HOGS #6 Death Wish (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) (15 page)

“Listen Captain. You do your job, I’ll do mine,”
Hack told him. “And I’m a major, thank you.”

“That don’t mean jack up here,” said Hawkins.

By reputation as well as demeanor, Delta Force was
the toughest, most daring unit in the entire U.S. military, if not the world.
Hawkins pissed him off, but what did it say that he didn’t think this could be
done?

That Hawkins was a wimp. Because Hack was doing
it.

“If you think your guys can’t complete the
mission, you should have said so,” Preston told him.

“Oh, we can do
our
job,” said Hawkins. His
tone changed abruptly. “All right. Let me introduce you Major Gold. He’s
English and he’s now in charge of the assault. Wong’s in with him.”

Hack followed past a stack of filled sandbags and
a much larger pile of unfilled ones, walking down a wide ramp bulldozed out of
the desert. Hawkins disappeared around a corner; Preston found himself in a
small maze, working his way through a series of Z-turns in the dark. Finally he
saw a pair of guards— British SAS men, who stood as motionless as the sandbags
lining the walls.

Just beyond them was an open doorway, a hole in
the earth filled with a faint red glow from the light within. Hack had to duck
his head to enter; his neck muscles pulled taut, cramping with fatigue and
cold.

“Major Preston, Major Gold,” said Hawkins. “You
know Captain Wong.”

Gold and two lieutenants were standing over a map
table a short distance away. Wong, arms crossed and face almost on the map,
frowned at some of the sqiggle marks on the paper. Gold extended a thin, long
hand to Preston, who shook it and tried to look relaxed while the rest of the
staff and some NCOs were introduced. His neck muscles had gone completely
spastic, and he could feel the strain in his vertebrae.

“You’ll be with my guys,” Hawkins told him. He
jabbed his finger at a corner of the table where a diagram of the Iraqi base
had been cut and pasted together from intelligence photos. A thick red marker
had been used to outline buildings and other features of the base, which had
been labeled “SPLASH” with capital letters and thick underline above the
diagram.

“We come in here, right over the runway, turn
across the apron, and take a run at the MiG hangar right behind two Apaches,”
said Hawkins. “Depending on what we see, we come down as close to the plane as
we can. My guys take the hangar, move around here, secure this end of the
field. Second team is going across this way, behind the hangar, to cut off any
approach from the highway. SAS teams should be keeping the Iraqis on the base
busy. Burns has a separate team on the tanker. They come at us this way, fuel
if we can.”

The captain switched from the diagram of the base,
running his hand across a large topo map where Splash was rendered to much
smaller scale.

“We’ll fuel it,” interrupted Preston.

Hawkins ignored him. “If there’s too much
resistance, we land here, beyond the approach to the runway, where we’ll be
covered from these guns. At that point, you and Wong wait until we secure a
path to the hangar.”

“If we land there,” said Wong, “in effect our
portion of the mission will have been called off. The timing is severe. We
should expect the Iraqis to send troops from Catin, which would be an
additional risk.”

Hawkins didn’t contradict him. Catin was a
built-up area about ten miles away. Symbols on the larger map indicated that
the Iraqis had a battalion of troops and possibly helicopters based there.

“We can do it,” said Preston. “Piece of cake.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Gold. He had a singer’s
voice, a rich baritone that vibrated even in the cave like bunker. “James,
review the timetable, would you?”

One of the two lieutenants began running down the
game plan for the assault, accenting the highlights with a flick of his hand,
as if he were throwing confetti over the map. Splashdown would begin at
precisely 0550, with an attack on the SA-2 site southwest of the attack area;
the assault package was now so large that the planes would need to escape over
the missile site’s coverage area. In any event, it was well past time to make
sure that the enemy site was truly dead.

At the same time, two Devil Squadron Hogs, led by A-Bomb,
would eliminate the most potent defenses at Splash itself; based on the latest
intelligence, these had been expanded to include two short-range mobile missile
units, more than likely SA-9s. A number of ZSU anti-aircraft weapons would also
be targeted; any remaining would be the first priority for the wave of Apache
gunships that would spearhead the assault at 0555. Defenses neutralized, the
Apaches would cover the arriving ground troops, who would strike at the
buildings where the prisoners might be at precisely 0600.

Four separate groups would launch the assault. One
each was devoted to the possible prisoner buildings, with a third smaller team to
be used to secure the highway leading to the base, preventing reinforcements
from arriving. The fourth, made up of Delta and two different SAS squads for a
total of twenty-four men, would concentrate on the hangar area and plane as
Captain Hawkins had just described. Wong and Hack, along with a British airman
with expertise on MiG systems, would fly in with Delta.

“You are to take the upmost precautions,” said the
lieutenant. The major nodded over his shoulder; Hawkins merely frowned.

All told nearly one hundred and sixty men would be
making the assault. Four Chinooks and a pair of American Spec Ops Blackhawk
MH-60 helicopters, dubbed Pave Hawks, had been added to the original package. There
were now a total of eight transport and six attack helicopters in the plan. Two
MC-130s had been added to refuel the whirlybirds on a staggered schedule, some
before the landing and some after. Besides the Hogs and Tornados, four F-16s
would be available to provide ground support. Two F-15s were watching in case
the MiG managed to get off before they arrived, and four Navy F-14 Tomcats had
been shanghaied to escort the package— a development that struck Hack as more
difficult to arrange than cooperation between the Americans and Brits.

“It’s a very tight schedule,” said the lieutenant,
summing up. He sighed contentedly, as if he had just summed up the planned menu
for an elaborate meal.

“We need to be aboard the helicopters now,” said
Hawkins.

“Jolly good,” said the British major. “Good luck
to all.”

Hack tried to surreptitiously unkink his neck as
he followed Hawkins back out through the maze and down to the helicopter
landing area. The Delta force soldiers stood around their gear, leaning against
some sandbags thirty yards or so from the helicopters, most of them smoking
cigarettes.

“Jerry, give Major Preston the 203 and show him
how to use it,” Hawkins said.

“I’d rather have an M-16,” said Hack. “I’m not too
bad with it.”

“A 203
is
an M-16 with a grenade launcher,”
Hawkins said, his voice so sarcastic that Hack wasn’t sure he was telling the
truth until the weapon was thrust into his hands. The Delta sergeant told him
he wouldn’t need the launcher, then demonstrated how to work it. It was a
fairly straight-forward device mounted below the rifle barrel; it fired 40mm
grenades which looked more like fat shotgun shells than what Preston imagined a
grenade to be.

“This is what they look like,” the sergeant told
Hack, showing but not giving him the grenades. “One shot at a time. Give ‘em
loft, but not too much loft. You know what I’m saying?”

“Shit yeah,” said Hack.

The sergeant snorted. “Three hundred yards is the
most they’ll carry. Aim at something a hundred and fifty away, look through the
quadrant— you paying attention, Major?”

“I’m all ears, Sergeant.”

“You look through here, edge it up a little, just
to be safe because you never done this, then push.” He hit the trigger. “Make
sure you got it against your shoulder snug. It ain’t gonna knock you over, but
you want to be more accurate than not. You use an M-16 before?”

“I have a marksman badge,” snapped Preston.

The sergeant smiled, as if to say, “Ain’t that
sweet.”

“Excuse me, Major,” said Wong, “but I wanted to
review our priorities before we start.”

“Flight gear is number one,” said Preston. “There
must be some sort of life-support shop near the plane. I think the hangar, but
maybe with the fuel truck or in that area. I want to talk with the men who . .
.”

“Our priority is to survey the airplane,” Wong
interrupted. “I am primarily interested in the avionics. And any missiles. You
should concentrate on any upgrades to the control system. Our British sergeant
will examine the fuel capacity and type, in an attempt to ascertain performance
levels. The type is regularly de-tuned to extend maintenance intervals, which
naturally affects its performance. After that, he will survey the flight
control surfaces. The flaps. . .”

“I need the gear to fly,” Hack told him. “My
connectors are kludges, and even if they work I won’t have a radio.”

“Taking the plane is secondary to our main
objective of intelligence gathering.”

Hack curled the rifle beneath his arm. He’d blast
his way into the stinking hangar single-handedly if he had to. Screw Wong and
the Delta jerks.

A flak vest hit him in the chest, nearly knocking
him down.

“Gear up,” said Fernandez. “Both of ya. You’re
gonna wanna pee before you get on the helicopter. Otherwise you’re pissin’ out
the door, which means into the wind, which usually means in your face.” He
snickered. “No sense peein’ yourself until the fun starts.”

OVER IRAQ

29 JANUARY 1991

0524

A-Bomb did a
quick check of his
instruments, then reached down to his Twizzlers pocket for a piece of licorice.
He and Dixon were running a good ten minutes ahead of schedule and in fact a
simple flick of the wrist would put him practically on the planned IP or
ingress point for the attack. Ten seconds beyond that he’d be able to cursor in
his first SAM and reach for a celebratory Three Musketeers bar.

In just about any other line of work, running
ahead of schedule was a good thing. But here being ten minutes early was nearly
as bad as being ten minutes late. Striking now might cost the assault teams the
advantage of surprise they were counting on. Worse, the ten minutes they had to
wait was ten minutes’ worth of fuel they wouldn’t have to support the commandos
and Delta boys when the fun started.

At least his stock of candy was strong. He had two
more packs of Twizzlers, a full complement of Tootsie Rolls, three bags of
M&Ms and four over-sized Three Musketeers bars in his specially designed
candy pockets. And that didn’t count the pastry in his vest, nor the backup
Peppermint Patties and gumdrops taped under the dash. Of course, if things got
really desperate, A-Bomb could always dig into the survival stash attached to
the seat. But you didn’t want to get into your contingencies if you could help
it.

“Yo, Devil Two, we’re going to keep this orbit
another few minutes. Splash is on time,” he assured his wingman.

“Two,” acknowledged Dixon.

The sharp click reminded O’Rourke of Doberman,
very businesslike as tee time approached. Dixon had some of the Dogman’s moves
as well, and while he wasn’t yet the marksman Glenon was, he still had
acquitted himself well enough to nail an Iraqi helicopter with his cannon
during the early hours of the air war. Of course, no one had Doberman’s
explosive temper, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. BJ was a kickass Hog
driver; A-Bomb’s six would be well covered when they made the attack.

Still, O’Rourke felt slightly unsettled— not
uneasy and certainly not worried, just slightly out of whack. The thing was, he
wasn’t used to playing lead guitar. He was more like Miami Steve, humping in
the background. Oh yeah, doing very important work, but not actually fronting
the band. Hitting the notes, setting the rhythm, working the solos even— but
not
the Boss.
Playing lead had a different head to it.

Splash had grown so complicated that it was now
being coordinated by its own control plane, code named Head, flying behind the
lines somewhere. It was mostly referred to as Splash Control by the others in
the package— another little thing that p’d A-Bomb off, because what was the
sense of having a call sign if you weren’t going to use the thing.

Head came over the circuit, counting down the time
to Splashdown— thirty minutes away.

“Devil One acknowledges, Headman,” said A-Bomb.
“On station.”

On station.
On station.
If he were the
wingman, he could have said something like, “Got your butts covered” or
“Cheery-oh” and asked after the Queen. Because a wingman could do that kind of
thing.

Flying lead, you had to be serious.

No wonder Doberman was such a grouch.

The Tornado tagged with nailing the SA-2 radar
site southwest of the target area checked in. They were running five minutes
late. So were the Splash Apaches, which according to the support craft had had
trouble refueling. The helicopters themselves did not actually come on the
circuit; given that they were much more vulnerable to the Iraqi defenses, they
were on radio silence until the attack began. Besides, they were flying so low—
roughly six feet above the desert floor— that it would have been difficult for
the command ship to communicate with them directly.

Six feet above ground level. That was where A-Bomb’s
Hog wanted to be. She was getting a nosebleed up here at eighteen thousand
feet. Other planes flew such altitudes routinely; most might even consider it
low in a war zone. But an A-10 pilot this high looked around for asteroids to
avoid.