"Hold her steady, Beercan," Court transmitted. "I"m off your right wing and I"m going to talk you to the tanker for some fuel, then to Udorn for landing. You"ve refueled before, haven"t you?"

"Uh, yes Sir," the backseater transmitted, his relief evident.

Most F-4 aircraft commanders (or A/C, as the USAF designates the pilots in the front seat) allow, even encourage, their backseaters to learn how to refuel from the KC- 135 aerial tankers. The backseat was a real pit, with limited visibility, and the practice improves the morale of the navigators (or the luckless Young pilots directly a.s.signed from flying training who have to take a tour in the backseat) and is a bit of insurance for the frontSeater, should he be incapacitated and unable to perform the delicate flying. Refueling required the pilot to position the Phantom under the belly of the tanker, and hold still while the boomer flew the long thin probe to the receptacle on the upper fuselage a few feet behind the rear c.o.c.kpit of the F4. The KC- 135s were the military version of the Boeing 707 airliner. instead of pa.s.sengers, the big silver airplanes carried 200,000 pounds of JP-4 jet fuel, which they dispensed through the probe, called a boom, that hung underneath the rear fuselage and pointed to the rear. It was control led-flown Was the wordby the boomer, who lay on his belly facing aft; the compartment in which he lay had a thick rear window that would have been a perfect place for a tail gunner if the ai lane had had one.

The young backseater transmitted again, his voice quavering with concern. "But I"ve never landed this airplane."

"Not to worry," Court radioed. "I"ll talk you through it It"s simple once you"re lined up, and I"ll get you in position."" "Yeah, simple,"

Ken Tanaka said from Court"s backseat on the intercom. "About as simple as steering a runaway race car through an obstacle course while blindfolded."

Tanaka knew, as did Court, that the view forward from the backseat was nil. Instruments and the big metal shroud curving over the instrument panel meant the person in back had no forward visibility whatsoever.

Until they had the ground clues out the side windows down cold, most instructor pilots had to skid the Phantom the last quarter mile or so on final approach, in order to keep the touchdown point on the runway in view, then straighten it out at the last minute before the main gear slammed onto the concrete.

"h.e.l.l, the Navy sets up flight att.i.tude and just lets them crash down on carrier decks," Court said. "I"m going to do the same thing for this guy. He"s got to get his frontseater to come around long enough to put the hook down for him. He can"t do it from the backseat. I"ll have the tower prepare the runway for an approach end barrier engagement."

The hook saved many an aircraft. The pilots of shot-up F-4s, or pilots trying to land in a heavy rain (where out-of-control skidding due to hydroplaning on rainwater was common), lowered a hook attached underneath the fuselage. Like carrier airplanes, the hook caught a cable stretched across the runway a few feet from the touchdown point.

The cable was attached to huge brake drums on each side of the runway that absorbed the incredible energy and braked the aircraft to a halt in less than 1,000 feet.

Court pushed the transmit b.u.t.ton on his throttle. "Alley Cat, Phantom Zero One," he called.

"Phantom, Alley Cat, go."

"I"ve got Beercan. Would you have Green Tanker come up on this frequency?"

"They"re already here, Phantom. I brought them up just in case."

"Nicely done, Alley Cat. Green Tanker, do you read Phantom Zero One?"

"Loud and clear, Phantom. This is your friendly tank. You call, we fill. We have you on radar. Steer 220 for an intercept. We are at 15,500 feet. You copy?"

The main transmitting was the Green Tanker navigator who had been in contact with Alley Cat on another frequency. With the Alley Cat controller"s help, he had located Phantom and Beercan on his own radarscope, and was able to give them an immediate heading to his location. He had also asked his pilot to descend to an alt.i.tude 500 feet above the two Phantoms to make the final approach to the hook-up easier for them.

"Roger, copy Green. We are at 15,000," Court said. Then he called Beercan. "Beercan, do like the man says and turn right to 220. Can you do that?"

"Uh, h.e.l.l. Look, I"m not a pilot. I do have some time flying back here, but it was all practice."

"Flying is flying," Court said. "Whatever you do, keep the ball in the center. Make your turn now. Bank to the right. Ease into it and I"ll tell you when to roll out." Court had his own gages and Ken Tanaka"s instructions to keep him aware of what heading they had.

Court could barely make out the details of the Phantom. There were some black streaks below the front canopy and what looked like torn metal, as if a sh.e.l.l had penetrated the skin and exploded there. He couldn"t be sure and saw no point in quizzing the man in the backseat, who had enough worries of his own.

"Okay," Beercan said and started a shaky right turn. it gradually became steeper, "Don"t let your wing down so far," Court said. The navigator brought the wing up with a jerk that nearly flung Court off to one side. "Easy now," he said. "Take it easy and we"ll all get a beer at the O"Club pretty soon."

"Contact," Ken Tanaka said, "dead ahead for twenty miles.

Looks like he"s turning." At a head-on closure rate over 1,000 miles per hour, the tanker had to time his turn away from the Phantoms precisely.

Too late and he would overrun the two Phantoms, too early and the two Phantoms would waste a lot Of fuel trying to catch up- The Green Tanker navigator had given his pilot good instructions. Two Minutes later, Beercan, with Court on his wing, was one mile in trail to the tanker.

"Going Bright Flash," Court said, and moved his navigation light switch to that position.

"You"re one mile in trail, Phantom Zero One," Green Tanker said. The radar in the KC-135 tanker was sharp enough to allow the navigator to direct the two Phantoms into refueling position.

"Roger," Court replied. "Hold it steady, Beercan," he said.

Court alternated his eyes from the Phantom next to him to his instruments in the c.o.c.kpit, then up to search the night sky in front.

Soon he spotted the glow from the indicator lights under the belly of the huge KC-135 tanker. The twin row of lights, called captain"s bars, were manipulated by the boomer to tell the receiving aircraft to move up or down, fore or aft, left or right. That way a refueling could be Performed while maintaining radio silence.

"Beercan, the tanker is dead ahead," Court said. "Can you see him?" The dim glow in the clouds was eerie, as if a lamp were immersed in a dark substance.

"Uh, yeah, ah ... I see him, . ." The Phantom started to wobble as the backseater took his eyes from the instruments.

"Hold it steady, now," Court said. The wobbling increased.

"Easy now. Let"s move on up to the tanker. You said you"ve refueled before,"

"NOT AT NIGHT," the young man yelled. His airplane started to pitch up and down in the black clouds.

"Steady, steady," Court said.

"I"M LOSING IT. I"VE GOT VERTIGO . .

Slowly, the Phantom fell off on a wing to the left. Court followed and tried to fly formation on the airplane in the black sky.

"You"re in a left bank. Center your needle and ball," Court transmitted in as calm a voice as he could muster. "Roll out to the right and raise the nose. Make the little airplane on your att.i.tude indicator align with the horizon bar. You"re in a left bank, roll out, roll to the right. Bring the nose up."

"I CAN"T TELL ... I CAN"T TELL," the man in the backseat transmitted in great confusion.

"Roll right, bring the nose up," Court said once more.

"Better break it off, boss," Tanaka said. "We"re pa.s.sing through ten thou."

The Phantom continued the slow left roll as the nose sliced lower. Court felt the G-load and the airspeed increase as he tried to stay with the airplane that was rapidly going out of control.

Seconds later they were in a diving spiral and he had to break away. He leveled off and began a left-hand orbit just below the base of the clouds. He saw his alt.i.tude was 8,000 feet, barely 3,000 feet above the surrounding karst ridges that he could not see in the inky blackness.

There were no lights below to provide any horizontal reference. Court heard the backseater key his mike.

"I"M DIVING ... I"M DIVING ... I"VE GOT TO PULL OUT. . .".

"Level your wings, then pull out," Court commanded. He knew the young man was in what civilian pilots called a death spiral. A Pilot who was not trained to fly instruments in bad weather invariably wound up in a sharply descending spiral, but his kinetic cues-the seat of his pants-told him he was straight and level, or maybe diving, because he saw the airspeed was rapidly rising. Then they would try to pull back on the stick without leveling the wings. Pulling back on the stick merely tightened the turn and made the nose fall more, until the airplane smashed into the ground. In the old days of wire and cloth, the pilot might even have pulled the wings off in his desperate attempt to live. Court knew the Beercan Phantom was doomed.

"Beercan, bail out, bail out now. Beercan, get out," he ordered.

He heard the carrier wave come on as the backseater pressed the mike b.u.t.ton on the throttle, then go off, then come back on.

"Can"t," he said in a very calm voice. "Can"t do it. Fred is still alive. I hear him moaning. Got to pull thi-"

He was cut off in mid-sentence and Court and Ken Tanaka saw below them a sharp white light that quickly expanded into a red mushroom.

"Ah s.h.i.t," Tanaka said from the backseat, his voice thick with despair.

"Alley Cat," Court transmitted, his voice impersonal. "Beercan has gone in. No chutes. I don"t think anybody got out." He leveled and began the climb back to alt.i.tude. "Alley Cat, you copy?"

"Phantom Zero One, Alley Cat copies. Give us a position of the crash site." From the backseat, Tanaka read off the coordinates provided by a device called the INS, the Inertial Navigation System.

"Hey," Tanaka said abruptly on the intercom, the death of the two Beercan pilots put out of his mind. "We"ve got about ten minutes of juice left before we make a nylon letdown."

"Green Tanker," Court called, "you still on this freq? We"re bingo minus a bunch."

"Roger, Phantom Zero One. Green Tanker still on orbit ready to pa.s.s gas. We have you six miles in trail." The Green Tanker navigator paused, then said: "I"m, sorry "bout your buddy, Phantom. Tough way to go."

Within five minutes, Court had found the tanker and was being refueled through the boom at the rate of 600 gallons per minute when the ABCCC called.

"Phantom Zero One, Alley Cat."

"Phantom, go," Court answered. e Channel "How you guys feeling? We need someone to recc 97, find out what happened- Other a.s.sets, slow a.s.sets, will be one advance idea of what will be there later in the morning but need to know what they will find."

"No problem, Alley Cat, we"d be glad to check it out," Court said without conferring with Tanaka, who he knew would agree.

"Are you Winchester?" Alley Cat used the code . word asking if Court had any ammunition or weaponry remaining on his aircraft, As night fast FACs (Forward Air Controllers) whose job it was to locate trucks and guns on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, the Phantom FACs carried 2.75-inch marking rockets, a 20mm cannon slung under the belly, and a load of parachute flares to illuminate the ground below.

"Negative," Court replied. "We had a dry night. Just popped a few flares. We"ll go take a look." His airplane was full of fuel now and he disconnected from the tanker. "Give me a steer, Ken," he asked. Tanaka gave him a heading for the radar site. Green Tanker, backed off, Still in the clouds, Court thanked Channel 97. and turned back to the northeast toward Tacan 97.

Tacan was a navigation device which, when tuned in, would show the distance and heading to the transmitting station. They were sometimes referred to by their location, sometimes by the numbers dialed into the receiving Tacan set to pick up the continuously transmitted navigation signaled fighter pilots Channel 97, known as Eagle Station by the tanker drivers, was known by another name to those who controlled and flew the "slow" a.s.sets. Those men, who flew helicopters and small propeller-driven airplanes, called it Lima Site 85. Those men wore civilian clothes and worked for or were controlled by the Central intelligence Agency.

By 0545 Hours Bannister and Tanaka were ten miles Out, traveling at 600 miles per hour and still descending. The jungle before the karst looked like a thick green rug in the early morning light.

The whole area was composed of jutting limestone karst ridges and steep peaks rising above thick jungle, sinkholes, and disappearing streams.

The radar and van complex at the radar site was on top of a rectangular piece of karst that jutted up from the surrounding jungle to over one mile in the air. The layered texture of its steep sides resembled b.u.t.tes and mesas rising in the American Southwest. The top formed a sloping rectangle, about two kilometers by one kilometer, and held jungle and small hills of its own, as if it were a portion of the surrounding floor that had suddenly been elevated into the sky. It was oriented northwest to southeast and was only twenty-five kilometers from the North Vietnamese border. The village on the site, Poo Pah Tee, had been an important guerrilla base in northeastern Laos, but soon became viewed by the USAF as an excellent spot to put a navigational aid and, later, a radar station, both of which helped US strike aircraft find their way around North Vietnam and portions of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.

The radar at Eagle Station was theTSQ-8 1, a modified Strategic Air Command (SAC) radar bomb scoring system (RBS).

But instead of computing B-52 electronic bomb-drop accuracy, it worked in reverse. When firepower was needed in the daylight or at night, but the weather was rotten and down to the deck, airplanes equipped with special beacons could drop bombs by radar vectors from Eagle Station.

The operator would key into his computer fixed information, such as target distance and direction from his site, height above sea level, and type Of bomb, for which the computer already knew the aerodynamics and fall rate. Then the operator would add the weather variables: temperature aloft, air density, high and low winds. The computer would then give out a range of aircraft headings, alt.i.tudes, and airspeeds to complete the bombing equation.

The operator would have the ground target fixed on his radar -screen, and then would "paint" the incoming aircraft blip with sharp resolution by receiving a Pulse of energy from the beacon mounted in the aircraft.

Similar systems, called the MSQ-77, were in use in South Vietnam, but this was the only facility for North Vietnam and northern Laos. The method was called Skyspot and had proved of great worth in sections of North Vietnam unprotected by SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) and Laos (pilots did not find it healthy to fly in or above clouds that obscured SAMs that might be fired at them).

What made the Laotian radar site unique from its counterparts in South Vietnam was that those that ran it were cla.s.sified as "technicians," not military personnel. This situation had arisen because the US did not want to violate the 1962 Geneva Convention by maintaining American military troops in Laos.

As a result, the sixteen USAF radar controllers and maintenance men at Eagle Station, both officers and enlisted men, had become "sheep-dipped." The process entailed having the men supposedly leave the USAF to become field representatives and technicians for major American radar manufacturing companies, such as Hughes and General Electric, For this reason, Lieutenant Bob Pearson and Sta Sergeant Al Verbell were known as Mister Pearson and Mister Verbell.

A shrewd a.n.a.lyst of military nomenclature might have figured out the purpose behind Eagle Station by studying the nomenclature of the radar set and how it differed from those in South Vietnam. The RBS sites in South Vietnam had the designation MSQ-77. Under the DoD joint electronics type designation system (JETIDS), each letter in sequence had a meaning. T meant transportable, M meant mobile, S meant Special type, and Q meant Special purpose. The two numbers, 77 and 91, were model numbers. The "T" in the TSQ-81 for Eagle Station meant that the entire apparatus-scopes, power, antennae--could be broken down into packages that were easily transportable by air.

Court threw the left wing down as they zoomed over the site at 500 feet.

"Look at that," Tanaka breathed into the intercom.

They saw the vans and a few buts, one smoking, and some large radio and radar antennas that had crashed to the ground. A small American flag flew from a rod stuck in the ground.

Mister Bob Pearson heard the roar of the Phantom as it flashed by. He grinned and started the portable generator for his Mark 28 radio pallet.

"Fox-Four doing a bubble check at Channel 97, how do you read Eagle One Four?"

"Loud and very clear, Eagle One Four," replied a surprised Court Bannister. "This is Phantom Zero One. How you gentlemen down there this morning? Thought we lost you last night."

"We took a few mortar rounds, knocked our antennas out. No one hurt.

Tell Alley Cat to ask homeplate for the entire backup gear I pre-positioned with them. They"ll know what you mean."

Court called the Hillsboro ABCCC, who replaced Alley Cat in the daytime, and relayed the message. Hillsboro told Phantom Zero One that it would be done and that he was to tell Eagle One Four that some special people would be on the ground at their location within the hour, and to keep a listening watch on the standard Eagle Station frequency.

Court relayed the message, then asked, "You got any more bad guys out there? We can get some strike birds in here right away."

"Negative, Zero One, but thanks. It was a small group and a probe, I think. Very professional. Worse to come, I"ll bet."

0615 Hours LOCAL, WEDNESDAY 9 OCTOBER 1968 TAN SON NHUT AIR BASE.

SAIGON, Republic OF VIETNAM It was in the pre-dawn dark when USAF Staff Sergeant Manuel J. "Little Cat" Dominguez entered the crowded GI snack bar at the end of the 8th Aerial Port Squadron"s military air terminal at Saigon"s Tan Son Nhut Air Base. Military shift workers mixed with arriving and departing pa.s.sengers. Most were dressed in fatigues or flight suits.

Dominguez wore khakis (Tan, shade 1505) with the pants bloused over glossy spit-shined black (imported cowhide) paratrooper boots (the men called them jump boots). He removed his maroon beret with the silver Aeros.p.a.ce Rescue and Recovery Service badge. The crease in his tailored uniform shirt and pants was knife-sharp. On his left breast were two rows of ribbons under the paratrooper wings won by Air Force ings had a star and wreath over them, Pararescue men. They were cla.s.sified showing he had made at least sixty-five jump as a master parachutist (master blaster). The jump wings were Army issue. The USAF had tried to introduce a fruity-looking enameled device depicting the wearer as jump-qualified, but no one would wear them, so the supply types had given up.

The ribbons revealed he had eight years in the Air Force, was qualified in small arms as a marksman, was a graduate of the NCO Academy, had logged time in Vietnam, and had been awarded the Good Conduct Medal and three Air Medals. In the top-left position of honor (facing the ribbons), next to the Air Medal (with two Oak Leaf Cl.u.s.ters), was the Distinguished Flying Cross. a small blue satchel known as an AWOL bag Dominguez carried to hold a pair of shoes, a shaving kit, and barely big enough to hold a shirt or two. Just enough to go AWOL, it was said. The bag was fabricated of canvas and cost $2.80 in the Base Exchange.

In his AWOL bag, Dominguez carried his shaving kit and a small survival kit he had a.s.sembled, including a small RT-10 aviator"s survival radio he had obtained from a pilot he had picked up from North Vietnam. "s.h.i.t, man," the grateful pilot had cried, "tell me what else you want. it"s all a write-off, I lost it in the ejection, right?" Dominguez never flew anywhere in Vietnam as a pa.s.senger without this kit. For further safety, he wished he could wear a parachute, even when he flew as a pa.s.senger.

He followed the line, poured a cup of coffee into a mug from the big silver urn, disregarded the greasy bacon and yellow scrambled eggs that smelled like burnt rubber, pa.s.sed up the chicken and tuna fish sandwiches because they looked like a ptomaine preserve, and finally grabbed a bag of Fritos out of desperation for something to munch on. At the cashier"s position he pulled out a wad of MPC (Military Payment Certificates, used in lieu of real money) and paid his bill- He saw the latest Pacific Stars and Stripes on a stack at the end of the line, put a paper dime in the open mason jar, and picked up a copy.

Looking across the crowded snack bar, he saw two men leave sat down, and spread out his paper to read. He sipped his coffee as he turned the pages.

Sergeant Dominguez had just come from Headquarters, 3rd Aeros.p.a.ce Rescue and Recovery Group (ARRGp), and was whiling away a few minutes waiting to catch a C-130 flight to Da Nang, his home base. Dominguez had so far been in Vietnam four months. Previously, he had been stationed at Cape Canaveral, Performing satellite rescue duty, and had had a standing volunteer statement for Vietnam in the Personnel Office ever since 1965.

At least once a week, he"d bugged the tech sergeant in charge for action on his request. Five months ago he"d finally gotten it. Thirty days later he was in Vietnam.

Staff Sergeant Manuel I. Dominguez (soon to be a technical sergeant, he"d found out the day before) was a man who stepped out of airborne helicopters while riding on a cable. He usually practiced this insanity in territory where people were trying to kill him. He could, if the occasion demanded, make a parachute jump under the same conditions. On the personnel books, he was carried as a Pararescue Jumper (later as a Pararescue Specialist), Air Force Specialty Code 8945 1. They were sometimes known as paratroopers, but always referred to as PJs.

Being a PJ was a source of great pride to the individual.

A PJ was a product of intense screening and intense training powered by intense motivation. When everybody else was running around trying to kill somebody, a PJ was running around trying to save lives-usually those of shot-down air-crewmen.

Of course, if a PJ had to kill somebody to save somebody, they were quite capable of doing it in any number of ways.