“Ah, Mister Grafton- May I join you?” Les Rucic said down on the other side of the table. He sipped coffee and lit a cigarette. “Been flying?”
“Hmmm. “A strike?” “Uh-huh.”
“Too bad a man can’t get a drink around here.” Rucic commented.
Jake kept his eyes on his coffee cup. Does he know about the Hanoi raid? Is that why he’s here? The pilot felt his muscles tense.
“Looks like I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
Jake let his gaze wander over the reporter’s features. The man hadn’t trimmed his nose hairs since the pilot had last seen him.
“I’ll probably spend a week or so in Saigon, get to feel of the place if you know what I mean, then go back to the States. Is there anybody back home I can call for you?”
Yes, Mrs. Grafton, I met your son on the Shilo He’s doing just fine and asked me to call to wish you Merry Christmas. How do you feel about what he’s doing in Vietnam? Do you think America should be over there? Grafton wondered if his disgust for Rucic showed on his face.
“Are we winning or losing?” Rucic pressed.
“What?”
“Winning or losing the war?”
“Damned if I know.”
“Come on. Give a little. I’ve interviewed some of the other pilots and naval flight officers, and they’ve given me some pretty good stuff.” He waved his notebook.
jake felt the tension leaving his muscles. Surely if Rucic knew about the National Assembly he would be after it by now. Feeling relieved, Jake asked, “What’d they say?”
Rucic thumbed through several pages of his notebook. “We’re buying time for the South VietNamese,” he read. “Whether the time is worth the cost will depend on what the South VietNamese do with it…. Freedom is the most expensive commodity on earth. . .
“Putting that in the paper would be a waste, Rucic,” Grafton sneered. “Why don’t you save it for a Fourth of July speech?”
Rucic sipped his coffee. “I wonder if you could tell me anything about the flight on which your bombardier was killed?” He looked at the notebook again. “Morgan McPherson.”
So the sonuvabitch had been looking for him.
“Can you tell me anything about it? I wasn’t aware you had lost your bombardier when I interviewed you the other day.”
Jake just stared.
“Listen, Grafton. I have a right to be here and to ask these questions. If you don’t cooperate I’ll have to say as much to your superiors.” Rucic’s eyes reminded Jake of the eyes in dead fish he had seen in Hong Kong alleys.
The pilot stood up. He put his fists on the table and leaned toward the reporter. “I don’t have to talk to you, motherfucker. If you use my name in your stories, I’ll sue your rag-and you-for invasion of privacy! .”
The pitch of his voice rose but he couldn’t help it. “Your papers sell better when you mix a little blood with the ink, don’t they?”
Realizing he was losing control, Jake walked away.
NINETEEN
Jake Grafton was strapping himself into the cockpit on a cloudless morning when Cowboy Parker ran across the flight deck toward the aircraft. Grafton and Tiger Cole had briefed a strike on a suspected fuel dump wit Little Augie and Big Augie, who were manning the machine next to Grafton’s. They planned to set their target afire with the sixteen RockEyes each plan carried. Boxman and his pilot, Corey Ford, were manning the spare, armed with sixteen Mark 82 500 pounders, which would go only if one of the other bombers had a mechanical problem before launch Grafton watched Parker with a sinking feeling. Not a hurry-up target!
Cowboy climbed the boarding ladder. “You got a new target, Jake. Forget the fuel dump.” Holding up a piece of a chart, he pointed to a crude triangle drawn in pencil. Jake saw it was a North VietNamese airfield.
“What’s there?”
“Migs,” Parker said. “One or two, maybe three. They landed less than two hours ago and the decision’s been made to try to bag them before they sortie again. You have the lead. We’re going to launch the spare so there’ll be three of you. Brief on squadron tactical after you rendezvous.” Cowboy handed him the strip of chart and several aerial recon photos of the airfield. He took one step down the ladder, paused, and looked back at Grafton “This’ll be a tough one. It’s heavily defended.”
“Tell the other guys to meet me at ten grand overhead.”
Cowboy nodded and disappeared down the ladder.
Jake examined the chart with Tiger. “Shit,” Cole muttered. “The son-of-a-bitch is in Laos.” The target airfield lay five or six miles across the Laotian border on the far side of Barthelemy Pass, which the chart showed at 3937 feet above sea level. Jake remembered from the weather brief that low clouds covered the mountains.
How should they approach? If they flew all the way to Hue, then west to Laos and north to the airfield-what was the name?-Nong Het, the trip would be long and the bad guys would have a lot of warning. Fuel would run low only if they elected to return by the same route. If they flew straight in, across North Vietnam, they’d attract flak enroute, but there would be less time for the North VietNamese to prepare a reception at the airfield. If the MiGs were bait to lure the lion, the less warning the better.
Jake Grafton rubbed his chin and stared at the swells on the sea. He thought about the flak and the airfield in the bottom of a valley. Maybe they should go straight in. “What do you think, Tiger? Straight in?”
Yep.
The plane captain signaled for a start. Jake gave the chart and pictures to the bombardier and busied himself with the starting procedure. He was too preoccupied to enjoy the cat shot when it came.
They rendezvoused over the ship at 10,000 feet. When all three planes had joined, Jake took the lead, and Corey Ford flanked him on the left with Little Augie on the right. Jake then used his hand to signal the switch to the squadron tactical frequency and began a gentle climb to altitude.
“Two’s up.” Little’s voice.
“Three’s up.” That was Corey.
“Let’s go covered voice.” All three turned on the scramblers, which encrypted the voice transmission. To a listener without a scrambler with the daily code properly set, the conversation would be merely an incomprehensible buzz.
“Okay, guys. We’re going straight at it. Coast in north of Vinh, find the right valley, get under the clouds, go through the pass, an drop down on that airfield like the angel of doom. Any gripes?”
When all he heard was silence, Jake continued, “The field will no doubt be oriented east and west, up an down the valley.” Cole was looking at the photos an concurred with a thumbs up. “Little, you take the right side of the field, and Corey and I’ll take the left. Put the ordnance just inside the tree lines.
They’ll park those Migs under cover. I’m willing to bet they’ll be in the trees. But if you see them out on the airfield, you know what to do. Okay so far?”
Mikes clicked in response. “As I read this chart, the target will be in a valley that curves around to the left. High mountains on both sides. The mountains on the right peak at more than sixty-two hundred feet. After we drop, Little, you’re on your own.
Just to be safe, I want you to make a right turn off target and get out the best way you can. Corey, you stick with me and we turn left off target. They may try to put a SAM up somebody’s ass as we leave.
Everybody’s to avoid flying into one of those granite clouds. Any questions?” There were none. The flight switched back to the Strike frequency.
“Think we’ll surprise them?” Jake asked Tiger.
The bombardier shook his head.
