28

THE LAST MISSION OF NESTOR GLADES

Off the coast of Vietnam

Present Day

Flying roughly five thousand feet above the churning South China Sea, the gray C-17 cargo plane resembled an enormous winged whale as it plowed through scudding clouds. Large gaps occasionally opened in the dense cumulus banks, revealing a once beautiful shoreline ravaged by last week’s fearsome tsunami. Wrecked fishing junks could be seen miles inland; only days ago the pride and livelihood of their owners, now abandoned and fit only for kindling. The devastated landscape was a splotchy mosaic of muddy brown flooded areas and isolated pockets of green vegetation.

Deep in the bowels of the massive transport, Nestor Glades grunted as he was bent double by overlapping waves of nausea and severe pain. Groaning, he gagged on caustic bile surging up in his throat. Subsisting solely on pills and lukewarm water, he hadn’t eaten since departing the States yesterday.

Closing his eyes, he tried desperately to sleep, but getting any real rest was a futile effort. He recalled a philosopher’s famous declaration that what doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger. While Glades had already outlived his doctor’s dire predictions, as well as the hushed expectations of his family and friends, he sure didn’t feel any stronger, but was just too damned stubborn to die yet. Now he was beginning to doubt that this excursion was really such a wise idea, and whether he might have been better off spending his last days propped up in a hospital bed, tethered to a numbing drip of intravenous narcotics.

Glades looked to his right; cuddled against his shoulder, with her head supported by a familiar pillow taken from their Florida home, Deirdre snored softly. Sound asleep, clutching a large plastic prescription bottle in her freckled hands, she had served as his nurse for the entire journey. He smiled in spite of his anguish; if he had accomplished nothing else in his time on earth, he had married well. She had scarcely changed since he met her in England over fifty years ago; her hair was still fiery red and her waif-like figure lent little evidence that she had carried and delivered five children. After nearly losing her to breast cancer over a decade ago, he cherished her more than ever. She bravely endured two mastectomies followed by seemingly endless rounds of chemotherapy, radiation therapy and experimental drug trials. Now, overjoyed that Deirdre was still at his side, he accepted her scars in the same manner that she had long accepted his.

To her right, in the adjoining troop seats, was another couple: Scott Ourecky, a retired Air Force major general, and his wife, Bea. They nestled into each other like a pair of love birds, naturally seeking each other’s familiar warmth and comfort. Like Glades, Ourecky wasn’t a big man, perhaps just three inches shy of six feet, but it was obvious that he and his wife—Bea—kept themselves in excellent physical condition. Both were long into grey and carried their share of wrinkles and creases, but Bea was still a statuesque and beautiful woman.

Convulsing as a knife of pain ripped through his abdomen, Glades grimaced as he waited for the throbbing to subside. His agony was not new; diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer eleven weeks ago, he endured suffering that he could not possibly have imagined when he was still a healthy man.

Gradually wasting away would have been an unfitting end for Glades, a consummate warrior who had evaded death’s grasp on countless missions across the face of the globe. But less than a week ago he had reconciled himself to just such a fate. He was literally settling into his deathbed when a strange invitation arrived, summoning him once more to action. The promise of the invitation—an opportunity to make amends with his past—was sufficient for the dying soldier to undertake what had become such an arduous journey.

The note, borne by a special messenger from the White House, written under the President’s own hand, was a personal request for Glades and Ourecky to accompany a consignment of tsunami relief supplies to Vietnam. The note was dispatched with a set of special travel orders and official instructions that gave a time and place for a more detailed briefing. Their spouses were also invited to accompany them. If the timing and circumstances permitted, the two couples would tour the flood-ravaged areas to observe the disaster relief operations currently in progress.

Quietly grunting at the onset of yet another stabbing pain, Glades swiveled his head and looked to his left. The C-17’s cavernous interior was crammed with sixty very tangible tons of American good will—humanitarian rations, bottled water, tents, tarps, plastic sheeting, blankets, medicine, baby formula—all stacked neatly on flat metal pallets, tidily arranged in three rows, six large pallets to a row. If he didn’t know any better, he could easily convince himself that he was in a meticulously clean supply depot, except for the faint but relentless pulsations of the shiny aluminum floor and the muted roar of turbojet engines, subtle evidence that this particular warehouse was hurtling through the sky at nearly five hundred miles an hour.

Leaning forward in his seat, Glades looked at a metal casket lashed to the aircraft’s floor with thick nylon ratchet straps, and reflected on the true purpose of their mission. He was en route to Vietnam at the express invitation of the President, but his true task had nothing to do with humanitarian relief efforts. Rather, he had left his deathbed for a chance to close the books on a mission left unfinished almost four decades ago.

In the waning days of America’s active involvement in the war in Southeast Asia, Glades had participated in a clandestine mission to rescue a Navy pilot shot down over North Vietnam. He later discovered the Navy aviator—Lieutenant Commander Drew Scott—was in fact an Air Force pilot—Major Drew Carson—flying under a disguised identity. Questions concerning Carson’s capture were never entirely resolved, and his ultimate fate was still unknown. Haunted by the notion that he had left someone behind, Glades had personally worked behind the scenes to investigate Carson’s circumstances, but the trail had grown cold decades ago.

In the aftermath of the recent tsunami, a Vietnamese colonel came forward, stating that he could provide information to clarify Carson’s status. Not only did he claim to possess personal knowledge of the missing pilot’s outcome, but also asserted that he could provide indisputable proof. But the potential disclosure came with strings attached: for whatever reason, the Vietnamese colonel specifically declared that he was only willing to talk to Ourecky or Glades. That was all Glades knew, but it was just as well; after a lifetime spent working in the shadows, he was quite accustomed to obscure information and incomplete orders.

Glades looked at the aluminum casket again. Technically, in military-speak, it was not even a casket; officially, it was a “human remains transfer case.” It had been hastily loaded aboard the C-17 during a brief stop in Hawaii, with the assumption that there might actually be skeletal fragments or other remains to be brought back to the United States. In truth, it was just as likely that the glistening metal box would return empty, since the Vietnamese colonel’s cryptic message did not tacitly state that there were remains; in fact, it did not go so far as to say whether Carson was dead or perhaps still alive.

Glades looked toward the rear of the plane, where six men dozed in troop seats. One was a forensic specialist from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, who was accompanying the mission in the expectation that there would be remains to identify. Another was an intelligence analyst with the DIA—Defense Intelligence Agency—and the remainder comprised a personnel security detail—two US Secret Service agents and two Air Force security officers—charged with protecting Ourecky and Glades.

The personnel security detail—PSD—wasn’t simply a formal precaution dictated by protocol regulations; there was a legitimate need to safeguard the two men, albeit for different reasons. During the war, besides slaughtering scores of other North Vietnamese soldiers, Glades had personally killed an NVA regimental commander who was a favorite nephew of General Giap. Although the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam were now at peace, some festering wounds never healed completely, and there may be a former NVA soldier lurking somewhere in the background, vindictively eager to settle an old score.

Ourecky’s situation was different: Glades was aware that the retired general carried an old secret of tremendous magnitude, but there was no indication that it had ever been even slightly compromised over the years. Of course, on the other hand, there was just no way of really knowing. At this point, with the international tsunami relief effort in full swing, a multitude of nations—including a large contingent of Russians—were represented at Tan Son Nhat. Consequently, if there was even the slightest indication of a confrontation or an attempt to kill or seize either man, the entire party would retreat to the C-17, and they were coming out, come hell or high water. If they were blocked from taking off, the PSD would barricade the cargo jet and they would wait for the arrival of a more substantial tactical force to effect an extraction.

Minutes later, the massive jet arrived at Ho Chi Minh City. After years of ferrying cargo and troops into war zones, the pilot was apparently in the habit of never letting the transport use any more runway than absolutely necessary. As the tires barked on the pavement, she braked hard, smoothly reversed thrust on the engines, and executed an abbreviated landing that would have earned the crew bragging rights at the shortest dirt strip in any combat zone.

It took a few minutes for the C-17 to taxi into the busy cargo terminal area. The plane eased to a halt and the rear ramp slowly swished down. Within moments of their arrival, a small army of trucks and forklifts descended on the plane. The C-17’s aluminum floor was cross-hatched with an intricate network of rollers and guides, which allowed the massive supply pallets to be pushed and prodded without mechanical assistance. Glades was fascinated with the casual ease at which the Air Force cargo handlers were able to manipulate tons of supplies.

Stretching and yawning, Deirdre rose to her feet. She peeled off her blue nylon windbreaker and stuffed it into a daypack. She and Bea chatted as they crammed their packs with bottles of water, snacks, and tubes of sunscreen. As the women gathered their belongings, Ourecky hurriedly walked toward the back of the plane, anxious to get on with the mission. Moving as quickly as he was able, Glades shuffled stiffly afterwards.

“Ness, my darling,” Deirdre called out after her spouse. Her voice was a soft Irish lilt, only gently tempered by decades of living in America. “Please pace yourself. I’m sure there’s time, and you needn’t make yourself even sicker in this infernal heat.”

Almost by instinct, like a perpetual tourist who glimpsed the wonders of the world through the narrow confines of a viewfinder, Glades stood on the C-17’s ramp and rapidly snapped pictures with his digital camera. Then he realized the futility of his actions: he probably wouldn’t live long enough to view the images, and Deirdre had never demonstrated any interest in learning how to download the pictures.

Deirdre joined him at the rear of the plane. Shadowed by the C-17’s aircraft commander—a petite major who kept her strawberry blonde hair pinned into a tight bun—the two couples stepped down from the ramp and strode out to a white van waiting planeside. Heat waves shimmered off the sunbaked tarmac, and the pungent smell of burning wood and debris hung in the air. Dogs barked in the distance.

“General,” stated the aircraft commander. “I’m Major Janet Smith. I have some papers for you.” After handing Ourecky a folder of documents, she self-consciously smoothed and adjusted her sage green flight suit.

Ourecky removed his sunglasses, squinted, donned reading glasses, and reviewed the paperwork. Glades had already seen the documents; they were orders for the aircrew that clearly stated—in the least vague of any military language that he had ever seen—that the C-17 was not to depart Vietnam until Ourecky was absolutely satisfied that they had accomplished the task that they were sent to do.

“Thank you, Major Smith,” said Ourecky, climbing into the van. “Ride with us, please.”

A Secret Service agent drove them toward an operations building near the main terminal. There was a moment of awkward silence before Smith spoke. “General, I couldn’t help but notice your name on the manifest. You’re not related to…”

Chuckling, Ourecky answered, “Yeah, good catch, Major. We’re related all right: he’s my son. Everyone asks that. He’s made quite a name for himself.”

“I guess you’re really proud of him,” said Smith, fanning herself. “Is he still with NASA?”

“No. He’s still involved in space flight, except strictly on the military side. He transferred from NASA back into the Air Force, and works with unmanned platforms now,” explained Ourecky. “It’s funny, though; when he was flying the Shuttle, he was always so casual about it. I could never imagine that riding rockets would become such a routine job. But it’s almost as if he was born to fly into space. It all comes so naturally to him.”

Looking out the window, Smith nodded. “So I suppose that this place probably brings back a lot of memories for you.”

“How so?” asked Ourecky.

“Well, I just assumed that you spent some time here during the war, sir,” replied Smith.

“No, I never set foot here.” Ourecky grinned, shrugged his narrow shoulders, and added, “Passed over several times, maybe, but that’s another story.”

In the front passenger seat, a gruff-looking Secret Service agent cupped his ear, apparently listening to a radio through an earpiece. He pointed toward a blue Toyota carry-all van parked beside the operations building. “Sir, that’s the Vietnamese colonel who wants to talk to you.”

Glades watched an elderly man step out from the passenger side; the man looked to be in his seventies and was dressed in the distinctive camouflage uniform of the Vietnam People’s Army ground forces. Even from a distance, the man looked vaguely familiar. Seeing that the man’s withered left arm hung loosely at his side, his suspicions were confirmed.

Their own van pulled to a stop and the small party disembarked. The DIA analyst consulted a PDA and spoke quickly as they approached the building. “General, I just received more detailed information. This guy’s name is Colonel Bao Trung. He was initially assigned as a Lieutenant in the 22nd NVA Infantry Regiment. Seriously wounded in Quang Nam province in August of 1970. They evacuated him north. After medical treatment and rehabilitation, he was assigned to another infantry regiment in training in Quang Ninh province up north, but was wounded again in December 1972. After recuperating from that, he was assigned to a POW camp as a guard force commander and then later became the camp administrator.”

Ourecky nodded. “Anything else?” he asked.

“Sir, our records indicate he’s a dyed-in-the-wool, Communist hardliner. He fought against our guys in South Vietnam, and there’s substantial evidence that he was personally involved in interrogating a few of our pilots at the tail end of the war. I would be cautious with this guy, General. Abundantly so.”

“Duly noted.”

As they approached, the Vietnamese officer faced Glades and Ourecky, drew himself to attention, saluted, and bowed slightly at the waist. Years seemed to fade away as he straightened his spine and became like a younger image of himself. “I am Colonel Bao Trung,” he announced proudly.

His name had barely departed his lips when Glades staggered forward and threw his arms around Bao Trung, and the elderly Vietnamese man reciprocated. No words passed, but they gripped each other tightly, as if they were long lost brothers. Tears streamed from their eyes. Ourecky watched without emotion, obviously not knowing what bond connected the two.

Taken aback by her husband’s tears, Deirdre crumpled against Ourecky and began to sob.

“Are you going to be all right, Deirdre?” asked Ourecky, putting an arm around her shoulders to comfort her. “Is there something I can do?”

Stammering through her tears, Deirdre replied, “I’m sorry. I’ll be okay. It’s just that…it’s just that after being married fifty years, burying two children, and even with this damned death sentence hanging over him, I’ve never once seen that man shed a tear.”