HOGS #5: TARGET SADDAM (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) (15 page)

He
started to tell A-Bomb about the change in plans, but O’Rourke cut him off.

“Two,
yeah, I got ya, Chief. I’m looking at the LZ.”

Knowlington
took one last read on the altimeter— sixty feet above ground— then turned his
eyes to the blur of the Maverick screen, pushing the targeting cursor into the
thick hull of the lightly armored vehicle where the missiles were mounted. The
day’s sun had left the truck’s metal skin hot, making for a nice, fat blob in
the monitor. He locked the target, then poked his nose up slightly, a bit
over-anxious about letting go of the missile so close to the ground.

And
then he launched.

If
he told A-Bomb he had fired— and most likely he did, because he had intended to—
he couldn’t remember later. Nor could he have detailed exactly how he dialed
the cursor for the next AGM as a second SA-9 launcher— unbriefed— appeared in
the screen roughly seventy yards to the north. But he had a good memory of
pressing the trigger, and an even better memory of what happened next— the air
in front of him turned into a wall of red streaks.

Flak,
said a voice that belonged neither to A-Bomb nor to Skull. It came from behind
an iron wall in a F-4 Phantom twenty years in the past, his old “bear” growling
out a warning on a mission long since forgotten.

Now
as then, Skull ignored the warning, sticking to his game plan. He tacked to the
left, right through the exploding shells, swinging around as he scanned the
target site with his AGM-65G. He had nothing but blurs— then his eyes caught a
leaping tongue of flame on the ground, the result of a large Paveway series
laser-guided missile launched from the F-111 striking the SA-11 launcher.
Another roman candle erupted a half-second later— probably the van that provided
targeting data. Then everything was red and white.

Skull
whacked the Hog hard to left, then hit the transmit button.

“Door
is Open,” he said over the long-range frequency, alerting Wolf that the SAMs
had been knocked out.

As
he lifted his finger, something rapped his right wingtip so hard it nearly
rolled the plane.

IRAQ

27 JANUARY 1991

2000

The
village was
smaller than Dixon had imagined, laid out along one main road that had been cut
into the saddle of three hills. The road jagged away from a sharp rock
outcropping at the entrance; by climbing the rock Dixon had been able to scout
the town before going in.

A
mosque sat at the center, elevated on a narrow plain in front of one of the
hills; the other buildings were small, mostly made of concrete or something
similar, their sides shadows in the dim evening light. Industrial buildings,
either warehouses or factories, were wedged into the slope to his right; he
couldn’t see much of them from the rocks.

Worried
about being seen, he moved slower than a turtle across the sloping scrubland
behind the village. The boy seemed caught up in the game his rescuer was
playing; he moved behind him like a shadow, ducking when Dixon ducked, rising
when Dixon rose. He made no sign that he knew the village. They huddled
together as the sun set, waiting for the long shadows to make it easier to
move. But the night wasn’t nearly as dark as Dixon wanted. Or perhaps he was
just getting more paranoid.

They
moved ever more slowly, stopping any time there was a sound or odd shadow
ahead. They drew a semi-circle around the village without seeing anything
remotely resembling a store. At three spots along the street clusters of men
stood around vehicles; otherwise there was no sign of life. They were too far
away to see for certain whether the men were soldiers or not. The vehicles they
stood around seemed to be civilian, but Dixon knew that meant nothing.

Gradually,
he and the boy worked back around the hillside, inching closer to a group of
houses that lay below the rock he’d climbed earlier. Finally, they came to a
flat, open space less than twenty yards behind three small buildings. A faint
light shone through one of the windows of the house on the left. Dixon decided
to send Budge there to ask for some food.

He
mimed it out for the kid, who nodded.

“You
really understand, Budge?”

The
boy nodded again. “Budge,” he said.

Dixon
patted his shoulder. He considered simply waiting a few more hours and break
in, steal what they needed. But something inside him was uncomfortable with
that— as if he truly were back in Iowa, as if this weren’t a matter of life and
death.

“Yeah,
all right,” he told the kid. “Go for it.”

A
rattle echoed off the hills, the sound of a rattlesnake about to strike. Dixon
dove forward, grabbing the boy as a bomb hit somewhere to the northwest, not
terribly far from the hill. A second explosion followed, then the sky behind
them turned red, fiery hands waving across the horizon. Anti-aircraft rumbled,
tracers arcing into the sky overhead. The closest gun was a half-mile away; the
rest were scattered around in a vast semi-circle that seemed to form a fist
around them.

“This
way,” he told Budge, jumping back to his feet. “This way.”

Dixon
picked the boy up under his arm, hauling him along as he ran up the slope to
the rock, hoping he might see what was going on from there. The ground shook
like the floor of an old auditorium where a rap group played. Dixon ran as fast
as he could manage, clutching the kid and the guns to him, stumbling as much as
climbing.

The
thunder of the flak guns stopped. A truck or some other vehicle started its
engine in the distance, but otherwise everything was quiet. The sky beyond the
village to the northwest was red; whatever the American bombers had hit was on
fire.

When
Dixon reached the rock he hoisted Budge up first, then clambered behind him.
But the topography made it impossible to get a clear view; whatever had been
hit lay beyond or on the side of the short hill opposite the road they’d walked
down. Dixon faced it, trying to orient himself north-to-south; it seemed the
target lay a mile or more north of the highway, commanding an open plain just
before the hills.

Probably
another Scud launching site.

If
that was true, it was possible it had been pointed out by a Delta team. They’d
be around somewhere, maybe waiting for pickup.

Go
in that direction and see what was going on? He could skirt the house by
walking around the slope, get down to the highway and walk along it. He could
go to the spot where the Black Hawk had appeared last night— it was an easy
place for a pickup.

The
Iraqis might have it guarded.

Scout
it first.

If
not there, where? Back to the Cornfield? The kid would never be able to walk
that far without food.

Maybe
it better to sneak back to the village, go ahead and get some food and water.
The attack might divert attention for a while.

Or
it might make the villagers doubly suspicious.

Dixon
looked at the boy, trembling on the ground, curled around his leg. Dixon saw a
shadow on his pants and realized the child had pissed himself.

“Hey,
it’s okay, buddy,” he told him, pulling him up. “Happens to the best of us.”

His
father used to tell him that, didn’t he? When he was three or four?

Dixon
couldn’t really remember much his father had told him. It didn’t matter, one
way or another.

“It’s
okay, Budge, come on.” He stood the kid up. “Let’s go see what all this fuss is
about, okay? We’ll move around to the other side of this hill and see what we
can see. We’ll get something to eat later. Moving’s better than standing still.
Remember that.”

He
repeated the advice, as if he expected Budge to take it to heart.

OVER IRAQ

27 JANUARY 1991

2002

A-Bomb’s
stomach
twitched. It wasn’t hunger— Skull had twisted his plane directly into a spewing
fountain of yellow lava, seemingly oblivious of the ZSU-23 anti-aircraft
guns even though A-Bomb had broadcast two warnings about them.

O’Rourke
cursed, leaning against his restraints as the cascading sparks enveloped the
lead plane. At the same time, he nudged the aiming cursor of his first Maverick
toward the bank of ZSU-23s, the image jumping around and refusing to lock on
target. It took so long that before he finally nailed the cursor the air around
him had begun to bubble with the hot steam of exploding 23 mm shells. As the
Maverick dropped off her rail, A-Bomb tapped his throttle for luck and yanked
the Hog into a tight dip that would take him to the west and out of the Zeus’s
line of fire.

Had
to give it to the Iraqis— they had lined the stinking flak guns up damn good. And
they had a million of them here, more than last night, or so it seemed.

Tracers
arced over his left wing as he pushed the Hog into its bank. He felt the plane
rumble as he flipped the wings hard the other way, trying to dart north into a
piece of open air. The violent maneuver tugged the hell out of ailerons, not to
mention the wings and the rest of the plane, but the Hog didn’t seem to mind,
not even bothering to groan as her pilot shoved her over into a roll, gamely
holding her rudder straight despite the violent g forces and exploding
artillery fire. Finally clear, A-Bomb leveled out, running due west as briefed,
his eyes hunting for Knowlington.

His
stomach twitched again. Devil One ought to be right in front of him, but it
wasn’t.

OVER IRAQ

27 JANUARY 1991

2002

Captain
Wong stood
at
the edge of the MC-130 ramp, waiting in front of the open doorway. He had his
arms linked with the two Delta troopers who were jumping with him, not wanting
to take even the slightest chance of mistiming the jump. The combat transport
dipped suddenly, turning and rising so sharply that the sergeant on his right
slipped toward the opening. Wong tightened his arm, pulling the man back.

“Not
yet,” he said, though it was unlikely the sergeant could hear him.

Red
flashes began sifting through the sky behind the plane, followed by violent
greenish-yellow sprays.

Good,
thought Wong.

In
the next second, the jump light flickered and Wong stepped forward into the
rushing air. He spread his arms and in the same instant, the ripcord pulled.
The chute of his low-altitude rig popped open as Wong pushed his arms back into
his chest. They’d gone out below five hundred feet, even lower than planned— Wong
barely got himself situated when his rucksack hit the dirt behind him. He got
his legs ready, the ground coming up hard; as he hit the ground he rolled to
his right, turning his body into a shock absorber. He sprang up, undoing the
harness that had held his rucksack below him on the jump. As he furled his
chute, he noted a group of convenient rocks; he was able to stow the darkly
colored chute beneath one of them.

The
two troopers came down within a few yards of him. They gathered their chutes
silently, shouldering their gear and then joining Wong near the rocks to hide
their chutes as he checked their location on his GPS.

They
had landed ten feet off the mark. The inaccuracy irked Wong, but was within the
acceptable margin of error for the mission.

“I’m
jumping at 32,000 feet from now on,” grouched Salt. “We couldn’t have been over
a hundred fuckin’ feet. Fuckin’ pilot shoulda warned us.”

“I
believe we were lower than planned,” agreed Wong. “But nonetheless we were on
target. Your knee?”

“Ain’t
nothing,” said the sergeant. “I ain’t no fuckin’ pussy.”

“Wrap
it as a precaution,” said Wong. He reached into his belt and removed a piece of
ace bandage he kept handy for precisely such contingencies. Salt frowned but
took the bandage, diligently winding it around his knee. He continued cursing,
apparently unable to go more than thirty seconds without using at least one
expletive.

In
the meantime, Davis unfolded his AN-PRC-119 and its keyboard to transmit a
short, coded message indicating that they were on the ground in the proper
location. Though bulky, the unit ensured that the transmission could not be
intercepted and give their presence away.

Transmission
sent, the sergeant repacked his equipment. As he shouldered his rucksack, the
earth shook with a violent explosion, undoubtedly a fresh secondary from the
attack that had been launched as the Hercules approached the drop point. A gush
of red lit the sky to the northwest, throwing a pinkish shadow in the direction
of the hills surrounding Kajuk, which lay to its right. Both Delta troopers
turned toward it.

“Sergeants,
no one admires a good explosion more than I, but our task lies this way,” said
Wong, pointing to the east. “And I would prefer to reach the highway before the
trucks.”