Hogs #1: Going Deep (3 page)

OVER WESTERN IRAQ

0712

D
oberman felt the
heat seeking missile boring in on
him
as he flicked out
more flares. Jinking toward the ground
,
he rolled the Hog's engines away
from the Iraqi missile, trying
to present as cold a target as possible to the enemy. He
couldn't see what was happening behind
him; it was all touch-
and-feel,
bred by hundreds of drills and simulations. The Hog's GE power plants were cool
for jet engines, and the
primitive
seeker in the Iraqi air-to-air missile sniffed the air for the plane in vain.
It missed the flare as well,
continuing harmlessly into the desert— though Doberman had no way of
knowing that as he skimmed down as close to the
ground
as he could get.

Above him, the Mirage pilot gathered his senses and
energy for another try. When Doberman
realized he was free
and
began climbing off the deck, he found the F-l diving for him from about five
thousand feet in a head-on attack.

The French had built the Dassault-Breguet Mirage F-l
during the 1960s. It was a reasonable effort, capable of Mach performance and a
variety of roles, with a single engine and a pair of 30 mm machine guns under
the fuselage. Its wing area was better suited for low altitude
flight than some of Dassault's other
efforts, and perhaps on paper, the plane ought to outmatch an A-10A any day.

But they weren't flying on paper. Doberman kept on
trucking, determined to stuff his nose into the Iraqi's
face. In a close-quarters attack, it
was cannon versus cannon, and there the Hog had the advantage.

The Mirage driver poured on the gas, coming at him like
a bat out of hell. Suddenly, the
underside of his plane began to sparkle. Doberman resisted the impulse to
return
fire, realizing it
was a waste of bullets from this distance. Instead, he continued boring in,
expecting the F-l
to
turn in an attempt to swoop behind the Hog to finish him
off. Sure enough, the Iraqi began
angling away to the left, no doubt confident that he could outrun the strange
and slow
American machine.

Doberman executed his own turn into the Iraqi and lit
the cannon. It was a textbook maneuver, the angle of
separation nearly nonexistent, the Hog
right on the Mirage's
rear end.

But he missed. The F-l jinked to the left then slid
quickly into a scissors, and for all his maneuverability
Doberman couldn't quite get him locked
in his sights. By the time he decided to fire the Sidewinders, it was too late;
though he had a lock
signal both heat-seekers rode wide as
the Iraqi put out flares and accelerated clear.

Doberman watched his adversary disappear into the
distance. Part of him was relieved— and another part of him was pissed, since
he had blown an opportunity to make history by shooting down another plane in
an A-10A. He
pulled the
Hog into a lazy turn south, once again
looking
for his wingmate.

He was beginning to wonder why no one answered his
radio hails when a dark shadow in the
top corner of his eye warned him he had taken the Iraqi much too lightly. Only
an
extreme,
gut-wrenching pull to the right that shook every
bolt in the Hog's body saved him from being
perforated by
the diving
fighter's guns. Even so, he caught some lead in the rear fuselage; the Warthog
grunted and hissed at the
flesh wound.

Cursing himself, Doberman flattened his jet out less
than a hundred feet off the hot Iraqi
sand.

The Iraqi pilot was obviously out of missiles. But he
had learned from the first
head-on-head attack. He sat high above, staying south, obviously waiting for
Doberman to run for it. He looked like a cat eyeing a can of tuna.

What a cat wouldn't do for a can opener the size of
those DEFA guns the Mirage carried.

Not that Doberman was worried. He knew he'd come up
with something. Hog drivers always did.
He just didn't know
what that something was
yet.

Better to let the Mirage commit itself, he decided.
Cannon versus cannon, I like the
odds. I just have to make
it
quick while I still have enough gas to get home.

He tried contacting Dixon again; then called to his
other squadron mates.

No response. What was with those guys?

The F-1 suddenly snapped out of a turn and accelerated
in his direction. Once again the Iraqi
had made his move too
soon,
though he had more altitude and speed and so would
still hold the advantage when they
finally closed.

Doberman drew a deep breath, then tapped the throttle
bar for good luck. If he chose to, he
might be able to break
off
now and run away to the west, slide back and escape. It
would strain his fuel reserves to the
max, maybe beyond, but
it would keep him in
one piece.

But where was the fun in that?

He was just moving his stick to angle for another
head-to-head encounter when a white
light seemed to shine on the F-1 from above the clouds. In the next second, the
enemy
plane disappeared,
replaced by a burst of frothing white
vapor.

OVER WESTERN IRAN

0717

P
edals to the
metal on as they flew north back toward the
GCI site their two wing mates had been tasked to hit, A-Bomb
and Mongoose heard the
AWACS vectoring a pair of F-15 interceptors to nail the Iraqi fighter. The MiGs
had changed course, but both the Mirage and the A-10A had gotten up off the
deck and reappeared on the Sentry's scope. The distance and effects
of ground clutter interfered somewhat
with the Sentry's
ability
to track the planes, but considering that the controller was two hundred miles
away and keeping track of several million other things, he did a hell of a job.
The radio exchange crackled over the airwaves like an old-time
radio drama.

“Turbo Three, contact fifteen east SierraSierra, five
thousand,” called the lead F-15 pilot. He was telling his
wingmate and the AWACS controller that
he had the Mirage on
his radar.

“Don't hit the friendly,” answered his wingmate.

“Sorted. Aw shit. Clean now. Fuck me.”

A-Bomb echoed the Eagle pilot's curse. The fighter had
lost the Mirage. A-Bomb leaned
forward in his seat, trying to urge a few more miles per hour out of the Hog.
He and Mongoose had all the stops out but were still at least two
minutes away.

“Clean high,” said one of the F-15 pilots. It wasn't
clear which one.

“Contact. Five thousand. At twelve, eleven east, uh—”

“Screw the numbers, just do it!” screamed A-Bomb.

His mike wasn't open, but as if in answer to his
urging, the Eagle pilot called a
missile shot— “Fox One,”
the
time-honored signal that a Sparrow air-to-air radar
missile had been launched.

“Fifteen, fifteen, turn right,” said the second Eagle
pilot, the rest of the transmission
scorching into
unintelligibility.

Did they get the Mirage?

Static filled A-Bomb's ears.

It was like listening to the final seconds of a
basketball championship on a malfunctioning AM radio. Except that a lot more
than bragging rights were at stake.

Cursing, he slapped the com panel, as if that might
somehow clear the reception.

***

Wow, thought Doberman, as his adversary turned into a
silver-black glow. I'm having a
religious experience.

That or my oxygen hose is kinked all to hell.

In the next second, he realized that something had
taken out the Mirage.

Something American, he hoped. F-15s flying combat air
patrol out of the south, most likely. But why hadn't he
heard them on the radio? Why hadn't he
heard anything on his
radio?

Doberman, turning the Hog southwest, flipped through
several million frequencies before
realizing, duh, that his
communications gear
had given up the ghost.

No wonder he'd lost Dixon. And his wing mates.

Damn, they were probably halfway back to Al Jouf by
now.

Hell, he better watch for the Eagles, in case they
decided to take him out for not
answering their hails.

The pilot searched the skies in vain for his
benefactors. They had to be F-15s,
firing Sparrows from beyond visual range; anything else would be doing victory
rolls in front of him. Maybe they'd
gone on to put out some
other
fire.

Doberman's relief mixed with disappointment as he
checked his course toward SierraMax,
the squadron rendezvous
point. He'd been robbed of his best shot at the scumbag.
Instead, he was going to have to buy
some
stinking
pointy-nose jock a round of drinks.

Would he have beaten the Mirage?

Shit yeah. Damn straight. Cannon versus cannon, nothing
could take the Hog. He was just
lining up when those guys
broke up the party.

Hell, even Dixon would have wiped the Iraqi's ass for
him. Where was that boy, anyway? He should have been over
Doberman's back; would have gotten the
damn Iraqi before he
launched the missiles.

Maybe he'd make the nugget stand for the F-15er's beer.

***

Mongoose heard the Eagle pilot call “Hotel Sierra” as
the Iraqi jet turned into instant scrap metal.

Hot shit. Got that son of a bitch right between the
eyes.

Mongoose and A-Bomb were still a good ninety seconds south
of Doberman. Meanwhile, the two Eagles had already kicked toward the east,
backing up
another pair
of F-15s that had been sent after the Fulcrums
Cougar
had first warned them about.

“Devil One this is Cougar. We have you headed north.
Please advise.”

Well, at least the controller was being polite,
Mongoose thought to himself. He
waited for the second call
before
answering. When he did, he asked a question of his
own.

“We're short one Hog,” he told the Sentry. “You see him
anywhere?”

The overworked controller was temporarily stumped.
Mongoose spotted Doberman's plane— at
least he assumed it
was
Devil Two. The Hog was heading south about two miles
away.

“I'm on him,” responded A-Bomb before he could even
finish pointing him out.

“His radio must be out,” Mongoose told his wingman
after the plane failed to respond on
any frequency. “Take
him back to Al Jouf.”

“Where are you going?”

“I got to find junior.”

“Say Goose, you looked at your fuel gauge lately? It's
that big dial on the right side of
cockpit, right near the
handle
you have to pull if the tanks run dry.”

Damn A-Bomb. Always a wise ass.

“Yeah, just take Doberman home,” he snapped. He glanced
at the map folded out on his lap,
calculating that he had just enough in his tanks for a pass back over the GCI
site
before running home.

Assuming he found a tail wind.

“Goose?”

“Go. That's an order.”

“Aye, aye, Captain Bligh.”

Over western
Iraq

0717

I
t took forever
for Dixon to realize the lilies were
just the clouds playing tricks on his eyes. He passed
through them, climbing high above the
earth where he could
clear his head.

There was something wrong with his oxygen supply. At least
that's what he blamed the hallucinations on. He was
incapable of panic; it had to be
something physical, something tangible, something that could be fixed by
turning a dial or adjusting a switch. He moved his hands
deliberately around the cockpit, putting
everything in
order.

Slowly, the lieutenant regained control of himself and
his plane. He began by breathing deeply. At first his lungs
rebelled, aching with the effort. Then
he felt his shoulders
starting
to sag, the muscle spasms finally giving way. He rocked his head to the left
and then the right, his spinal
cord cracking as the tension was released. Dixon was a long way from
relaxed, but at least he could fly the plane.

He still had six iron bombs attached to the hard points
beneath his wings. They were slowing
him down, robbing not
just air speed but
precious fuel.

One by one, he let them go. The Hog seemed to buck
slightly with each release, as if she
were protesting that
they had not been used on
the enemy.

For all he knew, they might be dropping on one of
Saddam's palaces. Dixon had yet to
work out his location.

He glanced
at his watch, saw it was about time for him and Doberman to
be hooking up with the others at the
point they had called
SierraMax.

Where in God's name was that? Where was he?

He worked at the map and realized that he
was now about twenty-five miles west
and maybe fifteen miles south of
the GCI site.

Not horribly off course, all things considered. But he
was alone. Had the others tried to contact him? He hadn’t heard their calls?
Had they been shot down?

It didn't make sense to go to the checkpoint. His best
bet was to head straight to Al Jouf.

He'd screwed up the mission, big time. But his job now
was getting to the air base in one piece.

Strange things happened in combat all the time,
confusing things, bizarre things.
There were excuses, not
necessarily
bad ones, either - the fog of war and all that.

He'd gotten turned around, lost track of his leader,
lost track of himself. But it had
been his first time in
combat.

The fog of war.

No, it was something more than that. You didn't know
who you were until you stared down the
barrel of a gun. Life
was one big question
mark until then.

If that were true, William James Dixon didn't like what
the answer had turned out to be.