HOGS #5: TARGET SADDAM (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) (27 page)

OVER IRAQ

27 JANUARY 1991

2230

In
1943, a
U.S.
Army paratrooper stood under a set of extremely high poles as a Stinson light
observation aircraft trundled overhead. The Stinson dipped slightly, then held
steady; a hook off its fuselage caught the wire at the top of the poll and the
paratrooper shot nearly straight up into the air. Attached to a modified
parachute harness, the paratrooper was pulled along behind the plane at roughly
a hundred and twenty-five miles an hour before being cranked inside the craft.
It wasn’t particularly pretty, but when the paratrooper finally clawed his way
in, he became the first American successfully scooped from the earth by an airplane.

Not
counting the sheep that had been strangled in the earlier experiments.

After
the war, Robert Fulton improved the ground-hook system considerably, stepping
up from sheep to pigs for his trials. On August 12, 1958, Marine Staff Sergeant
Levi Woods attached himself to a thin harness tethered to a helium balloon and
waited as a Navy P2V Neptune approached on wavering wings. The plane snagged a
line held by the balloon and the sergeant was airborne. The tug that propelled
him upwards supposedly felt lighter than the pull of a parachute opening,
though it should be noted that on being winched into the P2V the pigs tended to
attack the crew.

Streamlining
behind the patrol craft, Woods extended his arms and legs, literally flying as
he was pulled toward the plane. When he reached the hold, he had successfully
demonstrated the Fulton surface-to-air recovery (STAR) system, and proven once
and for all that Marines are crazier than most normal human beings.

The
Air Force adopted the STAR system for Spec Ops during Vietnam. Air Force
personnel being somewhat less crazy than Marines, the system was not actually
used in combat during the war. But it continued to be a favorite of Spec Op
troops, or more accurately their commanders, who frowned on risking small and
slow helicopters in hostile situations when much larger craft like lumbering
transports could be sent instead.

By
the time Saddam decided to push into Kuwait, improvements in the C-130 meant
that a covert team could be picked up by an aircraft nearly impossible to
track. Compared to earlier versions as well as other transports and
helicopters, the MC-130 variants were sneaky fast, avoided snoopy radars, and
could make quick and effective forays into enemy territory without needing a
sixty-plane escort. In theory, the STAR system gave the U.S. an almost
invincible covert retrieval capability.

That
was the theory. To Captain Lars Warren, stroking the control column to avoid
yet another Iraqi SAM site, the reality was very different. As long as he
stayed where he was— fifty feet above the increasingly bumpy and varied terrain—
his Herk couldn’t be seen by radar. It could be heard, however, and the night
wasn’t nearly so dark that it couldn’t be seen— as a row of tracers erupting to
his left vigorously demonstrated.

“We’re
okay,” said the navigator, presumably meaning that the gun was being fired
simply by sight, and not very well.

Lars
didn’t answer. He held his flight path steady, passing the tracers without
getting hit.

Or
at least, without knowing if he was hit.

“The
A-10s have engaged the target vehicle,” Kelly told him. “Destroyed.
Everything’s moving ahead, just with the timetable pushed up. Two Hogs coming
west to cover us. F-16s en route as well.”

Lars
grunted. He didn’t want a play-by-play. He didn’t want to hear anything except
for the loud drone of the Herk’s four-bladed engines.

“Thirty-five
minutes to show time,” said the navigator.

“Okay.”

“GPS
looks good.”

“Okay.”

They
were headed toward the Euphrates, not far from the heart of the country. They’d
take one more turn, get on a direct course to the target area. They’d pop up
about sixty seconds before hitting the target area and take a hard turn
southwest. The balloon ought to be right in front of him, sitting pretty at
five hundred feet.

Right.

They’d
hook the line with the prong at their nose. A guideline ran from the wingtips
to the forward fuselage to protect the line from the propellers. After the rope
was snared, the crew would winch in the first two members of the team. He’d
then come around and repeat the process for the last man. It would take between
six and ten minutes to get them in.

Right.

There
were a million Iraqis below, every single one of them armed to the teeth. There
were a million anti-aircraft weapons of every description— 23mm, 56mm,
shoulder-fired heat seekers, high-altitude SA-2s, Rolands, SA-6s, SA-9s,
machine-guns, and pistols. Even a stinking slingshot could nail them this low,
this slow, this straight.

At
least one flight of MiGs had taken off earlier and was still inexplicably
unaccounted for. The AWACS and the interceptors scrambled to meet them lost
them near their air base. Did that mean they had landed— or were they simply
flying low like Lars was?

Lars
heard himself give the crew a briefing on the situation. They were on course
and in the green.

“Cool,”
he said. “Everything’s cool.”

Where
the hell did that BS come from?

He
checked his course again, careful to keep an eye on the terrain-following
radar. The flight engineer went through the systems readouts. The navigator counted
down to the turn. They hit the way-marker and he banked, fighting off some
unexpected turbulence. His hands turned to jelly. He told himself he was
sticking with it, and heard the pilot gasping for air.

He
was the pilot now. He was the
one who couldn’t breathe.

“Thirty
minutes,” said the navigator.

“Thirty,”
said Lars. “Everything’s cool.”

OVER IRAQ

27 JANUARY 1991

2235

A-Bomb
began closing
the distance between himself and Skull as they came up on the initial target
area south of Kajuk. The ground team had finally checked in with the
controller; Devils One and Two were going to take a pass and knock down any
units that might try and follow Wong and the boys back to their pickup spot.

The
way A-Bomb saw it, the mission had been among the most boring he’d ever flown.
Sure, they’d hit a heavily armed SAM site and saved a French guy, but he
personally hadn’t done much more than wreck two trucks. Hell, he could have
gotten that at home.

Often
had, come to think about it.

But
that was the way your luck went. Sometimes you got the short straw and diddled
around with pickup trucks and a ZSU that couldn’t hit a BUFF flying at a
thousand feet with four engines out. Other days you got to nail down a Scud,
fry a dozen T-72s and duck a battery of SA-6s, all before you finished drinking
your coffee.

Would
be nice to nail the Mercedes, he thought, focusing in on the sedan with his IR
viewer. The doors were open, it was off the side of the road, and it was
obviously not a threat, but there was nothing like poking holes in over-priced
German sheet metal to puff up your chest. Frenchie woulda liked it, too.

“A-Bomb,
I got some vehicles on that highway at the base of the hill. You see ‘em?”

“Not
yet,” he told Skull, pulling the viewer back out to what passed for
wide-screen.

“Some
sort of gun on one of them. I’m not sure if it’s a tank or what, but it seems
to be the only thing big left down there. Armored car or BMP, maybe.”

“Could
be,” agreed A-Bomb, still trying to find them.

“I’m
going to sweep around and run south toward those vehicles Doberman hit before
they left. If you can’t find anything else, take out the gun.”

“It’s
what I’m talkin’ about,” said A-Bomb.

“Watch
your fuel.”

“Always.”

“Vipers
claim they’ll be here in zero-five.”

“Tell
‘em to take their time.”

A-Bomb
checked his position against the INS and his paper map. He knew which hill
Skull meant— it ought to be just left of center at the bottom of his
windscreen, which should put the road right across the center of the Maverick’s
targeting video. But damned if all he had there were a few rocks.

Problem
was, he was too high— eight thousand feet. Hog didn’t like to fly this stinking
high. Eight
hundred,
now that was an altitude to fly at.

A-Bomb
did the ol’ tuck and roll, plummeting toward the earth as the plane squealed
with delight.

And
hot damn, there were the vehicles Skull had told him about, definitely a BMP
and something smaller, transport or an oversized pickup. Hot spots on both
suddenly flared, guns blazing away on the ground.

A-Bomb
wanted to reserve one missile so he’d be able to see the ground without
resorting to a flare if things got hot again. On the other hand, it looked to
be impossible to hit both with one shot; they were separated by five yards.

Hit
the side of the BMP and go for the bounce.

He
dialed in the Maverick and fired. Something on the ground blinked as the AGM’s
motor lit. Gunfire sparkled all around.

Iraqis
couldn’t be firing at themselves.

Shit.
His guys must have wandered up there where they didn’t belong. They were going
to be damn close to the BMP went it went boom.

All
he could do was watch.

IRAQ

27 JANUARY 1991

2240

Dixon
grabbed for
his
rifle as he fell backwards into the trench, expecting the Iraqi who had just
opened fire to run forward spraying his automatic rifle. But the man’s first
shots had been mistaken by the troops near the BMP as the enemy’s and they
began shooting. The armored vehicle rolled forward a few yards from its hiding
spot, splattering bullets from its machine-gun and 73 mm cannon. Dixon
squirreled around to his stomach, clutching Budge as the gunfire crescendoed; a
small truck parked ten yards beyond where the man had been burst into flame.
Only then did the shooting stop. There were shouts, screams— two Iraqis ran
from the BMP, talking and huffing for breathe. Dixon looked at Budge as they
passed, then back at his rifle. The tone of the men’s words turned harsh and
then anguished as they neared the truck; they realized they had just killed
their own men.

As
they ran back toward the BMP and Land Rover, one of the men seemed to be
crying. They were almost in front of Dixon and Budge when a quick burst of
light machine-gun fire took them down; the BMP began firing again, its two
weapons clattering like over-sized typewriters as they raked the ground in
front them. A dozen shadows moved from behind the personnel carrier toward the
road.

No,
into the ditch. They were sidling in his direction.

Dixon
let off two quick bursts from his AK-74, then pulled the boy with him as he
threw himself forward across the highway. He tried to hug the ground while
moving at the same time; above all he kept his fingers tight on the boy’s
tattered shirt. He saw two rocks ahead, barely higher than cement blocks. He
swung Budge around as he dove for them, keeping him sheltered as the bullets
whipped around him.

If
the rocks deflected anything it was by pure chance. The light whhisssh of rifle
fire gave way to the throaty thump of the cannon, the shells moving
inextricably closer.

BJ
choked on the smoke and dust, praying for a miracle, praying to hear a familiar
sound from above— the throaty whoosh of an A-10A closing on its target. He
prayed and then in his confused desperation swore he heard it; he pulled Budge
beneath him, expecting, knowing that he had finally lost his mind and was ready
to die.

In
the next second a short, shrill whistle announced the impending arrival of one
hundred and twenty-five pounds of explosive on the top of the Iraqi BMP. A
ferocious wind slapped Dixon deeper into the ground as a piece of flaming steel
from the personnel carrier ignited the gas tank on the nearby Land Rover, turning
the vehicle into a three-quarter ton Molotov cocktail. The four or five Iraqis
who hadn’t been killed when the Maverick hit were fried as the truck’s shell vaporized.
Their ammo cooked off in a burst of Fourth of July finales.

And
then there was a hush, the flames eating themselves into oblivion. Dixon felt
the oxygen run out of his own body, as if sucked into the fire. He fought to
get it back, gagging in the dust as his lungs began working again.

Something
kicked underneath him. Dixon pushed himself sideways, fearing he had crushed
Budge. He looked at the small body writhing on the ground, lost his breath
again— then realized the kid was laughing, maybe out of fear or frustration,
but no, he seemed to find the whole thing a gag or joke staged just for him.
The boy giggled and cackled. Dixon, too, started laughing, as if they were in
the middle of a giant amusement park, as if they were at Disney World and Goofy
had just done a pratfall for their benefit.