HOGS #5: TARGET SADDAM (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) (9 page)

It
was wet with blood. There was at least one more in the ammo pocket. He teased
it out, gently feeling along the tube at top, past the fuse lever, to the
smooth round body before gripping it. BJ pulled it out and placed both grenades
next to each other on the ground. He reached into the belt again and felt
something sharp and jagged, his fingers flinching back against the
blood-saturated webbing material.

It
was part of the man’s pelvic bone, smashed out of place by one of the bullets
that had killed him.

Slowly,
Dixon pulled his hand away. He took another breath, then retrieved the gun
clips. He slid the grenades into his chest pockets.

As
he stood back, the corpse began to move.

He
took another step back, trying to raise his gun. But the rifle suddenly felt
heavier than three bags of cement.

The
corpse jumped to its feet, arms extending over its head in victory, Death
vanquished. It danced and flung itself in a swirl around the desert.

Dixon’s
breath caught. He closed his eyes and willed the cloud and its black noose
away. He felt the gun hanging from his hand, felt the strain in his shoulders
and his neck. He felt the pain in his leg and in his ribs, felt each bruise and
scrape, felt the air slowly emptying from his lungs.

When
he opened his eyes, the corpse lay back on the ground, head off kilter, its
mouth pasted in a sad frown.

Dixon
curled the rifle under his arm and pushed on.

KING FAHD

27 JANUARY 1991

1210

“There’s
no place
like
Home Drome. There’s no place like Home Drome— Wow, look at that Dog. Oz!”

“Oh,
you’re a fuckin’ riot, A-Bomb,” answered Doberman as they trundled into the
Devil Squadron parking area in front of the hangars, an area affectionately
dubbed “Oz” because of the wondrous things the maintenance wizards did there.
As the two planes wheeled into their assigned spots, a large bear emerged from
one of the hangars and began ambling in their direction— the Capo di Capo was gracing
them with a personal welcome. Crewmen genuflected and fell over themselves to
get out of his way.

Powering
their mounts down, the Hog drivers descended to the tarmac. Chief Clyston
waited a short distance away, his presence evident in the quick snap of the men
scurrying to secure the planes.

“Hey,
Capo, what’s shakin’,” said A-Bomb, walking over.

“You
better not have broken my airplane,” growled the chief.

“Geez,
who bit you in the ass?” said A-Bomb. By common consensus, he was the only
member of the squadron, officer or enlisted, who could get away with a remark
like that to the capo.

Clyston
harumphed in response, then turned to Doberman.

“Captain
Glenon, sir, I heard what you did with that MiG. Kick-ass flying, sir. I’m
f-in’ proud of you, and every member of this squadron is f’-in’ proud of you,
even if they don’t officially know what you did.”

“You
mean they don’t know, or they don’t know that they know,” laughed A-Bomb.

“Yeah,
thanks, Chief. I appreciate it,” said Glenon, who wanted desperately to get out
of his gear and grab something to eat.

That
and take a leak.

Clyston
took a measured step backwards and did something that nearly knocked Doberman
over: He lifted his hand up for a salute.

Glenon
hesitated; truth was, he’d never seen Clyston salute before. In fact, he wasn’t
sure he’d ever seen
any
chief master sergeant in the Air Force salute
before, certainly not to him.

But
here was Clyston, grizzled bear of grizzled bears, seriously waiting for him to
snap off a salute in return.

“Okay,”
said Doberman. He gave his best impression of a parade color guard— in truth
not a very good one— and returned the salute. “Thanks. Your guys, I mean, Rosen
and Tinman and the rest out at Al Jouf, they were kick ass, too.”

“Thank
you, sir.” Clyston remained at attention.

“I
appreciate the sentiment, really. But, you know.”

“Yeah.
I know. You got a bullshit deal. But these guys appreciate what you did. They
won’t forget.” Clyston glanced over Doberman’s shoulder toward the crews
examining the planes. He morphed back to his old self with a loud growl at one
of his men. “Grimsley, you start on the
other
side of that first, for
christsake. Geeee-zus-f-ker-eye-st.”

Doberman
started shagging along toward the life support shop, where he could change. He
and O’Rourke would have to gather their thoughts for a round of reports on both
the border incident and their time north at Fort Apache; he wasn’t looking
forward to intel debriefings but they were a necessary part of the job.
Inevitably, he’d forget some vital thing that somebody else would remember and
he’d have to answer a ton of questions about it, trying to stretch his memory
when all he’d be interested in doing was playing cards or catching Zs. He
started outlining what had happened with the tanks and the SA-7 as he walked;
he had the play-by-play more or less summarized before realizing Clyston was
tagging along with them.

“Something
up, Chief?” he asked.

“Couple
of things,” said Clyston. “New D.O. is a certified asshole, for starters.”

“New
D.O.?” said A-Bomb. “I had ten bucks on Dogman here getting the post.”

Clyston’s
scowl deepened. “Between you, me and the lamp post, sirs, I truly wish he was.
I’m sorry if this is news to you, Captain.”

“I
don’t want to be D.O. anyway,” said Doberman.

“A
Major Horace Gordon Preston,” said Clyston, answering the obvious question.
“You can tell he did time at the Pentagon. For my money, he belongs back
there.”

Coming
from Clyston, the pronouncement was libel. And his next sentence explained why:

“Fucking
zippersuit wants us to take down our Saddam sign.”

“Eat
shit, Saddam?
Oh
man, you can’t do that,” said A-Bomb. “That’s, like, our motto. It’s what I’m
talking about. You have to leave that up. You have to leave that up.”

“I
didn’t say it was coming down,” said Clyston slowly. “Only that Preston wants
it down.”

“What’s
the Colonel think?” asked A-Bomb.

Clyston
shrugged.

“Skull
wants it down?”

“I
haven’t talked to him about it,” said Clyston. “Not my place.”

“Well,
I will,” said A-Bomb.

Clyston
turned his head slowly to O’Rourke. “I’d appreciate that, Captain.”

More
than the sign was obviously at stake. The chief was by far the closest man,
regardless of rank, to Colonel Knowlington on the base. Rumor had it they had
served together when the Air Force was still using biplanes. If Clyston
mentioned it to Knowlington himself, the odds were overwhelming that
Knowlington would make sure the sign stayed.

So
it must be that the chief saw Preston as a threat, and not to him.

“I’ll
speak to the colonel, too,” said Doberman. “And we’ll watch out for him. He’s a
good commander. A-Bomb and I were just telling some clods from the CinC’s staff
at Al Jouf that, as a matter of fact.”

“Thank
you, Captain.” The chief’s smile extended slowly. “There’s a meeting scheduled
for 1300 hours to introduce the new DO, pilots, senior NCOs, and probably an
f-in’ cheerleading squad if Preston has any input on it. In the meantime, you
sirs might want to run into Major Wong.”

“Wong’s
back?” asked A-Bomb.

“And
last I saw, headed for lunch,” said Clyston. “You really, really want to talk
to him, Captain,” he added, turning to Doberman. “You’ll be glad you did.”

27 JANUARY 1991

1240

Skull
stared at
the
top sheet of the lined pad on his desk. He’d sketched a backwards “7” in the
lower left-hand quadrant; atop it was a sideways, script “v.” Two small squares
sat like ink blots at the top stem.

Anyone
glancing at it would have thought the hieroglyphics meaningless. In fact, it
was the outline of his mission.

A
maniac’s mission, as Padington had put it. And obviously the reason CinC wasn’t
willing to dedicate more than a few Hogs and an old C-130 to it.

Not
true. The Hogs were backing up four F-111s, and the C-130 wasn’t old. There
were a dozen other planes involved, counting the CAP that would be orbiting
nearby, the ABCCC command and control plane, the electronics-warfare craft, the
SAM suppressers, and the rest of the support team.

But
truly, it was a shot in the dark. And truly, finding Dixon was going to take
more than a little luck.

If
anyone could do it, Wong could. Skull knew that. But still— a long shot.

And
the slingshot they planned to use to get them out— that wasn’t even worth
thinking about. The best hope was that helo flights would be cleared into the
area by the time the mission took off— possible, but not likely.

Best
to worry only about his part of the mission. Because he wasn’t allowed to
disrupt his other missions, Knowlington’s planes would be over hostile
territory for as much as six hours, from the drop to the pickup. They had to
stay low to avoid being picked up by the sophisticated Iraqi defenses— and they
had to remain unseen (and unheard) to avoid tipping off anyone of the ground
team’s presence. At the same time, they had to back up the F-111s and drop the
pods containing the STAR gear. To do all this, he’d have only four planes— assuming
Chief Clyston lived up his promise that he could have four ready without
disrupting the other missions.

Easy.
For a maniac or a Hog driver.

If
the mission succeeded - if they got Saddam— Skull and the others were going to
be world class heroes. Every last one of them could run for President.

But
Saddam wasn’t why he’d sketched the 7 and V on the pad, or why he’d pushed so
hard to get the mission approved, or why he’d decided he was flying it himself.
He wanted Dixon back. If there was even a small chance that he might be able to
get him— an infinitesimally small, minute chance— he had to go for it.

No
MIA bracelets in this war.

It
was an arrogant, foolish thought. Guys got killed, guys got captured, guys got
lost. Who the hell was he to wipe that out? What gave him the right to risk
somebody’s else’s neck on a wild goose chase for a corpse?

Rank
gave him the right. He made these kinds of judgments every day.

All
the more reason to be sane now, to assess the odds carefully, calmly— like the
CinC and his staff. Not a word they had said at the meeting had been out of
line or wrong. The odds were long, long, long.

“We’re
here to volunteer.”

Skull
snapped around, startled by Doberman’s voice at the door. He hadn’t heard the
door being opened, much less a knock.

“We’re
going,” said A-Bomb, entering the small room behind Glenon. “What’s the game
plan?”

“Where
is it you’re going?” Knowlington asked them.

“Don’t
bullshit us, Colonel,” said Doberman. His face was tinged red; his voice
snapped with the bark that had earned him his nickname. “We just talked to
Wong. We’re in.”

“Wong?”
Skull folded his arms into his chest. Both Doberman and Glenon had just gotten
back from an incredibly taxing gig supporting Scud hunting operations north of
the border. By rights, they deserved at least a few days off.

If
not months.

“You
guys get any sleep last night?”

“We
slept like babies,” said Doberman. “When we taking off?”

“Close
the door,” Knowlington said. He sat back, examining the two men standing side
by side in front of him. They couldn’t be more different physically. Doberman
was short even for a pilot and probably weighed no more than one-twenty. A-Bomb
loomed over six feet; his burly frame had to be at least twice as heavy as
Doberman’s.

They
were different temperamentally as well: Doberman ready to go off like a bomb
fuse set too high; A-Bomb about as laid back as a human could be, at least
until he was diving on his target.

Typical
Hog drivers, though, each in his own way.

“You
giving us the deal, or do we have to torture it out of you?” asked A-Bomb
finally.

“Our
end’s straightforward,” said Skull. “Four planes total, two elements. Take off
from here around dusk. Zig out from KKMC around one or two SAM sites, then
northwest to a point about sixty miles south of Kajuk, the village you hit
yesterday. Two planes go up toward Kajuk to cover a drop about three miles
south of the village; two hold back as reserves. Most of that is at fifty feet
to hide from some serious missiles Wong’s worried they’re movin’ in.”