HOGS #6 Death Wish (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series)
Read HOGS #6 Death Wish (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) Online
Authors: Jim DeFelice
HOGS 6
Air War in the Gulf
By Jim DeFelice
Book #6 in the HOGS Air War series
based on the exploits of the A-10A Warthog pilots in
the 1991 Gulf War
Copyright © 2002 by
Jim DeFelice.
All rights
reserved.
This book may not
be reproduced in whole or in part, by any means, without permission from the
author, except for short quotes in reviews or discussions. Contact:
[email protected]
SAUDI ARABIA
28 JANUARY 1991
Standing watch one
morning in their trench
a few yards from the Iraqi border, Private Smith and Private Jones began
discussing aesthetics.
Or more particularly, how shit-fully ugly the
desert in front of them was.
The conversation soon turned to a comparison of
the ugliest things they had ever seen.
“The back end of a seventies’ Buick,” said Jones.
“Mary Broward’s face,” said Smith.
“Things, things,” said Jones, trying to rein in
the discussion.
“She
was
a thing.”
“If you’re including stuff like that,” sniped
Jones, “Sergeant Porky’s rear end.”
“You saw Porky’s butt?” asked Smith.
Jones’ response was drowned out by the whiz and
explosion of a series of Iraqi shells landing uncomfortably close to their
position. It was the third attack of the afternoon, and by far the most
accurate. Geysers of dirt burst over their trench, covering their prone backs
with grit. The ground shook as the pounding continued, and it quickly became
clear that this time, the Iraqis were serious about what they were doing— the
rain of explosives started a slow but steady walk toward the privates, the
enemy homing in on their position.
“Mayday! Mayday!,” screamed Smith, grabbing for
the com pack that connected them with HQ. “Shit, incoming. We’re taking serious
incoming.”
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” shouted Jones,
grabbing his buddy. Just as they rose, a blast pushed them face down in the
sand.
“Pray! Pray!” yelped Smith.
As Jones started to carry out his friend’s
suggestion, a fresh sound filled the air: a hum that managed to carry over the
steady roar of the steadily approaching explosions. The hum became a roar, then
a piercing whine and a loud metallic hush, the sound a steel bar might make if
it were being beaten back into molten ore. The ground reverberated with the
hiss of a thousand volcanoes. The sky flashed with lightning. Both men felt
their ears pop.
Then, silence.
Smith and Jones managed to rub the sand out of
their faces and look skywards just in time to see their saviors circling above:
a pair of U.S. Air Force A-10A Thunderbolt II attack planes, better known as
Warthogs, or simply Hogs. The A-10s had flattened the enemy artillery with a
strong but simple dose of Maverick AGM-65 air-to-ground missiles. The
dark-hulled beasts tipped their ungainly wings back and forth in greeting, then
flew off.
“Now that’s fuckin’ ugly,” said Jones.
“Ugly, fuckin’ ugly,” agreed Smith. “How the hell
do they fly?”
“Damned if I know. Too ugly to land, I guess.”
“I could kiss ‘em.”
“Me too.”
“Saved my butt,” said Jones.
“Now that’s ugly.”
“Not half as ugly as yours.”
“Not half as ugly as theirs.” Smith thumbed back
toward the planes.
“Damn ugly.”
“Most beautiful fuckin’ ugly I ever saw.”
“Damn straight.”
DRIVERS
OVER SOUTHEASTERN IRAQ
28 JANUARY 1991
1100
It briefed damn
easy: Head exactly north
four miles off the last way marker, dive below the cloud cover, plink the tank.
But in the air, falling through thick clouds at
five thousand, just finding the T-54 battle tanks was an accomplishment.
Or would be. Major Horace Gordon Preston, better
known as “Hack,” clenched his back teeth and pushed harder on the stick, urging
the nose of his A-10A Thunderbolt II “Warthog” downward. The Hog grunted, her
angle of attack slicing through forty-five degrees as she finally broth through
the thick deck of clouds. Unblemished yellow sand spread out before her,
oblivious to the war. The targeting cue in the plane’s heads-up display ghosted
white and empty over the dirt as Hack hunted for the vehicles.
They were supposed to be dug into a revetment on
the southwestern end of Kill Box Alpha Echo Five. He had the fight place, and
it was unlikely that the Iraqis would have moved the tanks this early in the
morning. They had to be around here somewhere.
He was going to nail them the second he saw them.
A pair of Maverick AGM-65B electro-optical magnification air-to-ground missiles
hung on his wings, balanced by four Mark-20 Rockeye II cluster-bombs. The
Mavericks would be fired first. He’d then close on whatever was left of the
target and pop the Rockeyes.
Assuming he found something to pop them on.
“Yo Devil One, you got our cupcakes yet?”
“One. Negative,” snapped Hack, acknowledging his
wingmate, Captain Thomas “A-Bomb” O’Rourke.
“Try nine o’clock, four miles.”
Hack glanced to the northwest. A brown smudge sat
in the distance there, too far away for him to make out. Still, it was
something; he angled his wings and turned in that direction, leveling out of
his dive. The nine-inch television screen at the right side of his cockpit
control panel fed video from the optical head in the missile on his port wing;
Hack had a perfect gray-scale image of undulating sand.
Preston glued his eyes to the altitude indicator
in the middle of the dash, momentarily worrying that he’d lost his sense of
where he was. Low and out of position for an attack, he realized he should tell
A-Bomb to take the lead. But that would have felt too much like giving up.
I’m only flying a Hog
, he reminded himself.
I can plink tanks with my eyes closed
.
Three or four years ago, that might have been
true. He was a high-time A-10 driver then, with tons of experience in Europe.
But he hated slogging around in the slow-moving, low-flying planes. Flying them
was about as glamorous as going to the prom with your mom’s grandmother, and
not half as good for your career. Thankfully, his Washington connections came
through with better gigs, transferring him briefly to the Pentagon before
finally sliding him into an F-15C wing. He came to the Gulf with the fast
movers, flying as a section leader; only a few days ago he’d nailed a MiG in
aerial combat over Iraq.
Within twenty-four hours— hell, within four— he
was transferred to Devil Squadron, back out of the fast lane, back into Mom’s grandmom’s
Model T.
The general who came through with the billet
advertised it as a command move, the chance to lead a squadron, admittedly one
of Hack’s most cherished goals. He hadn’t told him it was with A-10s until it
was too late. Nor was it a real command— he was only the squadron’s director of
operations or DO, second in line behind the commander.
The way Hack was flying today, he was lucky
someone didn’t bust him back to lieutenant. He needed more altitude to make the
attack work. Still not entirely confident that the smudge was anything but a
smudge, he began a tight bank, intending to spiral up like a hawk as he
proceeded.
The A-10 groaned. Never particularly adept at
climbing, the plane labored with a full load tied to her wings.
“Yo, Hack, you got ‘em?” asked A-Bomb.
“One. I’m not sure that’s our target.”
Preston could practically hear A-Bomb snickering
through the static. He came through his bank and pushed his wings level, now
dead on for the dark brown clumps. Maybe tanks, maybe not— the video screen was
a blurry mess.
Could be a pair of T-54s buried in the sand. Then
again, it could be an
I Love Lucy
rerun.
A few stray clouds wisped in to further obstruct
his vision. Hack cursed at the gray fingers, flipping back and forth between
the two magnification cones offered by the missile gear in a vain hope that it
would magically help him find the tanks.
He needed to find the damn things. Partly because
he wanted to prove to A-Bomb and the rest of the squadron that he did really
and truly have the right stuff. And partly because he wanted to prove it to
himself.
Not that he should need to. But somehow the fuzzy
picture in the small targeting screen and the rust in his Hog-flying chops
negated everything else.
Hack checked his fuel and then his paper map as he
legged further north. He pushed the air through his lungs slowly, telling
himself to calm down.
Below the map and the mission notes, taped to the
last page of the knee board, were three pieces of paper. He flipped the sheets
up and looked at them now, talisman’s that never failed him.
One was a Gary Larson cartoon about scientists and
bugs. He looked at it and laughed.
The second was a Biblical quotation from
Ecclesiastes, reminding him that “wisdom exceedeth folly.”
And the last was the most important, a motto he’d
heard from his father since he was seven or eight years old:
“Do your best.”
All he could do. He blew another wad of air into
his face mask and put his eyes back out into the desert, trying to will some
detail out of the shifting sands. The smudge had worked itself into a dark
brown snake on the ground.
Not a tank. Something, but not a tank.
Hack sighed— might just as well let A-Bomb take a
turn; he was used to looking at things on the ground, and maybe his eyes were
even better. But as Preston slid his finger to click on the mike, the transmission
from another flight ran over the frequency. Waiting for it to clear, he saw a
gray lollipop just beyond the snake. Then another and another and another.
“Thank you, God, oh thank you,” he said. Looking
over, he dialed the Maverick targeting cursor onto the first T-54.
“You say something, Major?” asked A-Bomb.
“Have three, no four tanks, dug in, beyond that
smudge,” said Hack as he coaxed the pipper home. “Stand by.”
“Story of my life,” said A-Bomb. “Yeah, I got
them. Your butt’s clear. Snake’s the track from a flak gun. Zeus on the right
of the target area. Two of ‘em. Firing!”
As if they’d heard his wing mate’s warning, the
four-barreled antiaircraft guns sent a stream of lead into the air. They were
firing at extreme range and without the help of their radar, but even if they’d
been in his face Hack wouldn’t have paid any attention— he wanted the damned
tanks.
His first Maverick slid off her rail with a thunk,
the rocket engine taking a second before bursting into action. By that time
Hack had already steadied the crosshairs on a second tank. One hundred and
twenty-five pounds of explosive dutifully took its cue as he depressed the
trigger, launching from the Hog on what would be a fast, slightly arced, trip
to its target.
Hack jerked his head back to the windscreen,
belatedly realizing he was flying toward the anti-aircraft fire. Well-aimed or
not, the 23mm slugs could still make nasty holes in anything they hit. He
jerked the plane sharply to his right, narrowly avoiding the leading edge of
the furious lead roiling the sky.