We wandered down to the flight line to watch the festivities as they progressed. It was nearly an hour and twenty minutes before we had everything. I never expected them to be able to provide it in only five minutes especially since not all of their daytime personnel had even gone to chow much less reported to the flight line or their supplies depot, but it gave me the opportunity to scowl and look around every few minutes causing them some increased anxiety and effort.

People kept arriving and jumping into it as fast as they could receive their orders. Each of the helicopters they provided to us had five drums of fuel in it’s compartment, which gave me the jitters. One phosphorous round would take both them and us up like an atom bomb. The upside was we had both an electric and a hand pump on each bird and probably more than enough fuel. We put down once on the way in and managed to leave both two empties and a full drum behind, per bird. That gave us a little more room and reduced my worries a little. It also gave us a very small fuel dump to return to if we needed it. My birds still had a more than adequate fuel load since they were capable of nearly three times the flight distance of those which we had just commandeered. Of course we had sacrificed some load weight capacity in order to obtain that.

When we were about thirty klicks out from our destination, we picked a likely spot to land so we could transfer the remaining fuel before going into action. The hour long flight was taking it’s toll on our nerves since we were deep in enemy held territory. After the fuel transfers we still had between a quarter and a half drum apiece so I figured they might make good bombs to drop on the enemy. We taped an HE grenade to the side of each drum and waited to drop them until we had a known target to engage. It wasn’t long before we began to take some ground fire. One drum went down with it’s grenade igniting it not long after it was shoved out of it’s helicopter. It was pretty effective but the fireball nearly took out the helicopter that dropped it.

“Holy crap. Left ... Left ... shit, that nearly burned my face off.” Blade commented in something a bit more than simply calm, cool and collected.

We learned a lot from that first drop... drop the drum, change direction, and run- fast.

We also decided dropping the last three drums from a little higher altitude might be nice. The premise being that it would give the av-gas a chance to spread a little upon hitting the ground since the impact would be greater as well as allowing the helicopter to get further away before the gas went up. We could use the ten second fuses instead of the three’s. We had three or four of them in each helo and that actually worked out pretty good. Well enough that we were able to land two of the helicopters in the interim to off load most of the boxed 5.56 on board to our guys on the ground before we went out to work on anyone who might still be coming to the party. My own birds kept worrying at the enemy in the meantime.

Fifteen minutes later it was pretty much over and we sent one helicopter in at a time to pick up roughly twenty of the personnel we came to rescue. It was tight quarters since there were a number of semi-walking wounded but we made it even though three of my own helos had to get into the act. The helicopters were heavily loaded but as fuel and ammunition burned things became lighter. We left nearly forty of my little bottles of yellow surprise behind as our parting gifts. I hoped the enemy appreciated them all to pieces.

All in all I guess it was a good op. We evacuated a hundred and thirty-four personnel of which nearly half were injured. Later estimate was we caused over eight hundred enemy casualties with our improvised bombs as well as the other ordinance we expended and an untold number of wounded. The guys on the ground had to have accounted for almost as many since their field of fire had hundreds of bodies on it. It looked like the North was planning on annexing a little more of the South and this base got in the way. This fit in pretty snug with what we saw happening in Laos as well.

Command was not going to like the reports we sent in after this mission.

As we were flying out of the area, one of the pilots called over to my command bird and gave them a message for me. It seems there were two “non-military” personnel who were picked up along with everyone else and they needed to get a message out in one hell of a hurry. Something about some special weaponry and personnel coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail which we had to eliminate before it and they got deep enough into Cambodia to cross into South Vietnam and be a real problem. I needed to hear more about this and didn’t want it blabbed all over the radio so I told them first chance we had to put down for a minute, I wanted those two “non-military” personnel in my bird where we could talk while we were flying home. Besides I had one of the special command sets and the bird they were on didn’t.

“I’m sorry, we can’t discuss our information with you. We answer only to our own agency.”

“Uh, huh. I’ll tell you what. I’ll just have the pilot put down and we’ll let you off here, then continue on just as though you never existed. Now listen up you two yahoos, I’ve probably got a higher clearance than either of you ever thought of having. Furthermore, I’m the one with the encrypted radio which could get your message out long before we get back to civilization. Now if your message is so important and so time sensitive don’t you think you should get on the horn here and tell somebody who cares?”

“She has a point, Bill.”

“Yeah, but this needs to go back to Washington, not to some local Lt. Colonel who doesn’t have a clue.”

“True enough.”

“Gentlemen; I think I can solve this right now. See this little switch with the red handle? This moves the radio into a frequency hopping encrypted mode. The little selector dial next to it allows us to select a starting channel which we can use locally with another one of these sets to connect to Autovon. Once the connection is made then I can dial the Washington office I work with and once they are connected then we can both throw the second switch with the black handle and the switch on their voice encryption system and we have a double system going. The one is an extremely narrow frequency hopping encryption and the second is a thirty-five step voice digitizing and encrypting system. Don’t ask me what it all means, I don’t know and I don’t care. I’ve been told that it would take a week to break the voice encryption and about a month to break the frequency hop one. I can have whatever you want to say in Washington or actually Ft. Meade about a second after you say it. Is that good enough for you?”

“So how does it get to our people?”

“Just tell my people, who also happen to include a couple of generals, and they can get the information through from their end. My people can talk with you and help get your information to people who care starting at the top and working down but just be ready for a slight delay during the conversation since the encryption equipment needs to switch from send to reply and back and that takes a portion of a second. Then there is a delay due to the actual path from here to there or back.”

“Why haven’t we heard of this equipment?”

“Because you never saw it. There are less than a dozen pieces in SouthEast Asia and I’ve got them all.”

“Why the hell would a bunch of ground pounders have something like this. It sounds more like something an intelligence group would have?”

“We’re wasting time but you’re right, we are an intelligence group. We’re also one of the most lethal small covert groups around. If we go in hunting for bear, you better bet we’re going to bring at least one home. Now, do you want to waste more time or get the message out before we’re shot down or it no longer matters?”

They weren’t happy, just like a lot of other people but they took the opportunity and ran with it.

A few weeks later I was just finishing the paperwork which was going to grant me a measly six replacement transport helicopters when my Sergeant knocked on the door, “Ma’am, there’s a Colonel Scott here to see you.”

My Sergeant usually made a great door keeper, I doubted a general could have gotten past him without being announced first.

Scott ... I seemed to recall that name from somewhere.

He must have recognised the look on my face because he continued, “He said you might know him better by his code name — Houdini.”

My face must have turned white as my Sergeant looked at me like he was expecting me to faint. I recovered as best I could.

“Send him in, and bring us some coffee, please.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

The last memorable time I had seen this man, he looked a little like death warmed over. I didn’t even want to consider the few short times I had seen him stateside. Colonel Scott sauntered into my office plopping himself into one of the seats before me.

“You’re looking good, Major.”

“So are you. Much better than the first time I saw you.”

“Well ... you know how it goes. The hospitality of the North left a lot to be desired.”

“We will have coffee arriving in a moment. I don’t suppose this is just a social call. We are a bit out of the beaten path for that.”

He laughed, “You’re right. I have a problem which is about to become your problem as well.”

I wasn’t terribly happy to hear that, but after all - it was our job. The Sergeant arrived with our coffee, knocking first to let us know he was about to enter in the event we were discussing something which wasn’t for other ears. We remained quiet while he placed the coffee and condiments on the desk between us then he asked one question.

“Ma’am, do you wish me to notify your Air Force OIC that you will want to see him?”

I gave that a little thought as Houdini nodded his head. I took that cue and gave my answer to the Sergeant.

“Yes, please. Let me know when he arrives but have him wait outside until we decide we’re ready to see him.” I translated the nod Houdini had given into a set of orders.

“Yes, Ma’am.” Sergeant Rascal replied to me before he retreated quietly.

“All right. What is this problem which is rapidly becoming my own?”

“I need a ride. It will cover a great deal of territory in Northern Laos and probably will antagonize a large number of people who have access to entirely too many SAMs.”

“I’m certain my Air Force OIC will be unpleasantly surprised to hear that.”

The Colonel chuckled before continuing.

“We are trying to arrange for counter SAM support aircraft as well as other Electronic counter measures. What I need from you will be six to eight heavy gun ships heavily laden and fueled for maybe four or five trips back and forth across the Laos-North Nam border then on up to examine the particular Laos- North Vietnam border crossings which our reconnaissance aircraft have noted are in heavy use by NVA troops. We will likely call in some air strikes on those locations so I will need at least one of your new secure comm units tied into the AutoVon network.”

“You don’t want much, do you? I suppose you wanted all this yesterday?”

He agreed, “Last year wouldn’t have been soon enough.”

“You do realize that despite our two hundred foot tower here we do have a limited range for communication in Laos.”

“We have taken that into account. One of the electronics planes which will be orbiting has another of those comsets built into it. It can relay our information to the appropriate commands. Our actual use communicating with you here probably won’t begin until we have come back down to within a hundred klicks of the Laos-Thailand border. It should be able to reach that far despite the low power. Concentrating it all in a very narrow pulsed signal effectively boosts the range.”

I, myself, knew that was the case before he even mentioned it since on occasion I had myself easily reached out over a hundred clicks with a piece of equipment which under normal operational conditions was rated for only about forty. Going into the special secure mode made a great deal of difference, both in communication security and in effective power. How they did that without draining the hell out of the batteries I’d never know. It worked - well and that was all I cared about.

I began leafing through my mind trying to decide if I had enough birds available since a number of them were committed to other tasks at the moment and there presently were four down to maintenance. I was finally forced to go to my aircraft chart which confirmed that which I was thinking. Most of my flight personnel were also committed. We had enough pilots to handle his six aircraft but I wanted to have twelve ready for this mission. That way when the six returned there could already be six more fresh and waiting should he want to go out again immediately. I explained this to him.

“If I can get them to expedite the four that are down for maintenance, I should have three more which will be coming off a mission this evening. That means I can give you six tomorrow morning and probably have six more ready by tomorrow night. After that it will be only six the following day. Your final two flights will be delayed by a couple of days as my aircraft are committed as well as nine needing to go down to maintenance in just another forty or fifty hours so I’m stretched thin unless I can request more of those aircraft. I would be unlikely to receive them in time for your needs anyway since it took me nearly a month to replace the transport helo which was shot down last month. Apparently our attack model isn’t off the shelf so it would take even longer.”
He laughed again, “Not even close to being off the shelf. You have thirty-four very special birds. And if six is all you can manage then six it will have to be.”

“So I’ve been learning. The last six months have been — educational, to say the least. Do you realise it took me a month just to get some people who knew anything about these helicopters assigned to our maintenance depot in Udorn? Even then, I had to wait another month to get the last two and some of the parts for these helicopters are particular not just to the model but to this particular sub-model of which I understand only fifty were made. Since I have thirty four of them would you mind telling me where the other sixteen are?”

“Yes, I would.”

I waited a moment digesting that which he said then I frowned.

“Thanks.” I said dryly, “I hope they’re happy with their toys.”

“I’m sure they are. Believe me, they’re putting them to good use. There are ... plans ... in the works to give you another three hundred ground operations personnel and another fifty transport helicopters but your heavy attack helos will remain fixed at thirty-four.”

“Three ... Thanks, I don’t think. Where, exactly, am I going to put another three hundred personnel not to mention fifty more helicopters? And how do I replace an attack helo if one gets shot down?”

“Don’t let it get shot down. As for space, you know that tree-line to the South? There will be a construction battalion here next week to push that back a bit. By the time your additional helicopters and personnel arrive you’ll have plenty of space, buildings, hangers and fuel.”

“Oh thank you so very much, great and fearless leader. You know I hate all this paper pushing? I haven’t been out on a mission with the other girls in at least six months.”

“I seem to recall Magician saying something along those lines. She also said you take to the paperwork naturally, as well as this particular ... unified front you’ve been presenting. She is quite pleased that you plan far deeper than most people she has run across and she has every confidence in you.”

I shook my head, “You know, you sell more baloney than a delicatessen.”

He shrugged, “Story of my life. What can I say? It sells, and I have an abundant supply.”

“Now that you have ruined my day, may I offer you the hospitality of my little part of the world? We have an excellent mess. It should be since it’s run by the Air Force and all their orders for supplies go in under our special orders. We even have a couple of nice clean unoccupied rooms for wayward or injured officers, should any happen to stumble onto our little part of the world.”

“You’ve attracted my interest. I would also like to see your medical facilities and have a little heart to heart with your Air Force OIC.”

“Why don’t we grab him on our way out to take a look at the Med Fac? Then he can show you to a room and lead you by the hand to the Mess.”

“Sounds good to me.”

I collected my purse and my cover then we exited my office finding Captain Slade waiting outside. He quickly stood when he saw the Colonel, saluting his superior before things became a bit more relaxed again. I performed the introductions and we trekked off to the medical facilities. As we left that location, I handed Colonel Scott off to Captain Slade’s tender mercies warning him not to take offensive action when he heard what Colonel Scott had in mind. Finally I made my way back to my office so I could attempt to expedite the maintenance in progress on four of my war-birds. I had my Sergeant also inform the depot that we would be sending them nine more in short order so they might just as well order all the normal parts right now if they didn’t have enough on hand since they would begin seeing the birds in just a few days. I authorised ordering the parts using our special acquisition orders so we would have them in time that maintenance wouldn’t be badly delayed. I had too much going on now for one of my attack helos to be gone for more than a few days thanks to this sudden addition of roughly thirty bird-day long flights. Damn, that was going to eat up the hours remaining between maintenance for those birds. Something the maintenance officer was saying brought my attention back to the telephone handset I was holding up to my ear.

“We would like to order out a half dozen spare engines. That could speed things up if we suddenly needed to pull one. They do fail every now and then.”

I grimaced, “order - three and I’ll okay it. Those engines wouldn’t happen to fit your own helos would they?”

“They might but our OIC has us keeping the supplies carefully separated. If they come in, they will be held for your birds. Which brings up an interesting point. Could we also order some engines for our own?”

I rolled my eyes before remembering this was a phone call.

“Yes. Three for your own birds. Just copy me with the paperwork so I have a copy on file here. Any special needs?”

“A few things. I’ll send you a copy then order them when I receive your okay back. Does that work out, Major?”

“Yes. Try not to make it too expensive. I am on a budget here despite my assistance from the powers that be.”

He seemed pleased and we hung up on a positive note. I began staring at my aircraft chart worrying about how I was going to fill my mission requirements when roughly twenty five percent of my attack helicopters would be down to maintenance within the next week and a half or possibly less. One bright side to all this. Once I had another fifty transport helos, I would have enough to warrant my own maintenance depot for those particular birds. Maybe I could sneak the attack helos into the mix somehow and bypass Udorn entirely.

Turning back to my desk I called out for my Sergeant then began discussing our new needs with him so we could get a leg up on acquiring fuel, quarters, hardened hangers, food, medical supplies, etc for my new people which I suddenly realised would number far more than the three hundred new operational personnel. There would be additional maintenance, support and aircrews as well. Effectively they were about to double my trouble. Not for the first time I began considering resigning my commission and never coming back. That brought up the question I had pondered a number of times previously. Since I was never really “commissioned” (as far as I knew) could I resign it? I once again began the futility of trying to remember exactly what was printed on those various pieces of paper I had to sign. Not all of them had been copied to me. Nor were copies found in my jacket. I had most of my copies carefully stashed away but I remembered signing nine documents and I had only six copies.

That led to me thinking about going out on missions these past six months. I had managed about one a month as myself. The rest of the time was spent masquerading as an officer trying to get things done that desperately needed doing. I went out on one mission as an officer and that was something which wouldn’t be talked about. I still didn’t see why I needed to be Lynnette for that. Seemed to me Lyon could have done it just as well.

That got me to thinking about the good times the guys and I had together and I began missing the comradery. Finally I got up from my desk, dropped all the paperwork on my Sergeant’s desk as I told him, “I’ll be gone the rest of the day. I’m going out to the barracks to see some of the guys I worked with before we were assigned here.”

He looked at me funny then said, “Yes, Ma’am.”

He was another of the new ones who didn’t know my past history. There weren’t too many of them here that did. That had me a little depressed, too. I crossed the training field, saluting the few personnel who saw me and who saluted. They didn’t necessarily know my rank but they all knew every woman on the base was an officer so saluting was precautionary on their part. When I reached the barrack in which I knew Trank, Frenchy, Larry and Blade were billeted I gave no thought to just opening the door and entering.

“Atten Hut. Female officer in the barracks.”

Huh? I looked back then realized the female officer was me. Crap. And I just waltzed right on in.

“As you were. I’m looking for Frenchy or Trank. Are they around? And if not them then Larry or Blade will do.”

“Uh, I think Frenchy and Trank are in the shower and Larry and Blade might be at the mess, Ma’am. Uh, some of the guys aren’t exactly dressed for the occasion, Ma’am. Would you mind waiting outside and we’ll let them know you’re here. Sorry, Ma’am.”

I nearly broke down in tears. I felt so — so ... distant. I’ve been spending far too much time in the female guise.

“I ... I ... I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. Thank you — uh, I guess I’ll go.”

“Do you want us to let them know you were here, Ma’am?”

“I ... yes ... No! Don’t bother, it wasn’t important. Thank you. Sorry to have bothered you, gentlemen.”

I walked out, standing just outside the door for perhaps a minute. I felt like I had lost something but wasn’t certain what it was. As I began to wander I somehow found myself outside the Mess but didn’t feel very hungry. Turning away I just began to walk. My path took me past the hangers where I tried to avoid the Air Force personnel who were working with the helicopters preparing some of them for tomorrow’s missions. They would be unpleasantly surprised to learn their carefully scheduled operation had been rejuggled this afternoon.

Reaching the Southern end of the field, I stared at the tree line realising that in just a week or so it would once again be cut back to make way for quarters for more helicopters and personnel. I turned around looking back across the large clearing where our helicopters staged just prior to flying off and where they landed to bring back those who survived or needed medical help. I was playing with people’s lives. That also depressed me and brought light tears to the corners of my eyes. Who the hell was I to send these men into harm’s way when I wouldn’t go myself? Hell, I’d go but I’d have to violate orders to do so.

Food. I needed to let the mess know we would be receiving more personnel sometime in the next month or so. They would need more supplies and possibly storage space. I would need to have them let me know what they needed so I could get it ordered and in the pipeline in a timely manner. My mind turned to the missions scheduled for tomorrow plus the added nonsense which would take Houdini into Northern Laos. That wasn’t a good idea. Not only did we stand to lose some of my helos we might even lose him again. Right now Northern Laos was more of an armed camp than Northern Vietnam had been. Why don’t they just level everything above the 1955 cease fire line and then carefully remove the NVA from Laos? If they didn’t, we stood to lose Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and probably even Thailand. I needed to let my Sergeant know we should place a double order for the missiles the helos use. I had a feeling we would be using a lot of them sometime really soon, like maybe tomorrow?

Wiping the tears from my face I turned again looking at the trees for a few moments before slowly walking off toward my own quarters. I had been doing a lot of thinking but had come to very few conclusions.

On the way back I ran into Ralph and Benny who were on their way to supper.

“Hi Lynnette, have you had supper yet?”

“I’m not particularly hungry.”

“Then why not come and keep us company? Maybe you’ll see something you’d like. If not we can chat anyway. Anything new and interesting happening?”

“I guess that would depend on your definition of interesting.”

He held the door open for me, “After you, Ma’am.”

I entered and we took a look at the food which was available. My stomach decided it was hungry even if I wasn’t so it growled as I stood in front of the chicken fried steak. The guys had their food piled onto their plates. I took a large meat, a small portion of each of the vegetables and about a tablespoonful of mashed potatoes. I wasn’t certain I could eat all that was on my plate. I skipped the desserts which made the mess Sergeant frown but I had enough to worry about without adding extra weight to my load.

While I was standing there I brought him up to speed and he promised to work it up and have it on my Sergeant’s desk in two to three days. That conversation was where I learned that the mess would need to be enlarged so it could hold two more walk in freezers and a couple more stoves and ovens. An increase of possibly six more mess personnel plus more dining space ... yada, yada, yada. Why is nothing ever simple?

We sat down and the guys began to tuck it away much as I used to do some many months ago. I nibbled at my steak, finished the vegetables and about half the potatoes. For some reason I had selected a glass of milk which I not only finished but even had a second glass as a chaser. All during the meal we had held our conversation down. When we left the mess they asked again about anything new and/ or interesting.

“There’s a possibility we might receive some more personnel and possibly more helicopters as well. I don’t have any paperwork confirming it though so it could just be a rumor coming down the pipe.”

“That’d be great.” Ralph smiled, “We could use some more of those attack choppers.”

“I’m afraid they won’t be part of the mix. We have thirty four and there were only fifty of this model built. This is a very particular sub-model of the line and I’ve been told that the other sixteen are in use elsewhere. Knowing that we can’t replace them, I’ve initiated orders for substantial replacement parts for them. They’ve been invaluable for our purposes so I don’t want any of them down for long periods of time because of some difficulty getting parts.”

“Terrific.” Benny intoned, “be just our luck it’s an obsolete model and parts are no longer available.”

“Well, so far it hasn’t become that bad, Benny.”

“Say Lynnette, any idea when Lyon’s going to be able to go out on a patrol again. The gang would kind of like to get together and deal with some of the stuff like old times.”

“So would I.” I said quietly, “it isn’t likely to happen very soon. Command seems to want me stuck right here in my nice safe stupid little office.”

“I thought you got to decide who goes on which mission?”

“I do, within limits. But I’ve been given orders specifying my non-involvement with any further active action. I was surprised they let me go on that little evac mission last month. I still haven’t figured that one out.”

“Maybe they wanted your direct observation of the whole thing. They wanted your take on what was happening.”

“Fine, they got it. If they wanted it so badly they certainly didn’t say anything afterward that gave me any indication of why.”

“So, what’s with the increase in personnel if not a response? Seems to me they were trying to see how you did in the field so they could have a reason to give you more responsibility. More personnel and helicopters is more responsibility.”

“Yeah, and more time stuck in my lousy office.”

“So? Get a better office.” Benny seemed to be admonishing me.

“What?”

“You don’t like your office? Add some curtains or maybe a picture or two. Give it some feminine touches. Have it painted something nice instead of ‘institutional drab’. Make it ‘your’ office.”

I looked at him like he had just grown a second head.

“My office?”

“Yeah. Your office. Hell, it’s your home away from home. You’ve got to live in it. Do something to make it yours even if it’s painting stripes on the ceiling. What did Lyon do to his room? Don’t tell me he didn’t have any pictures from home or a calendar or something in his room. After all there are some things which the Army allows their people to do so they don’t go crazy.”

“My office?” I seemed to be stuck in a rut.

“Sure. Why not?”

Why not? — Hell yeah, why not?

I smiled, leaned forward and kissed Benny on the cheek then got up and was on my way to take a really good look at my office, or perhaps my first look at it to see what could be done with it.

 « t  »

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get paint in colors that aren’t standard for the military? It isn’t like picking up a Sears or Wards catalog and just ordering the stuff. Curtains, too. What made no sense to me whatsoever was I could order prints of paintings to hang on the walls but finding paint or curtains was like trying to find a needle in a haystack when you didn’t even know which state the haystack was in.

Believe it or not, it was Trank and Frenchy who found my paint. They never did tell me where they got it and since it might have been evidence I thought I’d best use it quickly then dispose of the containers before any questions had a chance to be asked. A month or so after I began my task to redo my office, I had a nice smelly, freshly painted room with three ‘paintings’ hanging on the walls, a bookcase with quite a few books in it (again, I wasn’t going to ask and yes, they were in English) a vase complete with flowers on my desk and three nice chairs for any visitors who might come by. We even had a water cooler and a coffee station out in the main part of the offices. No more calling over to the Mess to have coffee sent over.

While I was adding amenities to my office, the Army and the Air Force were adding responsibilities to my shoulders. I received my new personnel which included no more ‘female’ members, but a round dozen male officers who were duly surprised to learn the base OIC was a woman, a short tempered woman on occasion. The support personnel and the MPs were increased in numbers as were the Air Force personnel. Most of my time was now spent in paperwork, briefings, debriefings and making certain the few combat helos I had were kept airworthy. It was great having so many small light attack-transport birds but I didn’t have enough of the killers to protect them all so we finally began losing some to enemy action. That was what I found to be the most frustrating part of this whole thing. It took nearly a year before I could get more helo’s that were similar to those which went out armed for bear. Those we did receive were a different model with new problems, totally different parts requirements and a range of about two thirds of that of my original war-birds.

Fixing the range problem took us nearly another six months. I managed to get my ass out (as a male) into the boonies a couple of times and enjoyed every second of it despite the young kids calling me ‘pops’. I never did find out what they called Lynnette. Hell, I was only three or four years older than they were. I don’t look old do I? Don’t answer that, I don’t want to know, besides you should never tell a lady she looks old. It wasn’t long before the spooks decided I was an asset to be protected and I was again forbidden to go on any more missions unless they specified I was to do so. That went over like a lead balloon with me but I couldn’t argue. The downside? It meant I spent nearly 24/7 by 365 days a year as Lynnette. Even with all the changes and additions it was difficult to handle the assignments which now seemed to come in at the rate of three to four a day.

We somehow managed to keep up the insane pace for nearly three and a half years before we began losing a lot of personnel due to rotation and increasing attrition. I suppose it had to start happening. We had gone so long without losing very many and the enemy was coming up with more offensives so I guess we finally started getting our members hit while out on missions.

We did, during our short existence, go in harm’s way on about twenty-three hundred missions. Nearly a hundred of those involved the entire unit and most of our birds. We also had a record of over three hundred rescues from deep in enemy territory of which nearly half were prisoners who were being interrogated at the time we came along asking if we could play. We also brought back a classified number of NVA officers and a number of ‘advisers’ who just ‘happened to be there’ when we went in to extract our personnel. The enemy whom we brought back were, more or less, in good condition, pretty much similar and in a number of case better than the condition of our own people at the time we ‘rescued’ them.

The original crew who had followed me to this hole in the wall had numbered twenty-nine. Those numbers had diminished by fourteen due to injuries or deaths which took them home one way or another. We got the hint when we lost nearly forty personnel and seven helicopters all at one time. The eighth helo got away with only some minor hits and three wounded. They said it seemed like the enemy had been waiting for them.

I forwarded that information to Lucy and Houdini and orders were quick in coming to disband our happy little group sending all of the remaining personnel in a multitude of directions. Five of my original people rotated while the remaining ten followed me to my new assignment which had us playing in an entirely different sandbox, with completely new rules, and across a different ocean.

Before going there, Lucy called me into Meade for a two day conference and a few days R&R before I moved on once again. During that conference I was appraised of some things of which I had not previously been aware.

There was a bad-guy with whom she had worked in Vietnam prior to her assignment at Meade. He had escaped custody with the help of a half dozen rogue agents from a civilian agency who also disappeared with him. There also had been an officer attached to the General's staff who apparently had been providing intelligence to those rogues and who had also disappeared shortly before he could be court-marshalled. All in all, a tidy little group who held some animosity for Lucy, Houdini, and by inference myself and my people. Apparently there was someone or several someone’s who were still in the intelligence loop providing them with information. They weren’t necessarily siding with the NVA or Chinese but they certainly were not aligned with the U.S.A..

“We strongly recommend you keep your eyes open from here on out and report anything which even remotely seems like someone had prior knowledge of your unit’s working area or conditions.”

“Will I have some of the girls with me in Europe?”

“No. We must assume their covers are blown and therefore they will be operating as normal officers now and in the foreseeable future.”

I nodded my head, accepted my orders, gave Lucy a hug and walked out the door.

In Europe, I spent far more time bouncing back and forth between male and female. My pals and I slowly climbed back up to around forty and we managed to learn a lot while on assignment in the Bronx. Like it or not, we were shuffled around a bit in order to provide information for Lucy’s groups as well as to keep our tracks scarce. We got to play in most of Europe as well as the Middle East and Northern Africa. It was a learning experience which lasted four years before nearly all of us finally found our way back out the revolving door.

We had been receiving hints from Magician and Houdini that our government would not be adverse to hiring our expertise should we decide to start up a civilian agency using the skills we had learned both in SEA and in the dozen or so countries we had vacationed in during our time in various parts of ‘Eastern Europe’ and the Middle East.

As my period of servitude was about to come to an end for the fourth time, the lady who started this all came to visit me shortly before I mustered out. I figured this was their last shot at trying to get me to re-up yet again. It was, but not in the manner I was thinking.

“Lyon, both Randolf and I would be willing to put money into helping your start-up business. We could be silent partners. I’m certain the government would also be favorably disposed to provide some funds as well. They might be willing to provide a low interest loan to help you with the beginning years in return for your assistance in certain areas of your expertise. We still have some interests in Asia as well as Africa, the Middle East and Europe where your people could be of great value. After all, you would have an excellent civilian cover which could be exploited and along with some of our other ‘switch hitters’ your team could be in a unique position to discover information which would be valuable to us.”

“Thanks, Lucy. Tell Randolf I appreciate it as well. At this stage of the game I’m not certain I really want to continue doing this sort of thing. Especially not the Lynnette side of it at any rate, but I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll think about it. Seriously. Just don’t expect an answer from me anytime really soon. I’ll keep in touch but for now I’m getting out of the military and I just need to take some time to relax and wind down a little. Ask me again in a year. I just might be bored enough that I’ll take you up on it. One thing though ... ”

“And that is?”

“If I should decide to do it then I pick my team members and I call the shots. You guys can give us a sense of direction and can help us by providing military background info on anyone we are thinking of hiring, but we do it our way.”

She looked at me as though she wanted to laugh.

“Didn’t you do it ‘your way’ before?”

“Not exactly. Most of the time we were told what to do. If I start this business you’re talking about then it will be my business, run my way, and not an offshoot of the military complex.”

“I think we could live with that. So long as you recognise the fact that frequently we would have time constraints in which we would all need to be operating. Another thing, if you did do something like that; your’s might not be the only team we could have doing it’s thing. I just hate to lose you. Your team has proven itself to be most effective and a lot of that was due to your leadership. I’ll pass your ideas on to those who care. Take care of yourself, kid. Don’t lose my phone number. Oh, and one more little thing ... ”

I waited a moment then asked, “and what might that little thing be?”

She gave me her smile just like she had back in Meade when all this started. I just knew I wasn’t going to like her answer.

“If you do this, you and each member of your happy little enterprise will be members of a reserve unit. On paper, of course.”

“Oh, of course. And exactly what will this reserve unit be doing?”

“Whatever you need them to be doing within the limits of the assignments we give to you. When you aren’t on the governments dime then you will be free to earn a dishonest dollar as civilians. See you around.”

She winked at me then picked up her cover and purse before walking out the door even as I began wondering if I had even been offered a choice.

All characters in this work have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relationship whatsoever to anyone or anything bearing the same name or names. The characters contained herein are not even distantly inspired by any specific individuals known or unknown to the author. All incidents described or alluded to within this work are pure invention. No affiliations, involvements or gender assignations due to the use of any images contained within this work are to be implied, intended or inferred.

Cover image copyright Maps.com and shown for clarification of area in which the story begins it’s evolution.

DUTY CALLS, L.J. Stevens Vol. One Copyright  © 2012 USA, Earth by R. A. Dumas.

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