“Yo, Goose, come on buddy, this is A-Bomb. I promise I’ll share my Big Mac pack with you tonight.”
Boa One asked if he had something. A-Bomb let the static fuzz in his helmet before telling the Viper pilot that he thought he’d seen a glint on the ground.
“Roger that. We’ll take a pass. Controller’s trying to get you,” relayed the pilot. “They’re thinking you should be returning to base before you run your tanks dry.”
“Well screw them.”
“Yo man, I’m just the messenger,” answered the pilot. “But running out fuel isn’t going to help your buddy.”
A-Bomb punched the Hog down for a last peek at the abandoned buildings, hoping he might find Mongoose doing jumping jacks on what was left of the roof. Beyond the building, he gave the control yoke an angry yank to put his nose skyward. The Hog groaned a bit, complaining that it wasn’t its fault its companion had gone down.
He spotted another pair of F-16s circling just to the west. They had been sent to make sure the Scuds were toast, and to mop up any remaining SAMs.
“OK, guys, I’m going to go tank,” A-Bomb told Boa One. “I’ll be back ASAP.”
“Don’t sweat it,” said the pilot. “Your guy’ll be back at base draining beers in no time. And for the record, I prefer a quarter–pounder with cheese.”
“Copy that,” A-Bomb told him, plotting his course to the nearest tanker.
CHAPTER 19
ON THE GROUND IN IRAQ
21 JANUARY 1991
1845
When he landed, Mongoose felt his knee give slightly. But he was already well into the roll, already peeling over. He tumbled onto his side and thought for a second that he was going to roll forever. Realizing the chute’s harness was still attached, he wondered why he hadn’t released it. He had dirt in his mouth. He pushed himself forward, put weight on the knee, and again thought of the chute. One hand began reaching for his knife as the other slipped the harness restraints.
Okay, he told himself, calm down. The hard part is over; all you have to do is wait for the search and rescue helicopter. Just relax. Push your buttons.
Remove the radio from your vest.
Turn it on.
Very simple.
Very calm.
Breathe first.
* * *
No one answered his first hail.
He was having trouble talking anyway, still gulping air. He put his hands to his chest and steadied a slow breath in and out. Making sure his finger was on the microphone button, he tried again.
He gave his call sign, asked for a response. Something floated in, a mangled transmission from far off. There was too much static for him to make any sense of it.
Bits and pieces of his SERE training – Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape– came back to him as his mind slowly cleared. The first few minutes on the ground were critical. You wanted to keep yourself in control.
Push your buttons. Check your list.
He was going to be picked up. It was just a matter of keeping his head clear.
Damned if there hadn’t been a shitload of rain during his SERE training. And heat. Now it was just cold.
This was a desert, or actually on the edge of one. You’d think it would just be hot all the time.
Mongoose tried the radio again. Its range varied according to weather, terrain, and time of day, but he could probably count on about thirty miles. Planes could zip in and out of its envelope without getting a good fix; he tried to keep it straight up and down for maximum range, to speak slowly as he transmitted, and stay calm.
His head was still foggy. He had only a vague notion of where he’d been hit, relative to his target. It was well south and east, he knew that. And after he had been hit he’d flown through the sky like a missile, away from the plane.
His breathing was starting to come back under control. He thumbed his radio to a new frequency, took it from the top.
From the air, much of southern Iraq looked almost featureless, undulating sand and gristly dirt extending for miles and miles. Here on the ground, Iraq turned out to be a silty waste, tiny grains of sand and grit sifting among stubby branches, as if the desert had flooded an orchard. A rough progression of hills began immediately to his right, long bumps nudging back north; they could have been part of an ancient stairway leading to the Euphrates, worn down by time. A dry creek bed or wadi lay about a hundred feet ahead of him; its gully oriented approximately east–west. A hard-packed road skirted close to it about twenty yards from where he was standing. Beyond the road, the terrain seemed a little harder. There were several clumps of short trees and more hills.
Wind kicked up grit and slapped his cheeks as he tried the radio again, reminding him that every transmission by the PRC-90 emergency radio in theory helped the enemy as much as his would-be rescuers. He had to ration his calls, at least until he was sure someone was coming for him.
He’d have to ration his water, too. He had only his pocket canteen and four packets in his vest.
Mongoose took out the small canteen and sipped very slowly. But the sips were larger than he thought; it took only three to drain the container.
A-Bomb ought to be around up there somewhere. No way A-Bomb would have left him. He repeated his hail and then switched to beacon, setting the radio to emit a distinctive SOS that in theory all allied planes could recognize.
Any Iraqi who wasn’t blind probably saw him land. He had to get the hell out of here.
He’d thrown his helmet off after he’d gotten to his feet. It lay upside down a short distance away, looking a bit forlorn. His chute had tangled in the stubby vegetation. The ejection seat, its emergency survival pack, and life raft were all set out like props upstage in a surreal play.
He ought to hide what he didn’t need, even if it was getting dark. They’d point the Iraqis toward him, when they came.
As he stared at the seat, he felt a pain in the back of his head. It was like a fist pounding from the inside, whacking at the base of his skull and neck. He put his fingers into the wedge behind his ears, tried to relieve the pressure by kneading the muscles there. Closing his eyes, Mongoose attempted once again to control his breathing, slowing it and relaxing all this muscles, hoping to ease whatever spring had over-wound itself. His body was starting to shake, whether from shock or the cold he couldn’t tell. He wanted to take stock of his survival supplies and equipment. All he could think of for nearly a full minute was the pain. A shock-induced trance was slowly taking hold of him.
The sound of an approaching truck on the roadway knocked him out of it.
CHAPTER 20
HOG HEAVEN
21 JANUARY 1991
1910
Colonel Knowlington was still going over the A-10A check flight when Captain Wong’s perpetual frown appeared over Sergeant Rosen’s shoulder. Wong was a rarity— an intelligence officer who was actually intelligent and had a sense of humor. His dry, anti-bureaucratic wit was so funny that just looking at his face generally made Knowlington start laughing.
Not today, though. His face was drawn and worried, and Knowlington knew exactly what the problem was as soon as he approached.
“Colonel, you want to get on with Lieutenant Dixon at Riyadh right now, sir,” Wong told him.
Knowlington nodded, and without saying or doing anything else, immediately began walking toward his office in the squadron building. An A-10A fresh from combat screeched onto the runway, but he didn’t hear it. Nor did he see any of the several people who greeted him as he walked. He walked in a gray, cold space alone, nerve endings hardened, ready, though not enthusiastic, to do his duty.
He didn’t even greet Dixon when he came on the line. All he said was, “Who is it?”
“Looks like Major Johnson in Devil One,” said the lieutenant. “I’m still pulling in details. It was their last mission of the day. Their tasking was changed and they went after Scuds about sixty miles further north. I happened to be in—”
“He eject?”<
br />
“I don’t know, sir.”
Knowlington nodded but said nothing, as if his lieutenant could see his response.
“What else do you know, BJ?”
“Nothing, really,” said the lieutenant. “A-Bomb’s still up there. They have a search and rescue operation going, but I don’t have any details. I don’t know that he’s been heard from. In fact, I kind of think he wasn’t. But I wasn’t, well, obviously back here—”
“I understand, BJ. I appreciate your getting the word to me right away on this.”
“I thought you guys might have heard something.”
“Not yet. Most of the squadron’s just coming in.”
“You want me to . . .”
Dixon’s voice trailed off, most likely because he didn’t know exactly what to offer. Knowlington told him just to keep his ears open, but otherwise to go about his normal routine. The colonel had more than enough sources, formal and informal, to fill in all the blanks on his own.
“Thanks for calling me,” the colonel told him. “Look, don’t piss anybody off over there. I’m going to get you back ASAP.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
Knowlington just barely resisted the impulse to shove the phone through the wall. Mongoose had been diverted sixty miles north? Shit, why not just send him up to Baghdad and get it over with?
Sending Hogs that far into enemy territory was contrary to just about every lesson the air force had learned since Eddie Rickenbacher got his sights on a German biplane. The plane had been specifically built for close-in ground support. Because of that, she was slow, didn’t carry much in the way of sophisticated ECMs, and was unsuited for anything but low altitude tactics.
She was a fantastic tank buster and a hell of a ground attack meat-grinder; the Army loved her. The men who flew her rated as some of the best stick and rudder jocks Knowlington had ever met. But send her on missions deep into Injun territory and eventually you were bound to lose her. This wasn’t a black jet or a Strike Eagle you were talking about here.
Knowlington had written something like that in a report many years back, when the Hog’s viability was being studied and he was pulling an unwished-for stint on someone’s evaluation staff.
He had, in fact, recommended the plane been phased out.
Ancient history.
But the missions on Day One of the air war had been just as deep, and he had gone along with them. Where was his head then?
More to the point, why did he let someone else lead them? Over-the-hill or not, it was his job, his duty, as commander to be at the head of the line, not back. Screw anyone who had a different opinion.
And screw his other problems. He was beyond them. Today, anyway.
In his experience, the odds on recovery were a real downward curve against time— the quicker you made radio contact, the better the odds of a good extraction. The problem was that things had a tendency to go less than perfectly. In the first rush of landing your head got scrambled and even the most experienced pilot made poor decisions. Shock jumbled your brain in weird ways; he’d heard of guys who’d neglected to use their radios or flares, and even one who inflated his life raft and got aboard in the middle of a jungle.
It was getting late; if they hadn’t already made contact with him, there was a real good chance Mongoose would be spending part of the night in Indian country.
Assuming he wasn’t already a prisoner, or permanent resident.
Looking out his small office window at the steadily darkening sky, the colonel refused to consider those possibilities.
CHAPTER 21
On the ground in Iraq
21 January 1991
1915
Mongoose dropped flat in the sand. He pushed up and saw the truck, still maybe a mile away on the road, then reached beneath him for his service pistol.
The 9mm Beretta was a serious gun, a good one, well-cared for, meticulously cleaned at least once a day.
Hopefully he wouldn’t have to use it. He tucked his elbows beneath his body and levered himself into a kneel, and then a crouch. He looked toward the roadway and out into the wasteland. The blur driving toward him in the darkening twilight sharpened into a white pickup. It seemed out of place, and for a moment he felt a strange dislocation, as if instead of being in southern Iraq the wind had carried him all the way back to the States, over to Iowa or South Dakota.
Had the terrain looked a hair less desert-like, he might even have believed that.
Just because it was a pickup didn’t mean that it wasn’t an army truck. And even if it was being driven by a civilian, it still presented a very real danger. Most likely there was a price on his head.
Dead as well as alive.
The truck kept coming. The driver had his running lights on but not his headlights; probably he could see well enough without them since the sun had only just gone down. Besides, putting them on was an invitation to get smoked.
Mongoose felt his legs and back stiffening. The truck driver would have a clear view of him, assuming he looked in his direction.
He could easily be seen if he got up and ran. Best to stay still, hope the guy wasn’t paying attention, or the shadows obscured him. Movement attracted the eye.
The Beretta had a faintly oily feel to it. It was warm in his hand, and heavy. He put his left hand around the right, giving himself a good, steady platform to fire from.
Mongoose had learned to shoot when he was ten, plinking cans with his dad’s BB pistol in the backyard. He’d moved up to a .22 rifle, took a gun safety and marksmanship course in the Boy Scouts. By the time he got to the service he’d become a reasonably accurate shot, even with a handgun. He might not be a marksman, but compared to most Air Force officers he was William Tell.
He had a good firing position, well anchored in the ground. If the guy stopped, he could smoke him. The road was less than ten yards away— a good shot with a pistol, but not spectacular.
Belatedly, the pilot thought of trying to hide. But there didn’t seem to be any sense; it wasn’t like he had enough time to dig a hole in the streambed.
It was his job to take out this guy.
No, his job was to survive. First rule, only rule.
Most likely, the guy would pass him by.
If he was like a farmer in Iowa, probably he’d be so focused on his work or where he was going or what was playing on the radio, he’d never notice someone crouching five meters off the road.
But the truck started to slow.
Mongoose’s mouth was dry. The gun was heavy in his hands; he tried to relax his arm muscles a bit, ignoring the pain in his head.
What could the guy have seen?
The plane? Sure, but that was miles away.
The chute?
Maybe. Falling objects did have a tendency to attract attention, even in Iraq.
The truck stopped directly in front of the wadi. It looked like a Toyota, five or six years old at least. Its front end was crimped and crinkled, and it had a dirty sheen to it.
It was ten yards away, even a little less.
The driver cranked down the window and looked at him. The man’s face was illuminated by a dull glow from the instrument panel. It was unshaven, with a thick mustache but a spotty beard, black and grayish whiskers patched around his chin. He was wearing a white shirt and some sort of hat. He stared at Mongoose the way a man might stare at a tiger found in its cage on a city street.
I should smoke him, Mongoose thought.
Had the man gotten out of the truck, had he raised a gun to the window, the pilot would have brought his pistol up an inch and fired. There was no question of hitting him. Mongoose saw it all in a far corner of his mind, saw himself pumping the trigger four or five times, saw one of the slugs catching the man in the shoulder, wounding him only, but enough to stop him from getting away. Mongoose saw himself jumping up from the crouch, breath hot and shallow in his lungs, saw himself run and pump two bullets into the man’s head.
He could have done
all this, and he would have had the man done anything but stare. He would have done it without agonizing or even thinking much about it, because it was his job to survive. He would have done it because he had to.
But the man never moved toward him. He only stared from the truck, a voyeur in an unreal world. Mongoose stared back, equally out of place.
The hard thunder of an F-16 crossed into his consciousness. The plane was flying high, but very close.
The radio was on the ground. He’d have to take a hand off the gun to reach it.
Not possible.
Unless he shot the guy first. He should just squeeze the trigger and fire. Get him right through the open window, hit him in the face.
He was looking at him with such a blank, open expression. Something like wonder, not hostility.
A real enemy. A real person.
They stared at each other as the fighter’s noise faded. There was no question the Iraqi knew Mongoose didn’t belong here, and no question that by now he would have realized there was a gun in his hands.
Any move, even opening the door, even waving hello, he’d smoke him.
But why didn’t he just kill him now? He had a good, clean, clear shot.
Mongoose remained stock still, his movements held in balance by a hair-thin thread of fate.
Finally, the truck started to ease forward. It moved slowly, only gradually picking up speed, continuing down the highway in the direction it had been going before stopping.
The pilot remained kneeling until it had shrunk to the size of a worm in the distance. Slowly, carefully, he rose. He started to walk down the wadi, gingerly at first, then quickly, his legs falling into a trot.
For some reason he couldn’t fathom, he stopped and looked both ways before crossing the empty highway.
CHAPTER 22
Northern Saudi Arabia
21 January 1991
1915
A-Bomb was next in line behind a Marine F/A-18. Thing was, the damn Marine wasn’t used to sipping from an Air Force straw, and had trouble attaching to the hose at the tail end of the KC-135. It didn’t take more than a minute, but A-Bomb had never counted patience as one of his virtues.
Hogs #2: Hog Down Page 8