The Doomsday Conspiracy Read Online Free PDF Page A

again. Fly again, hell, Robert thought, they said I wouldn't live. It was a miracleNo, it was Susan. ... Vietnam. He had been sent there with the rank of lieutenant commander, stationed on the aircraft carrier Ranger as a tactics officer, responsible for training fighter pilots and planning attack strategy. He had led a bomber squadron of A-6A Intruders, and there was very little time away from the pressures of battle. One of the few leaves he had was in Bangkok for a week of R and R, and during that time he never bothered to sleep. The city was a Disneyland designed for the pleasure of the male animal. He had met an exquisite That girl his first hour in town, and she had stayed at his side the whole time and taught him a few That phrases. He had found the language soft and mellifluous.
    Good morning. Arun sawasdi. Where are you from? Khun na chak nai?
    Where are you going now? Khun kamrant chain pai?
    She taught him other phrases too, but she would not tell him what they meant, and when he said them, she giggled.
    When Robert returned to the Ranger, Bangkok seemed like a faraway dream. The war was the reality and it was a horror. Someone showed him one of the leaflets the marines dropped over North Vietnam. It read: Dear Citizens: The U.S. Marines are fighting alongside South Vietnamese forces in Duc Pho in order to give the Vietnamese people a chance to live a free, happy life, without fear of hunger and suffering. But many Vietnamese have paid with their lives, and their homes have been destroyed because they helped the Vietcong.
    The hamlets of Hai Mon, Hai Tan, 5a Binh, Ta Binh, and many others have been destroyed because of this. We will not hesitate to destroy every Page 19
    Sidney Sheldon - Doomsday Conspiracy
    hamlet that helps the Vietcong, who are powerless to stop the combined might of the GVN and its allies. The choice is yours. If you refuse to let the Vietcong use your villages and hamlets as their battlefield, your homes and your lives will be saved.
    We're saving the poor bastards, all right. Robert thought grimly. And all we're destroying is their country.
    The aircraft carrier Ranger was equipped with all the state-of-the-art technology that could be crammed into it. The ship was home base for 16
    aircraft, 40 officers, and 350 enlisted men. Flight schedules were handed out three or four hours before the first launch of the day. In the mission planning section of the ship's intelligence center, the latest information and reconnaissance photos were given to the bombardiers, who then planned their flight patterns.
    "Jesus, they gave us a beauty this morning," said Edward Whittaker, Robert's bombardier.
    Edward Whittaker looked like a younger version of his father, but he had a completely different personality. Where the admiral was a formidable figure, dignified and austere, his son was down-to-earth, warm and friendly. He had earned his place as "just one of the boys." The other airmen forgave him for being the son of their commander. He was the best bombardier in the squadron, and he and Robert had become fast friends.
    "Where are we heading?" Robert asked.
    "For our sins, we've drawn Package Six." It was the most dangerous mission of all. It meant flying north to Hanoi, Haiphong, and up the Red River delta, where the flak was heaviest. There was a catch-22: They were not permitted to bomb any strategic targets if there were civilians nearby, and the North Vietnamese, not being stupid, immediately placed civilians around all their military installations. There was a lot of grumbling in the allied military, but President Lyndon Johnson, safely back in Washington, was giving the orders. The twelve years that United States troops fought in Vietnam were the longest period it has ever been at war. Robert Bellamy had come into it late in 1972, when the Navy was having major problems. Their F-4
    squadrons were being destroyed. In spite of the fact that their planes were superior to the Russian MiG's, the U.S. Navy