The jump light flicked on. Willow, standing directly behind me, slapped my shoulder.
I snapped on my penlight, drew down the ski goggles, held them and my oxygen mask tight to my face, and dove out into the void. Ordinarily, I find the period of free fall the most exhilarating part of the sky dive. But this was hardly recreation. My mind was not keyed to physical enjoyment. I looked back. Two pinpoints of lights first trailed, then caught up with me. Within seconds Willow and Bu Chen had reached my level and matched fall speed. I jerked my ripcord.
A moment later, in total, freezing silence, I tugged at the steering shroud lines to set a course. The rate of descent was rapid; the high altitude air was extremely thin. On either side of me I saw the lights carried by Willow and Bu Chen. We were together and on track.
Suddenly, something was different. I detected a subtle change in my surroundings. It was a sound, faint and ominous where no sound should be. The stillness of the cold, silent air had been invaded by an alien rumble that grew in intensity as I listened. Something was probing the environment in response to our being there.
I looked ahead and down in the direction of the oncoming sound and sucked in my breath.
Moving upward on a slant — roaring toward us with long, torchlike flames trailing behind — were two screaming jet fighters, their afterburners blazing. The intrusion of guarded air space by the transport we had left only moments before had unleashed the alert North Vietnamese air defenses. A pair of interceptors had been sent aloft. Our trio of vulnerable parachutes dangled directly in their pursuit path. We were not the target; we were merely unseen obstructions blocking the climbing course of the fighters being sent to chase the Thai intruder. There was no getting out of the way.
My eyes locked onto the bright-burning exhausts of the approaching jets. Climbing at top speed, they were upon us before we could do anything but cringe. The lead aircraft, a Russian MIG-21 night fighter, roared by not more than thirty feet above me. The air turbulence created in his wake caused a partial collapse of my parachute canopy. The bottom fell out from under me. I dropped rapidly, falling and spinning violently. I worked frantically, yanking at the tangled shroud lines to keep the parachute from becoming a “streamer.”
The wild, terrifying descent lasted for hundreds of feet before I got back on an even keel. Minutes passed before answering light signals from Willow and Bu Chen told me that we were together again.
We certainly hadn’t been seen by the pilots in the interceptors. The world was quiet around me again. It was doubtful that we had been picked up on radar.
Even if we were, there was no turning back.
Fourteen
My feet sank ankle deep into the mud of a flooded rice paddy when I landed. For some fifteen minutes, the three of us had been calling softly to each other as we made our final descent. We were able to remain close enough to stay within sight of one another despite the heavy darkness before dawn. At the two thousand foot level I had ordered silence. Farmers all over the world are pre-dawn risers; I hoped that we wouldn’t land near one.
We dropped within yards of one another. An early morning fog layer, thin but helpful, stretched hip-high in all directions. I heard nothing as we listened and remained still like hunched statues. Bu Chen’s footsteps made sucking noises in the mucky soil as he moved toward me. His ghostly figure was hidden behind the bundled-up parachute he carried. Willow joined us, a jubilant smile on her pretty face.
We followed the planted rows to a low dike of dry, solid ground. I pushed my parachute and harness into a puffed-up pile and touched a match to it. The specially treated fabric and webbing ignited and burned completely with a blue, nearly invisible flame that produced no smoke at all. In seconds the light ashen residue was scattering before a barely perceptible breeze. Willow and Bu Chen disposed of their parachutes in the same manner.
We removed our chest-hung knapsacks and dug into them. Our temporary footwear was replaced with the thonged sandals; peaked, cloth caps completed our disguises. Long before the eastern sky lightened, all tangible evidence that North Vietnam’s guarded sovereignty had been breached was destroyed or irretrievably buried.
Smoke rose from braziers inside scattered thatch-rooted huts where simple morning meals were being prepared. A group of walkers, dressed much as we were and with hand tools over their shoulders, marched past on their way to the fields. We were moving along the mist-blanketed road in the opposite direction. One or two of the farmers glanced at us suspiciously.
“The way we’re strolling along here empty-handed,” I said, observing the stares we encountered, “we look out of place. We’ve got to appear more part of the scenery, and also find a way of moving faster.”
Bu Chen apologized. “I’m sorry I couldn’t supply current travel passes so we could use the bus or train. If you’d gone along with wearing soldier’s uniforms, we could commandeer a ride on anything that comes along.”
“And also have a military escort to the wall in front of a firing squad,” I repeated, using the argument that made me veto the idea the first time.
Willow fell into file behind me along the edge of the road when the tinkling of a bicycle bell sounded at our rear. “That’s the only way to go in this country if you want to remain inconspicuous,” she remarked after a quartet of cyclists went by.
“Which is why you’re packing those two small cans of fast-drying spray paint in your knapsack,” I told her. “Keep walking... hup... hup... hup.” Neither of my companions saw any humor in my light touch.
Our shadows were still long on the dusty lane surface from the early morning sun when we came to a hard-surfaced road. A few yards from the intersection a sign gave distances to various points ahead. Willow gasped. “Oh my, look how far it is to Hanoi!”
“That’s kilometers, not miles,” I reassured her. “Let’s keep our eyes open now. We’re looking for a chance to pick up some transportation. Nothing gaudy, just workable equipment.”
The road was well travelled. Hanoi-bound buses, crammed with humanity and all forms of belongings, including animals and fowl, were aboard the swaying, overloaded vehicles. Motorbikes, scooters, and minibuses sputtered and belched black exhausts. Everyone appeared to move mechanically; little emotion showed on their faces. In a regimented society people tend to curb their curiosity. Little outward interest is shown in individuals or matters apart from one’s own small sphere of drab existence. It was that grim quality that surrounded us with an atmosphere of security as long as we took care not to attract undue attention.
For an hour we had done nothing to rock the boat, but that was about to change.
A turnoff just ahead at the far side of the village seemed to be sucking in a steady stream of bicyclists. It led to a low, corrugated metal, windowless building. Green-tinted plastic skylights in the roof admitted light into the building interior. Workers were arriving, placing their bicycles side by side in racks anchored to the outside walls of the building.
I left the road before we reached the driveway which led to an open, graveled space that appeared to be a loading area. Willow and Bu Chen joined me in the narrow strip of underbrush that formed a natural perimeter around the open space. We crouched in the thick vegetation and observed the scene.
The tall chimneys standing above the rounded domes of circular, brick structures behind the metal building identified the complex as a factory producing fired clay products. Straw-bristling crates were stacked beside a wide, doorless opening in the building. Through it, we could see the morning shift seating themselves at long tables where they commenced painting designs on plates, cups, and teapots prior to being baked in the kilns.