HOGS #5: TARGET SADDAM (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) (22 page)

Which
just happened to be their call sign.

The
French pilot shouted something over his radio. Skull caught a glimpse of him
running to the helicopter.

“Said
we’re magnificently ugly,” explained A-Bomb as the PAVE Low abruptly lifted up
and began heading south. “Those French know beauty, let me tell you.”

 “Thor
Flight, appreciate it if you can run Leander home,” Skull told the F-15s. “We
have a prior engagement.”

“Thor
Leader copies. Thank you, Devil Flight; thumbs up to you.”

Skull
had already snapped his Hog onto the course for Kajuk. A-Bomb acknowledged that
he, too, was on the proper heading.

“Say
boss, not that I’m complaining, but we’re out past bingo, aren’t we?” A-Bomb
added, referring to their fuel situation. Bingo was the not all together
theoretical turnaround point, the spot where you had to fly home or risk
running out of gas.

“Might
be,” said Skull, making sure he had the throttle at maximum.

IRAQ

27 JANUARY 1991

2118

Wong
felt the
first
shell of the T-72 explode in the distance. The tremble knocked him into the
dirt; by the time he managed to get back up and grab the suitcase with the
explosives, another round had landed. This one landed parallel to him but well
to the east, a good hundred or more yards away from where he’d left Salt and
Davis. But the tank had to be neutralized, or sooner or later his men would be
killed.

Perhaps
sooner— a third salvo landed behind him, close enough to lift him off the
ground and deposit him chest-first six or seven feet away. The explosives
case landed square on his back, knocking the air out of his lungs. As he
struggled to breathe, Wong rolled over and tore open the case. He hastily wired
three of the C-4 charges for firing; reaching for another he heard the whiz of
a fresh shell heaving through the air. He froze, waiting for the explosion he
sensed would be less than twenty yards away, more than likely fatal. But the
shell apparently landed with a dull plop, burying itself in the ground without
exploding; still cringing, Wong grabbed the remote detonator, leaving the set
charges on top of the open case. He ran as fast as he could toward the tank,
the wireless detonator cupped against his body. As the T-72 launched another
shell, he detonated the explosives.

His
idea was to use the explosives to create a diversion and at the same time cloud
the tank’s laser range-finder; he hoped to get close enough to the tank
to draw its attention as the smoke cleared, giving Davis and Salt more time to
pin down the convoy for the scrambling A-10s. Had Wong calculated the
gambit according to his usual coefficient of probabilities, he would have been
presented with an alarmingly small coefficient— but sometimes even he preferred
not to do the math.

Of
course, had he done the math, he would have taken a few more steps before
igniting the explosives. The C-4 was not particularly suited to the task at
hand, but it was nonetheless true to its inherent explosive nature— it made a
nice, big boom as it was ignited, filling the air with grit, dirt, and
pulverized rock. The force of the explosion knocked Wong flat, slamming his
face against the hard surface. His cheekbone cracked— technically, the
zygomatic cranial bone on his right side suffered a clean fracture— but Wong
hardly felt it; the shock of the blast had already knocked him unconscious.

OVER IRAQ

27 JANUARY 1991

2120

Doberman
could see
the
dark shadow as it rode up toward him in the distance, a knife poking into the
sky. His own ECMs were useless against the missile, and he had no way of
knowing if the fuzz being thrown by the electronic warfare craft to the south
was working. He tossed some chafe and pressed on, trying to keep his eyes on
the targeting screen, where he had only blurs.

He
needed to see the goddamn highway. He needed to see it before the SAM nailed
him.

It
was going to come right through the windscreen any second.

Nothing
but blur in the screen.

The
SA-11 would have been launched at long distance, would be blind and unguided
because surely the radar-seeking missiles had nailed the ground radar and the
ECM support craft had fried its on-board guidance system.

No,
it was there ahead, a shining silver blur coming for him. He was an easy
target, straight and level at ten thousand feet, struggling to see the god damn
car.

He
was just about onto of the damn intersection. Should be right there.

Doberman
took his eyes off the targeting screen for a second. Pinpricks of red and green
light dotted the ground ahead of his wings. A wall of anti-aircraft fire rose
from around the village. The radar warning receiver was still going ape shit.
Someone— Preston— yelled a missile warning.

He
was about to get nailed. He could feel it.

Served
his damn butt right for wearing that stinking BS good-luck medal.

Doberman
rolled his wings into a knifing dive, pushing the Hog as close to straight down
as possible and swooping for the spot where the parade ought to be. The RWR
freaked and Preston screamed and the Iraqi missile homed in.

Doberman
put his helmet nearly on the Mav screen. The shadow of a truck materialized.

Finally.

He
nudged the Hog’s nose sideways, pushing her along the highway as she plunged.
He saw a truck, saw another truck, saw a car, saw a big Mercedes, saw a troop
truck, saw a nice, long, long station wagon.

Just
your typical madman dictator out for a midnight stroll through suburbia.

“Bing-bang-boing,”
Doberman said aloud, his thumb dancing over the trigger in his old shooting
ritual.

“Bing-bang-boing.”

The
Maverick kicked out from the launcher, barely separating from the plane. The
two-stage Thiokol TX-633 solid-fuel rocket motor ignited, jerking the
eight-foot long missile out ahead of its mothership. A half-second later,
another thunked into the air behind her, the cruciform delta wings at the rear
whipping around ferociously as the guidance system put the missile on course.

IRAQ

27 JANUARY 1991

2122

The
gun jumped
in
Dixon’s hand, propelled upwards by the momentum of the gases that sent a dozen
bullets into the two Iraqis in front of him. By the time he jerked it down the
soldiers had crumbled to the ground. Dixon kept squeezing, shaking the gun up
and down before realizing he’d burned the clip. He threw the rifle to the side
and pulled up the other Kalashnikov, flinching as something seemed to move just
beyond the sandbagged position he’d fired into. But there was nothing, or at
least nothing that shot at him. He crouched down, leaning away from the
hillside, still unsure if he was safe.

Budge
was holding onto the back of his shirt, an anchor pulling him down toward the
ground. Dixon reached his left hand around calmly, reassuring the kid as he
scanned the hillside, still expecting someone or something to attack. He stayed
crouched like that for an eternity, his senses perfectly focused, his whole
world narrowed to a sphere no larger than five feet around.

Then
he realized the air behind him had begun to hum. Dixon slid around quickly,
knocking the boy to the ground accidentally. There was an enormous flash in the
distance beyond the hill, a sudden geyser of red steam, a pipe bursting under
tremendous pressure.

And
over the explosion, the faint hum of a Hog swooping upwards after firing,
hungry for another target.

Gunfire
below. Vehicles on fire, explosions. A firefight.

On
the ground.

There
had to be a Delta team down there, or British SAS troopers, commandos, allies— friends
of
some
kind. People who could get them the hell out of here.

Dixon
reached over to the huddled, trembling shape of the kid, lifting him under his
arm like a loaf of bread. He left the empty AK-74 and began sliding down the
hill on his butt.

“We’re
getting out of here, kid,” he said as they slid. “We’re going home.”

IRAQ

27 JANUARY 1991

2125

Salt
put a
slug through
the door of the sedan as it started to open. In the next moment a massive flash
behind him threw him to the ground amid a whirling storm of dirt. He rolled
over and spit out a mouthful of cordite, blood, and pulverized rock, then began
to retch, puke pouring like water from his mouth. Somehow he got to his feet,
grabbing his combination M-16/grenade launcher and running toward the highway.
Davis had taken a position behind some rocks a few yards ahead, pumping rounds
from the SAW into the armored car.

“He
was in the Mercedes. Come on, come on,” Salt yelled, tapping Davis as he ran
but not stopping. He managed to load the M203 as he ran; having the grenade in
the gun somehow calmed him, helped him run even faster.

A
shell from the tank hit near the spot he had run from. Bullets whipped around
him, crisscrossing the night with green, yellow, and red streaks. He seemed to
be in a movie, outside his own body— not untouchable, not immune to being hit
or killed, but removed from it, as if he could die and watch it all happen,
analyze it and even shake his head over what a fool he’d been. Because he was
being a fool— he ran directly toward a fierce stream of tracers, kept running
as an APC launched a shell over his head, kept running as he saw two figures
thirty or forty yards away cross from the highway and duck behind a small rise
in the terrain. The Mercedes was twenty yards away on his right, one of the
troop trucks ten yards off to his left. He realized as he ran that the Iraqis
had lost track of him in the confusion, though surely that could change in a
moment.

The
SAW ripped behind him; AK-47s answered to his right. Salt leveled his grenade
launcher and kicked a 40 mm grenade into the yellow sparkle. He took another
step and threw himself to the ground. A half-second before the grenade
exploded, he heard a sharp, howling whistle from above, a wolf calling to its
mate— or a Maverick, an instant before hitting its target.

OVER IRAQ

27 JANUARY 1991

2140

Lars
blew another
long breath from his mouth, shaking his head, swallowing back the salvia
flooding his mouth. He checked his altitude and bearing for the fifth time in
the past sixty seconds— on course at one hundred feet, chugging steadily
through the long arc carefully planned to keep the MH-130 from active radars.
He had his protective helmet and night-vision gear back on and he’d moved to
the pilot’s seat— if he didn’t feel more comfortable there, at least it was
more familiar.

One
of the British RAF Tornadoes tasked with suppressing the SAM sites announced
that it had launched its missiles. Lars glanced nervously toward the window on
the right side of the cockpit, as if he might see the strike, then turned his
attention to the throttle console, tapping each lever in turn though not
changing the settings. He wanted to seem calm to the others. He had to— not
because he thought they might rebel if they realized he was nervous, but
because it was his job to reassure them so they could do their own tasks
without worrying. You couldn’t do your job if you were worrying about your
commander. He knew that from his own experience.

It
was probably irrelevant, because already they must hate him. Major DiRiggio,
the real pilot, their boss, was lying a few feet behind him on the other side
of the bulkhead, barely breathing, possibly beyond survival. Lars had made the
right decision— surely DiRiggio would have said himself that the mission came
first. But the fact that Lars’s hands were shaking and he was gulping for air
didn’t help matters.

“Herky
Bird, this Wolf. Advise your status.”

Lars
started to answer, then realized the flight engineer was handling the
communications. They spoke over each other for a second, and again as Lars
apologized. He glanced up at the switch panel above him, examining the settings
as if there were a possibility that something had been changed without him
noting it. He worked as slowly as he could, deliberately, hoping to project an
aura of assurance. If he couldn’t fool the others, perhaps he could fool
himself.

Meanwhile,
the mission controller brought them up to date. Strawman was being attacked;
the Tornadoes were suppressing the SAMs. They were to proceed as briefed,
though obviously well ahead of schedule.

They
hadn’t had a chance to tell Wolf about DiRiggio’s heart attack, but now the
controller in the ABCCC asked to speak to him. The navigator laid out the
situation.