"Wait," Flak said. "I have more to say." Thach turned and studied Flak, a wary look on his face.

WE NEED ... Connert started.

While he spoke, Flak tried to keep his concentration on Connert"s coughs and sniffles and his hand movements without appearing to. "I want everyone to know, to be aware of what I feel." The newsmen had puzzled looks on their faces.

... TO NO ALL CAMP LOCATIONS AND ALL POW NAMES ...

IMPOSSIBLE ... Flak flashed. Like many of the POWs, Flak had spent time memorizing name, rank, and service of as many POWs as were in the collective memory of those about him. As prisoners returned from various camps, they fed into the POW memory where they had been. The different camps had names based on the first prisoner"s impressions: in Hanoi was the Plantation, the Zoo, Alcatraz, and Hoa Lo Prison, known as the Hanoi Hilton. Up and down the Red River were scattered six other camps. It was rumored there might be a camp up on the border between North Vietnam and Red China, but if there was, no one had returned from it.

DO BEST U CAN...

GOT TO THINC... WRITE IT DOWN ... Pa.s.s TO U ...

Flak tried another meaningless statement. "I feel this is a long war that should come to a satisfactory conclusion." He noticed Thach had a look of impatience that would soon erupt.

DO WHAT U CAN ... ARRANGE MEETING TOMORROW ...

Flak let his knees buckle and staggered to a chair. "I"m not well.

Maybe I should go home."

Shawn shot a look of triumph at Connert.

"Tomorrow," Flak said. "We"ll talk tomorrow." He looked up at Thach.

"You will let these journalists back in tomorrow, won"t you?" Co Dust went to his side.

Thach bit his lip. His gaze flicked to the newsmen. His indecision whether or not he could trust Flak Apple was clear on his face. "Yes,"

he said finally. He thanked the photographers stiffly and suggested they come back tomorrow at the same time. He again told Co Dust to take Flak to his room. When they were gone, he turned to Shawn and Connert.

"He was not himself today," he said.

"Will you actually bring him back tomorrow?" Shawn asked.

"He will be here."

"Did you hear what he said? Do you think he really will depart with us?"

Thach hesitated. "It would be a very good thing," he said slowly.

"Come, I will take you to your hotel." He wondered at the strange look on the face of the man called Connert. It was almost exultation. He held the door for them.

"By G.o.d," Shawn said to Connert as they walked out, "there was no point in bringing you along. You never did talk to Apple."

"No," Connert said and sneezed, "I guess I didn"t."

"Jesus," Shawn said, "can"t you do something about that f.u.c.king cold?"

Connert shrugged his shoulders. "No, I guess I can"t."

After she helped him into bed, Flak grabbed the wrist of Co Dust. "I need paper and a pen," he whispered into her ear.

"Maybe I can bring those things in a few days," she said.

"No, today. I must have them as soon as possible. Immediately." All thoughts of escape were out of his mind now. He had a mission to perform ... the corps, the names.

She returned as quickly as she could. Her footsteps were noiseless on the bare concrete as moans and other horrid sounds echoed through the rough halls. Her gray cotton uniform matched those of the other nurses, who tried desperately to work in the crowded conditions while hopelessly understaffed. Those close to her station eyed her with mistrust because her only duty now was to be with the black American. She rounded the last corner to the American"s room and gasped in surprise as Thach appeared from nowhere.

"Where have you been, wretch? And what have you there?"

He grabbed the coa.r.s.e notebook and pen from her trembling hands.

"It ... they are for him. He-he wants to write."

"A confession?"

"Yes, that"s it. A confession. He did not like the one you gave him."

"I will go with you." He pulled her along the hall and into Flak"s room, startling him.

"You want to write a confession?" Thach said in an even voice.

Flak quickly glanced at the writing materials in Co Dust"s hands and understood the anguish in her dark eyes. "Yes," he said.

"Write then. I will wait. You can read it tomorrow at the news conference."

"I don"t know what to say."

"You know exactly what to say. We have discussed it many times," Thach flared, then got hold of himself. "It is an easy task," he said in a soft voice. "Make it natural, like a conversation. Start from the beginning. You do not have to say you always had these repentant thoughts. Tell them it was only after your leader King was killed that you----2"

"King? Martin Luther King? Killed? What do you mean?"

Flak"s face was filled with disbelief.

"He was murdered by Johnson"s killers."

Flak relaxed. "Well, that"s so much bulls.h.i.t." LBJ might do insane things about the war, Flak thought, but he didn"t run about murdering people.

"Your Martin Luther King was a.s.sa.s.sinated in Memphis in the state of Tennessee on the fourth day of April this year. He was shot by a white man."

Flak"s whole body flamed. "You"re lying. This is a trick.

That could never happen."

Thach realized this man had been out of contact from all news, even camp propaganda broadcasts, since his escape attempt last March. "And Robert Kennedy was shot to death in Los Angeles two months later," Thach said with mock sorrow.

Flak frantically looked to Co Dust for confirmation. "It"s not true, is it? Ah, G.o.d, tell me it"s not true," he said, his voice torn with an anguish deeper than anything he had ever experienced.

Co Dust looked up and into his pain-filled eyes and nodded slowly.

Flak clenched his fists. Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, it"s true. My country, oh G.o.d. What"s happening there? What? What? What?

He took a deep breath and struggled to control himself. He stared at the ceiling a long time before he spoke. "Okay, give me the pen and paper. I"ll write. But you have to leave the room. You make me too nervous."

Thach stood up. "Are you sure you will write a confession?"

"I will write a confession," Flak said through clenched teeth.

Thach strode up to Co Dust, grabbed the paper and pen, and threw them at Flak. Then he slapped the stunned girl"s face with a loud crack and said over his shoulder, "You must write confession for tomorrow or you know what will happen to her." He went out the door.

She stood by his bed, head bowed, hands limp at her sides.

Flak reached for her hand and caressed it, a look of anguish on his face.

"He is an animal, a crazy animal," he said. She didn"t speak.

He squeezed her hands. "Princess, is it true? Is it really true?"

"Yes, they are dead." He could barely hear her words. "They are both dead. You Americans. .."

Flak lay back and put his hands over his face. "Ah G.o.d," he sobbed.

"Why? Why? Ah G.o.d." He rocked from side to side.

"It doesn"t get any worse than this." His voice cracked with emotion.

She went down the hall for a wet cloth and put it on his forehead. After a few moments he calmed and sat up.

"Okay, I"ll write. You bet I"ll write. Give me that paper.

He struggled to sit up and she helped him position himself to write and gave him the pad and pen. He started. After a few minutes he swore and changed positions. It still didn"t work.

His bent arms and shoulders didn"t allow his hands and fingers to manipulate the pen.

"Here," he said, and handed her the tablet and pen. "You write for me.

I"ll dictate. But write real small, as small as you can."

She wondered why but did as he asked as he started dictating in a strained voice.

0930 Hours LOCAL, FRIDAY 1 NOVEMBER 1968 EAGLE STATION AT LIMA SITE 85.

ROYALTY OF LAOS.

The pilot dodged among the wispy clouds, plopped his highwinged Porter down on the short strip, and reversed pitch on his big propeller, blowing huge clouds of dust forward of the plane. He taxied over to where Mister Sam and Wolf Lochert stood by the operations shack. The ceiling was low, heat and humidity high. Dust devils swirled across the short strip as a birthing thunderstorm to the west sent out exploratory winds.

"You always draw the s.h.i.t details?" Mister Sam said as he shook hands with Court Bannister.

"No bad remarks," Wolf growled. "This man is a warrior."

"I"m not complaining," Mister Sam said. "Glad to have you back, Bannister." All three wore safari suits. Court wore his green survival vest over his.

"We"ve got other visitors," Mister Sam said as they trudged up the hill to Pearson"s office shack in the Eagle Station complex, "but they"re being picked up this afternoon by a Company helicopter. This place is a regular Grand Central Station."

Armed and grinning Hmoungs stood outside the door like palace guards.

They made head bobs in salute as the men entered the small wooden building.

Bob Pearson and Al Verbell greeted them and watched as Court pulled maps from his B-4 bag. "Never thought we"d see you here again, Major,"

Pearson said as he helped Court spread them out.

"I admit I"d rather defend this place from the air than from the ground," Court said. "Here"s what I"ve got. The intell people think this place is going to be hit within days if not Hours. They think Hanoi has had it with your Tacan, but mostly because of the bombing directions your radar provides. Now, for some reason they have indications this site is going to be struck by a main-force outfit and captured soon-very soon, maybe tomorrow." He held up his hand at the exclamations. "Not everybody believes that, but because our intell officer, d.i.c.k Hostettler, does, then I do." Court went on to explain about the ground self-FACing that was to be done at the site and that he, Court, would handle the radio with the fighters.

"Between the Wolf FACs in the day and Spectre and the Phantom FACs at night I think we"ve got it covered," he finished.

"Well, s.h.i.t," Pearson said. "If I had thought the bad guys were going to get so p.i.s.sed off, I"d of stayed in Poughkeepsie."

He made a face. "Ah well, some guys just can"t take a joke." He got up.

"Come out here, there"s something I want to show you."

They followed him out to the steep cliff. "Look at this," he said and stepped into a small notch in the cliff hidden behind scrub bushes.

Hammered deep into the rock were spikes that had a half-dozen heavy nylon straps attached to them. Each strap was neatly coiled and attached to a parachute harness.

"These are 3,000-pound test straps. They are just the right length to let us over the cliff to hang under the outcropping and then swing into a limestone cave. It"s kind of our last-ditch defensive maneuver. A place to hide. I"ve got provisions and a radio down there."

"Let"s hope we don"t have to use it," Court said.

"Roger that," Pearson said. He led them through the rest of the radar and radio compound. He finished the tour at a newly constructed bunker sunk well into the ground and covered with heavy logs and layers of dirt. "There"s radios and food and water in there," Pearson said with pride. "Had a h.e.l.l of a time getting those logs cut and carried up the trail."

"All my recommendations were followed, I see," Wolf said as he looked with pleasure at the bunker and mortar pits, the machine gun sites, and the carefully laid-out positions with clear and interlocking fields of fire. Court noted with approval that the two separate Flaming Arrow pits he had helped build had fresh oil-soaked rags in the cans.

"It"s d.a.m.n near impossible for anybody to scale those cliffs and get up here," Mister Sam said. "We"ve got trip wires, b.o.o.by traps, and flares on all the scalable trails."

"What about Bunth and Touby down below?" Wolf asked.

"They act pretty military these days and draw their rations without giving us any problems. I think you shook them up bad," Mister Sam said.

"Maybe so, but how are their defenses? Can the PL or the NVA get through their perimeter?"

"Probably a concentrated force could, but I"ve been too shorthanded to check. I don"t have anyone to send down there, and your report is as current as I"m going to get. That"s why I"ve concentrated in keeping the approaches up the karst to this place so heavily guarded. If things really turn to s.h.i.t, all we need is enough time to put the evacuation plan in effect and get the technicians out of here. The equipment is expendable, nothing cla.s.sified about it. The plan is just to leave for a while if we can"t hold the station, then return when the bad guys go away. But don"t sweat it. They can surround the base but they can"t climb this mountain."

In the distance they could see a rainsquall rapidly approaching the site. They walked across to the village of Poo Pah Tee, perched on top of the karst. Several of the women were washing clothes in tin tubs, a gift of the USAF; others were tending gardens. Chickens lazily clucked and pecked the bare earth for the minutiae of the bug world. Men wearing parts of camouflaged fatigues made their way up and down the dirt paths and between the thatched huts on errands only they knew.

"What about these tribesmen?" Wolf asked as they walked down the dirt paths between the thatch huts. "Would they be evacuated also?"