HOGS #5: TARGET SADDAM (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) (10 page)

“Twinkie
material,” said A-Bomb. “Piece of cake.”

“That’s
sixty miles at fifty feet, in the dark,” said Knowlington.

“Devil
Dogs,” said A-Bomb. “Cream filling on the inside.”

“We
wait for word from the controller, then we move up and check an LZ southwest of
the village,” continued the colonel, “make sure it’s clean, then clear an
MC-130 in. At the same time, F-111s take out two of the SAM sites. We drop
retrieval pods, then circle south in case we’re needed. We don’t want to be too
close or we draw attention to the ground people. On the other hand, we don’t
want to be too far away. Our linger time is what gets us in the picture. Nobody
else can stay up there that long. Other element comes north, we swap jobs. Keep
going back and forth as long as we have to. Drop should happen right at 2100;
pickup should be four hours later. That’s two tanks apiece; could be less,
depending on how we manage our fuel and what else happens. Could be more.”

“Lota
flyin’ time,” said A-Bomb, nodding. “I like it.”

“What’s
happening on the ground?” Doberman asked.

“MH-130
drops three men— two Delta boys and Captain Wong. They wait for Saddam and they
look for Dixon. Saddam’s due at midnight.”

“What
if he’s late?” said A-Bomb.

“Wong
says if he’s late he’s not coming,” Skull told him. “From our perspective, that
just gives us a little more time to find Dixon.”

“That’s
a long time to fly up there,” said Doberman. “A lot of tanking.”

“Could
be,” Skull admitted.

“A-Bomb
and I can handle it.”

“The
only thing I want you guys handling is sleep,” said Knowlington.

“Screw
sleep.”

“What
I’m talking about,” said A-Bomb. “We don’t need sleep.”

“I
don’t know. You both look dog tired.”

“I’m
going,” said Glenon.

A-Bomb
put his hand on Glenon’s shoulder. “It would make sense for us to fly the
mission,” he said. “We’ve been back and forth across this terrain a couple of
times now.”

That
was the thing about A-Bomb. One second he was carrying on about food and making
junior high jokes and pretending he was the world’s biggest bozo. Then all of a
sudden he got more serious than Johnny Quest.

“I
know you guys haven’t much sleep lately,” Skull said. “And I don’t want that to
be a factor.”

“Shit,
all we did at Al Jouf was sleep,” said A-Bomb.

“I’m
flying,” said Doberman.

“You
guys both look like you’re for shit,” said Skull.

“Hey,
you ain’t winnin’ no beauty contest yourself, Colonel,” said A-Bomb.

“Dixon’s
a friend of ours, Skull,” said Doberman. “You have to let us go. We’re you’re
best guys and you know it. You need us.”

The
truth was, Knowlington knew they’d both volunteer. Because they were Hog
drivers. And he knew that what Glenon had said was true— he did need them.

But
he hadn’t necessarily admitted it to himself yet, at least not officially.

“Let
me think about all this,” he told them.

“Shit
yeah,” said A-Bomb, punching the air.

“I
haven’t decided anything, except that I’m getting something to eat,” said
Knowlington. He got up out of his chair then stopped, realizing he hadn’t told
them about the new D.O. “Look, one other thing. We have a new pilot in the
squadron. His name is Major Horace Gordon Preston. He’s a good pilot and a good
office. He’s going to serve as Director of Operations. If you don’t need the
rest, we’ll have a hello meeting at thirteen hundred in Cineplex.”

“We’ll
be there,” said Doberman.

Glenon’s
face tinged red again, and Skull wondered if he knew Preston from somewhere.
But that was neither here nor there.

“All
right,” said the colonel. “I’ll tell you my decision after that. Nothing is
decided, A-Bomb. You just cool your jets.”

“What
I’m talking about,” said the pilot. “Question is, where am I going to find
Devil Dogs on such short notice?”

KING FAHD

27 JANUARY 1991

1240

As
approved, the
mission bore only the slightest resemblance to the one Wong had originally
proposed. Not that it was impossible, just that it was far less than optimal.
And even optimal was a hard play against the odds.

Wong
and two troopers would make a parachute drop two miles southwest of a bend in
the highway leading to Al Kajuk. Unfortunately, the drop could not be conducted
as a high altitude, high opening HAHO jump from a C-141B as most other Iraqi
infiltration missions were; there wasn’t a plane available. Besides, the SAMs
would have an easy time picking out the planes— and possibly notice the chutes
along the way.

Instead
an MC-130 would be pressed into service, flying a low-altitude course right up
to the LZ, where it would pop up for the drop from a relatively low eight
hundred feet. The pop-up would have to come just seconds after F-111s hit
the SAM site; between their bombing and the jamming provided by a Spark Vark,
the Hercules should have an ample window to proceed undetected. It would then
fly south, using its extra load of fuel to orbit in a “dark” area devoid of
enemy defenses until needed. While this added to the mission difficulty, it
couldn’t be avoided. There were only a small number of MC-130 Combat Talons
equipped with the snagging gear in the Gulf— in the world. Even without the
stranglehold on available resources, it might not have been possible to line up
another plane.

In
the meantime, Wong and the ground team would proceed on their mission,
establishing a lookout post to observe the convoy. They would also prepare a
diversion, which might be needed to slow or stop the vehicles. Mission
complete, they would hike approximately two miles back to the drop point, where
A-10s would have dropped the STAR retrieval pods.

Officially,
Dixon wasn’t part of the plan.

While
the Fulton retrieval system had been used on Spec Op missions in the past, it
was admittedly far from routine. Wong had never tried it at night, and in fact
had only attempted a Fulton STAR pickup once, during a training mission. The
results of that attempt were not worth dwelling on.

Which
was why he had avoided the direct question posed by Sergeant Davis, one of the
two Delta Force volunteers he was briefing on the mission.

“Hey,
answer the question, Major,” said the other sergeant, an E-5 whose last and
seemingly only name was Salt. “How did that pickup go?”

Wong
cleared his throat. The two Delta Force Green Berets had already seen duty
north and had been involved in Panama. Davis was a demolition and com
specialist; Salt was reputed to be the best sharpshooter in the Gulf.

“After
being dragged fifty feet, the line was released,” said Wong.

“Shit,”
said Davis.

“It
happens. The second pickup went more smoothly. In any event, my experience
isn’t relevant. As long as the weather is clear, the pilot should have no
trouble making the pickup.”

“Unless
he drags us.”

“That
is why I have located the pickup on a slight rise,” noted Wong. “The direction
of the plane will take us over low ground.”

“I’ve
done this twice,” said Salt. “It ain’t pretty.”

“It
needn’t be pretty,” Wong told him. “This is purely voluntary. If you wish to
reconsider. . .”

“Screw
that,” said Salt.

“As
you wish.” Wong turned back to Davis. “Any other questions?”

“How
many people are going to be with the bastard?” Salt asked.

“Assuming
that you are referring to Saddam,” said Wong. “That is unclear. There could be
as many as a full company or even a battalion. I personally anticipate
something along the lines of a platoon. But our concern is not with them. We
have merely to spot his vehicle and illuminate it.”

“What
happens if they object?”

“We
will have a flight of A-10A’s at our disposal. They can provide additional
firepower if necessary.”

“Hogs.
Okay,” said Salt.

“They
don’t fly at night,” said Davis.

“Shit,
what’s the difference?” Salt spit on the hangar’s concrete floor. They were
alone; Wong had taken the precaution of posting a guard at the entrance. The
mission had need-to-know code-word clearance.

“The
sergeant is correct,” Wong admitted. “But the A-10s will be equipped with
missiles that have infra-red targeting capability. In any event, our job will
be a covert one. The enemy should never be aware of our presence.”

“Shit
happens,” said Davis doubtfully.

“Shit,
from what I’ve seen, Hogs’ll blow up anything you tell them to,” said Salt.
“Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m
not worrying. I’m just wondering why there aren’t more of us going,” said
Davis. “If we had a full team, we could take the bastard out ourselves.”

“Decisions
on manpower allocation were not delegated to me,” said Wong.

“Ah,
we can still nail him,” said Salt.

“That
is the last contingency,” said Wong. “If the F-111s fail to arrive, the A-10s
will fill in. Our mission is to remain as clandestine as possible.”

“Clandestine.
I like that,” said Salt.

Wong
quickly outlined the rest of the package’s responsibilities, noting that the
operation would be coordinated by a specially equipped MC-130 ABCCC plane with
the call-sign “Wolf.” Electronics jamming and fighter escort would also be
available, but were being arranged in a manner that wouldn’t tip off the Iraqis
to the operation.

“Just
tell us when we go,” said Salt finally.

“We
will board the Hercules Combat Talon at 1700,” said Wong. “In the meantime, I
have some operational details to review with the air crews.”

“We’ll
be ready,” said Davis.

“There
is one other facet of the operation that I cannot brief you on,” Wong told
them.

“Why
not?” Davis asked.

“To
do so may jeopardize other aspects of our mission. What I can say is this— at
some point, I will have to separate myself from you while you carry out your
job.”

“That’s
it?” asked Davis.

Wong
nodded.

“Where
are you going to be?” asked Salt.

“In
the vicinity,” said Wong. “Beyond that, I cannot say.”

“You
gonna pull that need-to-know bullshit on us?” said Salt.

Wong
had debated whether to tell them about Dixon or not; the option had in fact
been left up to him. He decided not to. It wasn’t because that would jeopardize
Dixon if the team was captured. It was because he realized the men would be
reluctant to leave Iraq without Dixon if they knew he was still alive. And it
might be necessary to do so.

In
fact, it might be necessary for them to leave him. For he had already decided
he wasn’t leaving without the young lieutenant.

But
there was no need to tell them that.

“I
assure you, any decision regarding operational details that I make is only the
result of careful consideration,” said Wong. “For everyone’s own good.”

“My
father used to say that right before he reared back and whacked us,” said Salt.

“I
won’t whack you,” said Wong. “That I guarantee.”

IRAQ

27 JANUARY 1991

1320

The
dirt road
dipped
and twisted after it slid off the highway, skirting the edge of the hill. Dixon
walked along it, not caring that he might be seen— he kept hoping for a sound,
for a truck to materialize behind him.

He
had seen dilapidated farm buildings down this road yesterday. On one side of
the road there had been a fence and a rundown building; opposite it, across the
road, was the tiny house where he had stopped to find food. Thinking they were only
a hundred yards in from the highway, he kept expecting them to appear, glancing
first for the wall, then across the road for the house. He began walking
faster, less and less sure of himself— a hundred yards in, two hundred, three
hundred, a full mile. His whole sense of direction was thrown off, his sense of
reality jumbled. Where was the damn wall? Had he imagined the house? Was he
even where he thought he was?

He’d
killed several men here. No way could he have imagined it.

When
he finally saw the low pile of rubble marking the start of a wall on the left
side of the road he felt a jolt of excitement, almost as if he had spotted the
spire of his hometown church over the trees on the highway leading to his town.
He’d hidden behind that wall yesterday.

Seeing
the house sobered him up. Half of it was gone, the roof wrecked and the walls
blackened where they weren’t simply rubble.

It
had been whole yesterday. He’d gone there for food, only to be chased by a
small squad of Iraqis. They’d missed him at first when he hid across the
street; then the woman got caught in the crossfire. He’d killed the first group
but barely escaped a second, which didn’t bother hunting him down— they simply
blew up the house.

There
had been a baby in the back room. Dixon left him to escape, figuring the Iraqis
wouldn’t harm him. A moment after he jumped out the back of the building, it
exploded.

Dixon
took a step toward the house but stopped; he couldn’t face it. Yet his
curiosity was overwhelming— he climbed slowly up the opposite hill to the wall,
trying to find a vantage point that might somehow let him see into the ruins.
He stood on the wall but lost his balance, dropping off behind it on the slope.

Tiny
little kid, buried under the back end.

His
fault. He could have saved the kid.

Or
if he’d never existed, maybe the kid wouldn’t have been killed.

A
small truck revved in the distance, turning off the highway. Dixon got to his
feet.

The
wall would protect him, or at least prolong the battle. He’d shoot, they’d
stop; he’d pin them down. Sooner or later, they’d overwhelm him. He’d save the
grenades until the very end.

Or
he’d kill them all, and wait for the next truck. Or the next.

BJ
took out his canteen, gulped the last of the water. His stomach felt like a
worn stone; he’d been hungry so long it no longer hurt.

He
tensed when he saw the truck. It was a pickup, not a troop carrier, not what he
expected. Two men were in the cab; two more in the back. They weren’t
civilians, though; they wore yellowish-brown khakis.

As
he pulled his gun to aim at the driver, the pickup veered off the road into the
dirt in front of the house. Dixon froze, thinking for a moment they had seen
him, waiting for them to grab guns and fire.

But
he could have been a ghost as far as the Iraqis were concerned. The two men in
the back grabbed something, someone, from the bed of the truck. He struggled as
they dragged him— he was short, two feet shorter than them at least. They
pulled him along the ground to the front of the burnt-out building.

It
was a boy, a kid somewhere between seven and nine years old. The child crumbled
to the ground. One of the men scooped him up, trying to make him stand against
the wall.

Shit,
they’re going to shoot him.

As
the idea flashed into his head, a shot rang out, then another, and another. The
man to the right of the boy fell down.

Dixon
didn’t realize he had been the one who fired until the hollow metal click of
the clip emptying shook through his fingers and reverberated up through the
bones in his arms. He grabbed for a new clip, fumbling as he cleared the rifle,
fumbling as he ducked behind the wall.

He
wanted to live now, long enough to stop them.

The
soldier with the boy was crouched down, one hand on the ground, wounded,
returning fire with his pistol. The two men in the truck were scrambling to get
out.

Dixon
burned the fresh clip. The two men from the truck folded in the ground,
writhing and bouncing with his gunfire. By the time BJ turned his attention
back to the man with the pistol, he’d disappeared.

The
boy was curled up on the ground. Dixon couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive.

He
needed to get the other man.

Reloading,
BJ began walking sideways behind the wall, half-stooping, eyes pasted on the
front of the building. The hillside behind the house was dotted with scraggly
bushes and vegetation, but there was nothing big enough to hide behind.

Dixon
walked until he had the rear corner of the house in sight. He moved a few more
yards to his left, then stopped again, watching for any sign of movement from
the building. He put his hand on the stones carefully, gradually shifting his
weight as if testing to see if it would hold. He rose, then raised his leg to
step over the wall.

A
shot came from the house. He dove forward as the Iraqi soldier fired a second
round, dust kicking up as he rolled and tumbled toward the road. He winced as
something hit the ground nearby, then pushed himself to his feet. Despite the
surge of adrenaline he ignored the impulse to fire blindly. The sound of a shot
whizzing near his ear sent him diving back to the ground, then he launched
himself almost like a sprinter, plunging across the road toward the pickup.
Bullets flew near him, but if he was hit he didn’t feel it. When he was within
five feet of the pickup he tripped; as BJ flew forward glass from the mirror
splattered over him, broken by the Iraqi’s errant gunfire.

The
man had to be inside the ruins, shooting from the front of the building close
to the corner. But Dixon couldn’t see the Iraqi, nor could he get a good shot
at him without coming out from behind the truck. BJ pulled his legs up, trying
to squeeze himself into the tiniest target possible. He swung the rifle up
toward the building; a bullet ripped through the side of the truck a few inches
from the barrel. Lowering the gun, BJ began edging along the ground toward the
front of the cab. Another round sailed into the side of the vehicle, passing
through the metal with a loud crackle.

The
house was about ten yards away. Dixon leaned his head away from the truck,
craning his neck as he tried to see the building. The edge of the road a few feet
away popped with a fresh slug. Sooner or later the Iraqi would manage to get a
bullet through the truck and hit him.

Dixon
looked down the side of the truck for the gas filler, thinking he might set the
gas tank on fire and use it as a diversion. But it wasn’t on his side of the
pickup.

A
shot sailed into the cab of the truck, spitting out near the dirt a few feet
away.

He
might be able to toss a grenade into the house.

If
he missed, or even if he didn’t, the explosion could kill the boy he was trying
to save.

Dixon
crawled along the ground behind the truck, trying to see the kid. The slight
slope up toward the house, which was probably helping shelter him, made it
impossible to see where the child was.

Another
shot ripped through the pickup, almost exactly where he’d been huddled.

Dixon
took the grenade from his pocket, holding it in his hand. Jacketed in painted
steel, it weighed about half a pound with a diameter about as wide as a
matchbook. The smooth skin and elongated shape made it very different than the
pineapple grenades he’d seen in World War II movies.

And
those movies were as close as he’d ever come to a real grenade.

The
round pin hung off the side. Pulling it released a clamp at the top; the
mechanism wasn’t difficult to figure out, though Dixon wasn’t sure how long the
delay was.

In
the movies, there had been scenes of grenades being thrown, landing, and then
thrown back before they exploded. The actors solved that by setting the fuse,
counting, and then throwing.

They
had dummy grenades, though.

He
leaned the AK-47 against his knee and rocked his body back and forth, grenade
in his right hand, left forefinger looped into the pin. He pulled as he swung
away from the truck, but the pin didn’t budge; Dixon just barely kept himself
from tossing the grenade without setting it.

A
bullet ricocheted off the truck bed two feet away. He pulled desperately, but
the ring still held. He yanked, trying to lever his weight against the catch.
The rifle fell over in the dust, his right hand flew against the truck.

The
pin was in his left hand.

Panicking,
he wailed the grenade into the air, throwing it well beyond the house. He
grabbed for the rifle, scooping up dirt and rocks as well as the stock,
fumbling it into his hands as he levered himself to his feet. Dixon caught his
balance and dove around the bumper of the truck, raising the rifle to fire
blindly. A bullet passed so close to his head he felt the breeze.

As
he pushed the trigger on the gun the grenade exploded on the hill behind the
house, sending dirt and serrated metal in a wide spray. Dixon squeezed off a
three-burst round at the corner of the building, then began running forward
full-speed, expecting the Iraqi to nail him at any second. He smashed against
the wall of the house, rolling from his right shoulder to his back to his left
shoulder, pushing along to an opening that had held a window until yesterday.
He pulled flush with the space, firing as he did, working it like he truly was
a commando and not a misplaced pilot, assigned here by mistake and then
stranded in the confusion of a mission gone way wrong.

His
bullets burst in the dusty rubble, dragonflies snapping their wings. He stopped
firing, seeing the Iraqi on the floor just below the window, dead.

Letting
go of the trigger on his rifle somehow made Dixon lose his balance; he stumbled
backward, caught himself, then whirled around with the thought— the fear,
really— that one of the men he’d shot in the front yard wasn’t really dead and
might be holding a gun on him.

But
the three bodies lay where they’d fallen, arms akimbo, heads jerked at bad
angles in the ground. One man’s eyes caught him as he sank slowly to one knee.
The corpse watched him force a slow breath into his lungs, glared at him as he
stood and began checking each body carefully, making sure his enemies were
truly dead. After he did so, he returned to each man, searching their bodies
quickly for anything that might be useful. He found only a knife, but in the
truck bed were four rifles similar to his; along with two full boxes of clips.
It was only when he tried to load one of the clips into his gun that he
realized the guns were actually different models— AK-74s, which used smaller
caliber bullets. BJ left his and took two of theirs, stuffing banana clips into
his pocket and belt. He fired off one of the guns, making sure it worked.

As
he lowered the rifle, he heard a sound behind him. He spun quickly.

The
Iraqi boy stood six or seven feet away, trembling.

“It’s
okay,” Dixon told him. He shook his head. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

The
boy’s white pants were torn and badly stained. His T-shirt was a faded yellow,
entirely intact and fairly clean, though he’d obviously been wearing it a long
time. He wore a pair of sneakers at least two sized too big; they seemed to be
Nikes, though their markings were missing.

“You’re
all right?” Dixon lowered the rifle. “You okay, kid?”

The
boy opened his mouth but said nothing. He started to cry.

“It’s
all right,” Dixon told him.

It
surely wasn’t all right, but what else could he say? What could he do?

“Why
did they want to kill you?” Dixon asked. “What were they doing?”

The
Iraqi boy took a step toward him, then another. Fear leaped inside Dixon’s
chest— what if the child was booby-trapped or had a weapon or saw the strange
American who had appeared from nowhere not as his rescuer but as his enemy?

Before
Dixon could do anything else, the boy threw himself into him, clamping his arms
around his neck as he draped himself across BJ’s chest. Tears streamed from the
kid’s body, soaking through Dixon’s shirt, mixing with his dried sweat and
coursing down the side of his chest and stomach.

“It’s
all right,” the lieutenant told the boy, patting his awkwardly with the gun
still in his hand. “It’s all right. You’re okay.”

The
boy began to wail, his voice starting as a low moan and quickly rising. Dixon
started to push him away but the child held on tightly, his body shaking with
his cries. There was nothing Dixon could do but pat his back, hoping somehow
that would calm him.