Hogs #2: Hog Down (13 page)

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

21 January
1991

2203

I
t wasn’t until
after Dixon had told
Colonel Knowlington about Mongoose that he felt the true depth of his
uselessness here. It wasn’t as if he expected to be tasked to fly up there and
bring him back— in fact, the air tasking order had already given the Devil
Squadron a heavy agenda; there probably was no room in the frag for anything
like that and other units were already assigned search-and-rescue duty anyway.
But there was no question that Dixon was far from the action, a million miles
from where he belonged.

He
finished up his work, then checked around to see if anything new had come in on
Major Johnson’s flight.

Nothing.
Not a good sign. But there was nothing he could do about it, sitting in his
Riyadh cubbyhole. Reluctantly, he decided to keep his dinner date with an
American family in a “guest” development not far from the center of the city.
He hoped real food might take his mind off his uselessness for a few hours.

Thanks
partly to their great oil wealth, the Saudis used a large number of foreigners
to help run their country. Many of the workers were domestics and drudges from
poor countries such as Pakistan. But there was also a fair number of highly
skilled workers, including Westerners. Most lived apart from the rest of Saudi
society, their “hosts” not wanting to risk the contamination of Western mores
in a Muslim culture. His new acquaintances— cousins of an Air Force officer
he’d gone through basic training with— lived in one such compound. It was a
kind of gilded ghetto where, for the most part, Islamic strictures such as
those about women’s dress and alcohol could be safely ignored.

But
that didn’t explain why his friend greeted him at the front door in a full-body
chem suit.

“You’re
late. Where’s your protective gear?”

“Do
I have the right house?” asked Dixon.

“It’s
me, Fernandez,” said the man through the suit. “I’ve been waiting for you. Come
in. We’re on Scud alert. Everyone else is in the shelter.”

“Shelter?”

“It’s
not really a shelter, but it will do as long as there’s not a direct hit. The
walls are reinforced and it’s airtight. We have an air exchanger but I don’t
trust it. Where’s your suit?”

“I
don’t have one.”

“What?
Well come on, we’ll get you a mask at least. Come on.”

Like
a lot of other guys in Saudi Arabia, Dixon didn’t take the chemical warfare
threat very seriously. Nor did he think much of the Scuds, which were annoying
but not particularly accurate.

Though
maybe that ought to worry him a bit.

Inside
the hallway, Dixon had to duck around a crystal chandelier that looked like it
belonged in an opera house. They walked through the public part of the
sprawling one–level house, past a luxurious, Western-style living room and a
dining room that could have been in a palace somewhere, then down a second
hallway into a back room.

“I
know the place looks pretty drab. We’ve packed away the valuables,” said
Fernandez through his hood. He worked as an accountant for a Saudi oil concern
owned by one of the royal family. “I know what you’re thinking— we don’t have a
proper basement. But this wing was supposedly steel-reinforced and good against
anything but a direct hit. I don’t know whether to believe them or not. But at
least there’s no windows.”

They
stepped down a single step and continued through yet another hallway, this one
lined with expensive-looking paintings. Dixon wondered what the stuff that had
been packed away looked like.

His
nose twitched with the smell of roast beef. Before he could ask about it, his
host opened the door at the very end of the hall, revealing a thick piece of
plastic. He reached down and pulled it up, revealing a room about twenty by
thirty feet long. A dozen people, all wearing gas masks or protective hoods, a
few in full suits, crowded around a brown leather love seat and ottoman,
watching a CNN feed. A correspondent in a chem suit but no hood was speaking to
the camera in hushed tones.

“Here’s
a whole suit,” said Fernandez, leading him to a table in the corner. He held up
a suit that was clearly too small for Dixon’s frame.

“It’s
not going to fit.”

“Take
the mask, then. Like I said, I don’t trust the equipment.”

“I
honestly don’t think it’s necessary.”

His
host’s answer was cut off by the peal of a siren. As loud as the siren was, the
explosion that followed was even louder.

Dixon
quickly began stuffing himself into the gear.

King Fahd

21 January
1991

2203

O
f Colonel Knowlington’s
many friends in the
Pentagon, Alex Sherman was among the least sympathetic. For one thing, Sherman
was a civilian; he didn’t quite understand the wrenches your guts went through
when people shot at you.

For
another, Sherman was a reformed alcoholic; he took a tough love stance toward
everybody and everything, Michael Knowlington especially. They’d met each other
in Saigon, well before either admitted drinking was a problem, let alone
something they ought to give up. Sherman was the one media person Skull could
stand. Actually, he was a
pr
consultant, then for the Army, now for the Joint Chiefs, with a title nearly as
long as Knowlington’s service record. Sherman’s opinion of reporters was every
bit as jaded though far more nuanced than the colonel’s; having fed the sharks
for so long, he’d come to understand and maybe like a few.

Which
was one reason Skull let him have it full blast for the CNN story.

“Hey,
you through? It’s not like I’m the assignment editor, or the guy with the big
mouth,” said Sherman. “It’s just one of those things, Mikey. A reporter
happened to be around when some guys were talking.”

“One
of those things? I thought there were fucking censors to keep the lid on.”

“Yeah,
well, somebody’s butt’ll fry on that, believe me.”

“These
god damn bozos are going to get him killed.”

“That’s
not true. If anything, this may help keep him alive. If Saddam knows we know
he’s alive, the odds for survival are better.”

“You
have statistics on that?”

“Believe
me, we’re just as peed over here as you are.”

“Has
anyone talked to his wife yet?”

“Well,
by now— ”

“I
haven’t been able to get a line through to her. Can you arrange that for me?”

“Me?”

“You
have some pull, don’t you?”

“I
don’t know if I can get approval, for one thing.”

“Screw
approval. Just get me the phone number. We don’t have it for some reason, and
it’s unlisted.”

“Mikey,
you really think you should talk to her? What the hell are you going to say?”

“You
going to help me or what?”

Sherman’s
long sigh announced surrender. “Let me see what I can do.”

“I’ll
stay on the line.”

“Come
on.”

“I
may never be able to get you again.”

“Jesus.”

Knowlington
leaned back from his desk and saw that Captain Wong was standing uncomfortably
in the doorway. “Those Mavericks on the plane?” he asked the major.

“Begging
your pardon, sir, but for the record, I’m not a spear carrier.”

As
pissed as he was, Knowlington just had to laugh. “Owww – that’s a bad pun.
Sometimes you have to give it rest though, Wong. So, they’re on?”

“They’re
placing two on the plane as we speak. Colonel, can we discuss my transfer? I’d
rather be studying Russian invoices for rivets than dealing with ad hoc,
unvetted combat plans that rely on outmoded weapons pushed beyond their
technical capabilities into non-functional paradigms of non-optimum
performance. Sir.”

“God,
Wong, sometimes your jokes go over even my head. Anybody else, I’d think they
were serious. Shit, you crack me up, you know that?”

“I
am serious,” Wong said.

“Thanks.
Listen, go get some rest. I appreciate your schlepping around this stuff for
me. Really. And your humor.”

“I
wasn’t making a joke.”

“Go
on, get out of here.”

Knowlington
waved him away with a laugh. Damned best straight man in the air force. It was
the face that did it – so damn serious, it set everything else up.

Non-functional
paradigms — what a ball-buster. No wonder they kicked him out of Black Hole.

* * *

Truth
was, Knowlington knew that using the missiles’ infra-red seeker to look for a
man on the outskirts of the desert was like using a metal detector to find a
bullet in a gravel pit at twenty thousand feet. But they had to do something.

Truth
was, the fact that no one had picked up Mongoose’s radio beacon meant that
maybe there was nothing to be done. But if you thought like that, you never
made it yourself.

* * *

“Hey,
you still on the line or what?”

“Yeah,
I’m here, Alex,” Knowlington told his friend. He stood up in his chair, mouth
suddenly dry. The colonel ran his free hand back over forehead, then down his
chin and neck.

“Okay,”
Sherman said, apparently to an operator. “It’s yours from here, Tommy. And
you’re welcome.”

“Hello?”
said a woman’s voice, soft and bewildered.

To
the colonel, it sounded a lot like one of his sisters. They were, after all,
the reason he’d wanted to call. Both had been contacted two different times by
the Air Force, once because his plane turned up missing and once when he was
actually shot down. He wasn’t sure now whether there had been phone calls or
someone in person coming to the house; he just knew they had talked to someone.

The
time he was missing was a first class screw-up, all around. They had him dead.
But his sisters told him later it was better knowing that someone was at least
making an attempt, and knew who they were. Being in the dark was the worst
thing; it made you feel farther away than you really were.

“Hello?”

“Is
this Kathleen Johnson, Major James Johnson’s wife?”

“Who
is this?”

A
sliver of steel came into her voice, resolution or stoicism, or maybe even
anger.

“Kathleen,
this is Colonel Knowlington. Your husband’s commander.”

“Oh.”

“This
isn’t an official call. I wanted to talk to you personally and tell you I was
sorry about the television broadcast. That was a mistake.”

“The
Pentagon people said they weren’t sure how it got out. They already apologized.
So did one of the Air Force officers who called to say they were on their way.”

Well,
at least someone there was on the ball, Skull thought to himself.

Then
he thought, shit. But it was too late not to talk to her.

“I
wanted to tell you that we’re doing everything we can to pick him up.”

“He
is still alive, isn’t he?”

Knowlington
fought back the impulse to assure her that her husband was fine. It was natural
and human, but it wasn’t fair.

“I
have to be honest, Kathleen. We’re working on that. We’ve spotted the wreckage
and he’s not there.”

“You’re
sure he ejected?”

Again,
he squelched the impulse to lie. “We believe he did. But we have not had
confirmation.”

“I
see.”

Her
voice had become small again. He could hear crying in the background; their
child.

“I’m
sorry, Colonel, but I have to go. Thank you for calling.”

Knowlington
put the phone down and sat at his desk a moment longer, his eyes staring at the
blank, smooth top. Was it better to be honest, or was it just cruel?

King Fahd

21 January
1991

2203

C
hief Master Sergeant
Clyston sank
into his
Stratolounger, luxuriating in the thick richness of the Mozart pumping through
his earphones. Don Giovanni was just now being handed the Devil’s bill for his
incredible success with women. It was a moment that never failed to please the
Capo, rating right up there with the time he had figured out how to knock an
entire hour off the overhaul of a GE J79-15 turbojet.

Clyston’s
appreciation of justice and its musical expression was not unalloyed, however;
the chief had escaped to his highly customized temp tent to contemplate a serious
moral question: Should he let Skull fly in combat?

In
theory and in law, Colonel Knowlington outranked the chief by a country mile,
and could command himself to do anything he pleased. But theory and law did not
apply to the Capo di Capo; or rather, they did, but in a way considerably more
convoluted than might be laid out in a military handbook.

Any
good crew chief feels responsible not only for his airplane but his pilot.
Clyston was no different, and in fact as he got older had become something of a
father figure to several of the pilots to whom he’d “loaned” his planes. His
role was an advisor, though, not a boss; he worked with the officers entirely
by suggestion, though admittedly some suggestions were stronger and more
strategically placed than others. Shortly after coming to Saudi Arabia, one
such suggestion had grounded a suicidal pilot. That was an extreme example, of
course; to a man the squadron’s pilots had abilities and “stuff” that even a
graybeard like Clyston could admire.

His
concern about the colonel went beyond both his normal concern for a pilot and
his ancient friendship with the commander. He had the squadron to consider.

Skull
wasn’t drinking anymore; he knew that for a fact. The snap was back in his
walk, and his judgment was right on. Hell, even drinking the guy made a lot of
right moves, if only because he gave his subordinates nearly free reign.

But
flying was different. Flying in the dark, miles and miles behind the lines,
pushing the plane to do something it wasn’t designed to do?

At
his peak, there were few combat pilots in the air force better than Tommy
Knowlington. But his peak had passed a long time ago. He’d put in some large
hours over the past few weeks and done the flight test on the Hog today without
a problem, but no one was shooting at him.

Thing
was, even if it wasn’t Knowlington flying, going north wasn’t a particularly
smart thing to do. Get into trouble and butts were going to be fried.

Where
would the 535
^th
be if Skull’s ass was the one getting singed?

Worse,
what if he was cooked by the same SOB who took down Mongoose? The major could
be a class-one, anal prick, but he was a kick-butt flier with high time in the
Hog cockpit. Whoever got him wasn’t just lucky, they were damn good.

Clyston
was the only one in Saudi Arabia, probably the only one in the air force, who
could talk Knowlington out of flying the mission. He was the only one who could
go to Tommy and tell him: Listen, you don’t have to prove yourself to anybody
any more. You have to run the squadron.

Maybe
he couldn’t talk him out of it. This wasn’t about proving he could fly combat
again. This was about getting his guy back.

Especially
since it was Mongoose. Clyston knew the colonel well enough to realize that, in
his mind if no one else’s, Skull thought he should have been the one flying
that mission. He’d see getting Mongoose back was not only as his job, but his
duty. His guy, his job.

Hard
to talk somebody out of doing their duty.

Someone
like Knowlington, it’d be impossible.

But
what was Clyston’s duty?

The chief
leaned back in his chair, listening for clues as Mozart doubled back against
his theme.