Guidelines (Vietnam Ground Zero Military Thrillers Book 8)

  GUIDELINES

  Vietnam: Ground Zero Series

  Book Eight

  Eric Helm

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  ALSO BY ERIC HELM

  GLOSSARY

  “WHAT SCARES YOU ABOUT NORTH VIETNAM?” GERBER WHISPERED.

  “It truly is my home,” Kit answered. “If we are caught, I will be shot as a spy, but not before I am tortured. They have some people who enjoy that work…”

  “Kit, if any of us are caught, we’re going to be shot as spies.”

  “Please, do not let them catch me.” Her voice was insistent, with a note of terror.

  “I can’t—”

  “You can,” she interrupted. “You can make sure that I am not captured. Please, Captain. As a friend you cannot deny me this one request.”

  Gerber sat back, forcing himself into the corner between the side of the truck and the cab. With his free hand he wiped the sweat from his face. He needed a breath of fresh air. He felt hot and his stomach was fluttering because he knew what Kit was asking of him.

  If they got into a situation where they might be captured, she wanted him to kill her.

  PROLOGUE

  OVER THE GULF OF TONKIN

  The darkened coast of North Vietnam, painted in a glowing green line on the F-4 Phantom fighter-bomber’s radarscope, was still almost a hundred miles distant. Captain David Bidwell, a lean young man, kept his face pressed close to the blackout hood, his eyes glued to the screen with its sweeping green arm, studying the coastline, searching for the point where they were supposed to cross it. A necessary task for their rendezvous with the Wild Weasel escort.

  The pilot, Captain Richard Wornell, a shorter, stockier man than his WSO, began a long slow descent that would bring them closer to the ground. He kept his gaze outside of the cockpit, looking down at the silvery wisps of the cloud deck, which was lighted by the nearly full moon above them. Over his shoulder, the stars blazed like thousands of pin-sized spotlights in the night sky. To his right was the dark shape of another aircraft.

  Without a word to either his backseater or his wingman, he began a gradual turn, following the VDI, which had slipped slightly to the left. As the wingman pulled away, they entered the overcast. Wornell now could see nothing other than the blackness around him, broken by flashes of gray from the cloud cover and the dull glow of the red and green navigation lights of the other aircraft.

  Bidwell knew exactly where they were. The radar mapped the coast with unerring accuracy. He sat straight up for a moment, his eyes now on the other instruments as he arched his back to relax the muscles. Then he pressed his face to the hood as the coast of North Vietnam slipped under their aircraft. Bidwell told Wornell that they were no longer feet wet.

  They broke out of the clouds and continued their descent until they were close to the deck. Wornell squeezed the control yoke until his hand ached, but he couldn’t relax. He was nervous, flying at nearly five hundred knots, at night, so close to the ground.

  To the right he saw a stream of tracers streaking upward, looking like a string of glowing green baseballs. Moments later a second string was fired, but neither burst was near him nor his wingman. Probably just a North Vietnamese farmer shooting at the roar of the jet engines with his militia-issued AK-47.

  They raced on, climbing to avoid hills, then dropping back into the valleys. Wornell, moving his head as if on a swivel, ignored his instruments now because he was much too close to the ground. Their response was too slow at this altitude, and he didn’t have the time to glance at them, and instead tried to concentrate on the roar of his own twin turbines, waiting for a change in the pitch that would warn him of impending disaster.

  There was a buzz in Wornell’s headset and the sky around him burst into flame as a 57mm antiaircraft gun opened fire. Wornell ignored the flashes, tightening his grip on the yoke. His wingman, for a moment nothing more than a shadow in the distance, moved nearer and then fell away.

  “Got a SAM low light,” said Bidwell.

  “Weasel Lead, this is Baron Lead,” radioed Wornell. “We have a SAM warning.”

  “Baron, this is Weasel Lead. We have a radar lock. Going in,” came the reply.

  “Radar’s off,” said Bidwell.

  Wornell grinned at that. If the North Vietnamese operators didn’t keep the acquisition and tracking radars on, they couldn’t fire the missiles. And if they did fire, the missiles would be ineffective as they blindly climbed into the dark. They needed the radar guidance.

  “More Triple A,” said Bidwell.

  Wornell glanced to the right. It was as if the ground was carpeted with strobes. The muzzle flashes of the weapons sparkled, sending up fountains of green tracers. The sky was alive with them, swarming upward, trying to knock down the American aircraft.

  “Got visual on a SAM Two site,” said Bidwell.

  Wornell saw the missile site, a rosebud pattern on the ground, the black ribbons of road leading to the missile launch areas. There were revetments of dirt around each missile, making it difficult for bombers to take out all six positions at once. Hidden away were the radar vans, the maintenance trucks and repair vehicles and the command post.

  The site was dark and Wornell saw no one on it as they flew by. The radar vans and command posts that were usually targets of the Wild Weasels, were somewhere else, separated from the actual launch complex by as much as a klick.

  As they crossed the complex, Wornell relaxed slightly. There were still no warning lights on his panel. The missile radars, the Spoon Rest and the Fan Song, which were needed to acquire the target and guide the missiles, had been shut down. The Weasels had done their jobs.

  Then out of the corner of his eye Wornell saw a flash as rocket motors ignited. Before he could react, the missile was off the ground. Helplessly he watched the streak of yellow-white flame homing on the tail of his wingman. An explosion at the rear of the Phantom seemed to lift it up and flip it over. A ball of red-orange flame burst around the aircraft, enveloping it completely. Then there was a secondary explosion followed by a shower of flaming debris raining onto the rice paddies of North Vietnam.

  “Jesus H. Christ on a crutch,” said Bidwell. “What in the fuck hit him?”

  “Missile,” said Wornell. The single word nearly stuck in his throat.

  “There were no warning lights.”

  Wornell keyed the mike for the radio. “We’re taking missile fire down here.”

  “Roger,” came the reply from Weasel Lead. “We have no warning lights.”

  “Baron Two is down to missile fire,” said Wornell. There was no emotion in his voice. He was merely reporting a fact to the Weasel Lead.

  “There’s one coming at us,” yelled Bidwell.

  “Hit the chaff,” ordered Wornell as he rolled the jet to the left, diving toward the ground. An instant later he hauled back on the yoke, beginning a spiraling climb that rocked both men, slamming them against the restraining straps of their shoulder harnesses.

  “Chaff’s no good,” said Bidwell.

  Wornell rolled the aircraft to the left and then back to the right, finally diving toward the ground again, pulling up at the last moment as the engines screamed and the aircraft shuddered, fighting the stress. As he broke to the left the missile slammed harmlessly into a rice paddy.

  “Another one!” said Bidwell. “Where the fuck are they coming from?”

  Wornell had no chance to answer. He began a steep climb, rolled the aircraft over into a power dive, twisting back and forth. He couldn’t check to see the missile’s progress. All he could do was flip from one maneuver to another in an attempt to evade the missile, using its greater speed, which produced a wider turning radius, against it.

  As he leveled out, he was smashed forward, as if someone had struck the back of his seat with a sledgehammer. He could feel pain in his shoulders and a curtain of black descended until his vision was like looking down a long, dark tunnel. Around him he was aware of buzzers and bells and the cockpit seemed to be filled with smoke. There was a whining, two-tone warning buzzer demanding attention.

  For a moment he couldn’t figure out what had happened. The aircraft was buffeting, bouncing around like a speeding car on a rutted road. Glancing out, he noticed that the wings were riddled by shrapnel and trailing a thin plume of smoke.

  Wornell tried to initiate a climb. The nose of the aircraft came up, but the shuddering became worse as the jet threatened to tear itself apart. Before Wornell could order the bailout, the canopy was ripped away and the cockpit was filled with the roar of the wind.

  Seconds later Wornell ejected, his arms wrapped about his head to protect it. The wall of wind hit him like a brick through a plate-glass window and forced his arms against his helmet. Clear of the burning aircraft, he opened his eyes as the jet began a long, shallow descent into the rice paddies below. A spectacular yellow-orange explosion lit up the night sky as the plane struck the ground, destroying itself in a roiling cloud of black smoke.

  The parachut
e popped, jerking at Wornell. Not far away, the backseater was hanging from his own canopy, drifting down into the night, sliding away from Wornell until he lost sight of the man in the darkness. A single stream of tracers reached out of the dark, arcing toward him, but didn’t come close. He couldn’t hear the sound of the firing or see the muzzle flashes of the weapon.

  Wornell landed with a splash in a foul-smelling rice paddy. He rolled to his right and hit the quick release, dropping his chute away from him. Wet from head to foot, he scrambled to his feet, then rubbed a hand over his face, trying to wipe the excrement-laden water from his eyes. After his vision returned to normal, he reached to his right and drew the .38-caliber revolver from the holster sewn into his survival vest. Slowly he turned three hundred and sixty degrees to survey his surroundings.

  The world around him was so quiet that he wondered if he had lost his hearing during the bailout. After a moment or two he became aware of the distant pop of Triple A as the tracers danced skyward. Myriad streams crisscrossed each other like a cheap fireworks display.

  Knee deep in the clammy paddy, and with water dripping from the barrel of his weapon, he gazed at the flash and pop of flack as the enemy gunners tried to down more of the American planes. The breath was rasping in his throat, as if he had run a long distance, and he found that he was suddenly quite thirsty. His desire for water nearly overwhelmed him.

  Out loud, he said, “It’s not fair. We didn’t get a launch warning. They can’t do that.”

  CHAPTER 1

  UBON AIR FORCE BASE, THAILAND

  The special meeting had been called for thirteen hundred hours on Thursday, the twenty-fourth. Jerry Maxwell, dressed in a rumpled white suit, stood in the hot tropical sun, sweating heavily. Maxwell was a short man who had lost weight during his tour in Vietnam so that he looked gaunt. His black hair was sweat damp and plastered against his forehead. Dark circles under his light-colored eyes contrasted sharply with his permanently sunburned skin, and the fact that he needed a shave all helped to give him the appearance of a starving clown. He watched the F-4 Phantoms taxiing toward the runways in front of him. The sleek aircraft were camouflage painted and carrying heavy bomb payloads, taking off for missions against suspected enemy positions in South Vietnam, Cambodia and southern Laos.

  Maxwell turned, squinted at the palm tree near the door to Operations, and then stepped back into the shade. He drew a handkerchief from his hip pocket and mopped his face, leaving a light brown stain on the cloth. A Jeep with three passengers pulled into the parking space in front of the Operations hangar. Two of the vehicle’s occupants were dressed in crisp, starched jungle fatigues topped off by soft baseball caps, and carried M-16s. The other was bareheaded and wore a lightweight, light blue suit, looking as if he couldn’t wait to get inside where there was some air-conditioning.

  As they hopped out of the vehicle, the man in the suit approached Maxwell and said, “Come on, Jerry. No need to stand around out here sweating.”

  “Yes, sir.” The group moved toward the door and entered the building, running smack into a wall of cold air.

  They made their way down a narrow corridor, which was paneled in dark wood about halfway up and then painted a light blue to the ceiling. The floor was waxed concrete, and an unbroken line of fluorescent lights ran along the middle of the ceiling. They took the first stairwell they came to and climbed to the second floor. Not far away was a doorway leading to a conference room.

  It was typical of the conference rooms on any American military base. In the center of the room sat a large table. On it was a water pitcher beaded with moisture and surrounded by six glasses. There were a dozen metal chairs around the table, with a high-backed leather one at its head. A bank of windows, partially hidden behind Venetian blinds, looked out onto the airfield. On the other three walls were watercolors of jets in revetments, taking off, dropping bombs, shooting down MiGs, and limping home.

  Maxwell slipped into one of the chairs and shivered as the cold air dried the sweat on his body. He reached for one of the glasses, decided that he didn’t really want a drink, and rocked back, waiting. Within minutes they were joined by four more military officers and two civilians.

  One of the officers was an Air Force brigadier general. He wore tailored jungle fatigues with embroidered stars on the collar and command pilot wings above the left breast. He moved toward the leather chair at the head of the table, but instead of sitting, he stood behind it, and placed his hands on the back rest as he surveyed the men around him.

  “Gentlemen,” he began. “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m General Thomas Christie and I’ll be chairing this meeting. Our recommendations will be forwarded through the chain of command to both the Pentagon and General Westmoreland. With me are Colonel Edward Kent, Majors Andrew Dillon, Roger Quinn and the Wild Weasel flight leader, Terry McMance. Next to him is Captain Charles Fallon.”

  Christie then sat down and looked at the civilians. “Mr. Cornett, would you be so kind as to introduce your people?”

  Cornett, a short, stocky man sporting a beard that was inconsistent with the clean-shaven ravings of most of the power structure nodded and said, “Certainly, General. To my right are Tim Underwood, Paul Harris and Jerry Maxwell.”

  “Thank you,” said Christie. He picked up a black folder with the Air Force crest embossed on the cover and opened it. “I have a simple agenda for the meeting and would like to stick to it as closely as possible. If anyone has any objections, we’ll discuss those in a few moments.”

  He glanced at the men around him and said, “All right. First we’ll get a report from Major McMance concerning his observations over North Vietnam two nights ago. Captain Fallon will supplement that description with his own observations. Colonel Kent will discuss the recent developments of the Soviet SAM force.”

  Cornett interrupted at that point. “Mr. Underwood has made a recent study of the Soviet SAM threat and might have some insights along those lines. That includes developments of new missile systems that are not deployed outside the Soviet Union. We do have some photographic intelligence available to us.”

  “Good,” said Christie. “Finally, Major Quinn and Major Dillon will discuss the possible tactics we can use to counter this new threat.” He looked up from his notes. “That about cover it?”

  There was a murmur of agreement and then silence. Christie smiled, “From this point, 1 think everything we say will be classified as secret. I don’t want any of it discussed outside of this room.”

  When no one said anything, Christie nodded. “Okay, Major McMance, you want to lead off?”

  “Yes, sir.” McMance stood and moved so that he was near the head of the table. McMance was a tall, thin man with black hair and bushy eyebrows. His face was tanned a deep brown and with his brown eyes, he looked Latin.

  “Is everyone familiar with the Wild Weasel concept?” He glanced from man to man and saw a couple of them shaking their heads.

  “The short course, then,” he said, grinning. “The idea is simple enough. The North Vietnamese, using equipment supplied by the Soviets, are shooting at our bombing forces. Almost all the acquisition and guidance is radar controlled, whether for the SAMs or the Triple A. The Wild Weasels detect the radar signals and, using Shrike missiles that ride the radar beams back to their sources, attack the radar vans and the co-located command vehicles. Knocking out the radar effectively blinds the antiaircraft capability whether it is missile or ZSU-23, S-60 or 57mm.”

  “But the missiles themselves are not damaged?” queried Underwood.

  “No, sir. The command vehicles and radar vans are normally a couple of klicks from the missile or Triple A site.”

  “Then the missiles can still be fired,” said Underwood.

  “Yes, sir. The Triple A also has the capability to be fired through optical sights, but it becomes very ineffective that way. Most of the missiles won’t be fired because of the lack of tracking radar.”

  “What if they simply turn off the radar while you’re overhead?” The puzzled look that Underwood wore began to disappear.

  “That’s the beauty of the system,” replied McMance, smiling. “If the radar set is off, they can’t detect and track our planes. If they turn it on, we attack it. Either way, we’ve won.”