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

“Good chaps?” asked Burns, nodding at the six
Delta troopers parked along the benches toward the front of the aircraft.
Besides Burns, there were three more British paratroopers aboard the Splash One,
and a dozen SAS men and their captain aboard the second, Splash Two.

“The best,” Hawkins said. All of the D boys had
been with him on missions north of the border before. He’d known three – Jerry
Fernandez, Kevin Smith, and Peter Crowley –for nearly five years. Armand
Krushev and Stephen ‘Pig’ Hoffman had won medals for their still-classified
exploits in Panama right before the invasion. And Juan Mandaro was a five-tools
player: a communications and sniper expert with a (civilian) EMT badge and a
knack for blowing things up, Mandaro had particularly sharp vision and rated among
the best point men Hawkins had ever seen in combat.

“Your guys?” Hawkins asked the British sergeant,
taking a stab at conversation only because Burns seemed to need to talk.

“They’ve been in hot water before. Squaddys began
in Ireland. Tight after that.”

Hawkins had not-so-distant relatives in Belfast,
children and grandchildren of the grandmother who had first turned him on to
tea. At least one belonged to the IRA Provos – the SAS’s enemy in Ireland. He
grunted noncommittally, turning his attention back to his cup.

“Jundies won’t know what hit them when we go in,”
added Burns.

“Jundies?”

“Ragheads. The Iraqis.”

“Oh yeah.”

Burns reached into the pocket of his uniform and
took out the map of their target. They’d gone over the plan at least twenty
times before taking off, mapping contingencies and psyching out possible Iraqi
moves; there was no practical benefit to reviewing it now. But maps, even
roughly sketched ones, held almost supernatural power for some guys, and
apparently the British NCO was one of them. The trace of his finger across the
shallow berm near the road, the double-tap of his thumb against the blocks
representing buildings— these were part of a holy ritual that he undoubtedly
believed would guarantee success.

Some men preferred to continually check their
weapons, making sure ammo belts weren’t kinked, triple-checking the taped
trigger spoons on the grenades, testing the sharpness of their battle knives.

Hawkins liked to drink his tea.

“We’ll have the carriage way right off,” said
Burns.

He meant the road. Two Apaches would cut off
access to the base. Once the Hogs took the Zeus guns out, the plan would be
boom-boom, teams at each building, top and bottom. Three stories. Neither had
defenses, and it looked from the surveillance “snaps,” as the British put it,
that one was completely unoccupied.

You never could tell.

Hawkins leaned his head back against the wall of
the helicopter, trying to ignore the vibration as well as the sergeant without
success on either front.

“Moons and Puff will move with your men to the
second house,” said Burns, repeating a sentence he’d repeated now at least
three times since they’d met. “I’ll be with you on the first.”

Hawkins’ attention drifted. An RAF reconnaissance
Tornado would zoom over the small base roughly ten minutes before the Chinooks
were to land. It would check the defenses one last time. The A-10s would pound
anything that had materialized and then clear the assault teams and the
supporting Apaches in.

Standard house-clearing tactics— flash-bang grenades,
A-Bombs, MP-5s, in and out.

Though they came from different armies, the
troopers and the commandos were equipped roughly the same. The SAS men carried
American M-16 Armalites with grenade launchers, just as some of the D boys did;
they referred to the guns as 203s after the M203 designation for the launcher.
They also had two Minimis on their team. Three of Hawkins’ men carried silenced
MP5s, very light and nasty submachine-guns that the commandos were also
familiar with; two others had Mossberg A-Bombs. Between them, the commandos and
troopers carried a large number of grenades, the nastiest of which was arguably
the white phosphorous or “phos” to the SAS men; the ingredients could burn
through unprotected skin and eat a man’s body. Among their other tasty treats
were 66mm man-launched anti-armor rockets, modern-day disposable bazookas that
could take out most modern tanks.

“Hit at last light,” said Burns.

“Yeah,” said Hawkins, barely paying attention.

“I’ve heard your A-10s are slower than bloody
helicopters,” said the sergeant. “Will they be of use?”

“I wouldn’t worry about the Hogs,” Hawkins told
him.

“You’ve worked with them before?”

“Oh yeah,” said Hawkins. “Mean bastards.”

“Fucking ugly.”

“Yeah,” said the captain.

“Ugly’s good.”

“The best,” said Hawkins.

APPROACHING IRAQ

28 JANUARY 1991

1730

Hack’s heart picked
up its beat as he
neared the border with Iraq. The contrails of a flight of bombers arced across
the top quarter of his windscreen; black clouds of smoke lined the horizon to
his right. To his left, faint flickers of light— maybe reflections, maybe
tracers— glinted in the dust of the desert floor.

It was one thing to haul ass across the border at thirty-thousand
feet in the world’s most advanced fighter jet, when the flick of your wrist
could increase your thrust exponentially and take you to Mach 2 in the blink of
an eye. It was quite another to be coaxing a Maverick-laden Hog through 15,000
feet, hoping a tailwind to boost you to three hundred knots.

Why had he taken this damn A-10 assignment?

Because he had no choice. Because it would get him
where he wanted to go— squadron commander, colonel, general. Beyond.

Why the hell had he volunteered for this mission?

Knowlington had put him up to it. The colonel knew
damn well that if he didn’t volunteer, he’d look like a chickenshit to the rest
of the squadron.

Stinking Knowlington, so full of himself, so
cocksure that he still the hottest stick on the patch. If he was so hot, why
the hell hadn’t he taken the mission himself?

He would have, if Hack hadn’t raised his hand.
Showed him up.

One thing he had to say for Knowlington – the SOB
didn’t seem to be drinking, or at least he was a hell of a lot more careful
about it here than in Washington.

He would sooner or later, though. Then Hack would
take over the squadron, move on with the game plan. Get his own squadron, make
his mark, transfer back to a real plane. A lot of older guys were choking the
path to promotion, but he could cut around them with a good job here.

Which was why he’d volunteered, right? Kick some
butt in a major mission. Somebody would be bound to notice.

It was more than that. Hack was ambitious, no
denying that. Nor could he deny— to himself— that he felt he’d screwed up on
this morning’s mission and wanted to redeem himself.

Not screwed up. Just gotten scared when he didn’t
have to be scared.

But he’d volunteered for the Splash package simply
because he felt like he ought to be in the mix. He belonged on the toughest
assignments. Prestige, ego, redemption, and all that other bullshit were beside
the fact.

Preston tried to push the fatigue away, focusing
his eyes on the navigation gear, checking his way-points, mentally projecting
himself against the sketched lines of his flight plan.

“Two minutes to border,” he told his flight.

The others acknowledged. Once more, he had
O’Rourke as his wingman. Doberman in Devil Three had Gunny on his six. The Hogs
would work in pairs above the target, with Preston and A-Bomb on the east side
on the first run, Glenon and his wingman on the west.

Preston nudged his stick as he came over the
border, then gave his instruments a quick check. His fuel burn seemed a tiny
bit high; it was barely noticeable, but might be a problem later on, stealing valuable
minutes over the target area. He told himself to try to make up for it, if he
could.

Checks completed, he rocked his body back and
forth in the ejection seat, coaxing away the knots and aches. In some ways,
this was the worst part of any mission— the long middle. You could easily be
lulled to inattention. Worse, a tired pilot might fall asleep.

Like nearly every other pilot in the service, Hack
had a stash of pep pills in his flightsuit for emergency use. But he hated to
use them, and in fact had taken an amphetamine only once in his life, and that
was in college cramming for a test. He didn’t even like aspirin or antibiotics.
He’d accepted his anthrax shot before coming to the Gulf only because he figured
he’d be court martialed if he refused.

He hit his way-marker, nudging ten more degrees
east as they prepared to leg around the SA-2 coverage area south of Splash

The missile complex had been hit earlier in the
war. Hack suspected that its gear had been so damaged by early Allied raids,
that all it could manage was a baneful bleep, the ratted of an empty scabbard.
But there’d be no way to tell until it launched a few flying telephone poles.

If it did that, a Weasel would nail it. A Phantom
was flying patrol circuits in the area, ready for the SA-2 and anything else
that might pose a threat.

Hack checked his watch— they were right on
schedule.

In exactly 120 seconds, an RAF Tornado would fall
out of the sky near the river ahead and blaze over the abandoned Iraqi base.
The Tornado’s high-tech cameras would take one last look at the base before the
ground teams went in. If they spotted any antiaircraft guns or SAMs, the Hogs
would hit them just before the RAF Chinooks came in range.

“Devil flight, this Splash One,” said a voice with
a British upper-crust accent as they hit the next-to-last way-marker before
arriving at the target. “Position, please.”

As Hack clicked to acknowledge, the RWR went off— an
Iraqi ground intercept radar had just come up ahead.

Several voices clogged the circuit. Somewhere in the
middle of the static, Hack hoped, was the voice of the F-4 Wild Weasel pilot.

Hack waited for the cacophony to clear, then calmly
acknowledged Splash One, giving his position and asking how far the helos were
from setting down.

Before the Splash pilot could respond, an AWACS
controller further south barked out a warning: Break ninety. A short ranged but
potent Roland missile battery north of the target area had turned itself on.

The controller called for the Hogs to make a hard
turn, taking them out of harm’s way. But because of the proximity of the SA-2
site and defenses to the east, it would mean the Hogs would have to backtrack
around to pick up the proper vector into the target. That would screw up their
timing and eat into their fuel reserves.

Weasel would nail the Roland, which couldn’t hit
them from where it was anyway. Screw ‘em.

“Negative,” said Hack quickly. “Devil Flight stay
on course. Acknowledge.”

“Two. Kick butt,” said A-Bomb.

“Three. We’re right behind you.”

Before Gunny could respond from Devil Four, the AWACS
crewman blurted out a fresh and ominous warning— the Iraqis had launched two
missiles heading this way.

OVER IRAQ

28 JANUARY 1991

1750

RAF Captain John Conrad
started to laugh as
the Panavian Tornado hurtled toward the ground. The Turbo-Union RB1999 Mk104
engines were in fine mettle. The nose of the plane shuddered slightly, then
smoothed out; the jet’s speed sliding over Mach 1.2. The altimeter ladder
nudged downward, breaking through three thousand feet as the world rushed brown
and black, an abstract splatter of paint and speed dashing at odd angles around
him.

Conrad laughed and laughed, riding the adrenaline
of the high-speed run. Wings tucked tight at a sixty-seven-degree sweep, the
plane shot smooth toward the terrain, knifing through the low-level turbulence.
Conrad pulled back on the stick, leveling off just under a thousand feet,
spotting the long gray splotch of his target area ahead.

The pilot giggled to himself as he held the plane
steady so his backseat systems operator or “nav” could manage the sophisticated
array of reconnaissance equipment in the weapons bay. Three BAe infra-red
cameras and a Vinten Linescan 4000 IR surveillance system filled the hold
originally designed for a 27mm IWKA-Mauser cannon; together, the wide-angle
line-scan and thermal-image modules probed every inch of the Iranian base.
Conrad counted off three seconds, saw two matchboxes at the edge of the
rectangle and then he was beyond them; he yanked back on his stick, climbing
quickly, gravity smacking him in the chest. He pushed the Tornado to the left
as blue sky filled the canopy, the altimeter ladder galloping upwards, mission
accomplished.

“Good go, Sister Sadie. Oh, good go, my girl,” he
told his plane, which had been named partly for a Beatles song, and partly for
the buxom tart bending over her nose. Conrad’s squadron included one of the
best nose art painters in the RAF— no mean accomplishment.

The pilot asked his backseater if he had enough
data.

“Not quite sure,” said the navigator, Lieutenant
Charles Nevins. Besides the normal Tornado backseater duties, as recon officer,
Nevins handles an array of sensors that included an infrared camera. “Revetment
empty. Zeus 23’s on the hill and below the field.”

“Missiles?”

“Didn’t seem so.”

“Need another run?” asked the pilot, barely
containing his enthusiasm.

“SA-6 eight miles north of Splash. They’re
tracking,” warned the nav.

“Let’s have a go. Yank Weasel will take care of
the missiles,” said Conrad, and before his lieutenant could answer he had
knifed the Tornado back toward the Iraqi runway.