“How high?” said George McKuen.
“Some of the peaks are seventy-five hundred feet high. There’s one mountain that’s about eight thousand.”
“That’s bloody decent. The way we’re flying right now, I’d say the operational ceiling of this aircraft might be maybe eight thousand feet. Ducky, Colonel, ducky. I can’t get any more power out of number two engine than we’re getting right now. And I am getting the feeling she may conk out.”
“There’s a guerrilla landing strip back in the mountains,” Tyreen said. “Where’s your chart?... There. If you have to, you can put down on that. It’s an emergency field. One of those perforated-steel-strip runways. It’s not very long, and you have to land uphill.”
“What?”
“The strip slopes uphill.”
“Jesus,” said McKuen.
“One of our teams is holed up near there. But I doubt you’ll need it. You’ll get home, Lieutenant.”
Chapter Ten
0430 Hours
Forty minutes beyond Da Nang, and within easy radar range of the Red Chinese air base at Sama on the island of Hainan, the gooney bird’s number two engine sputtered, coughed, spat blood, and finally caught again. It kept running. McKuen kept one eye on it. A jaunty, cavalier, cocked-eyebrow d’Artagnan, he grinned at Mister Shannon and said, “Flying is so dangerous around here, even the bloody pigeons travel on foot.”
“A guy could get killed,” Shannon complained, “which is no way to die. I thought I was going to puke when that number two cut out on us.”
The engines chugged reassuringly. They had lost eight hundred feet of altitude, nursing the sick number two; now McKuen climbed again and leveled off at seven thousand feet to cruise. “Look there — break in the clouds.”
Shannon looked down. “Ship down there,” he said, “or a big boat. See the lights?”
“That’ll be one of those Russian trawlers. They must catch a lot of fish. I flew over one of them just out at the three-mile limit at Guam. Plenty of radar domes on them, but not a stick of fishing tackle.”
They passed over the opening in the clouds underneath. Shannon spoke slowly: “What do you think of our chances, Lieutenant?”
“I came, didn’t I?”
Shannon’s face moved. He looked out at the night. “I’m cold,” he said. “I wish the heat worked. I don’t think we’ve got the chance of a chicken in a fox’s den of getting this thing back to Da Nang, typhoon or no typhoon. That number two engine’s going to pack up damn soon.”
“It’s human to sweat a little,” McKuen said cheerfully.
“What about you, Lieutenant? Do you sweat?”
“Sure.”
“You don’t show it.”
McKuen said, “There ain’t much that can harm you after you’re dead, darlin’.” The plane slid between layers of wispcloud, cutting off the star shine. The plane became a raft isolated on a black sea. There was the smell of rain, but no water on the glass. McKuen’s face was reflected faintly in the window. Another break in the lower cloud deck showed nothing but darkness; the clouds sealed up once again. Shannon’s hand moved to rotate the stabilizer wheel back a fraction of a revolution. Before McKuen’s feet the rudder pedals moved slightly, one in and one out, under Shannon’s direction. Engines throbbed monotonously. Shannon said, “I’m getting spooky.”
“You’ll steady down.”
“Maybe.”
“Look at it this way,” said McKuen. “If you get killed, at least you won’t have died of anything serious.”
“You are very funny, Lieutenant.”
McKuen looked sharply at him. After that he said nothing until, with the clouds pinching in on them from above and below, he said, “Switch on the receiver. I want to get a weather report.”
The earphones crackled and he heard a distant voice: “Tighten up this formation. Jimmy, I want your wingtip in my Goddamn window.”
McKuen said, “Wrong band, Mister,” in a very gentle voice and watched Shannon’s nervous hand twist the radio dials. After a moment he looked at his watch and said, “Ought to be a report about now.”
The radio only blatted landing and takeoff instructions. He listened to it with half his attention and muttered aloud: “Manifold pressure.” He moved the throttles. “Twenty-two hundred rpm — how’s that number two behaving?”
He was remembering a blonde in San Francisco who had left his quarters at 5 a.m., thereby earning for him the silly admiration of his acquaintances. Shannon’s voice broke in:
“I’m as jumpy as a virgin in a men’s room.”
When McKuen made no reply, Shannon said, “I was thinking about getting married before I left the States. Now I’m glad I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“And leave my girl a widow?”
“At least she’d have a pension,” McKuen said.
“Do you think women go for Army pilots?”
“Well, now,” McKuen said, with his brogue waxing, “I was after takin’ a survey of seventy-five young ladies on that very question, would you believe it? And seventy-three of them responded the same way. Would you be wantin’ to know what it was they said? They said, ‘Shut up and rape me, darlin’,’ is what they said.”
“Oh, bullshit.”
“Gee, I wish I’d said that. Hold on.” McKuen’s hand snapped to the radio dial, and he tuned it with slow care. The headset scratched in his ear:
“Typhoon Carlotta has changed course and speed, is now expected to hit the Vietnamese coastline north of Da Nang at approximately oh-six-thirty hours this morning. Repeat, the typhoon is expected to strike the coast near Hué at approximately oh-six-thirty hours this morning. All operational aircraft are ordered to ground at runways of opportunity. All takeoffs after oh-five-thirty hours are canceled by order of...”
McKuen took the headset off and slung it on its hook. He looked at Shannon and said, “What ho.”
Shannon’s face was dour. McKuen said, “What’s your opinion, Mister?”
“I don’t get paid for opinions, Lieutenant. Just follow orders. But if I was to think about it, I might suggest hara-kiri.”
“Very good, Mister. Take the wheel, like a good fellow.” McKuen unstrapped himself, climbed out of the pilot’s seat, and made his way back into the passenger cabin.
“That typhoon must be due south of us right now, sir,” McKuen said to Colonel Tyreen. “Due to strike Hué at six-thirty. Sir, it’s ten after five right now, and by the time we reach your drop zone it’ll be six o’clock, at least. I’d like permission to abort, sir. If we turn around and hightail back right now on a course of one-nine-oh we can land on one of those emergency strips in South Vietnam west of Hué before the typhoon gets there.”
Tyreen said, “Negative.”
“Colonel, this plane can’t swim.”
“You’ll make the drop on schedule, Lieutenant. After that it’s up to you. I’d suggest you bring her down on that airstrip up in the mountains — the one I pointed out to you on the map. That’s friendly Montagnard country up there, and as I said, we’ve got an ‘A’ Team operating in the area. They’ll pick you up and look after you.”
The plane vibrated strongly. McKuen had one hand braced against the slope of the ceiling, his back bent and his head tilted down to catch the run of Tyreen’s voice. McKuen said, “And what then, sir?”
“If you’re picked up by the ‘A’ Team, put yourself under their orders. If not, stand by the plane and listen to the weather reports. If the typhoon1 moves on before the Reds come up to find out who you are, you can just take off and go home. If the Reds come first, your orders are to disable this aircraft and then get the hell out.”