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and we can get this delightful experience on the road.”
    Warren shook his head at Flanders’s very non-standard passenger brief and climbed through the crew entrance. A tall and gangly teenager was waiting just inside. “Airman Boyle?” Warren asked.
    “Yessir,” the airman answered.
    “Welcome ...”
    Boyle cut him off in mid sentence. “Am I the loadmaster here or not?”
    Warren took the airman in, not liking what he saw. His flight suit was dirty, his hair too long for a tropical climate, his boots needed cleaning, and his survival vest hung loosely over his shoulders. Warren didn’t care about spit and polish, not in a war zone, but he did care about basic hygiene. “Staff Sergeant Glen Flanders is the loadmaster on this aircraft. You can learn a lot from him.” He shouldered Boyle aside and climbed the short ladder onto the flight deck.
    “But Flanders is a ...”
    Warren turned and stared down at him. “Sergeant Flanders is a what?”
    “Nothing, sir.”
    Warren had caught Boyle’s hard twangy southern drawl and chalked his attitude up to racism. He decided to give the teenager a break. “This is the Air Force, Boyle. Get used to it. Now, go give Sergeant Flanders a hand.” Fortunately, Boyle read Warren correctly and disappeared down the crew entrance steps without a word.
    Warren settled into the left hand pilot’s seat and unzipped his survival vest, getting comfortable. Steve Bosko was already in the co-pilot’s seat running the cockpit checklist with the flight engineer. Dave Santos was seated at the navigator’s position directly behind Bosko, facing outboard to the right, still sorting out the paperwork. The flight engineer, Technical Sergeant Mike Hale, was sitting behind and between the two pilots. His seat was slightly higher so he could reach the overhead instrument panels. But that was no problem for the skinny six foot four sergeant. He was the tallest man in the squadron and his red hair covered numerous scars from banging into low objects on the aircraft. He had to be especially careful of the sextant, when installed for overwater flights, that hung from the overheard directly behind his seat. A pleasant demeanour, friendly blue eyes, and a mass of freckles concealed a very intelligent and deeply religious man. He was known for ‘going by The Book’, and wanted to make chief master sergeant before he retired.
    “Time to light the fires,” Warren said. “Aux power on.” The flight engineer’s hands danced over the instrument panel as he fed power from the auxiliary power generator into the electrical bus, bringing the aircraft to life. Bosko turned on the radios and checked in with ground control. Before he could request an engine start, ground control told them to shut down. Another passenger was on his way out.
    “Hurry up and wait,” Santos moaned.
    “Must be a VIP,” Bosko decided.
    “I think I’ll go howdy our passengers,” Warren said. He wanted to find out why Colonel Mace had kicked Huckabee and Slovack off his base. And there was the attractive captain.
    *
    The Laotian-South Vietnamese Border
    “Why are we going this way?” Colonel Dinh moaned, reluctant to leave the safety of the cave so soon after the B-52s had carpet-bombed the valley.
    Tran heard the panic in his words and suppressed a smile. “It is the only way to the command post,” he replied. “Besides, we must be seen if the cadre is to have confidence in our orders.” An explosion echoed over them and Dinh flinched, struggling to remain calm. Both men knew they were being watched and evaluated by every man and woman in the Binh Tram. Reluctantly, Tran decided to run cover for the colonel, allowing him to save face. “Ah, that is our clearance teams at work. They immediately detonate any bomb that has not exploded. Some are duds but the Americans also use delayed-action fuses on bombs they drop. Those are the most dangerous.” Another explosion punctuated his sentence.
    Dinh flinched again, on