Grailson tootled a child"s tin horn while Higgens blew arpeggios on a black Bakelite duck call.

"Gentlemen," Grailson announced, "yon chariot awaits your most exalted and honored presence." Both men were dressed in their black party suits.

Party suits had become a widespread tradition in the Vietnam War. It was the perfect marriage between inventive fighter pilots and the plethora of starving tailors in South Vietnam and Thailand. Cut in the pattern of the K-213 flight suit of the material and color of the crewman"s choice, each party suit displayed highly creative patches, emblems, labels, badges, insignia, graffiti, and other memorabilia of the wearer. Each squadron had a color and design unique unto itself.

Party suits of the Phantom FACs were an unimaginative black with highly imaginative white codpieces. The overall effect was startling.

The codpieces were held in place by Velcro and could be removed if the occasion demanded. Phantom FAC Captain Tom Partin had thought of the exotic costurnal addition and had immediately been given the sobriquet Cod Piece Partin.

The men trooped out the door behind Grailson and Higgens.

As they approached the open-sided bus, Grailson held up a hand. "Trooops ... halt. We have for you a special surprise."

From a concealed spot on top of the bus, a barefoot figure clad in a black flight suit but wearing the full black mask of a Ninja leaped to the ground and started twirling and slicing a huge Samurai sword in ever-decreasing arcs and circles around the astounded helicopter crewmen while uttering wild "yahs" and "hahs." The Ninja singled out Dominguez and quickly cut him from the crowd, then did the same with Joe Kelly, who by now knew who was wearing the funny clothes and waving a fake sword.

"Hah, yourself, you Ninja nincomp.o.o.p," Joe Kelly said and leaped out to do battle, waving a wooden pencil he plucked from his pocket. The sword whistled through the air, coming ever closer to fearless Joe Kelly, who blithely waved his pencil sword, then moved in for the kill. With a blinding slash the Ninja neatly severed the pencil exactly two inches from Kelly"s outstretched fingers.

"Jesus Christ," the shaken Kelly said as he leapt back two feet in a blinding move of his own that some thought even faster than the flashing sword.

"Tanaka, you j.a.p b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Manuel Dominguez said and leapt to hug the Ninja, who had stopped his war dance and was stuffing the giant sword in its ornate curved scabbard.

The startled Ninja stepped backwards and tripped over the long scabbard, tumbling the two men to the ground.

"Revenge, Tanaka, you j.a.p b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Kelly shrieked and grabbed and shook a beer and sprayed it full into the eyes of the man wearing the Ninja mask.

"I say, did someone call me?" Captain Kenichi Tanaka said in an affected English accent from behind Kelly"s back.

"What the h.e.l.l?" Kelly said. He swooped and pulled the mask from the Ninja"s head and stared into the eyes of a man he had never seen before.

"I say, you ruffians," Tanaka said, "what are you doing spraying beer all over my dear friend and fellow Phantom FAC, Mike Steffes, who just this evening learned how to handle my authentic Samurai sword?"

"Just this evening?" Kelly gulped.

"s.h.i.t," Dominguez said and rolled over and pulled Tanaka"s legs out from under him and tried to stuff dirt in his ears.

Kelly thought that a splendid idea after being so badly abused, and he helped the dirt on its journey with beer spray.

When it was all over the three men, soaked in beer and panting, stood up and linked arms in a huddle and yelled out their RED-TAGGED b.a.s.t.a.r.d calls to the cheers and applause of those watching.

When they calmed down, the men took their places on the baht bus, which had open sides and seats facing forward. The Phantom FACs handed each man a cold Budweiser from a garbage can full of ice and beer. When Wolf Lochert turned down the offer, Donny Higgens blew a startled quack, followed by ripples of duck laughter. Wolf glared at him and took a pull at his Coca-Cola.

Grailson took the wheel (the Thai driver sat behind him, a five-dollar bill clutched in one hand and a cold beer in the other) and steered the bus down to the flight line for a tour of the fighter squadrons. Once on the ramp, one Phantom FAC cranked up a hand siren while at the back of the bus two others popped red smoke flares. All the air-crew from the squadrons came out to applaud and whistle as the bus drove slowly by.

The sun was at the horizon as the bus pulled up to the patio behind the Officer"s Club. The patio, the size of a tennis court, was a slab of concrete covered by a wooden roof attached to the main club roof and supported by wooden pillars. It was open on all sides except where it was connected to the Officer"s Club, where a door opened onto the patio.

The fresh evening breeze began to cool the sweat-drenched men as they stepped down from the bus, unloaded the garbage can full of beer, and with exaggerated pig snorts fell upon the linen-covered table crowded with Thai hors d"oeuvres arranged by the Club Officer, Major d.i.c.k "The Chef" Hostcttler. Grailson and Higgens played an unintelligible duet on their musical instruments, the tin horn and the duck call. Doc Russell beamed his beatific Baby Huey smile and nodded around at all present.

He held his whiskey in an IV bottle and turned the tap when he needed more. Joe Kelly, Manuel Dominguez, and Dan Bernick were surrounded by admiring Phantom FACs who were trying to teach them the words to "Brown, Brown."

Wolf Lochert let a quarter-smile play across the right-hand corner of his mouth. He looked at the codpieces and the bizarre flight suits, heard the cacophony, and rasped to Court Bannister and Tom Partin, "Good to see troops enjoy themselves, but you flyboys are sorta strange." It didn"t occur to Wolf that the SF habit of sticking a wet thumb in a buddy"s ear as a form of greeting was anything remotely considered bizarre. The two pilots laughed as they walked over to where d.i.c.k Hostetder was doing something to a large meaty object on a spit rotated by a small Thai waiter. The spit was braced over glowing charcoal in a fifty-five-gallon drum cut in half down its length.

"Suckling pig," Hostettler said by way of explanation. "All 112 pounds of it." He dipped a paintbrush into a #10 can and basted the pig as it twirled slowly.

Wolf took a sniff of the can and the pig. "Not bad. Garlic, pepper, oil, vinegar ... and something else."

"Rosemary and some fine-ground chili pepper," Hostettler said.

"I should have known," Court Bannister said.

d.i.c.k "The Chef" Hostettler was well known throughout the SEA fighter pilot community as the Chili-Fart Briefer. The t.i.tle came from Hostettler"s deep-seated belief that hot chili made the world go around, and that the briefings he gave pilots before their missions needed to be humorous as well as point-making.

He started each day downing a giant bowl of hot chili. At the daily intelligence briefing for the combat crews, when he came to the part where he had to point out where the enemy guns were, he used farts of varying intensity to signify the caliber of the guns, starting with the light 12.7mm all the way up through 37s, 57s, 85s, and the gigantic 100mm. SAMs (Surface to Air Missiles) and enemy MiG fighters were ripsnorters; that caused stage curtains to ripple.

Hostettler hummed as he basted the pig. Its hooves had been cut off, the hair removed, an apple added to its mouth. The small Thai slowly turning the handle had been on duty for the last six Hours. It was succulent pork at its best.

"That"s a lot of pig," Hostettler said proudly to Court. "But it"s not the pi&e de nsistance," he added, a sly look on his face.

"What do you mean?"

"Never you mind, you"ll see soon enough."

"Not even a hint?" Partin asked.

"It"s a grand tribute to the Jolly Greens is all I"ll say." He squinted at the sky. "Pretty soon now," he said in a conspiratorial tone, "before it gets too dark." He slapped the brush with an extra flourish.

Kelly, Tanaka, and Dominguez stood off to one side, getting reacquainted. Each vowed they wouldn"t let so much time go by.

"Say, Ken," Kelly asked. "How the h.e.l.l did you know Steffes wouldn"t slice our ears off?"

"I didn"t. He just got that idea all by himself. Saw too many chop-socky movies, I guess."

"Why didn"t you stop him?" Dominguez asked.

Tanaka took a sip of beer and burped politely. "The wise bird does not fly midst the petunia bush."

"There"s no such thing as a petunia bush," Kelly said.

"Told you it was a wise bird, you dumb s.h.i.t."

"Well, what are you doing here?" Kelly said. "Last I heard you were an IP at George and had a lodge up in ski country."

"All true," Tanaka said. "I"m here on a six-month TDY to pa.s.s on some of what we have and to learn what"s new here. Particularly this night-flying stuff. We"re not teaching much of that. Got to find out how the troops in the field do it, don"t you know?" The three Red-Tagged b.a.s.t.a.r.ds drank more beer and got caught up on what each had been doing.

Music from the jukebox in by the bar was piped out to the patio. The loud tw.a.n.g of the Doors well into "Light My Fire" flowed and surrounded the pilots. Hostettler checked his watch.

It was 1925. "Act One," he said.

Eight giggling Thai girls came running out onto the patio from the club, trailing hundreds of green balloons on strings that floated and bobbed behind them like daisies rocking in the breeze. The girls tied the tugging balloons to everything they could find: pillars, pilots"

zippers, pilots" fingers, handles on the barbecue barrel, and, with the Thai equivalent of ooh-la-la"s, codpieces. Several balloons got loose and huddled nervously under the slanted roof of the patio.

"You"re quite the entrepreneur," Partin said to Hostettler.

The four men stood in a group at one end of the patio.

"And cook," Wolf said, nodding at the spitted pig.

"I"m kind of planning on getting out of the Air Force and putting my magnificent talents to better use," Hostettler said.

"You are?" Court said in surprise. "Whatever for?"

d.i.c.k Hostettler, USMA "54, took a long pull at his beer.

"It"s like this: I can no longer contribute commensurate with my talents."

"What do you mean?" Wolf Lochert said with a frown, eyeing Hostettler"s big West Point ring. He firmly believed it was every American"s privilege and duty to serve his country, particularly an American who had the benefit of an engineering degree from Hudson High at taxpayers"

expense.

"Here"s how it is," Hostettler said. "I"m a non-rated man in a rated man"s Air Force. The pilots are the first-cla.s.s citizens, navigators are the second-cla.s.s citizens, and we non-rated pukes are in the third or worse cla.s.s. Here I am with an engineering degree from West Point, a Master"s in International Relations from Columbia, and my a.s.signment out of here is to study computerized administrative procedures at a university in Texas. If I can no longer perform the mission I"m good at and the mission I love, which is the intelligence field, why stick around? Nothing doing. I"m getting out."

Court was silent.

"I think the Air Force has gotten too much into the people product business," Hostettler continued.

"As opposed to what?" Court asked.

"As opposed to a mission" product. What I mean is, the USAF seems bound and determined to produce highly trained officers and airmen who have great university degrees, terrific professional and technical school certificates, and marvelous breadth of experience a.s.signments. That"s all well and good if the purpose of all that personnel management and training is to ensure that mission accomplishment is the end product.

But that"s not the way it is. Ever since McNamara became Secretary of Defense in "61, we"re getting more and more into the concept of producing managers, not leaders. Managers, with the manager himself the end goal, the product spit out of the factory, when all along the end product should be successful accomplishment of the mission regardless of the college level of the doers."

"Point well made. So what will you do?" Court asked.

"I"m going to CIA."

"That makes sense," Partin said. "You do have an intelligence background."

"Intell has nothing to do with it," Hostettler said. "I"m going because I love to cook."

"Love to cook?" Wolf burst out. "Cook what, commies?"

"Cook, as in cuisine. I want to be a gourmet chef, and the Culinary Inst.i.tute of America up in Hyde Park, New York, has a two-year course for just that very thing. I"ve been interested in cooking since I was camping out in Texas as a kid."

"Making all that chili, I"ll bet," Court said.

"Yeah, and a few other things," Hostettler said. He checked his watch.

"Almost time for Act Two." He motioned to two Thais by the walkway to the club. When they came over he put them to work setting up the plates and slicing the roast pig.

"Chow"s on," he called to the crowd and disappeared into the Officer"s Club.

"This is great," Joe Kelly said to Manuel Dominguez as they took their plastic plates heaped with steaming pork and coleslaw to a picnic bench at one side of the patio. Both carried ice-cold Budweiser beer cans.

"That was a h.e.l.l of a thing you did, Joe," Dominguez said.

"The last I knew I was on the ledge trying to get those guys hooked up, the next thing I knew I woke up on board as we were flying back. I owe you a big one."

"Red-Tagged b.a.s.t.a.r.ds Hang Together." Kelly finished his beer and brought two more. "A big one, you say. Okay, I"d like to collect right now."

"Sure, anything."

Kelly looked serious. "Why in h.e.l.l did you bail out of the Academy?"

Dominguez slammed his beer can down and glared at Kelly.

"You"re really sticking it to me."

"What do you mean? How can I be sticking it to you?"

"You"re sticking it to me because ... because it"s so d.a.m.n hard to talk about." He stared outside the patio area, puffy eyes suddenly glistening. "d.a.m.n hard."

Kelly punched him lightly on the shoulder. "RBHT, El C.

RBHT.".

Dominguez put his fork down and took a long pull at his beer.

"Okay, I"ll tell you." He took a long swallow of beer. His mind flashed back to the scene: drunken Cadet First Cla.s.s Powers sitting on the floor ... himself taking his pictures as Powers lay drunk and helpless, then helping Powers to the bathroom and watching him become violently ill ...

then the final scene, in which he threatened Powers with exposing his public drunkenness in uniform if he didn"t back off from hara.s.sing his friend and roommate, Ken Tanaka.

"f.u.c.k you, I"ll get that little j.a.p b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Powers had slurred.

Dominguez had patted his camera. "You do, and these pictures will be on the Commandant"s desk in half a heartbeat."

Dominguez took another swallow of his beer and sighed. "I caught Jerome Powers drunk in uniform and took pictures of him. I thought I had a great way to get him off our backs, particularly yours, Ken."

"Jesus Christ," Kelly said in dawning awareness. "Blackmail."

"Exactly," Manuel Dominguez said. "Good old American blackmail." He shook his head. "Then I realized what I had done and turned myself in."

"But not him?" Tanaka said in surprise.

"No."

"Why not?" Kelly asked.

"I had had my chance and didn"t use it at the time. I just told the committee I had seen a cadet drunk and didn"t report him.