by Jim DeFelice
He might have prayed or wished for luck, but there wasn’t time.
CHAPTER 9
NORTH OF THE SAUDI BORDER
27 JANUARY 1991
0710
As A-Bomb shouted his warning, Doberman ducked left and tossed flares, obviously in control of the situation. So O’Rourke turned his attention toward meting out the only acceptable punishment for firing on a Hog.
Death. With extreme and radiating prejudice.
The fact that the Iraqis who had fired on his wingmate might have other SAMs at their disposal was irrelevant.
“What I’m talking about here is basic Hog etiquette,” said A-Bomb, as if he had a set of loudspeakers to harangue the Iraqis with, “You have to learn how to be polite.”
Rumor had it that Miss Manners was planning on devoting an entire chapter in her next book to the proper use of 30 millimeter cannon fire at dinner parties. If so, she could have used A-Bomb’s first run as a textbook example— he pushed his nose nearly straight down on the spot where the lingering smoke fingered the guilty party.
The cannon wasn’t really an effective weapon against individual soldiers, who presented a difficult target for an aircraft moving at four hundred miles an hour. Cluster bombs or even old-fashioned iron would have clearly been the weapon of choice, as Miss Manners would undoubtedly note in a well-worded aside at the start of her chapter.
The Iraqis, however, could not afford to wait for the book. The soldiers disappeared in a percolating steam of sand and explosive as A-Bomb rode the trigger for an extra-long burst, the gun’s recoil actually slowing the A-10A’s descent. He worked his rudder pedals to walk the torrent of bullets into a second knot and then over into the troop truck that had accompanied the men, slicing a neat line roughly along the drive shaft, not to mention the rest of the chassis.
There was a bit too much smoke to see the vehicle split in half, and besides, the flames got in the way. Nonetheless, A-Bomb gave himself an attaboy as his crosshairs slipped toward one last knot of soldiers lying in the sand. These men had the audacity to actually fire at him— or at least that seemed to be the implication of the tiny flashes of red coming from their position.
“Definitely not polite,” said A-Bomb, squeezing his trigger. “You gentlemen are going to have to learn not to shoot out of turn. I’m afraid you fall under the jurisdiction of Hog Rule Number 5— For every action there is an opposite and disproportionate reaction.”
CHAPTER 10
NORTH OF THE SAUDI BORDER
27 JANUARY 1991
0710
Doberman held the plane steady as a white arrow shot past his canopy. It began to veer across his path but then wobbled and exploded, detonated by its self-destruct mechanism as its fuel gave out. The pilot ducked, though the warhead was too far away to do any damage. He brought the stick back and started to climb, turning around toward the battlefield to get back in the game.
Doberman caught a glimpse of Devil Two diving nearly straight down on the Iraqi truck, smoke pouring from the Gatling gun in its chin. Between the smoke and the glinting sun, the Hog’s dark green skin looked as if she were bathed in perspiration, a magnificent winged beast meting out justice to a parcel of demons escaped from the underworld.
Doberman got back to three thousand feet as he reassessed the battlefield. A-Bomb began recovering at very low altitude, pulling off to the southwest. The Iraqis were either all dead or out of SAMs; Devil Two flew off unscathed.
Which left the T-72 he’d been homing in on when he was so rudely interrupted. The tank commander had taken the course of all intelligent Iraqis— he was turning tail and running away. Dust and sand spewed out behind him.
Doberman eyed his flanks cautiously before attacking. He put the plane into a long but shallow dive, a surfer riding the last wave toward shore. It was a peaceful, gentle maneuver, a glide rather than a plunge, the Thunderbolt II seeming to float downwards on a summer breeze.
Then he blasted the hell out of the bastard with two quick squeezes of the trigger.
The first pack of bullets caught the edge of the tank’s turret like the sharp edge of a crowbar, wedging in and lifting, tossing it off like a discarded bottle cap. The massive sewer cover scraped briefly against the side then plopped into the sand.
The second burst finished off the work, igniting the insides of the Russian-made tank. The heavy slugs of depleted uranium that made up the bulk of the combat mix bounced back and forth in the tank’s interior, but the heavy-lifting had already been done by the very first HE round to slap into the open hull; the three members of the tank crew were incinerated as it ignited a fuel line at the edge of the engine compartment.
Doberman let go of the trigger, shoving his right wing down and pirouetting sharply in the air, turning back toward the border. the other tank lay to his right, the truck to his left. Men lay on the ground around both vehicles. Nothing moved.
The dark shape of A-Bomb’s plane appeared a mile and a half ahead, climbing above him.
“Devil Two, this One,” Doberman said. “You have anything else moving down there?”
“Neg-a-tivo,” said his wingmate. “Clean slate.”
Doberman tensed as he flew toward the position of the soldiers who had called in support. He suspected they were part of the Iraqi plot.
“Rat Patrol to Devil Flight. Shit man, we are sorry about that. Jesus, we’re sorry.”
“Yeah,” said Doberman. He spotted their ditch, or what he thought was their ditch, about a half-mile out at ten o’clock, between his nose and left wing. “A-Bomb, you think these guys are legitimate?” he asked over the short-range frequency, which linked him only to his wingmate.
“AWACS woulda authenticated ‘em,” said A-Bomb.
“Yeah.”
“Got to go with it, Dog,” said A-Bomb.
Glenon scowled beneath his mask but didn’t reply. He hated it when A-Bomb used his serious voice. But his wingman was right— they had to accept that Rat Patrol was authentic.
In theory.
“You got me?” he asked his wingmate.
“I have your lovely effigy within my fierce gaze.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“I’m on your ass.”
“Cover me while I buzz these suckers.”
“Dog.”
“Just watch my butt. I’m not going to do anything stupid.” Doberman pumped the throttle and dove the A-10A down, zooming over the American position at all of ten feet AGL. Two round shapes popped up, then hunkered down.
“Shit. What gives, Devil flight?” demanded the soldier.
“Just saying hello,” said Doberman, still not convinced that the soldiers were friends.
A-Bomb in the meantime had hailed the AWACS, filling them in on everything that had happened. The controller assured him that the unit was a legitimate one.
“But what’s that mean, really?” Doberman said to him over the short-range radio as they climbed away from the border. “They have a legitimate frequency and pass words, but that’s it, right? I mean, the controller is sitting in an airplane— he doesn’t know.”
“You’re getting paranoid, Dog Man. You got to lighten up. Everybody can make a mistake.”
“Maybe.” Doberman studied his map and position on the INS. He plotted a new course for home.
“Yeah,” said A-Bomb after he relayed the data. “Looks good.” His voice was nearly drowned out by the strains of “Rocket Queen,” the last song on Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction CD.
“I thought you were laying off the heavy metal,” said Doberman, putting his nose on the new bearings.
“You can’t get enough of the classics,” replied A-Bomb, who had to be the only combat pilot in the world with a flightsuit customized with a full-blown stereo. “I’m thinking of broadening my outlook, though,” added A-Bomb. “I mean, a man has to be open to new experiences. You have to move forward.”
“What do you mean? Rap? More grunge rock?”
“Early Beatles.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Doberman, as if they’d rehearsed it.
CHAPTER 11
RIYADH
27 JANUARY 1991
1010
Skull shifted on the hard metal chair, sipping the dark black liquid the CentCom staff claimed was coffee and trying to keep from bitching out loud. He’d caught a total of three hours’ sleep last night, including the ten minutes on the Huey hustling here for the high-level briefing session on the “Straw” Mission. But fatigue didn’t bother him— war was a twenty-four hour, do-it-yourself operation, and this particular product had a serious freshness date on it, due to expire in less than fourteen hours. Which meant it was exactly the sort of situation he liked; it kicked his pulse up and tightened his muscles, got his eyes into sharp focus. If anything, he was too awake.
What irked him was the attitude of the CinC staff running the show. It wasn’t just that the Army officers had started frowned the second Wong opened his mouth to begin the briefing. It was the way they frowned— as if Air Force officers had no ability to analyze anything below ten thousand feet, let alone propose and organize a combined ground-air covert operation.
Not that they treated the Delta folks any better.
Maybe it was just an Army thing, but Skull got the impression that they saw the whole thing more as an annoyance than an opportunity. They called it “Strawman” rather than Straw, hinting at the implication that the intelligence was bogus or perhaps even planted. Even the conference area they had been assigned— a basement room in a Saudi government building with two large folding tables for everyone to crowd around— seemed to signal that the mission had something less than top priority.
Officially, the allies weren’t supposed to be targeting Saddam. President George H.W. Bush had even said they wouldn’t during a press conference. But that was BS and everybody knew it. So why were they getting the sneers and knowing glances?
Wong, Knowlington, and the Spec Ops staff had put together a plan for four six-man teams of Delta troopers to make a high-altitude, low-opening parachute drop at 2000 about three miles southwest of the target area. The troopers would coordinate with a flight of F-111s, visually IDing the target before clearing the strike. The fighter-bombers would use laser-guided smart bombs to destroy the convoy. The ground teams would then escape in a pair of PAVE Lows in the early morning hours an hour after the attack, covered by four planes from Devil squadron.
Technically, the A-10s were ill-suited to night-support missions; they’d have to use special Maverick AGMs as night vision equipment if things got heavy. But it was a kludge Skull had made do with a few days before when he’d gone north to rescue one of his men. He expected an argument. He also anticipated that with a target like Saddam in the offing, the brass might want something a little flashier than the earth pigs— AKA as Aardvarks, Varks, and One-Elevens— handling the action. What he wasn’t prepared for was the flat-out statement that the Delta teams couldn’t be made available.
“We’re not risking that many men on this,” said Major Booker, an infantry officer from the CinC staff who was running the meeting. “It means taking away from Scud hunting and that can’t be done. The Scuds are job one.”
“These teams are currently in Riyadh. They’re not even technically reserves,” said Captain Leterri, who was presenting the Delta perspective at the briefing. Leterri looked like he wanted to say something along the lines of, “All they’re doing is jerking off.” Instead, he snorted at the air. The highly trained soldiers in question were, in fact, acting as a bodyguard pool for CentCom and the CinC— not exactly what they wanted to be doing.
Booker raised his shoulders and lowered his head, as if he were an eagle looking down from a craggy perch. The veins popped in his long, sinewy neck. “If the men are available,” he said, “then they should be hunting Scuds.”
Leterri was not be cowed. “They can conduct that mission immediately after this. The PAVE Lows. . .”
“We’re not risking helicopters that far north.”
“We had PAVE Lows there last night,” snapped Leterri, exasperated.
“Actually, the helicopter in question was a PAVE Hawk,” said Wong. “While operating at the extreme end of it range, it accomplished its mission with typical aplomb.”
“Irrelevant,” snapped Booker. “Anti-aircraft defenses have picked up in the area. We are not risking either PAVE Lows or PAVE Hawks there. The assets are too precious.”
“Aw bullshit, Major,” said Leterri, no longer able to control his frustration. “What the fuck do we have them for if we don’t put them to use? Shit, they got in last night, they’ll get in tonight, they’ll get in tomorrow.”
“We have fresh satellite data,” said Booker. He sounded almost triumphant, and waved to a sergeant near the door, who stepped forward and put the photos on the long table. Wong took them and began studying them. Paddington, one of the two British representatives at the session, leaned over his shoulder and whispered something.
It seemed clear to Skull that Booker’s job was to rain on the parade, scuttling it if possible. He couldn’t let that happen— not because he wanted to nail Saddam, but because he saw the mission as the only chance to search for Dixon. Officially, his lieutenant had been listed as KIA; nobody was going to send a search team looking for him, especially this far north, without very solid evidence that he was alive. This was their best— maybe only— shot at getting him back.
So it was time to take over the meeting.
“Here’s the thing,” he said, speaking in the deceptively soft tone that he had honed through years of maneuvering with the brass. “With all due respect to the other services represented, we have a serious opportunity here, based as much on luck as good intelligence. We only get one shot. The ground team is important, because the planes may need to be directed in at the last minute, depending on what’s going on. We considered using a Pave Penny TSL system, lazing the specific vehicle, and we can still do that if that’s what you’d prefer. But the F-111s can do the targeting on their own if we have the ground team directing. . .”
“We can’t spare F-111s,” said Booker.
“Why don’t we let Tommy tell us that?” said Skull. He kept his contempt veiled as he motioned to the Black Hole planner officially representing the Air Force theatre commander at the session. Black Hole ran the air war, assigning hit lists to squadrons in a daily briefing or task order known as the ATO, for air tasking order. Knowlington was well-connected with the planners and their bosses, and would never have included the planes in the game plan without having checked to see if they were, indeed, available.
“We can have a flight of F-111s on target whenever you want,” said the captain, Tom Marks.
“What are they tasked for now?” said Booker.
“There are two flights. One is doing RR, bridges and railroads, north of Baghdad, and the other just a generic Scud hunting mission down near. . .”
“There are no generic Scud missions,” said Booker. “Every damn Scud in the Gulf has to be eliminated.”
“With all due respect,” said Skull, “don’t you feel nailing Saddam is more important than going after the Scuds? Hell, the damn things can’t hit the broadside of a barn.”
“Tell that to the people in Tel Aviv,” said Booker.
“Eliminate Saddam and the war ends.”
“I doubt it. In any event, assassinating world leaders is not one of our war aims.”
“Right,” laughed Skull derisively. Even he had his limits. “What priority do we have, exactly?”
“You have no priority,” said Booker. “This is a high-risk mission.”
“You’re vetoing it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Booker, finally called out, physically stepped back. He glanced at his two aides and gave his shoulders another heave. “The CinC wants it to proceed, if feasible, but with minimal resources. The Scuds must remain a priority. We can’t divert from any other mission
s.”
“Minimal resources means what?” said Skull.
“No diminishment of the Scud mission. No diminishment of other priorities,” said Booker.
They might have taken a few more turns around that circle had Wong not interrupted.
“The air defenses have definitely been increased,” he said. “And in a most interesting way. Possibly with SA-11s. Very interesting.”
“SA-11s?” said Marks.
“What’s the significance?” asked Booker.
“SA-11s are not known to have been deployed in Iraq since experimental use at the behest of the Soviets during the so-called Iran-Iraq war,” said Wong. He slid the pictures to the center of table and identified three revetments obviously prepared for missile launchers; he explained as an aside that there should be a fourth, though it was not discernible. He then zeroed in on one of the vehicles in the revetments, showing the circumstantial evidence that had led him to conclude it was an SA-11 battery.
“These are clearly placements for two vehicles.” He pointed at the small wedge which represented a parking spot. “Typically, an SA-11 battery would consist of two vehicles, one a radar van located here, the other a four-missile turntable providing 360-degree coverage. The wide envelope would also make sense given this configuration, for the parameters of the acquisition radars would be covered, as you can see.”
Wong quickly traced squiggly circles extending out from his wedges, forming a neat hedge completely covering the approaches to Al Kajuk. A wedge of open space covered the right northwestern corner— obviously where the other battery must be.
“I don’t see a van,” said Tommy.
“Yes, precisely,” said Wong. “It hasn’t been moved in yet. This vehicle here, obscured by the tarp as it moves along the area, is most likely the radar unit. But we can’t be sure. That is why my conclusion is tentative. There is the possibility that they are bluffing. There is also the possibility that this has been established for different missile defenses.” Wong began a dissertation on the amount of space typically cleared for radar trucks and support vehicles, concentrating on the one site which had been worked over by a bulldozer or other earthmover. He could not rule out SA-6s or SA-8s, or even other potentially portable defenses. Skull kept nodding and signaling to him to wrap it up; as usual, Wong was delivering much more detail than necessary.