The Aviators Page 3

  "So you would say that you couldn't fire on the LZ before landing?" Augustus said.

  Oliver realized that his mind was racing. He felt a little lightheaded.

  "Sir," he said, and the words came out in a rush, "you could probably do it this way: four choppers, two slicks, and two gunships. Before you go out, you pick six, eight, ten LZs, all small ones. The gunships fly, say, a half mile off the route of the slicks, and high. One slick makes an approach to an LZ. If there's nobody there, he off-loads his half of the team, and the other slick comes in with the other half. If somebody is there, he tries to get away. If he succeeds, fine. In any event, if he lands in a hot LZ, the gunships come in and take it under fire. Then, if necessary, pick up survivors. I could pick up, say, three people by dumping most of my ammo load. . . half of the people on a slick. . ."

  "You could, could you?" Colonel Augustus asked softly.

  Oliver-met his eyes. "And the other gunship, theoretically speaking, could pick up the other three people." Colonel Augustus grunted. "And how would you get them out under normal conditions?"

  "That would be easier. A team in would know which LZs Charlie is covering. It would be best if they could find one that isn't being covered. But, failing that, they'd have to duck while we suppressed it" He started to say something else and then stopped.

  "Come on," Colonel Augustus said softly, gesturing with his hands.

  "On the insertion, at the increased risk of hitting a hot LZ," Oliver said, "you could make touch-and-goes at two, three LZs without putting the teams off. Charlie wouldn't know if you had put them off or not. So he would have to put a lot of people to work running around in the woods, looking." Augustus grunted again.

  "It's perfectly clear to me why Father thinks you're considerably brighter than your average run-of-the-mill airplane driver," Colonel Augustus said. "The true test of somebody else's intelligence is the degree to which he agrees with you.

  Would you be crushed to learn, Lieutenant Oliver, that Father Lunsford came up with a plan that is, give or take a minor detail, almost identical to yours?" Oliver didn't reply.

  "I want to restate that," Augustus said. "I hope, Captain Lunsford, that you are appropriately crushed, having seen Lieutenant Oliver-in what, ninety seconds-come up with a plan very much like the plan that took you two weeks to dream up."

  "Great men tend to think alike," Father Lunsford said solemnly. Colonel Augustus laughed.

  "How soon could you get set up to do it?" he asked Oliver. "Forty-eight hours give you enough time?"

  "I didn't hear the word 'volunteer,' Sir," Oliver said."

  "Oh, come on," Augustus said. "Forty-eight hours give you enough time?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  II

  [ONE]

  Dak To Special Forces Camp Republic of South Vietnam 1615 Hours 11 September 1963

  It is incumbent upon a commander, First Lieutenant John S. Oliver, Jr., reminded himself, feeling like a horse's ass, to inspire confidence in his men by example. If a commander exudes an aura of calm, of confidence, it is contagious. A good commander never lets his doubts become known to his men.

  At the moment he felt neither calm nor confident. In just about forty-five minutes he was going to insert a Special Operations Group (radio call sign Bulldog) long-range patrol twenty miles over the other side of the Laotian border.

  The team consisted of twelve people. On the Number One slick would be its commander, Captain George Washington Lunsford; its radio operator, Master Sergeant William 20 Thomas; and four Nung tribesmen, mercenaries, who were used as technical advisers. The Nungs were paid a, monthly retainer plus sixty dollars each time they crossed the Laotian border. The Number Two slick would carry a new guy, a mean-looking little Italian lieutenant named Fangola, and five more Nungs.

  The plan called for three diversionary touch-and-goes before the drop. And the patrol would actually get off at the fourth LZ. Following that there would be two more diversionary touch-and-goes before the slicks flew back across the . border and returned to Dak To.

  The planning and timing of the mission had to be based on two considerations. There had to be time for the patrol to get away-say a thousand meters, maybe fifteen hundred-from their LZ before darkness fell. And then there had to be additional time before it became dark for the slicks to make the two diversionary" touchdowns. The determination of timing had consequently been based on the official hour for sunset.

  Oliver didn't think that was going to work. The monsoon season was already beginning, the skies were overcast, and the weather was sure to grow worse before it grew better. So he suspected that it was going to be dark as hell long before there was official permission for darkness to fall from the United States Air Force Meteorological Service, Southeast Asia. He was also worried that the weather might close in after the team was inserted, and then they might not be able to bring them out for days.

  Though technically Father Lunsford was in charge, the responsibility for making all this work was not Lunsford's but his.

  Battalion had put the four choppers, their crews, and some maintenance personnel on TDY -Temporary Duty-to Special Operation Group, and Father was in command of that; but short of his calling the whole thing off, Father would indulge him in anything aeronautic he wanted. And this meant that Oliver had to live with the choices he'd made: If, on the theory that it would get dark earlier, he had chosen to go in early, the sun would have doubtless broken through the cloud cover and given Charlie another thirty minutes or more to look for Father and his men. But since he had actually decided to go with Official Sunset, it would surely get dark earlier, and so Father would not have much time to take a long walk through the woods before it was too dark to see his hand in front of his face. Or there would not be time to make the follow-on diversionary landings.

  To make matters worse, the weather was going to be shitty for the next couple of days at least. But when he told Lunsford that, Lunsford said the patrol still had to go. They just couldn't put it off.

  They had two targets this time: a newly reported, suspected fuel and ammunition dump, in caves, and a convoy of Russian-built trucks coming down from North Vietnam to that dump. With a little bit of luck, Father said, they would find not only the dump but the trucks unloading there.

  The intelligence about all this was supposed to be pretty good.

  Oliver doubted that, too.

  But what really bothered him was a gut feeling. Something was going to go wrong.

  "Take not counsel of your fears" General George s. Patton, Oliver quoted to himself. It didn't help much.

  Father Lunsford walked up to where Oliver was sitting on the floor of the cabin of his gunship.

  Lunsford was wearing fatigues, with no insignia of any kind. There was a black band around his forehead-a net.

  Oliver supposed that Lunsford could pull it down over his face, the way stickup men pulled a woman's stocking down over their faces before they stuck up a liquor store. But in his own experience, Oliver had never seen one of those nets used as anything but a headband.

  "Here you are, Tiger Lead," Father said, and tossed something to him. "Don't say I never gave you anything." Tiger Lead was Oliver's radio call sign for the mission.

  It was a pistol, a 9 mm Parabellum Browning automatic.

  "What's this?"

  "A small token of my admiration," Father said. "If you can come up with some clever way to smuggle them out of the country into the States, we can get rich."

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "You will notice there is no serial number," Father said.

  "Gangsters, I am told, like that. I figure I can lose one or two per patrol-on the field of battle-without causing questions to be raised. And I hear that you can get four hundred bucks for one of those, even more-but say four hundred. Four hundred times say twenty-pistols is-eight thousand bucks. You figure some clever way to get those into the States, we can rent some very interesting female companionship." He didn't know if Lu
nsford was pulling his leg or not.

  "I am a Norwich graduate," Oliver said. "We do not, as I have previously informed you, have to rent female companionship. But on the other hand, neither do we accept postcoital gratuities. A simple round of applause is sufficient reward."

  Lunsford laughed and then grew serious. "You look worried, Slats. Something wrong?"

  "I don't like the weather," Oliver said.

  "I don't want to abort this unless we have to."

  "I'm at thirty-seven days and counting," Oliver said.

  "Caution increases as days remaining In Country decline."

  "People who get too cautious get killed."

  "You believe that?"

  "I don't know," Father Lunsford said. "It sounds good. We going or not?"

  "Mister Daniels!" Oliver called loudly, a la Charles Laughton calling for Mr. Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty.

  "Sir!" WOJG Daniels responded in a shout from the left, copilot's, seat of the Huey gunship.

  "Sound Boots and Saddles," Oliver called. "The Cavalry rides again!" Oliver could hear the whine of the gyros starting up as Billy-Joe Daniels threw the master switch.

  "I really get to keep this?" Oliver said, holding the Browning up.

  "Try not to shoot it," Lunsford said. "My information is they're worth more in NRA New condition."

  "Thank you," Oliver said, then pushed himself upright.

  He and Father Lunsford looked at each other a moment, and then, as Lunsford walked to one of the slicks, Oliver got in the right seat and started strapping himself in.

  [TWO]

  Landing Zone Mike 1725 Hours 11 September 1963

  There was excitement in the voice of one of the slick pilots.

  The excitement came clearly over the FM between-aircraft radio: "Tiger Lead, this sonofabitch is hot! Jesus Christ, he's down!"

  "Here we go, hot and heavy," Oliver said over the intercom to his crew. He was flying. And Billy-Joe Daniels's responsibility as copilot was controlling the maneuverable 40 mm grenade launcher in the nose. Oliver pressed the switch on the stick to the next, radio-transmit, detent. "On the way," he said, and a moment later, "What's going on? For Christ's sake, report!"

  "Bikini One is down, crashed on landing."

  "Survivors?"

  "I think so," Tiger Two said.

  "On the way," Oliver repeated, aware that it was unnecessary to repeat it.

  The two Huey gunships had been flying just over a half mile to the right rear, and above, the slicks. It took them no more than thirty seconds to reach Landing Zone Mike.

  Twice during that thirty seconds Oliver tried unsuccessfully to communicate with Bulldog Six, but as he picked out the shape of the downed Huey against the jungle background, the AN/ARC-44 FM radio came to life.

  "Tiger Lead, Tiger Lead, Bulldog Six, we're down, we're down!" Lunsford had at least survived the crash.

  "I have the LZ in sight," Oliver replied. "Where the hell are you?"

  "In the trees to the north of the LZ," Lunsford's voice came back. "There's a light machine gun and maybe half a dozen AKs across the LZ." Oliver couldn't see a thing.

  "Tiger One, we've got to take out those weapons. Give me some smoke in the middle of your position. I'll hit everything but the smoke," Oliver called, even as he pointed the nose of the gunship toward the LZ. There was a stream of 2.75-inch rockets from the rocket pods, and a steady thumping sound as the 40mm grenade launcher, fired by Billy-Joe, brought the enemy positions under fire. After that died and he overflew the target, the sharper sound of the .30 caliber M-60 machine gun started up. It was being fired by Corporal Williamson from the right-side door.

  "Bulldog Six, how many survivors?" Oliver asked.

  "The pilot and copilot didn't make it," Lunsford replied.

  Oliver made up his mind what had to be done as he banked the gunship steeply.

  "Tiger One," he called to the other gunship, "we're going to make one more gun run. We'll expend as much as possible and then touch down on the next go-around. It's a big LZ and I think we can each take out four of the people. You cover me as best you can. After I'm out, I'll cover yon while you pick up the remaining four."

  "Got you," Tiger One replied.

  Oliver moved the mike button to "radio transmit" again.

  "Father, I'm coming in. When we touch down, run like hell," Oliver ordered. "Four people only. Tiger One will then come in for the rest." There was no reply.

  Oliver completed his turn, then made another run at the LZ. Billy-Joe fired, the 40mm grenades that were left, and there was another stream of 2.7-inch rockets from the pods.

  Oliver heard the chattering of the M-60 machine gun as he pulled out. He touched the intercom button.

  "Throw out the extra rockets," he said. "And whatever else is loose back there."

  "Guns, too, boss?" Corporal Williamson's voice came in his earphones.

  "Yeah, everything," Oliver said. With four people coming aboard, he was going to have a hard time getting the gunship back in the air.

  He completed the turn and made another approach, hoping that Charlie would think he was about to make another firing run.

  And then he flared it quickly and put it on the ground.

  Master Sergeant "Doubting" Thomas, moving with surprising speed for his bulk, came running toward the helicopter, with three Nungs on his heels.

  The last wasn't fully in the cabin when Oliver tried to get back in the air.

  Goddammit, it's heavy!

  The gunship shuddered and finally lifted off. The moment it was a foot off the ground, Oliver spun it, dropped the nose, and started to move away, picking up airspeed.

  There was a dull pinging sound, and a moment later the beep beep beep of the systems-failure alarm. But because he was too intent on getting the bird over the trees, Oliver didn't even look at the control panel. He cleared the trees by inches.

  "We have trouble," Billy-Joe said calmly. Oliver looked at his control panel.

  The master systems-failure light in front of him was flashing red, and so was the hydraulic-systems warning light on the console between the pilot's and copilot's seats.

  He didn't need the lights. He could tell from the brute force need to move the controls that he had lost all hydraulic power.

  "Get on the controls with me," he ordered Billy-Joe.

  "We've lost hydraulics." And then he felt the ship shudder as other things started coming apart.

  "Shit!" he said. Then he depressed the mike button. "Tiger One; we've been hit. I've got no hydraulics and the warning-light panel looks like a Christmas tree. I'm going to have to sit this thing down quick. Where are you?"

  "I've just cleared the trees," Tiger One responded. "I have Bulldog Six plus three."

  "What are we going to do?" Billy-Joe asked matter of factly.

  They were at only five hundred feet and less than a mile from the LZ.

  Oliver didn't reply. There was really no choice. With a little bit of luck, the ship would stay together long enough to make a landing.