 20-millimeter cannon
now.  Soon the F-4E model will be out with a built-in gun.  Later,
better functioning derivatives of the Sparrow and Sidewinder will be
along.  Meanwhile, do the best you can." He pulled some soda cans from
the refrigerator and passed them out.

"The other problem, sir," Flak Apple said, "is that we are restricted to
staying close to the bombers we are escorting.  The MiGs, especially the
MiG-21s, are using new tactics that we can't meet, because we are too
close to the bombers.  We need to be spread out more so we can see them
coming, and make an intercept before they get too close.  The way we are
restricted, we can't do that."

"Restricted?" Whitey said.  "Restricted by whom?" he asked in a neutral
voice.

"The Director of Operations for 7th Air FORCE, sir," Apple and P.

Combine said.

Whitey nodded.  He decided to change the subject.  "What's this I hear
about an aircrew revolt at Ubon?" he asked.

P.  Combine guffawed.  He was from Da Nang, where they had no such
problem with a teetotaling fighter wing commander.

Flak and Court exchanged glances.

"We can handle it, sir," Flak said.  Whitey would have been surprised if
Court or Flak had said more.  Regardless of how bad your commander was,
you did not talk about him when you were out of sight of the flagpole.

If he was a menace, one could go to the Inspector General.  Among
themselves, fighter pilots cursed or praised their boss wherever they
were, but only among themselves.  Whitey was an outsider, and a
high-ranking outsider at that.  As much as Court and Flak would have
liked to see Crepens fired, they would not talk about him behind his
back.  If they didn't have material for a formal complaint to be entered
over their signature, they shut up.  However, as far as Whitey was
concerned, what they didn't say answered his question.

It was time for the aircrew to get to the flight line to reclaim their
fighters from maintenance and fly back to their home bases.

P.  Combine's back-seater, a second lieutenant pilot, hadn't said a word
the entire time.  Almost as an afterthought, Whitey asked him directly
how it was going.

"Not worth a shit, General," the second lieutenant responded in a deep
voice.  Whitey took a closer look at him.  He was stocky with wide
shoulders and black hair cut to little more than a dark fuzz on his
skull.

"What do you mean?" Whitey asked.

"It's like this, sir.  I joined the Air FORCE to fly.  Not make like a
bombardier or a navigator in the back seat of one of the best fighters
in the air today.  I want to upgrade to the front seat.

But do you know what the regulations say now about upgrading?" Before
Whitey could respond, he answered his own question.  "They say I can
only upgrade if I sign on for another year of combat.  I ask you, sir,
how the hell many times do I have to pay my dues?"

"Starting this very month," Whitey said, "we are shipping our first
fighter-trained navigators over here.  Ubon already has some.  They will
eventually phase into the back seats, freeing up some of you pilots back
there.  So hang tight, son," Whitey said, "this too will pass."

"General," the lieutenant said, "my active-duty commitment is up two
years after this tour.  If I can't get an assignment to the front seat
of an F-4, I'm going to the airlines." On that note, the impromptu
meeting broke up.  It was midafternoon.

Whitey drove the staff car himself.  He dropped P.  Combine and his
back-seater off first, and later managed to pass a few words with Court
while Flak was preflighting their Phantom.

They stood next to the nose of the big fighter.

"How's it going, Court?" Whitey asked.

"Fine, sir," Court answered.

"Your dad sends his best," Whitey said.  "Says he'll.  write soon.  He
looks good.  I'm seeing Shawn tomorrow.  He's back here, you know."

"I know only too well," Court said.  "His interview with that VC
commander caused quite a stir.  Everybody asks me about him, The whole
damn world seems to know he and I are related.

Two days ago, our public information people contacted me.

They're worried he might come to Ubon and do a story.  I told them I had
no control over him whatsoever."

"How's the war going?" Whitey asked, changing the subject.

"What do you mean, how is it going?  You're closer to that than I am.

You know the big picture." Court saw Flak climb into the back seat.  It
was his turn.  Court began zipping up his G-suit.

"Are we winning or losing?" Whitey asked.

"Now that's a hell of a question, Uncle Albert." The crew chief started
the auxiliary power unit.  The roaring hiss made Court yell into his
uncle's ear.  "We are winning.  I mean, we can win," he shouted.

"Can win?" Whitey cupped his hands to Court's ear.

"Sure.  Get your boss to turn us and the Navy loose on North Vietnam,"
Court said, and climbed up to the front seat of the big fighter.  In
moments, he had the big J-79 engines spooled up.

The noise was deafening.  He waved as his uncle watched him taxi out.

Burners roaring, he took off, snapped the gear up, and turned to a
northwesterly heading for Ubon.

"You and that general seem awful chummy," Flak Apple said from the back
seat.

"He's my uncle."

"Sure.  And I'm your aunt."

1930 HOURS LOCAL, FRIDAY.  27 OCTOBER 1967

UBON OFFICER'S OPEN MESS UBON ROYAL THAI AIR FORCE BASE THAILAND

Early that evening, the two fighter pilots sat in the dining area of the
Officer's Club.  They had just finished the best meal in the house, the
$5.50 steak, and were nursing coffee and 30-year-old cognac Court had
smuggled in.

Flak pushed back from the table and sipped his coffee.  "Ahh, that's how
I like it, hot and black."

"I hear that's becoming the 'in' word now," Court said.

"What's that, hot or black?"

Court lowered his chin to his chest, and raised his eyebrows as high as
he could.

"You're owling me," Flak said, then relented.  "Yeah, right.

It is.  I'm not a negro anymore, I'm a black man." He sipped his coffee
and sighed, and nodded his head.  "Actually, I like it better.  Some
people used to slur their words, so that 'negro' came out 'nigra." I
don't much care for that.  In D.C., at Howard, we didn't talk much about
all that.  Oh yeah, maybe a few wild-eyed types ran around yelling, but
me and the other guys in ROTC didn't pay a hell of a lot of attention.

We had our studies, some nifty girls, and good careers in the making.

Some of us had money, some didn't, but that didn't make any difference.

We all had something to look forward to." He took another sip.

"But those wild-eyed types, those bastards, are now burning down ROTC
buildings on campuses all over the U.S., white and black.  You ought to
hear Chappie James go off on this.  He'll brace any man, black or white,
who pisses and moans about equality in or out of the Air FORCE.  He'll
brace him and flat out ask him if he wants to be a fighter pilot or a
professional colored man.  'Choose,' he says to them, in that deep
menacing voice of his, 'choose, because I only take fighter pilots in my
outfit." He'd say that to the enlisted troops too, it didn't make any
difference.  He only wanted guys around with the fighter pilot attitude.

When you swear in, leave it, or stay the hell out."

Court could see Flak was getting a bit worked up.  They both knew of and
respected Colonel Chappie James, the black fighter pilot veteran of
three wars.  He had been the vice wing commander under Robin Olds, and
the two had flown many combat missions together in F-4s from Ubon,
calling themselves Blackman and Robin.

Flak took another sip of his cognac and sighed.  "It wasn't like this
just a few years back," he said.

"The cognac?" Court asked, "It's always been good."

Flak, imitating Court's earlier action, lowered his chin and raised his
eyebrows.

"Okay, now you're owling me," Court said.  "What hasn't always been
good?"

"Getting served in the States.  Even Las Vegas.  Back in the
mid-fifties, a black man couldn't even get into the casinos to play the
machines, much less eat.  When I was stationed at Nellis, I remember
making a reservation on the telephone for me and a buddy at the Dunes as
Lieutenant Apple.  No problem that night until the waiting line wound
down to the reservation desk.

"Must be some mistake,' the maitre d' said when he saw us.  We were in
uniform.  I said, 'You mean we can wear this uniform, fight and maybe
die for guys like you, but not eat here?" He took us to see the manager,
who said the Air FORCE might be integrated, but we could understand that
as yet the Dunes was not.  Wasn't his fault, he said.  'Sure,' I said,
and asked for the telephone.  Told him I was going to call my friend,
the Nellis base commander, and tell him how badly his boys were being
treated.  That he'd put the Dunes off-limits and tell all the newspapers
about it.  He asked us to wait a minute and went out.  Five minutes
later, he was back, gave us the best table in the house and free
champagne all night."

Court laughed.  "Terrific," he said.  "Who was the commander?  "

"Hell, I don't know.  I was just a dummy lieutenant trying to learn how
to fly the F-86," Flak ended with a laugh.  "What the hell.  Growing up
in the U.S.  means' that there are people out there who hate you just
because you are what you are .  .  .  be it black or rich, Jewish or
Irish Catholic, whatever.  Anything different from the bigot.  There are
some small-minded people out there who have got to think they are better
than anyone else.  So it goes." He held up his cognac snifter.  "Bottoms
up," he said, and tossed down the remaining amber liquid.  He placed the
glass carefully on the table, and studied Court.

"You're not trying to prove something, are you?" Flak asked, his eyes
strangely veiled.

"What do you mean?"

"Hanging around with me."

Court stared hard.  "No, goddammit, I'm not," he snapped.

He relaxed a little.  "You're a good guy, you're fun, and you're a good
jock.  But that wasn't a nice thing to say, Major of the Air FORCE
Apple."

Flak looked at Court.  "All right, Bannister, Major, one each.  Maybe
not.  But I want to tell you something, so maybe you'll understand a
little more what it's like to be a black man."

Both men were getting to that stage in liquor consumption where
everything is terribly important, and all words intense and true.

"I want to tell you," Flak began, "it is a white man's system.  Oh,
sure, there have been changes since the big war, when the Tuskegee
airmen proved blacks didn't have tiny brains and big thumbs.  An Army
War College report said our brains were Smaller than whites'.  Tuskegee
was an experiment, you know, supposed to show a black man couldn't hack
it in a cockpit.  Those guys proved a man of color was also a man of
courage and skill.  Take the 332nd Fighter Group.  They flew fighters
for bomber protection.  Not one bomber under their protection was ever
shot down.  Not one.  And listen, the Tuskegee airmen shot down well
over a hundred enemy fighters," flak nodded.

"Sure, it is better now," he said.  "But it's still out there.  At Del
Rio when I was a student officer, I couldn't get a room off base, not in
a hotel, no place.  At Squadron Officer's School, I was a 'special
category.  I My section commander had to tell the police if I was
visiting his or any other white officer's house in Montgomery." He
nudged Court.  "You ever wonder why I'm such a shit hot good jock?"

Before Court could answer, Flak Apple said, "Because I'm a man of color,
and when you are a man of color, you got to be three times as good as
the guy who ain't.  Capiche?"

Court nodded.  The big man had just revealed a lot of himself.

"Thanks," he said.  "Just thanks."

1600 HOURS LOCAL, FRIDAY, 27 OCTOBER 1967

HQ, U.S.  MILITARY ADVISORY COMMAND VIETNAM TAN SON NHUT Air BASE
SAIGON, REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

If nothing else, each participant would take away with him a heavy metal
ashtray made from the butt end of a 105mm howitzer shell.  It was a
gathering of the highest-ranking civilian and military officers seen in
years.  They were gathered in the small thirty-seat auditorium reserved
for VIP conferences and briefings.  The large room was in the MACV
complex known as Pentagon East.  The neatly laid two-story prefab metal
office buildings snaked around in such a way as to provide five rect
angular closed courtyards and one huge open courtyard.  The ceiling was
covered with a symmetrical array of acoustical tiles broken by banks of
recessed fluorescent light tubes.  Slides, films, charts, and maps
brought for presentation were carefully logged in and out with the
security clerk in the back of the room.  The plush movie-theater chairs
had been removed.  In their place was a conference table long enough to
seat twenty.  Behind each conferee's chair (metal, steel gray, with
armrest) was positioned another chair (metal, steel gray, without
armrest) for an advisor.

On the table in front of each position were three yellow legal sized
tablets (lined), six pencils (#2), and the polished copper colored 105mm
ashtray.

Most of the conferees had a younger officer seated behind them.  Very
few of the conferees had brought with them their deputies or directors
of operations, for two reasons: someone had to stay behind and run the
store, and a decision-maker wasn't necessary to back up the boss today.

Today, the boss needed a storehouse of instantly available facts,
because this conference had been called by COMUSMACV, and who knew what
questions he might ask.  Each storehouse was neat, trim, and earnest.

Many wore black horn-rimmed GI-issue glasses.  All were low in rank,
that is, captains or majors, with an occasional lieutenant colonel,
because they could retain and recover facts faster than the
higher-ranking-and older-officers.  These men were going nowhere in
terms of command positions, but they would always have a place on a
staff .  .  .  until their photographic memories and instant recall
facilities began to fail.  Or until they realized the role they played
and got out of the service to become reasonably successful account
executives or stockbrokers.

A few conferees, four out of the thirty-two, were quite conspicuous,
because the seated symmetry was broken by the empty chairs behind them.

Two, both air FORCE brigadiers from Seventh Air FORCE, never thought to
bring anyone along.  Their attitude was that if they couldn't cough up a
fact, it wasn't worth coughing up.

A third was a grizzled Army full bull.  He was out of uniform and looked
out of place, and was decidedly out of sorts because he had to attend
one of these silly-assed bullshit sessions.  The chair behind him was
empty.  Although he was the lowest-ranking attendee at the conference,
he commanded more men than 90 percent of the Army officers present.  He
was the Commanding Officer of the 5th Special Forces Group (SFG), the
one and only SF contingent in Vietnam.  The CO slot called for a
colonel, not a brigadier, yet he commanded the equivalent, in riflemen,
of two divisions, which was the minimum size to make up an Army Corps-a
unit commanded b a three-star general.  Probably be'Y cause the 42,000
riflemen in his command were Nungs, Montagnards, Cambodians, and
Vietnamese; and probably because the 2,650 officers and NCOs that led
these troops were all Special Forces, the United States Army didn't
think the command position important enough to merit a general officer.

If the truth be known, few general officers wanted anything to do with
this bunch of unconventional and decidedly unkempt warriors.

The colonel wore neatly pressed jungle fatigues with his pants bloused
into his boots.  Opposite his jump wings and CIB stitched in black
thread was his last name, Dall.

The other conferee with an empty chair behind him was Major neral Albert
G.  Whisenand.  He sat halfway down the far side, ay from the lectern
and stage.  He was lucky even to be there.

Only his orders signed personally by the Commander in Chief of the
American Armed Forces had gotten him in the door.  Even so, the Army
three-star who provided executive services for COMUSMACV was upset.  He
had lost a clash with Whitey the year before, over Whitey's itinerary in
Vietnam.  At that time, under COMUSMACV's direct order to get a handle
on the zoomie from the White House, the three-star had made up an agenda
that would keep Whitey busy and in Army hands for his entire visit. Only
when Whitey had assured him he was investigating USAF matters, not
COMUSMACV's performance, had the three-star felt mollified and backed
off with his schedule.

This year seemed a repeat of the last, only more dangerous.

Whitey not only still worked at the White House, this time he had a
piece of White House stationery signed by The Man that he was to be
shown all courtesies-and that meant by ambassadors and four-star
generals alike.  Whitey, cherubic and slightly overweight, had decided
it best not to wear a uniform.  He might be construed as an Air FORCE
spy, or partisan, or too friendly, or the dozen or so things the fear of
a White House representative can generate.  So Whitey attended the
conference in civvies, looking benign, and beaming at all who looked at
him.  He wore tan slacks and a white short-sleeved shirt open at the
neck.  Most people glanced at him twice, because of the burn scars on
his face.

He was a bit of a mystery man to the assemblage.  He was not recognized
as from the embassy, nor was he recognized as being with the Agency, nor
AID or USOM, or any other civilian outfit that would employ an older man
such as he.  In a moment'of mischief, Whitey had fashioned a name tag
from a folded page of the yellow tablet and stuck it into his shirt
pocket.  The visible part read only his name, no rank.

There was general milling about before the official start of the
conference.  The hum of conversation was steady, occasionally punctuated
by shouts of recognition or bursts of laughter.  Four minutes remained
before the convening time of 1600 HOURS.  The lowest-ranking attendee,
the Special Forces colonel, studied Whitey for a moment, then walked up
to him with a broad grin.

He was the same height as Whitey, but much broader.

"Whiz, you were dumpy in the company at West Point and you're dumpy now.

Where did you get that permanent suntan on your face?  And civvies.  You
a spook now?" Fred John Dall, "Bull" Dall, said.  The two men grabbed
each other by the shoulder, faces split in happy smiles.

"Well, well, Fred Dall," Whitey said with a broad smile.  "I knew you
were running in the woods someplace over here, but I never thought I'd
see you at a headquarters conference.  What are you on now, your second
tour?  What does Betty think about that?  Damn, but I'm glad to see
you."

Since no one calls "Tench HUT" at such an auspicious gathering, the two
West Point classmates were still slamming each other on the back and
asking questions without answers so fast, they didn't hear the discreet
words "Gentlemen, the Commander," when General William Childs
Westmoreland, COMUSMACV-Commander U.S.  Military Advisory Command
Vietnam-walked into the room.  Everyone popped to rigid attention and
closed-mouthed silence except Whisenand and Dall.

"Ohh, shit," Bull Dall said under his breath, as he perceived what had
happened.  He nudged Whitey, who was in the middle of an answer about
his Korean crash.  The two men looked like a pair of schoolboys caught
on the playground with dirty pictures as they drew themselves into a
position of attention-chin in, thumbs along seams of trousers, General
Westmoreland, Westy to his friends and classmates, strode briskly toward
the podium.  He nodded at Dall and Whisenand, so obviously not standing
at their assigned places.

COMUSMACV was a handsome and erect man, well-built, six feet tall, with
thick white hair combed perfectly in place.  He had a broad face and
wide-set eyes.  He wore crisp ironed fatigues with only his name, his
jump wings and CIB, and his four stars embroidered in black thread on
the blouse.  He stopped by the two officers.

"Bull, I'm glad you could make it.  I know how you detest coming to
Saigon except to visit MACSOG." He initiated a handshake with the
Special Forces Colonel.  He turned to face Whitey.  His face creased
into a smile.

"You are traveling in the best of company, General Whisenand," he said,
cocking his head toward Bull Dall.  "The very best." He smiled. "Welcome
to the conference," he said, the warmth obvious in his voice. "Stop by
my office before you leave the country, will you?"

"Thank you, sir.  Yes, I'll stop by," Whitey replied, surprised not only
that the general knew who he was, but had gone out of his way to let
Whitey know it.  General Westmoreland took his place behind the lectern
and began his speech.

"Gentlemen, be seated, please.  I appreciate your taking time away from
your mission.  Time is precious here, we never seem to have enough of
it, so I'll be brief.  " He took his watch off and laid it on the
podium.  He really didn't need to do that, for he could speak at any
length and, with an uncanny built-in clock, stop within seconds of the
time he had allotted.  Today, he used the movement to emphasis his
respect for the time he was usurping from his audience.

"I consider the subject matter so vital to your knowledge that I wanted
to present the material myself." He cleared his throat.

"There has been much negative talk and rumor about our current situation
here in Vietnam that has found its way into the press.

It started with an article in the communist newspaper published in
Hanoi, the Quan Doi Nhan Dan, the Military People's Daily.

In it, Vo Nguyen Giap, the general in charge of the North Vietnamese
forces, said his strategy had forced us to fight him in locations of his
choosing, namely along the DMZ at places like Khe Sanh, and in the
Central Highlands.  This simply is not true.

These border battles, in fact, were a significant success for American
troops.  " He punched a button oh the lectern.  The lights dimmed as,
one after the other, he clicked slides onto a huge screen.  They
depicted battle scenes, aftermaths with dead VC bodies and weapons
booty, and appropriate maneuver maps.

"The enemy has not pulled us to the borders.  Rather, he can only mount
his large actions from the border where he has sanctuary.  This means
their major efforts are largely limited to the periphery of South
Vietnam.  Gentlemen, I believe the crossover point of the war is
here-the crossover point where we are attriting the enemy faster than he
can replenish himself."

He quickly explained a series of slides that showed how the ranks of the
guerrillas were falling, how Viet Cong and NVA killed in battle had more
than doubled since 1965, how the body count had risen to an average of
7,315 per month even during the rainy season, how communist forces had
diminished from 285,000 to 242,000, and that "even just north of Saigon,
the enemy units in War Zone D are having rice problems.  Of the one
hundred and sixty-three Main FORCE Viet Cong and NVA battalions, almost
half-seventy-six battalions-were unable to fight due to disease,
deprivation, desertion, and dismay."

Westmoreland looked about with pride at the men assembled in the room.

They were the ranking officers of all the servicesArmy, Navy, Air FORCE,
Marine, and Coast Guard-under his command.  He was giving them the
ungarbled word, and they would take the word back to the troops for
dissemination.

"In conclusion, victory is measured by control.  Look at this chart, and
it is the last.  " He chuckled as he stressed the word last.  It was a
pie-shaped chart.

"You can see," he said, "that the Viet Cong control a mere 17 percent of
the population, another 16 percent are in the contested category, while
67 percent of the 17 million people in South Vietnam are in the cities,
or located in relatively safe hamlets."

His eyes ranged his audience like search lamps, catching each man,
making each think he was personally being taken into the confidence of
COMUSMACV.

"Yes," he said with grave finality, "while there may be a final large
attempt, we have reached the crossover point and we are draining the
enemy.  That is the message for you, and for your troops.  It is the
message for the press and for the world.  I repeat, we have reached the
crossover point, and are draining the enemy.  " He looked around.  His
expression implied his briefing was complete enough so that questions
weren't really necessary.  However .  .  .

Bull Dall raised his hand.  "Sir, we are at 525,000 troops now.

Do you see any reason to eventually ask for more?"

"That is an option," General Westmoreland replied in a pleasant tone,
"that I don't care to discuss at the moment."

These "win" briefs had been ordered by LBJ when Westy was in D.C., and
he was delivering.

1945 HOURS LOCAL, FRIDAY, 27 OCTOBER 1967

CARusso's RESTAURANT', Vo Di NGUY STREET SAIGON, REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

"I'm glad you could make it this evening," Dall said.  At Dall's
insistence, Whitey had broken a dinner engagement with some Seventh Air
FORCE people to spend a few HOURS with his old classmate.  They ordered
wine and picked up the conversation where, they had left off earlier
that day.

"Damn, Whitey, I wish I could say you are looking fit, but you're not,"
Bull Dall said, his own face lined, weathered, and well-used.  In Army
terms, he was ancient.  He had been given the job as 5th SFG commander
as a cap to a career that had started in the infantry in the thirties.

Seconded to the OSS under Wild Bill Donovan in World War II, he had
never really come back to the Regular Army.  He had done a lot of
clandestine work in Korea with Jack Singlaub and Heine Aderholt.  Later,
he'd worked with Sir Robert Thompson in Malaysia, quelling the Communist
uprising.

"You're looking great, too, Bull," Whitey responded in a mocking tone.

Dall had been a champion wrestler, weight lifter, and horseman at the
Point.  Whitey had been a real mover in track.  Both men had been on the
debate team, and both had finished in the top 10 percent of their class.

Except for one reunion, they had lost contact when Whitey had opted to
be among the men who had chosen the Air FORCE portion of the United
States Army Air FORCE.  Each knew the other's whereabouts from The
Assembly, the West Point Alumni magazine, and from the military
grapevine that easily equaled Ma Bell for speed of information
transmission.

Each wore dark pants and sport shirts draped over their belts.

Whitey didn't know it, but Bull Dall had a snub-nosed .38 in a tiny belt
holster.  They sat in one of the six booths arranged around the floor
tables of the restaurant.  Robert, husband of the owner, Mich6le,
strummed a guitar from a stool near the bar.

There were huge, round ceramic vases of potted palm varieties on the
floor, and a profusion of hanging greenery around the discreetly lit
dining room.

Bull tapped Whitey's arm, "I want you to meet some guys I think a lot
of: Al Charles and Wolf Lochert.  Since you want to know if we are
winning or losing, and about the Ho Chi Minh Trail, I thought you should
get to know them, to hear their thoughts and ideas.  They're a couple of
youngsters, but they have a lot of field experience and they'll tell you
what's going Whitey said he appreciated that, then asked Dall what he
thought of the statistics General Westmoreland had presented at the
conference.

Bull Dall laughed.  "Let me tell you," he said, "where those friendly
and unfriendly village control figures come from.  They come from a
computer that has been fed with so-called facts and figures under the
HES-Hamlet Evaluation System.  Every month, civilian guys in the
provinces fill out thousands of computer program cards about who owns
what part of the surrounding territory.  That information is supposed to
tell us who is winning.

"Didn't you believe COMUSMACV today when he said we were winning?"

Whitey asked.

"Of course not," Bull Dall replied.

:'Why not?"

"He might believe the stars, but I don't, because I think those guys who
feed the computers are just juggling figures.  The truth is, we got
troops, but no executive leadership; we got tactics, but no strategy; we
got FORCE, but no commitment.  We've got the sons of a half-million
people here whose parents haven't the faintest idea why they are here.

Pretty soon they are going to tell us to shit or get off the pot.

They're going to say 'I want my boy brought home .  .  .  but not on his
shield."

"So?" Whitey said.

"So unless we get some grit in our people, and in our civilian
leadership, this place is gonna go down the bloody tubes." After
extensive combat in Korea, Bull Dall had picked up an international
relations degree from Harvard with honors.  He knew what he was talking
about.

"Right now, the subject is military leadership," Whitey said.

"Sure.  If we had the right civilian leadership we would have responsive
military leadership.  But I ask you, how can you lead somebody when you
don't know where you are going?" He looked pensive.  "Westy is one
helluva guy.  Did you know he turned down a third star when he was
Superintendent at West Point?  His exec, General Davidson, told me about
it.  Generals do that as often as the Pope says Mass in the Shilo
Baptist Church.  The reason was, he would have had to leave the Point.

He had things he still wanted to do there, so he stayed on and did them.

He added electives in the courses for cadets, for one."

"He had to," Whitey injected.  "The Air FORCE Academy was already doing
that instead of forcing all the cadets to take just engineering
subjects."

" You're right," Dall said.  "Then he persuaded JFK to agree to double
the cadet corps from 2,200 to 4,400."

Whitey laughed.  "Yes, but remember, he also hired Paul Dietzel away
from LSU to coach the football team.  You know what a disaster that
was." The two men laughed and finished off their bottle of Australian
Hunter Valley red wine.  MichNe, the hostess and owner, brought another.

The two men were feeling the effects.  They rapidly covered the many
topics dear to their hearts.

"Something I've noticed among the faint-hearts in the officer corps,"
Whitey said, "is they seem to be adapting an attitude of 'screw it, if
I'm not allowed to win, I might as well go for promotion." I hate to
admit this, but in the Air FORCE we are now writing an evaluation report
on our officers over here every six months.  That's twice as many as in
peacetime."

"I don't believe the Army is any better," Dall said.  "We ticket-punch.

Get the right squares punched on your ticket and you can advance to the
next step on the board.  " He made a wide, lopsided grin.  "That isn't
exactly what I have been doing, you will note." Bull Dall was referring
to the fact that he was still a full colonel, and had been since 1943,
when he had been one of the youngest full colonels in the Army.

Considered a corner then, he had fallen out of favor as soon as he had
thrown his lot in with the OSS and, later, with the Special Forces in
the early fifties.

Whitey and Bull Dall had finished almost all of their second bottle of
red when the two officers from MACSOG entered the restaurant.  Broad and
craggy, almost Neanderthaloid Wolf Lochert, and Al Charles, big and
black; together they had all but routed most of the French diners at the
restaurant.  Wideeyed, the diners were afraid the two Americans were
Corsicans come to blow the place away over some drug-smuggling dispute.

Bull Dall introduced Whitey as an old West Point chum who had gone
astray and drifted into the Air FORCE.  He did not mention his rank.

Wolf Lochert and Al Charles easily accepted him as one of their own.

They listened impassively as Bull Dall told them Whitey was from the
White House to determine the answer of a single question about the war
in Vietnam: Is the U.S.  winning or losing?

"I know about you, Colonel Lochert," Whitey said.  "I read your
classified report about the black market and drug ring the Provost
General was involved in."

Wolf nodded, and made a sour smile.  "It was not a thing I'd care to do
again.  I'm a soldier, not a cop, or a criminal investigator." He
glanced pointedly at Al Charles, who had played rather loose with the
sixth directive.

"That's right," Al Charles added.  "That's the last time I'll put one of
my men through something like that.  Wolf wrapped up the ring in a
matter of days.  We have managed to keep it from the press that the
suicide of the Provost General was related to the smuggling case."

"And that civilian Bates?" Whitey said.

"That slimy bastard Bubba Bates was still walking around.

The court wouldn't accept my evidence that he'd recruited in and out of
jail for the PG and his ring.  That in itself wasn't a crime, they said.

Bah, I should have strangled the little weasel.

We've lost a lot of good GIs to stolen and black market weapons."

"He got off free?" Whitey asked.

"Not exactly," Wolf growled, trying to suppress a smirk.  "I believe he
was captured by the Viet Cong on the Vung Tau Highway." He drained a
bottle of Bire 33 Mich6le had brought him.  "They are a particularly
nasty bunch."

Al Charles clapped Wolf Lochert on the back.  "We are going to award
this guy an Elmer for his acting.  He and those guys from the First SF
at Okinawa put on quite a show in front of the bar on Tu Do Street.

Barely cost us a hundred bucks to pay the damage in the bar and to buy
the guy a new shirt to replace the one he broke the blood pack on.  When
Wolf fired a blank from his Mauser, he smacked it with his hand.  Had it
taped to his chest.  The MPs said it looked mighty realistic."

" Had to make sure I didn't punch him there and break it too early,"
Wolf said.  "Had to make the blank myself.  Cartridges for my 7.63 are
hard to come by.  " He looked at Al Charles.

"About my acting.  Don't you mean an 'Oscar'?"

"No, Elmer.  As in Elmer Fudd," the big man said.

"Aw," the Wolf said with feigned injured dignity, "you're just jealous."

He turned to Bull Dall and Whitey, a serious expression on his face.

"You wanted to know who is winning.  That's easy.  We are.

If I didn't think so, I wouldn't be here.  I don't follow those i fancy
charts, or listen to those lectures.  I know we are winning, because I
am winning.  The minute I can't win, I'll pull out and let somebody take
my place who can winNow, ask me if I think we can win better, or faster,
and I'll say damn right we can."

"That's certainly laying it on the line, Wolf.  What about you, Al?"

Bull Dall asked.

"I'm like Wolf.  I do my assigned tasks the best way I know how.  I get
my troops to do their assigned tasks the best way they know how.  If we
run into problems, we solve them ourselves.  If we don't have the
correct kind of supplies, I don't bitch, I or my troops go steal them. I
leave all that high-level worrying to you guys.  I just accept whatever
mission you give me, salute, and go do it.  That's what I signed up for.

I remember that JFK said to bear any burden, pay any price to assure
liberty.

That's why we are here." He finished his bottle of Bire 33.

"Also, like Wolf, ask me if we can do it better.  I'll say, hell yes we
can."

"What about the ARVN, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam?  " Whitey
asked.  "Can they win this war on their own?"

"Not unless Prime Minister Thieu and his deputy, Ky, get rid of all the
corrupt generals and civilian grafters," Bull Dall said emphatically.

Wolf and Al Charles nodded in agreement.

"I have another question," Whitey said.  "How can we not win?  "

"You mean, how can we screw it up so bad we can't win, don't you?  "

"Yes," Whitey said, "that's what I mean."

All three men started to speak at once, then subsided.  Al Charles spoke
up, his black face earnest and intent.  "We will lose if, one, the ARVN
doesn't come around and take over, and two, we don't go north and cut
their nuts off."

"Is that likely to happen?" Whitey asked.

"Isn't that where you come in?" Wolf Lochert asked in a flat voice.

Whitey leaned forward, a look of great interest on his face.

"Given that we can't do that, what would you do different?" he asked Al
Charles.

"Outside of South Vietnam, I'd cut the VC off from their supplies.  I'd
do that two ways.  First, prevent Russia and China from supplying North
Vietnam.  The North Vietnamese are on their ass.  There is no way they
can supply the South on their own.  Simultaneously, I'd bottle up North
Vietnam in such a way they couldn't get supplies to the Ho Chi Minh
Trail."

"I'm telling you, we haven't figured that out in Washington yet, Al,"
Whitey said in disgust.  "We aren't allowed to seal off North Vietnam."

"Well, then," Al Charles said, "I'd bottle up the Ho Chi Minh Trail
itself as it goes through Laos."

"How?" Whitey demanded.

Al Charles's black eyes gleamed.  "Easy," he said.  "I'd put a big FORCE
together to invade Laos and charge straight across northern Steel Tiger
to Thailand to cut the Trail in half.  In the meantime, because that
size operation would take several months to put together, I'd put plenty
of my people in Laos on the ground to find the supplies, trucks, and
road equipment.  Then I'd have them call in air strikes to destroy what
they found."

Bull Dall looked at Whitey.  "We do have some Shining Brass Trail
watchers in place, but nothing on the grand scale Al wants." Shining
Brass was the code name for the Special Forces Trail watch and Intel
gathering teams in Laos for the last two years.  "What would it take to
get authorization for both of Al's ideas?  Can you sell them to the
President?" he asked.

Whitey leaned back and cocked his head.  "Maybe.  But that isn't enough.

If McNamara didn't like it, he could bind DoD in small ways so that
nothing would happen.  Same with the JCS.

If they didn't like it, they could drag their feet until the President
forgot about it."

"What if I just went ahead and did it?" Bull Dall said.

"Did what?  Invade Laos?" Whitey asked with a chuckle.

"Sort of.  Just on a smaller scale.  I'm talking about part two of Al's
idea.  Let's put some 'find 'em and fix 'ern' teams in there.  Some
teams that will do more than just watch the Trail.

They would call in air strikes.  There is a lot of activity on the
Trail now, I think it's picking up.  If I start putting special teams
in, can you arrange it so more air assets would be available to them?

"Hell's bells, Bull, I'm barely on the NSC.  I'm not a manager of air
assets.  I'm lucky to have a parking place at the White House," Whitey
said.

"An SF man wouldn't have any trouble arranging assets," Bull Dall said,
with silk in his voice.

"I though you zoornies all knew each other," Al Charles said, all
innocent.

Wolf Lochert delivered the clincher.  "I always thought fighter pilots
did it better," he said.

Whitey Whisenand looked from face to face and threw up his hands.  "Tell
you what I'll do," he said.  "I have to make the rounds with the people
at Seventh Air FORCE who control all incountry air assets, then back to
the people who control all the airplanes out of Thailand.  I'll see what
I can do and let you know unofficially."

olf Lochert's eyes lit up.  "I want to b of their in.  I want to use
HALO,- Lochert said, ey, 1out was the term for a High Altitude Low Open.

to put forces on the ground undetected.  The an airplane several miles
high, tracking far am zone, then literally soar to the DZ by positioi
-Cs like gliding birds.  The other Arrny men noddt -Cy understood.

"HALO," Whitey said, impressed.  "Okay, Wolf.  I'll see what I can do."

He looked toward the kitchen.  "Now, how does a man get to eat around
here?"

Bull Dall, who had frequented Carusso's before, called to MichOe to
serve her best.  She did.  The four men ate, savoring every bite of the
gourmet meal Mich0e was able to provide.

From the escargots to the Coq all Vin, from the Cocktail de Crevettes to
the Timbale de Veau Sous-Cloche Bergere to her Soufflg Surprise dessert,
they ate with appreciative gestures and words.  They also put away two
more bottles of the red.  The bill, with 15 percent service charge, came
to nearly 13,000 piasters.

Since Whitey had no piasters, he illegally paid his share in green:
$18.00.

They finished the evening at the bar at House Ten, a Special Forces safe
house.  By the time they even thought of the curfew, it was three in the
morning.  Major General Albert G.  Whisenand, Air FORCE special
assistant to the President of the United States and member of the
National Security Council for air power, spent the night with the three
Army officers on the roof of the safe house doing in a bottle of scotch,
each trying to outdo the others with -rotten limericks.  Ever true to
the space age, Whitey won with his astrolonautical scatological rhyme
about the young man from Rangoon who tried to fart his way to the moon.

Seems he flopped as a rocket, shit in his pocket, and died in a rectal
typhoon.

0900 HOURS LOCAL, SATURDAY, 28 OCTOBER 1967

OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS HEADQUARTERS.  7TH AIR FORCE.  TAN
SON NHUT Am BASE REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

"What did you think of the fighter symposium yesterday?" Major General
Gordon Raimer asked Whitey Whisenand.  Raimer had known Whitey since
Command and Staff College days.  As a major, Raimer had been a student
of Whitey's, an eager but average student.

"Not much," Whitey said.  His normally benign face was quite serious.

"You should have been there to listen and answer the questions.  You're
the gentleman who directs operations, are you not?  Those were
operational people there, with valid operational complaints and
suggestions.  Maybe your representative didn't correctly interpret what
was told to him.  Maybe he didn't tell you everything he heard.  You
should have been there.  Why should you get your input secondhand?"

Raimer stiffened.  "I'm sure my deputy's notes are accurate and
complete," he said.

"Gordon, you are missing my point," Whitey said, with some FORCE.  "You,
you personally, Major General Gordon Raimer, Director of Operations, 7th
Air FORCE, should have been present at that meeting.  The way it was,
all the aircrew knew was that they were only talking to some fellow from
the staff."

"General Whisenand, with all due respect, you are the one who doesn't
understand.  The reason the aircrew were at that meeting was to discuss
problems of fighting the air war in North Vietnam, specifically Route
Packages Two through Six.  We here at 7th Air FORCE have no control over
the targeting that goes on up in those packages.  It all comes to them
from Washington via PACAF.  I did not want the pilots to think they had
my backing or approval for any of their newfangled ideas to use on those
targets.  To avoid that, I felt it best not to be there.  " Raimer stood
up.

"I am not talking targeting," Whitey said.  "Neither were those pilots.

They were talking deficiencies in some of their weapons, particularly
the missiles.  And they were talking about bad tactics against the North
Vietnamese air defense system.  If you can't help fix the problems in
weapons and tactics, at least give them the go-ahead to solve them on
their own.

"What would you have me do?" Raimer asked.

"First, let them use the gun more, and don't charge them with a missile
fired out of parameters as a pilot-error misfire when it was used as a
deterrent," Whitey said.  "Second, they are the men doing the actual
fighting.  Let them devise their own tactics to fight the MiGs.  No more
dicta from your shop down here in Saigon.  I've checked the backgrounds
of your people.  You don't have enough pilots who have been fighting up
north and know what they are talking about.  The few combat pilots that
you have under your command are junior in rank and not listened to."

Raimer walked to the wall chart of Southeast Asia.  He stood staring at
it, his back to Whitey.  His uniform was beautifully cut and pressed.

"There can be no deviation from 7th Air FORCE policy and procedure," he
said over his shoulder.

"Deviate?  Great Scott, man.  You are the man who sets 7th Air FORCE
policy and procedure.  They originate from this very office.  You're the
Director of Operations.  Do some directing.

You must loosen up.  Can't I get you to change your mind?

These are our men, trying to do a job, a bloody tough job.  You can help
them do that job better.  They fight MiGs in the air with weapons that
don't always work, and on the ground they fight the Rules of Engagement
that don't always work.  Now tell me why they should have to fight their
own chain of command at the same time?"

Raimer turned from the map to face Whitey.  "Why are you bothering about
all this?  As I understand it, you're here on a classified study for the
President.  Daily operational matters are not in your area of interest.

You do your job, and I'll do mine.

I cannot help you, General." He seemed glad to have a point with which
to attack.

Whitey remained seated.  He rubbed the back of his neck where the collar
of his overstarched 1505 khakis had been chafing.  He sighed.  "All
right," he said in a weary voice.  He sighed again, and stood up.

"Major General Gordon T.  Raimer," he said, with a voice suddenly edged
with steel, "in accordance with the authority vested in me by the
Presidential directive dated 19 October 1967, you are hereby relieved of
command, effective immediately.  You will remain in your quarters until
further orders."

Five minutes later, Major General Albert G.  Whisenand stood in front of
Gordon Raimer's boss, the USAF four-star general commanding 7th Air
FORCE.

"You did what?" Commander, 7th Air FORCE, barked.

"I fired that cowardly son of a bitch you had as a director of
operations, and I'll fire any other son of a bitch who won't back up our
airmen," Whitey said.

"Amazing," Commander, 7th Air FORCE, said bitterly.  "For a two-star,
you sure are packing a lot of weight.  How high can you fire?  Me, for
example?  Can you fire anyone on the JCS?He shook his head in disbelief.

Whitey remained silent.

"No, I guess you can't answer that one.  " He made a wry face.  "In all
the twenty-five years I've known you, I have never heard you swear.

Raimer has only been here two months.  I didn't ask for him.  He and
Crepens over at Ubon were directed assignments.  I wasn't consulted when
I got him, so I suppose it's only fair I wasn't consulted when I lost
him.  He had a brilliant staff background, absolutely walk-on-water
efficiency reports, and had been to all the right schools.  He was
considered three-, if not four-star material.  Not anymore.  Not after
what you've done to him."

"It's not what I've done to him.  It's what he has done to himself.

There was one school he didn't see fit to attend.  That's the one where
they shoot real bullets at you.  Somehow, he saw very little combat in
the Big One, and none in Korea.  And he is yet to fly one mission here
in Vietnam.  Stars are worthless if you don't use them for the mission
and the troops," Whitey said.  "By the way, why do you think Raimer and
Crepens were given directed duty assignments?"

"I think it had something to do with people against the fighter mafia. I
think the nonfighter conglomerate decided to convince the Chief of Staff
the fighter mafia was too entrenched and that he should put some other
people in command positions.  Fresh blood, new ideas.  Maybe one of the
past fighter commanders was too popular.  Something like that."

Commander, 7th, leaned back in his chair.  He stared at Whitey.  "To
press on before I get the can tied to me," he said, "what can I do for
you?"

"Tell me if we're winning or losing this war," Whitey said.

Commander, 7th, threw back his head and laughed.  "Whisenand, you are
something.  Indeed you are.  First, without consulting me, you fire my
deputy because you think he is not fighting the war well enough.  Then
you ask me if we are winning or losing the very same war.  " He suddenly
became very serious.

"Are you asking me officially?" He held up his hand before Whitey could
answer.  "Because if you are, I'll tell you, of course we are winning,
and I've got the statistics to prove it." He pointed to a series of
four-foot poster-board charts.  Whitey recognized the figures from the
top chart as the same shown in General Westmoreland's briefing.  Among
other things, they summarized the fact that over 30,000 targets had been
destroyed or damaged in North Vietnam so far in just this year of 1967.

"Do you believe those numbers?" Whitey asked.

"I do," Commander, 7th Air FORCE, said in a subdued voice.

"I do, because the definition of 'target' is not included on the chart.

Let me tell you, Whitey," he said, warming to his subject, "to fill the
squares demanded by the office of the Secretary of Defense, we and the
Navy now consider swaying bamboo bridges and wiblicks, among other items
of dubious value, as targets."

"Wiblicks?" Whitey echoed.

"Wiblicks," Commander, 7th, repeated.  "WaterBorne Logistics Craft. Read
that as sampans, log rafts, and the like.  That does not include real
supply boats found in the harbors.  While we are not allowed to hit
targets of significant value, we are nonetheless required to produce
figures of significant value."

His face was a mixture of pain and disgust.  "So you come in here and
fire a guy for not prosecuting the war the way you think he should. Does
it really make any difference?"

"You missed my point," Whitey said.  "I didn't fire him because of the
way he prosecuted the war.  I fired him because he doesn't listen to his
troops, who are on the firing line every single day.  He refused to
listen to and act upon feedback from the boys about tactics and
equipment that make trouble.  That's cause to fire someone in peacetime,
not to mention during a war."

Commander, 7th, rubbed his eyes.  "You're right.  I guess I know that.

Sometimes I get so wrapped up in what's going on right here in South
Vietnam-my boss, Westy, is a four-star Army general who wants constant
air support for his troops that I may miss what's going on out of
country."

Major General Albert G.  Whisenand studied the four-star general sitting
across from him.  "Ideally, we should bomb the MiG bases, mine Haiphong
harbor, and take out the rail lines from China.  But we can't, at least
not yet." Whitey sat forward.

"Meanwhile, what if I got permission for more Special Forces teams in
Laos to find and call in fighters on supply targets on the Ho Chi Minh
Trail?  And what if I got more fighters allocated to that mission? These
are interim measures, I know, but wouldn't you get better results?"

Whitey's face lit up.

The Commander of the 7th Air FORCE leaned back in his leather chair.

"Whisenand, you tnily amaze me.  The last time I saw you, you were up to
your IQ in intelligence work, Quite good work, I might add.  Now you
want to run a war.  Been reading your Clausewitz, have you?"

"Clausewitz, Douhet, Sun Tzu, Marx, Hegel, Mao, Giap, and Ho Chi Minh,"
Whitey replied.

"Quite a list.  No?"

Whitey laughed.  "No, no.  His stuff is to convince young American girls
that cutting sugar cane for Castro is world healing." Whitey became
serious.  "Ho needs to pull something off.  Giap is getting impatient.

You can see it in his positioning of sizable NVA troops in the south. He
will want to take control of as much territory as he can, preparatory to
something, maybe peace talks.  Something is up.  We need more
intelligence from up north.  At the same time, we need to be hammering
the supply routes-if not the harbors and rail lines-both to stop the
equipment Giap needs for his new NVA troops, as well as to let Ho know
we know he is up to something."

"I'm limited, Whitey.  I can barely send out my airplanes to hit the
Trail in Pack One and Laos.  You've got to talk to CINCPAC about targets
farther north."

"I already have," Whitey said.  "Oley Sharp is asking for the same thing
I am.  For a deep-water sailor, he knows what air power can and cannot
do.  Yet he doesn't have any more control over targeting in the Route
Pack system than you do.  It's up to me to convince the President we
need to step up strikes up north and along the Trail.  Based on our past
conversations, I don't think I'll have any trouble."

"The JCS is helpless, I suppose," Commander, 7th, said.

"Yes, they are.  Except for one thing," Whitey said.

"What's that?"

"They can resign en masse."

"My God.  They wouldn't," Commander, 7th, said in consternation.

"It's the only weapon they have," Whitey said, "and they can't use it."

Commander, 7th, rubbed his chin.  "No, I don't suppose can," he said.

"That would play right into the hands of the protesters, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, " Whitey said, "it would.  Deeper than that, the Chairman finally
decided not to because he thinks such a move is too close to mutiny. And
in the end, all that would happen is that they would all be replaced
with people who would go along with the President and McNamara."

Commander, 7th, looked pensive.  "Do you suppose Ike went through
anything like this?"

Whitey chuckled.  "No, I don't think so.  President Roosevelt gave Ike a
charter to win and left the details up to him."

"Well, I can still do a couple of things out here," the Commander of the
7th Air FORCE said.

"What's that?"

"I can tell my combat operations shop to listen to the boys in the field
and to start authorizing some new fighter tactics."

"And more frags for Laos and Steel Tiger?" Whitey asked.

"Sure, as long as Oley Sharp goes along with it."

"He does," Major General Albert G.  Whisenand said.  "He surely does."

1300 HOURS LOCAL, SATURDAY, 28 OCTOBER 1967

ROOF TERRACE OF THE CARAVELLE HOTEL SAIGON, REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

"Sure," Shawn Bannister said to his godfather, Albert G.  Whisenand.  "I
remember very well the last time we were here.  You were drinking scotch
while forbidding me to light up a joint."

He pulled deeply on a two-inch Triple B.  The burning-rope smell hung
heavy in the air.  He wore his trademark brown safari suit.

Whitey stirred his ice tea.  He wore light tan cotton trousers.

His light blue sport shirt had a sweat vee down the back.  They sat
under the awning, away from the bar.  His face, framed by his short-cut
white hair, looked composed.  The Saturday after noon crowd was
beginning to filter in.  Newsmen, military officers, embassy people,
contractors, salesmen-all men of heavy thirst crowded up to the bar,
talking, laughing, gesticulating and downing, on the average, one shot
of hard stuff every eight minutes.

"I want to talk to you about your article about the VC, Shawn," Whitey
said.

"What's the matter?  Didn't like it?  Afraid it might be true?"

Shawn's voice was just short of being contemptuous.

"Not at all.  I believed every word of it.  I believe that the commander
gave you exactly the overall plan Ho Chi Minh has worked out.  But I
want to ask you something else.  I think something big is about to
happen.  You hinted in your story you had knowledge of such an event.  I
would like you to tell me what you didn't write in the story." Whitey
looked carefully at Shawn's eyes as he spoke.  They appeared both wary
and worried.

Shawn sat back, and laughed.  "Uncle Albert, I do believe you want me to
violate journalistic confidence."

"This is a war, Shawn.  Americans, your countrymen, are being killed.

Maybe you can save some of their lives.  What do you know of a big
event,' as you call it?"

"This isn't a war, Uncle Albert.  This is a political struggle to unite
North and South Vietnam.  We Americans are the unwanted aggressors here.

We are killing people to further our gains."

"That is pure communist claptrap, and you know it," Whitey said.  He
purposely kept his voice low.

"Maybe, maybe not," Shawn replied.  "But I'm a reporter.  My job is to
get the news and report it, not violate a confidence or a source.  Or
take sides.

"There is nothing newsworthy about propaganda," Whitey said.

"I didn't say there was," Shawn replied.  "But I am going to be invited
back for the big show, and that won't be propaganda.

"The 'big show'?" Whitey said.

Shawn leaned forward.  Finally, he thought, I am impressing this man.

"The VC commander said it would be the most important attack of the
conflict.  One that would make the fall of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 look
insignificant."

"When will this attack occur?" Whitey asked.

"He didn't say exactly.  Soon.  A couple weeks."

"Where?" Whitey persisted.

Shawn wagged his head.  "I had the, impression-I don't know why-it would
be up north,"

Whitey looked off into space.  He shook his head.  "No," he said, "I
don't think it will be up north.  Giap has already tried to cut the top
from South Vietnam.  It didn't work."

Hard-core NVA troops had tried to occupy the top of South Vietnam from
Hue to the DMZ, but they had not been able to capture and isolate the
whole area.  In fact, the NVA had been decisively defeated at Ashau both
by the Army and by B-52 Arc Light strikes that had wiped out thousands.

"Look, Uncle Albert," Shawn said.  Whitey saw a muscle tic by his left
eye.  "I think I know what you want from me.  You want me to spy for
you, don't you?"

Whitey watched him carefully.  "Yes," he said.  "Will you perform a
service for your country?"

Shawn licked his lips.  His muscle tic became more pronounced.  "Ah,
this is rich," he said.  "This is really rich." He leaned forward.  "You
want me to spy for a military organization I detest, against some people
I happen to believe are right." He snorted.  "You know I don't agree
with what you are doing over here.  How could you ask me to do such a
thing?"

"Listen to what I just said." Whitey spoke with a sharp edge to his
voice.  "You could save American lives."

"Yeah, at the expense of the poor Vietnamese peasant who is just trying
to make it in his rice paddy against all you American killers." Shawn
sat back with his arms folded.  He didn't try to disguise the contempt
he felt for his godfather.

"Shawn, you are being used by these people," Whitey said.

He tried not to show his exasperation.

"No, I'm not.  -You're the one being used.  I have a choice.  I don't
have to answer to anybody.  I can stay or go as I see fit.

You do not."

"You do have something to answer to, Shawn.

"Oh, yeah?  Like what?"

"Your own conscience."

"Right on, Uncle Albert.  And my conscience says that this is an
imperialistic war of aggression waged by the capitalists against a
peace-loving people for purposes of exploitation.

"You almost leave me speechless.  That phrase is right out of Hanoi.

.."

"So what?  It's what I believe," Shawn interrupted.

"And for purposes of exploitation-ridiculous.  Name one product to
exploit from here.  Tin?  Rubber?  Not enough to warrant an office, much
less a war.  Rice?  We produce our own in Louisiana.  No, Shawn.  You
are being used by these people as a propagandist, and I think you know
it."

"Let me tell you, Uncle Albert, maybe I am being used by these people,
but I am doing it willingly.  I'm doing it because I think I can help
stop the war by reporting it as it really is, not as you and all the
other military people would like it to be."

"This is a stupid and trite conversation," Whitey said.  "Just tell me
you'll think about letting me know where and when the big event will
take place.  Look at it as a reporting story.  You'll be getting a scoop
on the other reporters.  Tell me you will think about it."

"Sure, I'll think about it, Uncle Albert.  But I can tell you right this
moment my thoughts will be that I won't do it.  " He was high now, his
eyes bright and shining.  He had trouble focusing on exactly what was
going on.  He looked down with pity at this sad old man who thought he
knew so much.  "Don't you see, Uncle Albert," he said in a soft voice.

"It's all so simple.

I mean it's really simple.  The answer is right there.  Can't you see
it?

"The answer to what, Shawn?" Whitey said.  He prepared to rise and leave
this disheveled young man he used to cuddle and bounce on his knee.

There was nothing more they could talk about.

"Why, the answer to everything, just everything.  It's all so simple,
don't you see?" Shawn said.  He sat loose in his chair, taking in the
universe with his expanded arms.

Whitey stood up.  "Goodbye, Shawn.  Any message for your father?  He is
concerned you don't write." He stared down at his godchild.  Just how
much of this do I tell Sam Bannister?  he asked himself.

Shawn got to his feet.  "Tell him everything is just fine with me.  You
can see that yourself.  Everything is fine." He flashed his brilliant
smile.

The two men parted: Whitey headed to Tan Son Nhut for his flight back to
Washington; Shawn returned to his hotel.

Shawn Bannister unlocked the door to his room.  His mind was muzzy.

Maybe he should take up Whitey's offer.  Maybe it would put him on to an
even greater story if he could just play both sides properly.  He was
preoccupied with the possibilities his uncle's offer had opened up as he
walked into the room.  He involuntarily jerked as he spotted a figure by
the window.

"How was the visit with your godfather, the general?" Nguyen Tri asked.

0630 HOURS LOCAL, TUESDAY.  31 OCTOBER 1967

MAIN BRIEFING Room, 8TH TACTICAL FIGHTER WING UBON ROYAL THAI AIR FORCE
BASE THAILAND

For the last four days since the meeting at Tan Son Nhut, the 8th Tac
Fighter Wing at Ubon had, in addition to the night missions, mounted
morning and afternoon strikes and MiG CAP escort missions with no
variation in tactics or targets.  Entreaties for tactics changes from
squadron commanders and from the wing tactics officers were not falling
on deaf ears, they were falling on infertile soil.  Seminar notes to the
DO of the 7th Air FORCE notwithstanding, nothing had come down from the
7th Air FORCE.  Number-crunching as taught by Robert Strange McNamara,
the former Ford Motor whiz kid and producer of the Edsel, was Crepens's
vogue.  Those numbers and tables said the MiG pilots could not and would
not come up with unusually bold and slashing attacks, because they had
not done so in the past.

Colonel Delbert Crepens believed this theory-a good staff man always
believed his boss without question.  It really wasn't necessary for him
to fly any missions over Hanoi.  He had flown two bombing missions up
there, and no MiGs had attacked his flights.  Thus it was that Crepens
had not taken it upon himself to authorize any deviation from the
standard close-in escort for F-105 and.F-4 bombers.

Without permission, Court and Flak had been easing their flights out to
intercept the MiGs as early and as far away from the bombers as
possible.  Though they had been spotting MiGs well in advance, many were
still getting through because they still weren't out far enough, and
there weren't enough of the Phantoms.  College Eye was starting to
complain about the separation.  The result was the bombers frequently
could not hit their target, because they were forced to jettison their
loads to defend themselves.  So far, the MiGs had not remained in the
area to fight.  They had seemed content with forcing the bombers to
jettison.  No one had claimed any victories.  There had been stories of
a few particularly aggressive MiGs led by a pilot with an oddcolored
helmet.  As yet, however, no one had a clear sighting.

Some of the Thud pilots wanted to know who the cowboy was when they saw
Court's airplane.  He had yet to answer.

Ev Stem had come out of his shell.  Court had to restrain a smile one
day when Ev told him that he was becoming more " secure" with Court's
flying.  He felt like asking Ev why an Edwards graduate with two combat
tours would not be "secure." But Court was pleased with him.  Ev wasn't
exactly at the experience level Court desired, but he had to learn
someplace.  Court figured himself as the best front-seater there was, so
Ev could learn from him.  Ever since the day they had shot down the MiG,
he had given Ev every other landing and takeoff, all GCA approaches, and
all the refueling hookups.  Ev was trying valiantly to be the most
proficient back-seater in the Wing, for a pilot, that is.  The
navigators were trying just as hard.

The daily early morning briefing began.  Captain Richard C.  Hostettler
walked on stage looking unusually serious.  He adjusted the microphone
at the podium and looked out over his audience.

"Gentlemen," he said in measured tones, "I have an important message
from Seventh Air FORCE.  Because of its incredible content, I am going
to read it direct to you.  " The audience went dead quiet at the
unexpected severity of his voice.  He began to read from a copy of a TWX
message he held.

"Headquarters, Seventh Air FORCE, Message number 311920 Zulu.  In the
early morning of 30 October at 0220 HOURS LOCAL time, seismic sensors on
the Ho Chi Minh Trail indicated large movements in strings nine through
thirteen.  At 0348 HOURS LOCAL time, the Bangkok Seismographic Center
reported a reading of eight point three on the Richter Scale, the
highest ever recorded, in the northern panhandle area of Laos near the
Viet nam border in the Annamite mountain chain.  The land formation in
this high karst region is composed of limestone and calcium carbonate,
which erodes easily and hence bares the karst to further exposure and
resultant degradation.  This composition is easily reduced by water and
dynamic oscillation, such as produced by B-52 bombing, to a porous
unstable condition, thereby weakening the rock substructure.  At 0620
HOURS LOCAL time yesterday, a reconnaissance aircraft observed what
appeared to be a large rift in the terrain runnin through Mu Gia Pass
that extended south through the Ban Phan Op valley."

Hostettler shook his head at the ominous implication of his last words.

The aircrew audience sat with parted lips and bodies unconsciously
leaning forward to hear what came next.

Due to bad weather, the reconnaissance pilot was unable to follow the
phenomenon further.  At 0940 HOURS LOCAL time, a high-speed FAC in the
Ban Karai region descended through a break in the overcast and reported
a large section of the Dog's Head hill section had shifted into the
river at the Ban Lobo Ford area.  Weather closed in, preventing
continued reconnaissance.  As of this moment, Special Forces ground team
reports are being collated.  Seventh Air FORCE and the Blue Chip command
post in conjunction with Air FORCE engineers from the System Command
concur that should this phenomenon proceed at the present rate, it will
cause a situation inhibiting future USAF tactics.  Current
prognostication indicates an 88 percent probability that in the
following 48 to 96 HOURS, 50 percent of southern North Vietnam and
related Communist-held portions of Laos will detach itself from the
Indochina peninsula land mass and float into the Tonkin Gulf, thereby
coming under U.S.  Navy jurisdiction, hence releasing the USAF from
further participation.

The audience, brows furled, sat stunned.  Suddenly, Bannister, Flak
Apple, and several others burst out in wild guffaws.  Then it dawned on
the rest that they had been had.  The entire auditorium collapsed into
laughter that soon evolved into applause for the irrepressible
Hostettler.  Men pounded each other on the back, and wiped helpless
tears from their eyes.

Hostettler stood-motionless, head tilted, a quizzical look on his
face-as the laughter subsided.  Then he reached under the podium for a
paper bag.  From it, he donned a serape and a new wide-brimmed Mexican
sombrero with tassels, before walking to the bedsheet covering the big
target map.

"I will not reveal today's target," he said.  "Your friendly strike
FORCE commander has that privilege.

The strike FORCE commander walked out on the stage, still grinning.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I am happy to report that starting today we have
some new and rather important targets." With a flourish, he ripped the
cover from the target map.

As soon as they saw where the arrows pointed, the already happy aircrew
burst into cheers.  Big red target circles had been drawn around three
of the four MiG bases around Hanoi.  A mixed strike FORCE of Thuds and
Phantoms was fragged for Phuc Yen, Hoa Loc, and Bac Mai.

"Somebod , someplace is wising up," the strike FORCE commander said.

Court and Flak winked at each other.  Yet there was no red circle round
the Gia Lam airfield.  Regardless of the fact that MiGs regularly flew
from there, Gia Lam was considered an international commercial airport
and could not be struck.

"Now the bad news," he said.  "In accordance with the frag order we have
received from Seventh Air FORCE, we may only bomb the runway.  We can
only make holes in those long conCrete strips.  We are forbidden to hit
either the revetments where the MiGs are parked, the hangars, or the
headquarters building.

To do so would be considered escalation.  Furthermore, the only MiGs we
can attack are the ones in the air."

The good humor of the aircrew disappeared immediately.  Colonel Delbert
L.  Crepens took the stage as the strike FORCE commander completed his
briefing.

"We are under particular pressure from Seventh Air FORCE to strike these
targets," he began.  "I don't want any maintenance aborts.  Unless the
weather is down to the ground in the target area, there will be no
weather aborts.  Do you understand?"

"Colonel." All the heads turned to see Hostettler at the edge of the
stage.  He still wore his Mexican clothes.  "Stormy said there might be
a solid layer of clouds over the target areas.  We were always told
never to fly over or attack through an overcast.

Crepens eyed the intelligence officer.  His lip curled.  "We?  I wasn't
aware you were flying combat, Captain.  Are you on the strike lineup?"

His voice was thick with contempt.

Hostettler walked to the strike flight crew board.  He carefully studied
the call signs, and the positions and names of those flying.

"No, sir," he said.  "I'm not.  Neither are you."

Crepens looked startled.  "Report to my office immediately after this
briefing," he snapped, and stomped off stage.

The remainder of the briefing went as scheduled.  The strike FORCE
commander had skillfully blended Hostettler's intelligence briefing with
weather, armament, maintenance, and rescue.  He went over the details
for the F-105 Wild Weasel attacks on the radar and SAM sites just before
the Ubon planes got there .

The call sign for the entire strike FORCE was Navaho.  Individual
flights were still automobile names.

Court, as the leader of Packard flight, took his men to the squadron for
a final briefing.  He concluded his briefing with the remaining details
of radio frequencies, lost communications, and emergency procedures,
then said he wanted to talk tactics.

"The Phantom is not a difficult airplane to fly," Court said, unless you
start yanking it around.  Then it becomes a whole new airplane,
operating under a whole new set of aerodynamic principles.

"What do you mean?" Packard Four asked.  He was a slender young captain
with a dark crew cut.

"Do you know how to turn the airplane?"

"Of course."

"How?

"Like any other.  Some aileron, some rudder, some back stick movement.

The normal bank and yank."

"Wrong.  What do you know about turn performance parameters?"

"I know that there are four variables: Gs pulled, airspeed, radius of
turn, and rate of turn.

"What are the other factors?"

Packard Four thought for a moment.  "Well, there's structural
limitations of the aircraft-you don't want to pull the wings off.

There's the G-load on the pilot-you don't want him to black out.  And
stall speed.  The more Gs you pull and the more you bank, the higher the
stall speed.

"What does that mean?" Court asked.

"You don't want to get into a high-speed or high-G stall and fall out of
the sky."

"What does that mean?"

"It means," the captain said, starting to feel exasperated, "that a
steady-state turn requires that the vertical lift component be equal to
the weight of the airplane and .  .  ."

"The horizontal lift component be equal to the centrifugal FORCE," Court
completed.  "That's good slide-rule flying.  But we must translate all
that slapstick stuff into our feel for an airplane.

It's not enough to know aero, then-no, fluids, astro, and all that
mind-bending stuff.  This is not the classroom now.  If you've got to
pull six or seven Gs when you're fighting an airplane, you're doing
something wrong."

"That's heresy," Packard Four said, with a laugh.

"Not only that," Court continued, getting wound up, "a tight turn is
primarily a defensive maneuver, not an offensive maneuver."

"Why?" the captain asked, then got it.  "Because you're burning up
airspeed."

"Exactly.  You've got to keep your Mach up.  And go vertical.

"Go vertical?"

"Exactly.  Learn to love the vertical.  Zoom up and roar down.

No one else uses it.  No one else knows how.  They get into turning,
bank-and-yank hassles, each guy trying to get inside the other's turn.

Didn't anybody listen to Boyd, that IP at Nellis who tried to teach
energy maneuvering?  Or Tanaka at George?"

Court put his hands on his hips.  "And don't be predictable.  Turn with
a guy for ninety seconds and he'll start predicting you.  Turn with him
for three minutes and he'll kill you.  If you get into trouble,
accelerate down and out of the fight, If you can't reattack, get away."

"No way," the captain said.  "I don't run from fights."

"Stop talking like a Marine.  There's no point in sticking your pecker
down a gun barrel to pee on the bullet as it comes out just to prove you
have balls.  That's a one-time deal and they don't give out medals to
peckerless pilots." Court pointed his finger like a gun at Packard Four.

"Listen, if you don't have position and you can't gain it, if you don't
have airspeed and you can't gain it, get the hell out of the arena until
you can."

"That's not being aggressive," the captain said.  "Everybody knows that
to be a successful fighter pilot, to make ace, you've got to be
aggressive."

"You wouldn't fight without ammo, would you?  You wouldn't fight without
fuel, would you?  Advantage is everything.  Get the advantage, that's
what I'm telling you.  And if you can't get it, get out, return to base
to fight another day."

0815 HOURS LOCAL.  TUESDAY.  31 OCTOBER 1967

Room 3S, Soi 175/32 UBON RATCHITAN1.  THAiLAND

Through his binoculars, Shawn Bannister studied the F-4s lined up in the
arming area next to runway 23 at Ubon Royal Thai Air FORCE Base.  There
were six fighters heavily loaded with a mixture of bombs and air-to-air
missiles.  He quickly wrote down their tail numbers.  Then he picked up
a small booklet, and frantically scrambled through the pages looking for
pictures to identify the ordnance hanging under the airplanes.  He threw
it down in disgust.  He just wasn't close enough, the sun glare and heat
shimmers were too strong, and the pictures in the poorly printed booklet
Nguyen Tri had given him weren't clear enough to identify the bombs and
missiles.  Hell with it, he said to himself.  He entered into his log
just the number of bombs and missiles carried by each plane, not their
type.  They all looked the same.  The bombs were olive drab with yellow
bands around the nose, the missiles were long white things with little
wings and rudders.

Who cares if it's a five-hundred- or thousand-pound bomb.  They all blow
up, anyway.

He put on the headset attached to a small radio that was supposed to be
tuned to the military control tower.  He fiddled with the controls but
was unable to get any sound.

Starting that morning, he had begun logging tail numbers and takeoff
times of the Phantoms blasting into the air.  He was supposed to record
which ones came back, when they came back, and if they had any battle
damage.  He was also supposed to match up tail numbers with the call
signs as he heard them on his radio.

Souky, a Thai girl who spoke excellent English and seemed quite
conversant on military flying matters, had met him when he arrived by
train from Bangkok the night before.  She had shown him to this room in
a private dwelling, an old structure made of dark wood.

The room was small and cramped, and infested with most of the known
species of crawling and flying Asian insects.  There was barely enough
room for the rough wooden table stained with decades of meals, and the
wooden cot with a thin foam mattress.

A mosquito net fell from a T-bar attached to the head of the cot.

A long floor rag hung from one of the wooden pegs on the wall behind the
door.  As was typical with most Thai houses, the wide-open window had
neither glass nor screen.  Slung on hinges outside each opening were
faded green shutters.  An open bowl rcelain toilet was down the hall. It
had to be flushed manually PO by dipping water from a large um. Shawn
had been warned by Nguyen Tri before he departed Saigon that location
was more important than amenities.

Shawn was to familiarize himself with the cadence and tempo of F-4
operations from Ubon.  He could take all the pictures he wanted through
his long-range lens, but his primary job was to record and quickly
report what he saw and heard.  Tri had told him that the LOCAL contact,
Souky, would collect his papers each evening.

"Wait a minute," Shawn had said to Nguyen Tri in Saigon three days ago,
"that's not reporting.  That sounds like spying.

We have laws against things like that.  I could get in big trouble."

"My dear American friend," Tri had said in a soothing voice, "do not
concern yourself.  The information is there to be gathered.  There is no
law against that.  You are a very good reporter, who will merely be
gathering the available information about American activities."

"The California Sun isn't interested in the tail numbers of airplanes
that fly out of there," Shawn said.

"Perhaps not," Tri had replied, "but our newspapers, like the Nhan Dan
in Hanoi, are interested.  What difference does it make?  You are a
reporter.  You report the truth." Nguyen Tri smiled.  "I am authorized
to tell you that if you report timely and accurate information, you will
not only get an exclusive on any big attacks we may have in the future,
you perhaps could earn a visa to visit Hanoi.  There you could interview
our leaders and photograph the conclusive evidence of the wanton and
indiscriminate aerial bombing done on our peaceful country."

Based on those reassurances, Shawn had flown to Bangkok then taken the
late train to Ubon.  Now, his first day on the job, he was
uncomfortable, thirsty, and not at all sure he could sustain this effort
very long.  Maybe a few days, a week at the most.

He had not slept well in the hot, airless room.  Two thick Triple B
joints had eased the discomfort.

He flicked a bug with many legs from the radio and turned the switch on
again.  To his surprise he heard an American voice in the headset.

" Roger, Packard flight.  This is Ubon Tower.  You are cleared on and
off with four."

0910 HOURS LOCAL, TUESDAY.  31 OCTOBER 1967

AIRBORNE, ROUTE PACK Six ALPHA, HANOI DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Court Bannister led Packard flight to the attack zone of the Phuc Yen
MiG base.  The frag order had called for all four of his flight to carry
Mk-83 1,000-pound bombs with one-tenth of a second delayed fuse.  The
detonating delay was to allow the bomb to penetrate the concrete and
plow deep into the earth before exploding.  The idea was to dig a much
bigger hole than a contact burst would.  Flak Apple had consulted his
charts, and what they really needed was the M-59 Semi-Armor Piercing
thousand pounder that could penetrate steel without breaking up.  Only
SAC had that bomb in its ammo dumps.  Flak Apple had put a midnight call
through to the SAC Command Post at Tan Son Nhut, requesting an emergency
supply of the M-59s.  "Sorry, we can't help you.  Maybe next year when
the paperwork gets squared away," was the best answer he got.

"So, okay, maybe they plan on sinking some Viet Cong battleships," Flak
had said to the planning group he had gathered.

We'll use our own bombs.  By four in the morning, the armorers had each
of the Ubon bombers loaded with 1,000-pound bombs, -R PP- two
Sidewinders, four Sparrows, and extra fuel tanks.  The Phantoms would be
taking off at maximum gross weight.

"Remember," the Navaho strike FORCE commander said, "these targets are
too heavily defended to stooge around for multiple bomb runs, like in
the low threat area of South Vietnam.  Remember the Pack Six motto: 'One
Pass, Haul Ass."

The escort birds, those used for MiG protection, had the extra fuel
tanks, a centerline gun for each element lead, and a full load of four
Sidewinders and four Sparrows.

After takeoff and before entry into North Vietnam, all the Ubon birds
loaded up with fuel from the Lemon tankers, and then they plunged
northeast toward Hanoi.  The time was just after nine in the morning.

The weather in the Hanoi area was overcast at twelve thousand feet with
scattered rainstorms.

Vladimir Chernov made wide slow turns in a low orbit from Gia Lam south
a few kilometers to the Red River, then back again.  He was serving both
himself and his wingman up for bait, at the same time patrolling
possible targets: the POL fields, bridges, and air bases east of Hanoi.

Overhead, he had placed two MiG-2 Is in an orbit just under the overcast
ceiling at 4,000 meters, twelve thousand feet.  The two silver
delta-winged fights were all but impossible to see against the cloud
cover.  Well er above the cloud cover he had positioned Toon to act as
an airborne flight director.  Toon was to supplement Victory Control 11
by identifying aircraft type and mission-fighter escort or bomber.  All
F-105s were bombers, so among the F-4s Toon had to differentiate which
were carrying bombs and which were designated as MiG fighters.

If any American was dumb enough to accept the bait, and roll in on
Chemov or his wingman, the high element would be right on them with a
height advantage.  Had there been no clouds, they would have been
up-sun, hence even more invisible.

The main task of Chernov's mission was to disrupt the bomber formations
attacking the targets he was orbiting.  In conjunction with Victory
Control, he had other fighters scattered in high and low elements of two
to make the slash-and-dash missile attacks on the bombers as they
approached the target area.  In no case were the MiGs to stay around and
fight.  The North Vietnamese pilots were simply too inexperienced.

Besides, as Chernov had told them again and again, their job was not
necessarily to shoot down enemy aircraft, their job was to prevent enemy
aircraft from bombing targets.  Privately, however, Chemov had told
Toon, Van Bay, and Vong that if it looked right, stay and fight.

They could always bolt for the sanctuary of the Chinese border barely
twelve minutes' flying time away.

Court and Ev were tense and alert, all switches on, all systems up.

Together, along with the Phantoms of the Navaho strike FORCE, they bored
into the Hanoi area.

There was bedlam on the radio strike frequency.  SAMs were popping up
through the Hanoi ring overcast, 85mm and 57mm flak was peppering the
sky with black and orange, running-manshaped bursts.  Two Thuds and a
Phantom had already been hit by antiaircraft fire.  The Thuds were
limping back to the east.

The Phantom trailed a long black spiral of smoke, then disappeared,
falling sideways into the smooth white overcast.  Two chutes floated off
to one side.  Their automatic beepers made unnerving whooping shrieks on
guard channel.

Suddenly, the antiaircraft guns ceased firing, and the SAMs stopped
rising up.

MiGs, MiGs, six o'clock." New radio calls burst out, as three flights of
MiGs sliced into the FORCE from low and behind with tremendous speed.  A
sharp wingman had spotted them.

They had popped up through the overcast under ground radar command by
Victory Control, using advisement from Toon, the airborne flight
director.  Two flights of Phantoms moved to intercept, but were too
late.  Each MiG-21 fired two missiles at the Year of the bomber FORCE
and dove for cover through the overcast.  One K- 13 missile impacted in
the tail section of an F- 105, but failed to explode.  Another flew up
the left tailpipe of an F-4, exploding the engine and the fuel tanks in
an instant.  No pieces larger than the bombs themselves fell out of the
giant fireball.  "Jesus Christ," an awed voice said during the momentary
hush.  There were no parachutes, and no beepers.  The strike FORCE bore
on, leaving the debris behind.  The other four missiles arched
harmlessly away and down from the strike FORCE, trailing rocket smoke
like giant fire arrows.

Court held his flight of four bombers steady, then took them down
through the overcast.  Each man held his breath at what might appear
below when they broke out.  At twelve thousand feet, they were in the
clear from the clouds and into layer after layer of exploding flak
barrages that filled the surrounding air with white, black, red-orange,
and dirty gray bursts.  Court's breath came in swift pants as he waggled
his plane to spread the flight into attack formation as they sped toward
the Phuc Yen MiG field.

Seconds later, Court spotted the northeast railroad line and the Red
River confluence as his major visual checkpoints.  "There it is,
Packard, twelve o'clock low," Court transmitted.  Two, Three, and Four
rogered, their voices taut with excitement.

The airfield didn't look like anything shown on the black and white
reconnaissance photos.  Red laterite roads led to the field, pointing to
the huge white concrete strips of runway, taxiway, and parking ramp in
the green lushness of surrounding fields.  Revetted MiG parking areas of
black herringbone patterns butted up to the taxi strip.  Scattered
around the field in a seemingly random pattern was pit after pit of
antiaircraft guns.  They were all shooting.  Red tracers seemed to arch
up slowly, then gather speed, and suddenly seemed to change direction to
zoom over or under Court's F-4.  Clips of five and seven 37mm bursts
made a thick dirty carpet at ten to twelve thousand feet.  Beneath that
layer, thousands of white basketballs blossomed between six and seven
thousand feet, as the rapid-firing 23mm shells exploded at their preset
altitude.

Court had wanted to make an east-to-west run, coming from the sun,
heading straight down the runway, and pulling off west toward the
comparative safety of Thud Ridge.  Now he and his flight had no choice.

They had no chance to reposition once they were under the overcast into
the thick antiaircraft fire.

In line abreast, they made their bomb run perpendicular to the runway,
the worst possible approach for accuracy on the 150foot-wide concrete
strip.  Running in down the length of the runway would have given the
bombs the best chance of hitting the 6,000 feet of concrete, whether
they fell long or short of the midpoint.

Each man had his armament switches set up.  The proper mils depression
for the type of bomb was set into his gunsight pipper.

Dive angle, release altitude, and airspeeds were carefully monitored by
front- and back-seater until the front-seater had to look only at the
target.  The GIB would continue to call out his airspeed and dive angle.

The flight stayed with Court as he pushed forward on the stick.

It was a terrible way to dive-bomb.  Usually, one rolls in, always
pulling positive Gs.  But they had popped out of the overcast too close
to the airfield to spend the time rolling in.

They arced down, negative Gs causing dust motes and a map to float up to
the canopy.  The planes were in a staggered left echelon formation, with
Court trying to stay in the proper release envelope of 70 degree dive
angle, and 560 knot release speed.

As they passed through 7,000 feet, each pushed the red button on top of
his B-8 control stick when he brought his gunsight pipper up to the
narrow concrete runway.  Each of the four planes rippled off six bombs.

The black-red bursts of the twenty-four 1,000-pound bombs started two
hundred feet short of the runway, ran across the runway, and on into the
ramp and hangar area.

Eleven bombs hit short (two blew up a small fuel dump), four cratered
the runway, seven dribbled across the taxiway and ramp, destroying six
MiGs, two streaked through the main hangar roof and exploded just under
the slick concrete floor, blowing four MiG-21s into blackened bits of
metal.  Two Vietnamese and one Russian in the slit trench outside were
killed by falling debris.

"I'm hit.  Packard Four is hit," the aircraft commander of the last
Phantom to pull up from Phuc Yen called out.

Court strained under the G-forces to look around.  He was jinking and
climbing toward the west.  He looked back and spotted Packard Four
trailing a long plume of white smoke.  The ground fire had suddenly
stopped.  Court suddenly saw that a MiG-21 was closing in on his,
burning number four man from behind.  He pulled toward the MiG, and
transmitted.

"Break west, Four.  MiG on your ass.  I'm in on him." He unkeyed for an
instant, then came back on.  "You're on fire, Packard Four," he said.

Packard Four answered in a rapid cadence.  "Yeah.  Every light in the
cockpit is on.  Left engine out, ahh, hydraulics crapping out." He had
his hands full trying to find the correct combination of stick, rudder,
and throttle setting that would keep his crippled bird not only in the
air, but climbing away from the Hanoi air defense fing.

Court clearly saw the light blue helmet of the pilot of the MiG21 as he
dove on him from his altitude advantage.  It would be an easy high angle
pass.  Court's Phantom was clean now, and maneuverable.  No bombs, no
fuel tanks-two Sidewinders and four Sparrows.  There was, however, a
problem.

"Can't get him, Major, we can't shoot the Sparrows," Ev Stem yelled from
the back seat.  "Our radar is tits up." Without radar, the Sparrows
would not guide.  Their Sidewinders could only lock on to the heat from
the rear of an airplane where the engine heat exhausted.  A front end
shot was no good.

"Goddamnit, I already know that.  Shut up.  I'm trying to bluff him off
Four," Court said, high-keyed enough without his backseater interrupting
his concentration with the obvious.  This was exactly why he didn't want
another man in his airplane.

"Well, shee-it.  Just tell me what you're doing, then," Stem said.

"And when we land, tell me where 'tits up' came from," Court said.

Behind him, Court's wingman rolled in behind to cover him.

"I'm with you, Packard Lead," he cried.

Vladimir Chemov saw the F-4s rolling in on him.

"Send two of your aircraft to my sector," he ordered Toon on the radio.

He had seen Court's flight drop bombs, so he knew they weren't carrying
guns.  He also knew that the only missile from Court's angle that could
endanger him at the moment was the radar-guided Sparrow.  He
concentrated on his attack on Packard Four.  He would check the F-4
diving at him.  If he saw a missile fired at him, he was confident he
had the energy to outmaneuver it.  The sweep on his screen told Chemov
his radar missiles had a good lock-on.  He fired two of them in rapid
succession at Packard Four.  At the same time, Court shot all four
unguided Sparrows right into the Russian's face.  Chemov saw them flash
out from under Court's wing, trailing smoke, headed in his direction
like four horrendous torpedoes.  He wracked his airplane toward the
missiles, causing his radar to break lock on Packard Four, leaving the
Russian missiles unguided.

"Packard Four, break left, break left," Court yelled over the radio.

"You've got two missiles coming up at you."

"I'm damn near stalled now, Lead," Packard Four said.  He tried to bend
his Phantom around by lowering the nose to gain speed.  He didn't have
to worry.  Without Chemov's radar to guide them, the missiles wandered
off to the east.

"Glory be, how about that shit," Packard Four said, and resumed his
escaping climb.  He was still trailing smoke from his damaged left
engine.

"Thor's balls," Chemov cursed.  He saw the missiles fired by Court for
what they were, Sparrows that weren't locked on, fired all together like
a shotgun.  In his mind, he congratulated the F-4 pilot for a clever
maneuver.  It was too late to return to his pursuit of Packard Four.  He
continued heading toward the F-4, Court's airplane, that had shot the
missiles at him.  He smiled.

He saw two of Toon's MiG-21s dropping out of the clouds toward the same
F-4.  He switched to guns, and began to track Court's airplane with his
23mm cannon.  They were closing fast, over 1,000 miles per hour.  In a
split second, Chernov was in range.  He fired.  Too late.  Court had
pulled straight up and rolled out to keep Chemov in sight.  Chemov would
have to pull harder to keep his gunsight on the climbing Phantom.  He
couldn't make the sharp turn.  Chernov engaged his afterburner to gain
energy, at the same time rolling to one side to keep out of the firing
line of the two MiG-21s from the upper orbit maneuvering to attack the
Phantom.  For an instant, he was almost parallel to Court's airplane.

The two pilots looked at each other.  Court saw clearly the light blue
helmet and the number 054 on the nose of Chernov's MiG-21.  Chernov saw
the white hat painted on the side of the F-4 and the large letters WP on
the tail.  Chemov rolled away to attempt a reattack, while Toon's MiGs
swept down.

Though Chernov had high confidence in his "pupils," he wasn't entirely
sure they wouldn't shoot because they didn't recognize a MiG-21 so close
to an F-4.

"Two MiGs at six o'clock high, Lead," Packard Two called.

Court saw Chernov roll away.  He looked over his shoulder, saw the two
attacking silver MiGs, then looked over to Packard Four being escorted
out of the area by Packard Three.  He estimated how many seconds he had
before any of the MiGs would be in firing position against either him
and his wingman, or against the departing Packards.

"Pull into the clouds, Three and Four, I'll fake these guys out," Court
said.  He blew his speed brakes out.  "Hang on, Two," he told his
wingman.  At the same time, he engaged the afterburners on both engines.

Although his airplane lost 200 knots in a twinkling of an eye from the
big speed brakes, the engine thrust was building quickly.  The two MiGs,
unable to check their speed, went roaring by like two silver darts.

Court hosed his two Sidewinders at one, his wingman fired his two at the
second MiG-21.

"Boards in," Court yelled at his wingman.  "Unloading," he added.  He
retracted his speed brakes and pushed over on the stick.  Dust rose from
the floor and his feet tried to lift from the rudder pedals as he dove
his F-4 almost vertically for a few seconds.  His wingman, Packard Two,
followed.  With the speed brakes retracted, and the two engines in each
airplane putting r out 34,000 pounds total thrust, the two Phantoms went
supersonic, causing two sets of sonic booms to crash down on Hanoi.

The booms were lost in the terrific crescendo of antiaircraft fire
pouring from the tops of hundreds of buildings within the city, and from
the thousands of gun sites around the city.

As Court pulled toward the relative safety of the clouds, he looked for
the two MiGs they had shot at.  The last thing he saw before he zoomed
into the cloud layer was one vertical thread of smoke and one parachute
dropping down it like a fireman sliding down a pole.

Minutes later, he pulled on top of the overcast, and looked west for
Packard Three.  "There he is," he said to Ev.

"I don't have him," Ev said.

"Get him on the radar, eleven o'clock high for about twelve miles,"
Court said.

"No one can see an F-4 that far," Ev replied.

"I can," Court replied.  "Do as I tell you.  Get a lock-on."

In minutes, Court and his wingman caught up with Packard Four being
escorted by Packard Three.  They were slow, and barely maintaining their
altitude of 27,000 feet.  The radio was still cluttered.  Court called
his flight over to post strike frequency.  They checked in.

"Two.  ' I

"Three.  I I

"Hey, boss," Packard Four said, "the fire's out, but it's getting hard
to handle, and I'm running out of fuel."

Court could see a streak of white vapor streaming out from under the
belly of the Phantom.  He was about to transmit, when a voice sounded in
his headset.

"Packard Lead, this is College Eye.  You have any words for us?  "

"Stand by, Cee Eye, we've got a little problem here." He unkeyed for a
second.  "Four, what's your fuel level, and how are your hydraulics?"

"At this setting, maybe twenty minutes fuel.  My PC One system is out.

PC Two okay," Packard Four said.  He had about twenty minutes of flight
time remaining before his Phantom flamed out from lack of fuel.  On top
of that problem, his primary flight control hydraulic system was shot
out.  So far, his secondary system was holding up.  Of course, he only
had one of his two engines operating.

"Hold her steady, Four, we'll make it," Court said.  He then called
College Eye and gave him the code words for the successful strike, the
MiG sightings, and the hit on Packard Four.

Court checked his TACAN against the Channel 97 site maintained in
northern Laos.  He estimated it would take thirty-five minutes to reach
their post-strike tanker.

:'What's your fuel now, Four?" he asked.

"Ten minutes," Four said, his voice low and measured.

"College Eye, get an SAR going," Court said, giving in to the
inevitable.  He had just asked for a Search and Rescue mission to be
launched to pick up the crew of Packard Four when they bailed out.  He
could see they could barely get to the North Vietnamese border before
Packard Four and his back-seater would have to eject from their Phantom.

"Ah, hello, Packard," a new voice came on the air.  "Can you go Tiger
common?" The voice was quiet and very calm.

"Hell," Court said into his mask.  "What the hell is Tiger common?" He
did not remember any brief about a Tiger frequency, nor was there any
mention of it on his blue flight-data card.

"It's three four two point zero, sir," Ev said from the back seat.  "But
don't call it out.  Switch to it.  I'll hand signal the other guys to
switch there."

Court manually switched his radio to 342.0 megacycles.

"This is Packard Lead on Tiger," he said, wondering just what he would
hear.  Two, Three, and Four had caught Ev's hand signals.  They checked
in.

"Roger, Packard.  This is the old White tanker anchor here.  I
understand you gentlemen are a tad short on go juice.  Just happen to
have a few thousand pounds.  You copy?"

"Good copy, White tanker," Court said.  "Thanks, but we are too far from
your position.  My number four man is streaming fuel.  He's going to
flame out in about ten minutes."

"This old filling station is just down the road from you, Packard.  Hold
your present heading.  Be nice, and we'll fix up your number four man."

"Major Bannister," Ev said from the back seat.  "White tanker has left
his assigned orbit point and is homing in on our radio transmissions.

I'm searching with our radar right now.  I'll have him in a sec."

" How did you know about that Tiger frequency?" Court asked.

"I talked to one of their guys at the Chao Phya Hotel bar in Bangkok.

Their code name is Young Tiger.  The Tiger common radio frequency is the
same number as their squadron, three four two." Ev paused, then said,
"Okay, steer left three degrees.

We're forty-two miles away from him.  He's almost at the North
Vietnamese border."

"Christ," Court said, "if we can paint him, so can Hanoi."

Once past the Black River and beyond Thud Ridge, all the outbound
fighters thought they were safe.  No MiG had ever chased them that far.

"Three," he transmitted, "get these guys to the White tank.

I'm going to look around."

Three rogered.  Court made a tight turn to the left until he was facing
toward Hanoi.  Because his search radar only scanned forward in a narrow
cone, he had to be pointing the nose of his aircraft that contained the
radar dish in the general direction he wanted to search.

"Contact, one o'clock level, thirty miles, and closing fast," Ev sang
out.

"Warning, warning.  You are approaching the border," Victory Control
said to Vladimir Chemov.  "Reverse your course immediately.

Vladimir Chemov had not planned on chasing an American airplane to the
border.  He was so low on fuel, he had already sent his wingman back to
land at Gia Lam.  He had one K- 13 missile and eighty shells remaining
for his 23mm cannon.

One more shot, he said to himself.  I want one more shot at that tricky
Yankee.  When he had rolled away from Court in the climb, he had kept
track of Court's airplane, then lost it when Packard flight had entered
the cloud cover.  Chernov was not used to being beaten, much less
deceived by another pilot.  He had described Packard Lead's last-known
position to Victory Control, and asked for a vector to chase him.  He
checked his forward search radar.

"Thor's balls," he said in happy surprise.  There was one blip moving
toward him, but beyond was a huge blob that could only be a large
American airplane.

"Victory Control, describe what is in front of me at one hundred
kilometers," he transmitted.

"It is a Kay Cee One Three Five we have been tracking.  It is far from
normal orbit.  You must reverse, Khong Nam Bon.  Reverse immediately."

Chernov checked his fuel and his map.  There was an emergency recovery
base at Na San behind him.  He could fly four minutes on this heading
before he must turn back.  The F-4 heading toward him showed clearly on
his radar screen; behind him was the bi- KC-135 blip.  He wasn't sure
the airplane in front had the white hat, but he hoped so.  Chernov
hurriedly made his battle plan.

Court saw the MiG boring in.  "I have a lock-on," Ev cried from the back
seat.

"No good, I don't have anything to shoot," Court said.

"What are you going to do?" Ev asked.  His voice had become calm.

"Gotta protect the tank, and the rest of the flight .  Court's voice
trailed off.

The two airplanes streaked toward each other at a closure rate of nearly
a thousand nautical miles per hour.

"My God," Ev yelled, "you're not going to ram, are YOU?"Just keep track
of him," Court said.  He strained and searched the sky in front.  In
seconds he had a visual on the approaching MiG.  Court pointed the nose
of his Phantom directly at the tiny dot as it rapidly grew in form and
substance.  He pushed forward slightly on the stick as the distant wings
became discernible.

They were six miles apart.  Time seemed to slow down.  Five seconds
later, they were four miles apart, closing at 2, 1 00 feet per second.

Chernov saw the F-4.  He held his heading and altitude steady.

Beyond the closing F-4, he saw a KC-135 and the three F-4s.

One F-4, streaming smoke or fuel, was on the boom.  He put his eyes back
on the F-4 dead ahead.  By feel, he switched to guns and pulled the
trigger.  His plan was to drive off the approaching Phantom with his
gun, then pull up and lob his last heat-seeking K-13 at the four-engined
tanker.

Court saw the slow red winking of the GSh 23mm cannon under the belly of
the silver MiG.  At first, the tracers curved down, falling far short.

If he maintained the collision course, he would fly exactly into the
stream of shells, and a half-second later smash into the MiG itself.

Chemov waited for the Phantom to open fire, either with a radar missile
or a gun.  He sat forward, hunched over his gunsight.  At least I don't
have to look behind me, he thought.  These are the last Americans out.

Suddenly, there was no time for anything.  The Phantom filled his
windscreen.

"We're merging," Ev yelled from the back seat, as he saw the enemy blip
slide to the center of his screen.  Then they were in Chernov's stream
of shells.  Court unconsciously leaned forward and hunched his shoulders
as they streaked through the tracers.  He barely registered the bang as
one exploded on top of the fuselage.

"Madman," Chernov yelled into his mask, as he pushed violently forward
on his control stick.  The Phantom flashed past his upper canopy so
close he heard the engines' roar and was tossed in the downwash.  Dirt
and debris flew into his eyes from the savagery of his negative G-FORCE.

His attack was broken.  He didn't have the fuel to get back on course to
shoot at the tanker.

He eased back on the stick, and rolled left to head back toward his
emergency recovery base.  He looked across the radius of his turn.  The
Phantom was turning back toward the border.  Chemov clearly saw the
white hat painted on it.  He realized then the pilot was out of
ammunition and had once again duped him into losing a shot.  He shook
his fist as he turned for the emergency strip at Na San.

Court watched the MiG as he turned back to the border.  He had an
instant to register the blue helmet, then they were separated.

time resumed for Court.  It came when he suddenly noticed the sound of
his own breathing in his headset.  It was rapid and roaring.  He took a
deep breath and held it while he rolled level to head for the tanker.

"Boss, we ain't got no fuel," Ev said from the back seat.

Startled, Court looked at the fuel gauge.  He rapidly converted the
figures.  "About ten minutes," he said on the intercom.

"Less than that if we want to catch White tanker," Ev said.

"I've got 'ern on radar, twelve o'clock for fifty, same speed as us.

We've got to pour on some coal if we want to catch 'em.  If we don't
catch up, it's hello jungle." Below was the dense, green, triple canopy
of North Vietnam merging into Laos.  Men had parachuted into there and
never been heard from again.

Court pushed the throttles up to 95 percent.  At that setting, they had
seven minutes to catch the tanker, hook up, and be receiving fuel,
before a flameout.  With only a hundred knots of overtake speed to cover
thirty miles, they would never make it.

"White, Packard Lead," Court transmitted.

"Packard, White.  Go," the tanker pilot answered.

"Got a bit of a problem.  Need gas in seven minutes or we flame out.

Would take me double that to catch up.  Check that the Packards with you
are okay.  If so, can you make a couple of three-sixties?" Court wanted
White tanker to make two circling turns to give him a chance to catch
up.

"Standby, Packard Lead."

"Packard Lead, this is Three.  Four is leaking bad, so I've had him hang
on the boom.  He came off for a few minutes, so Two and I could fill up.

We can do that again.  So come on down to your friendly filling
station."

:'Starting a port turn, now, Packard Lead," White said.

They were now over Laos.  From their position, it was fortyfive minutes
to Ubon.  Ev and the White tanker navigator coordinated the turn by
radio.  They set it up so that White was rolled out, heading toward
Thailand, when Court slid up under the boom.

At the last second, Packard Four pulled off to one side.  None of the
four Phantoms were more than fifty feet from each other as they flew
formation with the big KC-135 tanker, a Boeing 707 converted to carry
100,000 pounds of JP-4 fuel that it could transfer at the rate of 6,000
pounds a minute.  A sergeant, called the boorner, lay flat on his belly
in a compartment under the tail.

He had a thick glass port to took out and see Court slide his Phantom up
to the boom.  The boomer had hand controls to position the boom over the
refueling port on top of the fuselage just behind the back seat of the
F-4.  Upon movement of a switch by the pilot, the door opened revealing
the receptacle.

With easy expertise, the boomer plugged in just as Court slipped under
the big tanker.  He flipped the fuel transfer switch and got a red
light.  At the same time, fuel gushed like vented steam from a tear in
the skin behind the refueling port.

"Bad news, Packard Lead," the boomer said.  "You're pumping out as much
as I'm pumping in." Court turned control 0, the Phantom over to Ev, and
checked his gauges.  A trickle 0 fuel was finding its way into one of
the fuselage tanks.  No much, just enough to keep his engines running if
he topped off every few minutes.

"I'm about out of gas again, Lead," Packard Four said.  He was hovering
in formation twenty feet to Court's left side.  "I can give you maybe
five more minutes," he added.  His voice was calm and without
inflection.

"Go override, boomer.  Give me what you can," Court said.

"PACKARD, PACKARD, PACKARD.  THIS IS COLLEGE EYE ON GUARD.  IF YOU READ,
COME UP POSTSTRIKE

FREQUENCY." The transmission on guard channel was deafening.  Court
scrambled for his radio switch to turn off guard channel.

"You're getting max pressure and max flow, Packard Lead," the boomer
said.  His voice was as calm as a bored filling station attendant.

Boomers were tough.  The men chosen to occupy that critical position
were carefully culled from hundreds who applied.  They had to have
nerves and hands as steady as those of the pilots they refueled.  When
asked by strangers what their job was in the Air FORCE, they reveled in
saying they passed gas.

"Rodge, thanks," Court said.  "Would you mind asking your pilot to
answer College Eye and tell them our flight is with you." Sometimes,
there were just too damn many people pestering the strike pilots for
information.

"Will do, Packard Lead."

Court watched his main gauge creep slowly upward.

"At this rate, it will take us an hour to refuel.  It just won't go into
the fuel cell, " Ev said.

"Okay, White tanker," Court transmitted.  "Here's the problem.  Packard
Four and I will have to cycle on and off the boom, five minutes each,
all the way back to base." He signaled a disconnect to the boomer, and
pulled off to the right to allow Packard Four in.

"I got a copy on your problems, Lead," the aircraft commander of White
tanker said.  "Now listen to mine.  We've offloaded far more fuel than
we were supposed to.  If I tow you guys back to home plate, I'll be
giving you our own fuel, so we won't have enough to get to home plate."

He was referring to his base of U Tapao, several hundred miles south of
Ubon.

There was silence.  Everyone knew that SAC had rigid rules and
regulations regarding its tankers.  Any deviation was grounds for a
flying evaluation board at best, or a court-martial at worst.

"Ahh, what the hell," the pilot of White tanker transmitted before
anyone could say anything, "can't let you guys punch out.  Besides, I've
always wanted to see Ubon by the Sea."

For the next two hundred miles, Court and his number four man alternated
time on the boom.

Each man would slide into position, the boomer would hook up, then fuel
would start flowing.  From Court's airplane, it splashed out the hole
just behind the refueling receptacle.  From Packard Four, it streamed
from the belly like smoke.  They alternated fifteen times, neither man
able to sustain flight more than five minutes without fresh fuel.

When they were in radio range, Court called the Command Post, call sign
Wolf Pack, and told them what was happening: two F-4s with battle
damage, one KC-135 tanker low on fuel.

"Roger, Packard Lead," the SOF, Supervisor of Flying, at Wolf Pack said.

"We know all about you.  SAC Advon has been screaming for their tanker,
College Eye has been complaining you didn't check out with them, and
Radio Hanoi says you killed a bunch of civilians in the target area."

"I don't think I'll land," Court transmitted.

"Aw, come on, Packard, you done sierra hotel.  We got the champagne for
you," the SOF said.  He was a combat experienced major.  Sierra hotel
was fighter-pilot slang for shit hot.  -Ubon dead ahead for ten miles,"
Ev said.

"Packard Two and Three, break it off and land," Court ordered.  "See you
on the ground," Three said.  The two escorting Phantoms peeled away for
the landing pattern.

White tanker brought the two F-4s directly over the Ubon runway at
20,000 feet.  From that altitude, any plane could make a safe flameout
landing.

"Packard Four, top off last, land last, make an approach-end barrier
engagement.  If at any time it doesn't look good, point it toward Chandy
Range, and punch out," Court ordered.  Because of his hydraulic
problems, Packard Four was to lower the big hook under his airplane to
snatch the cable at the end of the runway just as he touched down.  His
airplane would slam to a halt in less than one thousand feet.  It would
take the ground crew several minutes, that neither Court nor the tanker
had, to unhook the crippled plane and get it off the runway.  If he
crashed on the runway, there was no place for Court and the tanker to
go.  Court, and the SOF, had to land the most damaged airplane last to
ensure the runway wouldn't be tied up for his airplane or the KC-135.

Court had also told Packard Four to bail out if the airplane started to
act up.

"White tanker, you land first, but move it.  We'll be on your ass,"
Court transmitted.  The four-man crew of the tanker had no easy way to
bail out.  They had to be first down.  Tankers didn't have ejection
seats, just hatches to dive out of.

Court sucked up as much fuel as he could get in the time remaining, slid
off the boom, and pulled the throttles back to idle to conserve fuel for
his final approach.  He started a slow, spiraling descent over the base
to allow time for the tanker to top off Four, then land.

Packard Four slid under the boom, and took as much fuel as he could.

Then he dropped off, and throttled back, a spume of leaking fuel
streaming under his airplane.

The White tanker pilot pulled his four throttles back, put out his
spoilers, and made one of the most rapid, spiraling descents he had ever
made in his life.  He racked the big tanker into a sixty-degree bank,
let the nose drop, and plummeted toward runway Two Three at Ubon.

There were two sets of red and blue crash vehicles and ambulances
waiting, engines running, firemen suited in silver suits.

One set was at the approach end, another on the midtield taxiway.

Within minutes, White tanker was floating over the end of the runway.

His main wheels touched with huge puffs of white smoke, he rolled
smoothly down the runway and turned off.  He was safe.

Five thousand feet behind him, Court Bannister touched down.

"Nice job, boss.  My fuel gauges read zero," Ev said from the back seat.

Halfway down the runway, both engines flamed out.

"Flameout," Court told the tower.  "Turning off here." He used his
excess speed to coast off the runway on to a taxiway just past midfield.

He used his remaining hydraulic pressure to brake to a halt.  The fire
engines immediately surrounded him.

Their foam turrets pointed at him looked like 37mm cannons.

Firemen in their flame-retardant silver astronaut suits ran up to chock
his wheels.  Court and Ev unstrapped, and sat on the canopy rail to
watch Packard Four land out of his flameout approach.

They saw the F-4 in a left turn from a very high base leg on to the
final approach.  Slowly, the angle of bank increased beyond what was
necessary to make the turn.

"Hey, roll out," Ev yelled, in an unconscious effort to command the
pilot to recover.

"He's flamed out," Court said.  "I don't see the fuel stream anymore.

The airplane kept rolling slowly to the left.  It had lost all lift, and
was about to fall out of the sky.  The rear canopy blew off, followed by
an ejection seat trailing rocket flame and smoke.  In quick succession,
the front canopy blew off, then the ejection seat rocketed out parallel
to the ground.  By now, the pilotless airplane was inverted.  The pilot
fell toward the ground, still strapped into his seat.  The parachute of
the back-seater blossomed, the little stick figure underneath swung
once, then plunged into the trees off the end of the runway.  At the
last second, the parachute of the pilot opened, and he too disappeared
into the tree line.

The airplane continued its lazy roll, falling straight down, until it
thumped onto the ground.  A huge ball of dust and airplane pieces
erupted, then fell back.  There was no fire, because no fuel remained in
the tanks.  The battle-damaged flight controls had finally failed when
the Phantom had flamed out.  The approach-end fire trucks and ambulance
raced to the crash site in the tree line.

Thirty minutes later, Court's flight and the crew from Packard Two and
Three were debriefing with Hostettler.  They were in a large room, where
intelligence debriefers sat at individual tables and members of each
flight gathered around.  Every man had a cold beer in his hand.  After
particularly hairy missions, Hostetder always brought over a tub of ice
and beer cans from the Officer's Club.  So far he had gotten away with
it.  Crepens never visited the place, and of course no one snitched.

There were only six people from Court's flight at Hostettler's table. He
had confirmed the two men from Packard Four were slightly beat up, but
generally in good condition.  At the moment, they were undergoing a
check at the base hospital.

During their debrief, the men of Packard flight described the weather,
the SAMs, the ground fire, the bombing of Phuc Yen through an overcast
on such a miserable attack heading, and the flight home with their
crippled airplanes pulled along by the valiant KC-135 crew.

Hostettler took notes and asked many questions.  He was particularly
interested in the MiG pilot with the blue helmet.  He made several more
notes on a separate sheet of paper, then started to close out the
session.

"Last question," he said.  "Did you see any MiGs hit or go down?"

Everybody shook their heads no, except Ev Stem.

"I did," he said.

"Did what?" Hostettler asked.  "See one get hit, or see one go down?"

"Both," Stem replied.  "I saw one get hit, and I saw the same one go
down.  He was just south of Hanoi."

"Did you see who got it?" Hostettler asked.

"Sure," Ev Stem said.  "We got it."

"We did?" Court said in surprise.  "When?"

"Your second Sidewinder got him," Ev replied.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me?" Court demanded.

"You told me to shut up, remember?" Ev Stem said in a bland voice, a
look of pure innocence on his face.

Court sat speechless, and an idiotic smile appeared on his face.

The word quickly spread around the debriefing room.  "Hey, Court, Ev,
shit hot," Flak Apple said.  "I saw one smoked, but I didn't know you
were the guys who got him.  Nice job." Hostettler offered his
congratulations, and punched Court on the arm.

He shook hands with Ev.  Back-seaters shared victories with
front-seaters.  The other flyers offered their heartfelt
congratulations.  Yet, down deep, each pilot knew that, given the right
amount of luck and circumstances, he too would be able to shoot down one
or more MiGs.  There was a mild flare of exuberation, but the joy was
tempered with loss among the strike FORCE mernbers.  The score for the
morning's work was three airfields bombed, two MiGs shot down, one MiG
damaged, one Phantom downed by a MiG, two Phantoms destroyed by AAA, and
two F-105s damaged.

Even Court, soon to be credited with his third MiG, remained subdued.

The atmosphere wasn't at all like Bolo.  Leadership and esprit had been
very different then.  But he did feel good about Ev Stem.

"You did a great job," he told him.  "Sorry I snapped at you.

It's taking me a while to get used to someone else flying with Ev Stem
merely nodded.

"By the way, what's 'tits up'?" Court asked.

"GIB talk.  Means the guy or thing is flat on its back, out of it,
kaput, busted."

Court laughed.  "Okay," he said, "let's go find that tanker crew, and
fill them up with some booze at the O-Club." Then he remembered the
restrictions.  "Belay that last order.  We'll take them to the hootch
bar," he said.  He and his crew stuffed a few beers from the tub into
the bottom pockets of their flight suits.

Before they could leave, the phone rang on Hostettler's desk.

When he answered, Court could hear the voice crackling from where he
stood.  Hostettler yessired a few times, and hung up.

"Comes the bad news," he said.  "It was Colonel Crepens.

He sounded mean as a snake.  Snarled the insulation right off the
telephone line.  He wants all of Packard flight in the main briefing
room ASAP."

Court looked thoughtful.  The others groaned.  They were worn out,
shocked by the crash of their number Four, thirsty for more beer, and in
no mood for any word from the wheelhouse, other than they had done a
shit hot good job.

"Buck up, guys, you did a great job today.  C'mon," Court said.  They
followed Court to the briefing room in silence.

Inside, they found four men in flight suits-three captains and a tech
sergeant-standing in a group.  "Hey," Court yelled, "are you guys the
White tanker crew?"

"That we are," one of the captains answered.  With whoops and cheers,
the six members of Packard flight surrounded the tanker crew.  They
pounded them on their backs, and shook their hands.  In seconds, the
beers were being passed around.  Just as fast, the cans were empty.

"God, that tasted good," the aircraft commander said.

"About a case more, and I might feel alive again," the copilot said.

"You guys are real four-engined fighter pilots," Court said.

"You did a hell of a thing out there.  We'll get you all the beer you
want."

Ev Stem nodded his head toward the podium.  "Tench .  .  .  hut," he
sang out.  The ten men popped to attention.

"At ease," Colonel Delbert-L.  Crepens said from the stage.

"Sit here." He indicated the front rows of seats below him.  The men
walked over and seated themselves.

Crepens stood next to the podium.  He wore a perfectly tailored and
pressed 1505 khaki uniform.  His thin face was livid.

His pale blue eyes swept over the men seated before him like small
lenses recording the most offensive of sights.  He pointed to the plaque
mounted on the podium with the motto of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing,
Attack and Conquer.

"You have disgraced this insignia," he said.  "You bombed an
unauthorized site, and you used unauthorized refueling procedures with a
Strategic Air Command tanker.  Rest assured, this will be reflected in
my endorsement of your efficiency reports."

He pointed to the tanker crew.  "Although you men are not in my chain of
command, I have been requested by SAC Advon to detain you here until
another crew can be brought in to fly your airplane back to U Tapao.

Consider yourselves confined to this air base."

He took a step forward, and placed his hands on his hips.  "I don't know
what you individuals-I won't call you men-thought you were doing today.

Whatever it was, it was not taught to you in any Air FORCE school or by
any squadron.  The Rules of Engagement, the Air Refueling Regulations,
and the placement of SAC tankers is done strictly in accordance with
established procedures.  " Crepens began to pace the stage.  "These
procedures, these regulations, these rules, are all determined by men
much higher in rank than you." He spun to face them.  "And, I might add,
much smarter than you.  Certainly, they are men of judgment.  You are
not.  By your actions today, you have not only jeopardized your careers,
you have jeopardized the standing of the United States Air FORCE with
the highest authority in Washington-the White House.  Furthermore, you
have jeopardized the standing of this fighter wing." He pointed to
Court.  "Your decisions today as a combat flight leader in contact with
the enemy seriously damaged the reputation of this Fighter Wing.

Furthermore, you were responsible for the alcohol in the debriefing
room.  That is clearly illegal.  I will not permit such a thing."

He stomped his foot.  His face was red and distorted with rage.

"You hear me?  I will not permit it.  You and that crazy Hostetler will
be punished as a warning to the others."

Before the stunned air crewmen could react, the side door to the stage
opened.  Hostettler leaned his head in.  "Excuse me, sir, but we have a
visitor." His face was inscrutable as he flung the door all the way
open.

Commander, 7th Air FORCE, walked in, the four stars on his collar
reflecting brilliant shafts of light.  "At ease," he said quickly,
before anyone could call the group to attention.  Behind him followed
Hostettler, and the two pilots from Packard Four who had ejected.  The
front-seater had his arm in a sling.  The back-seater had a badly
scratched face and swollen eyes.  They both wore the big grin crash
survivors wear once the shock has worn off.  The other members of
Packard flight passed silent grms and thumbs up to them.  They also
passed "what's going on" eye rolls.

Commander, 7th Air FORCE, motioned Crepens to one corner.

"Del," he said.  "Take a break.  Go on back to your office.  My new DO
is there rustling up some coffee.  He's waiting for you.  II "Certainly,
sir," Colonel Delbert L.  Crepens said.  "May I add what a pleasure it
is to see you here?  And it will be good to see Major General Raimer
again."

"Ah, Delbert," Commander, 7th Air FORCE, said very quietly, "Raimer
doesn't work for me anymore.  I sent him back to the States.  He will be
on the retirement list very soon.  I have a new Director of Operations
now, Major General Milton Berzin."

Colonel Delbert L.  Crepens nodded thoughtfully, turned, and walked off
the stage, placing his feet in front of each other as carefully as a man
on a tightrope.  He continued down the aisle and out the rear door,
closing it softly behind him.

Commander, 7th Air FORCE, walked to the edge of the stage.

"Hostettler," he barked.  "Go tell Colonel Stan Bryce to come over here.

Then go get some more of that illegal beer, and make sure it's ice
cold." He sat down on the floor of the stage, legs dangling over the
edge.  The Packard Four crew took seats with the tanker crew facing the
stage.

Colonel Stan Bryce, Director of Operations, 8th Tactical Fighter Wing,
walked in.  If he knew his boss was about to be fired, he didn't show
it.  The creases and lines on his face and the sweat stains on his
flight suit indicated he had just returned from a mission.  He had not,
however, been in the Navaho strike FORCE.

"Come up here, Stan," Commander, 7th, said.  Bryce joined him on the
stage.  "Gentlemen," Commander, 7th, said to the men, "I present you
with your new wing commander." There was silence, then applause rocked
the auditorium.  Not only was Stan Bryce popular, more important, he was
coming to be regarded as a great combat commander.

Then Commander, 7th Air FORCE, a career fighter pilot, looked at the men
facing him.  He reached up, unbuttoned his shirt, and tucked his collar
inside, hiding his four stars.  "All right, gentlemen," he said, "let's
talk."

By the time Hostettler returned with more beer, the men were talking.

Court Bannister had described how criminally fatal it was not only to
fly over a cloud layer covering enemy territory, but to actually attack
through it.  "There was no way we could have repositioned under the
clouds to make our attack run lengthwise down the runway, without
endangering the entire flight any more than it was," he said.  "So maybe
some bombs didn't land on the runway.  The only way we could have
prevented hitting the hangar would have been not to drop at all.  In
that case, we would have been too heavy to jink away from the ground
fire.  We would have been hit even more." Court could feel himself
getting angry about the impossibility of the situation.

"Don't worry about hitting the hangar, Major.  I get paid to take care
of things like that," the general said.  "Tell me about the rest of the
mission."

Court described the withdrawal, and the extraordinary rescue performed
by the crew of White tanker.  He told how the pilot had held the big
plane perfectly steady, even in rough air, and the boomer had never
missed a plug-in.

"Write up each member of the White crew for the Distinguished Flying
Cross, Hostettler.  I'm awarding them effective today," the general
said.  "You've got plenty of witnesses." He winked at the tanker crew.

"Forget this stuff about evaluation boards.  No one is going to
investigate a crew that saved two Phantoms and four pilots.  Besides,
your four-star boss owes me one, and it's time to collect."

"Sir," the tanker pilot said, "I think there is something else you
should know.  A MiG started to vector in on us, and Major Bannister took
him head-on.  His back-seater told me they didn't have anything to
shoot, either.  He got the MiG to fire wild, then run home.  Could have
been our asses."

"He did?" the general said, eyebrows raised.  "Two more DFCs,
Hostettler, " he said, indicating Court and Ev Stem.

"Sir," Ev Stem said.  "I guess you didn't hear it yet, but Major
Bannister got another MiG today."

a "Terrific," Commander, 7th, cried.  "By God, you two had helluva day.

Tell me about that MiG,- he ordered Court.

Court told him about the shoot-down that Ev had corroborated.  Then he
told him of the persistent MiG-21 that had tried to attack the tanker.

The general nodded when he mentioned the blue helmet.

"A Western diplomat in Hanoi has reported that one of the Russian pilot
advisors regularly flies with the North Vietnamese during raids," he
said.  "At Gia Lam, he once saw a Caucasian in a flight suit carrying a
light blue helmet.  Since that is the s a t ndard color for Soviet
helmets, we may assume your boy is a Russian pilot.  Is he any good,
Bannister?"

"He's good," Court said.  "Damn good.  He looked the general in the eye.

"But I'm better."

Commander, 7th Air FORCE, stared right back.  "I'd expect nothing less,"
he said.  He had a thin smile on his face.  He motioned for Bryce,
Apple, and Bannister to follow him to one side.  He spoke to Bryce. "See
that these two get scheduled for more MiG CAP missions than bombing.  I
want one of them to get the man in the blue helmet.

0930 HOURS LOCAL.  SATURDAY, 4 NovEmBER 1967

O-2 DETACHMENT DA NANG AIR BASE REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

The two engines of the battered C-123 transport spun to a halt as the
car-go doors opened.  Toby Parker stepped out into the hot sun and
steamy humidity of the Da Nang flight line.  Along with the other twelve
passengers, he retrieved his luggage after the loadmaster had removed
the red net from the items stacked on the cargo ramp.  The sun was so
bright Parker had to squint behind his aviator's sunglasses.  He was
lean and tan.  His blue officer's cap with the silver piping was
crunched down at a cocky angle over his crew-cut hair.  He wore a K-213
flight suit, with a patch showing he was an O-2 pilot who had been
through the theater indoctrination school for FACs at Phan Rang Air Base

300 miles south of Da Nang.  He slung his duffel bag over his left
shoulder, picked up his canvas B-4 bag in his right hand, and walked to
the Quonset hut bearing a "Passenger Terminal" sign.  Next to the hut
was the Base Operations building and the multistoried control tower.

Inside, on the dispatcher's counter, Toby Parker found a small
fly-specked typewritten sign over a black telephone with no dial.

He read where incoming personnel for the 20th TASS were to ask for
extension 2020.  He did as requested.

Within an hour, he was in the office of Lieutenant Colonel Chuck
Annillo, the squadron commander.  Annillo was a dark, thick-shouldered
man, who once had been the lead quarterback at Chapel Hill.  He wasted
no words.

"Parker, you have a lousy reputation.  The word I get is that you drink
too much and you have a bad attitude.  I don't know if any of that is
true and I don't care.  All I care about is your performance in this
squadron.  I expect you to perform your duties in an outstanding manner.

See that you live up to my expectations.  Any questions?"

Toby Parker said no.  He was somewhat taken aback by this fierce and
fast greeting.  Then Annillo stood up and told Parker to follow him to
the intell section.

They went out the back door of the operations building, across the
grassy compound where the Covey FACs held their barbecues, to the
one-story concrete building housing the meager intelligence briefing
facilities.  The entire locality was in an old French compound next to
the east runway.  The Americans had tried with varying success to keep
up the crumbling buildings that were succumbing to the all-pervading
moisture and humidity of Vietnam.

Inside the building, Armillo led Parker to a floor-to-ceiting map of
Vietnam and Laos covered by clear acetate.  Next to the map was a large
wall clock with the letter H taped on its front.

The H, the eighth letter of the alphabet, meant Vietnam was eight HOURS
ahead of Greenwich Mean Time.  In Washington, the letter was R: five
HOURS behind GMT.

On the map, a long north-south slab of Laos next to Vietnam was titled
Steel Tiger.  A thick black hydra extended from North Vietnam, growing
more heads as it extended through the Steel Tiger portion of Laos into
South Vietnam.  Surrounding and on the hydra were hundreds of
overlapping red circles drawn with a grease pencil.  Annillo traced the
hydra with his forefinger.

"This is the Ho Chi Minh Trail," he said over his shoulder, "and these
red circles are the guns protecting it." He faced Parker.  "Our mission
here is different from those FAC units flying only close air support in
South Vietnam.  We do that, all right, but we also fly in Laos.  Since
that fact is still classified, we call the missions by the area code
name, Steel Tiger.  We have two primary responsibilities in Laos: find
and call in air strikes on supplies being sent down the Ho Chi Minh
Trail; and support Special Forces units crawling around the jungle on
reconnaissance or pilot rescue missions." He pointed to a photo of the
O-2 aircraft.  "Our little Oscar Deuce," he said, "is a bit underpowered
for the mission, but we make do.  In another year or so, we will get the
OV-10, a big turboprop that will fly rings around it." He slapped Parker
on the back.  "Let's go fly.  I want to see what you can do."

Bewildered by Annillo's abrupt maneuvers, Toby followed him out the
door.  The colonel did not tell Parker why he, the squadron commander,
rather than the operations officer, was flying with him, a new guy.  It
was because USAF Colonel Donald Dunne had called up Annillo from Tan Son
Nhut Air Base near Saigon.  Dunne, a staff officer, had once witnessed
Toby's drunken antics in an officer's club and had filed his name away
in his mind as an officer he wanted to cashier someday from the Air
FORCE.

"Your new guy, Parker," Dunne had said to Annillo, "is a drunken bum. He
doesn't belong in the Air FORCE.  Watch him.

The minute he makes a mistake, court-martial him and get him out." Dunne
was on an extended tour in the combat operations command post called
Blue Chip, located at 7th Air FORCE headquarters.

"With all due respect, Colonel," Annillo had replied, "it is true you
are in my operational chain of command-you can tell my squadron where to
fly and when.  But you most definitely are not in my administrative
chain of command.  It would make no difference if you were; I will judge
Parker myself.  How he performs under my command is how I will rate
him."

Parker and Annillo went to the personal equipment shop.  Toby was
assigned a hook with knobs, on which to hang his parachute, survival
vest and helmet, and a locker for his other flight equipment.  At no
time had Parker said one extra word.  An hour later, he was 15 miles
east of Da Nang, rolling an Oscar Deuce in on a deserted rock poking up
out of the South China Sea.

Lieutenant Colonel Annillo sat in the right seat while Parker flew.  He
watched Parker's every move as he rolled in from several directions and
dive angles on parts of the rock.  Annillo threw problem after problem
at Parker, who solved them quickly and with a flair, Annillo thought,
found only in the naturally gifted pilots.  Using grease pencil horizon
lines on the side window, he taught Toby how to lob rockets from what
might be considered a safe distance away from a heavy gun.

When Annillo throttled the rear engine back and said, "You have a failed
engine," Parker calmly started to check his survival gear and said he
would bail out.  "Why?" Annillo demanded.  "Because one engine isn't
enough power to keep this airplane airborne with the two of us in it,
and you outrank me," Parker replied.  Although some stateside pilots had
flown the Oscar Pig without parachutes to save weight, Toby Parker
wouldn't consider such a thing even though the rear propeller posed a
serious bailout problem.  Unlike jets with ejection seats, O-2 pilots
had only gravity to rely on.  Annillo grinned, pushed the power back up
to halt the gradual descent of the airplane, and said, "Take us back to
Dang Dang.  We'll refuel and rearm and go on a real mission."

1245 HOURS LOCAL, SATURDAY.  4 NOVEMBER 1967

AIRBORNE IN AN O-2 over THE Ho CHI MINH TRAIL ROYALTY OF LAOS

"We are just abeam of Khe Sanh," Annillo said.  "Tell Panama we are over
the fence.  Then turn starboard to a heading of 335 degrees for Mu Gia
Pass."

"Panama, this is Covey Four One," Parker transmitted on his UHF radio to
the radar unit on a mountaintop near Da Nang.

"Covey Four One, Panama.  Go."

"Panama, Covey Four One is over the fence."

"Copy, Four One.  Contact Hillsboro on Golf.  Good day."

"Panama, Covey Four One going to Golf." Parker checked his blue card for
the Golf frequency, dialed it in on the UHF, and checked in with
Hillsboro, the orbiting Airborne Command and Control ship.  Covey Four
One was Toby's permanently assigned Covey call sign.

Hillsboro was a four-engined turboprop C-130 with the back end full of
people and radio sets in a huge container called a capsule.  They had
maps and the frag order of the day, and enough radios to talk to the
Pentagon if need be.  (In fact, they often joked wryly about expecting
their Secretary of Defense to announce on high frequency that he was
personally taking over the frag for the rest of the day.)  The nighttime
orbiter was called Moonbeam.  Their mission was to coordinate aerial
functions: who could divert to where to handle what emergency, what FAC
needed what strike ordnance to take out what target.  Hillsboro did not
have radar.  That was the function of an airborne radar plane (College
Eye), a shipbome radar boat (Crown), and many land-based radars (Invert,
Lion, Brigham, Panama, to name a few).

"Say again your mission number, Covey Four One," Hillsboro asked.  They
couldn't find this call sign on their frag orders, "Four One is an
unfragged orientation flight," Armillo said.

"Rodge, Four One," Hillsboro said.  "Welcome to never never land.  Can
you handle fighters if need be?"

Annillo nodded to Parker.  "Roger that," Parker transmitted.

In fifteen minutes, Annillo was showing Parker the karst and lush jungle
around Ban Karai, one of the three passes that funneled supplies from
North Vietnam through the Annarnite Mountams into Laos.  They flew at
ten thousand feet in clear air.  To the east, lazy fat cumulus were
slowly building and spreading.

They orbited and watched as Covey Three Six put in an air strike of
three Navy A-4s against a target under the jungle trees that produced
only minor secondary explosions.  Annillo pointed out the white puffs of
23mm and larger bursts of 37mm directed against the Covey FAC and his
fighters.  Through some very adroit jinking, no one took any hits and
were soon on their way; the A4s back to their ship, and the Covey FAC
farther down the Trail, looking for targets of opportunity like a beagle
sniffing a forest track.

"I see something back in the trees behind the strike," Parker said.  He
pointed a darker area out to Armillo, who pulled up his binoculars and
studied the area.  "It might be a truck or two," he announced.  "Call
Hillsboro for some air."

Parker contacted Hillsboro and said they had a fleeting target of two or
more trucks at coordinates Whiskey Echo 331062.

Fifteen minutes later, Chevy flight, consisting of three F4s from Ubon,
checked in.

"Roger, Covey Four One, Chevy flight has mission number 1846.  We are
flight of three Fox Fours.  We have twenty-four Mark-82
five-hundred-pound bombs and six cans of CBUs.  We have you in sight."

"Roger, Chevy flight.  Your target is two or more trucks.  Target
elevation is 840 feet above sea level.  Wind is from the northwest at
about ten knots.  Altimeter setting is 29.97.  There are 23 and 37 mil
in the area to the immediate west of the target about three miles.  Safe
bailout area is back west to Thailand.  Use your bombs first.  Random
roll-in.  FAC is in to mark."

From ten thousand feet, Toby pulled the throttles back and rolled in to
fire a 2.75-inch Willy Pete smoke rocket at the jungle canopy where he
was sure the trucks were located.  His rocket went exactly where he
aimed, deep into the jungle.  Several seconds went by before some wisps
of white smoke drifted up and were quickly dissipated by ground wind.

"Chevy doesn't have your smoke, Covey," the F-4 flight leader chided.

Without looking at Annillo, Parker chose a clear spot to the south of
the target, rolled in, fired one rocket, raised the nose of the O-2
slightly, and fired another rocket one hundred feet north of the first.

He pulled up and broke away from the suspected gun positions and looked
over his shoulder.

"Hit three widths of my smoke to the north, Chevy, " he called.  Since
fifty or one hundred meters meant nothing to a fighter rolling in from
three miles high at speeds over 500 miles per hour, the known visual
distance between the two smokes was a common yardstick.  Chevy used it.

In four passes, Chevy flight put their bombs exactly where Toby had
instructed.  There were two large secondary explosions several feet
apart, indicating they had blown up two trucks or two cargo caches.

Toby told them to save their CBUs, which are useless on thick jungle
canopies, and cleared them off target.  After giving them the
coordinates, and their on- and off-target times, he told them their BDA
(Bomb Damage Assessment) was 100 percent ordnance on target, two trucks
probably destroyed, but no further BDA due to smoke and haze.  At least
telling a pilot he had 100 percent ordnance on target was something
positive.

"Where did you learn that one?" Annillo asked.  Until then, when they
couldn't see anything, the FACs had merely reported there was no
observable damage.  That was not morale-building.

"Down south," Parker replied.

"With Phil Travers?" Annillo asked.

"Yes," Parker answered, surprise obvious in his voice.  "How did you
know?"

"I know a lot about you.  Your old boss, Leonard Norman, is an old
friend.  I requested you by name after talking to him."

He thumbed toward the east.  "Okay.  Take us home.  You're checked out.

" Privately, Annillo thought Parker flew the mission as confidently as
if it were his fiftieth, not his first.

1615 HOURS LOCAL.  TUESDAY.  7 November 1967

AIRBORNE IN AN O-2A over THE Ho CHI MINH TRAIL ROYALTY OF LAOS

Toby Parker felt better than he had in months.  After his flight with
Colonel Annillo, he had had three more LOCAL and combat area dides with
the operations officer and two different squadron instructor pilots.

None had said much, but all had given him outstanding ratings.  He
hadn't had a drink since that day four weeks before at Fort Walton
Beach.  Nor did he smoke anymore.

He had been running and working out every day since.  He felt confident,
proud, and fit.  Better, he decided, better than he had in years.

Now he was on his first solo combat FAC mission.  It was a four-hour
flight, during which he was to put in two preplanned flights at the Ban
Karai Pass, then perform a Trail recce from there to Mu Gia Pass, 75
miles farther north.  As was customary, he was to make a radio check
with American troops at two Iocations, the Marines at Khe Sanh, and the
Special Forces at Lang Vei, as he flew into and out of Laos.

Indeed, Toby felt better.  So much so, in fact, he was belting out line
after line of "Roll Out the Ban-el." He sang as he automatically checked
all his engine and navigation gauges, and ran his finger along his map
to correlate it with ground reference points.  "We'll have a barrel of
fun" .  .  .  engine oil and temp in the green, RPMs okay .  .  . "We've
got the blues on the run" .  .  .

brown-green of Khe Sanh checkpoint and the Lang Vei SF camp .  .  . Zing
boom terrero.

At 1735, he was at 10,000 feet in the Ban Karai area.  He oriented
himself on the 5,300-foot karst peak.  He had checked in with Hillsboro,
who had dispatched his first set of strike planes to him.  By 1815, he
had put in the two sets of fighters.  The target had been a suspected
truck park hidden under two layers of jungle canopy.  No one really knew
where the coordinates on the 7th Air FORCE frag order had come from-a
ground team or agent, maybe.  All Toby and his two sets of fighters had
stirred up was a lot of dust and splintered trees.  After the leader of
the second flight heard Toby report no BDA due to smoke and dust, he
transmitted in a scolding voice that "If that's all you can scare up for
us, Covey, we ain't coming out to play no more."

"I'll do better next time," Toby had responded on his UHF radio.

Now he was doing a road recce from Ban Karai to Mu Gia Pass.  This is my
first time, he said to himself, I'll find something.  He flew the best
he could with one hand on the control wheel and one hand holding his
binoculars.  He let down to 7,200 above the ground, then 4,800.  He
never held a constant heading for more than ten seconds, and constantly
let his altitude drift up and down several hundred feet to spoil a
gunner's tracking solution.  He swept the meandering segments of the
Trail he could see, as it wound in and out of the jungle and through
several areas cratered so heavily by bombs it looked like mosaics of a
sandy moon.  "We'll have a barrel of fun." Several times, he orbited
over a suspicious area, looking for clues to enemy activity.  He was
looking for objects in the shadows of karst overhangs, off-olored
foliage, dust, tracks: anything of a suspicious nature.  Twice, he went
below 4,500 feet and drew long looping tracers from 23mm guns hidden in
karst caves.  His teeth were bared and he hummed his "Ban-el" song over
and over again.

He only had twenty minutes before it would be too dark to see anything,
much less put in an air strike.

When he saw it, he couldn't believe it.  He swallowed and looked again.

There it was, partially hidden in shadows from a karst cliff.  It was a
big beautiful ZIL-135 truck with a load capacity, he remembered, of ten
tons, and it looked as if that much were on board right now.  He snapped
his head away from his glasses and twisted his O-2 into an uncoordinated
circle.  He flew away from the truck and climbed higher to get a better
fix on the map of his location.

The face of the karst cliff ran north and south.  Toby estimated it to
be three hundred feet high.  The truck was under an overhang that faced
east.  He was lucky to see it.  The whole face was in shadow, since the
sun was behind it, descending in the west.  The overhang gave out to
about forty feet of open area before the jungle started.  Old eagle
eyes, he congratulated himself, and whooped.  Yahoooo.  EEhaahhh.

He called Hillsboro and said he needed air to put on a truck.

"You got a positive ID on that truck, Covey Four One?" the Hillsboro
controller asked.

"Roger that," Toby responded.  "Old eagle eyes is on the job." Toby gave
him his mission number, the location of the truck, and a rendezvous
point for the fighters off the NKP TACAN Channel 89.

"We'll get your fighters, Covey.  How much playtime you got?  "

Toby was startled.  In his excitement, he had forgotten he needed an
hour and a half of fuel to get back to Da Nang.  He quickly checked his
gauges and computed how much loiter time-playtime-he had remaining
before he had to start back.

"Zero plus twenty," he said.  He had twenty minutes to get the fighters
in, mark the target for them, and, hopefully, have it destroyed.

With eight minutes remaining, Pontiac, a flight of two Fox Fours from
Ubon, checked in with four 500-pound Mark-82 bombs each.

Sorry, Covey," Pontiac Lead transmitted, "we got diverted from striking
another target.  This is the best we can do before nightfall.  Hillsboro
told us about your truck.  We're ready.  Old eagle eyes, huh?"

"Roger that, Pontiac.  Your target is one each large supply truck.

Target elevation is 700 feet above sea level.  Wind is from the west at
five knots.  Altimeter setting is 29.93.  I haven't observed any ground
fire in the area.  Safe bailout area is west to Thailand.  Make your
passes east to west.  The truck is under an overhang, so you will have
to work your bombs in.  FAC is in to mark." Toby's voice was light and
confident.

He rolled his O-2 up on a wing, pulled the nose around and down until he
was heading toward the overhang.  From this high angle he couldn't see
the truck, so he walked two rockets up to where he knew it was hidden.

He broke left and jinked away.

"Got your smoke, Covey," Pontiac Lead transmitted.

"Roger, you're cleared in hot, east to west with a north break.

You'll have to press it a bit to get those bombs under there, then some
yanking and banking to get out," Toby said.

"Rodge.  I'll make a damn near level run in, then pull up right smartly.

Pontiac Lead is in, FAC in sight." All commands were in the clear.

Things just happened too fast for code words.  Intel had said there
probably wasn't a UHF radio receiver and English speaker available,
anyhow.

Toby orbited at four thousand feet over the run-in path of the two
Pontiac Phantoms.  They would pass well under him.  He watched lead
flash below him and saw two bombs detach from his belly to fly parallel
toward the overhang, then the pilot pulled sharply right and up.  His
wingman, Pontiac Two, called he was rolling in.

"Cleared in, Two," Toby said.

As Pontiac Lead flashed over the top of the karst cliff, the whole world
lit up.  Stream after stream of 23mm from the top of the rock played out
after Pontiac Lead; two streams reached out for Toby's airplane; three
hosed level, letting their shells fall downward into Pontiac Two's
run-in path.  At the same time, clips of five and seven 37mm shells
began to burst at 10,000 feet, effectively causing an overcast of
exploding steel.

"Pull up, pull up, Two; break it off," Toby screamed into the radio.

"Lead's hit," Pontiac One transmitted.

"Jesus Christ," Pontiac Two said, as he yanked back and up.

A tracer stream touched his plane briefly.

Toby felt a crash and a bang behind him and his cabin filled with white
smoke and the sweet metallic smell of cordite.  At the same time, his
plane rocked sideways as he flew through three bursts of 37mm.  Black
smoke engulfed his plane for an instant and tearing metal shards ripped
out most of the Plexiglas from the right window.  The airplane flew out
of the bursts, nearly inverted, front and rear engines roaring.  He
wrestled with the control wheel.  He could feel heat behind him and he
smelled burning insulation.  When he had the wings level, he let go of
the controls and reached down for the 20-pound red fire extinguisher. As
the plane started to fall off on a wing, he pulled the pin and shot it
back over his shoulder with one hand and leveled the plane with the
other.  Then he looked back and directed the CO, stream into the wrecked
radios where a 23mm had burst.

The bulk of the radios had contained the explosion and the fire, which
went out under the blast of the CO,.  With the fire out and the airplane
under control, he scanned his instruments.  All the needles on the
gauges looked to be where they should be.  He tried his radios.  They
were dead.  He looked around for the fighters and saw absolutely
nothing.  Except for some residual and fast-dissipating white smoke, the
air was as clear as if nothing had happened.  He looked around and down
in the karat region.

There were no columns of black greasy smoke indicating an airplane had
crashed.

Bewildered, he started an orbit at 10,000 feet off to one side, well out
of range of the guns.  "I've got to find my fighters," he said out loud.

He saw nothing.  He looked about in a panic.

Where are they?  Oh God, I've lost my fighters.

He stabbed at the radio control button on the control wheel again and
again, as if he could FORCE his shattered radios to work.

Calm down, Parker.  Calm down, he told himself.  He reached under his
parachute harness for the small radio in his survival vest, extended the
antenna, and held it close to his lips.  He cupped his hands in an
attempt to deaden the roar of the slipstream tearing at the broken right
window.

"Hillsboro, Hillsboro, this is Covey Four One on guard channel.  Do you
read?"

"Covey Four One, Hillsboro.  We read you faint but clear.

What is your status?"

"I'm okay.  My radios are out.  I'm using my survival radio.

Where are my fighters?  What happened to Pontiac flight?"

"Take it easy, Covey.  They both took some rounds.  Pontiac Two's
back-seater is hit bad.  Lead's okay.  They are on their way home.  They
thought you had been shot down.  Are you sure you don't have battle
damage?"

"Just my radios and a smashed window.  I'm headed back to home plate."

Suddenly, a very loud and angry voice blasted through the small speaker
of the radio that Parker held to his ear.

"FOUR ONE, YOU DUMB SHIT.  THAT WAS A FLAK TRAP AND MY BACK-SEATER WAS
HIT.  HE'S FUCKING BLEEDING TO DEATH.  IT'S YOUR FAULT, YOU BASTARD."

"Easy, Pontiac Two," the Hillsboro controller transmitted.

"Ambulance and crash crew are standing by at Ubon for you.

Please leave guard channel and go to a discreet frequency.  Break,
break.  Covey Four One, give radar a call every fifteen minutes on
guard, so someone knows you're okay.  Copy?"

Toby Parker mumbled he understood.  He was stunned.  He circled
aimlessly for a moment.  He fumbled for his binoculars and focused them
on the karst overhang.  In the failing light, he saw a fire where the
truck had been.  The bombs of Pontiac Lead must have touched it off, he
thought.  That was some satisfaction.

But a flak trap?  Then he realized there was something wrong with the
fire.  It was small and even, and gave off white smoke.

A burning truck would have gas or diesel fuel and tires to burn red and
emit gobs of black smoke.  This was more like a wood fire.

"OH SHIT,- he screamed at the top of his lungs.  "SHIT!

SHIT!  SHIT!" He pounded his knee.  I've fallen for the oldest trick in
the books.  I burned down a decoy set as bait in a flak trap.  His eyes
burned-with bitter tears as he turned southeast toward Da Nang.

He flew, numb and mechanical, for several minutes.  By rote, he checked
his instruments.  His mind duly registered that the engine instruments
were satisfactory.  The fuel gauge indicated he had just enough gas
remaining to make it back to Da Nang.

Little "off" flags had dropped over the gauges of the directional needle
and the distance readout of his TACAN navigational radio.  That's not
important, he thought, mind in a haze.  Damn little is important.  Damn
little.

Below him, long lances of shadow speared down from the jagged karst
peaks into the green and brown jungle valleys.

Ahead of him, towering pillars of cumulus clouds, dark at their bases
where they protruded from the purple haze, rose as stately cathedrals to
blaze majestically white as their tops caught the last rays of the
setting sun behind him.  They were early evening thunderstorms birthing
themselves with the moist air being swept inland from the South China
Sea.  Scattered now, they would soon form a solid north-south line that
halted at the Annamite Mountain chain, presenting a massive barrier
between the mountains and the air base at Da Nang.  Even now, at this
early stage inside of them, sixty-mile-an-hour vertical winds were
causing so much air friction that charged particles were building more
electrical energy than could ever have been created by man.  Already,
tentative fingers of lightning were reaching from cloud to cloud.  Soon,
very soon, they would become giant discharges of fearsome power between
the ground and the night clouds, and would rend the air with
ear-splitting shock waves.  Although any one of their destructive
elements-the shearing and wrenching vertical winds, the megawatts of
electrical power, or the vacuum left after a bolt of lightning streaked
through the air-could tear an airplane apart, most airplanes were
destroyed by being ripped asunder by the vertical winds.  If a pilot
tried to pass under a thunderstorm-their bases were usually at 6,000
feet-the dniving rain and vertical wind shears would hammer the airplane
out of the sky.  More violent and wrenching things awaited the pilot who
tried to fly through a thunderstorm.  Pieces of him and his craft could
be bounced aloft for minutes, maybe HOURS, before they were finally spit
out.  If a pilot flew too close to a thunder storm, particularly near or
under the roll cloud protruding from the top of the anvil-shaped cloud,
the plane could be shattered by giant hailstones that had been formed by
water droplets pummeled up and down in the belly of the storm, gathering
size with each vertical movement like layers of pearl forming about a
grain of sand.

The thunderstorms developed and matured even further during the thirty
minutes it took Toby Parker to reach the turning point west of Khe Sanh.

He had not heard Hillsboro calling him on guard channel, warning him to
divert to Ubon because of the storms.  He had long before turned off his
survival radio and tucked it under a leg strap.  If he had made his
fifteen-minute call as ordered, he would have gotten the same
instructions from Panama, the Da Nang radar site.  None of the
controllers figured he could make it to Da Nang.

It was dark now.  Soon it would be pitch black.  Even the sun no longer
lit up the tops of the clouds billowing and towering miles over the tiny
airplane.  Toby Parker sat slumped in his pilot's seat, hands gripping
the control wheel, feet on the rudder pedals.  Although he had climbed
to altitude to save fuel, and had leaned out the engines' fuel-air
mixture to cut fuel flow, his airplane was still slowly climbing, a few
hundred feet per minute.  He had been taught to trim slightly nose up in
combat.  The theory was that in case a pilot suffered a hit and could
not control his aircraft for a few minutes, it would climb rather than
settle slowly to the ground.  Had he been monitoring the flight
instruments more closely, he would have noticed his gradual increase in
altitude.

By time and distance alone, he had instinctively turned almost due east
at the Khe Sanh checkpoint.  Da Nang now lay one hour's flying time in
front of him.  There was barely enough fuel in the tanks of his O-2 for
one hour and ten minutes' flying time.

The air became more turbulent.  His hands and feet manipulated the
controls as unthinkingly as a person lost in thought strolling a rocky
beach.

Soon the instruments on his panel were unreadable.  He had been using
what there was of the visual horizon to keep his wings level, and, he
supposed, to maintain a constant altitude.

He had glanced just enough at an interior compass to correct his
heading.  Ahead, continuous lightning flashing and dancing between
clouds and to the ground provided just enough visual cues to keep him
from losing all outside reference points as he approached the ancient
mountain chain, climbing, climbing.  .  .  .

His head felt heavy.  He stared straight ahead, oblivious to the roaring
of the engines or the wind moaning and whistling through the broken
right window.  His mind was repeating over and over the words yelled at
him by the angry Pontiac Two: "That was a flak trap.....  flak trap .  .

.  my back-seater was hit .  .  .  bleeding to death.....  bleeding to
death .  .  .  hit.....  bleeding to death .  .  .  death.....  your
fault, you bastard.....  your fault."

His mind pictured a pilot slumped in his harness, blood pouring from a
wound in his chest.  Suddenly, he saw the scene in the airplane a year
before when his pilot, Phil Travers, had been gut-shot.  Phil had moaned
and thrashed and was about to crash the tiny O-1 airplane when finally
Toby had had to hit him on the back of the head with his service .45 to
quiet him down.

"I killed him.  I killed Phil.  Now I've just killed another pilot,"
Toby said out loud, in a voice lost in the cockpit noise.  A violent
crack-bang sounded, as a streak of lightning superheated the air when it
shot past his left wing.  The plane bucked and pitched, first lightly,
then heavily, as small vertical wind shear shook it.  The thunderstorm
line was closer.  Toby stared in trancelike fascination at the lightning
display as he flew closer and closer.  His plane had climbed through
14,000 feet.  The engines were losing horsepower in the thin air.  The
airspeed needle slowly unwound toward the red-lined stall speed.

Brilliant and dazzling flashes of light revealed his tiny plane to be
flying toward columns and pillars that soared seven an I d eight miles
above him into the night sky.  His plane began buffeting more
frequently, and with greater ferocity.

He began an unconscious chant: bleeding to death .  .  .  bleeding to
death .  .  .  I killed them .  .  .  I killed them.  The wind whistle
in the broken window dropped imperceptibly to a low moan as the airspeed
fell off in the thin air.  The air temperature dropping two degrees per
thousand feet of altitude, was now chilly as it swirled through the
cockpit.  Toby began an uncontrollable shivering.  Someplace in the back
of his mind, with curious detachment, he saw his tiny airplane entering
the most gigantic of the thunderstorms, one that towered over 50,000
feet and was lit up inside with continuous lightning like a celestial
cathedral.  He saw his craft being flung up I and up-until there was
quiet and peace, and oblivion, peaceful oblivion.  He began to feel very
tired, and wanted nothing but to sleep.

"Hey, Tobes, old buddy, how ya doin'?" said Phil Travers from the right
seat.  Toby clearly saw his red hair and infectious grin in the almost
continuous strobes of white light.

"Aw, Phil, Phil," he cried into the cockpit.  The plane was bouncing,
struts and other metal braces beginning to creak and POP.

"Hey, Tobes, old buddy.  Like I always said, you gotta fly the bird, not
let it fly you.  Now, you ain't flying this here airplane."

"Phil," Toby cried again, "I want to sleep.  Take me with you.  .  .  ."

On the darkened panel, the airspeed indicator wavered just a few knots
above stall speed.  One more upsetting vertical draft and the plane
would fall off into a diving spiral, or a spin.

"Come on, I taught you better than that.  First you gotta breathe, then
you gotta fly the bird.  Breathe and fly.  Breathe and fly.

The plane shuddered and tipped as a violent draft of air slammed down
the right wing.  Breathe and fly.  Breathe and fly.

The nose of the O-2 rose up almost vertical, then the airplane stalled
and started down in a tightening spin.  Toby, hands now in his lap, lay
slumped in his harness, head rolling with the motion of the airplane.

His eyes were closed, a look of great peace on his face.  Lightning
bathed the sharp karst peaks below with pitiless blue-white light.

Breathe and fly, breathe and fly.

The words meant .  .  .  nothing.  Breathe and .  .  .  breathe and .  .

.  breathe .  .  .  The death spiral tightened.  The wind whistle
returned, rising in pitch.

"Come on, Parker," Phil Travers shouted into Toby's mind, "BREATHE AND
FLY!"

As if with a will of their own, Toby's hands slowly crept from his lap.

They fumbled with the side of the survival kit he sat on.

There was a pop as he pulled a little green knob.  He lifted a rubber
tube and slowly moved it toward his face.  Without opening his eyes, he
pushed it into his mouth.  The tube emitted a constant flow of pure
oxygen.

"BREATHE AND FLY,- Toby Parker shouted, and sat bolt upright.  He held
the tube and sucked in the life-giving oxygen.

In a split second his senses returned as the 100 percent pure oxygen
flooded his starved system.  Fully alert, he looked about, finally
registering the danger in what he saw.

In the illuminated canyon, he saw enough reference points to know he was
in a right-hand spin.  He slammed in left rudder, at the same time
shoving the control wheel full to the instrument panel.  The plane
groaned, as the spinning motion abruptly stopped and the plane screamed
down in a dive, engines shrieking in overspeed.  Toby snatched the
throttles back and slowly raised the nose, mindful of not overstressing
the airframe in the now turbulent air.  He continued sucking on the
oxygen.  When the plane was under control, he eased the throttles
forward, then flipped some switches up on the instrument panel, lighting
his cockpit gauges.  They faded into purple swirls as he was dazzled by
successive brilliant flashes, and deafened by the continuous roll of
thunder.  He turned up the lamp clamped on his left to bathe the panel
in a glare of white light that would override his flash blindness.

His mind almost froze in horror as he saw the altimeter needle He was
barely three hundred feet above the nearest karst.  He slammed the
throttles to the stops to climb away from the reaching teeth.  He clawed
his way back up to 9,000 feet.  His head was clear now, and he no longer
needed the raw oxygen.  Outside, the air was all turbulence and flash
and crashing rain as he turned the control wheel and pushed rudder to
steer the bucking aircraft away from the storm barrier and toward a
calmer section.

His mind was working now, taking in and processing data.

Fuel level-low.  Position-uncertain.  Radios-still out.  He picked up
the survival radio.

"Panama, Panama, this is Covey Four One on guard.  Do you read, over?

He held the small radio to his ear and heard only the hissing of the UHF
carrier wave.

"Panama, Covey Four One on guard.  How do you read?"

.  .  .Four One, this is Panama.  Read you weak and garbled.

Squawk flash for identification."

The voice was faint but clear through the hiss.  Toby reached down to
activate the switch on his radar transponder that, if it was working,
would throw out an extra burst of energy to light up the controller's
screen in his sector.  It was one of the few working electronic devices.

"Covey Four One, Panama on guard.  We have a positive ID.

What are your intentions?"

Toby almost laughed.  My intentions, he said to himself, are Jive.

"Panama, my intentions are for you to thread me through the
thunder-bumpers to recover at Da Nang as quickly as possible.  I am at
an emergency fuel state.  You copy?"

"Four One, Panama.  Steer one zero five degrees.  We have you, and we
have good paints, on the thunderstorm cells.  What is vour fuel state?"

'oby checked his gauges.  By leveling at 9,500 and leaning the two
engines, he could stay aloft for fifty minutes.

"Five zero minutes remaining, Panama.  Can you do me any good?" There
was a long pause before the Panama controller answered.  Sorry for the
delay.  Did a little calculating here.  You have a nice west-to-east
tail wind.  Even zigzagging around the storms, we can have you over the
base in forty-five minutes."

The controller knew what he was talking about.  Everything worked.  In
forty-three minutes exactly, Toby Parker was on the ground, safely in a
revetment, shutting his front engine down.

The rear had quit from fuel exhaustion as he taxied in.  The
thunderstorms passed out to sea, muttering and grumbling.

The bright ramp lights mounted high up on poles glistened on the wet
steel planking of the fight line.  Lieutenant Colonel Chuck Annillo
waited for Toby in an open jeep.

"I told everyone to stay behind until I talked to you," he said.  Toby
could tell Annillo knew the whole story of the flakbait truck.  The
Intelligence people at Ubon, or maybe Pontiac's squadron commander, had
called Annillo to the phone.

"How is that back-seater?" Toby asked, afraid he knew the answer.

"Look, son," Annillo said, looking at Parker in the darkness, not moving
the jeep.  "Most anybody could fall for that trap.

Especially a new guy You're going to do just fine around here.

Take my word for it.;' "He's dead, isn't he?" Parker said.

Annillo nodded, a look of great compassion on his face.

"Yeah, son, he's dead.  Think you can live with that?"

Toby Parker's eyes glistened, but he straightened his back and lifted
his chin.  "Yeah," he said, "yeah.  I can live with that.

But it will never happen again.  I'll never be sucked in again."

He looked sharply at Annillo.  "You still want me in the squadron?" he
asked.

"You bet, son.  Remember, I hand-picked you, and I don't pick losers."

He slammed Toby Parker on the back, then dropped the jeep into gear.  As
he turned toward the intelligence shack, he thought of what he had told
Colonel Donald Dunne down at 7th Air FORCE when Dunne had demanded Toby
Parker be court-martialed for dereliction of duty or criminal negligence
or malfeasance, or whatever could be hung on him.

"How much you been shot at, Colonel?" Annillo had demanded.

"What does that have to do with this?"

"That's what I thought," Armillo replied.  "You come up here and fly
Covey for a couple weeks and then we'll talk further.

Out." Armillo had hung up the phone, and Dunne hadn't called back.

1530 HOURS LOCAL, TUESDAY, 7 NOVEMBER 1967

OVAL OFFICE, THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON, D.C.

The President turned to face Major General Albert G.  Whisenand.  "You
know why I keep you around, you piss-ant?  I keep you around to see how
long I can restrain from stepping on you.

There is only one elephant here and you are looking at him."

Whitey's face flamed as he stood in front of Johnson's desk.

"Mister President," he said in a voice edged in steel, "you are
demeaning yourself and, more important, you are demeaning your office by
talking that way.  Furthermore, you are totally ignoring the information
I am bringing to you from Vietnam.  I went to Vietnam at your request to
ask your questions and now you won't listen to the answers."

"You didn't bring the right answers," the President fumed.

"Why can't you agree with Westmoreland-now he's a 'can-do' fella-and
Rostow and Bunker?  Listen to me, Whisenand, this is a war like no
other.  We have no songs, no parades, no bond drives and we can't win
the war otherwise." He waved his arms.

"Go get a colorful general, with his shirt collar open like MacArthur,
to go over and argue with the press.  We've got to do something
dramatic." He seemed unaware of his previous tirade.

From behind his desk, the President drew himself up to his full
six-foot-three height.  "Let me tell you something else.  It isn't just
Vietnam, you know.  I've got to deal with major military crises abroad
and with social reforms at home.  I've got race riots in Newark and
Detroit.  I'm trying to pass a tax surcharge to slow inflation.  And now
Westmoreland wants more troops, the Joint Chiefs and Oley Sharp at
CINCPAC want more raids up north, I've got a Secretary of Defense going
dovish on me, and--he glared at Whitey--you stand there and tell me we
are losing the war in Vietnam." He stomped from around the desk and
headed toward the fireplace, Halfway there, he turned back to face
Whitey Whisenand.  He was fired up again.

"This is not my war.  This is not Johnson's war.  This is your war. This
is America's war.  If I drop dead tomorrow, this war will still be with
you." LBJ glared at Whitey as he spoke.

"Mr.  President," Whitey began, not sure he was in control of himself,
"you want solutions and strategies for winning the war, but you can't
tell me what 'win' means.  Do you want political stability in the South?

Do you want them free from attack by the Communists from the North?  Do
you want to destroy the Communist North?  If you cannot make up your
mind what course to follow, how can you expect this country to make it
up for you?  You don't seem to have a plan, and the plan your commander
in Vietnam has is faulty because you haven't given him a covenant to go
out and win."

Johnson flared up.  "Just what do you mean by that?"

After talking to the three Special Forces men in Saigon and, ,later,
General Westmoreland again, Whitey had spent long HOURS with lower level
staff officers in MACV and the Pentagon, and with analysts of the
Central Intelligence Agency.  He had come to a conclusion that was not
flattering to COMUSMACV.

"I mean that General Westmoreland firmly believes he is, as he says,
'attriting' the Communist forces with his Search and Destroy method
faster than they can replenish themselves.  He is not.  The fact that he
is not can be proven.  Because he is held back from all-out offensive
operations, attrition is his only strategy and it is not working.  The
CIA will brief you at any time on the details." Whitey nodded.  "Ho Chi
Minh can sustain attrition.  He welcomes attrition.  Remember what his
General Giap said about Dien Bien Phu.  'One hundred thousand to glory
for this victory." Ho will use attrition and world opinion, flamed by
selected protesters, until we get tired and go home."

Whitey saw the President seem to sink into himself.  "You have some
lonely decisions to make, Mr.  President, but you must make them.  You
wanted to be President.  Now make some Presidential decisions.  That's
what you asked for, that's what you got, that's what you get paid for.

Make some decisions."

Whitey could feel hotness rise in his cheeks.  He continued.

"I see it this way.  Ho Chi Minh is betting we will lose public opinion
in the States before he loses the war in the south; or we build a viable
democratic nation in the south."

The President blew out a lungful of air.  "All right," he said.

"All right.  You want some decisions; I'll make some goddamned
decisions.  We are not going to invade the North.  That is final.  But
we will not stop bombing up there.  .  .  ." He held up a finger.  "Yet
I will still select the targets.  In a nut-gut, I still want to make
Ho's infiltration too costly, and I want to exert pressure on him to
stop aggression in the South.  That is what I want to do.  And McNamara,
he's got a new way of doing it."

LBJ gave a fleeting smile, and continued.  "Yup, the perfessor, Bob,
he's got this new thing called Igloo something.  Maybe he doesn't want
you to strike up north, but he wants you guys to drop sensors all over
the Ho Chi Minh Trail.  They're supposed to feed information to a big
computer someplace over there in Thailand.  You know the program?"

"Yes, sir, I do.  Igloo White.  The Air FORCE is to drop acoustic and
seismic sensors, camouflaged as branches and twigs, along the Trail at
precisely known spots.  The sensors will pick up the sound or vibration
of troops or trucks passing by and relay that datum to a computer in the
USAF complex at Nalchom Phanom Air Base in Thailand.  Based on the
input, the computer will print out the location, direction, and
intensity of what they have detected.  From that printout, Blue Chip,
the command post at Tan Son Nhut, can order air strikes." Whitey leaned
back, his face without expression.  "The system should be in operation
in a matter of weeks.  Total cost will be over two billion."

"Whitey," the President said, "when you get that blank look on your
face, you're against something.  What is it?  Tell me the nut-gut of the
Igloo stuff.  Igloo .  .  .  in a jungle.  Who thinks up these names?"

"Mr.  President, the names are from USAF computer codes.

What I have against Igloo White is that one of our two basic premises is
incorrect.  Let's assume the first premise is true, that electronically
the system will work.  But the second premise, that the North Vietnamese
don't know the system is there, can never be true.  They will know,
because every base that the launching aircraft fly from, whether in
Vietnam or Thailand, is penetrated to one degree or another.  Agents see
and report what weapons the aircraft carry.  They will know, because
those on the ground will see American airplanes flying new patterns,
very low and straight and level, while the sensors are being dropped.

And they will see the Americans dropping new 'weapons." In short order,
they will find the sensors and figure out what they are for.  Then they
have three options: destroy them, move them, or feed in false
information.  It wouldn't take much to set up one truck to drive in a
pattern all night to make us think a big convoy is there.  Or,
conversely, cover a microphone while a division passes by."

"So you don't think they will work?"

"That is correct, sir.  I don't think they will work."

"But you think we have to beef up the strikes on old Ho's Trail, don't
you?"

"Yes, sir, I do," Whitey said.  He judged that the time was now.  "I
have a way to get the job done better," Whitey said, thinking of his
conversation with Bull Dall and Wolf Lochert.

He told the President about increased surveillance and the resul- ig
tant air strikes in the Steel Tiger area.  He told him that the air
assets would be available with the concurrence of 7th Air FORCE and
CINCPAC, and that COMUSMACV must be asked for additional Special Forces
input.

LBJ stood at the window for a long moment, with his hands behind his
back.  Then he turned and pointed his finger at Whitey

"Here's how it is, from the beginning.  I will let you carry on with
Rolling Thunder, but under the same rules of engagement as before; you
can't mine the harbors or permanently cut the rail lines.  You can't
attack airfields unless I say so.  Maybe you're right about McNamara's
Igloo White line.  Maybe it won't work.

Based on what you just told me, I want you to tell the JCS to step up
the bombing on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.  I don't know where, yet.  But I
want you to get those trucks before Ho sticks lem up my ass.  Day and
night, go get 'em.  Seal that supply line of Ho's up like a polar bear's
ass." The President walked over to a map of Southeast Asia pinned to a
tripod easel.  He moved his hand up and down Laos, the country that
bordered Vietnam to the west.  Long thick black arrows marked the Trail,
where it came in from North Vietnam through the passes at Mu Gia and Ban
Karai, then fanned south through the Laotian panhandle and on into
Cambodia and South Vietnam.

"Where would you do it?" he said, slapping the palm of his hand on the
Laotian panhandle.

Whitey pointed to the northern panhandle of Laos that included Mu Gia
Pass.  "Right here, Mr.  President," he said.

"Right here in this area we call Steel Tiger."

"Then that, by God, is what we do." He turned from Whitey to look at the
map he had just touched.  "Set it up, Whisenand.

Set your plan in motion.  But I want results, you understand?

Bankable results.  Or you, General Wlhisenand, will be reduced, retired,
and railroaded out of Washington."

0130 HOURS LOCAL, WEDNESDAY.  15 NOVEMBER 1967

FORWARD OPERATING BASE NEAR BAN ME THUOT I CORPS REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Based on Whitey's input and rationale, the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed
with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to increase American Special
Forces activity on the ground in Laos, in conjunction with stepped up
air strikes on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Privately, they were apprehensive that COMUSMACV, General William Childs
Westmoreland, would ask for more troops.

It took less than thirty-six HOURS in the Pentagon for the message to go
out from Army DCSOPS (the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations), to
PACAF, to COMUSMACV, requiring increased Trail watching and the
destruction by air of supplies thereon.  General Westmoreland requested
his operations people to take care of the request.  Certain non-SF
one-star generals, with happy approbation by some equally non-SF
colonels, surreptitiously downgraded the command to a request for a
feasibility study to be performed by Colonel Fred John Dall, Commander
of the 5th Special Forces Group at Nha Trang.  Unaware of the cabal,
Bull Dall felt the study requirement was better than no increased Trail
activity at all.  He sent a lateral message to operations at 7th Air
FORCE for a drop aircraft to be ready when requested by the 5th.  PACAF
and 7th Air FORCE prepared for extra air strike sorties into Steel
Tiger.

In three days, Wolf Lochert had assembled his team and the training
began.  Their call sign was to be Dakota.  He had with him two American
Special Forces NCOs, Frenchy Roland and Dave Rhoades, and three Nungs,
and the Vietnamese called Huey Dan.  They were supported at a Forward
Operating Base near Ban Me Thuot, 150 miles south of Da Nang, where a
mission launch team helped them prepare.  They went into isolation:
signals and paper in, nothing out.  They spent a week running in the
woods and mountains nearby, getting to know the signals, the equipment,
the mission, but most important-getting to know each other.  Wolf
explained their twofold mission:

(1) Determine if there were sufficient and suitable targets of
opportunity for ground-controlled air strikes to merit in creasing the
number of Trail watch teams, (2) Determine if indigenous Laotian natives
could be recruited for an underground to convey shot-down aircrew to
safety.

Just before sundown on the night of 14 November, they departed their FOB
by helicopter and landed at Da Nang.  Thirty minutes past midnight, they
were airborne in an Air FORCE C- 130.

The Herky bird, as the crew called their thirty-ton Hercules transport,
was powered by four turboprop engines of 4,000 horsepower each.  The
Herky bird could carry eighteen tons of cargo or 64 fully rigged
paratroopers.  Tonight, it took off with a total of thirteen men on
board.  It would land with only the five USAF crew members and the SF
launch officer from the FOB whose job it was to see the HALO team safely
out the door over the correct area.

The seven men who were to free-fall into Laos sat in the rear of the
plane on the pull-down canvas seats.  Each man was loaded with sixty
pounds of gear and two parachutes, one steerable ASPI backpack, and one
chest pack reserve.  Attached to the top of the reserve was an altimeter
and a timer set in a curved aluminum frame.  Each breathed oxygen from a
walk-around bottle when the C-130 was level at 18,500 feet.  Rather than
decompress when it was time to jump, the plane flew the entire outbound
leg of the mission without engaging the pressurization system.  During
the free-fall, they would breathe oxygen supplied under constant
pressure to their masks from foot-long green cylinders that had a
ten-minute supply.

The men were dressed in standard Army olive-drab jungle fatigues, with
black spray paint creating uneven camouflage lines.  The material of the
Special Forces tiger suits had not proven as suitable for long-term
jungle wear as the fatigues.

They had cut the wide cargo pockets off the bottom of the shirts so they
could be tucked into their pants.  They had added pockets to their
sleeves.  They wore Nornex pilot's gloves, with the fingers cut out for
the right hand.  All had used a camouflage stick on their faces.

The fatigues were sterile; there were no rank or insignia tabs, nor were
there any manufacturer labels.  Nor did the men wear dog tags or carry
any ID cards.  Most of their gear came from a CIA warehouse in Da Nang.

Even their packets of freeze-dried food were in unmarked plastic bags.

This was a clandestine mission into a supposedly neutral country where
supposedly no U.S.  troops were operating.  To maintain this fiction,
there could be no identifying labels, tags, or cards.  Of course, this
meant that in case of capture the men could be shot out of hand as
spiesall in accordance with the Geneva Convention.  There were also tens
of thousands of North Vietnamese troops in Laos, even though Ho Chi
Minh's people proclaimed daily there were not.

Each Dakota man cheated to some extent.  The Nungs carried joss sticks
and pictures of a revered leader, Phuc Po.  Roland and Rhoades each had
small untraceable mementos: a lucky rock for Frenchy, an ivory Buddha
for Dave.  Wolf carried a picture of a green-eyed American beauty named
Charmaine and a fragment of his first green beret, which had long since
shredded (it was one of the early Canadian hats).

Huey Dan carried no visible memento.  In his heart was hatred more than
sufficient to see him through this, perhaps his final mission.  He had
conferred with his sector commander and with Colonel Nguyen Van Tung.

They had learned of the new American plan to patrol and interdict the
Truong Son trail, as they called the long supply route.  They knew that
Lochert's group was really only a study effort.  If it failed, then the
whole effort would be finished.  Huey Dan had been assigned to ensure
that the study plan failed.  The time had come for Huey Dan to extract
the blood revenge for which he had waited and bided his time ever since
that nrui lo Wolf Lochert had killed his son with a stiletto.

Team Dakota's sixty pounds of equipment was a mixture of radios,
rations, weapons, ammunition, medical supplies, and clothes.  Huey Dan
carried two extra concealed items.  Their weapons were all Sino-Soviet
and East Bloc manufactured, not only to maintain the fiction, but, more
important, to avoid the distinctive sounds American weapons made in
battle, thereby giving their position away.  Among them was a Dragunov
7.62 airborne sniper rifle with a four-power PSU-I scope.  Their HALO
headgear was a hybrid of a football helmet and a WWII leather flyer's
helmet, complete with goggles.  The oxygen mask was attached by
pull-away tabs to each side of the helmet.

Frenchy Roland was designated the base man.  This meant he would lead
the others to the target area by being first out the door, Sewn to the
back of his parachute pack was an electric wand that gave off a soft
glow when activated by a switch on his reserve.  It would go out when he
deployed his parachute.

Then he could activate another small light on top of his canopy.

All men wore a tiny transistor radio taped to their helmets, set to a
frequency that received a whistling chirp signal from a small
transmitter that had been dropped into the target area 6 HOURS before by
a fast-flying, low-level F-4.  Using the aural null method, each jumper
could track to the beacon if separated from the base man in the air or
the team on the ground.  The base man had a more sophisticated tracker
with a needle.

The C-130 loadmaster gave the signal to the launch officer that he was
about to lower the rear ramp.  He activated the hydraulic mechanism,
causing the huge slanting ramp to drop down from the roof of the
fuselage to provide a big platform leading into the black night.  Then
it was three minutes to drop.  By hand signals, the launch officer gave
the well-rehearsed instructions to the stick of jumpers: stand up,
activate the green oxygen bailout bottles, disconnect from walk-around
oxygen, check each other's equipment, shuffle to the door.  The three
Americans exchanged thumbs-up and patted the Nungs on the back.  They
aligned themselves on the platform in jump formation, Frenchy outermost.

Although the launch officer was attached to the airplane by a harness,
he nonetheless wore a parachute.  He caught the green light from the
cockpit and gave the "Go" signal.  In less than five seconds, the seven
jumpers cleared the platform and dove into the darkness.

The launch officer gave the "Go Home" signal to the loadmaster, who
relayed it to the pilot.  He closed the ramp and cleared the engineer to
pressurize the airplane.  All crew mernbers popped their ears as the
pressure increased to an altitude equivalent of 8,000 feet.

The loadmaster, a stocky air FORCE sergeant, took his mask off.

"I wouldn't do that for all the money in the world," he said to the
launch officer.

"I do it for 110 bucks a month, and I'd do it for nothing if I had to,"
the launch officer snapped.  He was unhappy he hadn't been chosen for
the mission.

Neither of the two men noticed the C-rations carton placed under the
seat that had been occupied by Huey Dan.  It contained four pounds of
plastique fused to explode in fifteen minutes.

2230 HOURS LOCAL.  SATURDAY.  18 NovEmBER 1967

Tippy's BAR UBON RATCHITANI, THAILAND

Airman First Class Michael LaNew seemed more than happy to drink all the
scotch his newfound friend would buy for him.  The scotch-pronounced
su-cosh by the Thai barmaids-at Tippy's ranged from rotgut to the
unwatered best.  LaNew was drinking the best in the bar-Cutty Sark-and
feeling really, really good.

And feeling really good was something he had to strive for, because, as
he told his friend, he was an unhappy man.  He had a right to be
unhappy, he revealed.  He was broke, several hundred bucks in debt, and
suspected he had a dose.

Michael LaNew said he worked in the munitions shop in the 8th Tactical
Fighter Wing.  He let it be known that he didn't like his job (as a
missile propellant specialist), his boss (Tech Sergeant Bob Crowder),
the base (Ubon Royal Thai Air FORCE Base), or the United States Air
FORCE.  He did like booze and submissive Thai girls.  He had, he said,
three and a half years in toward a four-year hitch and he wanted the
last six months to go as fast and painless as possible.

"An' it's a fucked-up war," LaNew said to his companion.

He turned and blinked owlishly.  "Wha's your name again?"

"Ah, my name is John.  Listen, I got something a little better than this
stuff.  Let's go back to the hootch and we can light up," Shawn
Bannister said.  He had been drinking the sharp Filipino beer.

Michael LaNew looked indignant.  He drew himself up to his full
five-foot, nine-inch height.  "Whaddiya, some kinda faggot or
something?" He huffed and expanded his chest.  "An' I don't smoke no
dope, ya got that, huh?" He poked Shawn on his breastbone with a stiff
forefinger.

"Okay," Shawn Bannister said, pushing the man's hand down.  "So yeah, I
smoke a little dope.  But I'm no faggot, anything but.  I like girls,
and plenty of them." He waved his hand at the half-dozen or so slender
Thai bar-girls in the room.  They all had flawless bronze complexions,
dark lively eyes framed by long black hair, and wore one-piece miniskirt
shifts and sandals.

LaNew looked appreciatively at the girls.  "Ain' they cute?

Now thas some real sweet stuff."

Shawn saw craving on the airman's face.  "Listen," he said, what say we
get a couple and take them to my hootch.  My treat."

"Show meyer ID,- LaNew said suddenly.

"What for?"

"Show meyer goddamn ID.  I wanna know who the hell you are before I go
anyplace with you." LaNew's eyes were bloodshot.

Shawn thought quickly.  He had to take a calculated risk to reel in this
fish he needed so desperately.  "Okay, sure," he said, and pulled out
his wide traveler's wallet from the left front pocket of his safari
suit.  He made a point of thumbing through the several American
hundred-dollar bills and the red Thai hundredbaht notes.  Finally, he
produced a battered Nevada driver's license and handed it to LaNew.  His
MACV journalist's accreditation card was in his other pocket, along with
his press card from the California Sun.

LaNew squinted at the card.  "Sez 'Shawn,' not John." He looked up.

"Wha' the hell is yer name?  How do I know yer not a commie spy or from
OSI or the Air Police or sump'n?  "

"OSI?" Shawn said.  He was stalling for time, as he tried to assess the
best way to get this man's confidence.  He had been hanging out at the
bar several nights a week for the past two weeks, trying to make friends
with the airmen and aircrew who hung out there.  So far they all had
been very cliquish and had not let him in.  He had found he had to trim
his hair to the shorter military style.

"Yeah, OSI,- LaNew said.  "You know, Office of Special Investigation.

They're allas messing roun' with us." He had forgotten his question
about Shawn's name.

Shawn laughed.  "No, I'm not a commie spy or from the OSI ' " He took a
chance.  "I'm a journalist.  I'm always looking for a good story." He
stared LaNew in the eye.  "A good story is worth a lot to me."

LaNew's eyes grew piggy and slitted.  "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," Shawn Bannister said.  "And money is no object."

"Oh yeah?" LaNew said, and crossed his arms.  "Prove it."

1345 HOURS LOCAL.  TUESDAY, 21 NovEmBER 1967

Room 3S.  Soi 175/32 UBON RATCHITANI.  THAILAND

"Yes, Mr.  Shawn," Souky said three days later, "they say they are very
happy with the article you wrote for the Nhan Dan newspaper." She wore
sandals and a knee-length shift of.light green Thai silk.  She carried a
white plastic shopping bag with red Thai lettering on it.  She had
already given Shawn Bannister a large sack of Buddha's Burmese Best.

Shawn Bannister didn't want to light up just yet.  He had his feet up on
the plank desk, facing Ubon Air Base through the open window.  Sweat ran
in rivulets down his bare chest.  He stubbed a cigarette, reached down
to an ice chest, took out a bottle of Tiger beer, and popped the cap
with an opener.  He wiped the opening with his hand and took a long
pull.  He swung around to face his Thai contact.

"It's the first time the fact those missiles misfire so much has been
reported, isn't it?" he said.  "And did they like the part about the
number and type of bombs that go out from here each day?  And the fact I
included all the call signs in my article?

They liked all that, did they?"

Shawn Bannister had finally figured out the pilot and control tower
jargon and how to recognize the bombs and missiles carried under the
dozens of Phantoms that thundered off the runway each day.  From bar
talk, he had learned that the AIM-7 and AIM-9 missiles suffered from
humidity and short shelf life, causing rocket motor and guidance
problems.

He coupled those bits of information with what he had learned by
listening in on other conversations at Tippy's Bar.  Then he had written
a long article for Souky to give, along with photos, to the newspaper
people from North Vietnam with whom Nguyen Vo Tri had arranged contact.

He had taken the pictures through the window with a 300mm telephoto lens
on his Nikon 350.  As a hedge, he had also sent a copy of both the
photos and the article to the California Sun.  The copy he had sent to
the Sun he titled "Secret War of the Air FORCE." It would be two or more
weeks before he would hear from the Sun.  In less than 36 HOURS, he had
heard from Souky that the Hanoi newspaper people were very happy.

"They like your report on the airplanes, Mr.  Shawn, yes.

Very much," Souky said.  She regarded him with soft eyes from under her
black bangs.  Shawn misinterpreted the look.  He took a pre-rolled
marijuana cigarette from a tin box and lit up.

"Well, that's just great.  Now it's time to celebrate." He went to sit
next to her.  He buried smoke deep in his lungs before slowly letting it
out.  "Have one," he said.  He stroked her knee with one hand and put
the other on a small breast.

Souky stiffened and pressed her lips together.  With that one motion,
she lost her shy Thai female look.  Her face looked hard and
speculative, as if she were a street vendor trying to decide just how
far to pluck the brash tourist.  Then she realized what she had done and
tried to soften her face, and her voice.

"Mr.  Shawn"-she put a hurt look in her eyes--do not get angry with me,
but I .  .  .  I do not do those things.  " Souky twisted her body away
from him.  She was lying.  She had been a top agent of the CPT,
Communist Party of Thailand, since her early teens and would do
anything-use her body, even cooperate with the Vietnamese-to bring down
the monarchy in her country.  She had been recruited as a schoolgirl in
a terribly poor northern Thai province by the CPT, trained in
revolutionary tactics in China, and now functioned in whatever capacity
the CPT desired.  She had used her body before and, in all likelihood,
would again.  That didn't mean she liked it.  She was thankful it wasn't
now necessary.  This American was already hooked for Party use through
his own excesses.  "I do not want," she said, pushing his insistent hand
away.  "I do not want."

Anger flitted across his face.  He was not used to being turned down by
girls, regardless of who they were.  Certainly not some back-country
slut like this.  Shawn grasped her arm.  "Well, then tell me what the
hell you do want.  How do you fit into all this?

What are you doing acting as a contact for the Viet Cong or the North
Vietnamese, or whomever?  You're not in the newspaper business.  What do
you want?"

In a lithe move, she slipped out from under his hands and stood up. "Oh,
Mr.  Shawn, it is not what I want.  It is what they want.  And they want
more.  More articles about the airplanes."

"More?" Shawn echoed.  He slammed his fist on his knee.

What the hell for?  I've already done the article they wanted.

How about my visa to Hanoi?  When can I go up there?  And what about the
big story?"

Souky looked blank.

"Oh, I don't know, Mr.  Shawn.  I don't know about visa to Hanoi, or big
story." She pronounce it " suh-torry."

"They just tell me to tell you they want more.  Maybe then you can go to
Hanoi."

"Who are they?" Shawn said.  "Who are your LOCAL contacts that tell you
all this?  I want to talk to them." The scowl on his face framed his
mouth with inverted half circles.

"Please," she said.  "I must go now.  You do not need to be interested
in these things.  You write good articles.  Write more.

I will contact you in three days.  You must write more." Before he could
make a move, she was out the door.

His scowl deepened.  He drew heavily on the fat marijuana cigarette, and
stared without focusing through the window at the Ubon runway.  Planes
were taxiing out, engines whining in the distance like giant insects.

Others, landing on the parallel ninway, had white drag chutes wagging
and spinning behind them.

A thought, a questioning, started to surface in his mind.  Where do I
fit into all this?  What am I doing here?  His thoughts ranged out and
back.  Then he shook his head, and refused to pursue the
self-questioning.  He didn't like the conclusion that would so obviously
follow.  The conclusion that he was no longer a reporter.  The
conclusion that he was sliding into the murk and fog of .  .  .  he
couldn't say the word.  He put it all out of his mind.

To erase his thoughts, he stood up and stared hard out the window.  He
focused on the Phantoms.  They looked deadly and warlike.  Unbidden, a
picture of Court Bannister seated in one of those planes formed in his
mind.  He saw his half brother sitting there in his flying clothes and
helmet, oxygen mask swinging free as he talked with somebody on a ladder
to the cockpit.  It became clear that that someone was their father, a
smiling Sam Bannister.  Shawn's upper lip drew back.  He stood more
erect, his chest swelled.  His scowl slowly disappeared, as his famous
grin appeared.  He nodded.  It was clear now.  I'm just a reporter doing
what reporters do, he said to himself.  And reporters gather
intelligence information.  He nodded again, question resolved.

He hummed happily in a tuneless buzzand pulled out his radio and
binoculars from the chest.  He began to write what he heard and saw with
sharp, stabbing motions.  The wide grin never left his face.

1930 HOURS LOCAL, TUESDAY, 21 NOVEMBER 1967

COORDINATES WE77244543 ROYALTY OF LAOS

The storm had broken over the cave holding Wolf and his team.

Thunder echoed through the steep pass like massed cannon fire.

Sheet lightning strobed the karst mountains and green jungle fronds in
eye-searing sheets.  The heavy rain sounded like dozens of freight
trains roaring through the night.  Inside the tiny cave, Wolf and
Roland, two Nungs, and Huey Dan were reasonably warm and only slightly
damp.  They were holed up at the western lip of Mu Gia Pass.  The
entrance to the cave was concealed with large interwoven tree leaves and
palm fronds, which kept the rain out while providing cover.  Rhoades and
a Nung were on sentry duty.  Inside, they had arranged ponchos and
rucksacks around a depression lined with rocks they had scooped from the
sandy cave floor.  Burning chunks of the putty-like C4 explosive heated
tea and a freeze-dried soup.  The heat had burned some of the humidity
from the air.  The tiny blaze also provided just enough flickering light
for the occupants to see.  Seven days had passed since their night jump
into Laos.  This was their first night not sleeping in the jungle.

"This is real living," said Frenchy Roland.  He leaned back against his
pack and took another sip of the strong Chinese tea.

Wolf Lochert looked up from the small green booklet in which he was
writing.  "Just don't get used to it," he growled.  "This is a one-night
stand.  If it weren't for the rain, we'd still be in the woods.  And
tomorrow, rain or no rain, we're going back in the woods.  " He gestured
with his pencil and returned to his writing.

"Of course, it would be nice if we could build a real fire and dry us
and all this stuff out," Roland said.  All their gear was damp and
spongy and moldy.  Constant rubbing and oiling kept their weapons ready.

"Yeah, and the NVA and spotters from the road-repair teams would be on
us in a heartbeat," Wolf said.  He gave a final stab at the pad and tore
a sheet out and gave it to Roland.  "Get this off when the antenna is
dry." The outside antenna wire for the PRC-25 was wet and grounding out.

Besides being a medic and a demo expert, Frenchy Roland was a
communications specialist.

The seven men had parachuted in with seven radios: four PRC25 FMs, and
three pocket-sized RT-10 USAF survival radios that transmitted on guard
channel.  One PRC-25 had been damaged beyond repair on landing and had
been kept for parts.  Two of the other three had been acting up.  The
'25s were the size of two shoeboxes stacked on each other and yielded
good ground to-ground jungle comm up to about IO miles.  They also
provided excellent ground-to-air results if the airplane overhead
carried FM equipment, which fighters did not, but most liaison and
support aircraft did.  The team carried a booster which, when coupled to
a PRC-25 using a long-wire antenna, increased the range considerably,
though the resultant power drain was hard on the batteries.  The RT-10s
were half the size of a cigarette carton and were for last-ditch
communications with any aircraft under emergency conditions that was
within line of sight.

Team Dakota made radio contact three times a day with friendly forces: a
bfief "we're still alive" check-in every twelve HOURS via PRC-25 with
airborne USAF command posts, and a situation report once every 24 HOURS
with Group Headquarters at Nha Trang, using the boosted PRC-25.  To
reach Nha Trang, radio site Hickory, hidden on a Laotian mountaintop
called Eagle's Nest, relayed the messages from Wolf's team and others
operating in Laos.  The team had been shocked the second day out when
Hickory had relayed that their C-130 drop plane had never made it back
to Da Nang.

The sheet Wolf handed Frenchy Roland contained the 24-hour sit rep for
Nha Trang.  Using the one-time pad code, it told the commander of the
5th Special Forces Group that their location was WE77244543, all team
members were healthy, they would be moving northeast to the border of
North Vietnam at first light, and that southbound traffic on the Ho Chi
Minh Trail at night was as heavy as the San Diego freeway at rush hour.

It ended with the statement "Negative White Hat," which meant they had
sighted no American captives or signs of shot-down crewmen trying to
escape and evade.

over 120 Americans had been downed in Laos; although many had been
picked up, scores had been killed in the crashes and 40 or so were
thought to be captured.  Several sightings had been made of bound POWs
in the Sam Neui area way north of Mu Gia, but rescue attempts had ended
in disaster.  It was a known fact that if the USAF Jolly Greens or the
Navy rescue helicopters didn't get over the downed airman in fifteen
minutes, his chances for rescue diminished immensely.

So far, Wolf's information had resulted in only five air strikes in the
six days they had been in the field.  The problem was not finding
targets, it was getting the information to the airborne command
posts-code-named Hillsboro dufing the day, Moonbeam at night.  The
PRC-25s had not been putting out full power, Frenchy said maybe they had
a bad lot of batteries.

When they did get through, it went very well.  Hillsboro could process
the strike request in minutes.  Then an airborne forward air controller
would be over the target area to control the strike; within fifteen
minutes, strike planes would be rolling in.  Commander, 7th Air FORCE,
while delivefing his part of the bargainthe airplanes-was wondering why
Team Dakota didn't use more air.  As it was, Team Dakota could have used
five times as many airplanes over the six-day pefiod, if only their
radios had worked better.  There was no chance of a resupply for a team
buried this deep under cover.

Wolf looked at his watch.  Time for the 2000 HOURS radio check on the
PRC-25 with Moonbeam.  He crawled to the cave mouth, told Frenchy to
cover the tiny blaze, and poked the whip antenna of a PRC-25 through the
opening.

"Moonbeam, Three One Five, radio check," he transmitted.

He used a predetermined three-number set each day that involved the day
of the month, time of day, and whether he was transmitting under duress
or not.  Moonbeam answered on the third try.

"Three One Five, Moonbeam, faint but clear.  Any activity?"

"Negative.  One Five out."

"Moonbeam out."

The team in Laos kept their radio transmissions to the minimum, not only
to save battery power, but because it was known that the NVA had
triangulation equipment.

Outside, Rhoades and a Nung maintained a watch.  Because of the
3,600-foot elevation and the down-slope of the karst, there was no
rotted base vegetation clinging to the Mountainside.  The trees were
widely spaced and formed only a single canopy.  They sat under trees
twenty feet outside the camouflaged cave mouth.

Rhoades faced downhill, the Nung looked up the slope to the lip of the
crest.  Water dripped off their floppy jungle hats onto the rubber
ground sheet each had wrapped about him.  Each kept one eye pinched shut
with his fingers to save his night vision during the rapid lightning
flashes.  Besides an assault rifle with a taped muzzle, each carried a
knife, water, and ammo pouches on his web gear, and grenades in their
pockets.  Their bulky harnesses and rucks were secure and dry in the
cave.  When the roar of the rain would slacken, they could hear the
grind and chugging of straining engines, as supply trucks made their way
south along the canyon floor of Mu Gia Pass.

Roland poked the burning C4 as Wolf crawled back into the circle of
flickering light, and he leaned back against his ruck and glanced at his
watch.  He and a Nung were to relieve Rhoades in two HOURS.  He rubbed
his eyes.

"We could sure have used more fighters," Roland said, and yawned.

"Particularly at night," Wolf said.  "Even the few we got in the day has
made them start to slow down, but night traffic is something else.  I
think hundreds of those trucks are moving on the Trail at any given time
after dark.  I wish there was a way to conduct night strikes." He turned
to the Vietnamese.  "Beedee, you been awful quiet this trip.  You
feeling poorly?"

Huey Dan shook his head.  "No, Thicu Ta, I am well.  It is the rain
perhaps." He kept his eyes averted.

Wolf leaned back and closed his eyes.  Roland slept, face to the dirt
wall.  The two Nungs were asleep.  Huey Dan stared into the tiny blaze.

He imagined himself taking the stiletto from his pack and driving it in
the belly of bulky Lochert, just as the mui lo had done to his son.

Imperceptibly, he shook his head.  First he had to sabotage the mission
slowly so that the Americans at the headquarters knew this method did
not work.  Then, when that was so, he would destroy the whole team,
Lochert last ...

slowly.

Activity on the night shift in the frag shop at Seventh Air FORCE
Headquarters increased as the daily quota of strike messages from
CINCPAC were decoded.

0610 HOURS LOCAL.  WEDNESDAY, 22 NowmiBER 1967

BRIEFING Room, 8TH TACTICAL FIGHTER WING UBON ROYAL THAI AIR FORCE BASE
THAILAND

Hostettler had been up since three in the morning preparing his briefing
from the sheaves of coded t6letype strike orders from Tan Son Nhut.  He
felt good.  Life had improved considerably under Colonel Stan Bryce.  He
no longer had extra duties as veterinary officer, postal officer,
mess-hall inventory officer, or voting officer.  He smiled.  The troops
would like today's lineup, he knew.  They didn't mind hanging it out if
the targets were worthwhile.

It was now three weeks since all the elements had fallen into place to
allow Court Bannister and Flak Apple to go into the air together on a
combat mission.  Before that, the two majors had flown daily missions in
North Vietnam and Laos, but always in separate flights.  Court had flown
all positions, from number Four to Lead, as he gained experience.  He
now had sixty-two missions and was strike-FORCE commander-qualified.

The Russian pilot had been up and had scored, they had been told, but
always at a time and place where Court or Flak had been on the ground.

The USAF frag order was so insistent on raids in the Plaine des Jarres
and increasing strikes on the Steel Tiger portion of the Ho Chi Minh
Trail in Laos, in addition to North Vietnam, that Court and Flak had
been able to arrange only two training flights together.  Flak had flown
combat with Colonel Bryce several times, both as leader and wingman.

Bryce had finally assigned Court to Flak's weapons shop as an assistant
tactics officer.  Today, Court and Flak would be in the same flight of
four.

Commander, 7th Air FORCE, was told by Blue Chip that Packard flight, a
flight of four Phantoms headed for North Vietnam, had both Apple and
Bannister in it.  He sat back in his thick brown leather chair behind
his desk and remembered his conversation with them three weeks ago, when
he had replaced Crepens with Bryce.  Not for a moment did he wonder why
he hoped Courtland Esclaremonde de Montsdgur Bannister or Albert
Algernon Apple would be one of the two men who would nail the Russian
pilot.  He knew why he wanted them to score.  Along with the Army and
the Marines, the USAF was suffering some bad press.  Either
pilot-Bannister because his father was famous, or Apple because he was
black-would get favorable headlines if he could make a spectacular
shoot-down.  He was a little upset that they hadn't been more on the
Ubon schedule for the northern missions, where the chances of spotting
the Russian pilot were good.  All of his fighter pilots, he knew, would
give up the next two promotions and five years of flight pay to shoot
down a MiG, double that if it was flown by a Russian.  Not that his boys
hated Russians; it was just that they would be far more worthy
opponents.  In fact, he thought, I'd like a crack at one myself.

Thirty-two F-4 crewmen-the Comanche strike FORCE-assernbled to hear
Hostettler give his usual outstanding briefing.  The frag order called
for sixteen Ubon F-4s to strike a POL (Petroleum Oil, Lubricants) dump
near Hanoi-big cheers-eight to be loaded with Sparrows, Sidewinders, and
the gun for MiG capping-bigger cheers.  Hostettler gave the final Wild
Weasel information and the briefing was over.  It took 48 minutes. There
were no spare aircraft or pilots.  The heavy ops tempo didn't permit it.

Then Colonel Stan the Man Bryce bounded onto the stage.  He was a
well-built man, six feet tall, with sharp gray eyes, an aggressive
up-thrust chin, and he played a mean game of handball.  He had lifted
all the bar restrictions and occasionally drank a beer or two with the
boys.  He had been flying missions about twice a week, usually leading a
flight or an element.  He liked flying with men of experience such as
Flak Apple.  He had too much paperwork on his desk to do any of the
preplanning, he had told Flak, so he'd just given him his flight card
and told him to keep him out of trouble.  Stan Bryce always flew with
one of the three most experienced back-seaters in the Wing.  The
consensus was that he might be just a tad too eager to be a rough tough
combat commander.  Exuberance unbalanced by skill coul lead to trouble.

"We've got a great target today," Bryce said.  "The Hanoi oil tanks, and
you are just the guys that can get it.  It's a JCS target and the big
eye is on us.  That's just fine, because you guys are good, very good. I
know you're good and you know you're good." He paused, hands on hips,
and seemed to look at each man.  "I know you can lick anything up there.

You bombers will take the tanks out, and you MiG cappers will take the
MiGs out, and we'll all be back for beer call." He looked around, then
gave an upraised fist boxing motion.  "LET'S GO DO IT, COMANCHE,- he
shouted.  The aircrew cheered.  This was more like it.  He held up his
hand for silence.  "One last thing," he said in a quiet voice.  "Don't
do anything stupid.  I want to see you all back here for beer call.

Don't anybody get hurt."

Court and Flak, with their back-seaters and the four men flying the
other two F-4s in Packard flight, rode out together in the blue crew van
to their airplanes.  Ev Stem was with Court.  They were very comfortable
together now.  Court was even letting him take off and land the Phantom
every other mission.

The eight members of Packard flight filled the two wooden bench seats
with their bulky gear and helmet bags crammed with maps and charts and
kneeboards.  Their twelve-pound survival vests hung on them like green
mesh flak jackets.  The morning coolness had fled the flight line the
minute the sun rose up over the revetments.  The wingmen weren't aware
that they had been specially chosen the night before from a pool of ten
Put together by Court and Flak.  They knew something was up, because
Court and Flak had told them in the briefing they would have one final
word to say at the airplanes.  They all got out of the van, sometimes
called the bread truck because it had the same general outline, and
stood by Flak's airplane.  Flak Apple was Packard Lead today.  He and
Court had been alternating Lead the few times they'd flown together.

The eight men stood in a loose circle, each garbed in a light cotton
flight suit, a heavy canvas G-suit with rubber bladders, a heavy
survival vest (covered by a parachute harness) worn unsnapped until in
the cockpit, a webbed belt with holstered gun

(each to his own) and cartridges.  Each man wore a crushed blue ball cap
with their squadron insignias and straight-framed aviator's sunglasses.

Court had taken to wearing his Stetson whenever he was assigned 753, his
F-4, which was often.  Sergeant Shanahan would carefully guard the hat
for him, then hand it to him when he returned.  When he was scheduled to
fly an airplane other than 753, he left his Stetson in the locker room.

He always wore his red, white, and blue Mike FORCE scarf from his Bien
Hoa days.  Although the men wore their scarves around the base and in
the squadron, they would take them off and put them in their helmet bags
before takeoff.  They had good reasons for doing this; the scarf could
tangle on something during or after a bailout, and they might provide a
clue to a captor as to where the man was from.  The North Vietnamese
would find out soon enough, using the rope torture, but there was no
point in giving anything away.  The scarves would be destroyed with the
helmet bag in a crash.

On their feet they wore thick wool socks and either standard GI jungle
boots or black Air Police boots.  Strapped to each man was a K-bar knife
and 150 feet of thin nylon strapping attached to a lowering device for
exiting tall treess from hung-up parachute canopies.  Crammed into
G-suit pockets were extra survival-radio batteries, small and large
flares, water flasks, extra tracer ammo for their gun, an olive-drab
towel to use as a sweat rag, and a spare survival radio.  Under their
flight suits, everyone now wore light cotton shorts and foliage-green
T-shirts.  Only new guys wore white.  On their harnesses they hung two
baby bottles fresh from the freezer compartment of the squadron
refrigerator.  They would suck on them on the way out as the ice melted
even before they took off.  The eight members of Packard flight ranged
in age from 24-a new back-seater from Lafayette, Louisiana-to Flak
Apple, who had been born 36 years ago in Washington, D.C.  Between the
eight of them, they totaled over 10,000 HOURS flying time, all of the
time in training and in fighters starting at Nellis outside of Las Vegas
and Luke at Phoenix.  There were no ex-MAC or SAC in this flight.  It
simply wouldn't have been fair.  They just would not have had the years
of fighter flying required to make the actual manipulation of the
controls of the twenty-five-ton Phantoms as effortless and as automatic
as riding a bicycle.  Nor did they have SA-situational awareness.

And there is an additional demand on the experienced pilots.

The flight lead had to control from two to four airplanes; the strike
FORCE leader was responsible for as many as 48.  This was not a place
for a man whose previous pilot duties had included making coffee, and
whose pilot chair could slide back and forth but not eject as in a
transport.  - Listen up, guys," Flak Apple began his final words to his
flight, "there is one each blue-helmeted Russkie up there stooging
around Hanoi, that one of us is going to nail today.  Whoever is in
position gets the shot.  That goes for you wingmen, not just me and
Court." The two wingmen, young captains with over eighty missions each,
made wide grins of approval.  Flak looked at the GIBs.  Their faces were
so smooth-shaven and their hair cut so short, Flak noted, that they
looked like doolies at the Academy.  "You guys help your front-seater
and we'll all be back at the bar in a few HOURS.  Don't do anything
different today," he went on.  "Just do what we've been teaching you.

Spread out and stay alert."

Flak and Court had introduced the spread, line-abreast formation.  They
had picked it up from the earlier MiG killers, who were now trying to
get the tactics accepted by the USAF and put into the training
curriculum.  It was quite different from welded wing, where a wingman
tacked on to his leader and tried to follow him through every gyration
in the book, and some not in the book, as leaders pushed the envelope
with their big Phantoms.  Often as not, the wingman was so intent
hanging on that he lost his ability to look around.  The new formation
assumed that everybody was combat-proficient and didn't have to fly wing
because of inexperience.

In addition, they were flying with the new electronic countermeasures
pod now.  The spacing not only enhanced the search pattern, it enhanced
the masking the QRC-160 pod provided.

Major Flak Apple looked at each man.  "Let's go get 'em," he said in a
quiet voice.  They turned toward their airplanes.  He hung back for one
last word with Court.  Assuming the aggressive stance of Stan the Man
Bryce on the stage, he waggled a finger.  " 'Don't anybody get hurt,' "
he said, rolled his eyes, and strolled to his F-4.  That was not a
statement a leader should make to his troops before a combat mission.

Court and Ev Stem made an exacting preflight then patted the white hat.

it had brought them through a lot.  Sergeant Shanahan had already been
over 753 with his critical eye and fingers Yet he did not begrudge the
walk-around made by the two pilots He wanted pilots to walk around his
airplane and look every where, because by God they weren't going to find
the smallest item misaligned or out of tune.  He was proud of his bird
and his ability to make his bird fly, and he wanted his pilots to know
it.

Next to each airplane was a large, yellow, self-powered cart, about the
size of a Volkswagen.  It carried a small jet engine, which supplied air
under pressure to the engines of the Phantoms, and electrical current to
power the systems while they did their pre-start cockpit checks.

Once the exterior check was completed and Court's hat carefully stowed,
Shanahan and his assistant crew chief mounted the yellow metal ladders
with Court and Ev, and helped them strap in.  Each pilot placed his
hands on the canopy rim and the front bow to ease himself down into his
seat, which was already occupied by a seatpack full of survival gear and
a backpack full of nylon parachute.  The entire seat, with pilot and his
gear, weighed 470 pounds and could be rocketed up with a 14-G push to no
less than 180 feet above the ground from an unmoving airplane and still
have a functioning parachute shot out from the backpack.  The rocket
seat was made by the British company of Martin-Baker.  Sir James Martin
had thrown a party at the Dorchester in London two years before in honor
of the first 1,000 successful ejectees.  He was a very popular
manufacturer, even without his parties.

Shanahan and his assistant helped each pilot attach himself to the craft
by two hoses (one for oxygen to his mask, one for pressured air to his
G-suit), three wires (radio headsets and microphone to his helmet),
survival pack clips, lap belt, shoulder harness, and two calf garters to
keep his legs from flailing about during a high-speed ejection.

Court clipped his kneeboard to his right leg and donned his helmet,
snapped the oxygen mask in place, and pulled on his gloves.

"How do you read?" he said over the intercom to Ev Stem in his back
seat.

"Loud and clear," Ev replied.

Court went through his pre-start cockpit checklist.  It contained 37
items, ranging from generator control switches "On" and nidder pedals
"Adjusted," to fuel boost pump checks and missile control panel
settings.  In the rear cockpit, Ev performed 33 checks.

Court began the engine start sequence.

"How do you read, Chief?" he asked over the intercom Sergeant Shanahan,
who stood to the left of the big Phanto wearing giant ear-pieces and a
cupped microphone strapped to his face like an old gas mask.

"Loud and clear, sir.  Ready to start," Shanahan said.  Court gave him
the windup signal with his left forefinger.  Shanahan motioned his
assistant to open the air valve.  The little jet engine wound up to a
shriek and the 12-inch flex tubing leading under the aircraft to the
right engine, writhed like a giant black and yellow snake, then
steadied, rigid with pressure.  At 10 percent RPM, Court depressed the
right ignition start button with his right hand while advancing the
right throttle with his left.  He released the button, as the exhaust
gas temperature showed a rise, and he felt a rumble deep in the
airplane.  When the right hand RPM gauge climbed through 45 percent, he
signaled Shanahan to disconnect the air and pull the thick black
electrical cable.  With practiced motions, the assistant crew chief
switched off the air and the electrical current, then scrambled under
the belly of the big Phantom to disconnect the tube and cable.

In the cockpit, Court checked his RPM as it stabilized at 65 percent. He
monitored the engine and hydraulic gauges approaching the green markings
on their dials, to check at a fast glance that all was well. He noted
low fuel pressure during the start, which meant he had the latest engine
modification of the cool-start fuel-control cams to prevent overheat. He
put his generator switch on, and repeated the sequence to start the left
engine.

Next, Court went through the 15-step before-taxi check, which included
checking his radio and navigation gear.  Finally, in conjunction with
Sergeant Shanahan, he cycled the hydraulic systems.

"Speed brakes," Shanahan said.

" Cycling," Court responded, as he thumbed them down, then back up after
Shanahan inspected them.

The two men went through the same routine with the wing flaps, the
aileron, elevator, and rudder flight controls, a stabilizer augmentation
device, and the takeoff trim to position the big elevator slabs.

Finally, Court signaled Shanahan to disconnect and pull the wheel
chocks.  The crew chief did as requested, then stepped back, came to a
ramrod-straight position of attention, and gave his pilot a very spiffy
salute.  Court responded, then each man gave the other a thumbs-up.

As Court advanced the throttles to move the big jet from the vetment, he
and Shanahan stared for a moment into each other's eyes, in the glance
reserved exclusively for those who fly and their crew chiefs.  It had
been so since the first Nieuport and Fokker had taxied out on grass.  It
happened among the good ones.  They knew each other.  If one could
check, it would probably prove out to have been the same look given
between squire and knight before battle.  The look from the pilot was an
affirmation of trust that his crew chief had done all there was, and
then some, to ensure his plane was safe for flight and combat.

The return look from the crew chief was his bond that he had done so. It
was understood that the pilot would use the craft to the utmost of his
ability for the purpose intended.  Were either man pressed to
acknowledge this intimate exchange, he would scoff and change the
subject.  But God help the man who maligned the chief or the pilot in
front of the other.  This is how it is among the good ones.

The big Phantom was now ready to do what 1,900 people had spent seven
months in a building longer than three football fields in St.  Louis,
Missouri, building it for: to fly and to fight.

The four Phantoms pulled into the armament area near the runway, and
stopped parallel to the rest of the Comanche airplanes.  The pilots kept
their hands outside the cockpit in plain view of the master sergeants
who ran that portion of the mission.

One false move, stray voltage, or pin pulled at the wrong moment could
lead to catastrophe.  Three years before at Bien Hoa, many airmen had
died and several planes had been destroyed in the arming area due to a
faulty move.

The only in-cockpit movement permitted was when a missile specialist
held a flashlight a few feet in front of each Aim-9 heatseeker.  A
moveable eyeball in each seeker head followed the heat from the light
bulb as it was rotated to the limits of the missile's scanning view.  In
the cockpit, each pilot moved his missile switch and listened to the
tone, as the seeker element of each missile growled out an urgent tone
that it had a lock-on.

In moments, all the airplanes at Ubon had their release.  They sat,
lined up, waiting for clearance onto the runway.  "Button up," Court
said to Ev Stem.  Each man lowered the big clamshell canopy over his
head to chunk down onto the rails next to his shoulders, then pushed the
locking lever home.  Court had to ensure that both engines were at idle,
so that excess air pressure didn't prematurely inflate the canopy lock
seals, forcing a false lock.  The "canopy unlocked," lights went out.

They could feel in their ears the cockpit pressurize.

"Let's do the doughnuts," Court told Ev.  Each pulled a grease pencil
from his sleeve pocket, then positioned his head in the normal attitude
of combat flight, that is, slightly forward and head up.  On either side
of the canopy, at the ten o'clock and two o'clock positions, each drew a
small circle around their view of a preselected object at a distance of
1,000 feet.  In the air, whenever either pilot wanted to put the eyes of
the other on an object too small to point out readily, and he had the
time, he would position his doughnut over it.  They inscribed their
doughnuts, and were soon cleared onto the runway.

After Court taxied onto the runway as Packard Three, he and Ev Stem
began their challenge-and-response-before-takeoff litany.  Ev called out
the checklist items, and Court responded with his action.

"Stab aug.

"Three on."

"Flight controls."

"Free and clear." Court moved the stick to all corners.

"Trim.  I I

"Two units down, set for takeoff."

"Canopies: canopy closed, light out," Ev continued the litany.

"Closed and out," Court responded.

"Seat armed." Ev moved the lever to arm his ejection seat.

"Armed." Court did the same.

"IFF."

"On." Court activated a device that would give coded signals on demand
to radar controllers.

" Pitot heat."

"On." Court turned on the heater for the external probe that measured
air pressure and velocity.

"Left engine check."

"Checking." Court manipulated the throttle from idle to high RPM and
back down again, checking gauges, acceleration, temperatures, and
pressures.  At high RPM, Ev looked out at the bi slab of metal ramp next
to the giant air intake for the engine.  1' moved as more air was
demanded.  "Left ramp okay," he told Court.  They did the same for the
right engine.

" Wing flaps."

"Half down." Court positioned the lever.

"Anti-skid."

"On.  I I

"Fuel transfer switches."

"Normal and outboard."

"Warning lights."

Each man took one last look around the cockpit.  There were no warning
lights illuminated.

, 'Shoulder harness," Ev said, reading the last item on the
before-takeoff checklist.

"Locked," Court said, and looked out at the other three airplanes.

Packard flight was lined up on the runway in a staggered manner such
that no exhaust and jet blast impacted the other.  At takeoff thrust,
with both afterburners roaring like smelter stacks and burning 40,000
pounds of fuel each per minute, the gas the engines generated left the
exhaust nozzles at 3,000 degrees and a velocity twice the speed of
sound.  Twenty feet back, the temperature was still 1,600 degrees and
the velocity 1, 100 miles per hour.

As Packard Lead, Flak Apple gave the windup signal to his wingman by
rotating his right forefinger.  Court repeated the signal to his
wingman.  By making as many signals as possible by hand waves and head
nods, the pilots did not clutter up the radio.

However, any attempt to preserve radio silence that might give them the
edge of surprise had long since gone by the board.

There were simply too many ears and eyes in the loop that started in the
frag shop at Tan Son Nhut and extended to tankers and airborne control
ships, as well as the fighters.  The only surprise a strike FORCE could
mount was a last-minute turn after a feint toward another target.

Court gave the signal, then ran his throttles up to the stops.

He held his brakes for a second, as he and Ev did a last-minute check,
then, with a head nod to his wingman, he released his brakes.  With
another head nod, he moved both throttles outboard to engage the
afterburners.  With that motion, the eyelids at the tailpipe of each
engine opened wider, as raw fuel sprayed into the burners was ignited,
providing 75 percent more thrust.  It was wasteful of fuel, but it
accelerated a heavy airplane off the ground to climb-out speed in a
hurry.  Some heavily loaded airplanes couldn't get off the ground
without AB.  The afterburners could only be engaged after brake release,
because their combined thrust was so great they would skid the airplane
along on locked wheels.

There were more checks to perform, even as they were rolling down the
runway.  Certain systems had to be fully engaged and operable; oil, fuel
flow, boost, exhaust temp and nozzles had to be checked; airspeeds had
to be met at precalculated distances; nose-wheel rotation and aircraft
lift-off speeds had to be adhered to.  Ev called the inlet ramps fully
retracted.  The 25-ton Phantom accelerated from zero to 200 miles per
hour (which Court read as 175 knots on his airspeed indicator) in 22
seconds and covered one mile of runway.  They passed go-no-go speed (141
knots), refusal speed (158 knots), nose-wheel lift-off speed (165
knots), and at 172 knots the Phantom lifted off the runway.  After a few
seconds to make sure they were going to stay airborne, Court raised the
gear, then the flaps.  In seconds, they reached 350 knots, the speed at
which the flight leader comes out of burner.

Court, as did the other three flight members, came out of burner at 400
knots to give him a rapid overtake.  Flak made a right turn to head out
over Laos toward the Gulf of Tonkin.  All three ships joined on him in
close fingertip formation in less than three minutes.  Flak checked them
over, then fishtailed his airplane as a signal to spread out as they
began the climb to 28,000 feet.

The men relaxed in their cockpits and took a few seconds to flex and
limber themselves from the strain.  Using his radar, Flak stayed in a
three-mile trail with the flight in front.  His flight, Packard, was the
fourth in the strike FORCE stream of four flights.

The other MiG CAP flight was in the number two position.

The plan was to cut across Laos and South Vietnam just south of the DMZ,
refuel with Tan tanker over the water, then head north-northwest toward
Hanoi and Pack Six.  They would make a feint at Vinh, halfway up the
coast to Hanoi, then another at Nam Dinh, before swinging into the POL
complex four miles west of Hanoi.  Split-second timing was required to
get in just as the Weasels were pulling off the LOCAL defenses.

What they didn't know was that, the night before, a flight of four MiG-2
Is had been ferried to the small airfield near the town of Vinh.

Truncate, the highly secret listening post, knew of the move and had so
informed Green Door, the small USAF intelligence branch buried in an
unmarked room in 7th Air FORCE Headquarters.  The branch chief of Green
Door, a lieutenant colonel career intelligence officer, decided the very
timeliness of the information made it impossible to pass on to the
operators.

To do so would reveal to the operators, that is, the Navy and Air FORCE
crewmen who might be flying that day, that the U.S.  had a method for
real-time voice interception and interpretation in close proximity to
North Vietnam.  And that, Green Door knew, was a highly classified,
eyes-only secret that he was charged with keeping.  Keep it he would. He
decided to wait 48 'HOURS before passing the news of the deployment of
four MiG21s to Vinh.

0915 HOURS.  WEDNESDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 1967

TEMPORARY SHELTER MOT TAM AIRFIELD VINH DEmocRATic REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Pod-Palcovnik Vladimir Nicholaevych Chemov gave his last bit of advice
to Toon, Van Bay, and Vong before they walked to their waiting MiG-2 Is.

They were under a canvas overhang slung from a concrete bunker.  The air
was stifling and dusty.  The ancient French hand-cranked telephone had
just passed the words that a big American air armada was heading toward
Vinh and maybe points north.  Intelligence said they were twelve bombers
and maybe as many as eight fighter-configured Phantoms from Ubon.

Chernov was allowed to try his over-water intercept that might allow him
and his MiGs to jump the Americans outside of their radar coverage. They
had flown down from Gia Lam to land just at dusk the night before. Toon
had led the flight, so that Chemov did not have to make any
transmissions in his execrable Vietnamese.

"They will not be expecting us," Chemov said.  "Although I don't think
their radar coverage reaches this area, we cannot be sure.  We will go
in low, then split into two flights of two and attack the tail-end
flights.  Toon, you and Vong attack the second to-last flight.  If we
have the advantage of surprise, and the kill envelope is correct, shoot
all four of your missiles.  I will lead Van Bay to do the same to the
last flight.  If we do this correctly, we will score four to eight
kills." He grinned at the three pilots gathered around.  Only he was
sweating in the heat.  "This day will be victorious," he said.  "I am
confident we are prepared and ready to kill the khi dot," he said, using
the North Vietnamese slang "big monkey" for the Americans.  We had
better, Chemov thought to himself.  Or it's off to Chita for me.

Sixteen minutes later, they were streaking low over the water ten miles
off the coast, nearly upsetting fishing sampans as they headed on a
southeast track to intercept the Americans.  Using code words, the LOCAL
radar site, Triumph Control, told them that radar had tracked the
Americans at their eleven o'clock position forty kilometers away at
9,000 meters and closing.  Chernov, flying number three, rechecked his
armament switches.

Each airplane had four missiles-two heat-seeking K-13s, two radar
missiles-and one 23mm GSh gun with 200 rounds.

Chernov was tense and alert, but confident.  His plan had been working.

Since his talk with Colonel Huu four weeks ago, his MiG-21 FORCE had
scored seventeen victories.  Of those, Toon had three in fourteen
intercepts, and he had two in eight intercepts.  The remaining victories
were divided among Van Bay and the other pilots.  In one week, Comrade
General Kirsanov was due back for another visit.  With luck, Chemov
would have another late-night session with him.  This time, in view of
his success advising the North Vietnamese Air FORCE, he intended to ask
forcefully to remain here, because it was combat and combat was where
his heart lay.

Streaking low over the water, Chernov's flight was invisible to the
forty Phantoms flying 5 miles above the ocean.  The coneshaped search
system of the radar in the F-4 searched forward and slightly up and
down, but could not paint the MiGs hidden in the ground clutter. Neither
Crown up north nor Panama to the South at Da Nang could paint Chernov's
MiGs.  Triumph Control, however, had an excellent display of both their
MiGs and the Americans on its screens.

"Eleven o'clock high at 32 kilometers.  Advise you start your
acceleration and intercept," Triumph transmitted to Toon and his flight.

"Executing," Toon responded, and signaled the other pilots.

All four men engaged their afterburners, accelerated beyond the speed of
sound.  As the Americans passed overhead, they planned to zoom up to
engage the last two flights of the American fighter stream.

Court was the first to spot them.  "Packard, we got four MiGs," he said
over the radio, in a surprised voice.  "Eleven o'clock low and
climbing."

"I don't have them," Flak Apple said.  "Dodge, you got the MiGs?" Dodge
was the second flight in the stream.  He preferred Dodge to go after
them, because he wanted Packard to go on the prowl in the Hanoi area for
the MiG driver who wore a blue helmet.

"Negative," Dodge Lead replied.

"Are they in an attack curve, Packard Three?" Flak asked.

"I still don't have them."

"Affirmative," Court replied.

"If you got 'em, you take the lead," Flak responded.  There was no hint
of disappointment in his voice.  A MiG was a MiG was a MiG.  Better one
in the air than two on the ground.  Even if he had to relinquish the
lead.

"Packard flight, this is Three," Court transmitted in response to Flak's
command.  "I got the lead.  Check switches on.  Comanche, Packard is
engaging." Court rolled up on a wing, preparatory to diving to the
attack.  He knew they were enemy, because no friendly forces would come
from that direction.  If there had been any doubt, he would have to move
the flight into a position where they could positively identify the
airplanes as MiGs.  More than one Navy A-4 attack aircraft had been shot
at because, to a nervous pilot, it resembled a MiG-21 at a distance.

"Good hunting, Packard," the strike FORCE commander said.

"Comanche, stay loose.  Move your eyeballs." The Comanche strike FORCE
moved away from Packard flight, as Court led them down the chute toward
the four climbing MiG-2 Is.

"Jettison tanks .  .  .  now," Court transmitted.  "Double-check those
switches."

Four sets of 375-gallon drop tanks tumbled off the wings of the Phantoms
and flew back as the airplanes picked up speed in the dive.  Each pilot
rechecked his AIM-7 Sparrow switches first.

This would be the best missile in a head-on attack, since it was
radar-guided.  Only after the Phantoms were on the tail of the MiGs
could the infrared AIM-9 Sidewinders pick up and track a heat source.

Court told Ev to leave the interlocks out, so he could fire a missile
each time he depressed the trigger.  At that, a direct frontal attack by
a radar missile was chancy because of the fast closure rate and the
small frontal area reflecting radar energy from the attacking plane.

Chemov and Toon had practiced their climbing attack.  Usually, it was
from the rear and they were not spotted.  This time, they had been seen,
because Triumph had positioned them for a lead collision course, not a
stern attack.  To make it worse, the Americans were hidden in the
morning sun.

Chernov swore as he alternately raised and lowered his sun visor.  The
phosphorous sweep of his R2L forward-searching radar was very dim and
required he look down into a small hood.

He had to raise his sun visor or he couldn't see the presentation at
all.  When he looked up out of the cockpit in the quadrant where the
Americans had been reported, he had to lower his visor.  Finally, by
holding his thumb in front of him at just the right distance to block
out the sun, he saw the American fighter stream.  Then his eyes picked
up the attacking Phantoms heading right at them.  He had first seen the
smoke smudge from the engines.  Then they appeared as tiny as four
specks of dust on his canopy.

Chernov transmitted to Toon.  "They are in the sun.  Four of them coming
at us."

Toon knew what to do.  They had practiced the maneuver for just such an
event.  "Split," he commanded.  He pulled his plane sharply left and
upward and his wingman followed.  Chemov did the same, turning sharply
to the right and up, and his wingman followed.  They made their turns
forty-five degrees to the attacking flight path and never took their
eyes off the four Phantoms that were growing in size every second. Their
bent wings and drooping tails made them look like misshapen birds of
prey diving on their target.  When the time was right, Toon would give a
command and the four MiGs would reverse course and catch the attacking
Phantoms in a pincer movement.  It was a basic fighter maneuver.

"Defensive split," Court transmitted to Packard flight.

"Flak," he said, abandoning proper radio procedure in the heat of
battle, "you take the northern two, I'll take the southern element.  You
got a visual on them yet?"

All four airplanes had the MiGs on radar, and now they were picking them
up with their eyeballs.  Court had had them in sight since he'd first
spotted them at 22 miles.  He was one of the few pilots blessed with
phenomenal eyesight, and he used it to great advantage.  His
back-seaters became instant believers when their radar picked up the
target at the range and azimuth he said'ij was.

"Roger," Flak sang out, "radar and visual." Because the MiGs had turned
into their split, they were at an angle that presented more surface for
the radar as well as the eyeballs.

Court checked his position.  He could probably get one of the two MiGs
below, but his wingman, Packard Four, had a slight advantage.

"Okay, Packard Four, take him, I've got you covered," Court transmitted
and slid back to protect his new leader.  "Tally ho," Packard Four said
as he dove in.

"Giving away MiGs, Major?" Ev said.  "Surprise, surprise."

Court grunted.

"Missile away," Packard Four shouted, signaling he had fired a
radar-guided AIM-7 Sparrow missile.  One of the twelve foot-long
missiles dropped from its well in the fuselage of his Phantom.  In less
than half a second, the rocket motors of the 450-pound missile ignited
with a gush of bright red flame longer than the missile itself.  One and
a half seconds later, the missile accelerated through Mach 2, leaving a
streaming trail of thick white smoke etched across the sky as clean and
pure as engraved crystal.  The white smoke rippled and the beam-riding
missile , as the radar pencil beam from the radar
dish in the nose of the Phantom.  "Here's another," Packard Four said,
as he fired again.

Chemov and his wingman, Van Bay, saw the first missile speeding in their
direction.  Chemov pulled up sharply, followed by Van Bay, and waited
for the missile to start up after them.  It did not.  A circuit in its
computer logic burned through, allowing the missile to track out to
infinity.  It would soon fall out of the sky.  But the second missile,
fired when the MiG was climbing, arced up immediately and came down
toward Chernov's wingman with an inexorable certainty that sent him
rolling into a screaming dive.  Van Bay looked back.  In the split
second he had remaining to live, he knew he could not outmaneuver the
homing missile now splitting the air at four times the speed of sound
and heading directly at him.  The 66-pound warhead exploded on contact,
fragmenting a tight drum of continuous rod stainless steel wrapped
around it into 2,600 fragments.  The MiG2 I's fuel and engine blew an
instant later in a big dirty yellow fireball.

To the north, Toon was heading toward the fighter stream, hoping to lob
some missiles at them from astern.  He had lost the initial advantage,
but was sure he could outrun the two F-4s that had dived toward him.  He
was too far away to see the number four man in his flight, Van Bay, be
blown out of the air.

"I'm heading north after this guy," Flak said.  Court turned his head
quickly and saw Flak and his wingman arc up and away toward the two
northern MiGs.  He turned back to concentrate on the remaining MiG-21 in
front of him.  Below, he saw the debris spinning out of the black cloud
caused by Packard Four's second Sparrow blowing the MiG-21 apart.

"Yahoo," Packard Four shouted.

"Okay.  Four," Court transmitted.  "I've got the lead.  Nice shooting."

Shit, he said inwardly, I probably could have gotten that MiG.

"What the hell," Ev exclaimed from the back seat as they watched
Chemov's MiG.  "Where's he going?"

Chemov had pulled his airplane up, then over Court and his wingman.  In
a flash, he was hidden in the sun and had height advantage.  He
instantly reversed course and triggered off two of his K- I 3A missiles.

The first bobbled, then set on course toward Court's airplane.  The
second fell off the rail without igniting.

Chemov looked carefully ahead of his one operating missile.  He could
easily see when the plane it was heading for should stall an evasive
maneuver.  The only correct direction would be a climbing turn to the
northeast, followed by a diving turn to the south and west once Chemov's
missile committed to following the Phantom.  Chemov kept his course, his
radar still illuminating the Phantom, until he knew the missile could
track the last mile alone.  He turned his airplane south a few degrees
and held his finger ready on the trigger for his 23mm cannon.  When the
time was right, he planned to squeeze off a long burst, seemingly into
empty air.  If the Phantom pilot did what was expected, he would fly
into the burst.

"I've got it, I've got it," Court said to Ev.  "No sweat."

"Okay, boss," Ev said, confident now in his front-seater's prowess.

Then Court's wingman slid close to Court's airplane.  He hadn't intended
to.  In trying to keep his position, as well as follow the enemy fighter
somewhere in the direction of the sun maybe he'd get two today-he'd had
an instant of purple sun blindness.  His back-seater had his head buried
in his scope, trying to break out a blip to the west, and didn't note
the sliding action of his airplane.

Ev Stem, looking over his head and upside down now, as Court came over
the top preparing to jink down and away from the missile tracking him,
saw the belly of their wingman, also inverted, sliding up toward them,
as fixed on course as a freight car on rails.  Although both planes were
tearing through the air at hundreds of miles an hour forward over five
miles above the earth, the relative speed between the two was less than
ten miles an hour.  That made no difference.  Neither pilot saw the
other.

Ev, hanging from his straps in the back seat, saw it all.  He acted
immediately, doing two things at once.

He snatched at the control stick with his right hand and the mike button
on the throttle with his left.  As he rolled and pulled the airplane
away and down from the rising Phantom, he punched the button and yelled
over the radio.

"BREAK DOWN, PACKARD FOUR, BREAK DOWN, BREAK DOWN."

Packard Four reacted instantly and pulled back sharply on his stick and,
rolling into a turn, flew directly into Chemov's bullet stream aimed at
Court.  Seven of the 23mm shells, eight-inch slugs of high explosive,
ripped along the wings and into the canopy, blowing the pilot's head
into a mass of bone and pink tissue.  The same shells disabled the rear
ejection seat as they tore into the engine.  The back-seater hammered
only twice on the canopy before the left engine exploded, blowing his
upper torso clear of the disintegrating airplane.

The missile tracking Court's airplane lost lock as he started south in
his planned escape maneuver, but managed a re-lock the instant Ev pulled
their Phantom away from the imminent collision with their wingman.

Yet Chemov's K- 13 missile could not completely turn the corner with
Court's airplane, so it did what its proximity fuse was programmed to do
when it passed within 33 feet-it exploded.

Most, but not all, of the fragments of the 13-pound warhead spun
harmlessly into space from the spherical blast.  A handful of cold
rolled steel fragments zinged into the rear canopy and struck Ev Stem in
the left arm and neck.  There was a loud bang as the air pressure was
lost through the holes.  The air from the lungs of both pilots exhausted
in a gasping rush.  The white vapor of condensed air swirled around both
cockpits once and was sucked out the holes.  Court's and Ev's maps and
cards from their kneeboards were sucked off and dashed about the
cockpit.

Air rushing by the holes emitted screeching whistles.

Court was shocked and confused, but knew he had to keep a G-load on the
airplane until he could find the attacking MiG.

"Ev," he yelled into his mask, "Ev, are you okay?" He couldn't
understand the mumble he heard in response to his cry "Put your oxygen
on a hundred percent," he called back to Ev Although the oxygen system
automatically supplied the required amount of oxygen mixed with ambient
air upon demand, full oxygen under pressure would help Ev fight the
rapid decompression and his injuries, whatever they might be.

Court eased up on the G-load to look back over his left shoulder for the
plane that had fired the missile.  He saw the MiG, coming around in a
hard left turn, maneuvering to fire another missile or his cannon.  He
also saw the pieces of Packard Four's airplane tumbling down far below.

"Ev," he called again into the intercom, "I'll get you out of here. Hang
on.  " His only chance to clear the area was to accelerate down and away
from the fight.  He rapidly rolled level and jammed the control stick
forward to lower the nose and unload.  Above the cockpit noise, he
thought he heard Ev scream.

He slammed both throttles outboard for a few seconds of afterburner to
gain enough airspeed to pull away from the MiG-21.

He saw that his heading would take him on the most direct route across
North Vietnam and Laos into Thailand and U6on.  In the back seat, metal
fragments grated on Ev Stem's clavicle as the plane moved, and dark
blood from his left subc1avian vein oozed through his flight suit and
drenched his survival vest.

Eight minutes had passed since Court had first called out the MiGs; five
and a half minutes had passed since the first missile had been fired.

Comanche strike FORCE was now well over 100 miles to the north.  Sixty
miles behind them, Flak Apple and his wingman had zoomed up and were
about to gain the advantage over Toon and his wingman, Vong.  The fight
between Court and the MiG had taken them 30 miles southwest of Vinh.

In his cockpit, Vladimir Chemov was sweating, but beginning to feel more
confident.  He had been pulling and turning and now, in just a few more
degrees of turn, he would have the F-4 Phantom again in his sights.  He
was sure the last missile he had fired had caused some damage, because
he had seen pieces and a smoke wisp stream from the Phantom after the
explosion.

Triumph Control could give him no vectors, since the blips of the two
aircraft were so close.  Triumph did tell him that Toon was now
seventy-five kilometers to his northeast, still fightingAs happens in
the speed of high altitude combat, neither man knew who the other was.

Court had not been close enough to see Chemov's light blue helmet, nor
had Chemov seen the hat on the nose of Court's Phantom.  Each man was
consumed now; Chemov on his kill, Court with escaping.

Court pulled his throttles out of afterburner as his airspeed indicator
shot through Mach 1.5.  He looked back and could just make out Chemov
coming out of his turn and lowering his nose to catch up.  Chemov's
short-range missiles were useless over four miles, and his 23mm cannon
was useless over half a mile.

Court estimated they were six to eight miles apart.  He had time to
escape.  Ahead he could see the terrain of the flatlands give way to the
lush green of the rising mountains of the Annamite chain.  He knew he
was going fast enough so that the fuel-critical MiG-21 would give up the
chase.  He checked his engine gauges and his fuel.  Everything was
functioning normally, but he did not have enough fuel to make it to
Ubon.  No matter.  Once away from the MiG, he would tap a tanker.  He
called to Ev once more, but got no answer.

Chemov had advanced his throttle into the afterburner range to catch the
escaping aircraft.  His fuel was low, very low.  He could only fly a few
more minutes away from Vinh before he would have to reverse course. Then
he remembered; there was a small strip at Tan Ap used for propeller
aircraft.  He quickly checked the map on his kneeboard.  Tan Ap was
ahead and slightly south of their current flight path.  It was a short
strip, 1,700 meters, and he would have to do some fancy flying, both to
get in and to get off again after he refuelled.  But he could do it.

Chemov did some rapid figuring, and calculated that if he conserved his
fuel, he could chase this enemy all the way to the Laotian border and
still have enough fuel to land at Tan Ap.

He grinned in his mask.  He planned on shooting the damaged Phantom down
long before the border.  He pulled his throttle back enough to save
precious fuel, but still gain on the enemy Phantom.

Twenty minutes flying time to the north, Flak Apple had rolled out on
the rear of Toon's wingman, Vong, and pumped an AIM-9 Sidewinder up his
tailpipe.  He had been so close, small pieces of the exploding MiG had
gone up his left intake.  Now his left engine was grinding and only
delivering half-thrust.  He was at 12,000 feet.

"Damn," Flak told his wingman, "I've ingested some stuff.

Left engine going out.  Got to head west.  Cover me." Toon saw Flak's
airplane emerge from the explosion of the MiG-21 and correctly surmised
what had happened.  He circled back.  Triumph Control said they were
within effective slant range of the Thanh Hoa antiaircraft emplacements.

Toon told Triumph the altitude of the enemy Phantom.  Flak's wingman
slid in between Toon and Flak's damaged airplane.  He saw Toon abruptly
pull up and to the north.

"Hey, Packard Lead, he's pulling off, he must be out of ammo," the
wingman said.  He rolled out level on a heading to parallel that of
Flak.  At exactly that moment, five 85mm antiaircraft shells from the
Thanh Hoa battery detonated in front of and to the side of Flak's
airplane.  In a second, it was engulfed in a long sheet of flame.  The
speed of his Phantom FORCE-fed oxygen to the fuel fire ' , so that,
until the plane began to tumble, the sheet of flame was white.

Inside Flak's cockpit, it was all violent tumbling and heat from the
flames, as the Phantom spun through the air, rapidly breaking up.  Then
the entire aft section separated, taking the engines with it.  The
forward section was flung free.  Flak's head was smashed against the
canopy, then he was crammed into his seat from a crushing FORCE of ten
Gs, as the cockpit section tumbled over itself and began to fall
straight down.

Flak was barely conscious as his hands grappled for the handle between
his legs.  He found it with one hand and tugged, then passed out from
the shock of the rocket ejection.  The MartinBaker seat had suffered no
damage and performed as advertised.

"Mayday, Mayday," his wingman called, knowing they were too far away for
a rescue effort to be sent in.  "Mayday, Packard Lead, an F-4 is down
south of Thanh Hoa."

He set up an orbit off to one side as he saw first one, then, after a
horrifying pause, another parachute blossom open.  He couldn't get any
closer.  The Thanh Hoa battery was firing full out in his direction.

When he saw Toon set up for a pass on him, he turned into him, fired his
last two Sparrow radar missiles, and turned southwest to Laos and
Thailand.  "We got him, we got him," his back-seater yelled, when he saw
a wing blown off Toon's MiG.

Flak came to, hanging in his parachute 4,000 feet in the air over a
small village.  His left ann hung numb and senseless.  His face felt
funny.  He reached up with his right hand and felt around.  His helmet
had been blown off.  He could not see out of his left eye.  He felt only
mush and flapping things.  He put his right hand on his riser and looked
down at his left ann.  He groaned when he saw his bent arm sticking out
of his left sleeve.

He fumbled for a minute with his survival vest with his right hand,
until he realized he couldn't open anything until he was on the ground
and out of his harness.  He looked around.  On a hillside several miles
to the north, he thought he saw a parachute just disappear into the
jungle.  He looked down.  He was dropping toward a stream next to a
small village of brownthatched huts next to a palm grove.  He distinctly
saw villagers running toward him as the ground rushed up, and he saw no
more.

Chemov, satisfied with his fuel burn, moved his throttle forward a notch
and began a slow 500-feet-per-minute climb.  He was still gaining, but
wanted an altitude advantage on the F-4 in front of him.  He checked his
armament counters.  He had two K-13A heat-seekers, and 80 rounds of 23mm
cannon shells.  It was important he get this American.  This shoot-down
would make his fifth recorded victory, and that put him in the ace
category that the Western world saluted so highly.  Not since Russians
had advised and flown with the North Korean Air FORCE in the early
fifties had a Russian airman made ace by shooting down American
airplanes.

"Ev, can you hear me?" Court repeated several times to his back-seater.

He pressed his hands against the sides of his helmet in an attempt to
block out the screeching howl of the shattered canopy.  He couldn't tell
if Ev was talking or not.

"Tap the stick twice if you hear me," he commanded.  He felt the stick
jerk slightly under his hand.  "Okay," he said.

"Twice for yes, once for no.  Are you wounded?" He felt two faint jumps
in the stick.  "Bleeding?" The stick jumped twice.

"Lots of blood?" The stick jumped twice more.  "Can you put a tourniquet
on it?" There was no response, then the stick made one feeble jump.

"I'll get you home, Ev.  Just hang on," he said over the intercom.  Then
he had a horrible thought.  He was slowly climbing his plane to get to
an altitude where he could save fuel.  They were passing through 22,000
feet, more than double the altitude where oxygen was required.  "Oh God,
Ev.  Does your oxygen mask work?" There was one very faint tap.  The
metal fragments that had torn into Ev's body had first severed his
oxygen hose and microphone cord.  He could hear, but he could not
transmit.

Court immediately pushed the nose down.  He had to get to a lower
altitude so Ev Stem could get enough oxygen with each breath to stay
conscious.  He knew he would burn more fuel, but he had no choice.  "Ev,
Ev.  I'm sorry," he groaned into the intercom.  "We'll level about
fifteen thousand.  Can you still hear me?" He felt two faint jumps in
the control stick.

He switched to guard channel on the radio and called for help.

"Hillsboro, Hillsboro, this is Packard Three on guard, do you read?

"Packard Three, Hillsboro.  Go to Golf frequency."

"Haven't got the blue card," Court said.  Court's kneeboard cards with
all the frequency codes had disappeared in the rapid decompression of
the missile hit.  "The cockpit's a mess.  I'm fifty miles north of Mu
Gia Pass and I need a tank.  I'm about out of gas and my back-seater is
wounded." He spoke rapidly.

"Roger, Packard Three.  Can you come up two two eight decimal three?"

Although Packard Three had a valid emergency, the controller wanted to
keep guard channel open for the other emergencies he knew were coming
after a big strike.

"Roger, two two eight three, switching," Court transmitted.

He reached down to the right console and dialed in 228.3 on the UHF
radio control head.  After hearing the tone that indicated the channel
change, he called Hillsboro.  Hillsboro had no radar.

They exercised command and control by using radios.  Therefore, they
could not warn the pilot of Packard Three that there was a bogey twelve
miles on his tail, low, and slowly closing.

"Hillsboro, Packard Three.  You copy, my back-seater is wounded and I
need a tank?" Court's voice was normal.

His oxygen mask covered the sound of the slipstream tearing at the holes
in the aft canopy when he transmitted.

"Roger, Packard, I copy.  Stand by." Court's controller keyed in the
master director on his console.  He was told where and when the C-135
tanker would be available.

"No sweat, Packard," the controller told Court.  "Blue tanker will be
waiting for you near the NKP TACAN.  He'll give you precise vectors when
you get closer.

"Okay, Ev.  You copy that?" Court said on the intercom.  He checked his
fuel, then looked up.  He thought he could see the green peaks of Mu Gia
Pass in the distance.  "We'll make that tank in just a few minutes.  How
ya doin?  Gimme a tap." He felt the stick move ever so slightly.

Chemov was at 5,500 meters, about 18,000 feet.  His R2L radar, as short
range as it was, told him he was twenty kilometers behind his prey.  He
needed to be within seven kilometers, less than four miles, to fire his
two remaining heat-seeking missiles.  He noted he was now 500 meters
above the American.  He rechecked his missile switches and pushed
forward on the control stick.  With his height advantage, he didn't need
the fuel consuming afterburner to gain speed.  He planned to build up to
nearly Mach 1 as he plunged deep into the American's six o'clock
position.  Then, out of sight, and with a speed advantage, he would
trigger off both heat-seeking missiles and be ready to follow up with a
gun attack.  He noted with satisfaction that the sun was still behind
him, giving him further protection in its glare.

Since the days of bi-winged fighters made of wood and fabric, the basic
lesson had been to hide in the sun, stalk your enemy, then shoot him in
the back.  No one gave up an advantage like that for some misunderstood,
mythical idea of chivalry.  Generally, a fighter pilot only thinks of
chivalry when he is out of ammo, and his opponent is not.

Court rechecked his fuel and his position for the tenth time.

He had twelve minutes of flying time left and estimated he was ten miles
from Mu Gia and sixty miles from Blue tanker.  His true airspeed was 480
knots.  That made it easy to calculate that he would have a spare three
minutes to locate the tanker and get on the boom to receive fuel.  He
was apprehensive but not worried about getting the fuel.  As long as he
stayed alert and did not give in to mind-numbing panic, they would be
all.right.

"Real soon, Ev, real soon," he said in his microphone.  He felt two
faint but reassuring taps on the control stick.

Chemov's radar display showed a 280-kilometer-per-hour overtake speed as
he leveled 300 meters below and six kilometers to the rear of the F-4.

He reached down without looking and turned on the switch to send the
refrigerant moving to cool the seeker heads of his two K-13A missiles.

In seconds, they both emitted electronic tones, indicating they were
charged and had locked on to a heat source.  Chemov kept his gunsight
centered between the twin tailpipes and listened to the tone increase in
pitch, as he flew his plane closer to the origin of the heat.  By feel,
he again rechecked his firing circuits and fingered the firing button on
the control stick.  The tone in his headset reached an almost unbearable
shriek that brought nothing but pure joy to Vladimir Chemov.  He pressed
the firing button once, then again.

Ev Stem had his head back against the headrest of his ejection seat.  He
felt nauseated and cold.  Waves of pain that would increase, then
subside, then increase again, throbbed in his left shoulder and hand.

With his right hand, he had unhooked his lap belt to free his shoulder
harness.  Then he had reached up, undone the chest strap of his
parachute, and rummaged around under his survival vest inside his flight
suit, trying to find a hole to plug, or a vein or something to pinch. He
found nothing except grating pain and huge waves of nausea as he pushed
and poked.  He had given up trying to find the vein or artery that was
bleeding so badly.  Now he sat holding his left hand, with his right in
his lap.  His head was back and he thought of Jan and the picnic they
had had before he'd left the States for Ubon.  He had joked wryly about
maybe getting checked out in the front seat once he had shown he could
hack it in the back.  She'd said she didn't care, just come back to her
and Tommy.  Ev had no trouble picturing Jan holding little Tommy.  Then
he saw a flicker.

Chemov watched the missiles streak clean and unerring toward the enemy
Phantom in front of him.  The smoke from their rocket motors drew clean
white arrows to the nozzles of each missile.

Chemov had fired them from a range of two miles, they had accelerated to
Mach 2, they would impact in less than 4 seconds.  He had already
flicked his selector switch to cannon in case something went wrong.  But
he knew it wouldn't.  The American plane flew along as steady as an
airliner.  What Chemov was alert for was not so much an evading maneuver
on the luckless American's part, but the need for a cannon attack if the
missiles failed, or-more likely, and he hoped this would be the case-the
need to make a rapid roll and pull to avoid the debris from the
exploding American fighter when his missiles impacted.

In Ev Stem's field of vision were the three rearview mirrors attached at
the 11, 12, and 1 o'clock positions of his canopy.

He saw a flicker again, a crisp spear of white, and knew exactly what it
was.

"Break left, break left," he screamed against the canopy noise, already
knowing that Court couldn't hear him; and instantly, without conscious
thought or direction from his brain, his right hand slammed the control
stick to the left, and he slumped as total pain stunned him into
unconsciousness.

Court's first mental reaction was to think the control system had
somehow ruptured and was causing wild inputs.  His first physical
reaction was to put pressure against the stick movement.  As he did so,
the pressure gave way in such a manner that he knew Ev had done it.  He
looked back over his left shoulder as he increased back Pressure.  All
this flashed through his mind and was resolved so quickly, he had no
trouble spotting the incoming missiles and pulling even tighter to break
their tracking solution.  At the same time, he engaged the afterburners,
knowing he had to have the extra thrust or die.

Chemov saw the Phantom break into the twin paths of the missiles at the
last split second, and marveled at the control of the pilot as he pulled
his own plane straight up to dissipate his overtake speed, and rolled as
he climbed to keep the American in sight.  Hara sho, he grunted against
the G-FORCE, as he saw the white hat on the nose of the camouflaged
Phantom.

Court instinctively clawed for altitude as the two missiles zoomed by
and detonated as the distance circuits in their proximity fuses sensed
closure disparity.  The booms were too far away to do more than sprinkle
pieces of steel against the tough skin of the Phantom.  As Court rotated
during his climb, he saw the attacking airplane-it was a MiG-21.  He
could see the pilot inside the cockpit as the MiG floated lazily over
the top of the vertical maneuver.  Court was able to get off one wild
snap shot with his gun, before he too had to ease the nose of his
fighter over the top of the looping maneuver.

Chemov unloaded his airplane as he came down and slammed the throttle
into afterburner range.  He had not expected the Phantom to follow him
so far up the climb, and had almost stalled trying to rise higher in the
sky.  He raged again at the poor rearward visibility, as he shot through
the speed of sound, then pulled abruptly back up again to reengage the
American.  He searched and finally spotted the American Phantom fleeing
west, now almost to the karst of Laos.  He checked his fuel.  Barely
enough.

He gritted his teeth, left the afterburner engaged, and shot after the
elusive enemy.

Court saw him coming.  He couldn't get another ounce of speed from his
airplane.  He only hoped he could make it out of North Vietnam past Mu
Gia Pass into Steel Tiger, where he and Ev could bail out with a fair
chance of a Jolly Green rescue.  Hopes of reaching Blue tanker had died
when he plugged in his burners to avoid the MiG attack.

Court clenched his teeth.  He couldn't fight, he could only flee
straight ahead for the comparative safety of Laos.  He looked back and
saw the MiG boring in.  "Don't be predictable, don't be predictable,"
Tanaka, an instructor at George, had hammered at him.  He could make one
last-ditch maneuver that might throw his attacker off.  When he saw
Chernov roll in on him and the fire start to come from his belly and the
round red cherry balls start toward him, he pulled back on the stick as
hard as he could and at the same time jammed in the right rudder.  The
heavy Phantom snapped and stalled in a horizontal corkscrew maneuver
that dissipated 300 knots of airspeed, effectively stopping it dead in
the air.  At the same time, he squeezed the trigger of his 20mm cannon.

Even though Chemov snatched back on his stick, it was too late.  He
zoomed by, straight into the stream of 20mm shells erupting from the
Gatling gun slung under the belly of Court's airplane.

Time froze for Court at that second.  He saw the sparkles of his cannon
shells erupting all over the fill and tail section of Chernov's MiG as
it clawed for altitude.  He actually saw the gushes of smoke, then
flame, spew from the individual holes, then combine into one big torrent
as the thin metal skin gave way and the engine started to break up and
spit out pieces trailing long red ribbons of flame.  Court rolled high
and to the left in a half barrel roll that put him parallel to Chernov's
climbing MiG.

It wasn't a zooming climb, just the momentum of their maneuvers carrying
them up at a lazy rate, Court a hundred feet or so higher than Chernov
as they topped out, with the MiG starting to fall off on a wing.  In
slow motion, Court saw the canopy separate from the MiG, then a blast of
flame as the ejection seat shot out from the airplane.  Fascinated, and
still in slow motion, Court pulled his Phantom easily around and down,
all the time watching the unfolding drama of the ejection.  It occurred
to Court that if he had not passed off the other MiG that day to his
wingman, he might be an ace now.  He saw the pilot fall free of the seat
and start to fall through space on his back, legs apart.  Then a pilot
chute whipped up from behind his head, pulling a cable and a long
streaming length of white that slowly blossomed into a fully opened
parachute.  The pilot swung down beneath the chute and hung there. Court
saw him slowly raise his hands to the risers.  His light blue helmet
stood out quite clearly.

He lost sight of the descending parachute as he turned the airplane away
and lowered the nose to gain airspeed.

"Ev, Ev.  I got him.  I got him," Court said over and over to his
back-seater.

Then he turned back toward Laos and Steel Tiger.  He was very slow,
barely 250 knots, The man in the parachute appeared between him and the
Laotian border.  Court stared, fascinated, as the parachute drifted down
directly in front of him, down through the range cirrle and center
pipper of his gunsight.  He was astounded to feel his lips draw back.

The trigger under his finger was still hot.  One twitch and his foe
would be forever vanquished.  The pilot was facing him.  Court saw him
reach inside his upper harness and withdraw something.  Then he realized
the man had pulled a handgun and was shooting at him.

Chernov yelled at the Phantom driving directly at him.  He pulled the
trigger as fast as he could on his revolver, knowing it did no good, but
thinking maybe just one round would impact the windscreen and kill the
American pilot who had shot him down.  He was furious, and in a full
battle mode, ready to kill.

At the same time, deep in his mind, he was aware of his mistake.

He should have felt that same fierceness as he'd bored in much too
complacently to finish off the American from behind.  He had fallen for
one of the most basic of fighter maneuvers-the high-G barrel roll.  The
last round, snapped out of his gun.  With dawning horror, he realized
the Phantom pilot was not going to shoot him with his cannon but was
going to run him over with his airplane.  He drew his arm back, prepared
to throw the gun at the last instant, in a futile gesture of defiance.

Suddenly, Court realized that, unless he pulled up, he would hit the
helpless man or collapse his parachute.  He jerked back on the control
stick and rolled several hundred feet over the top of the parachute.  In
his haste, he pulled harder than he intended and the big Phantom slopped
upside down and quit flying.  At the same time, both engines unwound as
quickly as if the throtties had been stop-cocked.  Instantly, Court
jammed his left hand toward the restart button, but knew as he did so it
was a useless motion.  A look at the fuel gauges confirmed what he knew
to be the truth: the airplane was out of fuel .  .  .  and stalling.

They were two miles in the air, out of fuel, out of airspeed, falling
straight down toward the green and brown of Mu Gia Pass.

"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.  Packard Three Alpha and Bravo bailing out over
Mu Gia.  Bravo is wounded," He transmitted the message on guard channel
once more.

"Ev, we gotta get out.  Brace yourself, I'm going to pull the handle."

Court spoke rapidly but clearly into the intercom.  He braced himself
and pulled the yellow-and-black D-ring between his legs to start the
ejection sequence that would get them both out of the dead Phantom.

The rear canopy shot off the falling Phantom, followed instantly by the
rear seat rising out of the cockpit on a column of fire.  It was barely
clear when the front canopy flew off and the front seat rocketed out on
its pillar of flame parallel to the ground as the Phantom nosed straight
down.

Court's parachute was pulled open by a lead slug shot from a drogue gun
less than two seconds after his seat had left the cockpit.  The opening
chute snapped him from the seat just after his shoulder harness and lap
belt automatically released.  He fell sideways until he reached the end
of the risers and swung down under the canopy.  The chute immediately
started oscillating, flinging his body first one way, then the other,
like a pendulum under a giant clock.

Without conscious thought, his Special Forces jump training took over.

Timing it just right, he chinned himself on the risers away from each
oscillation.  After two dampened swings, he hung down straight.  He
reached down and pulled his orange survival knife from a G-suit pocket.

He reached up as he had been taught and cut four lines going up to the
parachute canopy to better steer the chute.  After that, he pulled the
handle to release his seat survival pack to dangle from a thirty-foot
lanyard.  Then he looked around.  Below and to his left, he saw the
white of Ev's parachute.  The canopy hid the figure underneath.  Court
couldn't tell if he was conscious or not.  The fact that the chute was
open told him nothing, for it had been activated as automatically as his
own.

Below him, toward the south where it was all black karst and lush green
jungle, he saw the spilled canopy of a parachute hung on a tall tree
like a long white-and-orange ribbon.  That would be the Russian pilot.

He estimated he was about five thousand feet above the trees.

The green jungle stretched for miles in all directions except south,
where it culminated in the mountain pass that tunnelled traffic from
North Vietnam into Laos through Mu Gia Pass.  He could see clearly the
untouched brown road that stretched from North Vietnam into Mu Gia.  He
saw light truck traffic on it that was backing up just short of the
Laotian border, preparing for the run down the Trail that night.  It was
barely eleven in the morning.  By nightfall, he knew, there would be
hundreds of trucks ready to plunge south.

He unzipped a pouch of his survival vest and took out his survival
radio.  He extended the antenna and transmitted: "Mayday, Mayday,
Mayday.  Packard Three Alpha and Bravo are down north of Mu Gia Pass.

Alpha is okay, Bravo is wounded."

He repeated the call twice more, but heard no response.

He could see his drift would take him to the north side of the pass.  He
started pulling on his southernmost risers to slip the chute in that
direction.  He would pass near, but not directly over the Russian's
parachute.  He looked back over his shoulder in the direction he had
last seen Ev's parachute.  He froze.  He was enough to one side to see
Ev's body hanging slumped in the harness.  His chute was drifting almost
directly onto the road.

Then he heard faint popping noises and realized that figures on the road
were shooting at his back-seater.  He could just make out Ev's canopy
collapsing as his body fell into a small clearing near the road.  It was
quickly surrounded by small figures with rifles.  Some looked his way
and started to shoot.

He pulled harder on the risers, trying to slip more to the south, where
he could see a hole among the tall trees.  His heart almost stopped as
he looked down and could see he was very close to the jungle top.  He
remembered his training.  He made a conscious effort to put his feet
together, bend his knees slightly, cross his arms over his face and hold
the inside of the risers.  He forced his eyes to the horizon so as not
to anticipate the impact.

He smashed into the top layer of branches of a thick grove of trees just
short of the clearing.

Time did not slow down.  He heard and felt crashes and branches
breaking, and his body seemed to be hutling in stops and starts toward
the ground.  There was one torso-wrenching jerk, as his chute snagged
further, then gave way.  Wrapped in the risers, it seemed he fell
forever until there was nothing.

1415 HOURS LOCAL, WEDNESDAY.  22 NOVEMBER 1967

Mu GiA PASS ROYALTY OF LAOS

Court felt the pain first.  He felt his chest had burst open, and maybe
his stomach.  He wasn't sure where he was or what had happened.  I must
be in the Vette.  I've crashed.  Then he knew that wasn't right, because
.  .  .  because he remembered his fight with this MiG and the bailout.

"Ev," he cried.  "Ev.- He struggled to get up and fell back, gasping
with the hot searing pain that renewed itself in his chest.

He lay panting, his eyes closed.  He felt the sun hot on his face.  But
he had seen Ev.  Ev was right over him.  Ev was here looking at him.  He
forced his eyes open against the glare of the sun.  He squinted. Someone
was standing, framed by the sun, looking down at him.  "Ev," he said to
the figure, relieved.

Ev, get your radio out.  Call in a SAR."

"Only you Yankees carry radios," said Vladimir Chemov.

Chemov stared down at the fallen pilot.  He looked so .  .  .  normal.
He looked, Chernov thought, like one of us.  This wasn't what the agents
of the dark forces were supposed to look like.

He had seen the movies.  The Americans were fat and ugly, and had little
pig eyes.

It all came to Court Bannister in a sudden awareness.  He clawed for his
gun.  Waves of pain shot through his chest.  His holster was empty.

"Very good gun," Vladimir Chernov said.  His accent was thick.  "Very"
came out "wery." He brought his right hand into Court's view.  It held
Court's .38 revolver.

Fi hfing the pain, Court felt for the bulky pocket of his survival vest
where the survival radio should be.  The vest was gone.  All the pockets
of his flight suit were unzipped and empty.

He moved his legs.  They felt sore but operable.  Groaning from the pain
in his chest, he pushed himself to a sitting position.  He saw the other
man had unhooked his harness and his G-suit for him.  All his equipment
was laying spread out on the ground next to him.  The survival seatpack
had been opened and the contents placed on the ground in an orderly
fashion.  Court saw that the wrappings of the various packs had been
opened and the contents examined.  He looked around.  They were at the
edge of a clearing at the base of several tall trees.  Court saw his
risers snake up to the nylon of his parachute that was streamered up
through the branches.  He looked at the man standing over him.  He wore
Court's green mesh survival vest.  Under it was a powder blue flight
suit.

"Do you have a blue helmet?" Court asked.

"You fly Phantom with white hat?" Chemov countered.

"Yes.

"From where?"

"I'm not supposed to tell you that."

Chernov looked puzzled.  Then he brightened.  "Ah, no.  Not airfield.  I
already know.  'WP' on tail of Phantom, that American base Ubon.  I want
to know where in airplane you fly?"

Court understood.  "From the front seat," he said.

"You make good trick," Chemov said.  He peered at Court's name tag."

Bann-as-tarr.  Good trick, Bann-as-tall .  " He seemed relaxed.

From his sitting position, Court made a lunge for the Russian's hand
with the gun in it.  Chemov easily stepped back, and Court flopped to
the ground; a groan escaped his lips.

"Ho," Chemov said.  "Bad trick, Bann-as-tarr.  Bad trick.  I could kick
easy." He waved the gun.  "I could kill easy." He squatted down, just
out of range of Court's hands or feet.  Court lay on his back, faint
with pain.

"Give me some water and some of those pills," he croaked.

He pointed to the water tins and the aspirin package from the seatpack.

The man kicked them over to where Court lay.  He opened a pint tin,
drank half, swallowed four aspirin, then finished the tin.

When Chemov saw what was in the tins, he opened one and drank deep.

"Ahhhh," he said, wiping his mouth.  "Good."

"Are you Russian?" Court asked.

Chemov laughed.  "No, Amerikanyets.  I am from California.

"Sure you are," Court said with a grin.  "How come you speak English?"

"Every California speak English, yes?"

"You fly a good airplane," Court said.

"Ah.  And you fly good airplane, Amerikanyets.  How much you fly?  How
many HOURS you have?  You shoot any MiGs before me?"

"I have about two thousand HOURS," Court answered.  He didn't think it
smart to tell the Russian that he had shot down three MiGs.

"How much money?"

"How much money?  How much money what?  How much does the airplane cost?

What do you mean?" Court asked.  His head was clearing.

"In week," Chemov asked with exasperation.  "How much money you make in
week?"

Court snorted, then grimaced with the pain.  "That's a stupid question.

"Have auto?" Chernov asked.  He looked genuinely interested.

"Hey," Court said.  "You're supposed to be asking me military questions.

Sure, I have an auto."

"What auto?  Ford?  You have Ford?"

This is crazy, Court thought to himself.  "No, I have Chaika limousine.

All us Russians have Chaika limousine."

Chemov threw back his head and gave a great laugh.  Then he looked very
shy for a moment, as if he were asking an embarrassing question.  "The
hat on your airplane," he said.  "It is, ah, cowboy hat, yes?"

Court laughed.  "It is a cowboy hat, yes.  You speak good English."

"Hah, so do you.  Speak Russian you?"

"Nyet, tovarich, " Court said.

Chemov laughed.  "Yah, you Bann-as-tarr Anrefikanyets I like.

You good pilot.  Next time I beat.  We meet .  .  .  " He stopped, his
face turned serious.  He drew back and motioned with the gun in his
hand.  "There be no next time.  You are prisoner.

Maybe you shoot me down now, but I capture you now." He did not smile.

Court stared at him.  He saw a man with light brown hair and blue eyes,
probably a few years older.  The man had thin lines extending back from
his eyes, a smooth brow, and curved lips that looked as if they wanted
to smile a lot.

Then reality returned in a rush.  This was war.  This wasn't
hands-across-the-border crap, this was hands-in-the-bear-trap if I don't
kill this guy and get the hell out of here.  Court made a mental search
of his own body.  What do I have that I can use as a weapon, he asked
himself.  Not a fucking thing, he answered himself a second later.  This
Russian puke has it all.

Then they both heard the warbling sound of a police whistle, faint but
clear through the jungle from the direction of Mu Gia Pass.  Court had
been told the North Vietnamese Army used whistles to signal to each
other.  Troops were obviously headed up to where they had seen the
parachute come down.  They already have Ev, now they want me, Court
thought.  He rolled.

over and came to a position on his hands and knees.  He bit off the
groan that sprang from his chest.

He heard a new noise, from the opposite direction of the NVA whistles.

It was the faint hissing and whooping sound of a big helicopter in the
distance.  His heart jumped.  The SAR was on.

A big Jolly Green rescue helicopter was moving into the area.

Mixed with the sound he heard the deep roar of the big prop on the A-1
aircraft escorting the Jolly Green.  The sound engines seemed to grow
stronger and sing through his body.  Life and energy flooded into him.

His brain cleared and became purposeful.  He knew he was going to go
toward that sound, regardless of what might happen.

He sat back on his heels and looked up at the pilot in the blue flight
suit.  Wearing the USAF survival vest, he looked like any American
pilot.  Court clenched his teeth and rose slowly to his feet.  The pain
seemed far away now.  He felt almost light-hea even slightly euphoric.

He was still facing the Russian, who held the gun on him.

"I am going now," Court said very slowly and evenly, enunciating every
syllable.  "I am going now.  If you want to stop me, you will have to
shoot me in the back." They stared hard at each other, each man with a
set and determined mouth.  Holding the Russian's eyes until the last
instant, Court turned and started out from under the trees into the
clearing.  He walked y toward the sound of the SAR.  He put each foot
down as careful as if he were walking barefoot on broken glass.  He
could feel the muscles in his back tense.  He thought of his dad, then
of Susan Boyle.  They'll never know, he thought.  They'll never know how
I died, or where my body is.

"Bann-as-tarr," Chemov said quietly.  Court did not turn.  He felt the
hair on the back of his neck rise as the skin on his scalp contracted.

"Bann-as-tall, you will need this." Chemov's voice was sharp, almost
harsh.  He spoke in the manner one speaks to an undisciplined soldier.

Court stopped.  His legs felt wooden.  In slow motion, he turned and
looked back.  Chemov motioned with the pistol toward the survival gear
spread out at his feet.

"Take." His voice was definitely angry now.  He stepped back and
motioned again with the revolver.  Court walked to the seatpack,
squatted facing the Russian, and began putting water tins and the two
survival radios into his flight suit pockets.  He hesitated, then tossed
a tin of water to the Russian who deftly caught it.

"They torture, Bann-as-tarr.  Pig fucking bastards torture.

Worst is Cuban.  Ceballos.  Cannot give you to Ceballos." Chernov felt
angrier than at any time in his life.  When this American pilot had
groaned and struggled to his feet to walk away, Chernov had again seen
the defiant American navigator, that Bomar, being tortured.  "Cannot
give you to Ceballos," Chemov repeated.  But he was angry, very angry,
Shooting down American fighters was one thing; capturing a pilot was
something else entirely.  What a feat-to actually capture an enemy
pilot.  Ignatov would have to give him the best possible of all Party
evaluations.

He would be set for life.  He shook his head.  Angry and sad at the same
time.  "Cannot," he said with finality.

He stood looking down at Coun, who was packing his survival gear.  The
whistles were getting louder behind him.

"Maybe .  .  .  I go with you.  " He looked thoughtful for a moment,
then he laughed, his face clear now, the anger gone.

"But no.  I go back.  We fight again, yah?  I am Chemov, PodPalcovnik
Vladimir Nicholaevych Chemov.  We fight, or maybe we drink." Still
holding the pistol, he waved his hands in a comme si, comme (!a gesture.

Court looked into his eyes.  The bond was instant.  There was no war, no
enemy.  Here were two champion fighter pilots who had just fought a
superb battle.  Court moved to offer his hand.

Something hit Chemov's chest with a wet, smacking sound.

He went down like an empty sack at the same time a snap sounded from
across the clearing.  Court dropped to the ground and stared in horror
at the body of the man who had just told him his name was Vladimir, his
animated face suddenly slack and lifeless.  Bright red blood began to
ooze through the fabric of the American survival vest and through the
flight suit from the hole in the Russian's chest.

The sound of the helicopters suddenly rose to a crescendo.

Two A-Is dove and roared, their cannons spitting, over the clearing
toward the direction of the shot.  Suddenly, small arms and heavier
machine-gun fire erupted at the aircraft from the North Vietnamese
troops who were pouring into the clearing.

Mixed in with the gunfire was the sound of whistles and yelled commands.

Court suddenly realized the cracking sounds he heard were made by
bullets being fired at him.  He crouched lower, and quickly stuffed some
of the survival packets into his flightsuit pockets and prepared to
scuttle into the jungle.  His breath came in short desperate pants, and
his heartbeat was so heavy he thought his chest was going to burst.

Adrenaline opened the pain in his ribs.  He looked at Chernov, and
grabbed the gun from his lifeless hand.  At the last minute, he noticed
the blue scarf around Chemov's neck, tugged it off, and poked it into
his knee pocket.  Still on his hands and knees, he backed into the
jungle thicket, heart thudding.

The canopy and vines closed over him as if he had backed into a cave
entrance.  Even outside sound seemed muted.  He felt resistance behind
him and turned around as best he could in the narrow confines.  Sweat
began to stream down his face and chest.

He didn't feel the punctures or hear the rip as three spines as big and
hard as tenpenny nails, from a squat broad-leaf plant, tore across his
back.  Staying low, worming his way forward on his elbows, he inched
along one of the many small game tunnels crisscrossing the thicket.  The
shouts and whistles faded quickly in' the dense, rotting growth, but he
knew the enemy troopers would very quickly find his blundering path into
the jungle.  He didn't have time to stop and call the rescue team on one
of his survival radios.

Overhead, Sandy Low Lead, the pilot of the big prop-driven A- I fighter,
radioed Crown what he saw as he pulled up over the clearing.

"One man is down, I think the other is in the jungle southeast of the
clearing.  I have negative radio contact with either man.

We're being shot at bad.  I don't want the Jollys in there until we
suppress the fire and make contact." Sandy Low Lead unkeyed for a
second, then transmitted: "Packard Three, if you read, come up guard
channel, beeper, or key your mike."

If the enemy were too close to hazard a voice transmission, a downed
crewman could depress the mike button twice on his survival radio to
signify he was alert and listening.  Or he could turn on the beacon
switch of his RT-10 radio that would transmit an eerie whooping call on
guard channel, "Packard Three, if you read, come up guard channel,
beeper, or key your mike." There was no reply.

Higher up, at 8,000 feet, Sandy High Lead and his wingman orbited,
waiting to be called in to lay ordnance and tear gas, if necessary, on
the enemy while the pickup by a Jolly Green, a giant HH-53 helicopter,
took place.  Each A-1 carried four 20nim cannons, and 8,000 pounds of
assorted weaponry.  The HH-53 Jollys-the first in the theater-had door
gunners firing 7.62mm Gatling guns to protect themselves.

The Jollys carried a hoist on an arm on the right side of the craft to
let down a cable with a heavy device like a lead plumb bob to penetrate
the jungle.  Three narrow metal seats unfolded -down like flower petals
from the device.  A strap held each person in place as they were lifted
up.  The PJ-the pararescue jumper-usually went down with the penetrator
to assist the rescue.  PJs, all NCOs, were the most decorated men of the
war.

But the Jolly Green helicopters were extremely vulnerable, as they
hovered motionless for the long minutes necessary to winch up a downed
crewman.  Usually a second Jolly orbited in the distance to back up the
first, while the Sandys protected them both.  However, without radio
contact or a confirmed visual sighting, there would be no reseue.  Court
Bannister had none of these; he was neither seen nor heard.

The advancing Vietnamese found Chernov and, from him, Court's clear path
into the thicket.  Upon command, two men stripped off their pith helmets
and load-bearing harnesses, grabbed their SKS rifles, and wormed into
the heavy growth.

Others probed Chemov's body, while one spoke on a radio.  He stiffened,
electrified at what he heard.  "He is Russian, protect him, " he barked
to his soldiers.  "Take him to the base camp.

Carefully, you idiots, carefully, " the leader said.

Creeper vines caught at Court's arms and legs, and thorns scraped him as
he wriggled through the tiny game path.  He hoped he was safe, at least
for a little while, in the thicket which rose up as huge as four or five
boxcars piled on top of one another in the dense jungle.  He slowed his
frantic flight and stopped, and lay panting as he fumbled for a water
tin.  He didn't find it.

In a panic, he ran his hands down his flight suit.  He lay too flat to
see what condition it was in.  Fluttering and searching, his hands found
tear after tear.  Without the thick mesh and canvas of his survival vest
to hold them, he had lost the heavy water tins.  What he did find in his
remaining pockets, he pushed forward in front of his face: a thick K-bar
hunting knife, a package of bandages, a waxed packet of matches, only
one of his two survival radios, his .38 revolver, and Chemov's blue
scarf.  His whole flight suit was now dark and soaked.  In an awkward,
cnamped motion, he shifted his head to wipe the grime and sweat from his
face on his sleeve.  The air was thick and stifling as he studied his
meager findings, which rested on the ground barely five inches in front
of his eyes.  He rolled over on his back and wrapped the blue scarf
around his forehead, then he grasped the RT-10 radio and extended the
antenna up into the tangled foliage over his head.  He turned the small
black wafer switch from OFF to STNDBY.  The next two positions were
TRANS/BCN and TRANS/VCE.

.  .  .voice or beeper.  Packard, do you read?" Court quickly covered
the miniature speaker with his hand to muffle the noise The two NVA
eighty feet behind him heard, and squirmed faster, homing in on the
signal.

Court unwrapped the tiny earplug that silenced the speaker as he plugged
it into the set.  He keyed the mike button twice.

"Packard, Sandy.  That you?" The tinny voice of the A-1 pilot sounded in
Court's ear.

"Roger," Court whispered into the mike built into the small radio.

"Packard Three Alpha here."

"Authenticate with the code of the day," Sandy Low Lead demanded.  More
than one radio had been used by an English-speaking decoy.

Court's face contorted.  "Oh fuck, I don't remember."

The Sandy pilot noted the anguish in the voice he heard.

"Name a team in the NFL,- he said.

"Oh fuck," Court whispered, his mind a whirl.  "Redskins," he finally
blurted.

:'Where they from?"

"Unh, ah ...  D.C." Court put his head on his arm.  This can't be
happening to me, he thought.

:'Packard, is your Bravo with you?"

"Negative.  He went down on the road.  They already got him."

"Okay, Packard.  Can you give me a flare?"

' 'Negative.  I don't have any.  I'm in the bottom of the big thicket at
the south end of the clearing." When Court finished transmitting, he
heard a rustling, and looked down between his boots.

Three feet down the tiny tunnel he saw the shaved head of the first
crawling Vietnamese soldier.  He reached back for his revolver, held it
in two hands between his legs, and fired twice.

Both .38-caliber bullets made small blue holes where they entered the
smooth skull.  The head ballooned slightly and dropped the few inches to
the tunnel floor.  Court heard a muffled yell in Vietnamese that seemed
to come from behind the soldier.  He couldn't see the second man
frantically trying to bring his rifle to bear past the body.  It was
impossible, the jungle too thick, the path too small, Court grabbed his
equipment, frantically pushed off with his feet and scrambled down the
path, pumping his way on his elbows and knees, oblivious of the
clutching vines and scraping thorns, or of the noise he was making.

For thirty minutes he inched and squin-ned down the game trail.  Heavy
sweat stung his eyes, nearly blinding him.  He took an occasional swipe
with his sleeve, and plunged on.  He was panting heavily, and making
noises in his throat as he exhaled.

He felt cramped, and contained.  Jolts of claustrophobia confused and
panicked his mind.  The jungle was a big green monster and he was a
trapped worm in its stomach that would soon be torn apart and dissolved.

Suddenly, his head popped out from the bottom of the thicket at the edge
of a glade full of elephant grass and bamboo groves.

Although the effect calmed him, he felt like an accident victim peering
up from the bottom of the wreckage at a tranquil scene.

He stayed still for a moment, then wormed himself out of the thicket,
and lay at the base, gulping air.  He needed to slow his mind down and
take stock of the situation.

He sat up and began to check his body through his torn flight suit.  The
scratches were starting to burn like tiny trails of fire.

The pain from his ribs pushed into his consciousness.  He moved his arms
and legs, and felt himself.  Nothing broken, he coneluded.  He snorted,
as the thought of his being tossed around in a concrete mixer full of
pins and rocks flashed into his mind.

He sat back for a moment and tried to concentrate on what his next move
should be.  He had hardly begun to soil things out when he heard a noise
and froze, his heart beating wildly.  It came from behind him, from the
thicket.  Someone was coming.

He scrambled to his hands and knees, then to his feet, and dashed away
from the thicket toward cover on the other side of the glade.  He was
within five feet of the far green wall when the ground suddenly gave way
and he dropped into a hidden sinkhole in the porous limestone.  His
world turned blazing white, then black as a tomb.

1445 HOURS LOCAL.  WEDNEsDAY.  22 November 1967

AIRBORNE IN AN O-2A over THE Ho CHI MINH TRAIL ROYALTY of LAos

Toby Parker, call sign Covey Four One, wheeled his O-2A over the karst
seventy miles south of Mu Gia Pass.  He had relieved Covey Three Five
barely ten minutes before, and circled and soared now, jinking
constantly, as he searched the Trail below with binoculars.  He had
flown several missions in the weeks since Pontiac Two had been killed
attacking the fake truck under his control.  Although Toby had been
gloomy and morose, he had not touched a drop of liquor.  Instead, he had
worked out in the makeshift gym at Da Nang, lifting weights and studying
Tae Kwan Do from a senior NCO, until he could fall into exhausted sleep
each night.  Though Chuck Annillo had been supportive and flown him as
much as possible, he hadn't tried to penetrate Toby's withdrawn manner.

He felt his job was to keep the brass off Parker until the young captain
could work it out himself.

Parker's newfound dedication and great ability as a pilot was enabling
him to do a fine job as a new FAC, and Annillo was sure his spirits
would pick up.

Toby heard a call from Hillsboro.  He let the binoculars hang from the
cord around his neck and answered.

"Hillsboro, Covey Four One, go

"We've got a SAR going north of Mu Gia.  You're closest.

Get up there.  Enroute contact Dakota on Delta Kilo.  Tell them we've
got one, maybe two down in their AO.  Pin Dakota's position.  We may
need them for a snatch." AO meant Dakota's area of operation.  , "Roger.

Covey Four One headed to Mu Gia.  Dakota on Delta Kilo." Toby spun the
O-2A to a northerly heading, then opened his thick checklist binder for
the codes of the day.  In the cryptic letters, he read where Dakota was
a team on the ground for road watch and pilot rescue.  Delta Kilo was
the day's code for the frequency 32.6 on the FM radio.

"Dakota, Dakota, Dakota.  Covey Four One, Covey Four One on Fox Mike. Do
you read?" After three calls, Dakota checked in.

"We read you, Covey.  What's up?"

Toby consulted his checklist.  "Dakota, authenticate Golf Tango."

After a moment Dakota replied with the correct words.  "Bravo Delta.

What's happening?  "

Toby gave him the code words for the coordinates of the Mu Gia Pass
area, and asked how soon they could get to that location where there was
an aircrewman in trouble.  After two minutes of map study, Dakota
replied.

"Covey, Dakota.  About forty-eight HOURS.  Sorry 'bout that."

1530 HOURS LOCAL, WEDNESDAY, 22 NovEmBER 1967

CommANDERs OFFICE.  7TH AIR FORCE TAN SON NHUT AIR BASE REPUBLic OF
VIETNAM

At noon that day, Commander, 7th Air FORCE, had heard the news that
Bannister and Apple were down in enemy territory.

Now he sat at his desk listening to the afternoon briefing by his
Director of Operations, Major General Milton Berzin.  He had named
Berzin-a stocky man in rumpled khakis-as the replacement for Raimer,
whom he had sent to a supply post in disgrace.

Commander, 7th Air FORCE, sat in his chair, both hands flat on the desk
in front of him.  He looked like a thoughtful and contemplative man who
was about to push abruptly to his feet.  And that was just about how he
felt.  He was responsible for 70,000 airmen and pilots, and 1,500
airplanes on twenty bases in South Vietnam and Thailand.  He also had
operational control over 400 more airplanes based in the Philippines,
Okinawa, and Guam.

He took two, sometimes three briefings a day on both in-country and
out-country combat activities.

Now he was impatient.  He wanted the latest news on Bannister and Apple.

What had happened?  Did they get the Soviet pilot?  Couldn't have, they
went down too far south.  Did a rescue unit already pick them up?  What
about their back-seaters?

Milt Berzin was using his pointer on a situation map propped on an
aluminum tripod.  It was the last of today's in-country briefing series.

The map was marked with blue and red grease pencil showing friendly and
enemy positions, and long black lines showing aerial routes into the Dak
To area, where a large battle was raging between NVA regulars and
American paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade.  The paras were
winning a significant battle.

"General Peers says the final assault on Hill 875 will be tomorrow
morning.  He says his aerial resupply situation is okay, but he wants to
make sure he has the priority on all the fragged and unfragged close air
support airplanes we can give him, starting at first light." Berzin
looked expectantly at his boss, his bristly eyebrows di-awn together.

"It's been laid on for a long time, Milt.  See that there are no
glitches.  Give me hourly reports." Berzin nodded.  He began the
out-country briefing.

"The Team Dakota action is not bringing in the success rate we
anticipated.  So far we have lost one C-130-you recall the one that
dropped then failed to return-and the team has put in only about twenty
percent of the strikes we anticipated.  There is talk by MACV of calling
off the operation." Neither man knew the name of the Dakota team leader,
Wolf Lochert; or that a team member planned to kill him.

"No word at all on that C-130, Milt?"

"No, sir.  No radio calls, no beepers, no wreckage." With only a handful
of C-130s in the theater, the loss of even one was of great consequence.

Berzin flipped another chart forward.  He pointed to a spot on the Ho
Chi Minh Trail next to the Vietnam border near Lang Vei and Khe Sanh.

"The FAC, Covey Four One, reported traces of PT-76 enemy tanks here, but
the Intel people have downgraded the probability to zero."

"Why?" Commander, 7th Air FORCE, asked.

"First off, because the NVA has never brought tanks down the Trail, and
secondly because Covey Four One's credibility is suspect.  He recently
called a strike in on a phony truck set up as a flak trap." Berzin
paused.  "I think you should know Covey Four One is Parker, Toby Parker,
General."

"Oh, yes.  The captain with all the attention from the Pentagon.  I
remember being briefed about him.  Air FORCE Cross, Purple Heart,
drinking problem."

Berzin nodded, turned over another chart, and resumed his briefing.

"Twenty-five F-105s from Korat and Tahkli struck the northeast rail
junction on the morning go.  They reported seventy-five percent bombs on
target and eighty percent of the target destroyed.  Twenty Ubon F-4s and
sixteen from Udorn .  He stopped as he saw a full colonel from the Blue
Chip command post stick his head in the door.

"What's the latest on the Ubon shoot-downs?" Commander, 7th Air FORCE,
asked.

"Sir, we lost three Ubon planes with five crewmen missing," the colonel
said.

"What about Bannister and Apple?"

"Sir, Major Apple went down just west of Dong Hoi.  His wingman saw one
good chute.  As yet, no one has come up on the radio, so we don't know
if it was Major Apple or his backseater.  Major Bannister went down near
Mu Gia and has not been picked up.  We had radio contact with him, but
now we've lost it.  His back-seater fell into enemy territory and was
captured.  A third F-4 is missing."

"Did anybody get that Soviet?"

"Yes, sir, we think Bannister did.  But the only word I have so far from
Major Hostettler on the scramble phone is that Major Bannister and the
MiG-21 shot each other down.  It's kind of a vague story so far, but
it's possible Bannister was with the Russian pilot on the ground."

:'How so?"

"Hostettler interprets the initial on-scene reports as three pilots down
in the Mu Gia area.  That could mean one F-4 and one MiG-21 shot down.

He's pretty certain Bannister's back-seater parachuted into the hands of
the NVA.  and that Bannister was with the Russian in a clearing when the
first Sandys arrived.

Bannister came up on guard shortly after, but we lost contact with him
almost immediately."

"What's the status of the SAR?  Berzin consulted his notepad.  "There
are two Jollys on orbit, four Sandys, plenty of fighter cover, and a
Covey enroute to the area.  The Covey FAC says Team Dakota reports it
can be on see the in forty-eight HOURS.  They are our backup in case the
pickup goes sour.  And it might."

"What's the enemy situation?" Commander, Seventh, asked.

"Bad, sir.  They're all over the place.  The Sandys are keeping their
heads down, but they have a couple fourteen-point-five triple A guns
down along the Trail that just about reach up there.

The Sandys don't want to blast anything until they pinpoint Bannister's
exact location."

"Who is the FAC?

"Covey Four One, sir."

"Oh, my God."

1600 HOURS LOCAL.  WEDNESDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 1967

AIRBORNE in AN O-2A over THE Ho Chi Minh TRAIL ROYALTY OF LAos

"Hillsboro.  Covey Four One is approaching Mu Gia.  " Toby Parker saw
with grim clarity the sharp karst mountains rising from the dense jungle
like black shoals in a green sea.  He had a visual on the orbiting Jolly
Green helicopters and the A-1 Sandys.

"Covey Four One, Hillsboro, contact Sandy Low Lead on Lima Lima."

Toby read the correct UHF frequency for LL on his kneeboard.  "Sandy Low
Lead, Covey Four One inbound."

"Roger, Four One.  Orbit west a few miles.  Familiarize yourself with
the site.  We're getting low on fuel.  We've lost contact with the guy
on the ground.  The bad guys are all over the place.

Doesn't look good."

Toby did as he was told.  He orbited a mile west at 7,500 feet, and
studied the ground with his binoculars.  He saw the rising karst, the
thick lush jungle with its triple canopy, and the tiny clearing where
the rescue attempt had been aborted.

An hour later, Sandy Low Lead called Toby.

"Covey Four One, that's it.  We're bingo fuel and have to cut for the
home patch.  You've got ten more minutes of daylight.

See if you can make contact with Packard Three and pinpoint his
position.  Moonbeam will relieve you when the sun goes down.  We've done
all we can .  .  .  which wasn't shit.  Good luck." Anger and
frustration had tightened the Sandy's voice to a thin scratch.  No Sandy
wants to leave the scene of an incomplete rescue.  They get mean and
want to punch things out.

The main Joint Search and Rescue Center was set up in Saigon.  They
worked with the Rescue Control Center at Da Nang, and Compress, the
Rescue Command Post at Nakhom Phanom Air Base, Thailand.  The USAF men
were part of the Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service.  They
coordinated and integrated both USAF and Navy rescues.  Compress had the
action because NKP was the rescue unit closest to Mu Gia Pass.  The
senior duty officer called the Rescue Center in Saigon on the hot line.

"About Packard Three-we can't get anybody out before dark, and tomorrow
the weather's gonna be dog shit," he said.

"Seventh Air FORCE is hot to get him pronto.  You know you have on-scene
clearance for any kind of fog you need." Fog meant CBU- 19 or CBU-52,
which was plain tear gas or tear gas mixed with napalm.  Authorized by
MACV Directive 525-11, fog was considered a component of combat power.

It was, however, used sparingly and only on special occasions, such as
making a rescue.  So far, the newsies hadn't caught on.

"Listen, we want to get all the guys out pronto.  We just don't have
night or bad weather capabilities yet." Compress cleared the line.

"Any Packard read Covey Four One, come up guard or beeper.  Packard,
come up guard or beeper." Toby had made the calls on guard channel every
five minutes.  There had been no answer.  He had ten more minutes of
orbit time before he was bingo.

"Covey Four One, this is Moonbeam, how do you read?"

The C-130 ABCCC was settling in orbit for the night.

"Loud and clear, Moonbeam.  I've had negative response from Packard."

"Any ground activity, Covey?"

"Negative.  The bad guys aren't visible in the clearing anymore, and
nobody is shooting at anybody right now."

"Okay, Covey Four One.  Moonbeam is on station.  You're cleared off
station.  Break, break.  Packard, if you read Hillsboro, come up guard
or beeper."

There was no answer.  It was dark now.  The sun had set.

0645 HOURS LOCAL, THURSDAY.  23 NOVEMBER 1967

THE Mu GiA PASS AREA ROYALTY OF LAOS

His eyelids fluttered as water began to drip on his face.  Dirt and
rotted fungus clotted his hair and smeared the left side of his head.

With a start, Court Bannister opened his eyes.  Like wisps of lake fog
blowing away, the fuzziness of his mind cleared ' Full awareness came
slowly.  He moved an arm, then a leg.  He was cramped and full of sudden
pins and needles as he moved his limbs.  He realized he lay at the
bottom of a hole of some kind, his left arm under him, both legs jammed
against the crumbling dirt wall.  He moved his right hand in front of
his eyes and wriggled his fingers.  He touched his face.  He pushed up
and freed his left arm.  The pain spurted anew as blood rushed through
his pinched veins.

I've been captured, he thought.  Best I don't let them know I'm
conscious.  He spent long minutes slowly and silently moving his body
and limbs to more comfortable positions.  The pain of the pins and
needles subsided as the low and constant ache of every muscle and joint
throbbed into his consciousness.  He bit off a low moan as he struggled
to kneel and peer over the lip of his hole.

The hole was small, and partially covered with vines and leaves.  He
realized it was raining, heavily and noisily, but the covering had been
protecting him.  Then full awareness came from his cracked lips and
swollen tongue.  He grasped leaves and licked the water, quickly picking
them up and discarding them as he lapped up the moisture.  Then it
dawned on him-there was no lid or grate over his hole.  He peered out.

All he saw was the rotting surface of the jungle floor extending out two
or three feet in each direction, until it faded under scrub plants and
rotted detritus.  Then he remembered fleeing the thicket and crashing
into the hole late in the day.  Was it yesterday?  He looked at his
watch, and slowly realized he had spent the night-or maybe longer-in the
sinkhole.  He vaguely remembered waking up and nodding off many times.

But where were the NVA soldiers?

If the soldiers had finally gotten through the thicket, he reasoned,
they never would have seen the hole unless they stepped in it.  They
must have gone farther down the Mountainside looking for his tracks.

Then the skin on his forehead tightened as he realized that not only was
the weather terrible, there were no sounds of airplanes.

That meant no rescue attempt until it cleared up.  He reached for his
radio.  On his chest he found only tatters and hanging pieces of his
torn flight suit.  Reaching down farther, he discovered his knee pockets
had been ripped off.  In a leg pocket he found the K-bar knife.  On his
wrist was his issue watch.  Even his .38 was gone.  Chemov's blue scarf
had fallen down around his neck.

There was nothing else in his pockets.  His mouth went dry as he
scrambled around the hole, frantically digging with his hands for the
radio that meant life or death.  It wasn't there.

He made a conscious effort to stop moving.  All right, he said to
himself, calm down.  There are other things to be considered here.

He looked down and realized the pit was filling with seeping water.  He
took the scarf, scrunched farther down into the hole, and soaked up
water to wring into his mouth until his stomach bulged.  Then he stood
in the pit like a soldier in a foxhole and looked around.  The jungle
was close and comforting.  The rain sounded like a thousand shower
sprays beating on big drums.

Even as he listened, he could tell the intensity was diminishing.

He crouched and arranged the wide fronds over the top of the hole.

Something wriggling fell to the bottom of the pit.  Soon the rain
stopped, and the jungle became silent and steamy.

Court poked his head out of the hole and cautiously looked around. There
were no immediate signs of activity.  Then he heard a hissing noise, and
a faint click near his head.  His heart jumped and he felt his lips draw
back in terror.  Immediately his mind signaled what the noise was: his
radio.  He grabbed it and put it to his ear.  There was nothing except
the faint hiss of static.

He looked around again, then spoke quietly into the built-in mike.

"Anybody read Packard Three Alpha?" He couldn't tell if the radio was
transmitting or not.  Being on all night wouldn't deplete the battery
too much, but transmitting caused a heavy power drain.  He waited a few
minutes and transmitted again.

This time he got an answer.

"Packard Three Alpha, Packard Three Alpha, this is Hillsboro, read you
faint but clear.  Save your battery.  I'm going to ask a few questions,
you think about them, then answer."

The controller aboard Hillsboro pulled out a copy of the private data he
had received that morning from his Intel officer that each pilot fills
out before he flies combat.  It contains the answers to questions only
the downed man could know: wife's maiden name, name of first do , type
of car he owned, and the like.

Whatever the crewman felt comfortable with.  The questions had to be
simple, so that he could easily answer correctly while under extreme
stress.  More often than not, a man missing for more than twelve HOURS
was captured, and his radio was used as a flak trap, hence the quiz.

Hillsboro asked a series of questions.  Court thought out the briefest
answers possible, and replied.

"White sixty-seven Vette.  Sam.  My watch works okay.  Negative flares.

I'm maybe five hundred feet south from the clearing in a covered hole.

No sign of the bad guys, but they could be hiding."

"Roger, old buddy.  We affirm your answers.  Look, the bad news is the
weather is delta sierra, and due to remain so all day.

Down to the trees.  The good news is some friends are coming to visit."

Hillsboro unkeyed for a moment, then continued.  "The second bad news is
you got to give me a thirty-second holddown now, and every twenty
minutes for the next hour.  We don't know exactly where you are anymore,
so we need a fix on your position.  If you move, we got to do it again.

So get set up." He unkeyed for a long moment, then transmitted.  "Start
hold-down .  .  .  now."

Court held the transmit button on his radio for thirty long seconds as
ticked off by his watch.  He knew Hillsboro was using their AN/ARA-25
UHF/VHF homing device to get a cut on his position.  Using four cuts
from different positions would pinpoint his location close enough to
vector the ground team to within a few hundred meters of him.  over the
next hour, Court gave three more hold-downs.  At the end, he couldn't
even hear faint static.

There was a chance the battery would revive enough after a few HOURS to
send a feeble signal.  All Court could do now was wait, and hope he
wasn't discovered and forced to move.  He made himself as comfortable as
he could in his muddy hole.  To keep occupied, he started using pieces
of his torn flight suit and the scarf to set up a water filter.  He
debated eating the leeches he found.  He had learned in survival school
they had protein-just like maggots.  A turn of his stomach said no.  He
wasn't that hungry-yet.

0900 HOURS LOCAL, FRIDAY, 24 NOVEMBER 1967

THE MU GIA PAss AREA ROYALTY OF LAOS

At one time, before Special Forces training, Dave Rhoades had been
nearly as wide as he was tall.  Now he was thin and as gaunt as a
marathoner.  All the Caucasian Dakota team members were gaunt.  They had
sweated and worked off about 5 percent of their body weight during the
nine days they had been on the ground in Laos.  For this leg, Rhoades
was leading.  Wolf Lochert climbed at the tail end of the seven-man
team.  Each man took his place as point, then worked back to tail-end
Charlie.

Point was rough because it meant breaking trail through the thickest of
Asian jungles where gains were measured in meters, not kilometers.  The
men were never more than four feet apart as they made their way in line,
up the steep side of a karst ridge toward the position they had been
given for the downed American flyer.

Wolf glanced at his watch.  In two minutes, Rhoades would call a compass
break.  He pulled up the olive-drab sweat rag around his neck and wiped
his face.  Exactly on time, the hand signal was passed for a break.  No
one smoked.  They talked in whispers.  Even though the jungle face was
mere feet or inches away, all the men faced outward in a herringbone
pattern before squatting to rest.  Each took a sip of water from their
water bags.

Both point and tail-end Charlie checked their compasses.  So far, so
good.  Rhoades had a Nung strip off his gear and shinny up a tall bamboo
for a fix.  He came down shaking his head.  Too much tree, he said in
Chinese patois, meaning the canopy prevented him from seeing any
prominent features.

Wolf took the phone from the PRC-25 and called Hillsboro.

"Hillsboro, Dakota.  You copy?"

"Loud and clear, Dakota.  What can we do for you?"

"We need some help here.  I'll give you two hold-downs on the RT.  Give
me a steer to our passenger."

"Roger, Dakota.  Hillsboro listening out."

Wolf held the transmit button on the small survival radio for thirty
seconds, then released it.  Five minutes later, he repeated the process.

"You got that, Hillsboro?" he said on the PRC Got a rough cut, Dakota.

You're nearly all the way up the Phou Toe Vou karst.  Go over the crest
holding about zero two five degrees.  A Covey FAC will be on station in
an hour orbiting west.  Give him a flash, and he'll give you a better
vector once you're on top."

An hour and a half later, Dakota crested the 4,700-foot Phou Toc Vou
karst, the eastern peak of Mu Gia Pass.  They went over the crest on
their bellies, slipping and sliding in the vines and scrub.  Wolf gave
the radio to Roland and told him to tell Hillsboro he was flashing.

Rhoades and the Nungs moved into a guard position.  Wolf pulled out his
five-by-three-inch survival mirror and started flashing to the west.

Huey Dan stood to one side, weapon and eyes on the alert down the karst.

He wasn't sure what Wolf had in mind, but he knew if there was an
evacuation, he would cut the long-nose and his companions down as they
boarded the helicopter.  Then he would grenade the helicopter.

After ten minutes, Covey Three Two came up on the PRC-25 radio and said
he had a good fix on the Dakota flashes.  "Steer zero eight two for
about three hundred meters.  That will put you at the clearing where
your package was last seen.  Best I can tell, he is five or six hundred
feet southeast of that location."

Wolf told Covey Three Two he estimated it would take three HOURS to
reach the clearing, another hour or two to make contact, depending on
the density of the jungle, the weather, and the probability of enemy
contact.  "Good luck, Dakota," the Covey FAC told him.

14 Huey Dan, as point, found the first booby trap just after high noon.

He had been on his knees, slowly moving his hands like a swimmer,
feeling for trip wires when he found one.  It was rusty and ancient, and
he knew he had somehow led the team onto an old jungle path, unused and
long overgrown.  He conferred briefly with Wolf, who was behind him.

Time was runI ning short.  Downed pilots were perishable products,
normally not able to sustain themselves long in the jungle.  Covey Three
Two had been replaced by Covey Four One.  He had said the weather was
forecast to go bad again.  Rhoades and Roland came forward.  The four
men crouched over Huey Dan's map and compared positions as to where each
thought they were, and finally agreed.

"I think we should stay on this old trail as long as it goes in the
direction we want," Wolf said.  "But the only way we are going to find
the closest path to the package is for the FAC to get a fix on both of
us, then give us a steer." The others agreed.

Wolf made contact with the new FAC, who said his call sign was Covey
Four One.  "Get a flash from us and from the package and give us a
steer," he commanded.

"Roger, Dakota," Toby Parker answered.  He thought the voice vaguely
familiar, but gave it no further thought.  A Nung shinnied up a suitable
tree that topped the canopy and started flashing at the droning O-2
plane off to the west.

Toby dropped down to 7,000 feet.  That put him only 2,500 hundred feet
over the tall karst.  He saw the glint from a spot in the jungle canopy,
fixed it in his mind by triangulating it with several distinctive trees
and rock outcroppings, and marked his map.

"I have a good fix," he told Dakota on FM.  He gave them a steer in the
general direction of the package, then switched to UHF guard channel to
call Packard Three Alpha.

Court Bannister was so stiff he could barely move.  His fingers were
wrinkled and white from the constant moisture.  To keep busy, he removed
his boots for the third time and massaged his feet.  His toes looked as
shriveled as his fingers.  He wrung out his socks and put them back on,
then checked his watch and found it was time to turn on his radio.

Moonbeam had said to listen but not transmit for three minutes on every
even hour.

Through the night, the controllers had talked to their downed pilot
trying to cheer him up with progress reports, jokes, and snatches of
music.  They had no way of knowing if the signals they sent out in the
night air were heard.

Though the signal was weak, Court had received the messages.  He had
checked the luminescent dial of his watch, then turned the radio on as
instructed.  He had felt his eyes sting when one controller said a
certain man at a certain base had a hot bowl of chili waiting for him.

He knew he could not have made it through the night in his hole without
the hope and cheer given by the tinny voice through the earpiece.  It
was twelve noon, time again to listen.  The heat and humidity covered
the glade and the hole like a wet carpet.  Insects hummed and crawled.

He turned on the radio.

".  .  .  is Covey Four One.  Packard Three Alpha, this is Covey Four
One.  Do not acknowledge, do not acknowledge.  I need a fix on your
position.  I understand negative flares.  Give me a flash, repeat, give
me a flash.  I'll jazz my engines for you."

Toby Parker banked into a left-hand orbit, and moved his throttles back
and forth a few times to let the man on the ground know where he was.

Ah shit, Court said to himself.  His inventory was no better than
yesterday.  Nothing to flash with.  The mirror was back with the
survival gear by Chemov's body - Even the blade of his K-bar knife was
black.  He'd have to light a fire and put damp green leaves on it and
hope the smoke would clear the trees.  He pulled out the waxed packet of
matches.  Then with sudden inspiration, he opened the package of
bandages.  They were dry.  He grabbed the radio.  "No mirror, smoke.  No
mirror, smoke," he transmitted.  When he heard no static on receive, he
knew the battery had faded to zero output during his transmission.  He
turned the set off, hoping the battery would rejuvenate itself enough so
he could at least hear the FAC's instructions.

He cautiously poked his head above the rim of the hole just enough to
look around.  Seeing nothing, he pulled himself out and set about
finding a suitable place and some dry wood to get a fire going.  Under
an opening in the canopy, he tore the grass out of a small circle and
laid the stalks aside to use as smoke producers.  He opened the bandage
package and fluffed up the olive-drab gauze.  over the pile he placed
small sticks he hoped were dry enough to burn.  He used a rock he had
dried to light the first of his dozen kitchen matches.  It sputtered and
went out.

One by one, he tried four more that left nothing but the acrid smell of
sulphur in the air.  Relax, he told himself.  He took a deep breath, and
tried three more matches.  They sparked and spit like miniature
fireworks, but failed to ignite.  The ninth match lit with a feeble
glow.  Quickly, Court moved it to the cloth, but the sudden motion
extinguished the flame.  He swallowed and bundled the remaining three
matches in his fingers.  He held the rock next to the base of his fire
pile, struck all three matches at the same time and, in the same motion,
plunged them into the cloth.  The sulphur streamed and flared and stunk.

A wisp of flame ran up the side of the cloth as the fuzz burned off,
then a corner of one of the bandages lit with a tiny beacon of hope.

Cautiously.  holding his breath for fear of extinguishing the tiny
flame, Court poked other portions of the bandages toward the small
blaze.  They lit in turn and reinforced the heat to light off other bits
of the gauze.  Soon he had a three-inch flame spreading up though the
small sticks.  They began to swell and sizzle.

Moisture oozed from the ends, then small jets of steam.  Thin smoke
began to swirl up from the sticks.  Court could see they weren't as dry
as he had thought.  He started to fan the fire and blow on it.  The
sticks weren't catching.  They bubbled and bloated like hot dogs on a
grill, but didn't flame.  Court looked up.  The thin stream of smoke was
rising in the still dank air toward the canopy a hundred feet over his
head.  He looked down at the fire.  The flames from the gauze bandages
weakened as they glowed like incandescent screens and turned to ashes.

He knew the fire would die.  There was nothing dry to add.

Ah God, he moaned.  One last chance remained.  He carefully sprinkled
grass on the fire and ashes, hoping against hope there would be at least
a small burst of smoke for the FAC to see.

The diameter of the smoking pile was less than a foot.  He blew against
the ashes, trying to increase the heat.  His eyes burned and he choked
as he inhaled, but a gush of smoke started up toward the hole in the
jungle canopy.  He grabbed the radio and turned it on.

"Smoke, smoke, smoke," he transmitted.  He held the button down and kept
transmitting, knowing if there was an ' all left in the battery, this
prolonged transmission would exhaust it fully.  "Packard Three Alpha
sending smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke.  .  .  ." He kept it up for several
minutes, knowing full well if the first few words didn't get out, he was
doomed to find his own way out of the jungle.  With anguish in his eyes,
he looked up through the opening in the green canopy at the tiny
patch.of blue sky that represented freedom.

Toby Parker caught the word "smoke" twice then the transmission faded.

He had been looking in the area where he expected the flash from the
mirror.  He saw nothing.  Then he knew what the man meant.  He stopped
jinking and turning, and dove at full throttle toward the area to the
east.  To do so he had to cross directly over the pass at Mu Gia.  Up to
now, he had been protected by orbiting behind the lip of the western
ridge, where he could see across to the eastern plateau where Dakota and
Packard were located.

Toby was surprised the guns did not open up the minute he was exposed.

There were scores of 37mm and 23mm zippers down there that could drop a
500-knot Phantom from a mile away.  He had three minutes of
spine-crawling exposure before he cleared the eastern ridge line and was
safe.  His mind worked on the phenomenon as he furiously searched the
terrain barely one thousand feet below.  Then he knew what it was.  The
operators of the big guns were under great fire discipline, waiting for
the SAR they knew would take place.  They were after bigger game than
one lonely Cessna O-2 with just a single crew member.

He scanned the terrain below.  It all looked damningly similar.

An unbroken green carpet of foliage that hid all the secrets.  Then a
blur caught his eye.  No, not a blur, rather a fading of the green.

Smoke.  It was the thinnest of smoke, faintly lightening a small portion
of the dense green.  He nearly tore the wings off in his haste to turn
toward what he had seen.  He never took his eyes off the spot as he
banked his airplane, advanced the throttles, and started a descent. Then
he had to flick his eyes away and quickly back to make sure it was
there.  He got closer.  Definitely smoke, not mist, too hot for mist,
too sunny.  It was smoke.  He roared over the spot and pulled up and
called to Dakota on FM.

" Dakota, Covey Four One.  Steer zero eight seven degrees for about one
hundred meters.  I have smoke there.  I think it's our package." Wolf
rogered and started his team on the new vector.

The first shot sounded fourteen minutes later, then a fusillade.

Soon a light machine gun joined in.  The team, unable to withdraw,
dropped into a defensive herringbone, but did not fire.

Wolf was surprised and puzzled.  The portion of the jungle they were in
was tangled and thick, forward visibility nit.  Then he realized that no
bullets were impacting around them.  The NVA soldiers were close, but
instead of ambushing the Dakota team, 7 they were shooting small arms at
the Covey FAC.  It was ragged fire, and undisciplined.  Must be the
search troops, Wolf reasoned.  Out looking for the downed flyer, they
were potting at the low-flying O-2.  Their leader, probably a corporal,
would have to answer to the commander of the main air defense unit that
controlled all antiaircraft fire along this section of the Ho Chi Minh
Trail.  The shots died as the plane droned away.

Wolf crawled forward to confer with Rhoades and Roland, and to check the
map.  They decided the enemy ground troops were between them and the
American.  To skirt them would waste time and probably could not be done
with any great accuracy.

Besides, they could easily run into flankers.  Each spoke in turn, then
they agreed on a plan.  Wolf crouched over the radio, holding the map on
his knee.

"Covey Four One, Dakota.

"Dakota, Four One, go."

"Here's how it is, Covey.  There is a contingent of NVA between us and
the package.  They shot at you with small arms and a light mg as you
made that last pass.  If you can drag the same spot to keep them
shooting, we can move a hell of a lot faster covered by the noise, find
them, and take them out.  Then we'll locate our man and have him ready
for pickup.  Acknowledge."

"Dakota, Covey Four One acknowledges.  Get set up.  I've a few phone
calls to make first, then I'll come down and make the passes."

Toby pulled up, relayed the message to Crown, and said he thought the
SAR effort could recommence.  The weather looked acceptable, and should
hold for the next few HOURS.

Crown called Compress, who scrambled the Jollys and the Sandy and Hobo
A-Is from Nakhom Phanom, and the first flights of the fragged fighters
from Da Nang, Ubon, and Task FORCE 77.  over one hundred USAF and Navy
planes were apportioned this day for the rescue of one man.  Such an
immense response was nothing new.  Every combat air-crewman knew that
massive efforts would be expended to get him out were he shot down.  In
turn, each crewman was willing to lay his life on the line to rescue
another.  There was a tightly woven net among these men that did not
allow anyone to go it alone.

After talking to Crown, Toby flew back to the area where Wolf had said
the NVA was shooting at him.  He had a dilemma he wasn't sure how to
handle.  He was the only man who had exactly pinpointed the location of
the downed pilot.  He knew tree on which ridge line next to what karst
was where the o y should lower his penetrator.  The jungle was so thick
and impenetrable that should the Jolly hover just fifty feet away, the
man most probably could not find the device for several HOURS.

Were Toby to be shot down, this precious information would be lost.  If
another FAC were on site, or a Sandy, Toby could fly over the site, dip
a wing and say "there.  " Or fire a marking rocket well off to one side
and vector them in to the rescue site from the smoke.

He finally pushed the throttles up.  The project at hand was to get the
NVA firing.  If he was shot down, well, Dakota knew where the survivor
was.  He dove toward the solid green mass of jungle.

When he heard the noise, Court's eyes widened.  He froze.  He was
shocked how near the firing was when the O-2 roared overhead.  With
dawning horror, he realized the shooters were right outside his hole. He
remained still, and tried to assess the situation.  His radio was out,
so he could only surmise what was happening.  Since the O-2 had passed
so close, he figured his position was known.  Remembering what the FAC
had told him about some friendlies on the ground, he decided all he had
to do was stay put until someone showed up.  With enemy troops all
around, there was precious else to consider as an option.  He simply had
to wait, and hope for the best.  He slowly and carefully twisted some
water into his mouth, and eased back against the mud wall of his hole.

He wished he hadn't lost the .38.

For thirty minutes, Wolf Lochert led his men toward the sound of the
firing.  While the general area was marked by the turning and twisting
O-2, the final assault would be made on the noise from each individual
weapon.  Since the FAC had stayed in one area so long, Wolf had to
assume the NVA knew there was an American on the ground nearby, and that
more NVA search troops would soon be flooding the area.  There would be
some delay, because the new men would have to climb up the steep karst
from the valleys through which the Trail twisted and wound its way.

They came upon the first shooter sooner than expected.  He had been
inserting a new magazine when Wolf crept around the huge roots of a
giant tree.  Wolf didn't want to risk a shot-his weapon wasn't in good
position anyhow-he had to use the knife Like an attacking snake, he
launched himself toward the man, releasing his gun on the ground with
one hand, while jerking the handle-down K-bar from the scabbard taped to
his harness with the other.  The Vietnamese died with only a slight
gurgle.  Wolf lay flat on him for a few seconds before moving.  He could
feel the warm blood from the dead man's throat spreading over the front
of him.  He made sure he was unobserved, rose to his elbows and knees,
and backed up around the tree.  Rhoades covered him with his Swedish K.

On their stomachs, the two men peered around the base of the tree to
assess the situation.

They saw a rectangular glade maybe forty feet by eighty.  Scrub bushes
and grass rose up from twelve inches to four feet.  There was no
secondary tree growth making a first or second canopy.

The top of the glade was formed one hundred feet overhead by the
branches and crowns of huge trees.  Their ten-foot thick trunks rose
from the ground like mammoth pillars.  Their branches did not meet over
the center of the glade, providing an open circle roughly ten feet
across.  A few hundred feet in the air, wide of the opening, the
obliging Covey FAC was orbiting just outside the narrow field of fire.

Wolf wondered who Covey Four One was.  He would put him in for some kind
of medal when he got back.  Every few minutes the daring pilot would
dart his O-2 across the opening, causing the troops to open fire.  Wolf
estimated fifteen to twenty NVA were in the glade.  He was sure they
were green; they had no hope of hitting the plane, as they fired
straight up, like men shooting up a chimney at a swallow as it flashed
past the opening.

Using hand motions and whispered commands, Wolf told his team what he
wanted each man to do.  In general, it entailed encompassing most of the
glade in a horseshoe formation.  Upon signal, they would open fire at
the enemy in such a manner the men on the sides of the horseshoe would
not be shooting at each other.  Rhoades and Roland would be stationed at
the heel of each side.  They would function as a combined blocking
FORCE, and would pick off whatever enemy tried to scramble out of the
killing zone.  Wolf pointed to his watch and said the attack would
commence in twenty minutes.  Everybody had damn well be in place.

Silently, with precise movements, each man crept off to his assigned
post.  Toby Parker, Covey Four One, dragged the circle.  The enemy was
getting smarter.  They held and timed their fire, so that he started
taking hits toward the rear of his ungainly craft.

Wolf's attack plan was basic and simple-with one major exception.

Someplace hidden in the grass was an American who might panic and stand
up once the assault commenced.  This required each man on the Dakota
team to be on special alert.

They were, after all, here to rescue the man, not rack up an NVA body
count.

Wolf started the attack by opening fire with his weapon.  Before the
second round had exited the barrel, his team members had opened up.  The
Nungs on his left and right alternately fired and heaved grenades.

Rhoades and Roland had it easy, dropping the surprised NVA with
well-placed bursts of three rounds.  Huey Dan, on the right of Wolf
Lochert, sighted and fired bursts that narrowly missed the NVA soldiers,
but passed dangerously close to Roland.  He was in fact trying
surreptitiously to take out the white men, one by one.  He had decided
to implement his plan of narrowing down Dakota to a manageable FORCE
that he could wipe out.  Then he would kill Wolf Lochert as slowly and
painfully as he could.  An NVA soldier popped up from the grass on one
knee with his AK pointed directly at Wolf Lochert.  Huey Dan diopped him
before he could pull the trigger.  This was not the way he wanted the
big nose barbarian to die.

"Nice shot, Beedee," Wolf said, himself killing two fleeing soldiers
with accurate three-round bursts.

In less than five minutes it was all over.  Wolf estimated over a dozen
enemy dead-there was no time to count-and he had one Nung wounded in the
foot.  Time to find the package and get him extracted.

"Packard Three," he called out, "Packard Three, we're your friendly
delivery service.  You call, we haul.  You ready to go home?

"over here," Court Bannister sang out from his hole in the ground.  He
didn't think it prudent to rise up out of nowhere in a battle scene
amidst a bunch of men with hair triggers.

"Stand up, show yourself," Wolf commanded.  He saw a movement near the
center of the glade, then stared at the apparition that rose from the
ground.  "Man, you look like you just crawled over half of Laos."

Court Bannister's flight suit hung in tatters around his neck and chest,
showing the long red scratches from the spines and thorns.  What wasn't
torn was wet and muddy.  In his right hand he held his K-bar knife, in
his left was his survival radio.  He looked around.  He saw two men in
camouflaged jungle fatigues emerge from the jungle and start to search
the bodies of the dead NVA.  Two more poked gun barrels from the bushes.

Two squat ted and took defensive positions with their automatic weapons,
one was talking on a radio.  The seventh, a stocky man holding a
camouflaged assault rifle, beckoned.

"Come on, pilot," the man bellowed.  "Get your ass in gear.

That Jolly will be down in two." He motioned with the rifle for Court to
hurry toward him.

Court rose and started walking toward him, pain forgotten for the
moment.  As he drew up to Lochert, he looked around, his mind taking in
what he saw.  The Nungs were eying him and smiling.  A tall Vietnamese
crouched nearby.

For the first time, Court focused on his rescuer.  "Wolf Locheirt," he
said.  "My God, but I'm glad to see you."

"Bannister," Wolf said in surprise, "you should have stayed in Las
Vegas."

"I should have stayed anywhere but here." He looked around and caught
the eye of Huey Dan, who looked away.

Wolf noticed Court's look at the Vietnamese.  "That's Huey Dan.  Been
together a long time."

Court nodded.  "I guess we better get the hell out of here."

"Yeah, I guess," Wolf said with a bark of sardonic laughter, "you better
get out of here."

The sound of a helicopter burst suddenly into the clearing like a
passing freight train.  Two Sandys zoomed overhead, firing at nearby
targets.  Dave Rhoades looked up from the radio.  "Your taxi, sir.  But
you better hurry.  The Covey FAC says there's bad guys swarming up the
side of this here karst.

"Get a couple of Nungs and set up a defense" Wolf commanded, Then he
crouched and, running, led Court toward the roaring hiss of the
helicopter turbine engines.  Sporadic firing sounded from behind them.

Wolf took an RT-10 from his pocket.

"What about your back-seater?" he asked Court.

"He was badly wounded - I saw him go down by a road about five miles
north of here.  They got him the minute he hit the ground."

"Anyone else down in this area?" Wolf asked.

Court hesitated.  "No," he said.  He thought about Vladimir Chernov. "No
one."

Wolf looked at Court his face expressionless.  "Hillsboro said there
might be a Russian pilot down around here."

After a moment, Court answered.  "Yeah, there was.  He was saving me
from an NVA patrol when they killed him.  He was letting me go.  Said he
didn't want me tortured in Hanoi."

Wolf Lochert was silent for a moment.  A look of pain flashed across his
face and was gone in an instant.  The big helicopter was seconds away.

If the situation were reversed," Lochert said, "would you have let him
go?"

Court hesitated.  "No," he said.  "I'd have brought him in."

:'Why?  "

"We don't torture.  Besides, I think he wanted out."

Wolf nodded, and held the transmitter to his lips.  "Covey Four One,
Dakota.  I have Packard Three Alpha.  He's ready for extraction.  Copy?

II Dakota, Four One copies.  Are you declaring a Prairie Fire?

Prairie Fire was the code for a team requesting emergency extraction.

"Negative, Covey.  Just your everyday run-of-the-mill pickup." He
unkeyed the transmitter.  "We're not going anywhere, just you," he said
to Court.  "No point in letting the gomers know that fact by
transmitting in the clear.  We still have work to do down here."

"You're not going out with me?"

"Negative.  We've got a lot more to do down here besides evacuating just
one pilot." Wolf Lochert looked at his deployed team.  "We're going to
disengage and get back to work."

Covey Four One answered Wolf's last transmission.

"Roger, copy, Dakota.  The Sandys are working the area over now.  The
Jollys will vector in on your flare.  This is Covey standing by."

They heard the approaching helicopter.  Wolf took a day-night flare from
his ruck and shot it toward the opening.

"Tally ho the flare," a new voice said on the RT-10.  "This is your
Jolly.  We're coming in.  Now give me some smoke."

Wolf took Court's day-night flare, popped the smoke end, and tossed it
into the clearing.

"I've got red, Dakota," the Jolly Green pilot said.

"Roger, red," Wolf transmitted.

In the remaining seconds as the Sandy pilots worked over the perimeter,
cannons hammering, the huge Jolly Green HH-53 zoomed over the opening
and hovered on the six-bladed rotor powered by two shrieking turbine
engines.  The red smoke was sucked up, then spat out in looping whorls
by the 72-foot blades.

A PJ started down on the penetrator through the opening in the canopy.

Another Jolly hovered high and out of sight.

"On your way, Bannister," Wolf said.  He saw Huey Dan near the spot
where the PJ would touch down.  "Hey, Beedee," he yelled above the roar
of the engines.  "Get over here.  We're not leaving with these guys."

The Special Forces colonel turned back to Court and shook hands.  Then
Court ducked and ran to the penetrator.  He was still carrying his knife
and radio.

Once on the ground, the PJ-hooked by his harness to the
penetrator-pulled Court onto one of the folding seats and snapped the
safety harness around him.  Then he tilted his head back and gave a
thumbs-up signal.  In seconds, they were winched aboard the helicopter.

Nose down, the helicopter sped forward, then rose like a runaway
elevator.  Court clutched the door frame and looked down to see the last
of the Nungs melt into the jungle away from the shattering blasts the
Sandy pilots were putting on the side of the karst.  The view dwindled
and was lost in featureless green.

The PJ turned to Court and shouted over the noise.  "No one else down
there?  No one else that needs a helping hand from the friendly Jolly
Green Giant?"

Court looked out the open door at the brown and green karst sliding by.

He heard again the anguished cry of his wingman that Flak was down; he
saw Ev Stem's body fall on the road; and he saw Vladimir Chemov drop
like a poled ox.  The fact he had shot down his fourth MiG meant
nothing.  He took out the blue scarf.

"They're down there," he said, "but it's too late.  Too late," he
repeated, with infinite sadness in his voice.

1330 HOURS LOCAL, Friday, 24 NOVEMBER 1967

Commanders OFFICE.  7TH AIR FORCE TAN SON NHUT Air BASE REPUBLIC OF
VIETNAM

Milt Berzin shot into the office of Commander, 7th Air FORCE.

His usual calm demeanor was interrupted by the excitement evident on his
rugged face.

' ' Sir, we got Bannister out.  Hostettler just called on the scramble
line.  He was a bit vague, but it appears Bannister is okay."

"What do you mean, 'vague'?"

"Well, Hostettler said Bannister started slugging down mission whiskey
on the Jolly Green and hasn't been too cooperative on the debriefing.

Doesn't seem all that happy about getting his fourth MiG.  He said
something about talking to the pilot and that the Russian somehow saved
his ass."

The Commander of the 7th Air FORCE thought for a moment.

"Tell Colonel Bryce to rig it so Bannister can fly down here tonight . .

.  no, make that tomorrow, on the Seat back courier.  I want him to
brief me personally on all this."

"Yes, sir, I'll do that," the colonel said.  "Ah, sir, there's one more
thing you should know about Bannister and Ubon."

The Commander nodded.  "Go ahead

" Major Bannister's brother has been picked up by the OSI in the town of
Ubon for soliciting classified material and passing it on to the North
Vietnamese.  They had been on to him for some time.  Special Agent LaNew
made the collar when he sold him some phony missile documents."

0730 HOURS LOCAL, SATURDAY, 25 NOVEMBER 1967

T-39 ENROUTE FROM UBON To TAN SON NHUT Air BASE REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Court Bannister rested his head against an oval window in the small USAF
passenger jet.  He stared down without really focusing.  From seven
miles up, there wasn't much to see: some scattered clouds, brown and
green angular patterns of Thai rice fields; later, silvery waterways and
miles of flooded spots of the South Vietnam delta region.  He had had a
lot to drink the night before, and his head softly pulsed and throbbed
to the beat of the two jet engines as they phased in and out of synch
with each other.  He wore his 1505 khakis with open collar, major's oak
leaves, senior pilot's wings, para wings, no ribbons.  Underneath his
shirt were several layers of rolled gauze and tape to keep his cracked
ribs stable.  The dull pain pulsated in cadence with his headache. Salve
on his back and legs eased the tightness of the deep scratches. They had
just started to fester when the flight surgeon had cleaned him up at the
Ubon dispensary.  In his pocket was a light blue scarf.

There had been a great turnout late in the afternoon the day before at
the Ubon flight line.  Returning a rescued pilot to his home base was a
big event-certainly in the life of the pilot.  As profound, to some, as
a religious rebirth.  The big Jolly Green helicopter had swooped low
making its victory pass before setding down like a giant mother hen. The
entire fighter wing had turned out with jeeps and flight-line vehicles
parading colored smoke.  There was loud recorded military parade music,
and cases of champagne.  It wasn't that the war was called off for these
events.  The turnout was by those who had already flown or who weren't
flying that day.  They could afford to drink.  In the distance, heavily
loaded F-4s were blasting sound and flame as they struggled into the
air, while others were alighting like weary birds, empty and spent.

A loud cheer had gone up when Court had dismounted from the big
camouflaged helicopter, moving slowly and stiffly, helped by the PJ.

Colonel Stan Bryce had met him and motioned others to take Court's gear
as it was passed down.  Court was already fuzzy from the after shock and
the Johnny Walker the PI had slipped him.  Hostettler quietly noted the
blue scarf in Court's hand.

"Great job, great job," Stan Bryce had yelled into his ear.

"Hillsborn passed the word you got a MiG.  One more and you'll be the
first ace." Bryce put his arm around Court's shoulders as the base
photographer worked his big Graflex.  Bryce got him into the lead jeep.

Hostettler pulled out a clipboard and his USAF Mission Debriefing sheet.

"I know you ain't going to make it to Intel, old buddy."

Court answered the questions as best he could, as Colonel Stan Bryce led
the procession honking and yelling twice around the base.  After two
HOURS in the Club, Court used Hostettler's shoulder to make it home.

Later he had awakened in severe pain and hobbled to the hospital, where
he was given a sedative and some wrapping when the cracked ribs were
discovered.  The flight surgeon had chewed Court only slightly for not
stopping by to get the required post-crash physical.

Now, across from Court on the T-39 Seat back, sat Colonel Stan Bryce,
effervescent, greatly pleased one of his boys had tied the highest MiG
record of the war so far.  Only Colonel Robin Olds had downed four MiGs.

Colonel Bryce had had a long telephone conversation with Commander,
Seventh, about what should await the United States Air FORCE's latest
hero when he landed at Tan Son Nhut.

Behind Court sat Colonel Peter Wysocki from Air FORCE Intelligence.  He
had flown up from Tan Son Nhut on the Seat back that morning to pick up
Bannister, and wasn't pleased with the results.  He was sure Bannister
was holding back information needed to complete the six-page form titled
"Foreign National J, Contact-Soviet." For some reason, Bannister would
offer no proof to back up the report from Truncate via Green Door that a
Soviet pilot was missing and presumed down.  Or that Bannister had not
only shot him down, but had actually talked to him.

The T-39 swooped down and made a circling approach to Tan Son Nhut, then
lined up on final approach.  It flew lower and lower over the thousands
of jammed-together wood-and-thatch shacks crosshatched by narrow ditches
of gray sewage, passed the airfield boundary, and touched down with
faint tire squeaks and smoke puffs.

"Sir," the aide to Commander, 7th, said, "Major Bannister's plane is
taxiing in." They departed his office next to MACV headquarters.

"Are all the arrangements made?" the Commander asked as they climbed
into his staff car.

"Yes, sir.  Welcoming committee, public affairs, civilian journalists
and TV crews, podium, carpet, and band." The aide leaned over the front
seat and showed him a box and a tube of paper tied with a blue ribbon.

"Here's his Silver Star, Purple Heart, and citations to go with them."

The four-star commander of the air war leaned back and thought of
Bannister.  I hate to do this to you, son.  But that's part of the game.

Seventh needs a hero, the USAF needs a hero, even MACV can use one.  And
right now, it's your turn in the barrel.

Through the oval window, Court spied the crowd in front of the
operations building.  I wonder who the wheel is, he thought to himself.

He looked away, then back, as the T-39 headed for the spot.  His ears
flamed as he realized it was for him.

"Oh shit hot, shit hot," Bryce said.  "Look at that.  We're famous."

"If that's really for me, I'm not getting off this airplane."

Kee-rist.  Court Bannister frowned and glowered so heavily he looked
like a furious pink gargoyle.  His bowels rumbled.  Less than 24 HOURS
before, he had been drinking contaminated water.

Guided by the lineman with wands, the T-39 coasted gently toward the
yellow parking dot.  The nose bobbed slightly as the pilot braked, and
the two engines whistled a down note as they unwound.  Sunlight sparkled
from the four stars on the collar of the commander and from all the
other stars on the collars of the 7th Air FORCE and MACV dignitaries
gathered by the portable podium.  The cameras were poised.  Idle chatter
ceased as the silver passenger door cracked open.  Exactly as it swung
downward and the steps appeared, the bandleader gave a stroke with his
baton.

The booming notes of E.  E.  Bagley's "National Emblem" crashed across
the flight line.  The music rolled over the crowd and beyond, causing
flight-line mechanics to stop and look and think of the monkey as the
flaring brass and heavy drum thumps got all jangled up, reverberating in
and out of the fighter's re RKLEY BOOKS BY MAIL vetments.  The brassy
music flooded into the gaping door of the little passenger jet.

Inside, Major Court Bannister, face hidden by glare, stared through
hostile eyes out the oval window at the reception.  He didn't move.

The music swelled.   GRE All eyes remained focused on the open door.