HOGS #6 Death Wish (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) (23 page)

Budweiser, fortunately, was a typical member of
the tanker community, those unsung but well-hung fraternity of guys who never
wanted anyone to go home thirsty. The crew had already touched the throttle to
accelerate toward the stricken Hog, passing over enemy territory.

“Devil One, we understand you have a fuel
emergency,” the pilot radioed as soon as A-Bomb dialed in the frequency. “State
your situation.”

“Pretty much bone dry,” replied O’Rourke. “Got a
problem with one of my sumps, it looks like. I think I’m leakin’ like a water
bucket without a bottom. Worst thing is, I’m down to my last bag of Twizzlers.”

“This A-Bomb? Shit. I’m always bailing you out.”

“I was countin’ on it, Bobby,” A-Bomb told the
pilot. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have let Saddam shoot-up the tanks.”

“Thought those Hogs were impenetrable.”

“What I’m talkin’ about,” answered A-Bomb. “But
that don’t mean they don’t leak a little.”

“Stay on your course and altitude, we’ll come down
to you,” said the pilot.

“Just what I like— a beer guy who delivers,” said
A-Bomb. “And hey, you still owe me ten bucks from that poker game.”

“Watch it, or I’ll tell my boomer to miss on his
first try,” joked the pilot, referring to the crewman who handled the refueling
gear.

“Won’t work,” said A-Bomb. “I owe him fifty.”

OVER IRAQ

29 JANUARY 1991

0648

Skull lowered his
head, giving himself a
moment to gather himself under the guise of checking his map.

He was remembering a mission, flying a Phantom
F-4E out of Alaska, where he’d intercepted a Tupolev Tu-95 Bear— standard Cold
War show, part of an ongoing project at the time where each side tried to out-chicken
the other. Except this one was different. The Bear was very low, under five
thousand feet, and flying erratically. It failed to answer a hail, and as it
approached American territory, Skull’s flight leader fired a warning shot over
the nose— except he hit the plane.

The Bear abruptly banked and headed back to
Russia.

Skull had thought the Russian pilot wanted to
defect, not bomb LA or even Anchorage. He had mentioned the possibility to his
flight leader as they closed on the lumbering bomber. There was certainly no
pressing need to fire on the plane, much less to hit it, even if the damage was
probably minimal.

But his boss got a promotion out of the incident,
bumped directly to general and fast-tracked at the Pentagon after that. He retired
as a three-star muckety-muck with serious industry connections, and now worked,
if you could call it that, as a consultant and lobbyist.

Hack reminded him of the Phantom commander. In
some ways, the comparison wasn’t fair— Preston’s record showed he was a much
better pilot, and undoubtedly wouldn’t hit something he wanted to miss. But he
had a knack for finding himself in the right place at the right time, and for
making recklessness look good.

Recklessness? Was it reckless to try and pull off
a major intelligence coup? Was the whole mission reckless?

It came down to your perspective. The strike at
Son Tay, the POW camp in North Vietnam, had been bold, even though it came too
late to actually rescue anyone. Eagles’ Claw, the aborted attempt to rescue the
Iranian hostages under Carter, was scored by most people idiotic, solely
because of the accident at Desert 1 that doomed the mission.

And Splash?

Knowlington tapped his map, then sat back upright.
He was four miles south of the airstrip. He checked the position of the
helicopters carefully as he pushed northward, making damn sure to stay out
their way. The last Apache, its fuel reserves pushed to the max, flittered over
the ruins of the smoldering hangar and headed south. Two Chinooks followed,
leaving three others and the Pave Hawks hovering in various spots over the base
perimeter.

Then there was the wrecked Chinook on the ground,
sitting in front of the buildings the SAS commandos had raided. Her nose
slanted into the cement, her cabin crushed; smoke wicked from the side.

The Fulcrum stood astride the ramp maybe a hundred
yards from the head of the runway. The wrecked Chinook was situated in such a
way that the plane might not be able to squeeze past. Even if it did, the
runway didn’t look incredibly long; the downed chopper might make it impossible
for Hack to get off.

No prisoners, no airplane. Downed helicopter, God
knew how many casualties. Total wash.

Preston would come out of it okay. He had that air
about him. Pentagon would want to know what the MiG looked like: he’d end up
serving as some NATO liaison or something. Get his squadron command a few
months after that.

He was getting that as soon as Skull got back to
Home Drome.

They had given Hack a radio frequency to use to
communicate with Allied planes, including Devil Flight, but it was clear when
Skull snapped onto it. That wasn’t surprising— Preston was going to have his
hands full just figuring out the flight controls, let alone the radio.

“Devil Leader to Splash Delta. What’s your
situation?” he said, switching to the D team’s com frequency.

“Devil Leader, this is Hawkins. We’re about to
leave with the package.”

“Acknowledged. Captain, can he get around the
helicopter?”

“Not sure. He’s fueled. No radio, they’re saying.
You need details?”

“No. Okay.”

As Knowlington banked south in a loose orbit
parallel to the western perimeter of the base, he saw two more Chinooks take
off south. Splash Controller came on to ask about his fuel situation.

“Within parameters,” Knowlington responded blandly.
He was actually at bingo, but had plenty of reserves to play with. Besides, it
was obvious from the other traffic that he was the last available allied air
asset – several fighters were now being scrambled to chase an Iraqi making a
dash to Iran further north, and a group of Tornados had just been diverted to
raid a suspected Scud site. If Preston couldn’t take off, he had to smash the
MiG.

He tried Hack again but got nothing. His RWR
flickered with a warning. Either a GCI station far to the southeast had turned
on briefly, or the equipment was just getting jittery from being north so long.
In any event, the threat seemed nonexistent.

“Helis are coming out,” said Splash Control,
acknowledging a transmission from the Chinooks. One of the Pave Lows hovered
near the MiG, which was still sitting on the access ramp. Men were scurrying
near it.

The AWACS controller warned that two more Iraqis
were on the runway at an airfield further north, preparing to take off. The
Tomcats would have to deal with them.

No escort for Hack.

Skull tucked back north, eying the obstructed
runway. Takeoff distance was down to close to a thousand feet, maybe less.

No way, Skull thought. He slipped his finger edged
across the cannon trigger, then began a wide bank to line up his shot.

IRAQ

29 JANUARY 1991

0652

Hack watched the
smoke pour from the rear
motor of the helicopter, black furls leaking downward before dispersing
sideways into a web of gray curlicues. Men were running furiously back and
forth— the pilot and copilot actually seemed to have survived.

This damn close, he thought.

“Major! Major! What do you need?”

Hack jerked back around. Eugene had grabbed the
flight bag and hauled it to the plane.

“My mask!” He mimed as he shouted, repeating the
words. The British mechanic grabbed the mask and its hose and tossed it to him.

“The nozzle and the clamps!”

But Eugene had already realized he’d forgotten the
adapter pieces and fished them out. Preston dropped one of the clamps, and had
to wait for the mechanic to retrieve it from the ground.

He looked back at the helicopter. A fresh volley
of flames shot from the rear. An orange fist rose from the spine and smashed
downward, a full body slam that shattered the metal rivets and joints.

“My board!” Hack shouted, making a rectangle in
the air. The mechanic fished it out.

Slapping it around his leg, he felt as if he was
walking to the plate and someone told him he was going to knock it out of the
park.

His dad. He had this nailed.

Hack reexamined the oxygen hookup on the left
panel. The modified end of the mask hose, with its flexible tubing and hand-cut
nozzle face, looked and felt a little like a vacuum cleaner tool, with a metal
spring clamp embedded inside. It also seemed to be about the right size without
adding the second, more elaborate, plastic adapter-ring assemblies and their clamps.
Hack jammed the nozzle into the receptacle on the panel and felt it click home.
He pulled at it. It stayed. Oxygen flowed through. When a second jostle didn’t
disrupt the flow, he stowed the adapter in one of the bloodstained flaps in his
pants. Then he turned to his attention to getting off the runway.

With his left wrist still not working, he tried
nudging the throttles with his forearm and elbow, but couldn’t manage it. He
had to reach across and push up the power with his right, the plane instantly
jerking against her brakes, which someone had only partially set.

Hack’s right hand shook so badly as he grabbed for
the stick, he had to wrap his left hand around it to keep it steady before the
shock of pain reminded him of just how badly he’d hurt it. Somehow he managed
to get the brakes completely off and began to steer the MiG down the apron, in
the direction of the still-smoldering helicopter.

An Apache whipped across his path, hovering near
the Chinook. The helicopter was several hundred yards away., but he was
starting to move fairly quickly.

“Get out of my way!” yelled Hack. The gunship
launched rockets into the hulk of the aircraft, apparently to finish off its
destruction. A fireball shot from the front of the craft.

“I’m going to hit you, you asshole!” Hack shouted,
knowing, of course, that no one could hear him. He reached for the brake. The
Apache whipped away, and Hack grabbed the control stick again, his legs jelly
as he slopped back and forth across the taxiway, the oscillations increasing
despite his efforts to even them out.

Two modes, he remembered— the steering could be
switched into a less sensitive setting.

Preston glanced down at the stick, looking briefly
for the selector, but there was no way in the world he was screwing with that
now. The end of the ramp was barely fifty feet ahead. He had to slide around
precisely, cut the angle and get by the rear end of the burning helicopter.

If he went off the ramp he’d sink in the sand. He
steadied his feet on the rudder pedals and leaned forward to get the pit of his
stomach into his elbow, glancing at the knee board as he did.

“Just do your best!” he yelled. With every part of
him jittering, he started the turn. The plane slid sideways as he pushed the
stick, then jammed at the rudder. He felt a thump, knew he was off the
concrete, and saw the back end of the Chinook looming on his right.

What a stinking green newbie idiotic jerkful
dumbshit asshole fucked-up jackoff numbskull thing to do putting the stinking plane
off the runway and losing fucking control before, before, before even taking
off.

Numbskull. His dad used to say that.

The Fulcrum, its engines still set at seventy
percent for ground idle and its canopy still wide open, plowed across the soft
earth, but kept moving. The right wing nudged one of the bent rotors of the
Chinook but cleared it without damage. The MiG hopped across a cluster of
potholes, and began moving cockeyed down the short strip, her nose bent
slightly downward.

Clear, Hack cinched the top. It moved painfully
and slowly. He cursed himself for not having closed it earlier— he couldn’t
afford to give up even a yard of takeoff distance. With the top still inches
from slamming home, he pitched forward on the stick as slowly and deliberately as
he could, though the movement was still fairly abrupt. The nudge sent the
leading edge on the tailerons downward. As they angled, he took the stick with
his injured wrist and tried closing his knees on it, holding it as best he
could while reaching with his right hand for the throttle. He slid to full
military power and then jammed to afterburner. The plane jerked forward,
everything rushing now, the MiG veering right.

Hack grabbed the stick, holding the runway, calmer
now, in control. He didn’t look at the sky, or the rapidly approaching gravel
at the end of the runway. He ignored everything but the speedo, got 200 km on
it, then eased his control column. The front wheel slapped into the stones and
dirt, a cloud of debris coming off with him as the wheels whined and the wings
groaned and the plane fluttered a moment. Hack was weightless, caught in the
moment when the earth and sky balanced against each other too perfectly.

The nose of the plane slammed upward and the MiG
rammed herself forward, jumping into the air like a sprinter bolting from the
blocks. Hack felt the rush of speed as the engine doors opened, the need to
protect against debris gone. The plane began to buck, her nose trying to slip
out of his hand— but he steadied it. He began trimming, cleaning the airfoil, breathing
regularly now through the oxygen mask, its fudged connector working without a
leak. The pure air cured most of his aches and pains, even dulling the throb of
his damaged wrist.

He backed the engines off, climbing steadily now,
in control. Checking the ladder on the HUD, he took a moment to orient himself,
get used to thinking in kilometers and kilograms.

Damn. Goddamn. Thirty minutes from now he was
going to touch down a hero.