HOGS #6 Death Wish (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) (24 page)

Hot shit. Not too much of a numbskull, after all.

His dad was going to be damn proud.

IRAQ

29 JANUARY 1991

0655

Hawkins watched with
the rest from the open
door of the helicopter as the MiG rolled onto the runway and then raced toward
the end, veering sharply upwards and then racing away.

“Shit yeah!” yelled Fernandez. “I knew he’d make
it.”

The others were laughing and cheering. Hawkins
pushed back into the helicopter, where he found Wong leaning against the wall,
examining a diagram of the base drawn out on one of the satellite photos.

“You pulled it off,” Hawkins told his old friend.
“Another medal.”

Wong looked up from the map and blinked twice, an
owl surprised by a searchlight in the forest. Hawkins laughed so hard he nearly
lost his balance.

“What?” asked Wong.

“Nothing, Bristol.” He looked back at his men, who
were now settling in along the far side of the Pave Hawk. From their
perspective, it had been a kick-ass mission— one enemy base neutralized, one
front-line fighter stolen. Saddam had had his ass kicked, and his toilet paper stolen
from his stall for good measure. The D boys were all wearing smiles, trying to
tell stories over the steady beat of the MH-60’s rotors.

Things weren’t likely to be so light-hearted in
the SAS choppers. Miraculously, the crew in the Chinook that had crashed had
gotten out with only minor scratches. Still, the Brits had lost two men –
Sergeant Burns and one of the paratroopers assaulting the buildings. There had
been maybe a half-dozen wounded besides. More importantly, the captured SAS men
hadn’t been found.

Two men, a helicopter. Even without the hijacking
of the MiG, the general commanding the operation would no doubt consider the
losses acceptable, given their objective. You took care of your own, no matter
the odds or circumstance.

Hawkins agreed with that. But Burns hadn’t died in
the assault on the buildings. He’d been killed getting the plane, maybe by
Hawkins himself. The plane wasn’t worth a man’s death. Wong himself said the
West already knew a great deal about the fighters.

But they were all going to look like heroes,
Hawkins especially.

Fernandez said something and everyone around him,
even Eugene, laughed. As Hawkins leaned toward them to catch what it was, Wong
grabbed his arm, pulling him with him as he leaned into the cockpit area and
peered through the front glass.

“What’s up?” Hawkins yelled to him.

The Air Force intelligence officer ignored the
question, pointing back to the east and yelling at the pilot. The Pave Hawk
helicopter pilot pitched the helicopter back toward the southern edge of the
base.

“What’s the story, Bristol?” Hawkins yelled as Wong
slipped over to the window next to the Minimi gunner.

“The bunker area south of the base,” said Wong.

“Yeah? We pinned them down but left them. They
were too far to bother us, and across a minefield.”

“Why were there soldiers there?” said Wong. “Why
so far from the area of importance when they could not expect an attack by
land? The bunkers, well hidden— what do they hold?”

He handed Hawkins the sketch he’d been examining
before. Hawkins stared at the area Wong had referred to, but saw nothing.

“Bombs?”

“Too far away.” Wong pointed. “Buzz that gully
there, running south from the road. There is another bunker there.”

“What?”

Wong frowned, then pushed past to talk to the pilot.
Hawkins put his head to the window.

Dead Iraqis lay in the distance, slumped behind
the meager defensive posts they had manned. The base lay well beyond them, the
smoke now thinning.

A scratch road, no more than a trail in the
desert, ran along the perimeter of the base, linking the defensive posts. It
jogged south at a point parallel to the southwest corner of the airstrip,
running to a small circle in front of a bunker. Calling the dug-in position a
bunker was giving it a status it didn’t deserve— it was more like a tarped
lean-to, and a small one at that.

There were footprints in the sand near it, though,
a lot of footprints. As he stared at them, Hawkins realized that there was
another bunker there, this one an actual concrete structure hidden by the sand.

“The guns, man the guns!” he shouted. “Yo, get
your weapons. Wake up! Wake up!”

A figure popped out of the bunker, then another,
and another. The .50 caliber gunner took aim.

“No,” said Wong, grabbing the man. “They’re
surrendering.”

Wong was right. Six Iraqis came out of the bunker
in the desert, waving white and tan shirts.

Two other figures came out behind him.

The paratroopers, who had now reversed roles with
their captors. They motioned at the Iraqis, and all six of the soldiers dropped
to their stomachs, hands on the backs of their heads.

“Holy shit fuck,” said Fernandez. Hawkins had to
grab him to keep him from leaping from the helicopter. They were still a good
fifty feet off the ground.

“Obviously not Republican Guards,” said Wong, who
seemed disappointed. “We may have to call for help to take the prisoners,” he
added. “There won’t be room.”

“I think we can manage to squeeze the bastards in,”
said Hawkins, far from disappointed. “I think we can manage very well.”

OVER
IRAQ

29 JANUARY 1991

0705

Skull had run
ahead of the MiG as Hack took
off, but the Mikohyan made up the distance quickly, climbing upwards faster
than the A-10 could go in level flight. The last of the helicopters cleared off
the ground a few seconds later. Skull’s job there was done.

He tracked onto the MiG’s trail, intending to run
behind until the backup escorts caught Hack. In the meantime, he gave the AWACS
a good read on its location and direction, relaying the fact that “Splash Bird”
had no radio communications.

“Devil Leader, be advised Vapor Flight has been
diverted,” added the controller. He told Knowlington that not only the F-14’s
but the backup flight of F-15C’s had now been vectored north in an attempt to
splash Iraqi MiGs. A pair of F-16s were being pressed into service as guard
dogs for the helicopters, which were now clear of Splash and flying to the
west.

Coyote asked Skull to hang on with Preston as long
as he could. “Mirage 2000s’s en route, call sign Jacques. Should meet you near
the border. Request you hold your present course until they arrive.”

“The escort is French?”

“They speak English,” snapped the controller
before giving him their frequency and contact information.

Skull took down the data, then clicked into the
Frenchies’ circuit, but couldn’t pick them up. The planes flew out of Bahrain
and were still a good distance away; even optimistically, they wouldn’t be
within radar range for at least ten minutes.

The AWACS had alerted the Allied fighters to the
fact that the MiG running south was on their side. The controller assured Skull
he’d broadcast updates on its position, as well as warn anything that came
close. At the moment though, Skull was the only plane even near him.

Near, being an extremely relative term, as was
evident by the controller’s fix. Hack was twenty miles ahead and pulling away.

“Still climbing,” said the controller.

“Thirty angels was briefed,” Hack reminded Coyote.
They had set thirty thousand feet for the egress to lessen the possibility of
getting nailed by gunfire or pursuers, but the relatively high altitude was a
problem for Skull. The Hog’s engines whined just clearing fifteen thousand
feet. Thirty thousand feet might very well be a world altitude record for a
Hog.

Maybe Hack would bring it down a bit when he
realized the pointy-noses had missed the rendezvous. Hopefully, he’d at least
slow down.

Preston would be okay as a commander. He would
come off as too arrogant, a bit to stuck up— but hell, after this, he’d have
the bona fides. Show down one MiG, stole another. People would line up to serve
with him.

Preston would be too famous for a Warthog
squadron. Hog drivers were blue-collar workers, lunch-pail guys who took the
bus to work, not a limousine.

Was that what Skull would do now? Take a bus to
work? Where the hell would he work? What would he do?

Did he really have to resign? Should he resign? If
he never took another drink— if he never needed another drink?

Bullshit. He’d always need another drink. Always.
That was a fact of life.

But what had his sister said?

“So you’re going to quit?”

“I don’t want to hurt these kids.”

“And you wouldn’t be hurting them by quitting?”

“I’m not quitting.”

He was. It wasn’t exactly running away, and it
wasn’t like there weren’t plenty of other guys, plenty, who could take over for
him. A lot of them could do better, even if he wasn’t hitting the booze.

Maybe. Maybe not.

That was beside the point. You could
always
find someone better. And worse, for that matter.

The point was: What should he do?

Walk away. Give up.

Such a loaded phrase. Better to say retire.

Prospective again.

Maybe it was better that he hadn’t bought it. He
was walking away while he could still walk. He didn’t have a death wish after
all: that wasn’t what the drinking was all about.

Somehow that seemed reassuring as he pushed the
throttle for more speed, trying to catch the MiG’s thinning contrail.

OVER IRAQ

29 JANUARY 1991

0705

Hack backed off
the throttle gingerly. He
still used his right hand, though the pain had gone down quite a bit in his
left; he could now manage a fair amount of pressure on the stick with it, his
hands crossed awkwardly.

He flexed his left thumb as he grabbed the stick
back with his right hand. The thumb itself seemed okay. Maybe that meant the
injury was only a bad sprain, not a break.

As if the exact injury would make any difference
at all. He switched the stick back to his left hand, working like a
contortionist as he reached for the HUD controls, hoping to knock down the
ambient light. He had his radar on, though the selectors were both unfamiliar
and balky.

The F-14s still hadn’t shown themselves. Granted,
he was much lower than planned, only twenty thousand feet. He didn’t want to go
any higher with the fudged oxygen connector, though it seemed to be working
fine. The radar ought to make it easier for them to find him, even if he
wouldn’t work it well enough to find
them.

Of course, it would also mean that other Allied
aircraft could see him and possibly think he was an enemy plane.

Not if the AWACS was doing its job.

But was the radar working? The display was clean.

That couldn’t be true, damn it. Did he have it on?

Hack fiddled with it some more, but finally gave
up. He looked at the MiG’s RWR in the bottom right-hand corner of the dash,
just above his right knee. Similar to many Western units, the display was
dominated by a crude outline of the aircraft. An “enemy” radar would set off
the bottom row of threat lights and then touch off LEDS indicating distance,
bearing, and type indicators around the shadow of the plane in the dial.

Never before in his life had Hack wished for a
threat indicator to flash.

There should be a pair of F-14s. If they were
tangled or diverted, two F-15s would take their place. So where the hell were
they?

He wasn’t sure about the Navy guys, but he knew
the Air Force pilots would be smart enough to come look for him if they
couldn’t find him at thirty thousand feet. Surely someone had told them that
he’d gotten off by now; surely the AWACS had seen him get off the ground.

Hopefully Eugene had told them about the mask.
Wong would know that was significant.

How many stinking MiGs could there be in the air
anyway? On this course? Hell, they’d be all over him if he was a
real
Iraqi.

Hack laughed. He started an instrument check, looking
first at the radar warning receiver. The location of the RWR was not the best,
though admittedly a pilot who actually belonged in the plane wouldn’t have to
spend much time staring at it till necessary— as with Western models, an alarm
tone would alert him that he was being scanned. Not having the proper helmet
gear had deprived him of that capability, along with the radio.

He worked across the unfamiliarly panel, eyes
flitting back and forth because the instruments were in unfamiliar places.

Otherwise he was doing fine. Burning through too
much fuel, maybe, but fine.

The ladder gauge on the fuel flow device was
confusing as hell. He’d taken off with four thousand kilos, now had 3,800.

No. 2,800.

Had to be closer to 3,500.

Yes. No more than five hundred pounds to get into
the air. They’d gone over that.

Five hundred kilos. Rough one thousand kilos
translated into a little more than fifty nautical miles of flight, with a bit
of reserve. So with about 150 miles to go, he had plenty to spare.

About 150 miles? No he was further along, much
further along. He ought to be in Saudi Arabia any minute.

No. Time was compressing. He’d only just taken
off.

When?”

He glanced at his watch. He’d forgotten to set it
when he took off.

Now that was a numbskull move.

Hack tapped the throttles back, slowing his
airspeed. The poorly designed instrument layout kept tripping him up. He had to
look on the left side to get his attitude indicator, one of the most basic
checks since it told him whether he was flying right side up or not. Then he
had to cross back to the right to check the engines, then go up to the middle
of the panel to check compass and navigation. The vertical velocity indicators
were also on the right side, turning his usual across the board sweep into a
swirling zigzag back and forth across the old-style instrument panel. Too many
passes too quickly, he thought, and his head would be spinning.