Phantom Leader Part 8

And, lastly, how you will handle the administrative details such as Officer Efficiency Reports, Form 5 flying-time records, and related items."

"Where would I get the pilots and the backseaters, sir?"

"Set up some criterion, like so many missions, so much total hours in the front or back seat day and night. Take an equal amount of crew from each squadron or other places if need be. Another thing -each man has to be a volunteer."

"Would this be in writing, sir?"

Commander, 7th, looked perturbed. "If you accept, of course. By TWX.- He spread his hands. "Colonel Bryce might be a bit upset about not being allowed to pick his own night FAC leader. On top of that, for training purposes he will be directed to place you in the night squadron for twenty missions, and the day FAC unit for an additional ten. I'll square that away. If you have any problems, talk to Colonel Bryce first . But since this is, initially anyhow, a command directed mission, I want you to keep my Director of Operations in the know. By the way, the night FAC commander ns?"

also must be a volunteer, Do you have any questions?

"No, sir."

"Right, then. With the exception of the night FAC program, everything we have talked about here this evening is off the record." He turned.

"Now, Leonard, how about some more of that excellent scotch? Then I've got to go."

1845 HOURS LOCAL, MONDAY 29 JANuARY 1968 LANG TRI SPECIALL FORCES CAMP REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM.

They made the outer perimeter of the Lang Tri camp just after the heat of noon, gave the proper signal, and entered.

Once in the compound, they went immediately to the buried command bunker. Besides being well fortified, it was cool.

The bunker was larger than normal. In addition to the standard map and radio room, there was a small storage room with extra food supplies, water, ammunition, and radio batteries.

Along one wall of the large room were three wooden folding cots, Lopez led Toby Parker to one and told him to drink water and lie down. Toby, dizzy from heat and exhaustion, did as he was told. He put away two quarts of tepid but pure water and promptly fell into a deep sleep.

Lopez tenderly cut his flight suit and underwear off, wrinkling his nose at the smell. He sponged Parker's body the best he could, replaced the bandages on his feet, and covered him with a poncho liner.

Ryder and d.i.c.kson came over. Both were five-nine and wide as barn doors. They almost looked like twins; same build, same brown hair, same large-jawed faces.

"He sure stinks," Ryder said.

"Kind of runty, too," d.i.c.kson added.

Lopez bristled. "He saw some tanks, dammit, and got shot down trying to get pictures. His buddy was killed and he's been a POW for a few days.

You'd stink, too." He pulled out his map and pointed to Toby's mark.

"Right there. PT-76s."

"Christ," Ryder said, "we're right between them and Khe Sanh."

"We'd better get on the horn and let Fifth Group know what's happening,"

Lopez said. "But the first thing I've got to do is get out a White Hat report about one recovered USAF POW."

"And the tanks he saw," Ryder added.

Lopez looked strange. "Well, I'll mention he saw tanks."

"Don't you believe him?" d.i.c.kson asked.

"Well, h.e.l.l, now I don't know. You'd think we'd have heard something about tanks anyplace on the Trail, not just down this way. But there has never been a report of any tread activity. No recon team has ever said anything about armor along the Trail or in South Vietnam."

Lopez went to the radio table and wrote up a message and gave it to the commo man for transmission on the ANGRC109 (called the Angry 9), the long-range Morse code transceiver.

An American Army Special Forces A-team composed of twelve men was stationed at the Lang Tri camp. They were well equipped. Besides the Angry 9, they had a UHF and a VHF, and two FMs on a Mark-28 pallet. A large outside generator and small backup provided power. The antennas sprang up from the top of the bunker. In the fortified compound were a mess hall, two ammo dumps, several mortar pits, and a.s.sorted lean-tos and shed-type structures for nearly one hundred Vietnamese soldiers, composed of a civilian defense group and Vietnamese Special Forces commanded by the American A-team.

Lang Tri was located one mile from the Tchepone River, which formed the Laotian border to the west. Five miles to the east was the 6,000-man U.S. Marine Corps garrison at Khe Sanh. The Lang Tri team's mission of border surveillance had become more and more hazardous as they ran into larger and better-equipped hard-core North Vietnamese forces as the weeks pa.s.sed. No aerial recce had been able to get into the weeds and see what was going on because the valleys to the west into Laos were full of fog and had been since the time Toby Parker crashed. At Khe Sanh itself, the weather opened up only sporadically, allowing limited aerial resupply and air strikes on the attacking hordes. The air strikes, code-named Niagara, used Navy, Marine, and USAF air, including B-52s. A few weeks earlier, during the hill fights, the terrible attacks by the communists on hills 880 and 881 near Khe Sanh, the Marines had used only Marine air support with some Navy fighters. That limited use of air power had changed. Requirements had overcome prejudice and parochial thinking. Everything that could drop or shoot something was welcome now.

Toby slept on and off until late the next afternoon. He had awakened only for soup, bread, and fresh salve and bandages on his feet. The troops had given him a pair of jungle fatigues to wear. Bad weather prevented helicopter resupply for Lang Tri, so Toby had not been able to get med-evacced out. Now he woke up, stiff but refreshed, and asked for a little exercise. Lopez, his AK slung over his shoulder, led him to the mess bunker and gave him a hand as he hobbled along. It was early evening. Toby looked around. "You've got quite a fort here."

"Yeah, we do. Because we're so close to the Laotian border and at the end of the supply string, we've beefed up our defenses with extra Claymores, concertina and tanglefoot wire, and, listen to this -a couple four-point-deuce mortars, two eighty-one-mil mortars, and twenty of those sixty-mil mortars. We've also got nearly a hundred M-72 LAWs.

What with the Marines at Khe Sanh ready to help us with bodies and artillery, we are ready for anything." A LAW was a one-time, shoot-and-discard, light ant.i.tank weapon fired from the shoulder.

Besides the firepower, Lopez told Toby how the team leader, Captain Michaelis and the men, had scrounged concrete and actual 8-by-8 pieces of lumber to build the roof of their fortresslike command post, which had been sunk deep into the red clay.

Once in the mess hall, Lopez rustled up some soup and lemonade for Toby and a beer for himself. "Tell you what, though," he said. "There's a grunt full bull up there on that Marine hill, and he doesn't like us.

Says we are wretches who think we are a law unto ourselves. Hah. Maybe we are, But it doesn't make any difference." He took a long pull at his beer. "We'll be okay."

"What do you mean'?" Toby asked.

"Captain Michaelis, our team leader, had their artillery forward observer over here. We worked out a plan to get their support if we need it. They've got a bunch of howitzers that can reinforce us. All we got to do is call 'Jacksonville' on the arty net, and pow, we get all that heavy 105 stuff we want."

"Where is Captain Michaelis now'?"

"Stuck at Nha Trang. Been trying to get back for two days now. It's the weather. Our XO is out on patrol with another team member and some LOCAL tribesmen."

The gray of the overcast day became darker as the sun set beyond the hills. Fog rose from the streams and valleys.

Lopez checked his watch. He motioned to Parker, and they started to walk back to the command post. Lopez wore all his webbed gear and carried a radio and a CAR-] 5 (a Colt Automatic Rifle).

"Sleep in the CP tonight," Lopez said. "I've got the commo watch. If anything happens, keep out of the way. In fact, stay on your cot and watch the whole thing."

They were halfway across the compound when a series of incoming heavy mortar sh.e.l.ls exploded in the northwest corner of the compound and started to march toward them.

Men yelled and ran for cover. The camp's hand-powered warning siren wound up from a low moan to a high-pitched scream. More sh.e.l.ls fell on the camp. One made a direct hit in a mortar pit, blowing the tube and pieces of men high into the air. The next would land on top of Toby and Lopez.

1800 HOURS LOCAL, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 1968.

WRITER'S BAR, RArrLEs HOTEL, SINGAPORE CITY REPUBLIC of SINGAPORE In the Writer's Bar, Court Bannister stood just inside the open door that led to the Palm Court and the guest suites.

The cool evening breeze held the scent of the orchids and the frangipani trees in the two-acre grounds. Both he and Susan Boyle had arrived the day before; Court from Saigon, Susan from Tokyo. Tonight Court wore a white linen suit, highcollar s.h.i.+rt, and pate-blue tie. When he had cabled and called Susan at her apartment in Los Angeles, they had eagerly agreed to meet at the old Raffles Hotel in Singapore. He had ten days, she had eight. Nothing could be more remote from the sweat and horrors of the Vietnam war than a former colonial hotel in the newly formed Republic of Singapore.

They had laughingly agreed on a colonial mode of dress.

Court had cabled Terry Holt, his father's friend and business manager, to make all the arrangements for two suites and appropriate clothes for him. When Court arrived, his suits, s.h.i.+rts, and accompanying socks and shoes were all laid out and waiting in his suite. The manager gave him a personal welcome and explained how well they remembered the days in the thirties when Sam Bannister and Errol Flynn had stayed there, and the days-long parties they had put on.

Court and Susan each had a suite, down the open veranda from each other.

The high-ceiling suites contained a sitting room, bedroom, bath, and walk-in closet, just as the Sarkies brothers had designed them seventy-five years before. The furnis.h.i.+ngs were elegant but understated. Although the suites-which were named after famous writers who had once stayed there--were air-conditioned, there was a bra.s.s and-hardwood ceiling fan slowly revolving in each room, He saw her - now, descending the steps from the veranda into the greenery of the Palm Court. She was tanned and sleek. Her clothes were of the casual and languid colonial style so popular in the late twenties. Her dress was white silk and short-sleeved. It accentuated her bosom and waist, then flared into many pleats that extended down to midcalf. Her pumps were white. She wore a white, wide-brimmed lady's sun hat with a light-blue ribbon down one side. Her long blonde hair fell smooth and tawny past her shoulders; one golden wing brushed her forehead, then swept back under her hat. Her right hand rested on a light-blue over-the shoulder bag. Her legs flashed tan and lithe, the silk rustling and flowing, as she strode purposefully through the garden of the birds. I have never seen anyone so beautiful, Court thought as he absorbed the sight. At the last moment he stepped to the doorway and spoke to her.

"You are a most gracious and beautiful lady. Might a gentleman inquire if you are free this evening?" Court said in a thick and terrible British accent.

"Why, prithee, kind sir, inquire away." She made a coquettish curtsy.

Her quick smile was wide and warm.

Court offered an elbow. "Accompany me, if you will, to yon watering hole for friendly libation, and we will talk of kings and things."

They drank and laughed and joked in the small Writer's Bar, then quieted when a tiny, exquisitely dressed waitress from the outside garden informed them in the Queen's English that their table was ready. They followed her to a table in a far corner of the garden near the veranda of the suites.

Candlelight cast a glow on the crystal and china service set impeccably with Georgian silver on white linen. They ate under the stars, while a string quartet played quiet background music. They started with white wine- a 1966 Chablis Grand-Cru-and Escargots Chablisienne. Then soup, lobster, a salad, and another bottle of the Grand-Cru. They dined with the very silver that had been buried in the courtyard to escape theft by the j.a.panese, when they had occupied the hotel in February 1942 after capturing Singapore.

Finally, their waiter presented a cheese plate.

" 'Enough, enough,' the fair maiden cried," Susan said, sitting back.

Court selected a wedge of Brie and a cracker, then waved the platter away. Susan took some fruit when the waiter returned with a tray.

The candles flickered and danced as they had cognac with their coffee and cigarettes.

Court placed his hand on Susan's. As only lovers can, they looked deep into each other's eyes. "I didn't know it could be so good," he said.

"Thank you for taking the time off to come here." He handed her a cognac and wound his arm through hers for a toast, his emotions working. This is what I want, to be with this woman the rest of my life. A great exultation filled his chest to bursting. War and airplanes were far away.

"To us," he said in a voice suddenly gone hoa.r.s.e. "May we go on forever." He held the snifter to her lips.

She was silent for an instant, and her mouth twitched. He saw something come up behind her eyes. She blinked it away and tossed her golden hair back with a quick movement of her head. "Yes," she said, "to us."

"Let this go on forever," he prompted.

She looked down, then up into his eyes. "Forever," she whispered. Still looking into each other's eyes, they drank, Later, they danced near their table to the music of the forties from the orchestra in the Long Bar. She clung to him as she swayed in his arms, willowy and warm, nuzzling and singing near his ear in a low voice.

"The Rockies may tumble, Gibraltar may fall .

"They're only built for a day . . ." he sang back.

" But oh my dear, our love is here to stay . . ." they harmonized, his voice deep and rumbling, hers husky and warm. They had stopped dancing and were swaying in place, his arms strong around her, her knees bending in slow time to the music. "Our love is here to stay," they sang to each other in whispers as the music ended. Arms about each other, they went to her suite.

2115 HOURS LOCAL, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 1968.

LANG TRi SPECIAL FORCES CAMP REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM "Quick, in here." Lopez pulled Parker into a mortar pit already manned by two Vietnamese soldiers. They dove into the hole as a four-pound mortar sh.e.l.l exploded where they had been standing. Dirt and rocks pelted them as they hugged the earth. Explosions thundered about them, then marched past the rim of the pit and across the camp. Lopez shouted orders at the Vietnamese and pointed along the directional markers. They nodded and started returning fire with their big 8 1 mm mortar. In a well-disciplined ballet, one man would adjust the aim, then pull back while the second rose to drop a sh.e.l.l down the tube. After the whumpf of firing, the ballet would begin again. Toby estimated they were firing a round every five seconds. He heard mortars firing from other pits. More rounds, heavy stuff, began coming in from the big NVA guns at Co Roc.

Light rifle fire started from the western perimeter. It was now completely dark. The flashes were p.r.o.nounced and brilliant, the explosions sharp and loud.

Using a red flashlight to identify the ammunition boxes, Lopez grabbed some illumination rounds and handed them to the Vietnamese. "Fire two high-explosive, then one illume, then white phosphorus. Keep that up.

Understand?"

They nodded and said they did. The first illumination round burst over the camp and swung in its parachute. The eerie yellow light exaggerated shadows, yet outlined the camp well enough for Toby to make out the buildings and the defensive positions just inside the wire.

Firing picked up all along the western perimeter. The brilliant white light of the exploding white phosphor-us strobed the battle.

Lopez grabbed the PRC-25 radio. Nicknamed the p.r.i.c.k25, the FM radio transceiver was the size of two s...o...b..xes.

"s.p.u.n.ky Seven, this is s.p.u.n.ky Eight," Lopez transmitted into the telephone handset attached to the radio. "We've got heavy inbound from two six zero degrees. Counterfire going outbound, but we're gonna need Jacksonville for illumes and HE."

"Roger Eight. Will call them." Toby thought it was d.i.c.kson that answered. Bullets began to zing and crack over the pit.

Lopez made a hurried radio check with the outposts. They were all under heavy fire, and reported ma.s.ses of troops running at them from the direction of the highway and the area west of the camp. Outside the wire, there were screams and yells as Claymores and grenades exploded.

In the heavy fog, the loud bangs were swallowed up, leaving no echoes or reverberations, Overhead, Toby heard a familiar drone. "Hey," he said to Lopez, "there's a Spooky overhead." Lopez handed him the PRC-25. "See if you can raise him." Spooky was the call sign for an AC-47 guns.h.i.+p that was rigged with three side-firing 7.62mm miniguns that spewed out 18,000 rounds per minute. The pilot flew a left-hand orbit and used a gunsight set up on his left window frame. The firing b.u.t.ton was attached to his control column.

In the flickering light Toby dialed in the emergency frequency, 60.75 megacycles, and spoke into the handset.

"Spooky over Lang Tri, Spooky over Lang Tri, this is Covey Four One, do you read?" His mouth felt dry and he wished he had water with him.

"Rog-ger, Covey Four One, this is Spooky Two Two.

What's your position? Don't want a midair, don'cha know.

Weren't told you'd be up here." The voice was deep and measured, with a hint of Oklahoma.

"Spooky, Four One, I'm on the ground at the Lang Tri camp. We got real problems here to the west. We need light and guns, you copy?"

"Rog-ger, Covey. We've got some problems up here. We are at five thousand over an overcast. All we see down there are some glows through the clouds. We can give you light, but we can't shoot till we find a break in the clouds."

"Oh s.h.i.+ I t, Spooky," Toby said in a rush of remembrance, "we've got crossing incoming arty from Jacksonville and incoming from the bad guys at Co Roc. You better get some alt.i.tude."

"Uh oh, make that seven thousand feet, Covey. We gonna climb a bit, don'cha know. By the way, old son, would you authenticate Kilo Lima for me."

Toby hesitated. "Oh s.h.i.+t, I don't have my code wheel, lost it in the crash. And we're trapped outside the CP, so can't use one from there."

"Ahh, okay," Spooky answered, then spoke as fast as he could. "Tell me ASAP what's left when you b.u.mp two bits from a buck-fifty?"

"Buck and a quarter. Now do you believe?"

The voice slowed down. "Roger, old son. We'll give you some flares."

A new and milky-white glow from the 200,000 -candlepower flares illuminated the inside of the clouds over their heads, diffusing light onto their area as if they were under fluorescent tubing.

"Perfect," Lopez shouted above the noise. He threw his CAR-15 to Toby and pointed west. "Shoot anything that comes through the wire," he said, and went to help the Vietnamese get the mortar rounds off.

Toby peered over the sandbagged rim of the pit. He estimated the wire to be two hundred feet away. He fired three-round bursts at what looked like shapes wriggling and writhing outside the wire. He stopped firing when he realized they were enemy soldiers that had already been hit and were dangling in the wire. He heard a noise behind him and whirled around in time to spray an NVA soldier as he came over the edge of the pit. At the sound of the shots, Lopez grabbed an M 16 propped up by one of the Vietnamese mortarmen and ran to Toby's side. They eased up to look over the rim exactly in time to shoot two more enemy soldiers running toward them. There were no more close by.