“Goddamn it to hell!”
Macintyre could only share in Tallman’s moment of frustration and rage. This was the nightmare that had haunted every American military commander since the Korean War. An aircrew down in enemy territory. The hostiles of this world seemed to demand that the United States always play by the rules, while reserving the right to treat American POWs in whatever manner they saw fit.
Macintyre stepped swiftly across to one of the chart boards. “Do we have a fix on those beacons yet? An exact one.”
“I believe so, sir,” the air boss replied, joining Macintyre at the flatscreen display. “It’s just being linked in from the Duke.”
“Yeah. Jake, come take a look at this.”
“What is it, Eddie Mac?” Tallman shouldered in around the screen.
“It’s not as bad as it could be. Take a look at these ELB location hacks. Your aircrew is coming down over the estuary. They’re going to be feet-wet. Just barely, but I think we might be able to get them out of there.”
“Might my ass! We are getting them out! Now!”
The first thing Digger Graves noticed was the quiet, broken only by a riffling whisper like the wind in the leaves. Then came the pain, the tearing agony in his left shoulder.
That popped his eyes open and restored full awareness. He was hanging in his harness beneath a full parachute canopy.
The wind-in-the-leaves sound was the air flowing through the risers and chute gores. The pain? He wasn’t so sure. The arm was still attached, and there didn’t seem to be any blood, but something was sure as hell wrong with that shoulder.
Maybe a dislocation from the ejection.
His next thought was for his backseater. He twisted in his harness, looking around and mentalizing an incoherent fragment of prayer that there would be another parachute in the sky.
There was. Bubbles’s canopy was above him and to the right, her lesser weight giving her a reduced sink rate. Both chutes were descending into a black void some distance from the nearest fire or cluster of lights. That was just as well.
Digger suspected that the locals wouldn’t be any too pleased with them at the moment.
Digger tried to run a fast inventory of his escape-and evasion gear, seeing how much had stayed with him during the bailout. Much of it had, most importantly the emergency transponder and the Combat Search and Rescue radio. The tiny check light on the transponder was already glowing, indicating that it had been triggered into action by the shock of the ejector-seat launch. His survival kit and life raft had stayed with him as well, dangling twenty feet beneath him on their lanyard.
With his right hand, he reached up and broke the inner capsule of the IR light stick on his life jacket. Producing no visible spectrum illumination, it would burn bright for several hours on a FLIR scanner.
There was a sudden tug on the gear lanyard. The darkness and the residual confusion from his blackout had made Digger misjudge his altitude. His startled curse gagged off as he hit the river.
He went deep, then his Mae West inflated and lifted him back to the surface, retching and spitting out the putrid, brackish water of the estuary. He pulled the Capwell releases of his parachute harness and tore off his helmet, looking around. A few yards away, another ghostly cloud of white nylon was collapsing into the river.
“Bub! Hey, Bub?”
There was no answer.
Clumsily, restrained by the combination of his injury and burdening equipment, he tried to swim to her. He found that he couldn’t gain any ground on the drifting parachute and he paused for a second to cut loose the survival-kit lanyard.
Survival my ass, he thought. They’d either be pulled out of here by their own CSAR people or they would end up in a Chinese prison camp.
Finally, he snagged a handful of wet nylon and drew Zellerman in to him. She still didn’t move, unconscious or dead.
Feverishly, Graves freed her of her chute harness and helmet and felt for a pulse at her throat. It was there, weak, but there. Fumbling one-handed, he dug out his rescue strobe and used it for a moment in flashlight mode. Bubbles was unconscious, blood streaking from her nose and from a cut on her chin, but she was alive.
He pulled her against him, her back supported against his chest, his functional arm looped around her protectively as they floated with the sluggish current.
“It’s okay, Bub!” he whispered hoarsely, looking around at the hostile night. “They’re coming for us.”
“All Stormdragon elements, this is Task Flag. We confirm that we have a Moondog element down. We also confirm that we have two aircrew down within the Yangtze estuary. We have a valid recovery scenario. I say again, we have a valid recovery scenario. All CSAR assets commit as per Ops Plan Alpha Five. Panda Three Three, initiate rescue and recovery. Retainer elements, initiate search and top cover. Cunningham, assume station off the Yangtze estuary and stand by to render support as possible. All elements acknowledge.”
“Panda Three Three to Task Flag. Initiating CSAR. Taking departure from holding pattern.”
“Retainer elements to Task Flag. We have reversed course and are proceeding to transponder location.”
Arkady might have been flying the pattern at his home airfield.
“Cunningham to Flag. Proceeding to support station at this time.” Amanda turned in the captain’s chair to look aft at the watch officer. “Mr. Freeman, move us to the mouth of Beicao Hangcao channel. Assume station keeping five hundred yards off the mine barrier by GPU reckoning.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
“Information Center, we have been tasked to support a search-and-rescue operation upchannel in the estuary. Let’s look sharp. We’re going to be all the cover our people are going to have.”
Amanda was pleased with the steadiness in her own voice as she spoke. Down deep inside herself, she had flung her helmet to the deck and had screamed a denial to the gods.
“At least the damn flak’s eased off,” Gus Grestovitch commented from Zero One’s rear cockpit.
“Yeah, that’s what’s got me worried.”
“How come, Lieutenant?”
“Nobody’s firing wild anymore. Somebody’s passed the word to stop shooting. We’re running out of shock effect, and the command-and-control nets are coming back up. The bad guys are bound to start paying attention to what’s going on out here pretty soon.”
“Yeah.”
Retainer Zero One was flying back upriver again, retracing her previous search pattern. Only this time, the object of the search was quite different.”
“Gus, you take the FLIR turret. I’m going over to low light goggles. Keep your eyes open for the bad guys.”
“Aye, aye, sir. What kind of weapons status do you want?”
“Systems hot and bays open. That’ll increase our RCS, but I don’t want to have to fool around if I have to fast draw.”
The primary air tactical channel was still saturated with transponder squeal, so Arkady dropped down to the alternate.
“Gray Lady, this is Zero One. Match my fix with the targets, please.”
“Zero One,” Ken Hire’s voice came back promptly.
“You are on the bearing and in the ballpark. They should be in your immediate vicinity.”
“Rug.”
Arkady did another frequency shift to the CSAR channel.
“Moondog 505, Moondog 505, do you read? Do you read? This is Retainer Zero One on cover. Talk to me, guys, we’re looking for you.”
He lifted his thumb off the mike button. The response was mercifully swift in coming.
“Retainer Zero One, this is Moondog 505.”
There was the rasp of strained breathing, but the voice was strong.
“Moondog 505, what is your status?” Arkady demanded.