Chapter Seven.

The following morning; a nondescript black Peugeot 404 saloon was waiting outside the Settha Palace Hotel with its engine idling as Stacey came down accompanied by the contracted Lao guard known only by the curiously French Colonial surname: "Mr Pavie."

He was big for a Laotian... Six feet of solid muscle with no discernible neck, and massive shoulders. He wore an open-necked cotton shirt, tight chinos, and the obligatory pair of sunglasses. His weapon... a Russian Makarov nine-millimetre pistol in a quick-draw holster was shoved into the rear of his chinos waistband, resting in the small of his back. He wore a heavy gold identity bracelet and an even heavier gold Rolex wristwatch. His feet... which looked about an American size twelve and a half, were encased in thin canvas deck shoes.

The Settha Palace doorman opened the rear door of the waiting Peugeot for Stacey as "Mr Pavie" shoehorned himself into the front driving seat behind the large steering wheel; clunked the car into gear, and accelerated out into the Rue Pang Kam; swung left, and left again into the Rue Khoun Boulom, and accelerated away; scattering the early morning "tuk-tuks" and suicidal "cyclo" riders as the Peugeot blasted away down towards the distant intersection with the Rue Sata Setthathirath which led out of the city towards Wattay airport.

Once out on Highway 13/2; "Mr Pavie" opened up the Peugeot on the long, two-kilometres straight through Ban Nong Panai. The Highway was deserted, but his eyes continued flicking from road to rear-view mirror in case they were being followed. Opposite the military camp at Ban Vattai; he slowed, and turned into the access road that led into the airport. Passing the large blister hangar and operational buildings, he turned the Peugeot onto the wide concrete ramp and stopped. He stepped out and opened the rear door for Stacey; nodded and climbed back into the driving seat. For the entire journey, he hadn't uttered a word, but now he nodded again and said, in perfect English,

'Fly safe, Ma'am.'

Then he drove away towards the exit on Highway 13/2.

McCauley came out across the ramp to meet her. He consulted the clip board he was carrying

'Good morning Stacey; You've pulled a milk run for your first mission. Mixed rice drop with addition of hard rice up to Lima-17, Nam Chong. It's about forty klicks north of Lima-20A, and is nothing more than an uphill clearing in the jungle. The nearest settlement is Bounglouang; just over a klick to the north. Come over to the hangar office. I've got some kit for you.'

Her Huey was parked up on the north side of the ramp. The starboard door was fully back with three ground crew loading sacks and wooden crates into the aft cabin.

In the office, McCauley brought out her point-forty-four Magnum revolver and a map case which contained new 1:50 scale maps and a 1:250 over-all navigation map. He reached into a drawer in his desk and brought out a new pair of US Military-issue pilot sunglasses… the acclaimed "American Optical" brand, and her "blood chit"… a piece of silk folded into a wad with a message printed on it in several languages asking whoever could read it to help the pilot. He also issued her with an Office of Naval Intelligence phrasebook of what to say if she was brought down… the famous "Pointee-Talkee" manual. It contained hopelessly optimistic English phrases printed on the left-hand pages and Vietnamese and Lao translations on the right. She flipped through a few of the fatuous phrases…

"I am hurt, please get me to a safe place, you will be rewarded."

"Will you accept gold?"…

"Where is the nearest telephone?"…

And,

"Where are the friendly guerrillas?"

She looked up at McCauley. Surely they didn't really think any of this puerile crap would cut any ice with the Pathēt Lāo psychos? These hopelessly naive phrases were never going to ever save a single flyer. It was common knowledge the enemy did not bother taking prisoners in Laos… especially Americans. It was understood that if you went down and were captured you would not be officially recognised as having had anything to do with anything. Your records would be redacted back to the point of your departure from Vietnam, and the odds were that you would simply disappear as though you had never existed.

McCauley shrugged.

'Well what do you expect from the armchair dumbasses back in Washington? They don't have a single notion of what it's all about out here.'

He moved to a metal cabinet against the far wall of the office, opened the door, and brought out a Sage-green, fireproof mesh fabric survival vest fitted with numerous pockets on the outside and inside which could be used to store survival equipment. The main large pockets on the front all had zippers on them to keep their contents secure. The other minor pockets had Velcro snaps. He handed it to Stacey and grinned.

'I hope you never need to use its contents properly, but I'll run through the contents check-list anyway.'

He picked up a printed list from his desk and began to read.

"Foliage penetrating signal projector with seven red flares.

AN/PRC-90 Radio set.

Survival Knife with sheath and sharpening stone.

Pocket Knife.

Lensatic Compass.

Tourniquet.

Signalling Mirror.

Distress Marker light.

Butane lighter.

Matches.

Sewn in holster resized to fit your cannon, plus spare ammo.

First Aid Pack.

Drinking water storage bag.

And last, but not least… a fishing kit."

He handed the vest to her with a remorseful grin.

'It's the smallest size I could find in the stores; we don't get too many slender young female pilots up here!'

His face became serious again.

'I am a little concerned about your personal protection from ground fire. As I said; your bird has been fitted with a full, Mod four, hard face composite armour kit. These are ceramic plates around the seats of pilot and copilot, to protect you against small arms fire. They have been found to provide ballistic and blunt trauma protection from small arms fire up to twelve-point-seven millimetres, or thirty-calibre. Just the same; I want you to carry a spare aircrew body armour "Chicken Plate"… that's a ceramic armour chest and back plate in a carrier that slips over your head and fastens in front with Velcro straps. It'll restrict your movements too much whilst you're flying; so slip the whole thing under your seat… that's where most of the crap will come from, and the skin of the bird gives you about as much protection as an aluminum beer can.'

Stacey gave McCauley a wry smile.

'You really know how to give a girl confidence, boss.'

It was starting to get really hot and humid; with the sun blazing down from a cloudless, azure-blue sky as they walked across the ramp towards the waiting Huey. McCauley said this was one of the problems with Wattay being situated so close to the Mekong. As the day warmed up, the rising air temperature sucked up moisture from the river and the surrounding paddy fields. The loading was completed, and Stacey's newly allocated crew chief was doing the pre-fight walk-around. A pair of legs was visible under the chopper's tail boom as the crew chief checked out the port side of the bird. The figure came around the tail and Stacey stopped mid-stride, in amazement. The crew chief was a girl… whom she recognised immediately as the attractive Eurasian girl who had been dressed in a crisp maid's uniform, and had come to collect her valise from her room back at the Settha Palace Hotel on the first day she had arrived in Vientiane.

McCauley grinned.

'Let me introduce you to Agent Natalie Tamura; Saigon Station. She has been on assignment at the Settha Palace since the Chinese started sniffing around our guys. You probably know of her as "Solange the maid." She's an ex-Technical Services Staff Specialist, out of JMWAVE, Florida.'

Natalie Tamura came forward and shook hands with Stacey.

'Pleased to meet you, Skipper. Pre-flight's done; she's gassed up and ready to go.'

Stacey shook hands as she quietly appraised her new crew chief. Natalie Tamura was very pretty; Japanese-American, judging by her physical appearance. She had the typically Japanese, almost blue-black hair colour, flawless porcelain skin; high cheekbones, and beautiful grey, almond eyes. She was about five feet six inches in height, and Stacey guessed she weighed around a hundred and ten pounds. She spoke with a soft American accent.

Boarding the Huey, Stacey fastened her seat harness and put on her flight helmet. Turning to Natalie, she asked her to run through the cockpit pre-flight check-list. Natalie nodded and put on her helmet, then plugged into the intercom system. She adjusted her boom mike and began the read off the checks.

With the check-list completed; Stacey looked out of the cockpit window at McCauley and raised her thumb. Sliding back the door window she called out.

'Clear! Coming Hot!'

He responded with a vertical circular motion of his left hand. OK, rotor blades clear. DC volts above fourteen… she hit the starter switch. The shaft turbine engine began to spool up with a rising whine. OK; Engine and Transmission oil pressures... Check. Start fuel switch... On. Radios and headsets... On… Inverter switch to MAIN ON. Check. Throttle retarded to Flight Idle stop; Gas Producer RPM within limits, Engine and Transmission Oil pressures in the green. Fuel pressure up in the green. All lights were off on the Caution and Master Caution panel; Natalie flicked the Low RPM switch. OK… Audio, then Off. The rotor blade shadows were beginning to strobe the sunlight across the cabin as the rotors increased in speed. Everything was looking good. Natalie fastened her seat harness as the Huey began her familiar shimmy on the landing skids.

Stacey smoothly wound the throttle to full open, holding the collective pitch fully down. Lift-off rpm satisfactory. She gave a final scan of the ramp area, and keyed her mike.

'OK. Let's do this!'

She moved the cyclic control into the neutral position, increased collective pitch control slowly and smoothly, and the Huey lifted off. Holding the hover at about three feet she applied tail rotor pedal to hold the bird steady against the gyroscopic effect of the rotors and gently increased collective input. Hovering briefly, she checked that the engine and flight controls felt normal and applied forward cyclic pressure as the Huey accelerated smoothly forward into effective transitional lift. She felt the shudder in the rotor system as the chopper began to fly out of her own rotor wash cushion and into clean air as she began her ascent out towards the north perimeter. Maintaining take-off power until safe auto rotative airspeed was attained, she applied right pedal, and as the Huey turned out towards the Nong Pakthang marsh; eased back on the throttle to establish a safe rate of climb.

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As the Huey clattered away out over the north perimeter of Wattay, she spoke again.

'OK; set me a course.'

Natalie studied the map briefly.

'Heading Zero-seven, point-six. LS-17 is about a hundred and fifty klicks… say about one-and-a-half hour's flight time.'

Stacey nodded.

'Ever flown one of these? The reason I ask, is just in case I ever stop one. Then you'll have to take over.'

Natalie gave her an apprehensive glance.

'No, Skip; I'm an engineer, not a goddamned pilot.'

Stacey smiled.

'It'll probably never happen, but you need to know… just in case. If we ever get into a situation, you need to have a light grip on the controls so that you can take over if I lose it. It's quite easy. I'll gain a decent margin of altitude then you can try her out.'

Natalie shook her head.

'I really don't want to do this…'

Stacey took the Huey up to twelve thousand feet indicated, and told Natalie to rest her hand lightly on the copilot's cyclic, and put her feet on the pedals. She nodded.

'Good. Now the basic control is this: the nose will move in the direction you push, right pedal right turn. Left pedal left turn. Add power and the nose turns to the right, unless you add left pedal to counteract the turn. If you reduce power, you must add right pedal. Up collective, up we go. Down collective and down we go. It's quite straightforward.'

She pointed to the lever alongside her seat;

'The collective lever… this one here; changes the pitch angle of the main rotor blades collectively; that is… both at the same time… independently of their position. So, if a collective input is made, both the blades change equally, and the result is the chopper increases or decreases its total lift derived from the rotor. In level flight this would cause a climb or descent, while, with the bird pitched forward, an increase in total lift would produce acceleration together with a given amount of ascent. The throttle control is the motorcycle-style twist grip mounted on the end of the collective.

The cyclic control... the "stick," tilts the rotor disk in a particular direction, resulting in the bird moving in that direction. If you push the cyclic forward, the rotor disk tilts forward, and the rotor produces a thrust vector in the forward direction. If you push the cyclic to the right, the rotor disk tilts to the right, and produces thrust in that direction, causing the bird to move sideways in a hover or to roll into a right turn. Push it to the left, and you make the opposite manoeuvre. The torque pedals work in much the same way. Push left and the nose swings left; push right and it swings right. This is how you get the bird to fly backwards, forwards and sideways. All you have to remember is that you always have to hold on to the controls. These birds aren't like fixed wings that can almost fly themselves. These babies will do their best to kill you if you don't keep them on a tight rein and show them who's the boss. Now you try.'

Natalie stared at her apprehensively; then took the controls. Stacey kept her hands resting gently on the cyclic… just in case. After a few gentle porpoising movements, Natalie seemed to get the feel of the bird and Stacey let her take control. It was a glorious day, they had plenty of altitude; and her new crew chief would have to learn sometime.

The airstrip at Lima Site 17, Nam Chong, clung to the side of a four thousand feet promontory, and was aligned uphill and almost due north. Its usable length was a thousand feet... barely long enough for a turbo porter on full flaps; and certainly not long enough for anything bigger. It was also a graded earth surface. As she circled around Stacey could appreciate why these sites were almost entirely dependent on chopper drops. Natalie had been nervously flying the bird for three quarters of an hour, but this approach and put-down was not one of the easier ones. Stacey glanced at her crew-chief and keyed her mike.

'OK Nat; you'll do; but now... I have control.'

'Natalie lifted her hands and feet from the controls and repeated,

'You have control.'

Stacey keyed her mike again, as she felt the bird respond to her inputs.

'Roger.'

And brought the Huey round to line up with the obvious landing spot... a flattish area at the top end of the strip. Several figures were gathering around the edge of this area waiting for her to put down. They waved excitedly to the approaching chopper; and they weren't pointing guns.

She glanced at Natalie.

'OK; they're friendlies. Here we go!'

Lining up on her selected put-down spot, she began to slowly lower the collective as she eased back on the cyclic... whilst keeping the bird straight with the pedals. The Huey responded obediently. Nose up and tail down, she came clattering in to hover over the flat area, and, as Stacey pushed the collective fully down and eased off on the throttle twist-grip, touched down in a cloud of red dust, with the merest jolt. The figures began running out to the sides of the bird. Natalie unbuckled and moved back between the cockpit seats to the rear cabin, where she hauled both port and starboard doors open for the Hmong fighters and villagers to unload the cargo. Meanwhile, Stacey kept the bird's turbine spinning at just below six thousand rpm, in case any NVA or Pathēt Lāo turned up and a hot lift-out suddenly became necessary.

As it was; the cargo was off-loaded surprisingly quickly, and they were ready to lift off, with doors closed and Natalie strapped in within eight minutes. McCauley had always said that ten minutes on a Lima drop was the maximum safe period to be on the ground... so eight was not at all bad for a first-time drop.

Stacey checked that the rotors were clear and gave a thumbs-up to the Hmong guy in charge. He returned the gesture, and she increased power and collective; and lifted off in a cloud of stinging red dust. She achieved hover and scanned the instruments. Everything in the green… OK. She applied right pedal and the nose of the Huey yawed obediently to the right... Good. She pulled up on the collective and put on a little forward cyclic. The bird broke ground effect in a great billow of dust and achieved effective transitional lift. As the Huey lifted out over the encroaching triple canopy, Stacey eased the pedal back to neutral and the bird settled into longitudinal trim for a long climb out to the east.

They had been flying for about ten minutes, and were coming up to Natalie's specified course change into the south, when "King" began broadcasting a message for any Air America helicopter in the Plaine des Jarres area that might be available to help rescue a downed pilot. "King" was the call sign of the Air Force airborne controller for search and rescue missions in Laos. No Air America unit within range would ever ignore such a call. Stacey glanced at Natalie. She nodded. The fuel burn rate was now about five hundred and twenty pounds per hour without the cargo. The fuel quantity gauge read seven hundred and fifty pounds… sufficient for slightly more than one hours flying time.

Stacey keyed her mike and responded.

'Footloose One. Actual. Twelve klicks east of PDJ. Will expedite. Pass co-ordinates. Over'

"King responded with co-ordinates and a radio frequency to contact "Firefly One" who would be the on-scene commander directing the rescue operation. The downed aircraft was "Firefly Six"… an A1-H Skyraider out of NaKhon Phanom, Thailand. It had been shot down by NVA anti-aircraft fire over Highway Seven towards the Phu San Mountains.

The pilot had ejected and was hiding on the east side of a "road," which was alive with massive anti-aircraft activity, and a quick pickup could avert certain capture by the NVA hostile ground forces. "King" advised her to head east to Highway Seven and orbit co-ordinate Tango four-zero. Her call-sign would be "Hotel four."

"Firefly One" and "Firefly Three" were the two remaining airplanes of the flight, and were orbiting the area. These big, single-seat attack airplanes normally escorted the CH53 Jolly Green Giant rescue choppers; but the Jolly Green scrambled for this pick-up was still at least twenty minutes out. Stacey heard "Firefly One" talking to the downed pilot over the UHF guard frequency. He was OK, but the NVA soldiers were looking for him and sweeping closer to his hiding place Visibility, because of the smoke from the farmers' slash and burn... clearing areas of the jungle for planting the next season's crops; was down to about one mile with no ceiling. It was time for Air America to step up to the plate and prepare to start running in low and hot.

Ten minutes later, over Highway Seven, Stacey began a wide orbit and called "Firefly One" with her position. She requested the coordinates of the downed airman. Her headset crackled into life with the terse response:

"That's a negative, Hotel four. Jolly is on the way and will expedite the pickup."

Stacey glanced at Natalie. That suited her just fine. The idea of flying through thirty-seven-millimetre anti-aircraft fire as well as the twenty-three-millimetre, and twelve-point-sevens that had been reported in the area was not really something that would make your day a peachy one. She broke orbit and transited farther out to the north.

As she circled at five thousand feet, she heard the Jolly call "Firefly One" with an ETA of ten minutes. Firefly replied that the Jolly should continue inbound while he descended toward the target to get a visual on the downed pilot. A few seconds later "Firefly One's" wing man reported ground fire directed towards the flight. Stacey looked at Natalie.

'To hell with this. The Jolly's too far away. Let's do it'

Natalie nodded, and tightened her harness. Stacey called "Firefly One" again and requested the coordinates. This time she got an affirmative and a terse message that "Firefly One" had taken hits and was rapidly losing hydraulic pressure. She responded that he should turn onto two-sixty and run for a soft thud out on the PDJ.

Her headset crackled again.

"Negative, Hotel Four. The prop's running up to overspeed. I'm heading south and ejecting, right now!"

Stacey had wanted him to head west towards her position and bail out on the south side of Highway Seven. She could then have picked him up. She had no visual on him at all. As he was making his last transmission, Natalie clicked through to the UHF homing switch channel that showed his position from them as Zero-five-six degrees.

It was now down to them. The Jolly was still way out to the south-west, and "Firefly Three" was orbiting at a thousand feet somewhere out in the murk. This was going to be touch and go. Stacey nosed over and dropped to tree top level. She wound out the throttle, pulling lots of power, and brought the Huey up to maximum air speed with the airspeed indicator red-lining. Natalie shouted that the given coordinates were centred on a group of rectangular fish ponds to the south-west to a little ville marked on the chart as Lat Sen.

Looking ahead through the smoke and haze they could just see the black smoke billowing from the downed Skyraider's wreckage. Stacey turned a few degrees to starboard. It was more than likely that after the pilot had ejected, the airplane had flown on for a few seconds before hitting the ground.

There! The block of fish ponds. She was lining up for a splash and dash extraction, when suddenly; the air was filled with glowing strings of what looked like flaming green onions…enemy tracer rounds! Then it came… Snick... Snick, snick, snick; Thump, Thump, Clang! The snick sounds were being made by rounds punching through the thin sheet metal of the fuselage, and the thumps and clangs were the sounds of something more substantial being hit. The Huey shivered.

Stacey gritted her teeth and pressed on; flying no higher than sixty feet above the ground, and nursing as much speed as possible from the bird by holding the turbine outlet temperature up to the red line and then dropping it back for a few seconds as per the operating limitations; expecting at any second to see the engine gauges start unwinding, and hear the audible alarms going off indicating that something vital had been hit. The fish ponds were coming up fast.

With Natalie hanging on for dear life, Stacey shoved the collective down and pulled cyclic; dropping nose-up into the fishpond. A figure broke cover and dashed for the Huey. As he did so, "Firefly Three" came screaming in and dumped all his ordnance on the wood from where the North Vietnamese fire was coming. Even though the fish pond was close on a thousand metres distant; the blast from the tremendous explosions rocked the Huey on her skids.

Natalie shouted that the "Firefly Six" was on board. Stacey grabbed an armful of collective and nosed the bird out as she pulled on maximum power and radioed her departure heading to "Firefly Three." Gaining effective transitional lift, she swung the Huey out on a heading of Zero-five-six, in the hope that they could locate and extract the pilot of "Firefly One." She scanned the fuel gauges. The bird was running a steady twenty-five PSI fuel pressure and the quantity gauge indicated sufficient fuel for about another forty minutes. Transit back to Wattay was out of the question. They would have to put down at Long Tieng to refuel… and that could be cutting it fine… depending on how long it took to locate "Firefly One." She keyed her mike.

'OK, Nat; we're going in hot and low. Hang on, keep your eyes peeled, and let's have some music!'

Natalie flicked the AM tuner to 99.9 MHz… AFVN… American Forces Vietnam Network. The signal came in at full strength from the powerful Saigon transmitter that covered all of Vietnam and much of her surrounding neighbours. With The Animals blasting out "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" in their headsets; Stacey jabbed her thumb downwards, indicating that she was about to execute a manoeuvre known as "NOE"… nap-of-the-earth flight, and that Natalie should be ready.

It was no accident that Stacey was about to begin flying so close to the canopy. The Huey was too noisy to avoid being noticed, but it would have a much smaller profile than if they were higher up, and would reduce the time the Dinks would have to spot it while they were landing. Hugging the tree line made for an even rougher ride than before. This technique involved flying just above the trees, the ground, and - or any obstacles on the ground. The main principle of a successful pickup was speed. The faster she got in there, the better off they were; otherwise they might end up getting shot down trying to do the rescue.

Natalie nodded, with a thumbs-up, and Stacey dropped the Huey down to an indicated thirty feet, twisting the throttle grip open; pulling all the collective she could get, slamming the cyclic to the forward stop, and bringing the airspeed right up to the red line again.

About four miles ahead, suddenly, Stacey saw a burst of purple smoke. Natalie switched to Tactical AM and called up "Firefly One" on his survival radio.'

'Firefly One. We have a visual. Confirm grape with lime; and break squelch.'

This was to establish that it really was the downed pilot, and not an NVA ambush.

Within seconds he popped a green smoke flare beside the purple, and a distinct rasp of his "click-hiss" signal sounded in their headsets. This was the downed pilot keying his survival radio. Gunfire was coming somewhere from the left. Stacey gritted her teeth.

'OK, Nat; this is where we just suck it up and go jive with the Grim Reaper.'

Natalie nodded, and drew her handgun. Yeah, there was the downed Skyraider. It looked almost intact and had belly landed in a rough pasture. Stacey brought the Huey down a few metres away, and the pilot broke cover from the fuselage and sprinted painfully for the chopper. Again they heard the scary snick... snick, snick as bullets smacked through the Huey's side, then "Firefly One" was on board. He slapped the top of Stacey's helmet and yelled,

'Let's get the fuck outta here!'

She hauled collective; kicking right torque pedal, and, wheeling around with the chopper's nose and skid toes pointed at the ground, hauled ass out of the improvised LZ, tail high, and trailing a billowing cloud of dust kicking up behind the bird as she blasted out low and hot. Natalie unstrapped and squeezed through the gap between the seats to check on the two flyers, while Stacey scanned the instrument panel to check if anything critical had been hit. Everything looked OK, but she was not to know that she was trailing a faint, purple haze of JP-4 jet fuel.