Chapter 1: Still In Saigon

Tan Son Nhat Air Base Saigon South Vietnam April 30th, 1975 They weren’t lying. Had they been lying, they would have been more specific, they would have tried to give him hope in the form of a plausible time and date. Instead they had simply told him to wait. The South Vietnamese Air Force and the United States Air Force had left him stranded. Around him, his home of four years - Tan Son Nhat - was a smoking hole. Fires bloomed from the buildings and aircraft hulks, the runways had been rendered useless, peppered by communist rockets and cratered by defector’s bombs. A handful of other fools remained on the field, mostly South Vietnamese who had given up their seats on the fleeing transport planes, which had evacuated much of the base’s personnel to Thailand. As far as he knew, the only serviceable aircraft to be found on base was the Cessna 140 - the most basic of basic trainers - under whose wing he was currently sheltering. He relaxed in a stolen folding chair and watched Saigon crumble as enemy artillery cast red lanes of fire through the sky. UH-1’s and Chinooks trundled across the battered landscape, their rotary wings beating loudly against the humid air. The Cessna had been his way out, but he had awoken that morning to find the fuel siphoned by persons unknown. The base's fuel storage tanks had been blown at some point to deny them to the communists, and after a meager breakfast, he had secured some plastic explosives in order to do the same to his now useless airplane. The explosive compound and associated clapper rested in his lap. He would wait until the last possible moment to do it. He would wait for communist tanks to crash through the gates, then torch the plane, grab his rifle and beat a fighting retreat. Something exploded in the distance--hhe checked his watch and saw licks of distant f ire reflecte d in its sapphire dome. He wound his watch, carefully making the spring as tight as possible with causing harm to the movement. Behind the glass the time piece’s ebony face was mostly bare except for the usual hour marks, brand, Swiss marks, the word "

Speedmaster"