Tombstone's oxygen mask was slick with sweat, and he had to keep blinking his eyes to clear them. This ACM encounter had lasted longer than the usual dogfight already and showed no sign of letting up.
"Victor Four Delta, Eagle. Where's Chickenhawk, over?"
"Eagle Leader, Chickenhawk is inbound at primary target, on final approach. ETA two minutes, over. Thunderbird is five minutes behind them."
"Tell 'em to hurry," Tombstone replied. "We can't hold much longer.
"We copy, Eagle. Homeplate advises that the ground attack is under way at U Feng. Hang tight a few more minutes, fellas."
U Feng under attack? That wasn't supposed to go down until after the place was hit by the Hornets and the Intruders. Well, enough had gone wrong already. Maybe the ground assault had gone by the board as well.
"Eagle, Victor Four Delta," Tombstone heard on his radio. "Come in, Eagle."
"Eagle copies, Victor Four Delta. Go ahead."
"We have new targets," the Hawkeye CIC officer said. "Estimate eight to ten bogies, low altitude, originating Mongkoi. They're on a vector that will take them toward Tango LZ."
Tango LZ… the That helicopter staging area.
"Don't see 'em, Stoney," Dixie said. "I think we're too low." The Hawkeye, circling at a much higher altitude and using ECM tricks to look past Snow White's jamming, was in a better position to see what was going on over U Feng than the Tomcats, even though they were much closer.
"Victor Four Delta, Eagle Leader. No joy on your bogies. Vector us in, over."
"Roger, Eagle Leader. Come to one-seven-three. That will put you on the bogies in approximately two minutes."
"Copy that, Victor. Wilco."
"Watch it, Tombstone," his RIO warned. "Check our fuel."
"I see it, Dixie. We can go for a while yet."
"Tombstone… fuel's gonna be a problem! We've got maybe fifteen minutes… assuming you don't go to burner anymore!"
"I said I see it, Dix!" Tombstone put the Tomcat into a gentle roll, searching the sky below as they inverted. The dogfight had scattered the combatants for tens of miles in every direction. Dixie's VDI showed plenty of bogies but they were no longer within close combat range of one another.
Long-range missiles like Sparrow were useless now. No one was squawking IFF; without Identification Friend or Foe, there was no way to tell who was friendly and who the enemy.
Dixie was right, though. They were down to one Sidewinder and one Sparrow left, plus the 675-round drum for his Tomcat's M61A-1 20-mm cannon.
Ten more minutes and they'd be on bingo fuel; fifteen minutes and it would be joker.
But the local sky was clear of MiGs, while large numbers of aircraft were reported taking off from U Feng. If they didn't want to fight their way all the way back to Point Lima, it would be better to catch the newcomers before they got organized.
"Eagle Leader to all Eagles," he radioed. "Muster over U Feng. We're going to investigate those bogies."
"Roger, Eagle Leader," Batman said. The other VF-95 aviators checked in one after another. Five Tomcats began closing the range toward U Feng.
Pamela watched the Huey dropping toward them, slewing sideways until she could see the RTAF markings on the tail rotor boom, until she could see into the open cargo hatch. There were men there, soldiers… and a professorial-looking man with gray hair and glasses.
Hsiao.
A soldier on the cargo deck next to Hsiao raised his AK to his shoulder.
Pamela couldn't hear the shots, drowned in the thunder of the rotors, but she saw the flicker of muzzle flash against the shadows of the Huey's interior.
Ten feet in front of her, Bayerly staggered and almost fell.
Her paralysis of mind was gone, replaced by raw fear. Hsiao was coming for them, coming for her! She ran to Bayerly, grabbing at his arm. "Come on!" She had to scream to be heard over the helicopter's roar.
He shook her off.
"Please, Made It!" Tears streamed down her cheeks. "Run! Please!"
He turned, almost reluctantly, and then he was running with her… but he'd only taken a dozen steps before he stopped again. She saw the red stain spreading across his shirt, just beneath his left arm.
"I'll help-"
"No, damn it!" He planted his hand on her shoulder and shoved her roughly toward the treeline. "Get the fuck out of here! I'll hold them here!"
She felt torn between the need to run and the need to stay. She reached out again but he turned away, dropping to one knee and raising the captured AK.
The helicopter was hovering just above the earth less than seventy yards away. Soldiers were jumping out and advancing across the clearing toward them.
Bayerly's assault rifle hammered off a volley. The enemy soldiers dropped to their bellies and started firing back, but Bayerly was not firing at them, she realized.
He was aiming at the helo.
She heard the change in the pitch of the Huey's rotors. It was lifting again, nose high. Bayerly fired again, holding the trigger down and describing a small circle with the muzzle of his weapon, spraying the helo with lead. Smoke burst from the machine's engine, a small puff at first…
and then an expanding, billowing white cloud which was caught by the rotor wash and swirled about. Pamela could hear an ominous clanking mingled with the rotor noise now. The Huey turned sharply, trying to gain altitude, but the pilot seemed to be in trouble.
One spinning rotor blade caught the earth.
The helicopter seemed to leap skyward, nose high, but its tail boom slammed into the ground. There was an explosion. Orange flame engulfed the convulsing machine and the shock wave struck her like a hot slap across her face. Pamela had the impressions of an instant seared into her brain, the sight of a snapped-off rotor blade cart-wheeling across the sky, of men on the ground wreathed in flame as the ammo in their belts cooked off.
She lay face down on the ground for a long time, not remembering falling, not knowing anything but the hell of noise and the piercing stink of aviation fuel. When she looked up, the Huey, still burning, was reduced to a twisted, blackened skeleton. The soldiers who had been on it were dead.
Hsiao… She didn't see him, but he'd been aboard. He must be dead as well.
Bayerly was lying a few yards away, his sightless eyes staring up at her.
A bullet had drilled through his right cheekbone and entered his brain.
She sank to her knees, taking Bayerly's head in her lap. She cradled him for long moments, as the sounds of gunfire, the crump of explosions grew closer.
"Miss? Miss!" A hand touched her shoulder. "He's dead, miss. And we have to go!"
She looked up. Several Marines were there. She'd not even heard their approach.
"Are you all right?"
She nodded.
"You're Miss Drake?"
"Yes…"
"Come on, please, ma'am. This place is about to get dumped on."
She didn't want to leave Bayerly, but strong hands pulled her to her feet and guided her away. "Lieutenant Miller, ma'am," the Marine said. "Marine Recon. We've got to get to cover, fast!"
Blood stained the front of her blouse. Not hers, she realized numbly.
His. "Wha… what?"
"We've got to get under cover. We've got Hornets and Intruders coming down on this place like a ton of bricks, and we don't want to be here when they do!"
She looked up as Tomcats screeched overhead, their thunder deafening as they headed south.
Colonel Wu watched as five of the blips on his radar converged, moving south toward U Feng. Those would be the Americans… and it was easy to guess at their target. The radar returns from Dao's Q-5 attack Squadron were also clear, now passing some five miles south of U Feng as they readied for their bombing run.
It was too late to help the bombers, but a tactical opportunity was opening up for a decisive blow against the Yankee fighters.
"This is Dragon Leader," he radioed. "All Dragons on me. I'm going in!"
He lined up his J-7 on the American formation and cut in his afterburner.
While they were concentrating on the bombers, he would strike from behind.
Tombstone saw U Feng flash beneath his Tomcat, but he was more interested in the jungle-hopping aircraft five miles ahead.
"I've got them, Tombstone!" Dixie called. "Bearing one-eight-three.
They're crossing in front of us, right to left."
"Let's get a lock on 'em," Tombstone said. They had one Sparrow left.
He let the F-14's AWG-9 radar pick out one of the planes in the tight enemy formation, transferred the lock to the Sparrow, and pressed the trigger. "Fox one!"
"Fox one, fox one!" Batman echoed.
"I'm in," Garrison called. "With one for Price Tag. Fox one!"
Group Commander Dao Zhu Qingtong saw the That staging area first, a broad clearing several miles ahead. As he drew closer, he could see the RTAF helos, dozens of them, arrayed in orderly ranks with their rotors turning.
He flipped the arming switches for his payload and opened his bomb bay doors. Each Q-5 carried four Chinese FAB-250 general-purpose bombs in its internal bay, plus four more on wing and fuselage pylons. Eighty bombs…
each weighing two hundred fifty kilograms… that helicopter assembly area was about to become a slaughter pen.
There was a flash to Dao's left. He snapped his head around in time to see Aircraft 70816 crumple like paper in a blaze of white flame, as fragments splashed across the sky. Two tons of high explosives detonated in a shattering secondary blast that rocked Dao's aircraft wildly, forcing him to grip the stick with both hands.
They were under attack! The Q-5 had no passive warning receivers, and the attack was literally coming in out of the blue. Another plane exploded… and a third.
"Break off! Break off!" Dao shouted into his radio. Duty to the People and to the Party was well and good… but death in support of a minor military rebellion in this barbarous jungle country held no appeal for the pilot. People and Party could be better served by intact aircraft… and living pilots.
The seven surviving Q-5s swung toward the northeast, still flying at treetop level as they raced for home at Mach 1.
Unfortunately, the Sparrow missiles already launched could not tell that Dao had broken off the engagement. Two more planes died in fiery eruptions.
Dao Zhu Qingtong never felt the blast which killed him.
At better than Mach 1, Wu's J-7 closed with the American planes from behind. He'd already targeted the one he assumed was the leader.
The other MiGs of Dragon were scattered, but closing. If Wu could take out the enemy leader, he might be able to break their formation.
"Watch it, Stoney," Dixie warned. "Bandit coming' onto our six!"
"Right." His last Sparrow gone and one Sidewinder in reserve, Tombstone knew he would not be effective against the Q-5s ahead. But he could run interference for the rest of the pack.
"Batman!" he called. "Stay on the bogies! I'll block this clown."
"Copy, Tombstone. Be careful."
"Rog." He pulled the Tomcat up, breaking clear of the F-14 formation.
The MiG closed.
"Still coming," Dixie said. "He's dropping onto our six, range two miles."
Tombstone glanced back over his shoulder. "I see him. Hang on and we'll take him for a ride."
He put the F-14 into a left turn, waiting for the MiG to follow him into the break. Once the enemy pilot was committed, he slammed the stick back to the right, at the same time pulling back on the throttles and cutting in the flaps. The maneuver, a split-S, was designed to force the pursuing plane to overshoot.
"No good, Stoney!" Dixie said. "He's still back there!"
Tombstone brought the stick back left again, waited for the MiG to commit… then boosted to full military power and pulled into a climb, rolling inverted at the top of a short climb, then dropping toward where the bandit should have overshot.
"No good again! He's still coming'!"
Damn! This guy was too good.
"He's got lock!" Dixie called. "He's going for launch!"
Tombstone heard the tone of a radar lock. He went into another climb and kept pushing. "Hit the chaff, Dixie!" he yelled.
"Launch! Launch!"
"Keep punching out chaff!" He held the Tomcat's climb, then dropped into inverted level flight. "Where is it?"
"Still coming! There it goes!"
He saw the missile pass astern of the Tomcat, a white streak scratched vertically into the sky. He caught only a glimpse of the missile itself, a pencil balanced on orange flame. Quickly, Tombstone pulled a half roll, then started climbing again. The MiG was still climbing, sticking to his six with a grim and deadly determination.
"Keep an eye on him, Dixie," Tombstone said. He eased the throttles back, cutting power. The Tomcat slowed, still climbing. At one hundred fifty knots the wings slid forward and the plane began shimmying, threatening a stall.
"Gettin' close, Tombstone! Range one thousand."
"A little more…"
"Shit, I think he's going' for guns, Stoney!"
"A little more…"
The Tomcat hung at the peak of the climb. The port engine coughed and the stall warning light flared. Tombstone let the Tomcat fall onto its side, kicking in rudders and flaps as the F-14 fell sideways, then slid into a tight vertical reverse.
The MiG pilot was good… no question there. But Tombstone was capitalizing on the advantages in maneuverability the F-14 had over the MiG-21. His pursuer couldn't match that turn in a MiG-21, not without stalling out or falling out of control.
The Tomcat was plunging earthward now. Tombstone watched the MiG swell until it filled his HUD. He flashed past head to head, picking up speed rapidly. In that frozen-instant of passage, Tombstone saw the MiG climbing past him, the number 612 prominent in red on the nose.
The MiG that had eluded him earlier… and downed Price and Zig-Zag.
As soon as he was past, he brought the stick back and cut in his afterburners. G-forces pressed him down in his ejection seat, draining the blood from his brain and threatening him with unconsciousness. Then he was hard into a right break, twisting his head back in an attempt to locate his opponent.
"Where is he, Dixie? Do you see him?"
"One-two-zero, Stoney. Three o'clock high."
There he was. Tombstone held the turn, climbing slightly now, rising under the other plane. The MiG driver was trying to turn inside Tombstone's break, but the Tomcat's position was perfect.
One Sidewinder left. Tombstone got the lock and triggered the launch.
"Fox two!"
The missile arced away toward the enemy plane, drawing closer… closer… No! The MiG was twisting away, scattering dazzling pinpoints of light in its wake. Tombstone watched as his last Sidewinder curved away, uselessly following a flare.
"Let him go, Tombstone! We're almost bingo fuel, man! We don't have the gas!"
"Just a moment more!" At full military power he closed the gap between the Tomcat and the MiG.
"We're out of missiles, Tombstone."
"Switching to guns." He thumbed the selector switch on his stick. The concentric rings of the M61 target reticle appeared on his HUD. The MiG was turning again, trying to break right. Tombstone anticipated the turn, leading the MiG by a generous margin. They crowded in closer… closer…
He brought his thumb down on the firing switch. The F-14's four-barreled Gatling cut loose with a buzzsaw shriek, pumping out 20-mm shells at the rate of one hundred per second. The MiG was jinking, the pilot throwing the delta-winged aircraft back and forth, up and down, trying to break Tombstone's aim.
Puffs of smoke appeared on the tail section, and bits and pieces of metal began falling away. Tombstone kept the trigger depressed, firing round after round after high-velocity round into the stricken aircraft.
The MiG fell.
Colonel Wu knew the aircraft was lost when he pulled back on the stick and felt no response in the controls at all. The ground was twisting crazily as his MiG began tumbling, and still the American's cannon shells were crashing into the plane, shredding hull metal and control surfaces and electronic circuitry. His control console was lit with a dozen systems-failure lights, and the fire warning light was on.
"Dragon, Dragon," he called over the radio. "This is Dragon Leader.
Break off the attack. Regroup, then make for Fuhsingchen. Repeat, make for Fuhsingchen."
It was useless to continue. Half of his unit was destroyed or would never fly again, and the Americans were on their guard. By ordering his people to break off, perhaps some would survive. Perhaps General Hsiao would be able to reorganize the unit back in the People's Republic.
He felt a savage bitterness at the failure of Hsiao's plan. It was the American carrier planes that had broken the operation. The coup, he thought, might yet succeed.
But it would fail or succeed without the help of his Dragons.
The American had stopped firing, whether because he was out of ammo or because he'd lost a workable firing angle, Wu couldn't tell. His surviving pilots began acknowledging his last transmission as his MiG fell toward the ground, now some eight thousand feet below. It was time to abandon the aircraft.
He hit the canopy release, bracing himself for the blast of wind which buffeted him full force as soon as the cockpit was open. Then he grabbed the ejection handle and pulled.
The ejection seat's rockets fired, rocketing him clear of the aircraft.
It was unfortunate for Colonel Wu that the canopy had not separated completely from the aircraft, a defect in the original Soviet design which had never been corrected by the Chinese engineers who'd reworked the J-7.
Wu's body slammed into the cockpit at two hundred miles per hour. His chute opened and lowered him gently to the floor of the Taeng Valley, but he was dead long before he hit the ground.
Tombstone watched the stricken MiG fall into the jungle and wondered who he'd just been facing. That guy had not been That, had certainly not been Burmese. Chinese?
"He's gone, Tombstone," Dixie said. "And it looks like the other bandits are breaking off."
Tombstone didn't answer. At Wonsan he'd led his men into combat, knowing who the enemy was, knowing that they fought to save American hostages held by the North Koreans. But this… this was different.
He found that, like millions of military men before him, he wasn't entirely sure what he was fighting for… or why.
"Tombstone? We're bingo fuel. We've gotta get this bitch to a Texaco."
"Right, Dix. Whistle 'em up and let's get a drink."
There would be time for analysis later.
Once the remaining Q-5s turned away from the That LZ, the rest of the battle was anticlimax. The RTAF Hueys and the Marine helos on loan to the That airmobile forces lifted from the jungle clearing at almost the same moment that the American Hornets were hitting SAM sites at U Feng and along the Taeng River Valley. Ten surviving RTAF planes regrouped at Chiang Mai as the last of the enemy aircraft vanished across the border, and control of Thailand's skies returned to the Thais.
Within moments, the A-6F Intruders of VA-84, the Blue Rangers, call sign Thunderbird, roared out of the south, scattering antipersonnel bomblets. On the airstrip and among the barracks at U Feng, Burmese soldiers, That rebels, and drug lord militiamen died by the tens… by the hundreds, cut down by shrapnel like wheat before a scythe. Orange flames leaped into the sky, and a pall of smoke hung above U Feng like a shroud.
The helicopters skimmed in above the treetops, door gunners ready to fight for the U Feng LZ, but only isolated and scattered gunfire met them.
That Rangers and Special Forces dropped from the helos while they were still airborne, dispersing throughout the compound. The defenders began surrendering. A ponderously fat general named Kol ordered all of the Burmese troops remaining at U Feng to lay down their arms and give up. Within moments, the rest of the defenders were following the example of the Burmese, surrendering en masse.
The battle was over by 0830, when members of the That First Division (Airborne) raised the national flag of Thailand over the traffic control tower.
It had been a near thing for the Tomcats of VF-95. Fuel almost gone, each aircraft had received only enough from one of the two orbiting KA-6 tankers to get them safely to the ground. Aircraft with enough fuel remaining in their tanks bingoed to Chiang Mai or all the way to Don Muong. Others, like Tombstone and Batman, set down at U Feng, dropping onto a runway partly masked by drifting smoke.
He saw her waiting by the runway as he climbed out of his Tomcat.
"Pamela!" Then she was in his arms as his flight helmet clattered on the tarmac. He embraced her for a long time. "Pam, it's so good to see you."
After a long moment, he pulled back. "Where's Made It?"
A shadow passed behind her eyes, and he knew Bayerly was dead. "Show me."
She took him to the place beyond the burned-out skeleton of an old Huey Slick. He lay where she said she'd left him, staring up at the sky.
"Tombstone… he died saving my life," she said. "He thought he was a coward, but he died saving my life."
Tombstone squatted next to the body and gently closed the man's eyes. He wanted to do something… something more for the man who'd saved Pamela.
He became aware of a weight in the shoulder pocket of his flight suit.
Wondering what it was, he reached in and pulled something out.
The medal… his Navy Cross. Tombstone remembered stuffing it there, back on the fantail of the Jefferson. He'd never had the chance to transfer it back to the safe in his quarters. Damn. He'd almost thrown the thing overboard, convinced that his own presumed heroism was a fake.
Impulsively, he reached down and pinned the blue and white ribbon to the front of Bayerly's shirt. When he stood, Pamela took his arm and squeezed.
"It's not the medal, you know," she said. "It's the man."