“Patch it with mud if you have to, for the time being. Let’s get those planes down. We can worry about a pretty paving job when we’ve got time for it.”
He listened to the phone for a moment. Tyreen felt the touch of malarial weakness. The Captain said sarcastically, “You do have shovels down there, don’t you, Lieutenant? Then God damn it, quit jaw-assing over this telephone and get your balls in gear.”
He dropped the receiver into place and swung his head around, balefully searching for an ashtray.
The phone rang again. Grove let his ashes drop by his toes and grabbed the instrument. “What is it?” His eyes widened, and he handed the phone to Tyreen.
It was Harris. “Captain Saville just reported in. He’s over at Tan Son Nhut in a hangar. Left his phone number for you to call.”
“All right,” Tyreen said. “Give me the number.”
Captain Grove was across the room, shading his eyes with his face close to the observation window. Tyreen hung up and went to him. “Sorry to trouble you, Captain.”
“Never mind,” Grove said.
“I’ll need the use of a scrambler phone.”
“In the ops office,” the Captain said. He waved toward a door in the back of the room; he was already on his way to the radio operator, his voice preceding him: “Have you got those three 102s on beam yet?”
Tyreen walked past a row of radar screens, each with an airman intent on its nebulous patterns of light. Voices called across the tower, and Tyreen walked through into the cramped ops office.
A man lay asleep on a folding cot in one corner — the traffic control officer, asleep in his uniform, looking deep in coma. Tyreen closed the door and went to the desk.
He spoke a number into the phone and said, “Scramble this, please.” An operator’s voice answered, and in a few moments he heard the line ring. He glanced at his watch: 2312. When the phone clicked he said immediately, “Theodore?”
“Right, sir. Are we scrambled?”
“I hope so,” Tyreen said. “Go ahead.”
“Corporal Smith reported in by radio. Eddie Kreizler’s being held for interrogation in the Chutrang barracks.”
“Yeah,” Tyreen said, expecting it.
“His exec’s a peckerhead lieutenant by the name of Chinh. They captured him too. I figure the Reds won’t work them both over at once. They’ll interrogate Chinh first because they’ll figure it’s easier to break him down.”
“It won’t take too long for them to find out the Vietnamese doesn’t know half as much as Eddie knows about our operations up there. If Chinh starts to talk, that’s the first thing he’ll tell them. It’ll be the quickest way he can get them off his back.”
“That’s assuming he’ll break.”
Tyreen said, “Everybody’s got a limit. He’ll break, if they get the idea that it’s worth the effort to break him down. And since they picked him up with Eddie, it won’t take them long to reach that conclusion. Still, it may give us a few hours’ break. Maybe we can get to Eddie before they crack him open.”
“Maybe,” Saville said, without warmth. “I told Corporal Smith to get down to the coast below Lak Chau and wait for a HALO-SCUBA drop offshore. I gave him the coordinates. He’ll just have time to make it if we figure to parachute in before dawn. I’ve got a couple of pilots and three enlisted men down here with me. We’re just about ready to take off. What about Major Parnell?”
“He’s at Nha Trang.”
“Oh, Christ. Does he know about this?”
“Not yet,” Tyreen said. “I’m flying up there by jet. You pile your boys in the gooney bird and fly up there. You can top up the tanks at Nha Trang while I’m talking to Parnell. With any luck I can get him out to you in time to fly north and make the drop before daylight.”
“My pilot’s worried about that typhoon, David. It’s scheduled to hit the coast about eight-thirty or nine.”
“He should be back before that. He can land at Da Nang before the storm comes in.”
“Maybe. You know McKuen — cocky as hell, but underneath he worries a lot.”
“Keep a lid on him, Theodore. Any other chatter from Corporal Smith up there?”
“No. He had to keep his broadcast down to two minutes on account of the time span of the Hanoi broadcast they were using for cover. The Reds have got pretty good radio detection gear up there.”
“I know,” Tyreen said. “All right. Take off, Theodore. I’ll see you at Nha Trang in an hour or two.”
He held down the phone sprocket for a moment, looking into space. Then he got the General on the wire.
“Some news on Eddie Kreizler,” he said.
“Spill it,” said the General.
“The Reds have got him in jail in Chutrang. They picked up his Number One with him. The exec’s a Vietnamese. Maybe they’ll concentrate on him long enough for us to get up there and have a crack at getting Eddie out.”
“I hope so,” General Jaynshill said. “If you can’t, David, remember my orders. Spell it out to Major Parnell. I can’t afford any misfires on this.”
“Keep your receiver channels open on the half-hour,” Tyreen said. “If Parnell gets Eddie out of jail, he’ll want to know how you figure to pick him up. I’ll tell Parnell to broadcast on the blue frequency.”
“Right. Good hunting, David.”
Tyreen put down the phone and glanced at the unconscious Air Force officer on the cot. A rash of sweat covered Tyreen’s face. He tugged a matted handkerchief from his pocket and wiped himself. Feeling weak, he left the office.
Captain Grove sat hipshot on a desk corner sipping coffee; his eyes were shuttered and dark. He stood up when Tyreen entered the big room, and nodded curtly. “You’ve got your pilot, Colonel. Never mind where I found him.”
Tyreen nodded. A sudden grin flashed across Grove’s boyish face. “Just remember one thing, Colonel — the Air Force is on your side.”
Tyreen looked at him. “I guess we all tend to forget that now and then.”
“Your plane’s warming up now. The corporal on the door will take you down there.”
“Thanks, Captain.”
Grove waved a hand and turned away, charging determinedly toward the bank of radar screens; his voice lifted and smashed across the room: “Where in hell is that flight of peckerhead Sabres?”
Tyreen gathered his hat and coat on the way out. It was still raining.
Chapter Six
2330 Hours
McKuen was not used to flying a DC-3 without radio contact with the ground, at night, with rainclouds socking the coast in. He scowled at the silent radio dial. His instructions were to keep radio silence and stay as far from main-traveled air corridors as he could. It was typical Army work, the brass not letting the left hand know what the right was doing — he was spotted by coastal radar five minutes after takeoff and tailed for ten minutes across the sky by a pair of Skyraiders. They had looked him over carefully, buzzed him to indicate he was out of ordinary, flight patterns, and finally returned to base, after which Captain Saville had come forward to the cockpit and told him to fly a zigzag course. McKuen had said, “And who is it we’re trying to fool, my good Captain?”
The old gooney bird had no numbers or insignia on its battered shell. He was under explicit instructions to keep no log, which was well enough because the automatic gyropilot was in poor working order, and he and Shannon together had their hands full navigating and flying through the soup. The thought of bucking the old plane all the way to the Chinese border put a sour tilt on his customarily jaunty lips.