The Fly Boys Page 36

  When all that bad news was taken into account, it was no wonder that the news that the Americans had whipped the commies’ asses at Helsinki had been cause for celebration at Chusan. Sure it was just sports, but at least it had been a decisive victory, and that was something that was so far sadly lacking in the Korean War….

  “Heads up, Fist Three,” Garret said. “Bandits at two o’clock…. Coming in low for a change.”

  “I’ve got them, Fist Four.”

  There were eight of them, flying in a line abreast. Eight specks glinting in the sun and closing fast, like a pack of wolves falling on a pair of lambs.

  “Fist Lead, come in,” Steve radioed Larsen. “We’re about to be engaged. No sign of hook.”

  “Hook’s on the way,” Larsen replied.

  “Maybe so,” Steve said, arming his guns. “But if hook don’t get here soon, this worm is going to have to turn.”

  “Here comes our guys!” Garret broke in. “They’re coming in at four o’clock.”

  “Beautiful!” Steve laughed as the eight MiGs were intercepted by six BroadSwords. The MiG battle line fell apart as the commie pilots scattered in confusion. A BroadSword locked on to a MiG’s six o’clock and began firing. Steve watched the sparks rise up off the MiG and the BroadSword chewed a big bite off the commie’s starboard wing. The MiG’s canopy blew, and the pilot ejected.

  Oh, it’s turning out to be a lovely day, after all, Steve thought, supremely happy to be where he was.

  There were times when being a VIP’s son came in handy, he had to admit. It had been only a couple of weeks after his telephone conversation with his father that his new orders had been cut, instructing him to join up with the 44th Fighter Interceptor Squadron operating out of Chusan Airfield, near Seoul. He’d settled in by the middle of February, and had trained in his F-90 eight hours a day, seven days a week. On April 2, he’d been deemed ready for full combat duty.

  Throughout that spring, Steve and the rest of the 44th, and the FI squadrons like them, flew high-cover escort missions and CAPs over the 6,500 square miles of Interdiction Zone A, the area surrounding the North Korean–Chinese border, better known as MiG Alley. He’d scored his first BroadSword kill in April, when he’d downed a MiG near Sinaju. In May he got his second and third kills on the same patrol, over the southern bank of the Yalu, near the Suiho dam. That double score had given him four kills overall, counting the MiG that he’d dropped back in September ‘51 in his Shooting Star.

  At that point Steve had figured that he’d be a jet ace before he knew it, but it hadn’t turned out that way. The MiGs became shy, playing their new, favorite game of peekaboo over the Yalu. Steve hadn’t gotten the opportunity to fire his guns all summer.

  Now Steve and his wingman loitered on the battle scene at high altitude in order to conserve fuel, making great spiral passes at close to five hundred miles an hour in order to watch the battle.

  If only I had the gas to get into this brawl, he thought enviously as another two MiGs fell before the BroadSword’s guns.

  The remaining five MiGs had decided to run. Four of them split up into two elements, and then each pair made a wide, 180-degree turn back toward the Yalu, climbing all the while in hopes of getting away from the Broad-Swords.

  “Fist Three, remember we’re on bingo fuel,” Garret said nervously.

  “Affirmative,” Steve replied. “Let’s go—”

  The words died in his throat as Steve stared at the fifth MiG: it had a blue nose and tail, and a jagged, blue lightning bolt running the length of its fuselage. Steve was able to get a good look at it because it wasn’t running away. Like a mama hen prepared to sacrifice herself in order to keep a predator off her departing brook of chicks, the blue lightning MiG was hanging back to engage the BroadSwords.

  “Fist Three. We’ve got to break for home,” Garret said.

  Steve didn’t reply. He couldn’t. He was too busy staring, thinking that he was hallucinating, that the blue lightning MiG was a vision brought on by his own desire, the way a desperately thirsty man will think he sees water in the desert. How many times had Steve dreamed about getting another crack at that son of a bitch who had blown Mikey DeAngelo out of the sky, and now here it was.

  He blinked his eyes, looked away, and looked back, giving the MiG every opportunity to disappear like the mirage he half believed it was.

  It didn’t disappear. Instead, he watched the MiG come around incredibly fast, to drop down on the six o’clock of a BroadSword. The blue lightning MiG peppered the F-90 with gunfire. Steve watched the cannon rounds roll like fiery baseballs from the MiG’s chin pod of guns until it scored a hit, and when you were blasting away with 37-and 23-millimeter projectiles, one hit was all it took.

  Steve monitored the panicked exchange between the wounded BroadSword and its flight.

  “This is Lance Three! I’m hit! Mayday! Mayday! I’m hit! Get him off me!”

  “Lance Lead on the way.”

  “Arrow Three and Four on the way,”

  “Diamond Flight on the way.”

  The shot-up BroadSword, leaking smoke, headed for home as the other F-90s broke off their pursuit of the fleeing MiGs to close in on blue lightning.

  That’s just what he wants you to do, Steve thought, watching in admiration as the canny MiG pilot led the BroadSwords on a merry zigzag chase. As Steve had expected, not one of the F-90 jockeys was able to draw a bead on him long enough to fire.

  “Oh, I gotta get in on this,” Steve muttered.

  “Negative, Fist Three,” Garret yelled. “We’re bingo fuel!”

  “But—” Steve watched in frustration as the pilot of the blue lightning MiG did his signature eight-point victory roll before banking away. Yes, I do remember your little dance, Steve thought savagely.

  “This is Lance Lead,” Steve heard one of the attacking BroadSword pilots call. “Break off chase. I repeat, break off. It looks like Yalu Charlie has outfoxed again…”

  Yalu who? Steve wondered.

  “Fist Three! Damn you,” Garret swore. “We’ve got to go home.”

  His wingman’s desperate tone jolted Steve out of his preoccupation. Garret is sounding just the way Mickey did before I got him killed.

  No way was Steve going to let that blue lightning MiG make him responsible for another wingman’s life.

  “Affirmative, Fist Four,” Steve said, bringing his Broad-Sword around. “No problem, Lieutenant. We’re going home right now.”

  (Two)

  Officers’ Club

  Chusan Airfield, near Seoul

  That evening Steve barged into the club with more on his mind than drinking. He elbowed his way up to the bar and got himself a beer, then turned to survey the joint. It was crowded, dark, and smoky, so it took Steve a moment to find Larsen, but then he spotted the flight leader sitting at a corner table, a shot of whiskey and a long-necked beer in front of him.

  “Hey, pull up a chair,” Larsen said in welcome as Steve came over.

  Larsen was in his late thirties. He was dark complexioned, with shiny black hair, bushy eyebrows, and a thick mustache. Given a cigar and enough whiskey, he could do a creditable imitation of Groucho Marx.

  “Things went pretty well today, huh?” Larsen said as Steve sat down. “Three MiGs killed, while only one Broad-Sword got a little shot up, and it made it home okay.”

  Steve nodded impatiently. “Who’s Yalu Charlie?”

  “Yeah, I heard you ran into him today.”

  “Why didn’t anybody tell me about him?” Steve demanded.

  “Why didn’t you ask?” Larsen launched into his Groucho act, rolling his eyes and flicking the ash off a non-existent cigar.

  “Cut the horseplay!” Steve fumed. “This is important.”

  “What’s your big concern about YC?” Larsen asked, his smile fading. “He’s just another honcho MiG driver….”

  Honcho, Steve thought grimly. I haven’t heard that word for a while.

  “Honcho” was Japanese fo
r “boss.” It was a term of respect the BroadSword jockeys reserved for those MiG pilots who could handle themselves in a dogfight.

  “This Yalu Charlie son of a bitch is not just another honcho as far as I’m concerned,” Steve began. He quickly filled Larsen in on what had happened back in August ‘51 when he and Mike DeAngelo had tangled with the blue lightning bolt MiG.

  “Okay,” Larsen muttered. He paused to sip his whiskey, and then chased it with a swallow of beer. “Here’s what I know about Yalu Charlie. Number one, like most commie honcho pilots, he’s Russian.”

  “That much I knew,” Steve said, lighting a cigarette.

  “An instructor pilot,” Larsen added.

  “Right,” Steve agreed. “Part of some kind of crack Russian squadron?”

  “I never heard that,” Larsen shrugged. “Anyway, like I said, Charlie’s an IP. Those MiGs you saw him shepherding today were obviously his latest class. They must be close to graduating if Charlie was willing to bring them across the Yalu.”

  “If those were student pilots, they’ve got some homework to do,” Steve said. “The hook flights were tearing them up until Charlie decided to send his students home and hold the fort all by himself.”

  “And he did, didn’t he?” Larsen chuckled. “He can pull shit like that because he’s that good. There’s no way to know, of course, but my feeling is that Charlie’s got to be an ace.”

  “I heard he was one, in the last war.”

  “I mean this war,” Larsen said flatly.

  “Someday we’ll have to ask him,” Steve said, smiling thinly.

  “Yeah, right,” Larsen muttered into his whiskey.

  “I’ve been here since February,” Steve said. “If the Yalu is Charlie’s territory, how come I haven’t seen him before?”

  “I guess you just missed him.” Larsen paused. “Yeah, now that I think back on it, you did just miss Charlie’s finals week and graduation ceremony. And then you missed him again in the spring, because we were flying about a hundred miles south of the Yalu, mopping up some MiG activity near Sinanju, remember?”

  “Sure I remember,” Steve said. “But what are you talking about concerning all this ‘finals’ and ‘graduation’ stuff?”

  “Okay,” Larsen grinned. “I said that Charlie was an instructor pilot. Here’s his MO. When he begins training a new class of MiG jockeys he keeps them well behind enemy lines. Then he gradually brings them closer to the Yalu—and us—all the while practicing high-altitude combat maneuvers with them.”

  Steve grimaced. “So that we can’t touch them.”

  “Right,” Larsen replied. “When they come close to graduating, he starts to let them dart across the river, but still at high altitude. That’s when we know it’s ‘finals week.’ Finally he lets them come down and engage in combat. That’s the ‘graduation ceremony.’”

  “And then Charlie disappears for a while,” Steve said.

  “You got it,” Larsen nodded. “And when he does disappear, we know that he’s once again deep behind the lines, starting a new class.”

  “So, if this is ‘finals,’ the chances are that we won’t be seeing him again for a few months.”

  “Maybe some CAP will spot him again, but yeah, basically you’re right,” Larsen acknowledged. “He’s winding down this time around. We likely won’t get another good look at him until around October or November—for all the good it will do us,” he added wryly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come on, Steve.” Larsen looked down at his drink. “You’ve seen Charlie in action,” he moped. “Nobody can touch him.”

  “I’m going to do more than touch him,” Steve said firmly.

  Larsen shook his head. “Believe me, a tot of us have tried and failed.”

  “I’m not going to fail.”

  “Steve, he ain’t called Yalu Charlie for nothing,” Larsen chided. “Today was an exception. Usually he sticks to the vicinity of the river like glue. You know what that means. He’s so good that it’s next to impossible to get him into trouble, but even if you could lock on to his six o’clock, all he’s got to do is cob the throttle and zip back across the river, and after today you can bet that he’s going to be extra particular about straying far from home.”

  “Then that’s the key,” Steve said.

  “What is?” Larsen asked, frowning.

  “It’s simple. Yalu Charlie thinks he’s safe on the north side of the river. That’s where he lets his guard down.”

  Larsen shrugged. “He probably lets his guard down back in Moscow as well, but big shit, you can’t touch him there, either.”

  “No, not in Moscow,” Steve said softly. “It’s too far away. But the Yalu is right here. All I have to do is fly across it.”

  “You listen to me.” Larsen leveled his index finger like a gun at Steve. “Before your time, I guess it was a year ago, a couple of the 44th’s pilots got carried away and went across the Yalu. They claimed navigational error, but that didn’t cut any ice with the CO. He had their balls for breakfast. Do you read me, Steve?”

  “You’re pulling my leg,” Steve began.

  “Negative!”

  Steve was still skeptical. Colonel Gleason was in his fifties. He was a small, bald-headed man with thick wire-rimmed spectacles. The pilots didn’t see too much of Gleason; he preferred to leave the daily briefings to his staff so that he would have more time to hunt bugs. It was said that he had an extensive collection and that some of his finds were in museums. In good weather you could find him with his butterfly net creeping around in the brush on the outskirts of the base.

  “Gleason put those two pilots up for a court-martial,” Larsen continued. “They were found not guilty, but he wasn’t satisfied. He found some excuse to have them grounded for good.”

  “Get out of here,” Steve laughed uneasily.

  “You think I’m kidding?” Larsen demanded.

  Steve stared. “You’re telling me that Gleason actually was vindictive enough to permanently clip their wings?”

  “Like they were a couple of his butterflies pinned to a blotter,” Larsen nodded vigorously.

  “I guess I believe you,” Steve said dubiously.

  “I’m just telling you,” Larsen shrugged. “Believe it or not, Gleason’s the kind of officer who does not believe in anybody rocking the boat. He’s a stickler for the rules, he likes to hold a grudge, and he knows how to get even. You cross that river, and you’d better enjoy your flight, because that’ll be your last.”

  “Okay,” Steve said. “I hear you. Thanks for the warning. But I still intend to avenge my buddy, and I think I know a way to do it. The problem is that if it’s going to work, I’m going to need the flight’s cooperation.”

  “You just hold on! You leave us out of it! You want to go up against Gleason, that’s your business, but—”

  “Listen to me,” Steve implored.

  “No way!” Larsen cut him off emphatically. “And that’s final!”

  Nodding, Steve leaned back in his chair to study Larsen. Maybe a little reverse psychology, he thought. “Ah, hell, I guess you’re right.”

  “I know I’m right!”

  “Anyway,” Steve began, “even if you did go along, the other guys would probably veto my idea.”

  “What do you mean?” Larsen demanded, sounding affronted. “I’m flight leader,” he smugly thumbed his chest. “If I like the idea, the other guys will string along, don’t you worry.”

  “Okay,” Steve said quickly, leaning in close to Larsen to confide in him. “What I have in mind will leave the rest of the flight in the clear. I don’t want you guys to cross the river. I only need you to cover for me. No way will Gleason be able to nail you.” He paused. “But if you don’t think you can get the other guys to go along, that’s okay.”

  “Nah, nah… don’t worry.”

  Steve pretended to hesitate. “Maybe I should wait for a time when the entire flight is together.”

  “I told you there
’d be no problem!”

  “Well, if you say so….” Steve grinned. “Okay, then, next time Yalu Charlie begins finals week, here’s what I want to do….”

  CHAPTER 17

  * * *

  (One)

  GAT

  R&D Department

  14 May 1952

  Don Harrison stared longingly out the conference room’s windows, only half listening to the cost analysis report on a new fighter design. It was a warm, sunny day, and Harrison was suffering from spring fever.

  The conference room overlooked the parking lot. Harrison’s new white Hudson Commodore Eight convertible was parked out there. He’d bought the car to celebrate landing this job. If he craned his neck, he could see it gleaming in the sun.

  It would be grand to put the top down on the Commodore and go for a drive along the coast. Or maybe go hiking in the nearby California foothills. Or even be working at his drafting table in his office.

  It was a good day to be anywhere but here, sitting at the head of this conference table, trying to ignore the stony expressions on the faces of his senior engineers and project managers.

  But he had to correct himself. These were not his people. To say that they swore their allegiance to GAT, not to him, would be a supreme understatement. There wasn’t one of them who wouldn’t gladly plant a dagger between his shoulder blades if given half a chance.

  I’ve been here four months now, Harrison thought. Since then these guys have gone from mildly resenting my usurping Teddy Quinn’s authority to completely hating my guts.

  Sitting at the far end of the conference table was Susan Greene, his personal secretary. She attended all the conferences to take the minutes.

  She had been Teddy Quinn’s secretary, so ironically Harrison had initially thought that she would be the only one in the department who would have trouble making the adjustment to his work style. It had turned out exactly the opposite of what he had expected. Susan had been the only one to sincerely welcome him with an open mind.