Читать книгу Forbidden Area онлайн

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"I want to explain about this morning."

"Not necessary," she said. "Felix was right. You gave us all the information we required."

"I just don't believe in telling anyone--anyone at all--about future operations. Only ones who should know are the people who have to know to do their jobs."

She handed him a drink and said, "Sit down, there." She indicated the sofa. She sat at her swivel chair at the desk so her head was higher than his, an advantage if this talk was to be serious. "That reasoning is valid," she said, "up to a point. Is there anything else?"

"Yes, there is," he said. "There was a wing of B-Two-Nines on Okinawa in 'fifty-one. They were briefed to go up the Korean west coast and hit the Yalu bridges. Everybody in the wing was briefed. Not just the nine crews who were to make the strike. The night before the strike we lost a reconnaissance plane up there. Some of the crew bailed out, and were captured. They were good men, I suppose, but they talked. God knows what the Commie interrogators did to them. Anyway, when the nine B-Two-Nines got over the Yalu they were jumped by sixty Migs. We lost three up there, three more were washed out in forced landings in Japan, and one of the three that got back to Okinawa had its hydraulics shot out and blew up after a belly landing. We never ran unescorted B-Two-Nines up to the Yalu again. If we had got those bridges, just at that time--"