huge sheets of plate glass exploded inwards, engulfing the rebels
clustered there.
“U.S. Marines!” Loomis kept shouting. “U.S. Marines! Everybody down!”
Some of the rebel soldiers were already throwing down their guns and
raising their hands.
0732 hours, 21 January
That International Hotel, Bangkok
Colonel Kriangsak heard the explosion of gunfire from the lobby. He’d
been racing through one of the hotel’s shops with two of his men, trying
to find a vantage point which would let him see inside the big
helicopter’s cargo bay when automatic weapons fire began its insistent,
full-throated rattling elsewhere in the building.
He knew at once that an assault was underway, that the helo’s arrival
had been a ruse. He reached a window in time to see two lines of
Marines storming down the helo’s ramp and rushing the front of the
building. There was a loud thump of a grenade, then another. Smoke
billowed from beneath the awning over the sidewalk in front of the
hotel.
Kriangsak raised his M-16, aiming at the charging Marines through the
window … then lowered it again. If he opened fire, he could kill
three or four, perhaps, but that would not help the coup and it would
guarantee Kriangsak’s own death.
0733 hours, 21 January
Sea Stallion 936, That International Hotel, Bangkok
SA David Howard had volunteered to help load the extra Stokes stretchers
onto the big Sea Stallion that morning, never guessing that he was
getting a front-row seat to a hostage rescue. The helo’s cargo chief
had simply asked if he wanted to come along to help with the stretchers
at the other end, and handed him a cranial and a life jacket when he
agreed.
He wasn’t sure why he’d volunteered. He still felt the shock–and the
horror–of the deaths of his three friends in Bangkok. There’d been no
official announcement yet, but word had already spread through the
Jefferson’s grapevine. It was horrible.
And that same death had come so close to claiming him as well.
Maybe it was a need to lay those particular ghosts to rest … or
possibly he just needed to be busy. In any case, he’d said yes.
Within minutes of receiving the emergency call from the American
embassy, the helo was lifting off from the Jefferson. Howard was
enthralled by the sight of the carrier–the small city in which he’d
been living for the past months–dropping away astern until it looked
like a toy, finally vanishing in the distance. The Sea Stallion had
touched down at the embassy thirty minutes later and taken aboard at
least fifty grim, face-blackened Marines in full combat gear. The
flight to the hotel had taken only a minute or two more.
The assault on the That International Hotel was over almost as soon as
it began, and Howard saw very little of it. The Sea Stallion had
dropped to the pavement in front of the hotel and lowered the ramp, but
the body of the aircraft was turned so that people inside the hotel
could not see into the machine’s cavernous cargo bay.
He waited, unable to see, packed in with at least fifty Marines who,
save for their garb and weapons, seemed to be men very much like
himself. Some chewed gum, others made grim jokes. Most simply stared
past the padding covering the inside of the cargo bay and kept their
thoughts to themselves.
It occurred to Howard that he was going into combat himself. He heard
the sudden crackle of muffled gunfire.
Then the word crackled over an officer’s helmet radio loudly enough for
Howard to hear it. “Sunday Punch, Outpost! They’re in the lobby. Take
’em down!” An order was barked, and the Marines thundered down the Sea
Stallion’s ramp, the tramp of their feet on metal amplified by the cargo
bay walls.
“Marines!” someone yelled, and the cry was taken up and repeated by the
others with one thundering voice which drowned out the noise of the
rotors.
Howard heard the double bang of a pair of grenades, the smash of
shattering glass, the crack of gunfire.
When the Marines were clear of the Sea Stallion, the cargo chief talked
briefly with the crew through his helmet mike. Gently, the big helo