Chapter Two.

The Fairchild C-123K Provider, twin-engined transport came in on final approach low over the Mekong River, banked over to port, and lined up for the downwind leg of the landing pattern for the single, six thousand feet, concrete runway at Wattay Airport, Vientiane, Laos, four hundred and fifty-five miles to the north-west of Camp Holloway. Her pilot, Vincent… "Vinnie" Hilliard from Cedar Springs, Michigan, glanced at the pretty young blonde in the copilot's seat. She looked to be about eighteen. What the hell she was doing in "The Other Theater" was a real brain-twister. She had said that she was a pilot on posting to Vientiane. That could mean only one thing… CIA, and Air America; or some other shadowy "Spook Central" mission.

He had started the day with a mission allocation for hauling a "Hard Rice" load out of the Royal Thai Air Force Base at Udorn, a Thai provincial capital, fifty miles south of the Laotian border, and the Asian Headquarters for Air America; with a stopover at Vientiane, and then, on up to Long Tieng.

"Hard Rice" was a euphemism used by the flight crews for missions transporting and air-dropping ammunition and weapons to friendly forces… the indigenous Hmong Guerrilla Units fighting against North Vietnamese Army intruders into Laos, and helping to block Hanoi's main military supply route from the north to the south… the Ho Chi Minh trail inside Laos, as well as rescuing downed American pilots.

As he sat on the ramp at "Peppergrinder"… the forward arms depot warehouse at the west end of the runway on the south side of Udorn, run by the Deputy Chief, Joint U.S. Military Assistance Group, Thailand; loading up with a mixed ordnance cargo of ten thousand pounds of bombs and fifty-caliber ammunition to re-supply The Royal Laotian Air Force T28 Trojans flying out of Long Tieng; he wished to God that they would shake it up. His kicker was swearing volubly in Thai at the loaders to get with it, but seemingly to no avail.

Hilliard sighed. He had just boarded the airplane when the new orders came from AB-1: the CIA station at Udorn. The original mission would have taken just over an hour's flying… there and back; including the stop at Vientiane. From there, it would have been out over Nam Ngum Lake, and eighty miles north-east to Lima Site Twenty Alternate at Long Tieng; marked on the pilotage chart as LS-20A; but now, he was ordered to fly south to Camp Holloway outside Pleiku City in the Central Highlands of Vietnam and pick up a passenger. That would be nearly four hours flying time. Why the heck they couldn't have flown this guy up to Udorn themselves was a real brain-twister.

He scribbled the calculations on his kneepad. Eight hundred and seventy-two miles to Camp Holloway with a round trip back to Vientiane; eighty miles on to Long Tieng; and the return flight-albeit empty, to Udorn… another one hundred and nineteen miles… a thousand and seventy-one miles.

He shook his head. No can do! The C-123's maximum range was a thousand and thirty-five miles. He would have to refuel at Vientiane. It was lining up to be a long, hard, pain in the butt day.

His "kicker"… his airfreight specialist, Danny Brady came up to the flight deck.

'Ok Vinnie, the slopes have finished loading. Let's go!'

Hilliard strapped himself into the left seat and went through his engine start checklist while Danny Brady went back down the ladder into the cargo bay to fire up the two-stroke auxiliary power unit that supplied two hundred amps at twenty-eight volts, to start the engines. At the fifth pull of the starter cable, the APU coughed and spluttered into life and settled down to its rough clatter. Hilliard pressed number one engine start button.

The APU noise changed to a labouring "putt-putt" sound as the prop on number one began to turn slowly, backfiring through its injection carburettor, and belching out a great, greyish-white cloud of unburned fuel and oil smoke that had accumulated in the bottom cylinders; which billowed back towards the tail. The big Pratt & Whitney R-2800 radial engine fired up in a noisy cacophony of pounding pistons, whirring flywheels and reduction gears... an ear-splitting, intimidating, thundering sound that rattled the flight deck windows.

Watching the number one engine instrument needles climb into the green segments of the dials as the bellowing, clattering engine settled down to a steady idle, he pressed number two start button. Number two prop began turning slowly; its light-dark-light-dark strobe effect flickering across the instrument panel; then the engine caught, and the prop blades became a blur as another dense cloud of greyish-white smoke belched from the exhaust stubs and billowed around the tail fin with the "Double Wasp" eighteen-cylinder radial engine popping and clattering as the excess unburned fuel and oil cleared. The number two, oil pressure, the oil; cylinder head and exhaust gas temperatures were creeping up into the green… everything was looking good.

Hilliard pulled on his headset, adjusted the boom mike, and plugged into the intercom system. Danny Brady should have shut down the APU and gone aft to the cargo ramp by now. He keyed the transmit button.

'OK, Danny; time to roll.'

Brady's voice crackled through the headset.

'OK, Boss. Ramp clear. Props clear.'

Hilliard pulled the props lever through the detent into reverse pitch and pushed the throttles forward. The engine clatter increased to a roar, and the C-123 began to reverse slowly back off the ramp, with Brady sitting on the lowered loading ramp with his feet dangling over the edge; calling out steering corrections. His voice crackled in Hilliard's headset.

'OK Boss; we're off the ramp. The gear pins are in. The cargo is netted down. Let's close up and rock and roll!'

Hilliard grinned. When heavily loaded, it was standard procedure to leave the main-gear locking pins in until after takeoff and then pull them; and reinstall them at the end of the trip after putting the gear down for landing.

'OK Danny. Come on up. I'll need you to hit the jet switches with this payload we're hauling.'

The airplane was fitted with two, pod-mounted General Electric turbojets on pylons inboard of the two auxiliary drop tanks. They developed an extra two thousand, eight hundred and fifty pounds feet of thrust, which, although having little effect in increasing the speed, added greater power for quicker climbing on takeoff, and power for maintaining altitude.

With Danny Brady strapped into the right seat, Hilliard increased the engine revs and, with brakes squealing as he turned; trundled out to the active runway. At the threshold, he hit the rear loading ramp lever, and the whine of the hydraulic jacks closing the gaping hole at the back of the airplane echoed through the fuselage. OK; point of no return. Close the ramp… accept the cargo; that was the deal.

Lining up on the centre line of the ten-thousand-foot concrete runway, he set the altimeter, changed radio frequency; keyed his mike switch, and contacted the tower.

'Bookie two-five, VTUD Tower. Request departure information and permission to take-off.'

The tower controller's voice crackled in his headset.

'VTUD Tower, Bookie two-five. Wind one-eight-zero at one-zero, Departure runway One-Two, QNH 1015, QFE 577. Temperature plus five, Dew point minus two. Cleared for takeoff. Turn left heading one-three-zero. Climb and maintain four thousand.'

Hilliard keyed his mike again.

'Bookie two-five. Roger.'

He advanced the power of the two big Pratt & Whitney R-2800 radial engines to take-off power settings and started to roll down the runway. Shoving the throttle levers all the way forward, he held them there as the airplane began to accelerate. As the airspeed indicator needle climbed around the dial, Danny flicked up the two switches, and the thin whine of the turbojets spooling up penetrated the bellow of the engines. Hilliard wound out nineteen degrees of flap and nine degrees of trim; and, as the airspeed indicator needle reached seventy knots, he nodded to Danny, who reached down to the base of the throttle quadrant and flipped up the two silver, spring-loaded jet thrust output toggle switches.

The mounting howl of the idling J-85 turbojets turned into a deafening roar, and the airplane leapt forward as they ran up to full power with Danny holding the toggles in the up position for about six seconds as a precaution on take-off. He scanned the instruments and spoke into his mike.

'OK, Vinnie. All green… Two turnin' and two burnin!'

Hilliard pulled back on the control column, the nose came up, and the main wheels lifted off the pavement. A little right aileron and rudder, and she rolled up into a fifty-degree bank and climbed out of Udorn at an indicated twelve-hundred feet-per-minute. As she climbed out through two thousand feet, the rev counter needles were approaching one hundred and thirty knots… close to type certificate limits for flaps out and gear down.

Hilliard glanced at Danny.

'Flaps zero.'

Danny eased off the flap lever and the hydraulic noises as the actuators began to close the flaps penetrated the din of the engines and turbojets. The thin noise peaked, and then diminished slowly as flaps closed. The hydraulic whine stopped, and the aircraft nose lifted slightly as the airspeed needle continued to climb around the dial.

Nursing the control column, Hilliard called out,

'Kill the jets!'

'Jets down. Roger!'

Repeated Danny, and flicked the toggle switches down. The high-pitched whine of the turbojets, piercingly audible amid the noise of the big radial engines tapered off quickly as Hilliard pulled the condition levers back together to the flight idle detent. He paused for thirty seconds to let the jets spool down and cool down a little, then brought the levers all the way back to the cut-off position. The nose came back down some as the jet's considerable thrust vanished. There wasn't much reduction in sound and vibration however; as the Pratt & Whitney's bellowed their climb-out song at twenty inches indicated manifold pressure.

Danny unbuckled and went back down into the hold to withdraw the gear pins whilst Hilliard pulled the mixture levers back slightly, to start the fuel mixture leaning-out procedure. He would have to continue this, little by little until the airplane was level at twelve thousand feet and up to her normal cruise speed of one hundred and sixty-eight knots. He would need to be careful about leaning the mixture out. He needed the power, but couldn't leave the engines fully rich all the way up. Too lean too soon and the engines would suffer, perhaps even fail, if he wasn't precise with this. The oil pressures and the oil, cylinder head, and exhaust gas temperatures were all in the green. The engine cowl flaps were only half-open now. The autopilot was engaged and was using almost all the nose-up trim at this weight, speed, and rate of climb. He continued to monitor the climb. There wasn't much to do, except to ease the mixture levers back every half-minute or so.

Danny returned to the cockpit and tapped Hilliard on the shoulder. He gave the "OK" sign with his thumb and forefinger, meaning that the gear pins were out and Hilliard could retract the wheels. Hilliard nodded and pulled the lever. The glowing green gear lamps changed to red, then extinguished, indicating the wheels were retracted and the gear doors were closed. Danny strapped himself into the right seat and plugged in his headset.

'OK. What's the deal Vinnie? I thought we were heading up-country to drop this shit off to the zipper-heads at Long Tieng.'

Hilliard glanced at him, and eased the mixture levers back a little more. They were just coming up to ten thousand feet, and the engines were settling to cruise revs; the nose was coming down, the airspeed was coming up nicely. He eased back a little on the throttles as the speed increased, and tickled the prop levers back to bring the prop speed down to a more economical eighteen-hundred and fifty revs per minute. As she settled into cruise flight, he keyed the mike switch.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

'We're heading for Camp Holloway to pick up some guy and run him up to Vientiane.'

Danny stared at him.

'Camp Holloway? That's a goddamned chopper staging area. The strip is only about thirty-six-hundred feet… and it's pierced steel planking. We gonna make it in one piece in this fat old bird?'

Hilliard nodded.

'No sweat. We're close to the fifty-four-thousand pounds maximum landing weight; but if the tires hold; with reverse pitch, she'll stop in twelve hundred feet. We'll be lighter because of the gas we burn on the flight down there, so, with the jets, we should get off again in about eighteen-hundred feet.'

Danny looked askance.

'Looks like they've sold us a top-dollar shit sandwich and we're gonna have to take a big bite of it!'

Hilliard grinned.

'You’ve got no sense of adventure, Danny boy!

Brady snorted.

'Fuck you, you mad bastard. See Vietnam and get spread all over the fucking scenery at no extra cost! All we need now is a Golden-fucking-B-B up our ass!'

Hilliard grinned again.

'Yeah! Like some Gook farmer is going to take us out with some goddamned flintlock at twelve thousand feet?'

Danny glowered and theatrically crossed himself.

'Don't even joke about it. I don't want to go the same way as Hoss Daley. They figure his ship caught the Golden B-B somewhere out over the Ho Chi Minh trail. The dust-offs never found a thing under that triple canopy shit… not even a sniff of wreckage.'

Hilliard glanced at his young kicker.

'Gee, you really are a cheerful bastard this morning, Danny. You think too much. Just relax and enjoy the ride. We'll be hitting the Laotian border in about twenty minutes; then it's a hundred and forty miles across southern Laos to the Vietnamese border. That section is where we'll need to keep a good altitude.'

Danny snorted.

'Two hundred and twenty-five klicks of chewin' shit sandwich. Thanks a lot, Vinnie!'

Three hours uneventful flying time later; Vinnie Hilliard gently banked the C-123 round to port as he skirted the southern sprawl of Pleiku city and lined up with the single 05/23 landing strip of Camp Holloway. Danny Brady was already in the cargo bay with the access panels unlocked; ready to slip the locking pins into place when Hilliard lowered the landing gear. Even through his headset earpieces, Hilliard heard the hiss and whine of the hydraulics as he lowered the gear and hauled out forty-five degrees of landing flap. Brady flipped up the inspection panel for the port main gear, checked that the rams were fully extended, and the pin holes were aligned, and then pushed the one-inch-diameter, hardened steel pin home. He then moved across the cargo bay and repeated the procedure on the starboard main gear.

Plugging into the intercom system and flicking his mike switch, he reported to Hilliard that the pins were located and the gear was locked. The deafening bellow of the engines diminished slightly as Hilliard throttled back and applied a little fine pitch to the howling props. The airplane lurched and jolted slightly as she began her descent through the hot, clammy air spiralling up from the labyrinth of waterways threading through the pastures off the south-eastern end of the airstrip.

In the ATC tower at Camp Holloway, Senior Airman Nathan Melucci's headset suddenly came alive.

'Bookie two-five, VVPK Tower. Request Permission to land. Over.'

Melucci glanced out of the tower windows towards the 05 end of the steel runway. Yes, There!... about three klicks out. It was a high-wing twin... a big fat bastard... a C-123!... Holy Fuck! He'd expected the pick-up ship to be a Porter, or perhaps, one of the old Helio Couriers. The dumb fucks at Udorn knew that the runway at Camp Holloway was short. He grabbed at the wall and hit the red crash alarm button. It paid to be prepared for the worst. If this guy blew a tire on landing, this big ship could easily swerve off the planking and pile into the Hueys parked up on the pad stretching alongside the left-hand side of the runway. As the alarm klaxons brayed out across the camp, he turned, and nervously watched the approaching C-123, now fully committed onto finals. He quickly contacted the approaching airplane.

'VVPK Tower, Bookie two-five. Enter base runway Zero-fiver. Over.'

The terse reply crackled in his headset.

"That's a Rog, VVPK Tower. Runway Zero-fiver. Committing now. Stand By."

In the cockpit, Hilliard had the turbojets spooled up and idling in case he needed to abort the landing, and was easing her down gently onto an imaginary centre-line of the runway. Danny Brady had taken the right seat again and was gripping the armrests of his seat in white-knuckled anticipation of what was about to happen. Shit! The ground was coming up fast!

The controller's voice came again.

"Bookie two-five. Cleared to land runway Zero-fiver. Over."

'Bookie two-five. Roger.'

Hilliard was concentrating hard. Airspeed... down to one hundred and thirty-knots. Rate of descent… steady. Attitude?… the indicator bar on the artificial horizon was dead steady, slightly below the centre line. Everything else was OK in the green. His hand was on the reverse props lever as the C-123 swept in low over the clear ground at the 05 end of the runway threshold. He pulled back a little on the control column to get the nose up into a couple of degrees of flare, and felt, and heard the thud and squeal as the main gear touched the steel planking exactly on the first set of the eight white bars painted longitudinally on the pierced steel planking at the threshold of the runway.

Hilliard banged the props lever through the detent into reverse pitch and rammed the throttle levers forward as the nose came down. The nose gear touched after a few seconds and he could finally get a good view of the runway ahead. He was a little to the right and still drifting that way. Left rudder… airspeed… a hundred and five; rolling too fast for the brakes, and too damn close to the right-hand edge of the runway. The right main gear had to be very close to going off, and the nose wheel had lifted again. The rudder began to take effect and the nose started to move left, towards the centre of the runway, slowing, but still too fast. More power! He shoved the throttles all the way forward and the reversed prop blades really began to bite into the clammy air; the clatter of the Pratt & Whitney's increased to a roar as dust billowed forward down the runway. Yeah, that was working. The ASI was dropping through ninety-five knots. At ninety knots, Hilliard hit the rudder pedal brakes, and the big airplane squirmed and shimmied as the tires fought for braking grip on the greasy steel surface. The nose-wheel came down again with a bump, and, with engines bleating and brakes squealing, Hilliard brought her to a standstill about two-thirds of the way down the runway.

Glancing ahead, he noted that the runway rose slightly at the 23 end, and there was clear, flat land ahead... there needed to be for the resident choppers to attain effective transitional lift... the nose-down take-off attitude that eventually afforded them sufficient lift to attain altitude. Obstructions at the end of the runway would not be a good idea!

Hilliard called up the controller;

''Bookie two-five, VVPK Tower. Permission to backtrack to Zero-fiver threshold. Over.'

Again, his headset crackled.

"VVPK Tower, Bookie two-five. Confirm backtrack to Zero-fiver threshold. Over."

'Bookie two-five. Roger.'

Turning the C-123, he taxied back up the runway to the 05 threshold; turned again, and stopped. Danny stared at him.

'Why this end? You figuring to take off downwind, you crazy sonofabitch?'

Hilliard glanced at him.

'Sure do. You think I'm going to haul ass out over Pleiku city when I've got twenty klicks of flat at the other end of the strip? No chance, Danny boy. Now, go get the side door open for our passenger.'

Danny nodded and disappeared down the steps at the rear of the flight deck. Hilliard watched the instruments. He had no intention of shutting down... the least time spent here, the better; but he didn't want her to oil her plugs on idle for too long. As it was, he didn't have to wait for more than a few minutes. A jeep came howling and bouncing across from the hut area, and slid to a standstill far enough away from the whirling port prop to be safe. Danny waited by the forward port door as a slim figure approached. It was a girl! She carried a canvas valise and wore combat fatigues, jungle boots; and a point-forty-four magnum on her hip. She was slender, blonde, and beautiful. His mouth dropped open in complete surprise. She smiled.

'So, you're my ride to Vientiane? I was expecting a Porter.'

Danny found his voice.

'Yep, we're your ride, baby.'

She smiled again.

'Actually, it's Lieutenant Baby… or, just plain Stacey!'

Danny blushed.

'Sorry, Ma'am. We thought you'd be a guy. Seeing you was a bit of a shock.'

She smiled again.

'That's OK. They all say that!'

He stood back as she climbed into the airplane. The cargo bay was basically a big square box with webbing benches running along the inside walls. At the front, there was wall about ten feet high with three, deep, box-ladder steps up to the flight deck. The centre of the area contained the payload of weapons and ammunition held down with webbing nets that clipped into the floor. Stacey climbed the box-ladder steps as Danny closed the door.

Hilliard turned in his seat as she appeared behind him. His expression was much the same as Danny's. He blurted out the first thing that came into his mind.

'Hell! You mean we had to come all this way to pick up a Donut Dolly or somethin'?'

She gave him a sweet smile.

'No, Captain. I'm a pilot on posting to Vientiane.'

He stared at her. Disbelief was written all over his face.

'What the Hell? This ain't some kinda flying club, honey!'

She looked at him steadily.

'I am aware of that, Captain. That's why they put me through Advanced Individual Training at the Special Operations Division Air Branch flight-training centre at Hsinchu, in Taiwan. I'm type approved on everything the Company flies… except the big Boeing jets… including this "Bookie Bird"… but my hours were on a Bravo… without the jets.'

Hilliard glanced at her and raised an eyebrow.

'So, you're flying for the Company? Then you must be out of Langley… the real deal? You're too young to be a regular bush pilot.'

She smiled.

'Actually, I'm out from Atsugi. I'm Agent Mckenna… or Stacey to my friends. They also gave me a Military rank, but I try not to use it. It gives some guys the wrong impression.'

Hilliard grinned.

'Yeah, I can see why.'

He motioned towards the right seat.

'You can ride shotgun this trip. Don't take this the wrong way, but I'll fly her out and land the other end. We're hauling ten thousand pounds of mixed ordnance, and I'd feel happier if I took care of the cute bits.'

She smiled again, and strapped herself into the seat.

'No problem at all. It's a while since I flew these birds in any case.'

Hilliard nodded and keyed his mike button.

'OK Danny, get up here and take the jump seat. The Lady's taking the front one.'

He turned to Stacey.

'You can take the jet run switches… those two at the bottom of the panel directly in front of the control column, and either side of the de-icer switch fire them up. When I say; flick them both up. The jet thrust output switches are the two silver, spring-loaded toggles below the throttle quadrant. It's up to advance and down to retard. When we start to roll flick them both up and hold them in that position for about six seconds so they don't drop out again... check?'

Stacey nodded.

'Check!'

Danny came up onto the flight deck and strapped into the jump seat behind Stacey. Switching back to the tower frequency of 136.52, Hilliard keyed his mike button again.

'Bookie two-five, VVPK Tower. Requesting departure information and permission to take-off. Over.'

His headset crackled.

"Departure runway Zero-fiver. After departure, turn left heading three-zero-niner, wind one-eight-seven at one-zero. Cleared for takeoff to flight level one-fiver-zero. QNH 1008, QFE 2223. Temperature plus niner, Dew point minus three. Over."

Hilliard replied,

'Roger.'

He put out nineteen degrees of flap, and, holding her on the brakes ran up the engines to twenty-eight-hundred revs. He released the brakes and the C-123 began to roll.

He glanced at Stacey.

'OK. Light 'em up!'

She flicked up the two switches. The rising crescendo of the jets' scream began to overwhelm the ear-splitting bellow of the engines. She reached down for the two silver toggle switches and, at Hilliard's command, flicked them both up and held them in that position. All hell seemed to break loose. The airplane surged forward under the thrust of the turbojets at full power. Their ear-splitting, banshee scream rattled the flight deck windows, and the vibration of the wheels on the pierced steel planking of the runway caused the secondary instrument pointers to shiver. The Airspeed Indicator pointer rapidly increased its clamber around the dial until, at ninety knots, Hilliard pulled back on the control column, and the rattling thudding vibration of the tires suddenly disappeared. The horizon vanished under the nose as the big bird soared into the sky. Approaching one hundred and thirty knots, he glanced at Stacey.

'Jets off!'

She nodded.

'Check!'

And reaching forward, she retarded the jet thrust switches and flicked down the run switches. Again, Hilliard pulled the condition levers back to the flight idle detent and paused for thirty seconds to let the jets spool down, then brought the levers all the way back to the cut-off position. He reached down and wound off fifteen degrees of flap. The nose began to sink and the horizon reappeared in the windshield. Danny disappeared down into the hold to draw the gear pins. In a few minutes, his voice crackled into Hilliard's headset confirming that they were out and the main gear could be retracted. Hilliard pulled back on the lever and the three green warning lights turned red, and then, winked out.

He scanned the instruments. As usual, everything was in the green. He turned to Stacey.

'Nice job. You can be my copilot any day!'

She gave him a rueful grin.

'That would be nice, but I think they've got me tagged for choppers.'

Hilliard face became serious.

'Damn, but that's a risky game, operating out of Vientiane. The government really gets its money's worth with your firm. You'll be flying civilian slicks, and doing anything that comes along… Air taxi, search and rescue; covert insertions… the whole damned shebang. You be careful out there, honey. Compared to South Vietnam, Laos is one hell of a more dangerous place in which to fly. Apart from enemy ground fire there are all manner of other hazards you will have to contend with. The maps of Laos are still crap and you'll have to get used to reading the ground, watching for landmarks below to ensure that you stay on your flight plan. The climate of Laos roughly divides the year in half. Beginning in late May are five months of heavy tropical rains. Five more months, beginning in December, have high temperatures and little rain. A short spring and autumn connect these rainy and dry seasons.

Apart from the monsoon season, Laos also has a man-made season when the villagers burn off their fields in preparation for the year's planting. The whole country becomes enveloped in blue smog that reduces visibility to half a mile or less. Then, it's like flying inside a goddamned milk bottle below VFR minimums. It's probably some of the toughest flying in the world.'

He glanced at the point-forty-four magnum on her hip.

'Might be a good idea to keep that cannon out of sight. Wearing that, you've got Langley tight-ass written all over you. It's always been official Air America policy that none of us are permitted to carry weapons of any kind because we are non-military personnel without the official protection of the U.S. government.'

She grinned.

'But I am a Langley tight-ass, and worse…I'm a genuine, card-carrying Company brat! Both Mom and Pop were with "The Company," way back since before the Berlin Blockade.'

Hilliard glanced at her.

'So, you really are a spook?'

She smiled.

'I didn't say that!'