And given the sudden change in Knowlington's behavior, it was impossible not to think he might have hit the bottle.
But he sure acted sober.
"Assuming we get these two guns here,” said the colonel, pointing to the board, “we go for the dish next. The question I have is, what else is left up there that we have to make sure we get?"
"Damned if I know," said Doberman. "If the Maverick didn’t hit the dish, who knows what else we missed. I don’t understand how the missile could have screwed up.”
"Maybe the guidance didn’t," suggested Captain Blake, one of the pilots with extensive weapons training. “It might be that it flew right through, if the fuse screwed up. So you’d just have a hole.”
“Could have just blown up part,” said another pilot. “But left enough for it to work, or at least send out a signal.”
“Maybe we should put the cannon on it,” said A-Bomb, talking like he was going to fly on the mission. “No way you miss with that.”
“Way too dangerous,” said Jimmy Corda, the squadron's intelligence officer. He had come back a few days ago from serving as a liaison with Black Hole and had helped plan the original mission. "You’ll we walking through a minefield."
"There's a hell of a lot of triple-A," said Doberman. "You go low enough to make sure you hit it, the plane'11 get fried. And the cloud cover’s supposed to be worse tomorrow than it was today."
"We have to make sure we get hits," said A-Bomb. "Hell, if we can’t trust the Mavericks, what can we trust?”
"There's another dish!" blurted Dixon.
Everyone turned around to look at him. He'd been standing behind the couch, arms stiffly at his side.
"What do you mean, BJ?" asked Knowlington.
"I— when I started to make my second run with the Maverick, I saw a dish. It was strange, because I knew that Doberman had fired on it already. I didn't think he could miss."
"A second dish?" asked Corda. "It didn't show on the photos."
"Locate it for us," suggested Knowlington.
Dixon walked slowly to the front of the room. Mongoose saw that his hands were shaking.
Kid was fried. He felt sorry for him. He'd had a hell of a lot of promise, but not the stomach.
"I don't know," said Dixon. He took the target photos the squadron had received, and the map, trying to correlate them and put the spot on the diagram. "Maybe this shadow. I— I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. If I could back up there and see— "
"Let me see," said Corda. He took the photos in his chubby fingers, examining them. "You know, if it is there," he told Knowlington, "the satellite’s angle might have obscured it."
"If there were two dishes instead of one," said A-Bomb, "then it explains what the problem was. And it explains why the radar is still up when we know Doberman's Maverick hit."
"Yeah, okay," said Doberman. "I didn't see another one. But you know, the RWR got something that I couldn't account for. Like a second dish being turned on for a quick second. I thought it was just a flakeout."
"There are definitely two," interrupted Wong. He walked to the front of the room with the intel photos. "The layout of the trailers gives it away."
"In case you haven't met him, this is Captain Wong, the newest member of the squadron," Knowlington explained. "The captain came over working on a little intelligence project, and now he's going to hang out with us a while."
Wong's head practically snapped off its neck in surprise.
"I just talked to the general and it's all set," Knowlington told him. He turned back to the group, ignoring Wong's expression— which was somewhere between confused and ballistic. "Captain knows more about Russian weapon systems than the goddamn commies. Or ex-commies, excuse me. Come on, Captain, give us the spit."
Wong stifled his objections and began explaining how Soviet intercept radars were configured; a few paragraphs into his lecture, one of the pilots cut him off. "So why didn't Black Hole catch it?"
"It is camouflaged, as you noted. Some things even I cannot answer."
"It's not their job. They only get the sites and then dish them out in the frag," explained Corda. "They don't usually get so specific, like trailer A, not B. Besides, there's a real disconnect between the planners and the intel people. Hell, I'm surprised we got this much data to begin with. Pictures, shit! Anybody here ever see photos in an A-10 strike folder?"
"Only of Goose's wife," said A-Bomb.
He was about the only one in the squadron who could make that crack and not get his butt kicked.
"You can target both dishes to make sure," said Wong. "Let me make another suggestion," he added, walking to the dry-erase board and its layout of the target area. Taking a black felt marker from his pocket, he pointed to two Xs in the lower left-hand corner, sites where 23 mm guns had been located earlier in the day. He added two more Xs, then moved his pen across the board and added several more.
"If I can see those photos again, please." He waited while they were passed up, then once more began drawing on the board. "There are many more guns here than you have diagrammed. And they are not merely 23 mm weapons, though, of course those can be quite effective at low altitude, even if you jam the radars and they use optical aiming. Of greater importance for your strategy are these 57 mm S-6 canons. Very significant weapons. We can quibble about the guidance systems, but that is academic if you are hit, I assure you.”
He scratched his cheek. “The four at the south are all big ones. There are considerably more large-caliber weapons than the Iraqis usually employ. So they have you high and low. By high I mean for you; these guns are not particularly effective above, oh, we should say, thirty-five hundred meters. This is an interesting deployment, incidentally. The Russians use this pattern themselves every so often for a number of reasons. . . "
He was about to list them, but changed gears at a glance from the colonel.
"The thing that is important is that they are effective at a much higher altitude and longer range than you have calculated," he said. "If you are protecting your helicopters, you must consider that."
“No shit,” muttered A-Bomb, just loud enough to provoke a nervous laugh from half the room.
Wong ignored it. "The configuration gives them very potent killing cones through eleven thousand feet. Even when optically aimed, they are bound to hit anything passing through these arcs."
He drew a pair of thick cones that included the flight pattern Doberman took on his bombing run this morning.
"Those Xs at the bottom aren't 23 millimeter?" asked Corda.
Wong shook his head. "This barrel configuration, do you notice it?"
"Looks like a cat's whisker to me."
"A very deadly meow. So you make your attack at six thousand feet, thinking you are safe, but you are not. Your plane had that problem today. They will be difficult to spot until they begin firing: you see how concealed they are. Most experts would miss it, thought of course not someone like me. Now, this camouflaging I have seen only in a few other places. I think that the idea came from a Major Andre. . ."
"Yeah, okay," said Doberman. "So what do you suggest?"
Wong smiled. "If you know where they are, you can attack them safely from a distance. For that, you must use their tactics to your advantage. If they acquire you here first," said Wong, pointing at his X's on the bottom, "and think you are attacking from this direction, all of the guns will be aimed in this arc. Let the radars think they have you. They all fire. Then you come quickly from the rear. You will have no less than ten seconds to make your attack."
Somebody in the back whistled.
Wong shrugged. “Of course, sooner or later, they run out of ammunition. The Iraqi supply. . .”
“Thanks Captain,” cut in Knowlington. “Okay, so we have four guns down here that have to go, plus the dishes. How do we get close enough to see them?”
“What if we tickle them at twelve thousand, look for the sparks, and then hit them?” suggested Corda.
"Then, we'd
need more than two planes," said Doberman. "The first two come in on the south, turn around, and the others nail the bastards.”
“You’re going to need four planes just to make sure you hit everything,” said Corda. “Can we take them off another mission?”
"This is more complicated than a stinking ballet," said A-Bomb. "I say just pour on the gas and take out the mothers. Hogs weren't made to bomb from twelve thousand feet. We got to get in the mud, man. That's our job."
"Our job is to take out those radars," said Knowlington. "And to come back in one piece. Everyone. Wong's idea makes a hell of a lot of sense. The problem is, we need four planes. Every Hog we have capable of flying is allotted."
"We have two more,” said Clyston. "We've been holding back the two Hogs Captain Glenon tried to crash. We'll have them ready by 0400."
There were a few worried looks on the faces of Clyston's sergeants, but none of them said a word.
"Not enough time," said Knowlington.
Even pushing as fast as they could go, the Hogs would take close to an hour to get to King Khalid Military City; gassing up there would cost at least thirty minutes. Add an hour to Al Jouf, another pit, and then thirty to find the target— all of the times were optimistic, in everyone's opinion. You were talking at least three and a half hours, with no margin for error and a hell of a lot of luck riding along as your wingman.
"You just know Al Jouf is going to be a mad house," said A-Bomb. "Ask Dixon what it was like this afternoon."
"Why stop at Al Jouf?" said Doberman. "If we refuel by air we can cut some time off."
"And if we miss the tanker?"
"We won't miss a tanker."
“It’s dark outside, A-Bomb, or haven’t you noticed?”
"What if you went straight there from KKMC?" suggested Clyston. "You can make it if we lighten your load."
Mongoose rose and got a calculator from the desk, working the numbers. He hated to admit it, but having the entire squadron involved in planning the mission generated a certain amount of energy that wouldn't have been there if just a few of the pilots worked it out alone.
"The problem is, what do you leave behind?" asked Doberman.
Clyston poked one of the sergeants sitting next to him. "You go with only four Mavs apiece, no iron," said the man."That gets us to two and a half hours, pushing the speed north a bit. Even with a good time over the target, you can make it with about ten minutes of reserves to spare, assuming you refuel just over the border."
It took Mongoose, pressing the calculator buttons madly, several minutes to discover the sergeant was correct.
"Ten minutes is tight," said Knowlington. "And four mavericks doesn’t give us much backup."
"The sergeant's right about the time," said Mongoose, looking up from the calculator. "But the planes have to go like hell to KKMC.”
"Four o’clock is still a half hour short,” said Knowlington.
“We’ll make it by 0300,” said Clyston. He caught a glance from one of his men and amended his prediction to 0330. “And what if we put six Mavericks on two of the planes? Just load up the triple rails.”
Clyston held up his hand as one of his weapons specialists whispered in his ear. They talked back and forth a second, then the capo-di-capo announced that they could work it out. Though designed as a triple rail, the launchers ordinarily carried only two Mavericks.
"Fuel-wise, it'll work," announced Mongoose. "The tank on the way out has to be a quickie, though, or the fourth plane drops into the sand."
"Kind of risky," said Corda. "I almost ran dry waiting on line this afternoon."
"Me, too," said Hobbes. "All these stinking Navy guys were waiting in line."
"Go to separate tanker tracks after the attack," suggested Wong.
It was one of those solutions so obvious everyone had missed it.
"You sure you're from the Pentagon?" asked Clyston.
"Sure he is," said Corda. "The pen he used on the dry-erase board is a permanent marker."
***
As the meeting was starting to run out of steam, Mongoose leaned toward Knowlington. "I'd like to have a word."
There was no mistaking the tone, but Knowlington took it mildly. He nodded, and gestured toward his office.
"You've got a beef," Knowlington said when they got there.
"Several."
"Shoot."
"Number one, why the round robin discussion?"
"I thought getting everybody involved would be good," said Knowlington. "And not just for morale."
"Having the techs in. . ."
"You don't think they contributed?"
"I didn't say that," sputtered the pilot.
"I don't think anyone abused the privilege. This was a special situation. What were the other things you wanted to say?"
"Dixon."
"What about him?"
"I don't trust him on the mission."
Knowlington had expected to be questioned on the meeting, which had been a spur of the moment decision. He knew that Johnson's real problem with it was that it signaled he was taking a much more aggressive role directing the squadron than he had until now. Not that he wasn't doing his job, just that he hadn't really done it until now.
He'd felt tentative, out of his element with the unfamiliar planes, an old pilot good for nothing more than initialing requisitions. Watching the Hogs land had somehow changed that.
It was natural that the major, who'd more or less been filling the void, would have his nose slightly out of joint. But that didn't account for his feelings about Dixon.
"Why don't you trust him?" the colonel asked.
"I think he's a liability."
"Because he lost Doberman?"
"No. It's more than that. Think about it, Colonel. Doberman's plane comes back like Swiss cheese and his is clean."
"There's no question he was over the target," said Knowlington.
"I'm not saying that."
"Well what then? Are you saying he was too lucky?"
"No." Mongoose sighed. "He flew today. He's tired as hell."
"I have to tell you, Goose, I think you need a pretty specific reason to hold him back. He knows the site, and if he's tired, what about you?" Knowlington paused, scanning the major's face for fatigue. It had to be there, but it didn't show. "Is there something else? I mean, obviously Dixon screwed up firing the Mavericks and he's taking it hard, but I don't think that's a reason to ground him."
"I'm not grounding him," snapped the major. "I just don't want him on this mission."
Knowlington again studied Johnson's face, but he was really trying to sort out his own thoughts. On the one hand, the major ought to have the right to choose who went on this mission. On the other hand, keeping Dixon back without a solid reason wasn't fair to the lieutenant, and would probably affect him for weeks if not forever. Knowlington had seen more than one pilot completely tank after being treated unfairly; he'd had a buddy shot because he did stupid things after losing his self-confidence.
There were other considerations. The way they had it drawn up, Dixon would have to be replaced with a pilot from another mission. Sure, he could get plenty of volunteers, but what did he do with the slot it left open? And if there were doubts about Dixon's abilities, wouldn't it be better to fly him in a place he already knew— and had volunteered for?
It seemed to Knowlington better all around to keep Dixon on the mission. But he decided he had to defer to Johnson, if he felt strongly about it.
"Let me tell you a story," the colonel started.
“I don't want to hear another of your goddamn stories. This is our war we're fighting," said Mongoose, storming away.
CHAPTER 37
KING FAHD ROYAL AIRBASE
2255
Dixon curled on his cot, trying to calm his stomach and slice away maybe half of what was in his head.
He was getting his chance to redeem himself.
What had the old guy said in the letter? He thought about pulling it
out and reading it again, but the words came back without effort.
Keep your head up and moving toward the next battle.
Not particularly profound, but the best advice never was.
But what if Dixon screwed up again? What if this time they lost someone in the squadron because of him?
Should he go to Major Johnson right now and tell him he wasn't up to it?
And be forever branded a coward?
Was that better than fucking up again?
Maybe it was better to go, get shot down and die a hero.
No, die as someone people thought was a hero. There was a difference.
A voice cut through the tangle of contradictions racing in his brain. Dixon turned over toward the door, startled.
"Excuse me for barging in like this, guys," said Colonel Knowlington. "If you're up."
Dixon bolted upright. His feet found the floor as he jumped up and started to salute.
The colonel laughed softly, glancing at the tent's other two cots. One was empty; on the other, Lieutenant Phaze snored peacefully, deep in oblivion.
"Geez, BJ, relax. What do you think, we're in the army? I don't think even GIs salute in tents. Besides, relax." Knowlington took a chair and pulled it close to the cot. "Phazer asleep?"
"Bomb wouldn't wake him," said Dixon.
"You tired?" the colonel asked, keeping his voice soft.
"No."
Knowlington smiled. His grayish-white hair seemed like a halo of light around his balding skull. The colonel had the subdued air of a college professor nearing retirement, not the gung-ho, in-your-face attitude of a television war hero. But that only awed Dixon all the more.
"I want you to know, there's no problem deciding to sit down. According to regulations, you shouldn't be flying anyway. You're supposed to get a good long break. Even in war. Especially then."
Dixon started to mumble something, but felt his throat choke off.
"You can stay home. No problem."
He knows I'm a coward, Dixon thought. He's giving me an out. “I, uh, I want to fly, Sir. Really."
Knowlington nodded. He was silent for a moment, considering what to say next. "Anything happen up there you want to tell me about?"
Hogs #1: Going Deep Page 14