“Saw you just now,” said A-Bomb, who had decided to be on his best behavior. “Can you direct me to the Apache pilots? There’s a Twinkie in it for you. A little crushed, I apologize, but definitely edible.”
“Listen, are you Captain O’Rourke or not?”
“I was this morning.”
“Look, I don’t have time for bullshit. We’ve just been put on a goddamn Scud alert. You got to get chem gear on and get this plane secured. Then you call your squadron commander.”
“Who?”
“Call your colonel. But before that, get yourself into protective gear.”
“My best protection’s a fully loaded Hog,” A-Bomb told him. “Shit, I got Sidewinders— I’ll nail the damn missiles while they’re inbound.”
The major grumbled something concerning the sanity of Air Force personnel and disappeared back down the ladder.
* * *
“Colonel wants to talk to you,” said Captain Wong when A-Bomb finally got a connection to the home drome.
“Yeah, well I want to talk to him.”
“Okay.”
“So put him on.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
“Well I sure as shit don’t.”
“Wait, I’ll look in his office.”
A-Bomb pushed himself back in the field chair. Wong was one of those absent-minded-professor types. Guy had a shitload of knowledge about Russian-made air defenses; he was supposedly the world expert, and had figured out some fairly tricky stuff for Devil Squadron since coming from Black Hole the first day of the war. But he couldn’t put mustard on a bologna and cheese sandwich without detailed instructions.
Bologna and cheese sure as hell would hit the spot right about now. Better: the double Big Mac with extra-large fries and strawberry shake that was undoubtedly sitting in his tent at the home drome.
Amazing where Fed Ex could deliver.
As forward air strips went, KKMC wasn’t particularly spartan, but it did lack a full-service McDonald’s. Still, there were enough army guys floating around. Hog crews pitted here all the time. That much creativity around demanded a bit more research on his part; there might be a fast-food outlet somewhere around here. In fact, now that he thought about it, the round-domed building nearby would be the perfect place for the local Dunkin’ Donuts franchise: If you squinted just right it kind of looked like an upside-down coffee cup.
Super-size Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and two, no make that three, Boston Cremes would definitely charge him up for the return trip north. Chocolate a little gooey on the top, just enough to leave his fingertips covered with lickable creme.
“A-Bomb, where the fuck are you?”
“Hey, good evening to you, too, Colonel.”
“What the hell are you doing at KKMC?”
“Getting more bullets in case I see any rattlesnakes up north.”
Knowlington grunted. A-Bomb didn’t know the commander too well, but Knowlington came with a reputation; he’d kicked serious butt flying over Vietnam and he didn’t dick his pilots around. So when the colonel asked if he’d seen a parachute, A-Bomb didn’t hedge.
“I thought I saw something, but now I’m not even sure of that. I found the wreckage but couldn’t see the seat or the chute anywhere. And I looked.”
“And no beacon?”
“I’m thinking the radio screwed up. Got to be. Probably a transistor blew or something.”
“The backup, too?”
It was a comment not a question, so A-Bomb didn’t answer. He could tell that the colonel, unlike the intel guys he’d spoken to after parking the plane, knew Mongoose was still alive down there. It was just a question of coming up with a plan to get him back.
“I got this idea,” A-Bomb told him. “If I had some Maverick G’s, I could go back and scan the ground. Hell, the eyes in those things are better than an owl’s. Problem is, I can’t seem to drum up any up here. The one sergeant who seems to know what the hell I’m talking about bitches about how expensive they are and claims all of the missiles are at Fahd. I don’t know if it’s true, but I haven’t seen any myself.”
“I doubt they’re sensitive enough to pick him up, even in the desert.”
For just a second, A-Bomb’s faith in his commander wavered.
“We can’t just leave him up there, Colonel.”
“I’m not leaving him up there,” snapped Knowlington. “I’m fucking thinking.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
Had A-Bomb thought about it, he would have realized it was perhaps the first time he had used the word “sir” in Saudi Arabia— and undoubtedly the first time he had ever used it twice in one sentence since training. He hung on the line through a long silence, waiting while Knowlington worked the thing through in his head.
“All right. Go catch some rest,” said the colonel finally. “I have a few things to get around down here. I’ll be up with the Mavericks three hours before dawn, latest. That gives you a little time for a catnap.”
“You’re trucking them up?”
“I’m flying, you asshole. You and I are going to find Mongoose, assuming the Special Ops boys haven’t picked him up by then. You have a problem with that?”
“No, sir. Shit no.”
“Well then get some fucking sleep. I don’t want a zombie watching my six.”
“Yes, sir.”
A-Bomb looked at the handset as the line clicked dead. The old man hadn’t flown a combat mission since he’d come to Saudi Arabia. The word was that Skull Knowlington, who’d originally been assigned to head a squadron that existed only on paper, had maybe a hundred hours in the Hog cockpit, or some ridiculously low amount.
But hell. Knowlington was a god-damn legend. If anybody could find Mongoose— anyone besides A-Bomb that was— the colonel could.
“Fuckin’ A,” said the pilot said. “I think.”
CHAPTER 27
On the ground in Iraq
21 January 1991
2203
Mongoose aimed the small strobe unit in the direction of the sound. He had already fired a pencil flare to get their attention, and now hoped the strobe would direct whoever was up there to his location.
The strobe’s light was hooded, making it difficult to see on the ground. In theory, anyway. He couldn’t worry about any of that now; he kept strobing, hoping to hear the engine again. The radio was pumping out its own emergency beacon.
But the plane was no longer nearby. He made a voice broadcast; when there was no answer he fired another mini-flare. As the rocket arced upwards, he tried the radio again. Mongoose swung the dial back and forth, from beacon to voice, radioing his distress call.
“I’ll take a pizza with anchovies to go,” he added at the end.
Whatever he’d heard was gone. He settled back against the stones he’d lined up as a small shelter. He’d dug out some of the ground with his boot, like a small fox-hole. It had been something to do, to take his mind off how stinking cold he was.
The radio was probably busted. That wasn’t particularly lucky.
Might’ve broken somehow when he landed. Or it was just one of those dumb, stupid things.
There was another one back in the seat pack.
But where the hell was that now? Could he trace his way back in the dark and the slowly lifting fog?
He heard a noise in the distance, this time on the ground.
Was it really there? His ears buzzed with something, but it didn’t seem real. Slowly, as deliberately as possible, he slid the strobe light back into a vest pocket and removed his pistol from its holster.
He stayed like that, gun just in front of his chest, for a long time. The noise grew louder, then faded. It was definitely a truck, and far off. His eyes ached, filtering the darkness for the head beams or taillights, but they didn’t appear. The moon, a dull crescent, drifted through some clouds, cold and distant.
When he was in Boy Scouts, they used to tell ghost stories about kids so lost in the wilderness they turne
d into walking skeletons, haunting the woods for centuries. He thought of those stories now as he crouched back into his small, safe place and holstered his pistol.
The stories had scared the piss out of him. He remembered being so afraid that he wouldn’t get out of his sleeping bag to take a leak. Instead, he’d lie awake all night, waiting for dawn.
That was as a second-class scout, still pretty green, his first full year as a scout. The next summer, at the wilderness camp in the Adirondacks, now Star rank, he laughed at the stories, told a lot of them himself, and took a leak whenever he damn well pleased.
He was still a little scared, actually, but no way would he let on, even to himself.
His days as a scout were all flooding back. He remembered one of his toughest tests— to join one of the scouts’ “secret” lodges, he’d had to endure an initiation that consisted of being left alone in the wilderness with only a map and compass. He was given two hours to get back to camp.
He’d hurt his knee a few days before the initiation, and soon after he started he slipped down a ravine and twisted it pretty bad. Mongoose knew from one of his friends that older scouts monitored an initiate carefully; they were always within shouting distance in case something went wrong.
He could have called out. His injury would have been considered a mitigating factor and he would have probably been given another chance at the initiation. But he didn’t. Instead he hobbled on down the mountain, finding a stick to use as a crutch and showing up at camp nearly six hours later, well past the deadline. When the lodge elder— that was what they called the leader— asked why he was so late, Mongoose just shrugged. He’d thrown away the stick before coming into camp, and refused to let his knee be an excuse. He told the others he’d failed the initiation because he had taken too much time hiking in.
A few days later, the kids in the lodge “kidnapped” him from his tent, and made him a member anyway. They all knew what had happened, even though he didn’t tell anyone.
That was one of the proudest moments of his life. Even now. It compared to the first day he’d flown a jet fighter alone, and the day his son was born— actually the day after, when he was telling everyone he knew, because the day it happened was too consuming to feel anything but the moment.
In some ways, the initiation was his most difficult accomplishment. It would have been so easy to make excuses.
Another day strayed into his memory, a snatch of a day. He had his father’s car and hit into another car in a parking lot, breaking the taillight.
He’d gotten out, inspected the cars. There was no damage to his. The other car was a relatively new BMW.
He hopped back into his dad’s car and took off.
Coward.
Mongoose kicked himself for doing that, as if it had happened this morning instead of thirteen or fourteen years before. That wasn’t him — he was the kid who hiked down the mountain on a makeshift crutch, and refused to make excuses. He should have left a note on the guy’s windshield, offered to make good, whatever the consequences.
Plenty of times he had. But the car came back at him now. He pushed down against the ground, kicked out some more dirt in his miniature bunker, felt his knee tweak a bit.
Scouting was a good time. The best camping was during the winter, when you literally froze your tush off just taking a dump. He almost never managed more than an hour or two sleeping at night, even when they stayed in cabins. He was always so tired he’d sleep the entire day when he got home.
It felt colder than that now, and it was going to get even worse. He rubbed his arms against his chest, moved around a bit, stood and walked a little.
He wanted Robby to go into Boy Scouts, assuming they still existed. Assuming they’d let him join with his father in the service. Military life being what it was it could be hard to join an organization. But plenty of kids did.
Tough as hell to raise a family when you were gone fighting a war. To be away when they needed you, when your wife needed you . . .
He caught himself, got back into checklist mode.
A good radio was essential. He could walk back to the trees, then find his way to the pack from there. He’d use the road as much as he dared; find it from the trees, then walk parallel until he came to the wadi. From there it would be easy to get back to the seat.
First, though, there might be a way to fix the radio he had. Shake it, at least– nothing wrong with banging something to make it work, A-Bomb used to say.
Good old A-Bomb. He’d be busting an artery looking for him.
If he was still alive. More than likely he was in worse shape. Maybe hadn’t even gotten out alive.
And it was Mongoose’s fault. He’d taken the planes low to smoke the Scuds, even though it was dangerous and against all sorts of cautions and orders and common sense.
Not Hog sense, but that wasn’t the same thing.
Mongoose took the radio in one hand and gripped the gun by the barrel. Not exactly something a technician might approve of, but what the hell– he banged them together, then tried another quick broadcast.
When he heard nothing, he put radio away and began walking.
CHAPTER 28
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
21 January 1991
2203
It wasn’t until after Dixon had told Colonel Knowlington about Mongoose that he felt the true depth of his uselessness here. It wasn’t as if he expected to be tasked to fly up there and bring him back— in fact, the air tasking order had already given the Devil Squadron a heavy agenda; there probably was no room in the frag for anything like that and other units were already assigned search-and-rescue duty anyway. But there was no question that Dixon was far from the action, a million miles from where he belonged.
He finished up his work, then checked around to see if anything new had come in on Major Johnson’s flight.
Nothing. Not a good sign. But there was nothing he could do about it, sitting in his Riyadh cubbyhole. Reluctantly, he decided to keep his dinner date with an American family in a “guest” development not far from the center of the city. He hoped real food might take his mind off his uselessness for a few hours.
Thanks partly to their great oil wealth, the Saudis used a large number of foreigners to help run their country. Many of the workers were domestics and drudges from poor countries such as Pakistan. But there was also a fair number of highly skilled workers, including Westerners. Most lived apart from the rest of Saudi society, their “hosts” not wanting to risk the contamination of Western mores in a Muslim culture. His new acquaintances— cousins of an Air Force officer he’d gone through basic training with— lived in one such compound. It was a kind of gilded ghetto where, for the most part, Islamic strictures such as those about women’s dress and alcohol could be safely ignored.
But that didn’t explain why his friend greeted him at the front door in a full-body chem suit.
“You’re late. Where’s your protective gear?”
“Do I have the right house?” asked Dixon.
“It’s me, Fernandez,” said the man through the suit. “I’ve been waiting for you. Come in. We’re on Scud alert. Everyone else is in the shelter.”
“Shelter?”
“It’s not really a shelter, but it will do as long as there’s not a direct hit. The walls are reinforced and it’s airtight. We have an air exchanger but I don’t trust it. Where’s your suit?”
“I don’t have one.”
“What? Well come on, we’ll get you a mask at least. Come on.”
Like a lot of other guys in Saudi Arabia, Dixon didn’t take the chemical warfare threat very seriously. Nor did he think much of the Scuds, which were annoying but not particularly accurate.
Though maybe that ought to worry him a bit.
Inside the hallway, Dixon had to duck around a crystal chandelier that looked like it belonged in an opera house. They walked through the public part of the sprawling one–level house, past a luxurious, Western-style living room and a di
ning room that could have been in a palace somewhere, then down a second hallway into a back room.
“I know the place looks pretty drab. We’ve packed away the valuables,” said Fernandez through his hood. He worked as an accountant for a Saudi oil concern owned by one of the royal family. “I know what you’re thinking— we don’t have a proper basement. But this wing was supposedly steel-reinforced and good against anything but a direct hit. I don’t know whether to believe them or not. But at least there’s no windows.”
They stepped down a single step and continued through yet another hallway, this one lined with expensive-looking paintings. Dixon wondered what the stuff that had been packed away looked like.
His nose twitched with the smell of roast beef. Before he could ask about it, his host opened the door at the very end of the hall, revealing a thick piece of plastic. He reached down and pulled it up, revealing a room about twenty by thirty feet long. A dozen people, all wearing gas masks or protective hoods, a few in full suits, crowded around a brown leather love seat and ottoman, watching a CNN feed. A correspondent in a chem suit but no hood was speaking to the camera in hushed tones.
“Here’s a whole suit,” said Fernandez, leading him to a table in the corner. He held up a suit that was clearly too small for Dixon’s frame.
“It’s not going to fit.”
“Take the mask, then. Like I said, I don’t trust the equipment.”
“I honestly don’t think it’s necessary.”
His host’s answer was cut off by the peal of a siren. As loud as the siren was, the explosion that followed was even louder.
Dixon quickly began stuffing himself into the gear.
CHAPTER 29
King Fahd
21 January 1991
2203
Of Colonel Knowlington’s many friends in the Pentagon, Alex Sherman was among the least sympathetic. For one thing, Sherman was a civilian; he didn’t quite understand the wrenches your guts went through when people shot at you.
Hogs #2: Hog Down Page 11