Part 3 (1/2)

”Okay, anybody see anything?” he asked. He suddenly realized he was sweating heavily, and felt feverish. His adrenaline was draining away.

There was a long silence before they answered.

”Two, negative.”

”Three, negative.”

”Four, negative.”

Court cursed. Empty again.

Pete Stein spoke from the backseat. ”I guess that makes you the Ivory Ace, boss,”

”What do you mean?”

”Ninety-nine-point-forty-four-percent pure. Sorry.”

Court said nothing. His eyes ached.

An hour later Buick flight was strung out, one behind the other, in the Ground Controlled Approach pattern for Runway 27 at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base, home of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing. There were thunderstorms in the area, and the base of the cloud layer was at 800 feet above the ground. As flight leader, Court Bannister was first in the pattern. The controller spoke.

”Buick Lead, Udorn GCA. You are now eight miles from touchdown, on course, on glide path. Check gear and flaps down.”

Court reached up and threw the gear handle down. The nose gear and the two mains dropped from their wells and thudded into place. He placed the flap handle down and absently corrected the nose rise as the flaps slid into place on the trailing edge of the wing. He squinted at his instruments.

The small numbers were swimming. He wiped his gloved hand over his forehead. It came away stained dark with sweat.

”Buick Lead, Udorn. You are below glide path. Decrease your rate of descent.” Court corrected by adding a small amount of power.

”Buick Lead, you are now six miles from touchdown, cleared to land. You are drifting off course. Turn right five degrees to two seven five.”

Court made the correction. He shook his head. The instruments on his panel were wavering in and out of focus. He felt sweat course down his body.

”Pete,” he said, ”something's wrong.”

1945 HOURS LOCAL, THURSDAY 25 JANUARY 1968.

HojL Lo PRISON, HANOI DEmocRATic REPUBLIC of VIETNAm They opened the door and pushed him in. He tried not to groan from the pain in his left arm and leg. He wore blue shorts of a rough material tied by a drawstring. He was slick with sweat, urine, and vomit. The cell was dark and damp, about 7 feet long, Major Algernon A. ”Flak”

Apple automatically estimated, and 8 feet wide. The floor and the walls were concrete. A 5 by 2 concrete slab was attached to each side wall.

The ceiling was of wood laths. A light bulb attached to bare wires hung from the ceiling. A rusty and dirty can with sharp edges used as a wastebucket was placed in one corner.

”Down, down,” a Vietnamese guard screamed, punching at his back. Flak fell sideways onto the concrete slab on the right. It was stained with body fluids and dried waste matter.

Rusty metal leg stocks were attached to the dirty wall at the foot of the slab next to the door. Flak struggled to get up, but the guard pushed him flat on the slab. Another guard came in the room and sat on him while the first put his ankles, one by one, into the U-shaped metal stocks and pushed a heavy metal bar across the tops of the stocks and across his ankles. The U-shaped bar extended through the wall to the outside corridor. The bar pressed so tight Flak thought it would cut him to the bone. They left the room after admonis.h.i.+ng him, ”No sleep, no sleep.” The door slammed and he heard and felt the metal bar locked into place from outside the cell.

For an hour he lay in the red fuzz of pain and exhaustion.

His arm and leg wounds throbbed deeply and continually.

Then he became aware of the sharp pain of the leg stocks. It was almost a relief to play his mind back and forth between the two pains. Emphasis this one, and that one fades to the background. Emphasis ankle, and arm is okay. Emphasis arm, and ankle is okay. Then the two merged, and he was on fire from the waist down and his arm throbbed with a mighty pulse of pain. Another hour went by, then another. He fell into a twisted and gritty sleep.

”NO SLEEP, NO SLEEP.” A guard had flipped open the cover to a six-by-eight-inch opening in the thick wooden door and screamed again, ”NO SLEEP, NO SLEEP.”.

Flak fought to keep his eyes open as long as the Vietnamese was looking at him. He played one of the mind games he had devised. One, two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, one twenty-eight, two fifty-six, five twelve, ten twenty-four. He went on doubling the numbers, remembering the story of the canny beggar and the wealthy curmudgeon king. One penny salary on the first day, two on the second, four on the third, and so on for a month. By the thirtieth day, Flak reckoned the king owed the beggar five million, three hundred sixty-eight thousand, seven hundred nine dollars and twelve cents.

Someday he would calculate a whole year. Kings should study their math.

He started the mantra again, eyes open and unfocused.

One, two, four, eight, eight ... eight. The guard slammed the flipper and strode away. Sixteen, thirty-two, sixty ... sixty ... he thought he heard a tapping or a scratching from the wall next to him. All his senses went on alert. Yes, he heard taps. They were rhythmic, and repeated at short intervals.

Tap, tap, ti-tap tap, pause ... Then again, tap, tap, ti-tap tap, pause ... Tap, tap, ti-tap tap, pause ...

Suddenly he got it. ”Shave and a haircut,” pause . . .

”Shave and a haircut,” pause ”Shave and a haircut,” pause ...

He answered. Tap, tap. ”Two bits.”

The cadence sounded quicker this time. Shave and a hair cut ...

Two bits, he rapped. They did it again.

Shave and a haircut, two bits. And again.

Shave and a haircut, two bits. Flak was ecstatic. This was human contact. For two months he had heard only Vietnamese screaming at him, or cajoling him, playing on his pain, his blackness. They told him one day he was the white man's lackey, and the next day he was a war criminal. They had tied him in ropes and straps that brought unbelievable electric pain, and broken his arm again. He had screamed and cried, and finally wrote and signed a statement. ”I intenshunly bombered a Vietmese hospittle,” he wrote, That gained him an hour's respite, then they put him back in the ropes until he printed ”I intentionally bombered a hospital.”

He had some satisfaction in ”bombered,” but not much. He was terribly ashamed he had caved in. He was weak. He was less than a man. Real men wouldn't have signed anything.

He knew the Fighting Man's Code of Conduct had been drawn up in 1955, because the horrors of the North Korean prison camps had caused not only the deaths of many POWs, but also serious collaboration and the defection of twenty-one American soldiers to the other side. Flak particularly knew the fifth paragraph: ”I will give only name, rank, serial number, and date of birth, and evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability. I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause.” But he had caved in, couldn't take it. He had castigated himself in shame and dishonor. Oh G.o.d, even women tortured by the Gestapo didn't cave in.

But he had.

Ever since his capture he had been alone. There had been no Americans.

Then they had broken him three weeks ago.

He had lived with his guilt ever since.

But now ... oh joy, oh joy.

Shave and a haircut, two bits.

Shave and a haircut, two bits.

Shave and a haircut, two bits.

Then lie got serious. They had to talk. He started Morse code, tapping out the dits and dahs with his knuckles.