His eyes turned upwards as a pair of F-15 Eagles on combat air patrol screeched across the sky well ahead and above the two A-10s. The pointy-nosed fast movers had just gotten word that an Iraqi plane was scrambling from an air base nearly a hundred and fifty miles to the north. The two jets looked like a pair of famished wolves, anxious for a kill.
Mongoose put his mind and eyes back where they belonged, scouting the ground ahead. The Hog was barely making two hundred knots, moving slow because of the altitude and its bomb load.
They were just three minutes to the target coordinate when Rheingold One checked in. He was swinging in from the northwest, obviously diverted from something else. His scopes were clear.
An old soldier now, the F-4 was equipped with radar-seeking HARM missiles that homed in on anti-air defenses. The missiles were extremely potent, but worked only when the radar sets were turned on— something the Iraqis had quickly learned not to do until they definitely wanted to shoot something down. The Weasel pilot sounded a little disappointed as he told Devil One things were quiet and would probably stay that way.
“Okay. Let’s keep it at fifteen thousand feet,” Mongoose told A-Bomb. “Take a circuit and see what we can see.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“You see that smudge off my right wing?”
“Four-barrel ZSU, gotta be.”
“Yeah, I think. Nowhere near where our missiles are supposed to be.”
“I got a good view. No missiles there. Looks like some sort of APC next to it, nothing else.”
“Okay, good. Let’s keep our distance.”
“’less we get bored.”
Mongoose held the Hog on its side so he could take a good gander at the ground, tilting his wings carefully. He told himself to break everything down, take things in pieces, and punch the buttons. This far north anything could happen. You had to go at it very deliberately.
There was no denying the adrenaline. In a certain way he almost considered this fun— not amusement park fun, since people were or could shot at him— but fun in the sense that it was what he was meant to do, what he was trained for and good at.
So where the hell were these things? He put his eyes out back toward the anti-aircraft gun he’d seen; well to the east now, its smudge had disappeared. It sat alone at the edge of the wasteland, with seemingly no reason to be agitated and too far from them to be of any immediate concern. He passed his eyes around in the other direction, noting that the desert was less stereotypical sand and dune desert here, more like a dirt parking lot that hadn’t been used in a long time. Scrubby vegetation and even some trees poked up everywhere in the packed-dirt wasteland before giving way to the more resolute stretches of sand.
Intel had passed around various pictures of Scud sites, and both Mongoose and A-Bomb had seen— and smoked— a carrier the other day. A typical launch site would arrange five or six missile erectors like fingers on a hand around a central command area. The Russian-made launchers were large trucks that looked like squashed soap pads with toilet paper tubes on them. But the Iraqis also made their own launchers from the transport trailers. From the air at this altitude they would look like long tanker trucks, dark pencils against the darker earth.
Mongoose saw nothing manmade below except the faint ribbon of a road. No trucks, no launchers, no Scuds. Definitely no base or flattened pull-off area. They were standing on the coordinates the controller had given them.
He continued the long, almost lazy figure-eight pattern around the area, gave a good scan again and still found nothing.
“See anything?” he asked his wing mate.
“Nah. You know what the problem is? We’re too high,” A-Bomb said. It was pretty much his answer to everything. “They could have all sorts of things camouflaged down there. We’re going to have to take it down.”
Mongoose reasoned that the plane that had spotted the launch site had probably been flying a lot higher than they were. “We’ll hold off on that a second,” he told A-Bomb. “You got that highway?”
“Oh, yeah. No missin’ it. Probably goes right to Saddam’s house.”
“Let’s follow it north and see if we can find anything worth taking a look at. Launch site has to be near a road.”
“Gotcha.”
Thirty seconds later, Mongoose caught the glare from something small and white moving along the highway ahead. He quick-glanced at the weapons panel but kept his stick hand solid. The white blur focused itself into a small pickup truck, too insignificant to be a target.
The road edged to the left ahead. There was a spot that seemed darker than the rest of the nearby desert; two or three shadows were at the edge, tents or something.
Good place for a bunker.
And more than that. Beyond the shadows were several rows of boxes that just had to be trucks, maybe armored personnel carriers or even light tanks.
“A-Bomb, there’s a wadi or something just northwest of the road where that truck is passing. Follow that and you’ll see a bunker complex or some awfully funny looking sand dunes looks like what, maybe a mile up it. Got it?”
Before his wing mate could acknowledge, the Hog’s launch warning system began shouting that Saddam’s forces had just fired a surface-to-air missile in their direction.
CHAPTER 5
KING FAHD, AIRBASE
21 JANUARY 1991
1742
For some guys, the worst time was the middle of the night. They’d lie awake in bed, sounds and shadows creeping around the periphery of their consciousness. Innocent things, or maybe not so innocent things, would poke at their memories, prod anxieties, fuel guilt. They’d sweat and writhe; eventually they’d get up. From there it would get worse.
Colonel Thomas “Skull” Knowlington had never minded the night. Even at the worst of times, he could sleep. And if he wasn’t sleeping, he was up because he had plenty to do, and having plenty to do meant he could focus on the present. That he could do; that was easy.
For him, the worst time was the middle of the day, the dead time between missions, when the paperwork was done, when he’d run out of things to check on, when he had no more calls to make or people to see. The late afternoon, with all his guys still out and everyone around him working or else off catching a quick breather— that was the worst time. That was the time he could do nothing, and doing nothing was the worst. Doing nothing led to old memories, and old memories led to a powerful thirst.
Thomas Knowlington— commander of 535th Attack Squadron (Provisional), wing commander, if only on paper, decorated hero of the Vietnam War, a survivor of not just combat but the more dangerous intricacies of service politics— would do anything not to satisfy that thirst. He had been sober now for going on three and a half weeks. “Skull” Knowlington needed to put one more day on that streak, just one more day.
There’d be more, a long string beyond that, but for now, just one solid, drink-free day was his goal.
For much of his air force career he had hated paperwork, abhorring the bureaucratic red tape and bullshit. Now he welcomed it— not because he appreciated that it was impossible to run an organization as vast and complex as the air force without it, but because it gave him something to focus on. But inevitably, it was over. When the colonel finished proof-reading the last fitness report— something that could have waited for weeks if not months— he found his small desk completely empty. He got up, deciding to check things in the shop area, a short walk from the complex of trailers used as the squadron offices and dubbed “Hog Heaven” by the men. Besides Devil Squadron, seven A-10A units, over a hundred planes, used King Fahd as their home drome; it was also home to an assortment of helo and C-130 units, not to mention serving as a safe place to set down for anyone in the area. O’Hare on the day before Thanksgiving wasn’t half as busy.
Out in the Devil’s repair areas, one of Knowlington’s crews was refurbishing a Hog damaged during action earlier in the week. A new starboard rudder was being fitted in place on the large double ta
il at the rear; the colonel stopped to watch as the wing and its new control surface were quickly made whole. It was a testament not only to the crew, but to the men who had designed the plane for rapid repair in battle conditions.
“Colonel, can we help you, sir?” snapped off Sergeant Rebecca Rosen. She had a piece of a radar altimeter in her hand.
That or the liver of some unsuspecting airman who’d come on to her.
Officer’s liver would be larger.
“I’m in good shape at the moment, Sergeant,” Knowlington told her. “How about yourself?”
“Well, there was one thing, Sir.”
The colonel resisted the temptation to say, “How did I guess?” Instead he took a step backwards, gesturing that she should continue. One of the tricks to dealing with Rosen was to keep her from a completely private area where she would feel at liberty to vent for hours.
She squinted, obviously debating whether to ask to speak in his office. The colonel, an old hand at hearing grievances real and imagined, stood hard-faced. It wasn’t that he disliked dealing with true problems. Rosen, however, was a walking folder of potential disciplinary BS. Just under five-two with a trim and not unpleasant build, her most distinguishing feature was the six-by-six chip on her shoulder. Knowlington’s chief sergeant rated her among the best technicians in the air force, an expert on the Hog’s avionics and a tireless worker. He also had her pegged as the top problem magnet in the squadron, a judgment Knowlington couldn’t argue with.
“The other afternoon,” she said. “Captain Meyer, sir, well he, uh— ”
“OK, now tell me. Meyer is who?” Knowlington asked.
Rosen stopped, her eyes receding into their sockets as she realized she had miscalculated. The spec five had obviously expected Meyer to complain about something she’d done; now that Rosen realized he hadn’t, she beat a slippery retreat. The squirm on her face was almost worth the pain she’d cause him next time. “Um, never mind, sir. I have to get this installed pretty much right away.”
“Any time, Sergeant,” said Knowlington cheerfully.
He distributed a few other nods, making sure the crewmen knew he was there but trying at the same time not to bother them. A good part of his job as commander was to be a cheerleader, as much as possible applauding the men— and now women— coming up with incentives to keep the team together and moving in the right direction, but trusting his subordinates as much as possible to do their jobs. Over the past few years he’d found it less and less necessary to be a scumbag; either the air force was getting better, or he was.
A Navy A-6 Intruder touched down on the runway with a loud screech. Knowlington stepped forward to watch as the muscled gray swallow taxied. The first time he’d seen one he’d been at Da Nang, diverted for an emergency landing after flying a bit too close to a triple-A battery in his Thud. He was in good enough shape to circle the field while the Navy pilot, low on fuel, made his own pit stop. The plane had suffered an unexplained electronics failure, a common failure of planes of the era, Intruders especially.
They had beers later. The Navy guy, a lieutenant with two tours under his belt, bemoaned the fact that he would take a hell of a ribbing when he got back to the carrier; real pilots brought their planes back to their ship, no matter what.
Later, on their third or fourth beer, Knowlington saw the glance. It was the first time he’d truly seen fear in a pilot’s eye. In retrospect, he realized that he’d seen other signs before, but not recognized them, didn’t know what they meant: the furtive glance at your hands, the slight hesitation before speaking, the quick order of another drink, the urge to talk too much. It wasn’t fear so much as being afraid of fear, as doubting yourself, and that was what killed you.
He heard later the guy had been shot down on his very next mission. MIA.
Knowlington tried to move his mind off the past, think of something else as the Intruder disappeared down the runway. Hell of a thing, trying to land on a carrier. Skull had never had the pleasure, and he counted himself lucky. Landing on a dime was one thing; landing on something that rolled beneath you was quite another.
Just another thing to make you doubt yourself, squinting for the ball in the dark when you were just about out of gas and probably had to take a leak besides.
Intruders were supposed to be pretty stable bombers, muscular workhorses that carried a ton-load of bombs— 15,000 to 16,000 pounds– off a carrier without breaking a sweat.
Thuds were champion haulers themselves. The notched-wing fighter-bombers had been designed to hump nukes at breakneck speed over enemy lines and get the pilot back in one un-radiated piece. Skull had carried some dummy nukes very early in his career, but what he used the F-105 for was dropping sticks on the North Vietnamese. He’d been pretty damn good at it, too.
Carrying a nuke. Now there was a pucker-ass job, if you stopped to think what you were doing. Some of the real old-timers talked about jets where they knew they’d never get away from the blast. Who was it– Schroeder, maybe?– laughed about the F-84, hanging his butt over Cuba three days in a row.
No, that was a different story. They had a tendency to blur together.
Damn, he wanted a drink.
His heart started pounding. He was back in the Thud, Ol’ Horse, plane one, stone ages. Smell of raw kerosene and something that reminded him of a dentist’s office thick in his nose. Muscling the stick after dropping his load. Tail-end Charlie and he’d lost the rest of the flight. Just like the nugget he was.
Nothing to panic about. Knowlington brought the plane around to his course, climbing and then something happened, something made him crane his neck back. Maybe it was training or luck or intuition or just random chance, but as the young pilot pitched his eyes toward the rear quarter of his plane he saw the double dagger of a MiG-17 coming up to get him.
They were tough little bastards, in theory obsolete but in reality more than competent dogfighters. They got you in a fur ball and you could easily get your throat slit. The eggheads could pretend the F-105 had them outclassed but experience said otherwise. Had Knowlington not realized the bastard was on him, he would have been nailed in thirty seconds.
But he saw him. And instead of opening the engine gates and running like hell– his briefed routine, his orders, the prudent thing to do, what he absolutely would have done in ninety-nine out of one hundred other chances– he tucked his wing, pushing the stick as he began a ballet maneuver that suckered the MiG into following into a dive-and-scissors roll. He saw it all in his head a split-second before it happened: the second of danger as the enemy sighted him; the spin around instead of breaking off; behind the enemy now; the 20mm M61A1 cannon rotating slowly at first, then gaining momentum as he caught the MiG just behind his right wing, and stayed with him as the plane jinked, and stayed with him until he realized the commie bastard was out of it; seeing the wing breaking off even as he fought his own stick to level off; and finally getting the hell out of here, straight on course for home.
It turned out another F-105 pilot had seen the whole thing, raved like hell, and Knowlington had earned the first of his long series of “good” nicknames, “Killer Kid,” and notched an improbable air-to-air victory in a plane not known as much of a dogfighter. His victory was due as much to surprise and probably inexperience on the MiG pilot’s part as his own skill, but that was the sort of thing that got glossed over in the first rush of victory. In any event he had plenty of chances later to show it wasn’t just luck that kept his wings in the air.
So long ago now, though the surprise in his chest when he realized he’d nailed that son of a bitch still felt fresh.
More than twenty years. Shit, twenty-five. He should be long-since retired.
Or made a general, though everyone knew why that didn’t happen.
Skull blinked his eyes and turned away from the runway, hoping to wipe his mind clean. Replaying old glories was something you did when you were sitting down for dinner at the old age home.
Or when you we
re drinking. He headed back toward his office. Maybe he’d reread the Devil’s frag— the portion of the air tasking order that pertained to them. The next-day’s to-do list had ten of the squadron’s twelve planes committed to battle. It was a tight schedule, with one left in the repair shop and only one other as a spare. Even so, if the crew got the damaged plane back together in time, the backups might be tasked for their own mission.
Knowlington was dying to lead a mission himself. He’d been told not to, and there were good reasons for him to follow orders— starting with the fact that they were orders— but still. What good was a squadron commander who didn’t fly?
He put his head down, pushing the question and its inevitable answer from his mind as he walked back toward his office.
* * *
He was a few steps from the door to Hog Heaven when he was caught by the bear-like voice of Chief Master Sergeant Alan Clyston, his “capo di capo”. Clyston not only headed the squadron’s enlisted contingent but oversaw the squadron’s maintenance efforts personally, arranged for all manner of off-line items to appear with paperwork signed (or lost), and knew more than the World Book Encyclopedia on any subject anyone could quiz him on.
In short, a typical chief.
“There you are, Colonel,” said the Chief in his most respectful public voice. Clyston’s grin, though, betrayed the fact that he had known Knowlington well before he’d achieved that rank. He had, in fact, been a member of the crew that took care of the Thunderchief Knowlington had just been thinking about.
The chief’s memory of the plane would undoubtedly be a great deal different than the colonel’s. The Thunderchiefs were notoriously difficult to maintain.
“What’s up, Alan?”
“Got a little bit of a hitch. Need a check pilot, and Captain Rogers is down with that flu or whatever the hell he’s got. Still puking his guts out.”
“Three’s back together?”
Hogs #2: Hog Down Page 3