HOGS #5: TARGET SADDAM (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series)

by Jim DeFelice

  Doberman jammed his pedals, swinging his tail hard to the left as he tried to yank the Hog around and line up on the other tank. He’d come all the way down to five hundred feet, still descending, but wanted the other T-72. He was so close he could see the gunner at the top cursing as he splayed shells from the twin 7.62 mm machine-gun in his direction. Something plinked against the Hog’s armored windscreen as Doberman pushed his trigger to fire. He flinched, then tightened his grip on the stick, nailing down the trigger. The bullets spat off to the right, drifting with his momentum. Doberman worked the rudder pedals, giving a little body English with his shoulder as he tried to walk the cannon fire onto the target. He got a few rounds near the front fender but then just had to give up, the desert yawning up at him.

  Doberman pulled back, jerking four g’s as the Hog angled her wings upwards. He cleared the ground by about fifty feet— too close for comfort, but not as close as he thought he’d cut it.

  He was just starting to climb when A-Bomb shouted a warning in his ear.

  “Missile launch! Missile launch from the Ural! Those fuckers weren’t giving up, Dog Man!”

  CHAPTER 6

  IRAQ

  27 JANUARY 1991

  0650

  He woke up thirsty, his throat hard, his mouth hot.

  Lieutenant William “BJ” Dixon stared for a minute at the hazy blue sky, sore, cold, tired, but more than anything else thirsty. He remembered the small canteen of water on his belt and reached for it, his arm and shoulder joints cracking. The bottle felt like ice, and he realized he, too, must be freezing, though all he could feel was his thirst and the scorching heat in his mouth. Fingers fumbling, he rolled himself onto his stomach and got on his knees, then finally managed a drink. The water fell across his teeth to his tongue and into the back of his mouth; he began to choke. His body wanted water and it wanted air both— he choked and he gasped and he tried to drink, and the only thing he could manage was to fall forward against the rock-strewn side of the ditch where he’d spent the night, stomach heaving, body retching. He had nothing to give, nothing to puke except mucus and viscera, the scrapings of his soul. He curled in the dust, muscles spasming, chest and stomach wrenching against the hard Iraqi soil. A metallic taste mixed with the vaguely bloody flavor of vomit in his mouth.

  When it was over, Dixon lay against the rocks. He stayed there a long while. His knee hurt and his shoulder had been whacked out of joint and maybe he’d broken a rib and his head felt like it had been squeezed into sardine tin, but considering the other possibilities, it wasn’t that bad. Two hundred miles inside of enemy territory, without hope of getting out, it wasn’t that bad.

  He stayed there a while longer.

  Not bad at all.

  “When did I begin lying to myself?” he asked finally, speaking the words in a whisper. He pushed himself upright and took a tiny sip of the water, then another, then a third.

  There was a sound in the distance. Trucks.

  Dixon recapped the water and reached down to grab his desert chip campaign hat, a “present” from the Delta unit he’d parachuted into Iraq with as a ground FAC helping coordinate strikes on Scuds. BJ grabbed the AK-47 he’d taken yesterday from a dead Iraqi and clambered up the side of the dry streambed, staring across the scratchy terrain toward the highway.

  Two Iraqi troop trucks approached from the west. The trucks moved steadily though not quickly. They were traveling in the direction of a missile launching site that American fighter-bombers had attacked yesterday. The highway swerved southwards, toward Dixon, to skirt a hill. There were no houses or other buildings in sight; the area was apparently used as farmland, crisscrossed with irrigation ditches, though BJ guessed it wasn’t particularly productive. The local population seemed confined to a small village on the other side of the hill; there had been Iraqi troops there yesterday, and he hadn’t gotten close enough to see more than the minaret of a mosque.

  As the trucks followed the highway, turning in his direction, Dixon flopped against the ditch, ducking from view. But as he lay against the rocks he asked himself why. Hiding just delayed the inevitable.

  He wasn’t going to surrender, nor was he going to allow himself to be captured. But it was senseless to think he might somehow make it back to allied lines. A huge desert lay between him and Saudi Arabia.

  So there were two choices. Kill himself, or make the Iraqis kill him.

  Better to make the Iraqis do it. At least he might take a few of them with him.

  BJ stood, pulling the rifle up, cocking it under his arm. But by now the trucks were past him. He swept his aim to follow, squeezed the trigger— a bullet sailed from the rifle, skipping into the dirt less than fifty feet away.

  The trucks kept moving, oblivious. The highway was nearly a mile away; if the drivers heard the crack of the gun over their engines they chose to ignore it. Dust billowed in a thin swirl behind them, funneling over a shallow rise as they disappeared. There was another highway as well as a turnoff for a village somewhere beyond the rise, but it seemed as if the trucks had been swallowed by the blue fringe at the edge of the universe.

  As Dixon stared at the disappearing film of dust, he realized he was yelling, screaming at the Iraqis to come back and fight. He pointed the AK-47 upwards and kicked off a short burst, then let the gun hang down. Slowly, he craned his head left and right, twisting it nearly 360 degrees. He was alone.

  His stomach reminded him of his hunger with a low rumble, a gurgle that sounded more like a gasp for help. With nothing to eat, he took another swig from the canteen instead, then another. He had about half the bottle left, a few ounces— it would be gone before noon.

  So that was his deadline.

  Better to take a few of them out when he went.

  Slowly, Dixon looked left and right, turning his whole body this time. Satisfied that he was truly alone, he began to walk toward the left side of the hill, heading in the direction of a ramshackle road that led to the village.

  CHAPTER 7

  HOG HEAVEN

  27 JANUARY 1991

  0700

  Major Horace Gordon Preston hopped out of the small C-12 Huron that had ferried him across from Tabuk to his new squadron. After flying F-15s, anything was likely to seem slow, but the bare-bones two-engined Beech— essentially a Model 200 with Air Force insignia— had trudged across the Saudi peninsula, its three-pronged propellers huffing and puffing the whole way. He was a terrible passenger to begin with, but sitting in the C-12 was like rolling a heavy rock up Purgatory Hill.

  An apt transition to his new assignment, Preston thought as he stepped away from the plane and got his bearings.

  Yesterday, Hack had nailed an Iraqi MiG and damaged another. His reward came swiftly: a long-awaited promotion to squadron commander.

  Except, not quite. Because the hot-shot pointy-nose fast-mover zipper-suit jock had been made only second in command— director of operations— not squadron commander.

  Worse, far far far worse, he had somehow been placed with an A-10A squadron.

  Preston bit back his bile and asked an enlisted man near the parking area where the 535th was located. The man pointed toward an A-10 maintenance area on the other side of the base, and said the trailer unit that served as its headquarters was located just beyond it.

  “They call it Hog Heaven,” said the airman enthusiastically, as if he were pointing out Old Faithful.

  Hack grunted and began walking in that direction. He had his gear in a small overnight bag— the rest was to follow him to the base.

  His new assignment offered two consolations. One was the fact that, on paper, the squadron was actually listed as a wing. While at present this didn’t fool anyone— Saddam especially— he had been told more A-10s were expected to be added in the near future, in essence creating a new squadron. He’d be in line for that command.

  The other consolation was a rumor that the present commander wasn’t cutting the mustard, in which case Hack would get his slot. In fact, a fr
iendly general had hinted that was the whole reason for his appointment. Of course, the general worked in Washington, so there was no telling what, if anything, the hint was worth.

  But why would Preston want to command a unit of Hogs?

  He wouldn’t. Preston had flown A-10s for two of the worst years of his life. He had angled and pleaded and connived the whole time to get out of them to a real airplane. And now he was back.

  A Humvee sat near a short fence beyond a low-slung building on his left. Two airmen sat inside, their backs turned away from the ramp area. Preston went to the Hummer, opened the rear door and hoisted himself and his small bag inside.

  “Uh, excuse me,” said the driver sharply.

  “Take me over to the headquarters for the 535th,” Preston said, settling into his seat.

  “Uh, sir?” said the other airman.

  “That would be Major. Come on, let’s go.”

  The men— clearly not here for him— stared at him from the front of the vehicle. Preston returned their glare, confident that they would comply with his order without further instruction.

  And so they did. The driver slapped the vehicle into motion, smashing the gas pedal and wheeling it around sharply, obviously trying to call attention to the fact that he wasn’t happy. But then again Preston wasn’t either, and so he ignored the bumpy ride.

  Hack had never been to King Fahd before, and after the relative order of his Eagle base at Tabuk, the place looked cluttered and confused. Besides hosting every Warthog in the Gulf, Fahd was home port to an assortment of Spec Ops and SAR craft— C-130s, PAVE Low helicopters, and the like. An odd assortment of support craft and stragglers had also found their way here: a Navy A-6 that had suffered battle damage and couldn’t make it back to its carrier, a pair of OA-6 Broncos training with Delta troops as advanced scouts, even an ancient civilian Constellation that had taken refuge after escaping from Kuwait. Preston stared at the planes, unimpressed; slow movers all, they reinforced his sense of exile. The ride took him through the area where the 535th‘s Hogs were stored and maintained— it was easy to spot, with a large banner across the top of the largest metal building declaring it “Oz: Home of the 535th ‘Devil’ Squadron.”

  A slightly smaller banner hung beneath it: “Eat This, Saddam.”

  Preston shook his head. That would have to go.

  “Hog Heaven, sir,” announced the driver as the Humvee skidded to a stop a few yards from a patched-together trailer complex off the side of the main area of the base. Closer to the planes and the Spec Ops areas than the other A-10A commands, the ramshackle building looked like a carny camp without the charm.

  Preston pulled himself out of the Humvee, which jerked away before he could properly close the door. Hack walked across the patched concrete and climbed up the rickety stairs. Inside, the building seemed to sway as he passed down the hallway.

  In the civilian world, seven o’clock in the morning was relatively early; most people would still be making their way to work. Hog squadron was experiencing a lull as well— but only because most its planes had already left on the morning missions assigned to it by the “frag” or fragment of the Air Tasking Order that laid out the allied game plan for the air war. The squadron shared quarters with an intelligence group at the far end of the hallway; Preston, with no signs on the doors to guide him, walked toward the buzz. As he passed a room on the right he stopped short— it was a large lounge dominated by a massive projection-screen TV. The set was tuned to CNN, where Bernard Shaw flashed his impressive eyebrows as he spoke into a microphone.

  The CNN screen changed. It was night. Hoses of red tracers filled the sky. Preston stepped into the room as words appeared in the lower right. “Downtown Baghdad.” Suddenly light flashed in the lower right corner of the screen— a bomb or missile hitting. The camera jumped. More explosions, secondaries most likely. Fire filled the sky.

  The scene changed. It was morning. “Live,” according to the words at the bottom.

  Buildings. “An Iraqi Factory” claimed the words.

  Undoubtedly a lie, Hack thought.

  “Excuse me,” said a gravelly voice behind him.

  Preston stepped to the side to get out of the way. The other man walked inside, past the large, overstuffed couches to the side the room. Three large refrigerators and bins of junk-food snacks sat along the wall, next to a long wooden table. There was a coffee machine there— next to a bean grinder. The officer poured himself a cup without glancing at him.

  It was Michael Knowlington. Hack had worked with him, briefly, during an assignment at the Pentagon about a year before. They hadn’t gotten along particularly well.

  “You’re early,” said Knowlington without looking up. “Good.”

  Before Preston could answer, the colonel had replaced the coffee pot and begun striding from the room. All Hack could do was follow down the hall to a small office on the right. The colonel took no notice of him, and in fact had reached to close the door behind him when Preston pushed himself into the doorway.

  “Colonel, I –”

  “Come in if you’re coming,” said Knowlington.

  In contrast to the room with the TV, the squadron commander’s officer was as spartan as a porta-john on a remote campsite. There were exactly three pieces of furniture— a three-drawer metal desk pushed against the wall and two metal folding chairs, neither of which had any padding. The walls were blank; a set of blinds hung down over the window. Knowlington sat in the chair behind the desk, turning it to face the other seat, which was against the wall near the door.

  Guy was so low on the totem pole, Preston thought to himself, he couldn’t even get furniture. Obviously the rumors must be true.

  “I understand you helped out near Apache yesterday evening,” said Knowlington. “Thanks.”

  “Apache? You mean the MiG that attacked the helicopter?”

  Knowlington nodded. Preston and his wingmate had actually been involved— though at the last minute, and then largely as spectators to the main event. While they tangled with several MiGs that had apparently been launched as decoys, two Hogs had somehow managed to fight off a Fishbed closing in on a Spec Ops helo.

  More than fought it off— one of the Hogs had nailed the SOB, an incredible feat in the slow moving A-10.

  “Those were your planes?” Preston asked.

  “Two of my best pilots. They should be back soon. They’ll be here for your coming out party.”

  Anyone else would have said the last words with a smile. Knowlington said them as if he were reading off a list of numbers on an engineering chart.

  Hack nodded. On the flight out he’d considered whether he ought to say something about burying the hatchet or getting along or letting bygones be bygones— make some reference, at least, to their “disagreement” in D.C. But now that he was here, sitting two feet from Knowlington, he didn’t know what to say.

  At least he didn’t smell like booze.

  “I’d like to get to work,” Hack told him. “First thing, I think, is review the duty roster, then look over the maintenance. I want to make sure the planes are ready to go. Right off, I thought I would –”

  “I believe you’ll find that Chief Master Sergeant Clyston has everything under control.”

  “Clyston?”

  “You know Allen?”

  “No. But who’s the officer in charge of . . .”

  “If there’s a readiness problem with the planes, it comes straight to me,” said Knowlington. “Clyston oversees the maintenance sections. He reports directly to me.”

  “Ordinarily . . .”

  “We’re not fully staffed,” said Knowlington. His voice remained as neutral as ever. “That’s an advantage, because it means we don’t have a lot of extraneous bullshit and red tape. We have just enough people to get our job done. Most days.”

  Not a laugh, not a hint of humor.

  “Well I’m not in favor of extraneous bullshit either,” started Hack. His “but” never got out of his m
outh.

  “Good. I’m due in Riyadh in two hours and I have some details to look after,” said Skull, standing and opening the door for him. “We’ll introduce you formally at 1300 or thereabouts. Bernie’ll get you situated. He’s down the hall with the Intelligence people; we share resources.”

  There was just the hint of irony in Knowlington’s voice. Angry at being brushed off but not exactly sure what to do or say, Preston got up as deliberately as he could, only just managing not to slam the door behind him.

  CHAPTER 8

  NORTH OF THE SAUDI BORDER

  27 JANUARY 1991

  0710

  Doberman cursed himself as he whacked the Hog engines to maximum power, goosing the throttle for all he was worth. Diversionary flares shot out of their wingtip dispensers, bursting in the path of the shoulder-fired missile.

  Truth was, he’d been caught flat-footed, at very low altitude without a lot of flight energy or momentum to help him escape. He hadn’t expected someone to be sitting down there behind him with a heat seeker.

  Stupidity.

  No, worse: Pilot arrogance, one of the seven deadly sins. He’d flown like he was invincible and now had to pay the piper. The only question was whether he’d pay with sweat or blood.

  The SA-7 the Iraqi soldier had launched at him was a relatively primitive heat-seeking missile. Its nearest Western equivalent was the Redeye missile, a 1960s’ man-portable weapon outclassed by contemporary SAMs like the Stinger and the Russian SA-16, to say nothing of systems like the British Blowpipe or the Swedish RBS 70. Still, the SA-7 flew at just under 1,000 miles an hour and had a range of two miles; the Hog was well within its lethal envelope. About the only thing Doberman had going for him was its fuse— a direct-action device that required the missile to actually hit something before detonating the RDX/AP explosive.

  Of course, Doberman had no way of knowing exactly what had been launched at him. Nor did he do much in the way of analyzing the odds. He concentrated on pushing the Hog into a series of hard, swaggering turns, lighting off flares as he went.