"What we hope to do, sir," the Marine said, "by taking off in the dark, and not talking to the tower, is get those machines out of here without letting the NKs know."
"You really think they're listening to the tower traffic?" Lowman asked.
That possibility had never occurred to him.
"I'm sure they are," the Marine said. "And since they were listening when the helos first arrived, and when the helos made their only flight out of here and back, they know about the helos. What we hope to do now is get the helos out of here without them knowing—with a little luck, thinking they're still in that hangar."
"How do you propose to do that?" Lowman asked.
"Sir, we'll fire them up, warm them up, inside the hangar," the Army aviator said. "Then shut them down and roll them out of the hangar. Then we'll call the tower—'K-16, this is Air Force two oh seven, radio check.' If there's no reason we can't take off, the tower will give the radio check. We'll then reply, 'K-16, thank you,' fire them up again, and take off immediately. If you have incoming or departing traffic, just ignore our call, and we'll wait five minutes and call again."
Colonel Lowman considered that a moment.
"That should work. You want me to be in the tower, right?"
"If you would, please, sir," the Marine said. "And if you would, sir, make the point to your tower people that they didn't hear or see anything at all."
"Got it," Colonel Lowman said. "At this hour, there's only one—well, maybe two—guys in there anyway. Give me a minute to get my clothes on."
There were two NCOs, a staff sergeant and a buck sergeant, in the control tower—which was also mounted on a GMC 6x6 truck—when Colonel Lowman climbed up on the truck and went into the small, green, glass-walled, boxlike structure. Both, visibly surprised to see The Colonel, came to attention.
"Good morning," Lowman said. "What's going on?"
"Quiet as a tomb, sir," the staff sergeant said. "It won't be light for another thirty minutes or so."
"We heard some engines starting, sir," the buck sergeant said. "Over there."
He pointed across the field.
"You're sure?" Colonel Lowman said doubtfully.
"Well, sir, it sounded as if it was coming from over there." "As far as I know, there's nothing over there but a shot-up hangar," Colonel Lowman said.
The ground-to-air radio came to life. "K-16, Air Force two oh seven, radio check."
"We don't have anything coming in or going out right now, do we?" Colonel Lowman asked.
"No, sir," the staff sergeant said.
Colonel Lowman took the microphone the buck sergeant held in his hand. Into it he said, "Air Force two oh seven, read you five by five. Niner, eight, seven, six, fiver, four, three, two, one."
"K-16, thank you," the radio said.
Colonel Lowman handed the microphone back to the staff sergeant. Across the field, there were suddenly two spots of orange light, as if coming from the exhaust of an engine. And a moment later, there was the rumble of an engine and a fluckatafluckata-fluckata.
"There it is again," the buck sergeant said. "I knew damned well I heard something."
"I don't hear anything," Colonel Lowman said. "From over there, Colonel!" the buck sergeant insisted. "Sounds like a helicopter to me, sir. Helicopters," the staff sergeant said. The fluckata-fluckata-fluckata fluckata-fluckata-fluckata fluckatafluckata-fluckata sound grew louder.
Lowman thought he could just faintly see one of the H-19s moving rapidly across the field, then taking off into the darkness.
"Goddammit," the staff sergeant said. "That was two helicopters, and not a goddamn navigation light on either of them. What the fuck?"
"I want you two to listen to me carefully," Colonel Lowman said. "I have been here all the time with you. I neither heard or saw anything that sounded remotely like a helicopter."
"But, sir—" the staff sergeant said.
"And neither did you," Colonel Lowman said. "Do we understand each other?"
"Yes, sir," they said, almost in unison.
"And I don't want it to get back to me that whatever you thought you saw or heard, but didn't, is the subject of any conversation anywhere. Clear?" "Yes, sir," they said.
"Keep up the good work, men," Colonel Lowman said, smiled at them, and left the control tower.
Outside, he could hear the fluckata-fluckata-fluckata of rotor blades diminishing to the southeast.
Colonel Lowman wondered where the hell they were going with the H-19s and what they were going to do with them.
But there had been something in the eyes of the Marine major that had told him that his curiosity would have been not only highly unwelcome but maybe even a little dangerous, and he hadn't asked.
[FIVE]
Socho-Ri, South Korea
O54S 4 October 195O
Major Donald had told McCoy there were three ways to get to Socho-Ri, one flying at an altitude that would permit them to look for an arrow stamped out in a rice paddy. The trouble with that option was, Donald said, that if they could see a sign like that, people on the ground could see them.
The second option was to fly what he called "nap of the earth," which meant flying just a few feet off the ground. That would expose them to eyes on the ground for only a fleeting moment, but flying at ninety knots, that wouldn't be much different from driving over the ground at that speed; the chances of spotting a stamped-out arrow would be slim, unless they just happened to fly right over it and were paying close enough attention not to miss it.
The third option—which Donald recommended—would be to ascend quickly to, say, 9,000 feet, which would for all practical purposes make them invisible to eyes on the ground, and incidentally keep them safely above any rock-filled clouds they might encounter en route. There was a line of mountains running down the peninsula, Donald said, and he did not have a deep and abiding faith in the navigation charts he had been given.
McCoy opted for the high altitude. The priority was to get the helos to Socho-Ri intact and undetected. Even if they were spotted by only friendly forces—I ROK Corps—the sudden appearance of two black helicopters would very likely cause some South Korean commander to make a report of "unidentified, black, type previously not seen, rotary-wing aircraft" flying over his position.
There was also a chance that the two helos would be spotted by Air Force, Navy, or Marine fighters making an early-morning reconnaissance. Their pilots would more than likely—out of curiosity, if nothing else—make a pass at them before shooting them down. In that case, Donald said, he would get on the emergency radio frequency and try to contact them.
"You could enthusiastically sing 'The Marines' Hymn,'" Donald said.
Pick would just have to wait. There had been no word from the Badoeng Strait that any signs of Pick had been found, anyway.
But as it had grown light, turned into day, as they had flown eastward across the peninsula, McCoy rarely took his eyes from the ground far below them.
When the coastline appeared and Donald flew over it and above the Sea of Japan, McCoy wondered what was happening and looked at Donald, who read his mind.
"I'm going to fly a couple of miles out to sea before I make the descent," Donald explained. "And then approach Socho-Ri with our wheels just far enough above the water to keep them from getting wet."
McCoy gave him a thumbs-up.
"You're pretty good at this, Alex. A quick learner."
"I had another thought," Alex said. "Just now. How are you and Dunston going to get back to Seoul?"
"I thought we'd get in a jeep. Maybe we could talk somebody in I ROK Corps into giving us a ride. Dunston and I talked about it. He said they have a few L-4s and L-19s."