CHAPTER SIX HERE THERE BE TYGERS


Long after Maggie left I remained in the CP alone with my thoughts. I was ashamed of the drunken performance I had put on, but the underlying emotions were all to real. I felt a tremendous sense of guilt over the deaths of the refugees who I had convinced to follow me to this valley, especially the children. While Evers had contributed in part to the disaster, ultimately it was me who had struck the bargain which led to the air raid. And I had done so realizing full well I inviting higher risk to the refugee camp.

I got up and started a pot of strong coffee brewing then unrolled the map on which Norbert had penciled in the location of the Russian airbase. We couldn't let the attack go unanswered, nor would I if I could. This wasn't a case of letting sleeping dogs lie anymore. One or the other of these airbases was going to be demolished before all was said and done. Digging through the topographical flying charts we had aquired along with the cropdusters I found one of the same area and of nearly the same scale as the state highway map and began to plan the attack. I was still at it the next morning when Deacon returned to the CP.

I didn't get up when he came in, just nodded towrds the coffee pot and said, "Coffee's hot Deacon, grab you a cup and pull up a chair."

I had my pocket calculator out on the table figuring up flight times and fuel consumption rates, taking measurements off the map with a stringline and a ruler.

Deacon sat down beside me and studied the maps, then looked over my notes in the spiral notebook. I reclined back in my chair rubbing my bloodshot eyes and waited him out. He finished at length and looked up at me with a slight grin. "I guess this means you're gonna be hanging around awhile?"

"I guess so." I replied.

We finished our coffee and set out to find Evers, taking the maps and attack plans with us. We found him at the C-130, inspecting the shrapnel damage it had taken in the attack. An A-10 sat on the runway with engines running and a pilot in the open cockpit, a brace of sidewinder missiles slung under his wings on the hardpoints. I could see another one circling at about five thousand feet in the distance. I resisted the urge to greet Evers with "better late than never", and settled for a cool nod of the head instead. He wasn't getting off the hook till I got what I came for, but I didn't want to launch into hostilites before the negotiations required it.


Evers had the pilots of the C-130 and a group of mechanics gathered around him discussing the damage, so we sat down on a pile of Russian crates which apparently had come off the plane. There was quite a mound of them and I was wondering what was inside when the loadmaster walked over and introduced himself. "Aren't you the commander of the refugee camp?" he asked.

"I guess you could call me that. Names Nikoli Krushev, you can just call me Nick." There was something oddly familiar about him but I couldn't put my finger on it.

"Seargeant Gunderson." He replied, then nodded towards the small mountain of crates and ammo containers. "All this crap is for you, your daughter made up a list for us of stuff yall could use when she found out we were headed up to a captured Russian airbase in Maine after dropping her off in Branson. She also mentioned you have most of the inventory of a blasted out liquor store in the back rooms of your CP?" he said with a raised eyebrow.

I grinned and said, "I think we probably can reward your efforts Seargeant, what all have we got here?"

"Not as much as you could've had if I hadn't had to save room for that oil leaking piece of crap 57 chevy." He flipped through his manifest and began to recite the contents of my special delivery. "Six thousand rounds of cannon ammo for the Zeus you stole, a dozen heat seeking antiaircraft missiles, 50 AK-74 assault rifles, 20 makarov pistols, 100 gas mask with extra filters, four twenty kilowatt multifuel generators, a crate of AK mags, Fifteen thousand rounds of AK ammo, half on belts, six .30 cal light machineguns, 30 Russian combat uniforms, a couple dozen satchel charges, (he flipped the page and continued) forty pairs of combat boots I nearly had to fistfight over, two nuclear bombs of unknown yield, and a partridge in a pear tree." He finished at length.

Deacon and I looked at each other and then back at the sergeant. "Did you say Nuclear bombs?"

The Sergeant met my look head-on and replied. "Your daughter specifically asked for those. I don't think she likes Russians very much. I wouldn't get too het up over it, the commies are still popping a small one every now and then against any heavily concentrated forces they encounter which they don't think have retaliatory capability. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Besides," he added, "just between you and me I don't think the top brass got the balls to use these things unless it's a final act of desperation."

"What makes you think I will?" I asked.

"I guess that's the million dollar question isn't it? Just how far are you willing to go to defend these people?"

Norbert's voice came unbidden into my head, "You keep fighting, someday you live with it too." I saw Evers walking towards us, finished with the mechanics. "Sergeant, I said in a low voice, "Let's keep those nukes just between us for now, OK?"

"He glanced over at Evers and replied. "I was just about to ask the same thing of you."

I shook hands with Gunderson and assured him we would have some men up here ASAP to get this junk out of his way as Evers joined us. Evers surveyed the mound of crates as Gunderson walked away and said. "That Seargeant Gunderson is quite a scavenger, isn't he? I sure lucked out getting him from the replacement pool."

"Probably the best I've ever seen." I replied. And I wasn't exagerating one bit.

"Nick I'm bloody sorry about what happened here yesterday, if there were any way I could undo it, I'd do it at any price. As you can see I have stationed two planes on full combat alert and have put in a request for more surface to air missiles and radars. We're also bringing in a couple of F-16 interceptors from Patterson, but they won't be here and ready to fight for several more days."

I nodded and said. "I appreciate your concern over our casualties Roger, and of course I'll expect to see you at the funeral tomorrow. In the meantime I'd like to talk to you about a counterattack on the Russian airfield. You know as well as I do this isn't the end of it, next time they may hit us with WMD's or sortie and entire squadron of fighter bombers against us. We need to strike back as soon as possible. I've drawn up some attack plans here for you to look over and get your opinion on." I handed the map case and spiral notebook to him, even as he shook his head.

"Nick, that airfield is surrounded by a dug in division of Russian armor and a couple of companies of air defense. It sits between two mountains with only one way in and one way out. We've already lost a half dozen F-15 strike eagles trying to take it out and haven't even manged to crater the runway for all that." He raised a hand in protest as I started to interupt. "I'll have a look at your plans and give them an honest evaluation. If you've spotted an angle we have overlooked then we'll bloody well blast that place to kingdom come. But I warn you now the chances of that happening are not good."

I looked Evers in the eye as he spoke, and knew he spoke the truth. If the airfield could be hit, we'd hit it. But he wasn't going to throw away his pilots on a suicide mission. "Fair enough Roger, there's just one other thing I'd like to ask of you. I'd like my airplane repainted in my tiger pattern and colors. Can your men handle it or do I need to get the body shop man down in the camp to do it?"

Evers raised his eyebrows slightly at "my airplane" but let it pass. "Why on Earth do you want your plane such a godawful bright yellow color?" he asked.

"A long time ago I was reading a book. Can't remember what book, or by whom it was written. Maybe Louis La'mour, but there was a passage in it about the dark ages. The old mapmakers used to mark unknown or dangerous territory with the phrase "Here There Be Tygers". I've often wondered if that was what Pappy Boyington was thinking of when he painted all his tomahawks with the flying tigers design. Anyway I want those Russians to see me. I'm going on an extermination campaign against those Hinds, and any other communist assets I can get in my sights. I want them to spread the word. Whenever they enter these mountians, or look at it on their charts, I want the visual image of that Tiger in their minds. You know how superstition and fear can eat away at the confidence of a pilot."

"OK Nick, it's your funeral. I'll get my men to do the prep work and you can have your man shoot the paint. You want missiles on the wings or just the gun.?"

"Give me two sidewinders on the inboard hardpoints and some drop tanks for extra range. I'll have my man up here tomorrow to shoot the paint, if that's ok with you."

"Your bird will be in the hangar." he turned to walk away and paused. "Boyington's planes were painted as tiger sharks, by the way."

"You think it made any difference to those japs he killed?" I asked.

"No, I don't suppose it did."


We held the funeral the next morning at ten o'clock. A couple of carpenters had built some coffins out of walmanized lumber and we had dug the graves in our growing cemetary with one of the backhoes. Two more of the wounded had died, doc now expected the others to eventually recover unless internal infections set in. The cemetary location was in a small clearing off to the East side of the main field. The location was chosen because it had a good view out over the valley while not being in sight of the main camp. Everybody had to walk past the downed Hind in the meadow to reach it though, not that all that many came. I guess everybody had seen just about enough death to last them a while already.

Deacon gave the eulogy and a pretty longwinded speech about heaven and hell, good and evil, and the damned communist. Evers and I were standing together near the back of the crowd, and he was getting some pretty hateful looks from some of the attendees. As Deacon droned on and on I got to staring at the Hind. It was pretty shot up but it hadn't burned. There wasn't any danger it would ever fly again though, especially with most of its skeleton exposed by the scavenging refugees. I could see the hydraulic lines and pumps exposed even from here. I suddenly noticed a low pitched whine which had been going on for a few seconds and got to looking around for the source, trying to be discreet.

It was some kind of jet or turbine engine, no doubt about it, but it didn't sound like an airplane. I turned to give an order, but the two men stationed behind the backhoe with the stinger missiles were already on the ball. Each had shouldered his weapon and was scanning the sky for a target.

Evers broke into a run headed up the hill towards his humvee as Deacon launched into Ashes to Ashes. Everybody was looking skyward now, including Deacon as he recited on out of memory.

A cruise missile came into view down below us in the river valley from around the bend, and people began running towards the bunkers. The misseleers had it spotted and were tracking it with their sights, waiting for a lock. "Anderson, you shoot first and save the other one in case it misses." I said.

Deacon stopped his incessant droning and watched with the rest of us as the missile turned towards the camp and began to climb. Andersons missile finally aquired a lock and he fired. The stinger streaked out of the tube with a whoosh and a flash, it's trail sweeping in a gentle curve as it tracked the moving target. They converged about three hundred yards away and exploded, the forward main body of the cruise missile still intact and tumbling into the woods. There was no secondary explosion.

I pulled my walkie talkie off my belt and called the command APC. Wilks answered immediately. "Get me a couple of people down here in full chemical gear ASAP." I said. The smoke from my cigarette was blowing towards the downed missile, so we were in no immediate danger as Wilks responded. "10-4 Boss."

Deacon was staring at the trees where the missile had gone down. "You know if that's a conventional warhead it may go off anytime, you could lose those men."

I got back on the radio and told Wilks to send an extra chemsuit and equipment for me, then turned to Deacon. "We have to know one way or the other. If that thing is down there leaking anthrax or smallpox, or even nerve gas we could have a major situation on our hands."

He just nodded in silence as we waited. And I turned to look at the Hind again, studying the exposed hydraulic lines in the tail boom. They didn't seem to be very badly damaged at all. "What the hell are you looking at?" Deacon asked.

"Just studying the Hind for weak spots", I replied. And repair parts, I thought, but didn't say. In the back of my mind the monster shifted, edging a little closer to the cage. I tried not to look at it. He pointed at the graves before me, gloating. I turned away from the Hind and stared off into the valley. After a minute I asked, "How's that Russian helicopter pilot doing?"

Deacon gave me a strange look, probably wondering if I had finally snapped. "He's still eating up our grub, I got him working with the firewood detail to earn a little of his keep. Why?"

"Oh, nothing. Just looking at the helicopter got me to thinking about him." The monster laughed. I could see him clearer now, and he looked a lot like Kramer on the old Seinfeld show.

Evers joined us at the downed missile in chemical gear about thirty minutes later. It had broken up further on impact and lay scattered over about a fifty yard area. I studied the Warhead from fifty feet away with a pair of binoculars. A yellowish powder had leaked out of the cannister behind the small explosive charge. There was quite a bit of it on the ground around the warhead, it looked kind of like pine pollen. I handed the binoculars to Evers and he looked it over again. "Probably anthrax or smallpox." He said. "We'll have to burn it."

We turned to walk out of the woods as Evers called his airbase on the radio. "Get me a couple of Napalm loaded up on the alert bird." he said. He thought about it a moment and spoke again. "Make that four Napalm."

We paused at the edge of the treeline long enough to be doused with bleach, then continued up the hill.

I made it a point to walk right by the Hind on the way back up the hill. Sure enough the tail boom section hadn't taken any hits at all. The working parts, hoses, and rotor of the rear half of the helicopter were in perfectly serviceable condition.

I next went to the showers, shedding my chem gear and mask into a 55 gallon drum outside. Deacon was waiting with five gallons of diesel and he set the used suits afire as soon as we had all shed them. We then went inside and showered, bagging our dirty clothes for burning also. Doc was waiting with antibiotic injections when we stepped out of the showers, and he gave two to each of us, along with a bottle of pills to take over the next week. We got dressed in clean clothes they had layed out for us and exited the shower building, going our separate ways.

I continued on to the Cp, where I dug out the personell folders Amy had been keeping for me. It only took a few minutes to find four people on the list with the skills I required. One of them had lost a daughter in the air raid.

I walked out of the building, stopping at the APC stationed outside. Wilks was lounging in the copula, monitoring the radio. "See if you can get ahold of Ray. I want him to get his tank mechanics to dissasemble the entire tail boom section of that Hind and stow the mechanical parts in the two Russian APC's. The refugees have been stripping parts off of it and we may need some of that stuff later on."

He gave me the thumbs up and I walked on towards the Refugee camp. It took me about thirty minutes to locate the prior owner of Wilcox Electronics Repair. I had spoken to him after the air raid so I knew what he looked like already, it was just a matter of tracking him down. "Mr. Wilcox, I wonder if I could have a word with you over at the CP. I know this is a bad time, but I really need your help."

He looked at me curiously and nodded, kissing his wife goodbye. "I won't keep him too long Mrs. Wilcox." I said.

As we walked towards the CP I said. "Mr. Wilcox, what I am about to show you is for your eyes only. This is Top Secret information and your silence and cooperation are essential to the success of this operation. Do you Understand?"

I really had his attention now. "Yes, I understand, I can keep my mouth shut."

We walked around the CP to the back porch, where two coffin sized wooden crates were resting under the awning with a tarp over them. I pulled back the tarp and opened the lid of one, revealing the seven foot long bomb packed inside. It was painted flat black with a red nose and red tail fins. There was a radiation symbol on the side of it, near the one of the access plates. Mr. Wilcox's eyes bugged out.

"Your mission, Mr. Wilcox, should you choose to accept it, is to wire a radio command detonator to this nuclear bomb, or failing that to put a programmable timer on it. The bomb will be used against the Russian airbase which has launched the last two strikes against us, including the one which killed your daughter. Do you think you can do it?"

One of Evers' A-10's came cruising over the ridge and dropped two napalm bombs in the woods. "That was anthrax, wasn't it?" Wilcox asked.

"Yes. " I replied.

"I can do it. I'll need a ride into town to pick up some tools and parts."

I handed him the keys to my pickup. "Take my truck, it's the 78 chevy stepside with the hole in the roof. Tell Wilks you need four riflemen to ride with you. Remember, not a word to anyone, I have reason to believe there may be spetznaz troops posing as refugees among us."

He nodded and said, "How soon will you need it?"

"Within a few days most likely."

"No problem. I can have it ready tomorrow."

"I'll need a transmitter to set it off with a 30 mile range, preferably with a coded frequency."

"When I get through with it you'll be able to set it off using a preprogrammed frequency skip code off your regular military radios. All you'll have to do is enter the code and key the mike for about two seconds. That OK?"

"That's perfect." I replied.

We parted company and I went looking for Sergeant McKenzie. I found him fiddling with his tank up the forest sevice trail, the first place I looked. Leaving my humvee running I called him down to the ground. "Sergeant, is that M1-A1 still in running condition?" I knew it was but I needed to beat around the bush a little as protocol.

"Yes sir, she's purring like a kitten."

"Well, I'd like for you to have it loaded on one of the tank transports tomorrow morning at 0700, I have a job for it. Have the crew ready to follow it in a Humvee. Tell them to bring their rifles."

"Yes sir," he replied and saluted.

I returned the salute as best I could then headed on up the road to the airfield. Deavers was busy painting my airplane, most of it already covered in bright yellow high gloss enamel which gradually shaded into a more orange color along the top. The belly of the plane was an off white, looked like candy apple pearl. No doubt about it the man was an artist. He had masked off the area where the mouth would go on the nose of the aircraft and shot it in blood red. I didn't stop him in his work, just waved and gave him a big grin and a thumbs up. I saw the armorers taking a break in the coffee room and headed their way.

Jesse was the one who usually loaded out my plane, so I cornered him and starting asking stupid questions after some preliminary small talk. "Jesse, I was wondering if the target rounds we use on the gunnery range would penetrate the armor on a Hind?"

He looked at me like I was a total idiot and replied. "Sure, at close range. But why in the hell would you want to?"

I ignored the question and pressed on. "How close. I mean what would you guess the max range would be to get penetration of the armor?"

"Maybe 300 yards. It's a high velocity load but a light slug. Loses energy really fast compared to the standard depleted uranium rounds."

"Could you load me a belt of it up in my plane and pull all the tracers out?"

"Yeah, I could do that, be a lot of work, but I could do it."

"Be a few cases of your favorite brew in it, and a couple of bottles of whisky if you can have it ready for me at 0800 tomorrow morning. I realize you'll have to wait for the paint to dry so it'll mean working late tonight. But I really need it."

"Ok, it'll be ready, I can start on the ammo right after I get off break and won't take long to load it later. You mind if I ask what you want it for?"

"I'm going to try and shoot a Hind down without burning it up." I replied.

He just nodded and I walked away.

I headed directly for Evers office, feeling like a condemned man must feel waiting on the call from the governor. He and Bowen were going over some paperwork pertaining to the functioning of the squadron, and I waited as they finished up. After a few minutes they wrapped up and Bowen left after a little small talk. I skipped the formalities with Evers and asked "Well, is the mission a go or no go?"

He sighed and shook his head. "Nick your plan just won't work. Look here." He spread some aeriel photographs over the table and I leaned over to watch as he pointed. I could see the photos were old, and he had a magic marker with which he was drawing in missile sites on the mountains ringing the old county airport. "There are at least thirty SAM sites located along this arc, with redundant radars here, here, and here. In the valley a battalion of Zeus antiaircraft are deployed completely ringing the airfield. There are literally hundreds of stinger missiles on the mountainsides and covering all approaches, in addition to heavy machineguns and tripple A." He continued to scrawl on the photo which was rapidly turning red as blood. "We haven't even gotten into the T-80 and T-90 tanks, which also posses anti-aircraft capability. Our latest intel indicates at least two hundred of those are strewn out in dug in positions both on the reverse slopes of the mountains and in the valley proper. In short if we launched everything we had against this fortress we would be extrordinarlily lucky to get a single pilot back alive, and the best we could hope to accomplish at that price would be to use up a lot of their ammunition. Bugger all it just won't work."

I nodded and asked, "You wouldn't happen to know the population of that town before the war would you?"

"No, why do you ask?"

I just shook my head, "I guess it doesn't matter, most of them are probably dead now, and those who aren't wish they were."

"The dead no longer care, Nick. Worry about the living."

"Do you believe in God Roger?" I asked.

"After a fashion, I suppose." he replied, looking at me curiously. "Do you?"

"Yes, and I also believe in the devil. No one else could lay such a perfect trap."

He glanced back down at the photograph and nodded his head. But I wasn't talking about his pictures. The monster was loose inside my head and he no longer looked like Kramer, he looked exactly like me. I turned and walked wearily from the room, headed back to camp. I was going to find Porter, Maggie's alternate commander of the Zeus. I had a job for him.
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Porter was a lanky six foot two inch, 25 year old Arkansas native with dirty blonde hair and slightly buck teeth. He was one of the guardsmen from the Ft. Smith armory, a PFC E-2 by rank, whatever the hell that meant. By some twist of fate his home town was now the Russian airbase. A fact which had escaped my attention until I was going through Amy's records in search of surviving relatives of the air raid. His records also showed he had a wife and a boy back home in the occupied town.

I found him eating a large can of peaches and sitting on a boulder near the med shack. I squatted down near him and grinned, "Man them peaches look good Porter, I'm gonna miss em next year if we can't find another stash."

Porter surveyed the rusty top of the can for a moment and replied, "Hi Nick, yeah the cans are rotting out real quick, must be a lot of acid or something in the juice."

"I got a couple of peach trees in the yard back down in Texas, but frost gets em most years. I spect this far north yall can't hardly grow em at all."

"No," he replied, "They don't do good around here at all."

"Look Porter I was looking for you, we got a mission coming up and I'm gonna need you and the Zeus on it."

"Sure Nick, what's up?"

"Some of the locals from Jasper spotted a Russian tank south of town about ten miles. Said he had some battle damage but was still operational, least he could move his turret anyway. They were hunting deer in a canyon right off the main highway and said he's back in the brush about a hundred yards waiting for something to come down the road so he can kill it. I figure his radio is dead and he's low on fuel, most likely a straggler from that armored column we engaged. I want to take the Zeus and the Russian APC's down south of Jasper, form em up into a convoy and then fake a breakdown in front of his hide position. We may be able to lure the crew out of the tank and capture it. If that fails I'm gonna have one of our tanks circle in behind him on the North ridge and try to take him out. You'll be in command of the decoy column and be responsible for providing air cover. My plane is down for repairs and Evers boys are all tied up on support missions. I clued Evers in on what is going on so we won't have any problems out of his boys trying to strafe you but you always got to worry about the joker in the deck."

"Aint that the truth", Porter replied with a grin. "When do we leave.?"

"Go ahead and get your gear loaded up, take some food and water with you and load the Zeus on one of the transports out by the gate. Just standby there with it till I get back to you, one of the APC's is giving us engine problems so it may be an hour or it may be tomorrow, but I want to be ready to roll as soon as it's up. Here's a map of where we'll be headed, I got the location of the Russian tank circled in red. I'll be in the command APC behind this ridge here with the tank. If anything goes wrong yall haul butt up to us."

He studied the map for a moment and said, "Got it boss." he offered the map back to me.

I looked at him and grinned, "Keep it I got another. Go ahead and finish your peaches fore you leave, we got time for that. And keep tight lipped about what's going down, I don't want the women folks worrying all night over us."

He nodded and I walked away, looking for Ray. He was down at the Hind, overseeing the dismantling of the tail boom. I got him off to the side and said. "Ray, don't bring the APC's down here to load this stuff up till a while after the Zeus leaves. I don't want Porter to see them moving or see yall loading all this stuff up."

Ray raised his eyebrows and said "Ok, What's up with that Nick?"

"I'm not 100 percent sure, but I think he's a mole. His wife and son are living in the town where the Russian airbase is and he wasn't at either of the attack sites when they came down. Both of those attacks came at the worst possible time, when we had a lot of people congregated out in the open. He also has constant access to a Russian radio with skip capability in the Zeus. I think maybe he's been feeding info to the Russians in exchange for promises of protection for his family. I may be wrong, but it don't look good from where I'm standing right now. I'm setting him up to find out one way or the other right now. Get a good nights sleep, it's going to be a long day tomorrow. We pull out at 0700."

"Where we going?" Ray asked.

"We're going to try and capture a Hind down south of Jasper. If I'm right about Porter he's going to put one right in our laps. Keep all this between you and me for
now."

"Got it Nick."

"I'll get with you later this afternoon and give you the entire plan, just get this chopper torn down for now. Make sure the mechanics load up every tool they used to take this thing apart with the pieces."

He nodded and I walked away, headed back to the CP. Deacon was inside and I brought him up to speed on my plans.


Deacon looked at me a long time after I had finished before saying anything. "You realize there are civillians in that town Nick. You won't just be slaughtering a few thousand Russians, we're talking Americans here too."

"I realize that full well Deacon, it's just the price that has to be paid. If we don't take that airbase and that armored division out this war could drag on for another year. We don't have a year to wait. That base is the link that keeps the whole communist line in place. Once it is gone the 7th cav can combine forces with the troops containing that Northern Russian divison, blast into Texas and cut the Chinese supply lines while flanking them from the South. It should all be over in a month or two and we could get to rebuilding. Besides that I figure there are more Americans here at this base than remain alive there. I have a duty to protect these people, and this is the last option remaining to me to do so. I have made up my mind. The attack will proceed."

"May God have mercy on your soul." He said.

I just nodded and walked out the door. Wilcox was coming down the road in my pickup. He dropped the guards off in front of the CP and gave me a thumbs up, then pulled around to the back porch. I took a deep breath and went looking for my helicopter pilot. I had a job for him.

After telling him I needed him at the CP at 6:30 in the morning dressed to fly I headed back up to Evers office in my Humvee. "Roger, I need an aerial photograph of this area, if you have one." I indicated the spot on his map. I had overflown the place quite a few times in the past, but I needed to know the exact location of the nearest clearing in relation to the North ridge which couldn't be seen from the highway or the reverse slope.

He looked at the map and began to dig in his filing cabinet, soon producing several photographs of various magnification. He was grinning when he handed them to me. "Am I going to be let in on what you are cooking up, or is this some big dark bloody secret?"

I smiled back and replied. "I'm setting a trap for a Hind helicopter. Going to use my captured Russsian equipment as bait to lure him in and try to disable him without destroying the bird. We got a lot of parts off the downed hind down at the camp, I'm hoping I can repair it and use it in operations. I'd appreciate it if you'd tell your pilots my vehicles will be operating in the area, wouldn't want any friendly fire incidents."

"Sounds like a long shot to me, but it's your fuel. I'll tell my men, you won't have any worries from us"

"Mind if I hang onto these for a while?" I asked. "I also need the notebook back with the attack plans I gave you."

He fished the notebook out of his desk and said "You're not planning on trying to attack that base with the Hind and your pilot are you?"

"Not exactly." I answered.

"Well, I guess it doesn't really matter, the odds of your knocking one of those things down and keeping it intact enough to repair are pretty slim. But have fun trying."

"Thanks, Roger, catch you later."

"Oh Nick, bye the way. I wrote your A-10 off as a combat loss. As far as the USAF is concerned, it no longer exist. They are sending me a replacement aircraft, and there is a general coming in next week who wants to meet you."

"I'll try to work it into my schedule," I said with a grin, "have a good evening."

I stopped at the Zeus on the way back to the base and told Porter we wouldn't be leaving till the next morning at 7:00 as it was too late in the day to get started now. And if it wasn't too much trouble could he just stay the night with the Zeus in case we were attacked before dawn. It wouldn't be any problem at all, he assured me. As I drove away he was climbing into the Zeus.

I caught Ray and Maggie heading for the chow line, so I joined them and filled Ray in on what I intended. I still had Evers photographs with me and we studied them at our picnic table while we ate. Maggie was antsy and finally I said, well what's eating you. "Dad the men down in the APC's will be exposed to the Hind if you don't take him, along with those in the tank."

"You don't understand honey, his primary mission will be to kill the command APC. The convoy and the tank aren't the bait for this trap. I am. That enemy commander has lost six tanks, a Zeus, fourteen armored personell carriers, a Mig-29 fighter, four Hinds, a medvac bird, and nearly 200 men to me. Trust me, this is personal. He wants me dead and he's going to send an assasin to get it done. Anything after that will just be gravy for the pilot. I'm betting he'll send the chopper in tonight and have it wait here," I pointed to a small clearing on the gentle reverse slope of the South Ridge.

I continued "When Porter radios him that we are in position he will crank his engines and pop up over the ridge, going directly for the spot where the APC is positioned. I'll be circling here, down in Devils gorge about five miles to the West. The mountain should shield my engine noise at that range. Ray will call me as soon as he hears the chopper engines, abandon the APC, and I'll come charging in to see if I can hit him before he gets off the ground. The men in the Russian APC's will have stinger missiles, and if I can't take him on the ground, or right after he takes off, they will have time to get a lock on him. I would imagine Porter is going to have a malfunction of some type which will disable the fire control of the Zeus. I know I would in his position."

Maggie studied the map and looked back up at me. "You're a devious bastard." she laughed.

"You don't know the half of it." I replied.

I didn't sleep well that night. Amy and I had a long argument before turning in, she wasn't happy at all that I was taking an offensive operation against the Russians. She saw no sense in me risking the lives of myself and my men just to capture a helicopter. I lay on top of the covers sweating in the heat and wondering what she would think of my nuking an American town and a Russian base. I could see her in my minds eye, introducing me to people. "This is my husband, he slaughters people by the thousands for a living."

I finally drifted off to sleep and dreamed of Norbert. We were sitting in a burning tank and he was eating a can of peaches. There were worms crawling through the juice as he gobbled them down. I could feel the flames blistering my skin, and I pounded on the locked hatch trying to get out. I turned deperately back to Norbert but he had changed into Sergeant Gunderson. He held the writhing can of rotten peaches out to me and said, "Just eat the peaches Nick, they'll kill the pain."

The alarm clock went off at 4:00 and Amy fixed me a pot of coffee on the coleman stove while I got dressed. I put on my flight suit as the water boiled, and Amy came over to give me a kiss. "I'm sorry about last night", she said "I just worry so much you'll be killed and I'll be left all alone."

I held her close to me, smelling the scent of her hair. "And I worry you'll be killed leaving me alone too Amy. Which is why I have to go on this mission. This war must end, or none of us will survive in the long run."

She pulled back and looked me in the eye, "One helicopter isn't going to end the war."

"No, but it's a start."

We left it at that, a standoff, and sipped our coffee in silence. Both wondering what the day would bring.

I drove my Humvee up to the airbase and found Jesse finishing up the loadout on my A-10. I saw that he had put four sidewinders under the wings instead of the two I had requested. I guessed that was ok, they wouldn't slow me down that much.

He walked over to me, wiping the grease off his hands with a rag. "I went ahead and loaded you out with missiles, since you're just carrying target slugs in your gun. Thought they might come in handy if you get in a bind."

"That's fine Jesse, I appreciate your concern." I walked around the aircraft, admiring the beauty of the paint job. It looked like a completely different plane. Jesse walked alongside me, also admiring the artwork. "This is best looking airplane I have ever seen." he said, "Try not to scratch it up first time out. You still want those drop tanks put on?"

"No, leave them off for this mission, I won't be going far. She gonna be ready in a couple of hours?"

"She's ready right now if you don't want the tanks. I just need to button up the hatches and wipe off the fingerprints."

I handed him the keys to the liquor room. "I got to run back down to the CP, help yourself to some beer and a couple of bottles of whisky when you get the time. The ice machine should be full. Just leave the keys with Wilks."

"Ok, Nick, good hunting."

"Thanks Jesse, catch you later."

An hour later we had assembled at the front gate. I had the drivers and commanders of the various vehicles hunkered down in the dirt road around me as I went over our route. The convoy would proceed as a group to Jasper, then the tank and the Zeus would unload. The command APC and the tank would take a county road which circled in behind the target ridge while the Russian vehicles would hold in place for thirty minutes, then head south on the main highway until they reached the hide position of the imaginary Russian tank. I placed a Russian APC at the head of the convoy, followed by the Zeus transport, the tank transport, the humvee with the tank crew, the other Russian APC, and finally the command APC. We would maintain radio silence until we were engaged by enemy forces. Tactical frequency was to be 4600.

The mechanics, Maggie, and the helicopter pilot had remained hidden inside the Russian APC's along with three men from the stinger squad throughout the briefing, Porter had no idea they were there. Maggie had insisted on being allowed to go so she could take over the Zeus if she were needed. I didn't like it but was forced to concede her logic. Amy was going to throw a fit when she found out. Back at the camp Deacon was assembling a group of riflemen to follow thirty minutes behind the convoy in one of the troop trucks. They would be on standby in Jasper in case things got out of hand.

I wished everybody good luck and the convoy began to move out. As the lead vehicles drove away Ray emerged from the brush and I handed him my stetson and leather jacket. He climbed into the command APC and they drove away as the ramp raised. I waited for the dust to settle and started walking towards the airfield.

I was circling at low speed in devils gorge two hours later monitoring 5100 when Ray's call came in. "You're on boss, I can hear his engines spinning up over the ridge."

"Got it Ray, get the hell out of the APC and into the woods. Be there in a minute and a half." I switched back to 4600 and clicked the mike twice, signalling the stinger team to get ready. I got a single click in reply.

I shoved the throttles full forward and finished my turn as I accelerated. Pulling back on the stick I lined up on my preselected nav point, climbing out of the gorge on a compass heading which placed the field directly in front of me. I topped the ridge at 450 knots, then throttled back as I lowerd the nose. I toggled the safety switch off on the gun, then lowered my flaps ten degrees as my speed bled off. I let the aircraft sink following the backslope of the mountain as the clearing came into view ahead, still a mile away. As I drew closer I caught sight of the Hind, just starting to lift off the ground. Correcting my flight path slightly I centered the gunsight on the chopper and raised the flaps, increasing throttle a little. As I came into range of the Hind I suddenly saw that a second one was passing underneath me, having been hidden by the near treeline. I ignored him and opened fire on the one I had targeted, holding my sights just behind his tail rotor. Dirt and rocks geysered fifty yards short of the helicopter and I walked the fire into him with gentle movements of the stick. He began to spin sideways and I let off the trigger, shoving my throttles full forward and pulling the A-10 level just above the treetops. I extended out a mile and a half gaining speed then rolled up on the right wing and pulled into a hard turn back towards the ridge, toggling my weapons selector over to the right outboard missile station. A warbling tone came through the headset as the heat seeker searched for a target, and the heads up display shifted reticles. I looked up through the canopy, searching for the second Hind as I came around and leveled my wings in a shallow climb. I spotted him diving in towards the command APC just as he took a stinger in his right engine. The angle of his dive steepend and he augered into the trees between the ridges, exploding on impact. I switched back to my cannon.

The crew of the first Hind was out of the chopper and running for the trees as I came in with the nose down. They dissapeared in a cloud of dust as I triggered the gun, sweeping first them and then the treeline with my fire. I pulled out and climbed for altitude, in a slow turn, the Convoy on the highway passing beneath me. I could see a group of men standing around one who was face down in the ditch. I keyed my mike and said, "Well yall gonna stand around there all day or are you gonna fix my helicopter?" The men in the ditch started walking back to the APC's, but the one lying on his stomach remained where he was.

I settled into a holding pattern at two thousand feet, keeping an eye on the horizon and the road as the APC's and the Zeus moved off down the highway, then turned up a logging road which led to the field. Fifteen minutes later my helicopter pilot came over the radio. "She's not too shot up, the mechanics say about an hour and a half to get it operational."

"They have everything they need then?"

"10-4, just got to change out the tail rotor and a few hoses. The armor stopped most of the slugs, only a few got through."

"That's great, but make sure you check the main rotors good, I don't want you getting killed trying to get the thing back to base. If it isn't airworthy we leave it here till we get the parts to fix it."

"Roger that, out."

The M-1 tank and the Command APC were just arriving at the field, having broken a trail through the woods down to the highway then following the route of the convoy to the crippled helicopter.

I switched frequencies and called the airfield tower. "Tiger 2 to flight control, over."

"Copy Tiger 2, go ahead, over"

"I'm going to be escorting a captured Hind into my base up the river valley in a couple of hours. Could you relay the message to your SAM sites and pilots not to engage, over."

A pause, then "Copy that Tiger 2, do not engage Hind." I could hear laughter in the background.

"I'll let you know when we head that way. Out."

"Roger Tiger 2, out."