HOGS #6 Death Wish (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) (21 page)

To Dixon, the distinctions between civilians and
combatants no longer made any sense. There was only the war, only the job to be
done. He pushed his Hog into a wide bank, reorienting himself. He’d flown far
north; a sizeable Iraqi town was laid out below his right wing. A few days
before on the ground, he had seen a similar town almost as if it were an
isolated outpost in Wisconsin, where he’d grown up. Now he saw it merely as
something he flew over, a place where an antiaircraft gun began lobbing shells
behind him. Sighted manually and too light to be a threat, the gun’s bullets
pointed him back toward his target.

The static in his radio flared again. It was
another warning, this time from Coyote, the AWACS plane monitoring the section.

“Devil Two, break! Break! Break!” shouted the
controller in hoarse voice as his words were once more consumed in a cacophony
of electronic rustling. Dixon heard “MiG-21” and began tucking south, assuming
that was the most logical direction the controller would have given him. As he
made his cut, his warning gear tripped over an Iraqi Jay Bird radar, trying to
get its sticky fingers on him. The warning cleared, but Dixon punched chaff
anyway, rolling back toward the battlefield.

His headphones had gone quiet again. Neither Skull
nor Antman answered his hail.

He looked over at the com panel. Something was
definitely wrong with his radio; the staticky chatter that ordinarily provided
background listening as he flew had faded into dead silence. He clicked through
different frequencies, retrieving nothing. He switched back, broadcasting to
Coyote, though he couldn’t be sure he was sending. Calm and slow, his voice
nonetheless sounded strange inside his head, as if the radio’s failure had
affected his own sense of hearing.

“Devil Two is experiencing radio problems. If
you’re hearing me, I can transmit but not receive. Repeat, I can’t hear a word
you’re saying.”

He clicked off the mike button, checking altitude
and speed— 3,500 feet aboveground, level flight, 285 knots, nosing south by
southwest. Splash was on his left; he had a straight line to the black smoke
rising from the Iraqi column and the splashed helicopters. The ruined Hinds sat
in heaps just before the highway. One of the transport helicopters, its rotors
turning, was disgorging men near the wrecks. Beyond them, scattered near and on
the road, were the Iraqi vehicles and troops that had been racing to Splash’s
aid.

An A-10 dove toward the rear of the column. Bullets
spewed from its mouth, red and gray and black lightning striking the earth.
Steam hissed from the desert where it struck. A fireball followed, exploding
about fifty feet off the ground as the Hog cleared and banked south. A few
hundred yards away, an Iraqi helicopter— seemingly untouched, though it must
have been targeted by a missile— rolled over in the air and folded into the
ground, flames shooting out from the side.

Dixon repeated his can’t-hear-ya call on the
squadron frequency, but again got no response. He checked his fuel situation,
and saw that he was edging toward bingo, the magic point in his fuel tanks when
it was time to head home.

Long way to go without a radio.

IRAQ

29 JANUARY 1991

0625

Hawkins ducked as
one of the Apaches
flashed dangerously close overhead, hustling toward the escalating firefight
out on the highway east of the airfield. Distant explosions shook the ground.
The Pave Hawk that had deposited him circled back over the road below the
southern end of the enemy base, the door gunner occasionally firing at the last
defenders still holding out there.

One of the buildings the SAS had attacked had now
been secured. The other was surrounded, and an SAS interpreter was trying to
get the last defenders to surrender. The clipped radio communications gave no
clue about the missing commandos they’d come for. The heavy resistance didn’t
mean much, one way or another.

Burns and his men had found the Iraqi fuel truck
without resistance. Failing to get it started, they’d pulled and pushed it out
of its bunker by hand, muscling it across the runway. It was fully loaded and
the going was excruciatingly slow.

Finally, Wong and Fernandez took the tractor they
had used to pull the MiG and drove out to the fuel truck, wheeling behind it
and pushing it toward the MiG. In the meantime, Eugene and Preston fussed
around the plane, getting it ready and even trying to load a missile onto its
wing.

They’re going to pull it off, Hawkins realized.
Tight-assed Major Preston is actually going to fly the goddamn plane out of
Iraq.

What in God’s name were the odds against that?
Talk about stinkin’ luck.

Hot damn.

Something moved in the ditch beyond the runway
apron beyond the MiG. The plane’s landing gear obscured it, made it invisible –
but Hawkins was already running for it, his SAW tight against his side.

It took ten long strides to pull parallel with the
nose of the MiG. Two more strides, three, and he had the top of the ditch in
view.

Empty.

But he knew he hadn’t imagined it. He kept
running. The truck, prodded unevenly by the tractor, heaved forward on his
left. One of the British paratroopers coaxing it alongside was laughing. Burns
was holding onto the door, talking with the driver, helping him steer.

Nothing in the ditch. Nothing.

But he hadn’t hallucinated.

He kept running, spotting another trench ten feet
beyond the ditch, parallel to the runway.

Empty, except for three sacks of cement.

Men. A gun.

The SAW burst, then clicked clean. One of the bags
of cement imploded. Burns fell off the truck.

The Iraqi at the far end of the trench stood with
a long spear, jostling its pointed nose.

A javelin against a fuel truck?

Hawkins threw his empty gun away, still ten yards
from the trench. One of the SAS men was grabbing for a weapon, but no one had
started to fire.

Seven yards, five. Not a javelin, an RPG-7 or
something similar. The Iraqi was screwing the propellant cylinder into the head,
jamming it into the launcher muzzle, ramming it against the ground to steady
his shot.

Hawkins screamed as he leapt into the ditch. A
small bee whizzed over his head and another below his leg. The rocket flared
inches from his eye. His right hand burned and something wet covered his face.

Then a fist punched him in the side. Hawkins threw
his elbow in the direction of the blow, pushed up and saw a blur in the shape
of a rifle about a foot from his belly. He lunged for it, falling over it and
into the man holding it. Three bullets shot from the rifle as they struggled;
Hawkins managed to push his body into the Iraqi, pinning him against the side
of the dirt. He kicked his foot back as hard as he could, continuing until he
could wrestle the gun free. He jerked it around and smashed it against the man
he’d pinned, then sprung away, twisting to get his bearings. As he did, he saw
a pipe roll from the top of the trench to the bottom near his foot.

By the time his conscious mind processed the fact
that the pipe was not a pipe but a grenade, Hawkins had already grabbed hold of
it. In the same motion he tossed it skyward. As it left his fingers he thought
how incredibly lucky he must be that it hadn’t gone off.

Then he realized that he had thrown it in the
direction of the tanker truck.

In the next moment, it exploded.

Hawkins had hunkered down, but could still feel
the impact. Pieces of shrapnel and rock rained against the back of his body
armor. He smashed his hand against the trench in anger, then rose, pushing away
the body of a dead Iraqi that had fallen on top of him, struggling to see the
runway.

The tanker sat in front of the MiG, thirty yards
away, intact. With his customary presence of mind, Wong had continued pushing it
forward, while Hawkins and the others had dealt with the Iraqis and their antitank
weapon. The grenade had landed on the runway, but its shrapnel had missed the
vehicles.

Not Burns, though. Hawkins pulled himself and
walked to the SAS sergeant, whose body lay at the edge of the concrete. He’d
been hit in the neck and legs and face; at least one of the holes had been
caused by the Iraqi gunner and not the grenade, but it would have been
difficult to tell which one was which. Hawkins knelt down. Burns lay face up.
The flap of the sergeant’s breast pocket was open. Hawkins saw the back of the
photograph Burns had shown him yesterday. Five kids and a wife, who thought an
afternoon in an amusement park was the time of their lives.

They always would, now.

Blood trickled toward the photo. Hawkins reached
down and took it out gingerly, holding it up as one of Burns’ men ran to him.

“Iraqis got him?” asked the man.

Hawkins just frowned at him, handing him the
picture.

“Let’s get that fucking airplane the hell out of
here!” Hawkins shouted, starting after the truck.

IRAQ

29 JANUARY 1991

0632

Major Preston had just climbed back into the
cockpit and turned to check where the fuel truck was when the grenade exploded.
He ducked, losing his balance and nearly falling over the side. He slammed his
side and back against a sharp piece of the fairing: hid kidney hurt so badly he
through he’d been hit by the grenade. He crumpled against the seat, disoriented
and confused, head swirling as if he’d taken nine or ten negative g’s. Somehow
he got upright and tried to shake the black cowl away from his head. He didn’t
dare look at his body, still thinking he’d been wounded by the exploding
grenade.

I’ll fly no matter what,
he thought to
himself. He felt his side with his hands. His fingers slipped lightly over the
fabric, then pushed against the folds, pressing finally against his back.

He hadn’t been hit.

The truck continued toward the plane. Hack climbed
out of the cockpit to help refuel, extending his legs to the ladder. An Apache
whipped overhead from the other side of the runway; for a second it looked like
its skids would ram into the airplane. Hack ducked, cringing. The helicopter
pulled away at the last instant and Hack tightened his grips as the wash rattled
around him. He stepped back, toeing the step, then lost his balance as he tried
to move too quickly to the ground.

He twisted as he fell, smashing his left wrist and
hand against one of the ladder’s metal steps. A fresh burst of machine-gun fire
somewhere nearby froze him, and once more he thought he’d been shot.

Pulling himself away from the ladder slowly, he
felt punch drunk. A flash of queasiness hit his stomach. His left wrist hung
off at an angle, a bone probably broken. The thin layer of flesh between his
thumb and forefinger turned purple as he watched. The rest of his forearm
quickly began to swell. The pain began to multiply wildly, a puff adder
suddenly excited. The wound’s poison paralyzed him. Preston pushed his head
down, flexing his shoulder and back muscles as if they might somehow take over
for the injured bones and ligaments.

Then he forced himself to his feet and way from
the plane, yelling to Wong and the others on the truck that they had to hurry.
He turned toward the hangar, consumed with the next problem, flight gear.

He could wear his own speed suit with the fudged
hose connectors his survival experts had supplied. But it would be infinitely
better to take the gear the dead pilot was wearing.

Preston ran to the figure he had dragged from the
hanger. He bent his head away from the mess that had been the man’s face, took
a deep breath, and began to undress him.

Using only his right hand, he pulled off the bib-type
outer flight suit. Despite the bloody crust, neither the bib nor the g suit
below appeared damaged. The leg material was covered with dark black figures, a
sort of freehand graffiti that seemed more like a superstitious scrawl than a
mark of ownership.

Preston stopped and undid his own boots, then
stripped to his cotton long johns. He tried to use his left hand to pull off
the man’s boots, and his wrist throbbed so badly he ended up using his knees
and even briefly his head for leverage as he finished stripping the Iraqi.

The back of the g suit was stained black. The
pilot’s intestines had released a stream of shit as he died.

Hack pulled the suit away from the sodden underwear,
gingerly rolling the pants legs up with his right hand before standing to slide
them up. The Iraqi pilot had been about two inches shorter than Preston and
five pounds lighter. The suit snugged very tightly in the groin, but the top
fit well enough for him to move his shoulders freely. He pulled his boots back
on, grabbed the mask he had found and left nearby, then took one last look at
the helmet.

Broken beyond use.

He went to his bag and ripped it open, scooping
out his own liner and helmet, fitting them on as he ran back toward the plane.

The explosions in the distance had stopped; so had
most of the gunfire. He heard a few soft clicks as he snugged the helmet down—
then nothing.

Eugene had placed the AA-11 antiair missile below
the wing, but not attached it. Hack ran to the knot of men helping fuel the
plane, pulling at one and then another before finding the RAG mechanic.

“The missile,” he yelled, pointing. “Get the
missile on. It’ll help.”

Eugene shook his head and started to say
something, but Preston pushed the mechanic in the direction of the weapon. “Do
it! Do it!” he shouted, then ran around the front of the plane, to see if
anything obvious was out of place. It wasn’t exactly an FAA inspection, but the
plane was there, all there. He touched the afterburner nozzles, their gray
housing designed to lower IR signatures, then ran around the tailplane, around
the wing— navigation light cracked by shrapnel— and back to the ladder. Eugene
was stooped under the wing examining the hard points, he had not mounted the
missile.