The Ravens: The True Story of a Secret War by Christopher Robbins

could do almost anything I wanted to. The CIA took good care of us. Anything you asked for, they would provide. Ordnance came out of the embassy, shipped in by Air America. After Vietnam the freedom was unbelievable.’
    Once Richards became Head Raven he went wherever the action demanded, flying support in battle and filling in for anyone on leave. Things began to change. As a result of lobbying the air attaché’s office constantly, maintenance began to improve and more planes were promised. The Ravens began to believe they had someone batting for them.
    The CIA personnel could be very good but suffered from an excessive leaning toward the clandestine. As close as Richards worked with them, they rarely confided in him, and it seemed that intelligence was a one-way street. They received information without ever giving any back. At the office in Fakse - a big operation run by Dave Morales, a hard-drinking paramilitary officer with a taste for pornography, whose boast was that he had been present during the assassination of Che Guevara - CIA personnel covered all the papers on their desks every time Richards walked in. ‘It’s nothing personal - just policy,’ a CIA officer explained.
    Richards put up with it for two months before his patience ran out. ‘The next time you do that - cover a paper on the desk when I come into this office - I’m through working for you.’
    One of two things happened to Ravens, as they logged an increasing number of combat missions and took their share of groundfire: they became either overcautious or reckless. The first merely made them ineffective, but the second risked their lives. The inclination to duel with a gun in a fixed position, or settle a score after their aircraft had been peppered with ground fire, led them to take risk after risk. Sam Deichelman became one of the worst offenders. Richards thought he was becoming too blasé and had reached the point where he believed himself immortal. Ironically, Deichelman’s first intimation of mortality came when he was behaving himself and flying at what was considered a safe altitude.
    It was just one of those things. His plane took the Golden BB. Pilots knew from experience that it was possible to fly directly through a cloud of flak or a hail of small-arms fire at point-blank range and come out unscathed, and also possible to be cruising far from the enemy at five thousand feet and be killed by a single stray round - which they called the Golden BB. It was part of their folklore and contributed to their fatalism. They might not have respected the Lao who refused to fly on a certain day for superstitious reasons, but they understood him.
    Deichelman had flown his C-130 out of Vietnam over the Trail at night as a Blindbat pilot at ridiculously low altitudes and never taken a hit. Then, flying over Route 4, southeast of the Plain of Jars, accompanied by Vong Chou - yet another close relative of Vang Pao - they took a single round. The shell ripped through the skin of the plane, hit Vong Chou in the arm, and came out of his chest, slamming into the bulkhead and missing Deichelman’s head by a hairbreadth. Vong Chou was critically wounded, and losing blood fast. Deichelman immediately turned the plane around and raced home.
    The single shell had left two terrible wounds in Vong Chou’s arm and chest, and his chances of survival seemed negligible. But he survived the trip, and for the next three days Deichelman was at his side, willing him to live. The Back-seater, perhaps sensing his friend’s anguish, pulled through against all odds.
    Deichelman was shattered by the experience. He somehow felt that he should have taken the round, as commander of the aircraft, and he suffered agonies of guilt. All attempts to reassure him were futile.
    He now entered a highly dangerous phase. He had cheated death and dodged the Golden BB, but it had wounded his friend, and he felt honor-bound to embark upon a course of reckless revenge. He was still