But inside his mask he was smiling. He loved it! It was just what they were looking for! It was exactly the kind of mentality that a combat pilot would need. From that day on, Ammon’s fighter was almost guaranteed.
First Lieutenant Richard Ammon graduated number one in his class. As such, he was entitled to get his first choice of aircraft and assignment. Lt Ammon didn’t even have to think.
He selected an F-16 to Bitburg Air Force Base, Germany. Not only would this assignment make it easier for him to be “handled,” but he would have access to important intelligence information concerning NATO and the American forces in Europe.
He was in Europe for almost a year before he heard again from the Sicherheit. He was told early to protect his position and not to take any chances that might expose his operation. They would need him later in his career, and they didn’t want to take any unnecessary chances at this time. As a result, he was never asked to pass along any information before he was transferred back to the States.
It was then that things had begun to unravel.
Few Americans watched the fall of the Berlin Wall or the breakup of the Soviet Union with as much interest as did Richard Ammon. Over the next few years, he watched in bewilderment as one communist government after another fell, along with their anti-West intelligence machines. During this time Ammon’s contact with his handler became less and less frequent. After a while he was not sure any of his former supervisors even remembered he was there. Now it had been years since he had any communication with them, and he doubted they knew of his assignment to Korea.
So Ammon couldn’t have been more surprised when, two days earlier, he was contacted. The message was simple. “The train is leaving at two. Gather your luggage.” Translation: Expect to be brought in. No more than two days. Gather any classified information that you can and be ready. We will act.
He wondered who had ordered him in? Who were they working for now? What government did they represent, and what did they really want?
But he realized his concerns didn’t matter. In such things he had very little choice.
So he gathered what information he could and prepared for the unknown. Although he knew the microfilm he brought with him was worthless, hopefully his superiors wouldn’t. And that would buy him their trust, and maybe a little time.
Thinking of the microfilm brought Ammon back to the present. He reached down to massage his wrapped knee, feeling the plastic bag as it rubbed against his skin.
Ammon stared into the darkness as they cruised toward the dim lights of P’yongyang. Amril remained silent, studying oceanic charts that lay on a small table by the pilot’s wheel. Ammon glanced at his watch, then returned his gaze to the darkness, his eyes unblinking, deep in thought. But he wasn’t considering the possibilities of his future, or even reflecting on the life he had just left behind. The only thing he was thinking about was how hard it would be to find a telephone once he arrived in the communist city of P’yongyang.
Eighteen hours later, all nine members of the accident board that would investigate the downing of the F-16 met together for the first time inside a cavernous hangar. They watched in huddled silence as a deflated raft was brought through the hangar doors and placed on a stainless steel table in the middle of the floor. Normally, the place would have already been strewn with charred and splintered pieces of aircraft wreckage, carefully laid out, like pieces of a huge jigsaw puzzle. Normally, chunks of engines, computers, and fuselage would have already been placed end-to-end and piece-to-piece in an effort to determine the cause of the crash.
But not this investigation. The Yellow Sea had seen to that.
Air Force Colonel James Wood stared down at the deflated life raft and admitted to himself for the first time that it would likely be the only piece of evidence he would ever have to work with. The Falcon had gone down in more than 1,800 meters of shark-infested water. The initial report from the Navy indicated that the possibility of recovering the aircraft was fairly remote, perhaps impossible. Upon impact with the water, the F-16 would have been blown into a thousand shattered pieces. The fragments would have then been scattered across miles of ragged ocean floor, drifting here and there with the cold water currents.
No, unfortunately, there would be no aircraft wreckage to help them in their investigation. The accident board would be on their own.
Wood ran his hand over his head and let out an audible sigh. He watched the flight surgeon don surgical gloves and carefully spread the raft out upon the examination table. As the accident investigation board president, it was his responsibility to determine exactly what had caused the F-16 to go down. He had spent the past eighteen hours talking to the KC-135 refueling crew and taking their statements, coordinating the rescue effort, searching through Capt Ammon’s official flight records, and organizing the members of the accident investigation team.
Together, he, the maintenance supervisor, and the chief flight surgeon had huddled in conference as they tried to put the initial pieces together. But as was usually the case, the early pieces did not fit very well.
Never had he seen anything quite this odd. Never had he heard of a fighter simply exploding in mid-air. The tanker boom operator had described it as a huge explosion — a billowing fireball of blue and yellow flame. He had been very specific. A bright blue and white explosion, followed by a billowing yellow fireball.
The yellow made sense. The blue surely did not. Yellow was within the color spectrum of burning jet fuel. Blue was not. Blue indicated a much hotter flame — a much more powerful explosion than one would expect from burning jet fuel.
Another fragmented piece to the puzzle.
And then there was the most troubling question of all. What had happened to Captain Richard Ammon? What sequence in the survival chain had failed him? Where was his body? Why was he dead?
There had been no radio call. No emergency beacon. No flares or smoke or signaling device of any kind.
And then the rescue helicopter had located the empty life raft floating around in the sea, half inflated and smeared with diluted blood. This would give them some answers. This was where they would begin.
Colonel Wood watched in silence as the flight surgeon and two assistants began to take blood samples on thin cotton swabs and place them in sterile containers. These would be used to make a DNA comparison of Captain Ammon, which would hopefully lead to a positive identification. The blood samples would also be analyzed to help determine the cause of death.
As the Colonel watched the flight surgeon work, a young captain approached him and tapped him lightly on the shoulder.