Targets of Opportunity

Chapter THIRTY-NINE

Everyone in the room sat in stunned silence when they heard Chase Mitchell's radio call to the MiG. Lex Blackwell rose from his chair and followed Allison to the edge of the door to the communications room. Nick Palmer and Hank Murray remained seated at the briefing table.

Cap Spencer turned the volume up on the radio and exchanged an uneasy glance with Allison. Her face reflected a deep alarm, but she kept her thoughts to herself and silently prayed for Brad's safe return.

Spencer swallowed and keyed his mike. "Sleepy, Blue Devil," he said without waiting for a response. "Confirm that he cannot eject."

"That's affirmative, and he's on fire. Stand by one."

Hollis Spencer stared at the radio for a moment and then turned to Murray.

"Hank, is there a way he can…" Spencer's words trailed off when he saw the strain on Murray's face. The blood had drained from his skin, turning his complexion pale and pasty. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.

A synapse flashed in Spencer's mind. He felt as if he had been hit in the forehead with a baseball bat. "Hank—"

"Cap, I did it to protect the operation," Murray uttered defensively. "We had to have insurance… and I didn't think it would ever be detected."

With a combination of disbelief and mounting rage, Palmer turned and faced the heavyset officer. "You disarmed the ejection seat?"

Murray's eyes gave him away. He had deactivated the seat's firing mechanism to help ensure that the North Vietnamese would not get their hands on a live pilot. Murray had bet that no one would have known if the MiG had been shot down. He had been confident that a pilot could not transmit his plight if the airplane was blown apart or was spinning out of control.

Facing the shocking reality that Murray had allowed Brad to take off with an inert escape system, Palmer leaped to his feet and exploded across the table.

Murray was only halfway out of his chair when Nick swung wildly, smashing Murray straight in the face. The two men tumbled backward over the chair and slammed into the wall.

"Did I fly with a bogus seat?" Palmer said venomously, and slugged him with a staggering blow.

Murray's eyes bulged in pain when his broken and bleeding nose was again flattened.

"You low-life son of a bitch!" Palmer yelled as he repeatedly pounded Murray's pulpy face. "I'm going to kill you, you worthless bastard!"

Reeling from shock, Blackwell and Spencer lurched across the room to separate the men. Allison stared in horror and tried to restrain her anger. Brad was trapped in a burning airplane that had been sabotaged by the chief of maintenance. She could see that Palmer was literally trying to kill Murray.

"Goddamnit, Nick," Lex shouted as he attempted to grab Palmer around the neck. "Get aholt of yourselfl"

"Back off!" Nick warned as he pummeled Murray's bleeding face. "I'm gonna kill this chickenshit!"

Spencer straddled Palmer's back while Blackwell tried to pin his friend's arms. Nick tossed Spencer off and fell sideways when Lex leaped on top of him.

"He's almost unconscious!" Blackwell gasped as he held Palmer in a headlock. Nick continued to shake from anger, but looked at Lex.

"Okay." He breathed heavily, trying to calm himself His hand felt like it was broken. "Let me go…

After Brad had lowered the flaps and secured the blazing engine, he turned off the fuel valve and dove for the ground. The tail pipe of the MiG continued to burn while he fought off his rising fear and searched for a place to crash-land the stricken fighter.

He scanned the area toward the river and spotted a long section of rice paddies. Immediately, Austin calculated the distance to the landing site and set up for a steep descent to align himself with the first row of paddies.

He thumbed his mike and heard a side-tone. The battery was still powering the radios.

"Chase," he exclaimed firmly, "I've got to stuff it in a rice paddy on the east side of the river."

"Copy," Mitchell responded while Brad twisted the last bit of horsepower from the screaming engine.

Rudy Jimenez transmitted a call a few seconds later. "Understand you are going to land seven to eight miles south of where the rivers intersect?"

Brad jabbed the mike button. "That's affirm — east side of the river in the rice paddies."

"Keep the faith," Jimenez encouraged, then added, "We're moving as fast as we can."

Austin clicked his mike twice.

Feeling an increase in the intense heat, Brad quelled his panic and concentrated on his approach. He would leave the landing gear retracted and belly the airplane into one of the flooded fields. He gradually raised the nose to arrest his swift descent.

He could feel the airspeed bleeding off rapidly as the powerless MiG became a silent glider. Realizing that he did not have enough altitude to execute a standard flameout approach, Brad entered a modified base leg.

Darting a look at the small village next to the irrigated fields, he decided to stretch his glide as far as possible. In the distance, toward the bridge where the two rivers joined, he could see a convoy of military trucks.

Austin kept the control column jammed to the left and maintained a steady pressure on the rudder. The MiG continued to descend in a relatively stabilized manner, but it was settling much faster than he had anticipated.

The searing heat from the blazing fire in the fuselage was steadily consuming the aircraft. Brad was beginning to feel the first effects of being cooked alive when he aligned the flaming aircraft with the rice paddy.

Dense smoke began to seep into the cockpit, filling the small space with an acrid smell. With his vision becoming blurred, he reached down to his left and grabbed the canopy jettison knob.

I'm going to roast in here! Brad's mind screamed as he jerked the semi-hot release knob.

The canopy slid backward a few inches before the wind blast ripped it from the railings. The heavy canopy slammed into the vertical fin and horizontal stabilizer, then plummeted toward the road that led to the river.

"This isn't looking good," Brad uttered as the MiG shook from the impact of the canopy. The intense heat was unbearable and the controls were becoming mushy.

"Just a few more seconds," he groaned as he fought the controls. The fighter was slowing and beginning to nibble on the edge of a stall. "I've got to hang on.…"

Chase Mitchell concentrated on flying low and fast while Rudy Jimenez plotted their course to Austin's reported landing site. The engine was straining at full power while Elvin Crowder inspected his weapons and checked the rescue hoist. He was not comfortable with the idea of going into North Vietnam without their usual backup helicopter.

"Chase," Jimenez said over the intercom as he handed the pilot a folded chart, "what do you figure was the problem with the ejection seat?"

Mitchell glanced at the course line his copilot had drawn on the map and altered course five degrees to the right. "Beats me. It's old technology, but someone should have examined the firing system."

"Well," Rudy shook his head in disgust, "I guess it's all academic now."

"Yeah, but it doesn't change our job."

Jimenez looked at the fuel gauge. They would have only five to ten minutes to locate and rescue Austin when they reached his last known position. If they stayed any longer, the helicopter would most likely run out of fuel before they could reach Alpha-29. "I just hope he got down okay… and didn't bust his ass."

Mitchell eased the nose up to clear a ridge as he skimmed the tops of the trees. "I'll be relieved if he comes up on his survival radio."

Absorbed in his fuel-endurance calculations, Jimenez noted the time and turned to Mitchell. "I hope he's out in the boonies — away from civilization."

With a look of concern, Chase glanced at his friend. "Rudy, he's landing near the river, and that means lots of people in the area."

Jimenez studied the rugged landscape and nervously fingered his round-wheeled flight calculator. "I wish we had some North Vietnamese insignias to slap on the side of this bucket."

Brad pulled back the control stick and sailed over a walkway at the edge of the rice paddy. Focusing on his likely point of impact, he saw a number of farmers running in a frenzied attempt to escape the burning MiG.

"Easy… nice and easy…," Brad coaxed as the MiG's belly caressed the water, skipped twice, then settled into the irrigated field with a huge splash.

Warm water shot through the engine-air intake and slammed into the blazing turbojet. The resultant explosion blew the tail off and partially extinguished the raging fire.

Austin was violently thrown into the instrument panel as the tailless MiG slid the length of the paddy, caromed over a narrow dike, then slewed sideways and struck another levee.

A tidal wave of water and mud showered Brad as the airplane careened to a stop against the embankment.

An eerie quiet suddenly settled over the paddy. Brad could hear voices, but they seemed to come from a distance. He opened his eyes and saw only blurred images in front of him. He wiped his face with a mud-splattered flight glove and shoved himself upright. There was a trace of blood on his glove and the forearm of his flight suit.

Jesus, Joseph and Mary, I'm still alive.

With a sense of urgency, he moved his eyes to view the cockpit. The sturdy MiG had survived the forced landing remarkably well. He cleared his head and ripped off the soaked gloves, then removed his helmet and tossed it onto the wing.

Reaching for the windshield bow, Brad attempted to hoist himself up. His legs would not cooperate with his mind.

Why can't I get up? Am I paralyzed from the waist down?

"You dumb shit!" he blurted as he snapped his seat restraints loose and scrambled over the side of the cockpit. He landed in the squishy mud next to the dike and took a quick look around the area.

The startled villagers were hurrying toward the burning MiG. Austin unsnapped his kneeboard and tossed it and the attached charts into the residual fire. Mechanically, he struggled clumsily out of the mire and forced himself to think like a Soviet instructor pilot. Be calm and take charge of the situation. He tried to recall the Russian phrases he had studied, but drew a complete blank.

Hollis Spencer had sent for the corpsman and then walked Hank Murray to his quarters in the hangar. Spencer knew that he had to keep the battered maintenance chief separated from the pilots until he could decide how to handle the crisis.

After explaining to Murray that he would be confined to his quarters for his own protection, Spencer rushed back to the Quonset hut.

When he entered the building, he could feel the growing animosity. Allison was desperately trying to contact the helicopter while Lex Blackwell wrapped Palmer's swollen and bleeding hand in gauze.

"Allison," Spencer said in a terse voice, "they're probably too low to pick up our signal. I'm sure they'll call us as soon as they can."

She nodded glumly and stared at the radio.

Nick tried to restrain himself, but gave in to frustration and anger. "Cap, we've got to stop playing games and get the search-and-rescue people involved… if we're going to get Austin out of there."

Spencer gritted his teeth and gave Palmer a stone-faced look. "Lieutenant, if you give me just half a reason, I'll place you under armed guard, so help me God."

Palmer bridled, and Blackwell stepped between the two men. "Nick," Lex said soothingly, "let's go outside and have a cigarette." Palmer glared at Spencer for a long moment, then rose and quietl y w alked to the door. It required all of his self-control to keep hi s c ontempt from overriding his better judgment.

After Blackwell followed Nick outside, Allison eyed her boss with a glimmer of displeasure. "Cap, what are you going to do about Murray?"

"Allison," he replied in an exhausted manner, "I'll deal with that after we know about Austin." He slumped in his chair and reached for his pipe. "First things first."

She tried unsuccessfully to conceal her irritation. "Are you going to chalk it up to fierce loyalty, or are you going to call it what it is.. attempted murder?"

Spencer knew what was appropriate, but he needed time to sort through all the possible ramifications. He felt in his heart that he was through, and hoped that all of them could escape unharmed from the operation.

"I'll take care of it," he responded sadly, knowing that he could not keep Murray's incident under wraps for long.