Dark Wing Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Pocket Star Book published by

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  Copyright © 1994 by Richard Herman, Jr., Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Inc., 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-671-53493-9

  First Pocket Books printing February 1996

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  POCKET STAR BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  Front cover illustration by Brian Bailey Printed in the U.S.A.

  DEDICATION

  In memory of my father

  Richard Herman

  THE BEGINNING

  The Pontowski saga began long before Matt Pontowski, the protagonist of this story, was born. Matt carried the same name as his father and grandfather before him, and like theirs, his destiny was tied to the profession of arms as practiced by men who would fight and die in fighter aircraft.

  The first Matthew Zachary Pontowski was born in Oakland, California, on November 11, 1918, at the exact time the armistice ending World War I was declared. Not too much is known about this particular bloodline of Pontowskis in the United States, and Zack, as the first Matthew Zachary was nicknamed, would only say they were of good peasant stock and were always a tight-lipped and lusty lot.

  Zack Pontowski was drawn to airplanes from the first time he saw one, when he was three years old. As a teenager, he learned to fly from a barnstormer who had flown with Eddie Rickenbacker in World War I. Early on, he realized the war against Hitler and fascism was his war, and he volunteered to fly with the Royal Air Force in 1940. His experiences flying the Mosquito, the RAF’s “Wooden Wonder,” how he met his wife, Tosh, and why he entered politics is chronicled in the book Call to Duty.

  The last major crisis during his term as president of the United States is also found in Call to Duty. As an old man, Zack Pontowski ordered young men to execute a dangerous rescue mission in the Golden Triangle of Burma. The memory of when he was on the cutting edge of combat in World War II sharpened his sense of responsibility as he made the crucial decisions about who would live and die.

  Zack and Tosh’s only son, called Zack Junior, died in Southeast Asia when his F-4C Phantom fighter crashed into a hillside in North Vietnam. The earlier book Firebreak relates how it fell to Zack and Tosh to raise their headstrong and willful grandson, Matt. Matt followed in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps and became a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force.

  But Matt was a throwback to an earlier age when fighter pilots were expected to be devil-may-care characters disdainful of all duly constituted authority. Only the influence of his famous grandfather, now president of the United States, saved him from being thrown out of the Air Force because of his wild and irresponsible conduct.

  Firebreak tells how Matt was molded by one of the best pilots ever to strap on a high-performance fighter—Lieutenant Colonel Jack Locke, a squadron commander in the Forty-fifth Fighter Wing. It fell to Locke and the men and women of the Forty-fifth to teach Matt the true nature of leadership and responsibility. But it was the crucible of combat that ultimately changed Matt and bound him to the tradition that places service, sacrifice, and obligation over the individual.

  The way of leadership and the obligation for service that Matt had to learn was formed in the past, when air combat was still in its infancy. It was passed to him through Jack Locke and the Forty-fifth Fighter Wing. The first two books of this series, The Warbirds and Force of Eagles, tell the story of the Forty-fifth Fighter Wing and of the men who made it a legend.

  The Warbirds described how Anthony “Muddy” Waters assumed command of the Forty-fifth, a wing of obsolete F-4E Phantoms and poorly trained fighter jocks. And among them was a superb but irresponsible young pilot—Jack Locke. Waters transformed the Forty-fifth in time to deploy to the Middle East to engage in a devastating action that ended in an “Arab solution.” But in the political fallout, the Forty-fifth had to fight its way out of its base at Ras Assanya.

  In the inferno that engulfed the base, Waters fought to save the Forty-fifth, and in the final stage of the battle, moments before he was killed, he passed the mantle of leadership to Jack Locke. It fell to Locke, now the new Wolf leader, to lead the last of the wing’s fighters to safety.

  In Force of Eagles, Jack Locke reached maturity as part of the team that rescued from captivity the men and one woman left behind at Ras Assanya. The legacy of Muddy Waters was safe with Locke, who had become that rarest of individuals—a man others will follow willingly into combat, even at the risk of their own lives.

  Now it is Matt Pontowski’s time.

  PROLOGUE

  Monday, November 6

  The Pentagon

  Only his eyes betrayed the grief that still bound Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Zachary Pontowski III as he walked briskly down the main concourse of the Pentagon, heading for the relative quiet of his office. His athletic gait matched the flow of the crowd and a small cone of silence surrounded him as people deliberately cleared a path for him. Only a dunce would not have immediately recognized him—or someone who did not watch TV, listen to gossip, or play at office politics. And there were very few of those left in the Pentagon.

  TV cameras had made Pontowski an instant celebrity, capturing his lanky six-foot frame and barely controllable shock of brown hair for national consumption when he had delivered the eulogy for his grandfather, Matthew Zachary Pontowski. The nation had shared in his mourning for the elder Pontowski, a former president of the United States who had died quietly in his sleep, a revered and much-honored statesman.

  Every person watching the funeral service at the cathedral had been struck by the physical similarity of Pontowski to his grandfather—even if the TV commentators had not repeatedly drawn their attention to it. His piercing blue eyes and hawklike nose were Pontowski trademarks the late president had engraved on the national consciousness. Matt Pontowski’s statuesque wife and two-year-old son had also bewitched the TV cameras. Most of the viewers found the common description of Shoshana Pontowski as a “raven-haired Israeli beauty” totally inadequate and many mothers envied the calm and unobtrusive way she controlled their bright and rambunctious son.

  More than one power broker on the national scene had reviewed the videotapes, read the newspapers, consulted his inner oracles, and mentally calculated what it would take to develop Pontowski as a successor to his grandfather.

  One of the rare lieutenants assigned to the Pentagon broke the impromptu protocol of silence that had sprung into place around Pontowski and said, “I’m sorry, sir.” Pontowski nodded in reply and turned down his corridor.

  The civilian secretary stood up when he entered the office. Unbidden tears filled her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Colonel, so sorry.” They looked at each other for a moment. Pontowski again nodded, a gentle look on his face, and she sat down. She faced her computer and pounded on the keys, trying to exorcise her own sense of loss.

  Before Pontowski could reach the safety of his own office, his immediate superior, Brigadier General Mark Von Drexler, the chief of Foreign Sales, walked in. Von Drexler looked like a TV soap opera’s version of a general and artfully rode that image as he made his way up the ladder of promotion. “Matt,” he said, “please let me extend the sympathy and condolences of the entire staff.” Von Drexler had rehearsed his words in front
of a mirror, making sure his facial expression matched the tone in his voice. “I know words are inadequate at a time like this. The passing of your grandfather, one of our great presidents, is a momentous loss to our country and marks the end of a chapter in our nation’s history.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Pontowski responded. Again, the head nod worked and he was able to retreat into his office, closing the door behind him.

  Von Drexler turned to leave. “I wonder how the ‘golden boy’ is going to make it on his own now?” he asked himself aloud. “Without his grandfather around to run interference.” He didn’t expect an answer. The secretary said nothing and mashed the keyboard harder. The brigadier gave a snort-like laugh, his sign of contentment when things were going well, and left.

  “No good looks can hide the fact, General VD,” the woman muttered under her breath, the tears still flowing, “that you are one rare bastard.”

  Inside his office, Pontowski hung up his overcoat, unbuttoned the coat to his uniform and looked out the window. The eulogy had forced him into a reflective frame of mind that had turned into a deep inner search. During the process, he had discovered many things about himself. Well, Grandpop, he thought, you’re still making me learn. And Von Drexler spoke the truth when he said we’ve reached the end of a chapter—especially my chapter here at Fort Fumble.

  The thirty-two-year-old lieutenant colonel knew he had reached a crossroad in his life and was about to discover what he could do without the far-reaching influence of his grandfather clearing the right-of-way. He had heard the rumors about his below-the-zone promotion to major and then lieutenant colonel. He wanted to prove them all wrong. He was not someone who owed his rank to political influence.

  He sat down and stared at one of the photos on his desk, the one with his grandfather, Shoshana, and Little Matt. The president was smiling at the baby cuddled comfortably in the crook of his right arm. Pontowski focused on Shoshana’s image. The photo didn’t reveal any marks of the fire that had scarred her. Only her missing left earlobe and two fingers from her left hand that reconstructive surgery could not repair were still visible, but they were hidden from the camera’s lens. But I know the other scars you carry, he thought.

  Looking at the photo helped ease the dull ache that was tormenting him. “I miss you,” he murmured to himself. His grandfather and grandmother, the elegant and loving woman called Tosh, had raised him since he was three, and he could not remember his parents.

  Pontowski’s father had died in a fiery crash when his F-4C Phantom had slammed into a hillside in North Vietnam in 1968. His mother never recovered from her grief and joined the antiwar protests in Berkeley, California. Unfortunately, she had also turned to the counterculture movement. Drugs and poor hygiene destroyed what was left of her frail physical and mental state. In the vague reaches of his memory, he could remember attending her funeral when he was five years old. It had fallen to Tosh to make him understand that his parents had both been casualties of the horror that was called Vietnam. During the last year of his grandfather’s presidency, the ugly disease lupus had claimed Tosh. Now his grandfather was also gone.

  Matthew Zachary Pontowski picked up the first folder in his in-basket, glanced at it, and then three it back into the basket. It could wait. Okay, he told himself, decision time. Be honest. You love the flying but can’t stand the bureaucracy and the ambitious assholes who stalk the halls of the Pentagon. So what are you going to do? Do something now, while you can still get an assignment to a front-line fighter squadron.

  But Pontowski had seen how political influence exerted its power and he knew that any request for reassignment submitted now would be instantly given the inside track. He sensed the unfairness of it all. He would be taking a flying slot away from another jock who was committed heart and soul to the Air Force and trying desperately to make a career in the scaled-down service that was emerging after the end of the Cold War. He wanted to be considered on his own merits. Yet he knew the tinge of political influence would plague him no matter what he did. Still, every instinct told him that he had to escape from the paperwork side of the Air Force or get out.

  He picked up the phone and jabbed at the buttons, calling his old back-seater, Ambler Furry, who had found a home at the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver managing the Air Force Reserve. Furry alone would play it straight with him. “Yo, Amb,” he said, “can you help save an old buddy?” Ten minutes later, he hug up and called Shoshana to ask how she felt about taking a new assignment to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. It would mean his resigning from the regular Air Force and joining the reserves.

  But there were compensations.

  Thursday, December 28

  Hanoi, Vietnam

  “I want to see him. Now.”

  The four guards stared at the teenager, surprised by the steel and command in his voice. “Of course,” the older sergeant said, suddenly anxious to do the boy’s bidding. He motioned for the other three guards to stay back, afraid that one might let the ancient hatred the Vietnamese held for the Chinese break through. That could only mean trouble, as his superiors were treating the boy as an honored dignitary. Besides, why this Chinese whelp was interested in the American they had held captive for over a year was not his concern. The sergeant led the way down the dark corridor, automatically counting the thick wooden doors on the left.

  It puzzled the sergeant why he, a hero of the Vietnamese people, should be groveling around this slender boy. The sergeant was, after all, a combat veteran who had fought the Americans in the la Drang when he was no older than the lad he was now escorting, butchered scores of South Vietnamese during the Tet offensive, and marched into Saigon with a victorious army in 1975. Now, twenty years later, he was all but bowing to this Chinese boy who was marked only by expressive eyes and a commanding voice. Kill the bastard, he told himself. But just as quickly, he discarded the thought. There was too much involved. “In here,” the sergeant said, stopping in front of the fourth door. He turned the key in the lock, pulled the heavy bolt back, tugged the door open, and swept the cell with his flashlight. A giant of a man was sitting yoga-style on the concrete shelf that served as a bunk. His Oriental features were composed and calm, oblivious to his dank surroundings.

  “Pig!” the sergeant shouted. “You know the rules. Sit at attention on your bunk, feet on the floor.” The prisoner only blinked at the bright light. The sergeant made no attempt to enter the cell. Aware that the boy sensed his fear of the man, the sergeant pointed the beam at the floor, illuminating the spot where he wanted the man’s feet, and showing that he was in charge.

  Slowly, the man swung his bulk around into the required position. A rat scurried across the floor, running along the base of the bunk and behind the prisoner’s bare feet. With a speed the boy could not believe, the man’s right hand snapped out and tweaked the rat behind its neck, snapping it. With a graceful motion, he threw the dead rodent into the far corner. The flashlight panned across the cell onto a pile of dead rats. “This is the way he amuses himself,” the sergeant said.

  The boy studied the American. The reports had not exaggerated—he was at least six and a half feet tall, and even in his emaciated condition, had to weigh two hundred pounds. “Bring some decent food,” he told the guard.

  “That would only give him strength,” the Vietnamese replied.

  “I want to talk to him. Alone.”

  “That is against the rules.” The boy only stared at the guard. “I’ll bring some food,” the sergeant finally said, withering under the intense look. He turned and retreated down the hall, locking the cell door but leaving the light on.

  “They tell me you speak some Cantonese,” the boy said in that language. “I’ve come to free you.”

  Silence. Finally, the man turned and looked at the newcomer. “Thank you, I’m grateful.” His voice was amazingly soft and gentle, totally at odds with his bulky body, and barely audible as he fumbled with his limited Chinese vocabulary. “You’re not Vietnames
e.”

  “No,” the teenager replied in English. “And the way you torture your words tell me you’re not Han.”

  The man shook his big head. He saw no reason to tell the boy he had been born on the island of Maui and that his heritage included both Hawaiian and Japanese bloodlines. He was not Chinese. But a strong instinct warned him to be very candid about the matter that had brought this strange teenager to this prison in Hanoi. He was not what he seemed at first glance. “If I get out of this cell, I’ll try to escape.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” the boy smiled. “You’ll be set free as soon as we are out of Vietnam.”

  “Why should you go to all this trouble? You don’t even know me.”

  “I am seeking the help of the Vietnamese in a cause much like their own,” the young Chinese replied. “An official mentioned you during an … ah … conversation. I thought perhaps you might also be willing to help us.”

  “Who is ‘us’?”

  How much should I tell him about our cause? the young man thought. He is an American by birth and not Chinese. What will it matter to him that we must try to claim our own fate and again throw our lives against the power of a corrupt government? Perhaps the simplest answer is the best for now. “My people, the Chinese.”

  “And if I won’t?”

  “Then you’re a free man. We’ll get you to Hong Kong.” A long silence came down. “What is your name?” the American finally asked.

  “Zou Rong.”

  A smile played across the man’s face. “I thought he died over ninety years ago in jail—when he was nineteen.”

  “I’m surprised that an American would know the name,” Zou said. “I adopted his name because mine means nothing and I resemble his photograph. But I am nine years older.”

  “You had me fooled, Mr. Zou.” The American came to his feet in an easy and fluid movement, a decision made. “I am grateful for you getting me out of here but I need more information before I decide to help you.”