HOGS #6 Death Wish (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) (8 page)

As Conrad hauled off his helmet the ground shook
with the roar of an approaching jet. A pair of American A-10s whipped directly
overhead, no more than thirty feet off the desert sand— so close, in fact, that
he thought for a moment the Yanks might reach out a hand and try to grab him.

They didn’t. But they circled back so low and slow
he could see the lead pilot give him a thumbs up. He waved, then ran to
Charlie.

“Up and at ‘em, Charles,” he told the lieutenant,
who was hunched over the sand.

“Stomach’s not right,” said the backseater,
leaning over to retch.

Not terribly anxious to succumb to the power of
suggestion, Conrad quickly backed away. He took out his emergency radio,
dialing in the distress frequency. The A-10A pilot answered his hail in
under thirty seconds.

“Bravo Baker,” he said, beginning the elaborate
recognition procedure, which would culminate with a series of personal
questions to prove he was who he said he was.

“Fuck that,” answered the Yank. “I’m Doberman. You
guys okay?”

“Tip top,” Conrad.

“Yeah. Hang on while we figure this out.”

“Quite.”

“Come again?”

“Ten-four,” Conrad told him, trying to toss up a
little American slang.

“What are you saying?”

“Standing by,” he responded.

The wind howled, shoving gritty sand into Conrad’s
eyes; he removed his gloves to clear them, then retrieved his sunglasses from beneath
his survival vest for protection. By now the sun had set and the dark glasses
turned the landscape into a mass of shadows, blurry grays and blacks, like
walls being moved toward him. Conrad lifted the glasses slightly away from his
face, holding them like shields against the dust and looking sideways. A thick
cyclone of soot rose directly south of him— Sister Sadie.

He ran back to his navigator, who was now sitting
cross-legged on the desert sand. Nevins had pulled off his survival vest and
found a cap and scarf in his gear.

“You look like a nomad,” Conrad joked.

“Fucking wind,” said Nevins, reaching into a flap
pocket on his pant leg. He removed a pair of goggles.

“Thanks,” said Conrad, grabbing them.

“Fuck!”

“Make sure your radio works,” Conrad told him,
ignoring the protest. “Quickly. Our contact is Devil Three— Doberman. Go on.”

Nevins took out the radio reluctantly, still a
little jittery with stomach upset as he hooked in the earplug. As soon as
Conrad saw that he had hailed the Yank, he began trotting away.

“Hey! Hey!” shouted the nav.

“I’ll be back!” Conrad told him, turning and
running backwards. “Have to pay my respects.” He wheeled and ran for all he was
worth toward the wreckage of their plane, more than a mile away.

OVER IRAQ

28 JANUARY 1991

1810

Hawkins had trouble
both hearing the
co-pilot and keeping his balance as the Chinooks hovered above a stretch of
empty desert about twenty-five miles southwest of their target. Worse, he
couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on. He knew the reconnaissance
Tornado had gone down— but what about the target? Was it clean, hot or what?

“Devil One isn’t answering,” said the co-pilot.

“Try again.”

“Sergeant Williams in Splash Two wants you.” Tired
of trying to act as a go-between, the co-pilot slipped the bulky British
headset back to Hawkins, who held it to his ear, bracing himself against the
back of the seat with his leg.

“What’s up?” he asked the SAS sergeant who was
heading the team in Splash Two.

“My question to you,” answered the sergeant.

“I’m trying to figure it out. We don’t have target
data.”

“Heli pilot’s worried about sand getting in his
engines,” said the sergeant.

“So’s ours,” Hawkins told him.

“Losing light.”

Hawkins and his men were used to working at night,
but neither the Apaches nor the Hogs were equipped with the sophisticated gear
that would allow them to support a night operation. Nor were the Chinooks and
the SAS teams fully equipped to do so. Escaping as night fell was one thing,
but run into serious defenses and the darkness could work against them.

Defenses that could take down a Tornado were by
definition serious. But was the missile at the site, or one of the launchers
several miles away that they’d been briefed on?

“Stand by Splash Two,” Hawkins told the sergeant.
He tapped the co-pilot, who’d turned his attention to his instruments. “Can you
get me Devil One?”

“I’ll try. Wind is kicking up fierce down here,”
he added. “One your Apaches is turning back.”

“What?”

“Engine trouble. The sand, no doubt.”

“Get me the fucking Hogs. Shit.”

OVER IRAQ

28 JANUARY 1991

1812

Everything was falling
apart. They had a
plane down, deep in enemy territory. They had no intelligence on the landing
zone, and had lost the element of surprise.

And now one of the Apaches had engine trouble.

None of it was Hack’s fault, and yet there was a
hole in the side of his stomach. He tried to fight off the doubt that crept all
around him, tried to focus on the rapidly dimming landscape outside his canopy.
It wasn’t too late; they could still nail this thing down if he kept his head,
if everyone kept their heads.

“Devil One, Devil One,” squawked one of the
British helicopter pilots, though he didn’t identify himself. “What is this
situation? We need a sit rep. Repeat, sit rep.”

“Devil One. British craft, identify yourself.”

Static.

As he transmitted again, Preston checked his fuel.
They had between thirty and forty minutes of linger time left before nudging
reserves. The dash to the target area would eat up nearly ten of that.

A new voice came back from the RAF Chinook – Hawkins.

“Devil Leader this is Splash Commander. What do we
have?”

“Sister Sadie is down; we’re attempting to
establish contact,” he told Hawkins.

“What’s the sit at Splashdown?”

“I’m still working on that,” said Preston. “Sadie
was hit before he could tell us.”

“We need to know now.”

“No shit, captain,” he said, anger finally
spiking. He hated the Delta assholes— he was tempted, sorely tempted, to tell
them to go and fly right into the frickin’ SAMs.

“What?”

Hack hated everyone and everything connected with
this stinking operation, the RAF crew for getting shot down, Knowlington for
making him take the mission.

He hated himself. He was blowing it big time.

“I’ll get to you when I know something,” he told
Hawkins, abruptly flipping back to the squadron frequency and hailing Doberman.

“Are you in contact with Sadie?”

“Affirmative.”

“Nice of you to tell me.”

“I’ve been trying to raise you,” said Doberman.

“Does Coyote know?” he asked, referring to the
AWACS controller, who would alert SAR assets.

“Can’t raise him either,” said Doberman.

The whole damn mission was going to hell.

“Hold on. I’ll take care of it,” said Preston.

“Shit, we have company,” said Doberman.

“Repeat Three.”

“Vehicles, three vehicles. Must be homing in on
our boy’s transmission. Shit.”

“Smoke ‘em,” cut in A-Bomb.

“Yeah, no shit,” responded Doberman. “Gunny, on my
back.”

“Covered.”

Preston went back to Hawkins. “Give me your
position.”

“We’re in the same fucking position we were in ten
minutes ago. What is the situation at Splashdown? Repeat. What is the situation.
. .”

Hack pushed the transmit button before Hawkins
finished. The mission was finished now—there was no sense sending the assault
team to rescue men who might or might not be there, when there were two downed
fliers who needed help ASAP.

“Splash One, stand by for coordinates to pick up
Sister Sadie’s crew.”

“Fuck you,” sputtered Hawkins.

“Fuck yourself,” said Hack. “Stand by for
coordinates. Iraqi vehicles en route. We’re on them.”

He could see Doberman starting to dive to the north,
and worked out a vector and distance for the Chinook.

“Tell the helicopter pilot to look for the burning
trucks ten miles to your north,” he added. “Go!”

IRAQ

28 JANUARY 1991

1820

In life, Tornado
GR.Mk 1A ZA981 SS Sister
Sadie had worn a speckled brown coat, the latest fashion in desert dress. In
death, she wore a very appropriate black, her twisted frame wrenched across
about a quarter of a mile of shadowy desert. Her arms had been shorn off and her
tail scattered into several pieces, but Conrad was interested specifically in
her fuselage— and even more specifically in the mission tapes, which would show
what her sensors had recorded. Always an agreeable girl, Sadie had had the good
sense to wedge herself into the dirt at only a slight angle, making it
comparatively easy for Conrad to pick his way through the mangled metal and
retrieve the video.

Except that the cartridge refused to budge.

“Haven’t all day, Sadie,” Conrad complained, but
the stricken plane refused to give up her prize. The pilot stepped back,
unholstered his personal pistol— a German Glock, as it happened— and fired a
salvo at the locking mechanism guarding the access panel.

Sadie groaned, but the foreign bullet glanced
harmlessly away. Conrad tried again. This time, the ricochet nearly skinned the
side of his face.

He threw himself against the plane, this time
putting the gun to much better use as a hammer. Smashing back and forth, he was
finally able to wedge the barrel in and use it as a lever. He paused, took out
the gun and contemplated a fresh attack, when the tape inexplicably spit out.

“Thanks, Sadie.” Conrad slapped the plane on her
fuselage, then stood back and gave her a proper salute. But any temptation to
linger was overwhelmed by the sound of trucks approaching across the desert. He
took two steps away, turning to his right as the vehicles emerged from the
shadows, ripping through the dust no more than a quarter-mile away. They must
be coming for the wreckage he thought, starting to run, but as he did a shell
landed less than fifty yards away, throwing him forward in the grit.

But that was just as well— a machine-gun began
firing from one of the vehicles, its stream of red tracers slicing through the
air only a few inches from his head.

And then a roar from above overwhelmed the noise
of the Iraqi vehicles and their hellish gunfire. The rattling sound could only
be properly described as the snort from a very angry animal.

A Hog, as a matter of fact.

Conrad’s guardian angels had arrived.

OVER IRAQ

28 JAUARY 1991

1830

Doberman nudged his
rudder pedals, lining
up the crosshairs on the shadow closest to the downed Tornado. Before he could
press the trigger, red sparks spewed from his target.

“Aim higher,” he told the enemy armored personnel
carrier. Then his thumb danced over the trigger button, first to one side, then
the other. “Bing-bang-boing,” he said, unleashing a flood of spent uranium at
the Iraqi vehicle. The spray decimated the enemy, like hot water eliminating a
spider.

Doberman worked his pedals, pushing his aim toward
a second shadow; another bing-bang-boing and more than a hundred shells erased
the Iraqi vehicle, this one apparently a truck with some type of medium-sized
gun mounted over the cab.

Glenon pulled back, sweeping around as he
temporarily lost his bearings in the dark shadows of the fast-approaching
night.

“I have something moving near the plane,” said Gunny,
viewing the scene through his Maverick’s IR seeker in Devil Four.

“Pilot?”

“Uh, can’t see. Should we drop a log?” said his
wingman, asking if they should light a flare.

“Hold off. Hang on. Fuck.”

Doberman yanked his stick back with all his
weight, just barely pulling off the ground. Paying attention to the windscreen
instead of his instruments, he’d inadvertently dropped too low. Flying the Hog
at night wasn’t necessarily difficult, but you had to pay attention to what you
were doing.

He circled south of the two trucks and the damaged
airplane, the altimeter nailed on three hundred feet above ground level. Devil
Four was circling several thousand feet above and slightly to the south.

The players were getting hard to see. A flare
might be a good idea.

Except it would help the Iraqis find their guys.

One of the remaining trucks fired its machine-gun,
the stream of bullets arcing across the desert as Doberman passed. He rolled
the Hog and sailed into what amounted to a 165-degree turn, pushing the wings
out level as he got the nose angled onto the shadow. He lost speed and altitude—he
was maybe ten feet off the ground when he put his nose on his target. Devil
Three didn’t seem to mind, though, nor did she complain when he kicked the
Avenger 30mm Gatling back into action, a full three-second burst obliterating
the tiny stream of machine-gun fire that was now aimed directly at his face.

Something scraped against his belly as he let off
the trigger. For a moment Doberman thought he actually did hit the ground— he
was very, very low. But as he pulled up past the smoked target, he realized it
must have been bullets from the Iraqi striking the Hog’s titanium armor.

If they’d done any damage, the emergency lights
weren’t admitting it. All systems were in the green.