Chapter Three

A Slight Detour

Once inside the Embassy, Benson asked around for Colonel Moss and nobody had seen him. Steve and Benson walked up to the third floor and found the radio operator in a small room where he was in the process of packing up the radio gear.

"Hey Red, where's the Colonel?", he asked.

"Haven't seen him all day," he replied. "Why?"

"He contacted me on the radio shortly after you gave me the bug out order and told me to bring him back a classified file from the comm center", motioning to the pack on his back. "I've got it here in this ALICE pack and I want to get rid of it."

"Man, the Colonel ain't been here all day that I've seen and I don't know anything about any classified you were supposed to bring back." Then he added, "If I were you, I'd just destroy it and call it a total loss with the rest of the stuff that went up back at the comm center."

"No can do. The Colonel specifically said I was to give it only to him and ASAP. I thought he was transmitting from your radio right here", he said.

"Benson, I haven't left this chair to go take a piss from the time I signed on this morning till about a half hour ago and I haven't even heard of the Colonel being in the building all day, much less here talking on my radio", he shot back. "Now, if you don't mind I got work to do before we take off for DaNang."

Taking the ALICE pack off, Benson removed the fiberglass briefcase, set the combination and opened it. He then reached inside and pulled the big manila envelope out and holding it out to Red, he said. "Look, the Colonel wanted this classified ASAP. If you see him before I do, make sure he gets it. In the mean time, keep it with your other gear."

"Okay, boss. You win." Red replied as he tossed the package in the bottom of one of the radio crates face-down.

Turning away, Benson said, "Alright, see you in a few. I'm gonna go find the Colonel." Benson shouldered the pack, then started walking with Steve down the long corridor from the radio room. Taking the brick out of it's holster on his hip, Benson keyed the radio and said, "Charlie Oscar, Charlie Oscar, this is Charlie Romeo, how copy, over?" he waited for a few seconds with no reply. He keyed the radio again, "Charlie Oscar, Charlie Oscar, this is Charlie Romeo, do you copy, over?" Still no reply.

They turned the corner and started walking down a short hallway to the Ambassador's office. He said, "Somebody's got to know where the Colonel is. Maybe someone in the Ambassador's office knows something. I'm gonna go check it out. Why don't you go around and try to find him and we'll meet back at the radio shack. We're fixin' to leave and the Colonel's outta pocket."

The door to the Ambassador's outer office was open, so he walked in and looked around to see a portable shredder on every desk, with someone frantically feeding documents into each one. The floor and all the desks were littered with papers and documents. He stopped at the first desk he came to and asked if they had seen Colonel Moss. They never heard of him. He asked around the room with the same answer. "He's got to be here somewhere." he thought to himself. "To the best of my knowledge, since we got to Saigon, he didn't even leave the Embassy to sleep."

He walked out of the office back down the corridor to where Red was just starting to pick up one side of a heavy crate filled with radio gear when he asked him for a hand with the stuff to get it up the stairs to the roof.

Benson grabbed the other handle and they awkwardly made their way up the stairs and onto the roof where they dropped the crate in the lashing wind from a waiting CH-46 and went back down for the rest. Red grabbed the packed-up GRA-4 mast assembly with one hand and reached for a handle on the other crate. Benson grabbed the other side of the crate and lead the way up the stairs.

Once back on the roof, the flight engineer waved them over to help load the other cargo that was already there. The radio gear was at the tail end of the crates to be loaded, and didn't make it on the flight. Red wasn't about to leave his gear on the roof, so he opted to wait on the next flight.

By this time, Steve had stepped up onto the roof where Red and Benson were fighting the wind from the chopper. "Find out anything?" Benson screamed over the blasting roar of the chopper's blades.

"No, nothing." Steve screamed back. "What are we supposed to do?"

"We go to DaNang and wait for him there", he screamed, "If he's not there, then he's got to be on his way here. Red's got the file the Colonel wanted and is going to wait for him here. If he doesn't show, then Red'll join us in DaNang. If the Colonel gets here after Red leaves, then he'll see we're packed up and gone and meet up with us there, but right now, this is our flight, Bubba, we gotta go!"

With that, they ducked down, ran to the chopper, stepped up on the landing and joined the other two passengers who were already strapped into their seats among several wooden crates. Benson ended up in between Gramps and a pretty blonde who was dressed in a mid-calf sleeveless summer dress. She was holding a black satchel to her chest like it had her life savings in it and Gramps had a classified pouch in his lap.

"That's funny," Benson thought to himself. "I don't remember Gramps having a classified pouch." He looked over at Steve just as he was getting strapped in, and stuffed his ALICE pack under his seat.

The chopper lifted off a little too fast for Benson's liking and quickly gained altitude over the city. Looking down on the crowd at the gates and the surrounding streets, he wondered how in the hell the jarheads were going to be able to turn loose long enough to get up the three flights of stairs to the roof for their own evac. All he knew was that his part was done and he thanked God he was on his way outta there. All he could do now was pray they made it out just as safely, but in the forefront of his mind, he was really concerned about where the Colonel was and why he couldn't reach him on the radio.

They cleared the city soon enough and the chopper was leveling out for a smooth flight to DaNang as the passengers settled back to endure the ride. Benson peeked out of the corner of his eye and saw that the pretty blonde had relaxed her death-grip on her briefcase a little and seemed more concerned about the wind kicking up the edge of her dress revealing a nice pair of legs that ran all the way up. Not that he was paying any attention, mind you, he just happened to notice. He just happened to notice the fancy lace, too, but he really wasn't staring, no sir.

Glancing over to his right, he saw Gramps unsnap his harness and unsteadily make his way up to the front of the chopper. As he squatted down between the pilot and the flight engineer, he pulled a Colt Gov't Model out of his classified pouch, and jamming the business end of it into the pilot's ribs, he ordered him to turn the chopper around. The pretty blonde finally noticed the gun in the pilot's side and screamed. Gramps turned and yelled at her to shutup.

Over the roar of the engines and blasts of air against the fuselage, Benson heard Gramps yell coordinates for the pilot to fly to. The pilot looked down at him and heard him yell, "Are you crazy? That's in Cambodia!" To that, Gramps replied, "I know exactly where it is. We have an unscheduled stop to make. Now do it!"

That having been said, Gramps looked over at Benson and with a wave of his pistol, he yelled, "Toss over the backpack, soldier boy." Benson reached under his seat and kicked the pack across the chopper floor to him. As he secured the backpack under a leg, Gramps reached inside his fatigue shirt and pulled out a small transciever. He turned the radio on and keyed it saying, "Yellow Dog One, this is Sparrow Hawk. Package and transport secured. Returning to Beta Site, over."

Benson looked over at Steve, and imagined his own look of shock at the turn of events. What really got him thinking was why did Gramps want his ALICE pack? If it was the 457 file he was after, he was out of luck 'cause it was with Red back at the Embassy packed up with the radio gear. What's going to happen when he finds out he doesn't have "the package" that he was after? Obviously there's more to the file than Col. Moss had let on about.

Benson thought to himself, "What could be so classified about the ORION Network? Everybody in the world including the Chinese and the Russians know we've got communications back to the 'States from the Far East. What's the big deal?"

Gramp's radio squawked back. A gravelly voice came over the radio saying, "Sparrow Hawk, this is Yellow Dog One, Roger. Relay transport prepped and standing by, out."

As the helicopter completed its turn and leveled out for Cambodia, Benson dwelled on that last transmission. - That was Col. Moss on the other end - in Cambodia.