HOGS #6 Death Wish (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) (5 page)

“Good thing,” said A-Bomb. “I’ve been pretty bored
lately.”

The others laughed.

“I’m in,” said Doberman.

“Me, too,” said Antman.

“I’ll lead the flight.”

Dixon bent his head to see the pilot who had said
that. Standing near the couch, he had a large body for a fighter pilot and a
head that seemed one size too large. He was a major— it must be Preston, who’d
just replaced Major James “Mongoose” Johnson as the squadron DO. Dixon knew
he’d been on the mission that towed him home, but BJ hadn’t been introduced
yet, and in fact didn’t even know Preston’s first name.

“Good Hack,” Knowlington said. “I thought you’d
want to take it.”

“Hey, Colonel, you know we’re all in,” said A-Bomb.

“You’re not tired?” Knowlington asked him.

“Tired? What the hell is that? I’m not sure I’ve
heard the word.”

Everyone laughed.

“You’ve logged over two hundred hours since the
air war began,” said the colonel. His voice seemed cross.

“Shit, I didn’t know we were supposed to keep
track,” said O’Rourke. “What’s the record?”

Knowlington frowned, but then nodded.

“We scrapping tomorrow’s mission?” asked George
“Gunny” McIntosh. He was a captain who had served as a liaison with a Marine
unit in a special exchange program before joining Devil Squadron; his nickname
had apparently been adapted from the term for a Marine master sergeant. He and
Doberman were tasked for an early-morning tank plinking mission.

“Tomorrow’s frag stands,” said Skull. “Assuming
you and Doberman can handle the turn-around.”

“I can handle it,” said Doberman.

“Good,” said the commander. “There’s an SA-2 site
close to the base that you have to avoid. That’s probably the most serious
complication. There should be a Wild Weasel in the area to handle it or
anything else that comes up. Like I said, we’re still working on the details.

“Film at eleven,” quipped A-Bomb.

Everyone laughed.

“Antman, you’re back up if somebody gets a cold,”
said Skull.

“Yeah, okay.”

Knowlington’s frown deepened as he turned to look
directly at Dixon. The lieutenant held the older man’s stare.

He’s seen it all, the colonel, thought Dixon. He’d
been to Vietnam, nailed at least three MiGs there, lost some wingmen, flown
black missions against the Soviets in the ‘70s. The years had burned themselves
into the flesh of his face, pulling the skin tight against the bones of his
skull— probably not why he had gotten his nickname, but appropriate now. He was
wise and brave, the one guy you could always count on to tell you what to do,
to come to you through the static and bullshit.

But had he seen anything like a little boy
convulsing with the shock of a grenade?

“There just isn’t a slot for you on this ride,
BJ,” said the colonel. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right.”

“I know you want back in the game. There’ll be
plenty of time.”

Dixon shrugged, or thought he did. He didn’t
really care one way or another.

He rubbed his chin with his hand and stared at his
palm. It was whiter than the walls.

KING FAHD AIRBASE, SAUDI
ARABIA

28 JANUARY 1991

1255

The temptation to
jump in and lead the
mission himself lingered even as he finished giving them the lowdown. Colonel
Knowlington wanted nothing else in the world but to fly again, to grip his hand
around the stick and push the plane’s nose into a hail of antiaircraft fire.

And stay there until the plane caught fire? Did he
have a death wish?

 Better to go out that way than in disgrace.

Death wish— wasn’t that what drinking
really
was?

Not for him.

He couldn’t take the mission. He couldn’t, in
fact, stay on as commander any longer. He was finished.

Telling them would be impossibly hard. Cleaner to
slip out, avoid the inevitable scene.

He’d do it tonight, after they were off. He’d make
the calls as soon as this was taken care of, talk to the general, get the
paperwork in order, slip over to Riyadh and then home. He had friends who could
smooth the way.

Knowlington asked if there were any questions,
scanning the pilot’s faces one more time, indulging a twinge of nostalgia. He’d
come to know them well:

Doberman, who walked through life with a chip on
his shoulder because he was a good six or eight inches shorter than the rest of
the world, but was a better pilot than most of the world.

Dixon, the nugget who’d come to the Gulf with tons
of raw skill but was a green as a fresh Christmas tree. Not green anymore, poor
kid.

Hack, the former pointy-nose pilot who wanted
Skull’s job, and was now about to have it handed to him on a silver platter.

Gunny, whose two months with the Marines had
convinced him he was a Marine. Antman, a Don Juan-type who seemed incapable of
breaking a heart or saying a bad word about anyone.

And A-Bomb— hell, what could you say about A-Bomb?
A first-class one-of-a-kind screwball who could fly with his eyes closed, nail
his target, and then go back for more.

There were others in the room, too, hundreds— ghosts
he’d flown with, guys who’d saved his butt and whose butt he’d saved, a whole
wing of them.

“Colonel, I’d like to see about that reconnaissance
flight,” prompted Wong from the sideline.

“Right. Let’s get going.” Skull snapped back to
the present, his mind churning down the to-do list. “We’ll brief the mission at
1400. Planes will be waiting.”

He wasn’t going. He was quitting.

“Hack, see me in my office a minute, would you?”
he added, heading toward the doorway and his duty. His tongue and throat felt
as if they had been scraped by steel wool.

A quick drink would cure that.

Knowlington had flown with a thousand guys in all
sorts of circumstances. Most of them had retired long ago.

How had they done it? What had they said?

Listen, the time’s here, I’m getting on, got to
watch out for my family, don’t have the thrill, getting tired of the bullshit,
need to make a little money for a bit . . .

“Colonel?”

Skull spun around in the hallway. Preston stopped
short and winced as if he expected Knowlington would slug him.

“What, Hack?”

“What’s the deal?”

“I just told you. The British lost a pair of SAS
commandos. There’s a chance they’re at that base. Not a very good chance, but a
chance.”

“But. . .”

“That’s the whole story.”

For a moment, Skull felt like slugging him.

Knowlington and Preston had briefly worked
together a year before when they were both posted to the Pentagon— Skull
heading a working group on interservice Special Operations, Preston pulling
temporary duty as snot-nosed aide for a general who, among other things, hated
Skull for having helped kill one of his pet projects years before. Preston had made
noises about making an issue of Skull’s drinking— undoubtedly at the general’s
suggestion, though Hack was enough of a prig to think about it on his own.
There had been rumors of disciplinary action, and a not-too-subtle attempt to persuade
Knowlington to retire. Skull had had to go deep into the favor bank to derail
the whole mess.

And yet, he would freely and honestly admit that
Hack was a good pilot with a wide range of experience and a good helping of
natural ability. It was possible, even likely, that Major Preston would make a
decent commander.

God, Skull wanted a drink.

Without saying anything else, Knowlington turned
around and walked to his office.

“Colonel?”

Skull stopped at the door, his hand cold against the
cheap metal knob.

“You want to see me, right? You just asked me to
see you.”

“Let’s just skip it, okay?” said Knowlington. And
without waiting for an answer, he pushed inside, closing the door behind him.

KING FAHD AIRBASE, SAUDI
ARABIA

28 JANUARY 1991

1324

Technical Sergeant Rebecca Rosen
gave the
radio aerial a gentle but firm tap, nudging the metal fin into its slot behind
the cockpit. Draped on her stomach over the fuselage, she screwed it in
quickly; the UHF/TACAN antenna had given her so much trouble going in, she
feared it might just decide to jump off.

The metal fin atop the Hog wasn’t much bigger than
a CD case. Still, this was at least the third one she’d had to replace in the
last four or five days. All had been pockmarked with bullets or shrapnel.
Either the Iraqis were using special bullets that homed in on radio signals, or
Devil squadron pilots were putting their planes in places where they shouldn’t
be much too often.

Upside down, even.

“Yo, Rosen, what the
hell
are you doing?
Sleeping on the job?”

“No, Chief!” she shouted, bolting upright but not
looking down at Chief Master Sergeant Allen Clyston.

“Another F-ing aerial?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Damn. These pilots are not taking care of my
planes
properly.”

“No, Sergeant, they’re not. Damn sloppy of them,”
said Rosen, finishing with the aerial. She rolled off the plane and jumped down
to the tarmac. “They have to be scraping the suckers when they’re landing,
because there is no way those ragheads could shoot them off. No way.”

Clyston grunted in agreement. “We ready to go?”

“Almost. Have to double-check the ECM pod.” Rosen
gestured toward the ALQ-119 on the wing.

“Older than me,” said Clyston derisively of the ECM,
the first dual-mode jammer ever put into operation.

“No way, Chief. But I bet you worked on it.”

“Prob’ly,” said the capo. He finally smiled.

A radical breakthrough when first developed, the
ECM confused enemy radars by filling the air with noise as well as false
signals. It had been around for a very long time, however, and was fairly
useless against sophisticated weapons systems like the SA-6. Replacements had
been promised, but the A-10s didn’t rate high enough to get them.

“We’ll be ready,” Rosen told her boss.

“I’m counting on it,” said Clyston. He bunched his
hands on his hips.

“You selling something, Sergeant?” Rosen asked.

Clyston made a show of glancing around, as if
worried that another crew member was within earshot. In actual fact, no one who
worked for the Capo would be so foolish as to linger nearby without very good
cause, and they would never, ever overhear something he didn’t want them to.
Ever.

Rosen sensed what Clyston was going to say and
felt her face go red even as he opened his mouth.

“Word has it you were asking after Lieutenant
Dixon,” said the chief master sergeant.

“I was inquiring about his health, yes,” she said,
trying to make her voice as flat as possible. Anyone else she would have told
to screw off, but there was no way in the world to say that to the capo. No
way.

Clyston’s large chest heaved upwards in an exaggerated
sigh. He shook his head, but said nothing. Rosen found her bottom lip starting
to tremble; she tried biting at it but her teeth couldn’t quite clamp down.

Anybody else would have gotten a double-barrel of
invective, maybe even a good swing. Anybody else, she probably wouldn’t have cared.

But the Chief was— well, the Chief.

“Chief, is my work unacceptable?”

“That’s not what this is about, Rosen.”

“Sir.” She clamped her mouth shut, unable to say
anything else. She steadied her eyes, hoping they wouldn’t water.

Damn, damn, damn. This shit had never happened to
her before.

Rosen put her head down, waiting for the
inevitable lecture. Clyston was right, of course; enlisted and officers didn’t
mix. And she and Dixon had nothing in common – she was older than him, for
christsakes.

But damn, damn, damn.

“Sergeant, these planes have to be ready to fly at
1400 sharp,” snapped Clyston. “Then I’d appreciate it if you helped Vincenzi on
that F-in’ engine. He’s having a hell of a time.”

“Yes, Chief,” she said, though Hog engines were
hardly her specialty. “Be glad to.”

“I appreciate it. Vincy makes a hell of a sauce,
but he doesn’t always boil the spaghetti right, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, Chief.”

Rosen listened until the scrape of his boots told
her he was far away before wiping her wet cheek with her sleeve.

KING FAHD AIRBASE, SAUDI
ARABIA

28 JANUARY 1991

1430

Captain Kevin Hawkins
wrapped his hand
around the tubular frame of his seat as the British Chinook abruptly jerked
itself off the runway, its Lycoming engines whipping the twin rotors in a fury.
His SAW – an M249 light machine gun or Squad Automatic Weapon, also known as an
FN Minimi— slipped against his leg as the big helicopter bucked forward; he
jerked his hand to grab the rifle and nearly spilled his cup of tea.

“I thought you said your aircraft were smooth,” he
said to the sergeant next to him on the canvas bench.

SAS Sergeant Millard Burns turned slowly toward
Hawkins and nodded in his methodical way, a bob down, a bob up. At fifty feet
above ground level the helicopter stopped climbing, leaving her rear end angled
slightly as she sped northwards, finally steady enough for Hawkins to sip his
tea. The nose of the team’s other helicopter, carrying most of the British
commandos, appeared in the window above the opposite bench. The Chinook— or
“heli” as the British soldiers tended to refer to the craft— had a splotchy camouflage
that blended dark green with pink splashes of paint. Referred to as “desert
pink” by the Royal Air Force crew, it was the oddest scheme Hawkins had ever
seen.