Hogs #4:Snake Eaters

by DeFelice, Jim

  Why, Wong wondered. To prevent Wong from observing the Scuds? But that would mean they would be walking down the hillside in the dark, a time when it would be easier for the prisoners to escape.

  What of that earlier reference to “who” rather than what? Surely the Iraqi knew English too well to confuse his pronouns. And what of the curious identity of his unit? The men were all obviously well-trained, but were clearly not Republican Guards. Perhaps the chemical-warhead Scuds had been given special units?

  “You may sit, Sergeant,” the Iraqi told the com specialist.

  “I will stand with my captain, sir.”

  The Iraqi took out his pistol. Wong edged another step up the hill toward the M-16A.

  He couldn’t see it, but the rock was at least four yards away. Two and a half steps, a full second and a half. Add another to pick up the rifle or even to kick it, get the grenade to go off.

  Three seconds, optimistically. The sergeant would be dead and so would he.

  “You may sit, Sergeant,” Wong told him.

  “No! You sit, Captain,” said the Iraqi. “I’m not sure why you want to stand, but I want you to sit. Or your man will die.”

  The Delta trooper straightened, a calm air rising with his spine. He intended to die enshrouded with honor.

  No need for that now. Not yet.

  “We will both sit then,” said Wong. He bent slowly and then, as if losing his balance, fell over into the dirt.

  Another yard and a half.

  The barrel of a pistol slammed hard into his cheekbone as he rose.

  “You will stop flailing around,” said the captain, leaning so close Wong was nearly suffocated by the stale tobacco scent of his breath. “Or the next movement you make will be your last.”

  As if to underline his statement, an automatic rifle began firing in the distance, somewhere down the hillside.

  CHAPTER 30

  NEAR AL-KAJUK, IRAQ

  26 JANUARY 1991

  1735

  As Dixon dove into the dirt, the woman in the doorway of the house began to spin. For a moment she was a ballerina, performing an unworldly dance. She was an angel, fluttering on a stage, a frenetic whirl.

  Then she became a person again, then a body falling forward into the dirt.

  By the time her face smashed into the ground, Dixon had lifted the barrel of his gun from the dirt and aimed at a figure coming around the left-hand corner of the building. He emptied the entire clip at the thick shadow, firing even as the shadow crumpled and fell off to the side. When his clip clicked empty, he grabbed for a fresh one and at the same time began sliding backwards toward the dilapidated plow, a few yards away.

  He could hear shouts as he reloaded. There were at least two Iraqis at the back of the house, maybe more inside. He huddled behind the plow, prone, gun next to the blackened blade.

  Nothing.

  The dogs were quiet. Probably they’d been shot when the woman was.

  How many Iraqis were there? Two? Three? Enough to outflank him, certainly. Enough to rush him from different directions.

  Kill him easily here. He was better off taking it to them. Get close to the building, hope to catch them by surprise.

  Dixon jumped up and ran to the corner of the house where the dead soldier lay. A clip fell off his belt but he didn’t stop for it, sliding in against the hard front of the house, crunching downwards to look around the corner.

  Nothing.

  He heard something behind him, spun.

  Nothing.

  The woman lay a few feet away in the dirt. Dixon began to slide along the ground on one knee, inching along the rough front wall toward her. As he approached, he saw a shadow edge against the doorway.

  He froze, watching as an Iraqi in fresh, tan fatigues slowly emerged in a crouch, gun aimed toward the opposite hill. He had a clean-shaven face and no insignia on his uniform; his combat boots were black and shiny, as if they’d been polished that morning.

  Dixon must have stared at him for four or five seconds before realizing he had a clean shot.

  His first bullet missed. The man jerked his head around, stunned by the next five rounds. His chest and shoulder percolated with small explosions as he tried to straighten. Dixon jumped up, firing a last burst to finish him as another soldier came around the far corner of the building. He lifted the AK-47 toward the new target, the stream of bullets dancing in the dirt and then up through the second man’s leg and torso and face. Dixon saw the pain and then the bones splattering and giving away, the man rolling backwards. He saw the pain, and then the death rattle, and then the relief as the man died.

  Or he thought he saw it. Dixon took a step, and realized the first man was still moving in the doorway, right next to him. He pulled his rifle back and fired into his head pointblank, except that he didn’t— the clip was gone. He froze, staring at the rifle in the man’s hand, watching as the Iraqi struggled to raise it. He got it about two inches off the ground, grimacing, willing himself to fire, but he had no strength left, not even enough for vengeance. Slowly, he lost the battle, the rifle sinking to the floor as his eyes rolled in his head. A faint odor of aftershave wafted up from the body as Dixon stared down at him.

  If there had been any other soldiers, Dixon would have been an easy target, framed by the doorway, rifle empty and hanging down from his side. Finally he turned and walked back to the clip he had dropped, stooping down deliberately, placing, not shoving, the fresh ammunition into the gun. Then he went to the woman.

  He didn’t have to lean over to know she was dead. Blood soaked the back of her dress; her eyes were agape, staring at the corner of the house.

  She was in her twenties, no older than he.

  The Iraqis had killed her, not him. But he felt guilty somehow, as if he had pulled the trigger when she came out of the house.

  “I have to do whatever it takes,” he told himself aloud. “There are no civilians. There are no civilians. It’s me or them.”

  But even as turned to go into the house, he knew the words were lies. He couldn’t change who he was, even if he could manage to do what duty told him he had to do.

  As he stepped over the dead man in the small room at the front of the house, he thought he heard something in the next room. He threw himself to the floor, rolling and crashing against the leg of a wooden table, sending it into the wall.

  He was in a kitchen. A pot of vegetable stew or something similar percolated on the primitive stove.

  Food.

  He jumped to his feet, grabbed the pot then yelled as it burned his hand. It splattered over the small gas jet, putting out the fire; the pot fell to the floor and he went down after it, spooning the hot mush out with his hands. His mouth and throat burned but his hunger forced him on, forced him to gulp it down. He couldn’t tell what it tasted like, had no idea what it might be, knew only that it was food and he was starving.

  He’d eaten halfway through the pot when he heard the noise from the other room. A creak, followed by a crack.

  Someone sneaking up on him.

  He could escape, run away.

  He’d be pursued.

  He pointed the AK-47 at the doorway. Slowly, Dixon slid his knee forward, edging around the leg of the table. He leaned his torso down, the gun’s stock close to his ribs.

  The view into the room was blocked off by an overturned chair. A trunk or large box sat beyond it.

  Probably a bedroom.

  Dixon slid to his stomach and began crawling. The smeared food on his finger made the trigger feel sticky. The place smelled of dirt and something sweet.

  He reached the doorway. Curling his legs beneath him, Dixon put his shoulder against the jam and edged upwards. Then he jumped full into the room, leaning on the trigger, sweeping across. An open doorway led to the backyard, where he could see the bodies of the two dogs lying in the dirt. He pushed his head to the side, looking out the window at the empty hillside and its low brush, then scanning the small room slowly.

  Not
hing.

  No, something, on the floor beyond the bed.

  Crying.

  He jumped up onto the rope mattress, lost his balance, fell back.

  A boy no older than two raised his head, wide brown eyes staring at him. The child began to babble, but didn’t move.

  Dixon pulled the gun back. He went back to the kitchen, grabbed the pot and found a spoon. He shoveled food into a small plate he’d found on the floor, then walked it with it back to the bedroom, setting it down in front of the toddler. The kid darted forward with a smile and began spooning the food into its mouth.

  In twenty years, the kid would be a soldier, one of Saddam’s minions.

  Better to kill him now. It might even be merciful— if no one found him within a few days, he would surely die.

  Dixon stared at the little boy gobbling the food. There was no way he could harm him, no matter the circumstances. And yet he knew he had just done the boy irreparable harm, helped deprive him of his mother. Twenty years from now the kid would hate all Americans, and why not? An American had killed his mother.

  Even if he knew the truth of what happened, he’d see it that way. He’d be right.

  There was a sound from the roadway, a truck or a car. Dixon jerked his head toward the front of the house as the vehicle braked to a halt. He grabbed his gun and for a second thought of going to the front of the house. But that would be suicidal.

  He thought, too, that he might take the boy with him— a stupid thought gone in the instant it occurred to him.

  He pushed up and jumped through the open back door, gripping the AK-47 and running up the hill.

  He was about a third of the way to the top when the house exploded in flame.

  CHAPTER 31

  FORT APACHE

  26 JANUARY 1991

  1750

  Rosen jumped down from the weapons spar on Apache Two and gave the helicopter a good-luck pat. Then she took a few steps back, admiring the small black hulks in the dimming twilight. The Little Birds were all muscle, nothing wasted for show or ostentation; what you saw was what you got. She liked that. And what she saw now were two helos about as ready as they would ever be.

  Rosen was not an expert on AH-6s; she hadn’t a clue about bolt tolerances or even routine maintenance items, like when or even if the hydraulic lines should be flushed and tested. But the two helos were working, and that answered the number one rule of technicians the world over— Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix. Routine maintenance and touch-ups would have to wait until the helicopters returned south.

  Actually, they needed more than touch-ups; Apache Two in particular. Gashes and dents covered the sheet metal. A large crack and several bullet holes decorated the cockpit bubble. But the rotor and motor were intact and the wires she had field-stripped and twisted together at the start of this insanely long day were holding. She was good to go.

  Or wait, since there was no sense leaving until the Pave Low was en route to meet them. They weren’t taking off for another hour and a half.

  The wind kicked up. The sand felt like sleet in her face. With nothing left to do, Rosen went back to the bunker and took out her notebook again, thumbing past the page she’d filled earlier.

  It did no good to brood on the past. Her grandma told her that a million times, raising her. So forget about Lieutenant Dixon. BJ. For now at least.

  She turned her pen in her hand, thinking what she might write about. Some of the characters she worked with.

  The pilots. What a bunch.

  A-Bomb:

  I guess every unit has its own one-of-a-kind pilot type. Well, A-Bomb— aka Captain O’Rourke— is one of a kind for the whole Air Force. He’s probably unique in the world.

  I don’t know how he flies but he must be pretty good because he always gets the tough assignments. And Chief Clyston says he’s pretty good, which is praise right there.

  But the thing about A-Bomb is— he’s like a walking junk food store. He’s always eating candy or Big Macs or something. And I mean always— you should see the crumbs on the floor of his airplane. He drinks coffee while he’s flying. I know because I’ve seen the coffee stains!

  I don’t know how he manages it. I mean, the Hogs aren’t exactly 747s.

  She stopped. She was going to add that the A-10As didn’t have automatic pilots, but that was the kind of information that could conceivably help the enemy. So she went on to other pilots.

  Captain Glenon:

  Everybody calls him “Doberman.” He probably got the name because of his bark— he has a pretty sharp temper and is very impatient. On the other hand, he’s been very nice and professional to me.

  Maybe the best pilot in the bunch. Supposed to be the best at using the Mavericks and dropping bombs, but I’m not sure how you measure that exactly. They’re all pretty good here.

  Nice guy. If I had had a brother, the kind of guy I’d want him to be.

  Captain Hawkins:

  Macho Spec Ops Army captain. Okay for an officer, because all he wants is for you to do your job. Likes to drink tea. Earl Gray tea.

  Rosen put her pen down and reread her notes. They were bare descriptions, nothing that really would tell anybody who these men were. Brave. Good pilots. Decent men.

  Wasn’t everybody?

  No. No way. If you watched the movies or TV, sure— everybody was brave on television, everybody always did the right thing. War, life, weren’t really like that.

  If she was going to write a book about her experiences, if she was even going to write a journal, that was what she had to get down.

  Her fingers had cramped with the cold. She brought them to her mouth and blew on them as she thought about how difficult it was to communicate what really went on.

  Would anyone really want to know?

  Sure, they would. The problem was, a lot of what really happened was boring. You got up, you pulled an antenna off a Hog because it was nicked by shrapnel, put a new one in. That was your day.

  Boring. Important as all hell, but boring.

  Even if you were doing it in Iraq, a hundred miles from any sizable allied force, closer to Baghdad than Oz. Even if any second an enemy artillery shell or a Scud could wipe you out.

  You didn’t think about that part. Not that you escaped it, exactly: You carried it around in your tool kit along with the wrenches and Mr. Persuasion, the extra-large ballpeen hammer at the bottom of the bag. It weighed the case down but you couldn’t get rid of it.

  She started writing again.

  I can’t get BJ out of my mind. He was such an innocent kid. Captain Glenon said he didn’t even curse when he was first assigned to Devil Squadron, and probably hadn’t had more than three beers in his life. A true fact. He was tall for a Hog driver, over six feet, with brushy blond hair and movie-star eyes. Real blue. He looked strong.

  But innocent. Like a baby, almost. His lips were so soft.

  Why do the good ones die first? Why is innocence the first victim?

  PART THREE

  HOG RULES

  CHAPTER 32

  OVER SOUTHWESTERN IRAQ

  26 JANUARY 1991

  1750

  Doberman checked the numbers on his INS, and glanced back at the map. He ought to be turning cartwheels over Al-Kajuk in twenty minutes.

  Seventeen minutes and thirty seconds, to be exact.

  He ran through his instrument checks and scanned the sky for boogies. His biggest enemy, though, was impatience.

  There were certain tricks— straining the throttle with your eyes, leaning on your seat restraints to pull her along— but the bottom line was that Hogs could not go fast. They also really, truly, did not like to fly high. Doberman’s mount had groaned and grunted all the way to 18,500 feet, even though he promised to put the extra altitude to good use on the business-end of the trip. She was built like a tank and wanted to act that way; she seemed to whine with displeasure when Doberman didn’t turn in the direction of the thunderhead of flak at 12,000 feet two miles off her right wing.


  Judging from the altitude and spread of the flak cloud, Doberman figured the exploding bullets came from two or three ZSU-57-2 self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, more than likely unguided by radar— though that didn’t make the monster shells any less deadly. The site wasn’t marked on the map. Doberman jotted the location down, just in case he still had some bombs left on the way home.

  At precisely fifteen minutes from target, Doberman checked in with the AWACS controller tasked with coordinating support for the Apache mission. The crews rotated but he recognized the controller’s Carolina accent from earlier as the specialist acknowledged Devil One’s position.

  The controller surprised him by saying that Wong hadn’t called in a strike— or even come back on the air in the past hour.

  “No contact?” he asked.

  “Negative, Devil One. We are out of contact with the Fire Team at this time.”

  Out of contact?

  “You’re aware they’re tracking Scuds,” he said, more a statement than a question.

  “Copy that. We have two Vipers en route to that kill box,” said the controller. “We have a rotary asset en route, call sign Dark Snake. He is crossing north now. He may require assistance communicating with Apache Fire Team. We were told not to expect y’all,” added the controller. “But we’re happy to have ya.”

  “Roger that.”

  Doberman laid out the situation in his head. Dark Snake was the Spec Ops Pave Hawk, a specially modified Blackhawk designed for covert missions. Detailed to pick up Wong and the boys, the MH-60 would travel very close to the weeds, maybe only six feet off the ground, guided by special radar and other equipment. Because it was so low, it could have difficulty communicating with the ground team until it was almost on top of them. Doberman, much higher, could help out by establishing contact with the team and the helicopter individually. Then he’d relay messages back and forth like a telegraph operator in the Old West.