Targets of Opportunity (1993) (33 page)

Palmer attempted to slow his breathing rate as he turned to the inbound heading after counting forty-five seconds.

"Buckboard," Spencer said hastily, "turn inbound!"

"I have," Nick responded while he concentrated on holding a heading of 300 degrees.

"Tell him to turn on his landing light," Brad yelled as he walked toward the runway.

Palmer swore to himself when Spencer relayed the terse message. He flipped the light on and gradually reduced power to slow the fighter.

Brad said another silent prayer while he strained to see the landing light. Soaked to the skin by the deluge of rain, Brad rejoiced when he saw the dull glow of the bright light.

"Turn slightly to the right!" he said excitedly to Allison, then froze when the light disappeared. "Pull up! Pull up!"

She yelled at Spencer.

Nick saw the hill a second before Spencer's frantic call. He snapped the stick back and shoved the throttle forward as the MiG skimmed the top of the small ridge.

Brad saw the light reappear when the MiG passed over the crest of the hill. He shouted to Allison.

"Get off the power!" Spencer relayed for Brad. "Slip it!"

Palmer felt as if he had been hit in the chest by a giant sledgehammer. He yanked the throttle to idle and extended the speed brakes. He saw the end of the runway rushing up from his right.

Nick cross-controlled the aircraft, dropping the right wing and raising the nose to sideslip the jet. The fighter sliced toward the runway at an alarming rate of descent.

"Flare, goddamnit," Brad said under his breath as Allison ran toward him.

Palmer waited till the last second to level the wings, then smashed onto the narrow runway. The MiG hydroplaned on the wet macadam and went off the right side of the airstrip.

Spencer rushed outside as Nick fought to regain control of the careening MiG.

"Oh, shit," Brad swore, grabbing Allison's arm and pulling her toward the other side of the runway.

After a half-dozen steps, Austin abruptly stopped when he saw the MiG slew around and head toward the runway.

"Run!" Brad shouted as he tugged Allison toward the Quonset hut. Reaching the entrance, the trio watched Nick hurtle past and slide the distance of the grass overrun. The MiG stopped with the nosewheel in the stream.

After Palmer shut down the engine, a sudden quiet settled over the airstrip.

"Well," Brad sighed with a nervous laugh, "it wasn't pretty, but at least he's on the ground in one piece."

While Austin and Spencer talked the helicopter pilots down, Allison and Hank Murray and his men raced through the rain to the side of the MiG.

Palmer had slid the canopy open and was crawling out of the cockpit when Allison ran around the end of the wing.

"Nick, are you--" She stopped in midsentence when he slipped off the fuselage and tumbled into the stream.

Palmer sat up in the shallow water and looked at Allison. "A perfect ending," he tilted his face into the rain, "to a perfect flight."

Allison, accompanied by Murray and his technicians, belly-laughed in relief.

After showering and changing into his custom-tailored flight suit, Nick Palmer joined Brad under the small roof over the entrance to the Quonset hut. A steady drizzle persisted after the rainstorm that had followed Palmer's haphazard landing.

Nick turned to Brad. "Thanks for saving my bacon."

"We were lucky this time," Austin admitted while he glanced at the low overcast. "We--the two of us--are going to make the final decision about weather from now on."

"I agree," Nick said, "or one of us is going to bust his ass trying to salvage a homemade approach."

They watched Hank Murray direct his men, along with twenty security personnel, in an effort to extract the MiG from the muddy stream. The ends of a thick rope had been tied to the struts of each main landing gear. Murray centered the rope at the tow tractor, flipped a knot in the line, and attached the cord to the tug.

The driver backed away from the fighter's tail pipe until he. had a solid strain on the line. When Murray gave the signal, the tug driver floored the throttle while two dozen men pushed on the leading edge of the wings.

The rain-soaked men heaved and grunted while the tow vehicle spun its tires in the grass and mud. Slowly but steadily, the MiG's nosewheel emerged from the stream. After the aircraft was twenty yards from the edge of the water, Murray halted the tug driver. After removing the rope from the two struts, Murray directed the driver to attach his tow bar to the nosewheel.

The exhausted working detail trudged back to their posts while the MiG was towed to the shelter.

Brad and Nick entered the Quonset but and joined Cap Spencer, Allison, and the helicopter pilots at the cluttered briefing table.

"Nice GCA," Chase Mitchell said, referring to a radar-guided ground-controlled approach. By sound alone, Austin had directed the pilots through an instrument descent to an uneventful landing.

"Thanks," Brad replied while he sat down.

Palmer recounted the mission in detail up to the point where he attacked the two MiGs. His face did not reveal the mixed emotions he felt. He was pleased that he had downed another fighter, but disappointed that the MiG ruse had been discovered by the enemy.

"Cap," Palmer lightly drummed his fingers on the table, "they're onto us--the MiG drivers."

All eyes looked at Palmer, then shifted to Spencer. The project officer's irritation was evident.

"How did that happen?"

Nick replayed the event in his mind. "I had two MiGs--in formation--directly in front of me, and I thought I could get both of them."

Spencer tugged on his eye patch. "Go on."

"I got the wingman," Palmer declared in a low, even voice, "but the flight leader saw what happened."

A long silence hung in the air.

"He engaged me while I was trying to finish off his wingman." Nick stopped drumming and shrugged. "When I went one-on-one with the leader, my cannons jammed. I was damn lucky to get away, and there's no doubt the gomer is blowing the whistle as we speak."

Spencer studied Palmer for a brief moment. "If we receive permission to implement Austin's suggestion--strafing the airfields--we'l
l b
e okay, as far as the Agency is concerned. If we don't get the goahead, you've done the best you could . . . and you got another MiG."

Before Palmer could answer, Hank Murray stepped through the door. His wet utilities were plastered to his overweight body.

Cap Spencer glanced at him. "How's the MiG?"

"I'm afraid it's going to be down for a few days." He slid a chair out and sank into it. "We've found the problem with the cannons, but we're going to have to repair or replace the attach points for the nose-gear strut.

Murray turned his attention to Palmer. "Lieutenant, you're lucky to be here.
"

Appearing to be unfazed by the remark, Nick remained quiet. He was not about to ask why.

"We've got five holes to patch," Murray continued, "and one of them is less than two inches above a fuel line."

Palmer shifted uncomfortably in his chair, but kept his poise and remained silent.

Spencer evaluated the situation, knowing that if Langley approved the plan to strike the airfields, he wanted to move swiftly. "Do you have the necessary equipment to repair the nose gear?"

"No," Murray answered glumly. "We can jury-rig it, but a hard landing would collapse the strut and damage the cannons . . . beyond what we could repair here. I need to send the strut to Vientiane so a brace can be fabricated. In the meantime, we can patch the MiG and do some preventive maintenance."

Spencer rose and walked to the front entrance. He looked at the rain and low overcast for a moment before turning to Murray. "I'll contact Vientiane and have an aircraft standing by," he fumed impatiently. "As soon as this goddamn weather clears, we'll get a one-twenty-three in here." Spencer had already decided to request that a C-123 Provider be stationed at Alpha-29.

Rudy Jimenez could not resist the opportunity. "Cap, since the MiG is going to be down, how about if we--"

Spencer interrupted him with an understanding smile and a wave of his hand. "All of you, including Allison, could use some time of Just be damn sure that you're ready to leave Vientiane the minute the strut is fixed.

No one tried to conceal their excitement.

Chapter
THIRTY-ONE

CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

Dennis Tipton hurried toward the office of the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Tipton, recently promoted to the position of director for operations, sometimes called the "Department of Dirty Tricks," was a highly respected intelligence analyst who had a reputation for gleaning critical information from the most unlikely sources.

He had the responsibility for overseeing the Agency's various clandestine operations, such as counterintelligence, recruitment of defectors, political intervention, espionage missions, and covert actions like Operation Achilles. He was the primary link to the Agency's wide array of field officers.

Conservative by nature, Dennis Tipton was dressed in a dark-gray suit and plain black shoes. Of average stature, he wore bow ties and wire-rimmed bifocals. The thick lenses made his sensitive blue eyes look out of proportion to his gaunt face. An avid tennis player, Tipton maintained a trim physique for a man in his late forties. His graying hair and receding hairline were the only obvious clues to his age.

The son of a wealthy attorney from Topeka, Kansas, Tipton had attended Culver Military Academy, and later graduated from Harvard. After serving a stint as an intelligence officer in the army, Tipton was hooked by the intrigue of research and analysis in the intelligence community.

Upon leaving the army, he applied to the CIA and was accepted as an apprentice analyst. Tipton quickly distinguished himself by displaying an uncanny ability to dissect a plethora of seemingly unrelated data and draw accurate conclusions. His rise through the ranks in the CIA had been a textbook case of how to balance an eccentric personality with patient diplomacy. Dennis Tipton was one of the few people who had worked in both the analysis and operations sides of the Agency.

When Tipton reached the office suite of Drexel McCormick, he had time for only a glance at the Potomac River before McCormick's secretary announced his arrival and ushered Tipton into the spacious office.

The deputy director of the CIA motioned for Tipton to have a seat while he concluded his telephone conversation.

Drexel McCormick was a tough-talking, back-room politician who had bulldozed his way to his present position. Short and pugnacious, the bald-headed McCormick was fiercely competitive and hated losing. Raised by his no-nonsense Irish grandmother, McCormick had been a barroom brawler who had come up the hard way.

"Morning," Drex McCormick said gruffly as he dropped the telephone receiver into its cradle.

"Good morning," Tipton replied, carefully charting his course. The deputy director was not in a pleasant mood this morning, Tipton thought, but then again, he never was in the best of spirits at this early hour.

McCormick stabbed at his intercom button. "Betty, hold all my calls, unless The Man calls." McCormick always referred to the director of the CIA as The Man.

"Yes, sir," the faint voice immediately responded.

McCormick leaned back from his oversize walnut desk. "Dennis, we've got a hell of a storm brewing on the horizon."

Tipton had not had time for his morning brief by the watch officer. "The Achilles Operation?"

"That's right," McCormick answered, shoving a pile of paperwork and messages aside. "The North Vietnamese, through their Information Ministry, have lodged a complaint to the international press, charging the U
. S
. with breaching the rules of engagement to gain an unfair advantage in the air war."

He saw the pained expression on Tipton's face. "They haven't actually accused us of using a MiG yet," he squinted, testing the resilience of the politically adept director, "but you can wager your last goddam n n ickel that they're going to try to knock our MiG down . . . and make us look like fools."

McCormick spun his chair around and grabbed his coffee urn. "The word from the White House is that we better not have another U-2 incident," he said brusquely while he filled his mug, "and cause a political embarrassment. "

The American reconnaissance plane that was shot down deep inside the Soviet Union in May 1960 had been the catalyst for Nikita Khrushchev to cancel a joint summit conference with the United States, Great Britain, and France. The CIA received a major blow when the downed pilot admitted that he was flying for the Agency.

"I understand," Tipton replied with no show of emotion. He felt a sense of foreboding settle over him as his mind raced to sort through the consequences if the MiG fell into enemy hands.

"You," McCormick let the word hang in the air, "are charged with the responsibility to ensure that Cap Spencer keeps the lid on this operation . . . at all costs."