In 1968, Captain Robb Barker arrives at Nubat Royal Thai Air Force Base, ready to replace the men who, like him, left their families to travel halfway around the world to fight on unknown soil. As Barker slowly surveys his new environment, fear screams obscenities into the recesses of his mind. Captain Barker, a man who is battling intense personal demons, has no idea he is about to fly the most important mission of the Vietnam War. In a desolate forest on the Siberian steppes, Colonel Dmitriy Mihail Ruchinsky's life is crumbling around him. His career has been irreparably damaged-the result of an unfortunate decision by a superior in a highly political environment. Even worse, he has just been informed that his son Nikolai, a bright young pilot in the Soviet Air Force serving in Vietnam, has been shot down by an American pilot. With his son dead and his career slowly plunging into a pit of failure, Colonel Ruchinsky has nothing to lose. As the lives of these two men converge in the jungles of Vietnam, Captain Barker must prevent an old colonel's act of revenge before the world is brought to the brink of nuclear conflict.

The Phantom's Song

By Douglas M. Fain

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Douglas M. Fain
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-7331-2

Chapter One

Thailand, September, 1968

The two groups passed quietly in the staggering heat. Those climbing from the metal bowels of the giant C-130 aircraft squinted into the early afternoon glare as they struggled under their heavy loads toward the gate with the large, faded sign—"Welcome to Nubat Royal Thai Air Force Base, home of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing and the world's greatest fighter pilots!" Of the men leaving the transport, only one paused to watch the group that was boarding for the return flight.

Robb Barker watched the procession silently, and only the pounding of his heart interrupted the whispered murmurs of his mind. These were the men he came to replace, the men who had started the job he was to continue, men like him who had left their families and homes to come halfway around the world to fight on unknown soil. The young captain frowned, and small lines etched themselves across his reddened face, stopping just short of his tousled blond hair. Small beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead and occasionally merged to trickle along the furrowed wrinkles. In his heart there was an emotion that shook him visibly. There was compassion and pity that clouded his vision slightly, but it was the ugly demon called fear that crawled from within the darkest dungeons of his soul to scream obscenities into the hollow recesses of his mind.

The perspiration ran more freely in the humid jungle heat. The drops became trickles, and the trickles became a great staining wetness, filled with the salt of man. He would have liked to ask these men how it had been, how they had fared with themselves. But the emotions that rose and filled his throat spread throughout his entire body and clouded his mind. He stood there, silently, and watched them being stacked roughly onto the loading platform. Only the tags taped to the ends of the long boxes linked them with life and those waiting for the sad burden back home. Less than a year before each of them had climbed from a similar plane and perhaps watched a similar spectacle. Now they were going home – for them the war was over.

* * *

His eyes were locked on those of the small man facing him in the dripping jungle. He could feel the weight of the child in his arms; he could smell the pungent odor of blood flowing from the boy's head as it soaked into his shirt, mixing with the sweat and mud; he sensed the quick movement to his left as someone entered the small jungle clearing; but mostly he focused on the weapon in the man's hand. Captain Robb Barker had been in Thailand less than a week, but time becomes irrelevant in a war. The ticking of his watch slowed as the beating of his heart intensified. The two men's eyes were locked in a silent, timeless moment that had captured them both. It was a moment that would change their lives forever.

The small man moved slowly backward, but his dark eyes remained locked on the taller American. The rain intensified, soaking both men and the small child in the taller man's arms. Robb opened his mouth to speak, but there were no words. What does one say to a man who has lost everything, when his language, like his suffering, is incomprehensible?

He watched the man's eyes, expecting hatred, but he found only confusion and pain. Only an hour earlier their lives had been so different. He had been in the airport control tower as mid afternoon thunderstorms grew in intensity around the air base. The F-4 fighters shattered the early afternoon peace as they screamed across the horizon like large sleek raptors, returning home, gliding toward their resting places for a brief respite from the war to the east. The giant storm continued to grow above the jungle in lofty gray columns spread randomly across the foreboding dark sky. In the tower the base controllers watched the cloud formations and the planes that flew around and occasionally through them. Master Sergeant John Henderson watched a flight of four F-4s as they approached the base. They were flying at fifteen hundred feet, directly over the runway. At midfield the first aircraft banked hard and "peeled off" from the flight. Four seconds later, number two did the same as they turned downwind and prepared to land. When number three pitched, Henderson came off of his seat. "Cobra Three, this is Nubat tower. Be advised you just lost something off your aircraft in pitchout. Check status on downwind and advise."

"Roger tower."

"Oh shit!" The sergeant did not realize that he still had a "hot" mike. "Look at that!" A large explosion sent fire and smoke into the afternoon sky. It appeared to be northeast of the base, just beyond the perimeter fence. "Cobra Four this is Nubat tower. Request you break out of formation and checkout that explosion. Three, did you have a hung bomb?"

"Don't think so; damn sure wouldn't be in this landing pattern if I did."

"Cobra Four, heads up for a chopper that will be in your vicinity in five minutes. Stay above two thousand feet."

"Roger, two thousand."

"Status Four?" There was a long pause. "Four do you have the impact in sight?"

"Roger."

"Status!" The sergeant's voice was tinged with impatience.

"Cobra Four is circling a hooch on fire." There was a long silence on the radio.

"A hooch?" The thought of a 500-pound bomb hitting one of the small Thai dwellings near the base was an image none wanted to consider. This was a friendly village; Thailand was an ally in the war.

"Roger, a hooch."

In the tower the crew looked at each other in disbelief and shock. "Damn!" Henderson ran to the window and began shouting orders as fast as he could talk. "Call the Chopper; tell them to expedite. Call the Wing Commander and Base Ops. Call the Air Police, and tell them to get a crew out there ASAP. And, oh yes, alert the hospital." The tower crew looked helplessly at the rising smoke on the horizon. "Damn, a hooch. I sure hope nobody was home this afternoon."

* * *

The early afternoon rain pounded the blue Air Force Powerwagon as it bumped to a stop in the thick brown mud. The heavy vegetation surrounding the small road drooped toward the muddy earth, heavy with dampness. Six men inside the faded truck stepped out into the rain soaked road; they were silent; they were shocked; none of them had seen the terrible effects of a 500-pound bomb at such close range. It had been a near direct hit; the lost bomb had landed beside a small house on the outskirts of the Thai village. What had once been a home was now a pile of broken and twisted wood. Around it lay the bodies of those who had lived there. The young officer walked slowly forward as his team stood motionless and stared at the destruction. Like the falling rain, the silence only served to focus the visual image of the horror that had occurred only minutes earlier. In the distance a clap of thunder flashed across the small clearing, shocking the men into action. Following the captain they, too, began to move forward.

The Americans approached slowly, walking through the thick foliage until one young sergeant gasped aloud. He stood frozen, looking at his feet. The arm of a child lay in his path like the appendage of a lost and broken doll. He turned abruptly and vomited into the dense foliage.

Then a small cry brought them back to reality. The men looked quickly at each other; the tall captain began to run toward the wrecked home, his...