which suggested that someone–loggers, possibly–were working the area,
that this stretch of jungle was not as isolated as he’d thought.
But after several more hours of searching, Batman was forced to admit
that he couldn’t tell which direction the vehicles had been moving,
north or south, and while they weren’t old, they still might have been
several days old.
And he still needed to find Malibu.
Finally, as the unseen sun began warming the jungle floor, burning off
the mist which had lingered there since the rain, Batman decided that
his best bet was to get to the top of a hill where he could signal an
aircraft if it passed overhead.
The river ran north-south, which meant Thailand–assuming he had strayed
over the border–lay that way. To the left, the valley’s east slope
gave him the quickest access to an unrestricted hilltop.
And possibly from up there he could look down on the valley’s treetop
canopy and spot Malibu’s chute.
He started climbing.
0930 hours, 18 January
CAG’s office, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson
“Thanks for seeing me, CAG,” Tombstone said as he stepped into the
cramped office. He’d not had much sleep the night before, and he was
feeling the effects this morning.
“No problem, Stoney.” CAG looked drawn and tired as well. “Pull up a
chair and sit yourself.”
He sat. “I’d like to know what’s being done for Batman and Malibu,” he
said without preamble.
Marusko sighed. “Not a hell of a lot, Stoney. Not yet, anyway. Half
the brass on this boat were up in Bangkok last night. You must have
heard.”
Tombstone nodded. “A little.”
“The admiral was pushing for a full-scale SAR effort, but the Thais
turned us down.”
“But why?” The Thais had a fair-sized air force, but most of their
planes were old and dated, Vietnam-era stuff like Broncos and F-5s, plus
a single squadron of F-16 Falcons. “We could make a TARPS run, and-”
“It was a TARPS mission that got us in this mess, remember?” Marusko
shook his head. “Things could be getting hot up there. After our
meeting last night, something had the Thais stirred up. And the
Hawkeyes we had on station over central Thailand picked up what might
have been an invasion.”
“An invasion! Who? The Burmese?”
Marusko fingered a ballpoint pen on his desk. “That’s the working
theory for the moment. The Burmese are denying it, of course.” He
shrugged. “The … ah … historical animosity between Thailand and
Burma goes back a long way. Sometimes the Burmese shell the That side
of the border just for the hell of it, it seems.”
“Still, that shouldn’t stop us from sending in a search and rescue.
Those are our people up there, CAG.”
“I know that.” Marusko’s voice was hard. “But we’re not running a SAR.
That’s being left to the Thais.”
“No SAR! Shit, CAG! We can’t just leave them up there!”
For Tombstone, the situation had an eerie sense of de ja vu. When his
wingman–another friend–had been shot down off Korea three months
before, distance and political considerations had prevented an immediate
search-and-rescue effort. The look on Marusko’s face told him that this
situation was very much the same.
“Tombstone, you have to understand that the That government is very
sensitive about their northern border. They’ve had trouble with the
Burmese for centuries … and there are constant charges of corruption
and connivance on their part regarding the drugs that come through that
region out of the Golden Triangle. They agreed to have our two planes
come into the area to help with recon the other day … but inviting our
whole SAR force is something else entirely.”
“Oh, come on, CAG! We could manage with just a couple of planes-”
“Tombstone, we don’t even know if Batman and Malibu are still alive.
Two-oh-three didn’t sight their chutes, remember.”
“Damn it, we’ve got to know!”
“Look, it’s out of our hands, okay? I just got off the phone with
Colonel Kriangsak just before you walked in here.”
“Kriangsak?”
“Our liaison with the That armed forces. I was on him at the meeting
last night, and again this morning. He says his government is afraid
large numbers of aircraft would be misinterpreted by the Burmese, maybe