Hogs #2: Hog Down (15 page)

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

21 January 1991

2230

W
hen it was
obvious that the Scud alert
was over, Lieutenant Dixon was the first to shed his gear. He’d had to scrunch
over the entire time, and as fascinating as it was to hear a television
correspondent explain what it was like to be scared shitless, Dixon couldn’t
help but think about the roast beef down the hall, getting cold.

According
to CNN, Patriot missiles had nailed the incoming Scuds. There apparently hadn’t
been any chemicals in the warhead; at the moment, there didn’t appear to be any
casualties either. For all their value as propaganda weapons, the Scuds were
fairly useless tactically, amounting to more of an annoyance than anything
else.

Plus
they pissed people off. Especially ones like Dixon who were waiting to eat
roast beef for the first time in months.

Three
British army officers were among the other guests, as were two very pretty
women who had showed the poor taste of bringing their husbands along to eat
with Fernandez, his wife and their twelve-year-old son. The fact that the women
were obviously spoken for made Dixon concentrate even harder on the meat.

It
turned out to be nice and hot, and even juicier than his imagination had hoped.
There were mashed potatoes and gravy, and even the carrots looked good. Steam
wafted upwards from the dishes. Lush, sensual aromas filled the air. For the
first time in several days Dixon actually forgot about being stuck in Riyadh
instead of flying a Hog.

Plate
heaped high, the lieutenant barely managed to keep his hands together as one of
the Fernandez neighbors launched into a brief benediction. He had just grabbed
his fork when one of the two Pakistani servants appeared and announced that
someone had come to the front door looking for Lieutenant Dixon of the U.S. Air
Force.

“Me?”
he pleaded, but the servant had not made a mistake. He found an Air Force security
captain and a pair of Army MPs standing in the front foyer.

“Lieutenant,
I have orders for you.”

“Now?”

“My
understanding was this was to be expedited.” The captain made an expression
designed to convey the fact that he couldn’t explain everything with Dixon’s
civilian host standing behind him. “That assignment you were waiting for?” he
said. “Well, it’s been approved.”

“Darn.”
Dixon realized he was talking about the Special Ops gig. Talk about timing.

“Lieutenant?”

“It’s
just— I— roast beef.”

“Yeah,
smells good.”

“We’ll
take up the slack for you, BJ,” said Fernandez. “Open invitation. Come back
anytime.”

“How
about a doggy bag?”

The
captain hitched his fingers into his gun belt. “Say Lieutenant, no offense okay,
but I had to shanghai half the Army to come out and find you.”

“All
right, I’m sorry,” said Dixon. “I’ll follow you.”

“No,
sir. We’ll have someone else take your vehicle back to Riyadh, if you don’t
mind.”

Man,
thought Dixon, attach the words “Special Ops” to something and people really
got worried.

It
would be different if he were going to go and get Mongoose. Undoubtedly the
squadron DO had been picked up by now— or, more likely, taken by the Iraqis.
Even if he hadn’t, it would take the better part of the night if not longer to
drive all the way up to the advance base where the Pave Lows operated.

Probably,
this was just part of Knowlington’s backdoor plan to get him back to the base
without raising any suspicions. But hell, couldn’t it have waited until he
finished dinner?

“Really,
Captain, it’s no sweat for me to take the car back to Riyadh myself,” he said
as he went out the front door.

“I
doubt your vehicle will fit in the Huey,” said the captain, pointing to the
chopper revving on the front lawn.

Over Saudi Arabia

January 21 1991

2335

I
n the dark,
halfway up to KKMC, Skull
felt one of the engines behind him stutter momentarily. It was an
infinitesimal, practically unnoticeable thing, maybe an odd current that hit
that one engine only or some microscopic impurity in the fuel. But it sent an
icy shudder across his spine and around to his ribs; his chest and shoulder
muscles spasmed and the darkness of the sky enveloped him. He became a rock,
not a pilot. He could hear his breath in his ears and feel the mask pinch his
face. His legs felt heavy, his arms paralyzed.

Until
that moment, he hadn’t worried about whether he could do this. He felt he had
to, and that was enough.

But
now his muscles tightened and he had to work hard to control his breathing. The
plane was over whatever tiny stutter it had felt, but his was just beginning.
He had to think about what he was doing― with his head as well as his
hands and legs.

Hog
wasn’t exactly a quick mover. Stable as hell, and predictable, but she cut
through the blackness like a loaded dump truck working on three cylinders.

For
a war zone, there were a hell of a lot of lights visible. Fires, too. Couple of
good ones were burning in Kuwait.

Back
in Nam, he’d poured the gas on to get away from the guns on the Laos ridge when
his wingmate went down.

It
wasn’t that he was scared; it was that he’d been taken by surprise. His
instincts took over.

And
betrayed him.

Or
showed who he truly was, beyond the bullshit and hype, beyond the luck. When
you stood totally naked in front of the world, when it was all instinct, you
couldn’t lie to yourself.

There
was a coward in him. He had to face that. They’d never recovered the crew and
it was his fault.

Damn,
he wanted a drink.

Fortunately,
this was the one place in the world that he absolutely couldn’t get one.
Colonel Knowlington worked his eyes around the cockpit very deliberately,
letting each needle and number soak into his brain before moving on. Everything
was working at shop manual specification; not bad for a plane that had received
a new engine, control surfaces and sundry repairs within the past twenty-four
hours.

If
his math was correct, he had fifteen minutes to KKMC. Hog might actually be a
bit faster than it seemed.

Two
pilots had reported hearing fleeting transmissions over the emergency band as
they returned from sorties up north. Whether they were Mongoose or not, no one
could tell; they hadn’t been much more than static, and they could even have
been Iraqis. The fact that Mongoose’s emergency beacon hadn’t been picked up
was not a good omen. Still, the news was vague enough to be interpreted either
negatively or positively.

Skull
chose positively.

His
grip on the stick unclenched. He flexed his thumb back and forth, across,
holding the plane’s control stick firmly but gently. The thumb was one place he
always got cramped in combat. As if all his tension went there.

You
could live with that, though. He knew guys with back spasms. Now that was a
ball buster.

Bottom
line was, he was bringing Mongoose home. His man, his responsibility. Some
people might think he’d lost a step― he’d seen that question in Clyston’s
eyes― but they were wrong.

He
did worry about his eyes. Vision was the reason he’d plunked MiGs two and three
from the sky. The others you could argue luck and flying skill, but two and
three― he nailed them because he spotted them, saw the specs and knew
instantly what their direction was, where their energy was pointed.

See
the enemy first and he’s yours; that was the old fighter-pilot maxim. And
forget about 20-20 vision. You needed 20-10, at least.

Skull’s
were 20-05, X-ray sharp, on a bad day.

Maybe
not now, though.

Didn’t
matter. Nothing really mattered, as long as he kept his muscles loose, worked
the cockpit well, stayed within the limits of the plane.

He
was going to get Mongoose back, or die trying.

Thing
was, if he went out that way, then people really would think he was a hero.

A
few might even be relieved.

Skull
started to laugh.

Fourteen
minutes to KKMC.

On the ground in Iraq

21 January 1991

2355

M
ongoose clawed against
the hard earth, pushing
himself up the hill, away from the light, not even daring to pray that they
hadn’t seen him. Suddenly the ground disappeared and he felt himself falling
forward, tumbling in confusion. Gunfire erupted behind the hill, but he barely
heard it as he found his feet again and began to run.

What
he did hear were the trucks. Their engines erupted as lights swung across the
sky. The night turned reddish white― the Iraqis had fired a flare.

Open
space lay in front of him. No trees, no rocks, no buildings, nowhere to hide.

His
pistol was in his hand. He whirled, sighted toward the crest of the hill.

No
one there.

Maybe
they hadn’t seen him after all. Maybe they weren’t even here. Maybe this whole
goddamn thing was a stinking mirage, the result of him hitting his head on the
cockpit fairing or some such bullshit when he pulled the handle and got out of
the plane.

Maybe
he really wasn’t in Iraq at all.

He
started running again. The desert seemed to rise up around him, the flare
starting to fade. He slipped on something, felt his ankle twist out from under
him, had to put his hand out, and lost the pistol.

When
he looked up, three men were standing in front of him, three rifles pointed
directly at him less than ten yards away.

“You
will surrender,” said someone over a loudspeaker from the truck. The English
was fairly good, with an American twist to the pronunciation. “You will give up
now and you will not be harmed.”

The
Beretta was only a few inches from his fingers. He could reach it. He could get
these guys.

“You
will surrender now.”

He
glanced behind him, saw the other truck driving up. He rolled back on his butt,
suddenly very tired.

***

When
Mongoose didn’t get up fast enough, one of the Iraqi soldiers pulled his rifle
back to hit him. Another caught him, and an officer ran up and began berating
the man, screaming something in his face. At the same time, a pair of arms took
hold of the American from the back, pulling him away and upward at the same
time.

Something
inside Mongoose snapped; he decided to try and shoot them all. He raised his
arm and snapped his fingers closed, squeezing off the trigger.

Only
to remember he had lost the gun.

The
man pulling him backwards released him and he fell into a heap. Something heavy
and hard caught him in the ribs. The blow pushed the air from his chest and he
hunched toward his legs, gulping in pain, darkness edging the corner of his
brain as if he were taking ten g’s.

More
yelling. Hands over him. Pulling and pushing. Somebody spit. He fought to
breathe. They searched his flight suit with hard pats that were more like
punches.

They
were more than halfway done with their searching before his lungs started
working again. By then he was on his back, an Iraqi on each arm and leg. He
tried to get his head back into checklist mode, knew that was his job now. The
anger had to be stowed where it couldn’t hurt him. When they released him, he
rose slowly, standing with his arms held out in a gesture of surrender.

“You
are our prisoner,” said the man who had stopped the soldier from battering him.
It was his voice he’d heard on the loudspeaker. His English was perfect, though
he spoke very deliberately. “You will follow our orders precisely, or the
consequences will be grave.”

Mongoose
said nothing, but did not offer any outward resistance. One of the trucks swung
closer, illuminating the area with its headlights. Four or five Iraqi soldiers
stood around him, well armed and equipped. Other men were continuing the search
of the area.

“Where
is your copilot?” asked the officer.

“I
don’t have a copilot,” said Mongoose. “I fly alone.”

“What
type of plane do you fly?”

Mongoose
hesitated. The truth was, his unit patch had a Warthog on it, so it wouldn’t
take much detective work to figure out the answer. But answering the question
felt like surrendering.

“It’s
only got room for the pilot,” he told the officer. “One man. Me.”

“A
fighter?”

“Yeah.”

The
officer nodded, and shouted something to the others. It might have been that he
didn’t trust Mongoose; their search continued.

The
soldiers shifted, each staring openly at his face and uniform. One seemed
angry; the rest looked merely curious, as if they were looking at a giant ape
who had escaped from the zoo.

As
long as the officer was here, Mongoose thought, he wouldn’t be killed; he might
not even be beaten. Most likely there was a reward for his safe return to
Baghdad.

Or
maybe not. Maybe the officer wanted to torture him himself.

When
they had searched him, the soldiers found and taken all of his important gear,
including his radio, knife and maps. But for some reason they missed his small
flare gun, tucked into a leg pocket near his boot; he realized that as he stood
uneasily in the semi-circle of soldiers.

Something,
at least.

They’d
also taken Kathy’s letter. But there wasn’t much he could do about that.

One
of the soldiers in the distance shouted. The officer motioned several of his
guards toward the shouts and they ran off. The search beam popped on and
suddenly everyone was firing. Mongoose cringed, but tried otherwise not to
react; he knew it was some sort of mistake, a false alarm. Instead, he focused
his eyes on the ground, trying to think of something he could do.

No
way he could run off and make it. He was pretty much stuck here.

It
took the officer some minutes to calm his men. “You are not afraid?” he asked
when he returned. His eyes were set wide in his face; up close he was a homely
man, who didn’t appear particularly wise or compassionate.

“I’m
very afraid,” Mongoose told him.

“You
did not take cover when my man began to shoot?”

“Just
now? I told you, there’s no one else. They’re shooting at shadows.”

“A
good thing for you,” said the officer. He turned and shouted at the guards—
apparently telling them to get up, since they did. He barked out more commands.
All but two left to join the others.

The
man seemed about his age, maybe a little older. Barely five-eight, he was thin;
his uniform hung around him as if meant for a heavier man.

“I could
kill you,” the officer told him.

“That’s
true,” said Mongoose.

The
officer smiled and nodded. “What is your name?”

“Major
James Johnson.”

“I
am a major as well,” said the man. He switched his pistol from his right hand
to his left.

And
then he extended his arm to shake Mongoose’s hand.

Not
knowing what else to do, Mongoose took it.

Had
he thought about it, he might have expected something hard and callused. But
this was soft and gentle, almost feminine.

The
man smiled and nodded as he pulled back. Then he fished into his pocket and
produced the blood chit — a note in English and Arabic that promised a reward
for his return to allied hands.

“What
is this?” asked the Iraqi captain. It was obvious he had already read it; his
voice sounded like a reprimand.

“My
people will reward you for returning me safely.”

The
officer made a show of ripping the note up and throwing it aside.

“And
this?” He held up an envelope — Kathy’s letter. “War plans?”

“A
letter from my wife.”

“You
expect me to believe that?”

Mongoose
shrugged. The man glanced at the letter, smiled, then held it toward him.
Mongoose hesitated, then slowly took it.

After
returning the envelope to his shoulder pocket, Mongoose looked up to see the
Iraqi’s pistol in his face.

“Do
not think that because I show you kindness I am weak,” said the man. “If you
try to escape, you will be killed. You understand?”

He
nodded.

“Into
the truck.”

With
that, one of the other guards grabbed him roughly and pushed him toward the
front of the open flatbed.