HOGS #5: TARGET SADDAM (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) (6 page)

BOOK: HOGS #5: TARGET SADDAM (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series)
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The
other consolation was a rumor that the present commander wasn’t cutting the
mustard, in which case Hack would get his slot. In fact, a friendly general had
hinted that was the whole reason for his appointment. Of course, the general worked
in Washington, so there was no telling what, if anything, the hint was worth.

But
why would Preston want to command a unit of Hogs?

He
wouldn’t. Preston had flown A-10s for two of the worst years of his life. He
had angled and pleaded and connived the whole time to get out of them to a
real
airplane. And now he was back.

A
Humvee sat near a short fence beyond a low-slung building on his left. Two
airmen sat inside, their backs turned away from the ramp area. Preston went to
the Hummer, opened the rear door and hoisted himself and his small bag inside.

“Uh,
excuse me,” said the driver sharply.

“Take
me over to the headquarters for the 535
th
,” Preston said, settling
into his seat.

“Uh,
sir?” said the other airman.

“That
would be Major. Come on, let’s go.”

The
men— clearly not here for him— stared at him from the front of the vehicle.
Preston returned their glare, confident that they would comply with his order
without further instruction.

And
so they did. The driver slapped the vehicle into motion, smashing the gas pedal
and wheeling it around sharply, obviously trying to call attention to the fact
that he wasn’t happy. But then again Preston wasn’t either, and so he ignored
the bumpy ride.

Hack
had never been to King Fahd before, and after the relative order of his Eagle
base at Tabuk, the place looked cluttered and confused. Besides hosting every
Warthog in the Gulf, Fahd was home port to an assortment of Spec Ops and SAR
craft— C-130s, PAVE Low helicopters, and the like. An odd assortment of support
craft and stragglers had also found their way here: a Navy A-6 that had
suffered battle damage and couldn’t make it back to its carrier, a pair of OA-6
Broncos training with Delta troops as advanced scouts, even an ancient civilian
Constellation that had taken refuge after escaping from Kuwait. Preston stared
at the planes, unimpressed; slow movers all, they reinforced his sense of
exile. The ride took him through the area where the 535
th
‘s Hogs
were stored and maintained— it was easy to spot, with a large banner across the
top of the largest metal building declaring it “Oz: Home of the 535
th
‘Devil’ Squadron.”

A
slightly smaller banner hung beneath it: “Eat This, Saddam.”

Preston
shook his head. That would have to go.

“Hog
Heaven, sir,” announced the driver as the Humvee skidded to a stop a few yards
from a patched-together trailer complex off the side of the main area of the
base. Closer to the planes and the Spec Ops areas than the other A-10A
commands, the ramshackle building looked like a carny camp without the charm.

Preston
pulled himself out of the Humvee, which jerked away before he could properly
close the door. Hack walked across the patched concrete and climbed up the
rickety stairs. Inside, the building seemed to sway as he passed down the
hallway.

In
the civilian world, seven o’clock in the morning was relatively early; most
people would still be making their way to work. Hog squadron was experiencing a
lull as well— but only because most its planes had already left on the morning
missions assigned to it by the “frag” or fragment of the Air Tasking Order that
laid out the allied game plan for the air war. The squadron shared quarters
with an intelligence group at the far end of the hallway; Preston, with no
signs on the doors to guide him, walked toward the buzz. As he passed a room on
the right he stopped short— it was a large lounge dominated by a massive
projection-screen TV. The set was tuned to CNN, where Bernard Shaw flashed his
impressive eyebrows as he spoke into a microphone.

The
CNN screen changed. It was night. Hoses of red tracers filled the sky. Preston
stepped into the room as words appeared in the lower right. “Downtown Baghdad.”
Suddenly light flashed in the lower right corner of the screen— a bomb or
missile hitting. The camera jumped. More explosions, secondaries most likely.
Fire filled the sky.

The
scene changed. It was morning. “Live,” according to the words at the bottom.

Buildings.
“An Iraqi Factory” claimed the words.

Undoubtedly
a lie, Hack thought.

“Excuse
me,” said a gravelly voice behind him.

Preston
stepped to the side to get out of the way. The other man walked inside, past
the large, overstuffed couches to the side the room. Three large refrigerators
and bins of junk-food snacks sat along the wall, next to a long wooden table.
There was a coffee machine there— next to a bean grinder. The officer poured
himself a cup without glancing at him.

It
was Michael Knowlington. Hack had worked with him, briefly, during an
assignment at the Pentagon about a year before. They hadn’t gotten along
particularly well.

“You’re
early,” said Knowlington without looking up. “Good.”

Before
Preston could answer, the colonel had replaced the coffee pot and begun
striding from the room. All Hack could do was follow down the hall to a small
office on the right. The colonel took no notice of him, and in fact had reached
to close the door behind him when Preston pushed himself into the doorway.

“Colonel,
I –”

“Come
in if you’re coming,” said Knowlington.

In
contrast to the room with the TV, the squadron commander’s officer was as
spartan as a porta-john on a remote campsite. There were exactly three pieces
of furniture— a three-drawer metal desk pushed against the wall and two metal
folding chairs, neither of which had any padding. The walls were blank; a set
of blinds hung down over the window. Knowlington sat in the chair behind the
desk, turning it to face the other seat, which was against the wall near the
door.

Guy
was so low on the totem pole, Preston thought to himself, he couldn’t even get
furniture. Obviously the rumors must be true.

“I
understand you helped out near Apache yesterday evening,” said Knowlington.
“Thanks.”

“Apache?
You mean the MiG that attacked the helicopter?”

Knowlington
nodded. Preston and his wingmate had actually been involved— though at the last
minute, and then largely as spectators to the main event. While they tangled
with several MiGs that had apparently been launched as decoys, two Hogs had
somehow managed to fight off a Fishbed closing in on a Spec Ops helo.

More
than fought it off— one of the Hogs had nailed the SOB, an incredible feat in
the slow moving A-10.

“Those
were your planes?” Preston asked.

“Two
of my best pilots. They should be back soon. They’ll be here for your coming
out party.”

Anyone
else would have said the last words with a smile. Knowlington said them as if
he were reading off a list of numbers on an engineering chart.

Hack
nodded. On the flight out he’d considered whether he ought to say something
about burying the hatchet or getting along or letting bygones be bygones— make
some reference, at least, to their “disagreement” in D.C. But now that he was
here, sitting two feet from Knowlington, he didn’t know what to say.

At
least he didn’t smell like booze.

“I’d
like to get to work,” Hack told him. “First thing, I think, is review the duty
roster, then look over the maintenance. I want to make sure the planes are
ready to go. Right off, I thought I would –”

“I
believe you’ll find that Chief Master Sergeant Clyston has everything under
control.”


Clyston?”

“You
know Allen?”

“No.
But who’s the officer in charge of . . .”

“If
there’s a readiness problem with the planes, it comes straight to me,” said
Knowlington. “Clyston oversees the maintenance sections. He reports directly to
me.”

“Ordinarily
. . .”

“We’re
not fully staffed,” said Knowlington. His voice remained as neutral as ever.
“That’s an advantage, because it means we don’t have a lot of extraneous
bullshit and red tape. We have just enough people to get our job done. Most
days.”

Not
a laugh, not a hint of humor.

“Well
I’m not in favor of extraneous bullshit either,” started Hack. His “but” never
got out of his mouth.

“Good.
I’m due in Riyadh in two hours and I have some details to look after,” said
Skull, standing and opening the door for him. “We’ll introduce you formally at
1300 or thereabouts. Bernie’ll get you situated. He’s down the hall with the
Intelligence people; we share resources.”

There
was just the hint of irony in Knowlington’s voice. Angry at being brushed off
but not exactly sure what to do or say, Preston got up as deliberately as he
could, only just managing not to slam the door behind him.

 

CHAPTER 8

NORTH OF THE SAUDI BORDER

27 JANUARY 1991

0710

 

 

Doberman
cursed himself
as he whacked the Hog engines to maximum power, goosing the throttle for all he
was worth. Diversionary flares shot out of their wingtip dispensers, bursting
in the path of the shoulder-fired missile.

Truth
was, he’d been caught flat-footed, at very low altitude without a lot of flight
energy or momentum to help him escape. He hadn’t expected someone to be sitting
down there behind him with a heat seeker.

Stupidity.

No,
worse: Pilot arrogance, one of the seven deadly sins. He’d flown like he was
invincible and now had to pay the piper. The only question was whether he’d pay
with sweat or blood.

The
SA-7 the Iraqi soldier had launched at him was a relatively primitive
heat-seeking missile. Its nearest Western equivalent was the Redeye missile, a
1960s’ man-portable weapon outclassed by contemporary SAMs like the
Stinger and the Russian SA-16, to say nothing of systems like the British
Blowpipe or the Swedish RBS 70. Still, the SA-7 flew at just under 1,000 miles
an hour and had a range of two miles; the Hog was well within its lethal
envelope. About the only thing Doberman had going for him was its fuse— a
direct-action device that required the missile to actually hit something before
detonating the RDX/AP explosive.

Of
course, Doberman had no way of knowing exactly what had been launched at him.
Nor did he do much in the way of analyzing the odds. He concentrated on pushing
the Hog into a series of hard, swaggering turns, lighting off flares as he
went.

He
might have prayed or wished for luck, but there wasn’t time.

 

CHAPTER 9

NORTH OF THE SAUDI BORDER

27 JANUARY 1991

0710

 

As
A-Bomb shouted
his warning, Doberman ducked left and tossed flares, obviously in control of
the situation. So O’Rourke turned his attention toward meting out the only
acceptable punishment for firing on a Hog.

Death.
With extreme and radiating prejudice.

The
fact that the Iraqis who had fired on his wingmate might have other SAMs at
their disposal was irrelevant.

“What
I’m talking about here is basic Hog etiquette,” said A-Bomb, as if he had a set
of loudspeakers to harangue the Iraqis with, “You have to learn how to be
polite.”

Rumor
had it that Miss Manners was planning on devoting an entire chapter in her next
book to the proper use of 30 millimeter cannon fire at dinner parties. If so,
she could have used A-Bomb’s first run as a textbook example— he pushed his
nose nearly straight down on the spot where the lingering smoke fingered the
guilty party.

The
cannon wasn’t really an effective weapon against individual soldiers, who
presented a difficult target for an aircraft moving at four hundred miles an hour.
Cluster bombs or even old-fashioned iron would have clearly been the weapon of
choice, as Miss Manners would undoubtedly note in a well-worded aside at the
start of her chapter.

The
Iraqis, however, could not afford to wait for the book. The soldiers
disappeared in a percolating steam of sand and explosive as A-Bomb rode the
trigger for an extra-long burst, the gun’s recoil actually slowing the A-10A’s
descent. He worked his rudder pedals to walk the torrent of bullets into a
second knot and then over into the troop truck that had accompanied the men,
slicing a neat line roughly along the drive shaft, not to mention the rest of
the chassis.

There
was a bit too much smoke to see the vehicle split in half, and besides, the
flames got in the way. Nonetheless, A-Bomb gave himself an attaboy as his
crosshairs slipped toward one last knot of soldiers lying in the sand. These
men had the audacity to actually fire at him— or at least that seemed to be the
implication of the tiny flashes of red coming from their position.

BOOK: HOGS #5: TARGET SADDAM (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series)
4.14Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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