Flight of the Intruder

EIGHTEEN

Three days after their Hanoi raid, Abe Steiger drew Jake aside in mission Planning to show him an intelligence report. The North VietNamese had complain to the international communist press that a bomb had fallen within ten feet of the National Assembly and had severely damaged the facade and had broken all the windows. Because the other seven bombs were not mentioned, Jake and Steiger assumed they had struck in the street in front of the building. The VietNamese complained of a deliberate attempt by “Yankee pirates” to destroy their seat of government and added almost as an afterthought, that three bystanders had died in the blast. The intelligence summary discounted the complaint as pure propaganda or, if there had been any damage, suggested it had been caused by a SAM antiaircraft artillery shell returning to earth.

“Do you think the gomers really believe the attack was intentional?” Steiger asked.

“Does God shave his upper lip? Was Adolf Hitler a fairy? Is there any sex in heaven? How the hell would I know, Abe?”

“Well, it’s something to think about.”

“I hope they’re doing just that. I hope those mothers are racking their brains trying to figure it all out.” Jake told Tiger Cole about the report. “No cigar,” was his comment.

One evening Grafton and Lundeen had a visit from New Guy.

“Want a warm Coke?” Sammy asked him.

“Sure,” New said. “How come you guys never bought a refrigerator?”

“What brings you down to this den of sin and iniquity, anyway?” said Sammy. He tossed a can at New, knowing it would foam over when the flip top was pulled. It did. New wiped his sticky hand on his trousers.

“I’m turning in my wings,” New announced. “I’ve been talking to the Skipper about it and he said I should talk it over with some of the guys, then come back and see him. He wanted me to be sure before I put in the paperwork.”

Sammy and Jake exchanged glances. Most men do not willingly throw away almost two and a half years of extraordinarily hard work, which was the time it took for a pilot to get his first assignment to a fleet A-6 squadron: a year and a half in pilot training; a month in the instrument squadron earning a fleet instrument card; and eight months in an A-6 replacement squadron. Only then did the fledgling report to a fleet squadron. The attrition rate along the way was high; men dropped out or were washed out. Some were killed.

“You have an awful lot invested in that piece of metal.” Jake gestured to the gold wings above the left pocket of New Guy’s khaki shirt.

“Yeah, but I really think I could make a better contribution doing something else.”

“You married?” Lundeen interjected.

New Guy nodded.

“What does your wife think?”

He became absorbed with his shoes. “She thinks the war is wrong and we ought to get out of Vietnam.”

“She’s got plenty of company. What do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“If you keep flying, will that end your marriage?” Jake asked.

“It might,” New Guy admitted.

“She threatened a divorce?” continued Sammy.

New Guy shrugged.

“Well,” said Grafton. “This is your career, not hers.”

“It’s my decision,” New Guy insisted.

Jake gazed thoughtfully at that smooth, ingenuous face. “If you’re scared of bullets and SAMs, you’re in pretty goddamn good company. Everybody’s scared over the beach. That’s no reason to be ashamed or to quit.”

The new pilot shook his head. “It’s not that.”

“Then what the hell is it?” Lundeen demanded.

“I just feel that, everything considered, I would have more to offer the navy as a maintenance or surface officer.”

“Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we?” said Lundeen. “Go ahead and turn those wings in and leave the fighting to others. If somebody gets killed on a mission you should’ve flown, that’ll be just fine with you. Let the other guys do the bleeding and the dying.” New Guy shriveled under Lundeen’s wrath. “You yellow little coward. The States are full of assholes like you, fucking draft-dodgers who don’t want to hang their precious asses on the line. No, they want other people to do the bleeding and dying while they sit at home and enjoy their freedom and salve their consciences by assuring each other the war is immoral.”

“That’s enough, Sammy,” Jake said, aware that he had said much the same thing to Callie not many days ago. If Lundeen kept on he might shame New Guy into staying in the cockpit. Then what bombardier would you sentence to fly with him? Without self-confidence a pilot would never get aboard at night, never wait long enough before he outmaneuvered the SAMs, never try hard enough to get the bombs on target. Without faith in his own ability to conquer whatever might come, a pilot would be overwhelmed by the terror. No, if New didn’t have it, he didn’t have it. “You can tell the Skipper you talked to us. It’s your decision and your life. Maybe you’ve made the right choice.”

New Guy stood up slowly. He tried to smile but Jake’s cold eyes stopped him. Jake said, “This flying game takes a lot out of a man. You have to crawl up that boarding ladder into that ejection seat again and again. There’s nobody around to tell you you’re doing the right thing.” Jake lowered his gaze to his outstretched, palsied hands. He raised his head and stared at New Guy.

“I don’t know what you believe in, but I don’t think you believe in yourself.”

“You had better leave,” Lundeen told New Guy.

The skipper sent New Guy’s request for a change of designator to the Bureau of Naval Personnel, recommending approval. New became the permanent squadron duty officer in the ready room every day from noon to midnight. As lieutenants and below rotated this twelve-hour watch, New Guy’s assignment, which gave him half these watches, meant that the others would have to stand the duty only half as often. This they liked. Those who resented New’s decision made it known by not speaking to him except when they had to. Those who did this were few. Most did not shun New but treated him as if he were a somewhat impaired younger brother.

Jake Grafton and Tiger Cole trotted up to the dirty-shirt wardroom for a late dinner. They had been on a strike at noon and were ravenous. When each man had an aluminum tray full of creamed chipped beef toast, also known as Shit on a shingle-they looked for two seats in the wardroom. Cowboy Parker waved them over to his table. He was seated next to an officer wearing a green two-piece air force flight suit “This is Major Frank Allen. Frank and I went to school together at UT.”

“In Knoxville?” Cole inquired.

Jake grinned as Parker rose to the occasion and haughtily informed the bombardier that his alma matre was in Austin. Frank Allen smiled.

Cowboy told them his former classmate was visiting the Shilo under an unofficial ‘liaison” program that brought together navy airmen and the air force stationed at Nakhon Phantom in Thailand, a place referred to by the military “naked fanntail”. Two months earlier a captain stationed there who flew F-105 Wild Weasels, the air force’s equivalent of the A-6B, had visited the ship - Big Augie had then wangled a trip to Thailand to visit these brothers-in-arms when he returned had regaled his squadron-mates with such stories of bars and whorehouses that they almost believed he had spent his entire three days there in a sexual and alcoholic orgy of epic intensity. Big’s story had the effect he had hoped for on the Boxman, who had written three official requests to go to Nakh Phantom and had been turned down each time.

“Do you fly F-105s?” Jake asked Frank Allen.

“Nope. A-1s. Skyraiders- You navy boys call them Spads. I do a bit of search and rescue work when we not bombing with a F A C.”

“We’re taking him on a tanker hop tomorrow,” said Parker. “Gonna get him a cat shot and a trip so he c join the Tailhook Association and go to the next convention in Las Vegas.” Almost all the navy airmen belonged, and they considered the Las Vegas weekend one whale of a blowout.

After dinner the four of them retreated to Cowboy’s stateroom. In the course of a game of penny-ante poker, Jake mentioned the trip Big had taken to Thailand and his stories of goodtime houses and their effect on Box. After some discussion the Boxman was invited down. When he had won fifty cents or so in the game, the conversation turned to the city near the air force base where Allen was stationed.

Frank Allen shook his head. “They have the biggest whorehouse east of Port Said,” he confided. “It’s really something. Over a hundred women, just girls really, little brown fucking machines, and for five bucks American you can spend the night. You can have as many girls as you want, no extra charge.” Box tossed his hand on the table and stared at Allen.

“The thing I like the best,” Allen continued, leaning forward, “is when you strip stark naked and lay down on this table. These girls lick you all over until you have a hard on, then they lower a girl in a stirrup device right onto your crank. You are in her but the only contact is the sexual one.”

Allen shuddered as he appeared to recall the ecstasy. Grafton casually picked up Box’s discarded hand; Box had thrown away a pair of kings.

“Are these girls clean?” Box wanted to know, gulping down the last of his drink and holding his glass out for a refill. Jake couldn’t imagine why he asked, since he was now being treated for his third dose on this cruise.

“Oh, yeah,” Allen assured him. “They all wear white socks. That’s how you can tell.” The other men laughed. Box grinned ruefully.

Early the next morning Box wrote out yet another request to visit the sin capital of the Orient. The skipper denied the request by burning it in the ready room with Box looking on.

Frank Allen flew his tanker flight, got his trip, then gave a presentation on search-and-rescue technique and equipment at a specially called all-officers meeting He was invited by the CAG to repeat it for the other ready rooms. When Allen was ready to leave the ship, Cowboy and the others arranged for Boxman to escape in to the cargo plane and wished him bon voyage.

At three o’clock one morning Jake Grafton was in his flight suit alone in the dirty-shirt wardroom. He held the coffee cup with both hands to prevent the liquid from slopping onto the tablecloth. He was staring at the crumbs and stains on the cloth.

“Ah, Mister Grafton- May I join you?” Les Rucic said down on the other side of the table. He sipped coffee and lit a cigarette. “Been flying?”

“Hmmm. “A strike?” “Uh-huh.”

“Too bad a man can’t get a drink around here.” Rucic commented.

Jake kept his eyes on his coffee cup. Does he know about the Hanoi raid? Is that why he’s here? The pilot felt his muscles tense.

“Looks like I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”

Jake let his gaze wander over the reporter’s features. The man hadn’t trimmed his nose hairs since the pilot had last seen him.

“I’ll probably spend a week or so in Saigon, get to feel of the place if you know what I mean, then go back to the States. Is there anybody back home I can call for you?”

Yes, Mrs. Grafton, I met your son on the Shilo He’s doing just fine and asked me to call to wish you Merry Christmas. How do you feel about what he’s doing in Vietnam? Do you think America should be over there? Grafton wondered if his disgust for Rucic showed on his face.

“Are we winning or losing?” Rucic pressed.

“What?”

“Winning or losing the war?”

“Damned if I know.”

“Come on. Give a little. I’ve interviewed some of the other pilots and naval flight officers, and they’ve given me some pretty good stuff.” He waved his notebook.

jake felt the tension leaving his muscles. Surely if Rucic knew about the National Assembly he would be after it by now. Feeling relieved, Jake asked, “What’d they say?”

Rucic thumbed through several pages of his notebook. “We’re buying time for the South VietNamese,” he read. “Whether the time is worth the cost will depend on what the South VietNamese do with it…. Freedom is the most expensive commodity on earth. . .

“Putting that in the paper would be a waste, Rucic,” Grafton sneered. “Why don’t you save it for a Fourth of July speech?”

Rucic sipped his coffee. “I wonder if you could tell me anything about the flight on which your bombardier was killed?” He looked at the notebook again. “Morgan McPherson.”

So the sonuvabitch had been looking for him.

“Can you tell me anything about it? I wasn’t aware you had lost your bombardier when I interviewed you the other day.”

Jake just stared.

“Listen, Grafton. I have a right to be here and to ask these questions. If you don’t cooperate I’ll have to say as much to your superiors.” Rucic’s eyes reminded Jake of the eyes in dead fish he had seen in Hong Kong alleys.

The pilot stood up. He put his fists on the table and leaned toward the reporter. “I don’t have to talk to you, motherfucker. If you use my name in your stories, I’ll sue your rag-and you-for invasion of privacy! .”

The pitch of his voice rose but he couldn’t help it. “Your papers sell better when you mix a little blood with the ink, don’t they?”

Realizing he was losing control, Jake walked away.