It was a pinpoint target. “Look, Topdog, I want to know where you are.” Gershon didn’t want to bomb out the FAG himself.

“Pilgrim, Topdog on top of mountain. You bomb bad guy.”

“All right, Topdog, Pilgrim drop bomb in valley.”

Gershon set his wing selector to the left stub, where a five-hundred-pound napalm bomb nestled. He peered down, into oceanic invisibility. He put on a single fuselage light, so the wingman would be able to see where he was going.

He rolled over, relying on his instruments in the darkness, and stabilized into a forty-degree dive.

He descended below the tops of the mountains and closed rapidly. Through his gunsight he could see glimmers outlining the valley below.

The altimeter unwound, and Gershon’s breath was ragged and hot. He wasn’t worried about antiaircraft fire; just then he was more concerned about not hitting the ground.

He hit the release button.

Five hundred pounds dropped away from the ship with a jolt. He pulled up, and grunted as three Gs settled on his chest.

The nape splashed over the landscape. It was like an immense flashbulb, exploding from the valley floor, and it lit up the smoky sky, turning it into a milky dome above him. It was eerie, alien, almost beautiful.

“Pilgrim! You have number one bomb. Very good. You do same again.”

“Okay, Topdog, we’ll put it right there.”

Gershon swapped altitudes with his wingman, and let the wingman dive in. The valley wasn’t dark any longer; it was a mass of fires and splotches of twenty-mil hits, which sparkled like little fire jewels. Gershon caught glimpses of his wingman’s Spad, rolling down and leveling off, silhouetted against the blaze below.

“Very good bomb, Pilgrim.”

“Okay, Topdog.”

“Hey, Pilgrim. You got radio?”

Gershon couldn’t figure what the FAG was talking about; the raid was over. “Say again, Topdog. Say again.”

“Topdog listen to radio. Voice of America. You brave boys in trouble.”

“What?”

“Apollo. Brave boys. Spaceship in terrible danger, say Voice of America. You understand?”

Jesus. He felt electrified. I wonder what the hell has happened, if they can get home…

But what a way to find out, from some poor little guy, lost in a shit-hole in the mountains of Cambodia.

“Rager, Topdog. I copy. Thank you.”

“And to you, Pilgrim, a good night.”

Yeah. A good night faking my records.

Somewhere in the sky above him — for all the peril those guys were in — Americans were undertaking vast, wonderful adventures. And there he was, flying this bucket of bolts, splashing liquid fire over peasants. Doing something so shitty that even his own government wouldn’t admit it was happening.

I’ve got to get out of this. Of course, despite a lot of pressure from the White House, NASA had yet to fly a black man into space. It would be a long haul for Ralph Gershon…

But it can’t be worse than this.