Ghost War (38 page)

When it came down to it, for nothing.

So as he walked the dusty road from the base to the city, he looked out over the dried up paddies and weedy fields. Suddenly he imagined that he could see ghosts—not one, like the spirit that had haunted him back at Khe Sanh, but thousands, tens of thousands, rising up, uniforms tattered, their hands dirty, their faces bloody. American faces, all with the same expression:
Why?

Ghosts
, Hunter thought drearily, imagining he could feel the earth moving beneath his feet.
I’m walking in a land of ghosts.

He reached the walled city ten minutes later, and passed through the heavily guarded main doors.

The city itself had a beauty of its own. There was still evidence of French architecture, as well as sixties-style American buildings. The garish bar lights and the neon come-ons of the bordellos made the place look a little like New Orleans. Except much hotter.

As usual, the streets were filled with troops. Different uniforms, different faces, everywhere. What was it about this place? What drew men from all over the world to fight here?
What drove men to become ghosts in this, the most foreign of places?

He just didn’t know.

He reached the Alamolike palace and passed by the three rings of sentries guarding the place. Inside looked like a Middle East bazaar. There were soldiers, merchants, liquor dealers, souvenir hawkers, and of course, hookers everywhere. He walked through the Great Hall and into the immense bar. JT, Frost, and Ben were sitting at a corner table; they waved him over.

Hunter sat down and studied the bottle of no-name booze on the table.

“They’re selling Chivas out in the hallway and you guys are drinking this crap?” he chided them.

JT’s ever-present grin grew even wider. “When is he going to learn?” he asked the other two. “You’d make a lousy businessman.”

Hunter turned to Frost, usually the voice of reason in times like this. “Translate, please?”

Frost picked up the bottle. “It’s Chivas in here,” he explained, “and rotgut out there.”

Hunter sniffed the open bottle; sure enough it was the good stuff. He poured himself a glass and took a slug.

“Heard a lot of Minx artillery up in the hills on the way down,” he told the others. “Big stuff. Maybe 155s.”

JT sipped his drink and shook his head. “They’re just showing off, the dickheads,” he said bitterly. “They’ve got two hundred thousand guys sitting in the jungle, with all their stuff bottled up underground, and yet they feel they have to shoot some of the big guns, just to let us know they’re out there.”

“In the old days, they’d send a company of Marines up there to take out those big guns,” Hunter observed.

“Exactly,” JT replied. “And ten jarheads would wind up in body bags—and for what? To take out one piece of artillery? That’s insanity and it ain’t going to happen here.”

Hunter sipped his drink again. This informal meeting was arranged so JT and the others could brief Hunter on their plans to thwart the impending attack on Da Nang. He was curious, to say the least.

“So,” he asked his old friends. “How
are
you proposing we do this?”

JT leaned in over the table, and lowered his voice a notch. “I’ll start by telling you what we
ain’t
going to do,” he began. “We’re not falling for any of their shithead tricks. They live out in that jungle, and we’d be like rats in the water out there. No—we got what they want, right here.

“So that means no beyond-the-perimeter patrolling. No search and destroy crap. No preemptive strikes—hell, they got everything underground anyway, we’d just be wasting our fuel, our ordnance, not to mention risking our lives.”

Hunter poured himself another drink. This was JT’s show—and he liked what he heard so far. For once the shoe
was
on the other foot. The Minx might be good jungle fighters, but their present target was the very urban city of Da Nang and the wide-open spaces of the nearby air base. If they intended to take the city as part of the country-wide Minx offensive, they would have to come and get it.

JT produced a map from his sleeve pocket and unfolded it on the sticky table. It showed a three-dimensional view of Da Nang city, the airbase and the enemy-held jungle beyond the mutual perimeter.

“I don’t have to tell you that we’re outnumbered almost six-to-one,” JT began. “There’s no way we’re going to win by standing and fighting it out with them. That’s exactly what they want us to do.

“But instead, what if we give these guys a swift kick in the balls, something that will knock them cold right here—who knows what will happen in the rest of the country?”

Hunter just shrugged. “They’re fairly predictable by never being very
un
predictable,” he said. “If they get hit with something big time from out of left field, it could reverberate, I suppose.”

“Our thinking exactly,” JT smiled.

He took the next ten minutes explaining his plan, the initial parts of which had been put into place over the past few weeks. Frequently indicating various points on the map, JT concentrated on the rather unique dual-defense plans for both the city and the air base. As it turned out, the arrival of Hunter, Crunch, and the battleship proved very fortuitous, it was “the last piece in the puzzle,” JT said.

Like past United American operations against overwhelming foes, the emphasis of JT’s plan was on survival, cunning, and, most important, the protection of innocents.

But it also called for one enormous sacrifice.

Hunter had JT go over the specifics twice more, just to make sure he’d gotten it all straight. Once again, all of the United American principles would have key parts to play. Once again, Geraci’s men would be called on to complete a Herculian task in a short amount of time. Strangest of all was Crunch’s role. In many ways it would be the most difficult.

Hunter considered the whole strategy for a few minutes.

Finally, he spoke. “It’s innovative, I’ll give you that,” he told his old friend. “Needs split-second timing. And a lot of busting ass by Geraci’s guys. But if it works …”

JT nodded grimly. “It’s got to work, Hawk,” he said. “If it doesn’t, well …”

His voice trailed off.

Hunter studied his old friend for a moment. Suddenly JT looked older than his years. He was learning very quickly that being in command was usually an unenviable task. However, he had come up with an innovative, if bizarre plan against the Minx, one which would not only check them in Da Nang, but also might send shock waves right through the rest of the entire Minx corps. If it worked, it would be considered a stroke of military genius.

But if it failed …

“So what do you want me to do, boss?” Hunter finally asked JT.

JT’s smile returned. “You do what we do,” he replied. “Get in the air as soon as the balloon goes up and keep those bastards off the base. As for Da Nang city, well, again, it will really be up to the 104th to pull off their end as quickly as possible. Any delays and the bad guys will chop us all up into little pieces.”

Hunter poured out another round of drinks.

“So when the shooting
does
start, how do you think it will begin?” Hunter asked.

JT just shrugged. “It will begin when all those assholes out there finally get paid from their blowboys in Hanoi,” he declared. “Then they’ll just launch a traditional attack. Mortars and big guns first. Katy rockets too. Then comes the infantry. They might feint here, feint there, but, in the end it will be two full-scale frontal attacks. One on the base, and a bigger one here. My guess is they’ll want to capture the city first and then work on the base.”

“We better hope they do,” Hunter said, consulting the map again.

“Well, that’s why Geraci’s guys are working night and day,” JT replied. “That’s why we all have to be ready, every minute of every day. Ready for that first mortar round to drop. When that happens, we’ve got to go right down the line, doing the right things, at the right time. If we do, we might get lucky and be golden. If we don’t? Well …”

Once again his voice trailed off.

“Don’t worry,” Hunter told him. “We’ll do it right.”

The next morning

T
HE BASE AT DA
Nang was a whole new experience for the New Zealanders, Timmy and Terry.

They’d spent most of their lives rather isolated in Auckland, and during their military service, fighting in the bush in Malaysia, on Borneo, the swamps of Sumatra, and now, Vietnam.

They’d never been so close to really high-tech weaponry—NightScopes and choppers were about as advanced technology as they had seen. So they were very wide-eyed walking along the flight line at the base. They were especially amazed at the weaponry formerly installed on
Nozo
and
Bozo
, weapons now part of the defense of the base.

The LARS was the centerpiece of this long range defense. The massive rocket launcher was anchored at the end of Da Nang’s main runway, its tubes loaded, a crew on duty around the clock. Although the base and Da Nang city itself were ringed with literally hundreds of machine guns and light-to-heavy artillery, the LARS would be the most important weapon when the inevitable Minx attack finally came. It could unleash an unholy barrage of thirty-six high-explosive rockets either individually or in staggered fashion at half second intervals. Each one of these rockets could carry a forty-pound charge an astounding distance of fifteen miles and hit just about any target right on the dime.

While the Z-men were amazed at the sheer brutal power of the LARS, they were also fascinated with the line of
Bozo
’s Gatling guns which now protected the west flank of the base. This was the most likely direction from which the Minx would come, and when they did, they would be met by these six awesome weapons, each capable of firing sixty rounds
a second.

The Z-men contemplated the weapons and then the long stretch of flat ground and dried-up rice paddie over which the Minx would have to traverse when attacking the base.

“It will be a killing field,” Terry said grimly. “Bloody better them than us.”

They continued their informal tour around the base perimeter passing a
mélange
of weaponry—from M-48 heavy tank emplacements, to Milan anti-tank positions, 155-mm howitzer pens to 20-mm antiaircraft gun mounts with their barrels cranked all the way down to level.

“Only madmen would do a frontal on all this stuff,” Timmy said as they walked back toward the main runways. “How much can they be paying them to face all this stuff?”

“Not nearly enough,” Terry replied.

They reached the aircraft parking area, and once again their eyes went wide at the sight of the rather exotic weaponry on hand.

The three Football City Special Forces C-5s were there, parked wingtip-to-wingtip, their red-and-blue, sports-logo-style striping gleaming in the hot sun. The Rangers were doing routine maintenance on their quick response vehicles which were lined up beside the huge C-5s. The most impressive of these were the FV101 Scorpion tracked vehicles. They looked like miniature tanks, complete with 76-mm gun turret, and two 7.62 machine guns, as well as various antitank or medium range rocket systems.

The Rangers however had souped up the engines to these Scorpions, and added everything from NightScope capability, to laser targeting. Now the minitanks could travel upward of 70 mph, while firing, even at night. When carrying a crew of six (double the normal complement) and massed for attack in number of twenty or more, the Scorpions could wreak havoc with any large attacking force, their capability to hit, run, hit and run again bordering on mind-boggling.

The Z-men passed the trio of Football planes and ambled up to the
Triple-X.
The crew was on break, and the airplane empty. The New Zealanders wandered into the huge cargo hold and out the back of the plane.

“How does it get itself up in the air?” Terry wondered.

“It must be like flying a building or two,” Timmy nodded in agreement.

They moved on to the trio of F-20 Tigersharks. Though they’d been in action with jets providing air support, the Z-men had never seen anything like the sleek, sexy F-20s.

Terry put the tip of his finger on the end of the first jet’s stiletto-like nose.

“It’s bloody sharp,” he cursed. “I swear I could cut me finger on it.”

Timmy tentatively fingered the needle-nose and actually did nick his pinky. “Right, you could run a man through with that,” he declared.

They passed the three jets and finally came upon Hunter’s F-16XL. Of all the weapons they’d seen in the walk, this one was by far the most impressive.

“Look at it, will you?” Terry was near-shouting. “It looks like it’s from bleeding out of space.”

“It’s like sci-fi on the old telly,” Timmy agreed. “It’s like Kirk and Spock …”

Hunter was in the cockpit, checking his avionics package for any damage JT might have caused. He saw the New Zealanders approaching and climbed down to meet the pair.

“Never seen anything like this one, Hawk,” Terry said. “Had a bunch of A-4s helping us out down in Borneo once. They were downright stuffy compared to this.”

Hunter ran his hand along the XL’s sleek fuselage.

“The A-4 is a good airplane,” he said. “Built for something a little different than this one though.”

“How did you get it?” Timmy asked. “Did you buy it? Build it from scratch?”

Hunter had to stop and think about it for a moment. He’s always considered the F-16
his
airplane. But did he really own it? The original frame was from his old Thunderbird demonstrator. He’d changed everything out from that long ago, and had help from a team of aerodynamics experts in converting it from a regular F-16 to the XL Cranked Arrow configuration. But was the airplane actually his? Or was it rightly owned by the government?

“I guess it’s mine by reverse eminent domain,” he finally answered. “I’ve been flying it for so long, I can’t imagine not having it.”

“Ah, you love it then,” Terry said with a tooth-gapped smile. “Like a race driver likes ’is car. Or a hunter likes ’is gun.”