Gradually, the distance between him and the shadow opened. The other parachute slipped three, four, then five yards away, barely visible. It seemed to hang there, as if kept close by magnetic attraction.
Dixon was too damn close for safety in the dark.
On the other hand, it probably meant he wouldn’t be lost when he landed.
Dixon was supposed to yank off his oxygen mask at twelve thousand feet. He looked again at the altimeter, but couldn’t make out the reading. In fact, he wasn’t even sure he could see the dial.
What he could see were green-yellow streaks off to his right.
Pretty things. Delicate and thin, flares in the night.
Tracers.
Guns being fired at someone or something.
Maybe even him.
The colors told him who was firing. NATO guns almost uniformly packed red tracers.
Russian-made weapons carried green.
Green means bad, red means good.
Oh shit.
###
Actually, it wasn’t that hard to steer the chute, once his arms flexed and he got used to it. And Dixon finally figured he wasn’t going to suffocate if he just went ahead and yanked off the oxygen mask, no matter how high or low he was.
Granted, it was pitch black, he had no idea where the ground might be, and he was colder than an icicle on a polar bear’s nose. But the lieutenant even managed to put a few more yards between him and whoever was piloting the nearby chute, while still staying close enough to make it out in the dark.
All he had to do was land and this nightmare would be over. He finally realized that his altimeter had somehow gotten twisted around on his arm during the jump, and somehow wouldn’t stay put where he could see it without gyrating contortions. But he knew he was getting close to the ground. He figured he’d see something when the time came.
If nothing else, his rucksack— hanging off his rig below his feet— would hit the desert a second or so before him. That was probably all the cue he needed, or wanted.
Dixon knew how to land. That was easy. You relaxed and you walked, as if you were coming off the last step of an escalator.
No, that was the way the pros did it. He was still a newbie. Newbies relaxed and walked and rolled. The roll took all the energy out of the jump. You went down easy so you didn’t break something.
Yeah, right. What about the rucksack tied to his butt? What if it bounced and smacked him in the head?
Serve him right, that.
Dixon looked over and realized that he had lost the other parachute. He saw a much longer shadow, a blanket almost, in its place.
The ground. Must be.
He pushed his left tog down, starting to turn into the wind. Then he realized he’d set it too hard and backed off, but not before his body and the parachute had pitched sharply to the right. Trying to straighten himself out he flared the chute hard, once again hitting the brakes in midair. His legs whipped forward unexpectedly, and he felt like a kid about to fall out of a swing.
Dixon knew that nine-tenths of what he had to do was just relax his arms and shoulders, but his muscles weren’t cooperating. The parachute suddenly seemed to have a mind of its own. His neck felt as if it had a steel boxcar spring wrapped around it.
Somehow he got his arms loose enough to regain some control over the parachute. And then he saw that the sky in front of him wasn’t moving any more.
The ruck hit behind him. His left leg hit the ground. The next thing he knew he was twisting his face in the dirt.
Dixon’s first thought was that he had broken every bone in his body from the neck down.
His next thought was: Hot damn! I made it.
He rolled his legs under him, then released the parachute. He got to his knees and nearly fell over, as dizzy as an out-of-control carousel.
He was still dizzy when a short man with a very large gun materialized directly in front of him. The gun barrel poked into his shoulder.
“Hey, Lieutenant, shit, why didn’t you land into the wind?”
It was Sergeant Winston.
Dixon’s head finally stopped spinning. He stood slowly. His ribs felt crushed but not quite broken. There was a stitch in his lungs, and his left knee felt wobbly, but nothing had been damaged too badly.
“Were you trying to show off?” asked the sergeant.
“Show off?”
“Trying to beat everybody to the ground?”
“No.”
Winston obviously didn’t believe him, and made a sound halfway between a snort and a laugh. “Well, you did. And you scored a perfect bull’s-eye. Come on, let’s round up the rest of the team and get our butts in gear,” added the sergeant, helping Dixon pull in his parachute. “I thought I saw something moving on the highway just before we landed.” He shook his head. “Shit. I figured you’d be off a mile at least. Fucking Hog pilots. You probably think jumping out of a plane in the dark’s fun, huh?”
CHAPTER 5
HOG HEAVEN
24 JANUARY 1991
2230
“The kill boxes are here,” Knowlington told Doberman, A-Bomb and Wong, pointing to a map on an easel in Cineplex, Devil Squadron’s multipurpose ready room, hangout space and briefing area. It was called Cineplex because there was a large-screen TV with a satellite hookup on one end, courtesy of Chief Master Sergeant Alan Clyston and his unending supply line.
“You’re pointing at the Euphrates,” said Doberman.
“I know,” said Knowlington.
“Pretty damn far for us to be flying in daylight,” Doberman told him. “Going to drain time on target to nothing. Be there for what, ten minutes, then have to go home?”
They’d have more than ten minutes— the colonel had figured it at nearly thirty minutes and maybe more, depending on their load configuration— but it was just like Doberman to complain about that, rather than the problem of actually flying so far behind enemy lines in an airplane built to stay close to the front. Even from Al Jouf, a small, forward operating area on the other end of Saudi Arabia, it would take about an hour at nearly top speed, through some of the best anti-air defenses in the world, for the Hogs to reach the area where the commando teams were operating. Granted, allied Weasels had whacked most of the SAM batteries pretty hard. But all it took was one to nail you.
“Hey, time on target’s no big deal as long as they got the targets picked out,” said A-Bomb. “What we need is a good ground controller calling the shots. Somebody who’s familiar with Hogs, you know what I’m talking about?”
“Well, we’ll have one,” said the colonel. “In fact, he’s one of our guys.”
“One of our guys? No shit,” said A-Bomb. “Who?”
“Dixon. He parachuted in with one of the commando teams a few minutes ago.”
Both men couldn’t have looked more surprised if he had told them the world was actually flat.
“Dixon?” said Doberman.
“The lieutenant apparently volunteered,” said Knowlington.
“He’s just a fucking kid,” said Doberman.
“No shit,” said Knowlington.
“Hey, BJ’ll do fine,” said A-Bomb. “He knows what it’s about.”
“He’s a fucking kid,” Doberman told him.
“Whatever he is, he’s on the ground in Iraq now,” said Knowlington. “And it’s too goddamn late to get him back. Wong, you’ve been awful quiet. What’s your opinion?”
Knowlington felt lucky to have snagged Wong for his team. Hijacking him just after he had come to the Devil Squadron on a weapons assignment for CENTCOM. Wong was the self-professed expert in Russian weapons. But for Knowlington, his real asset was the drollest sense of humor he had heard since his days in Vietnam. Sometimes it was so subtle, only the colonel could pick it up, and even he couldn’t always tell whether Wong was goofing or being serious.
He was serious now, definitely.
“The entire operation is a waste of time,” said Wong. He gave a sigh so deep that it sounded lik
e it came from a draft horse. “The so–called Scud or Russian–made SS-1 presents a minimal military threat, even if fitted with chemical warheads. As we saw during the Afghanistan War— ”
“You were there?” asked Doberman, about as sarcastic as a reporter questioning a congressional junket.
“For a time,” said Wong without missing a beat. “Even when massed with the most accurate targeting radars and intelligence available, the SS-1 family was of scant use against the rebel insurgency, with an ineffective damage ratio and a destructive envelope that is frankly less intimidating than the average grenade attack. The Iraqi targeting and launch capacity is even less organized. The parabola of probable destruction has the slant of an inchworm at rest. Given the infrastructure and resources necessary to support the infiltration, targeting and disposal of these minor annoyances, it would make much more sense to –”
“It’s not our job to argue yea or nay,” said Knowlington. “We just have to hit what they want us to hit.”
Wong’s mouth and throat contorted, as if the rest of what he was going to say had been written on a sheaf of paper and he swallowed it whole.
“Yeah, all right, what the hell. I volunteer,” Doberman told Knowlington.
“I wasn’t going to ask you to volunteer.”
“I volunteer anyway.”
“Me, too,” said A-Bomb. “There’s your two-ship. When do we leave?”
With Mongoose due to be shipped back to the States, Doberman and A-Bomb were, at least arguably, the best two pilots in the squadron; by asking them, Knowlington had fulfilled his promise to the general.
Now he proceeded to try and talk them out of it. Both had seen more than their share of action in the past few days and were due serious rests. Doberman especially looked a little ragged around the edges. And with Mongoose going home, the squadron needed a new DO – one who was here at Home Drome, not out in the desert.
“That’s no argument to get me to stay,” said Doberman. “Listen Colonel, no offense intended, but I want to fly, not sit behind a desk.”
“Major Johnson didn’t sit behind a desk,” he told him. “Mongoose flew as much as anybody.”
“Yeah, but I can do without the bullshit, you know? Besides, it screws up your head.”
Knowlington nodded. Doberman was more right than he knew. The downside of the job wasn’t paperwork or bureaucracy or even so much the dealing with the personnel matters that inevitably fell in the DO’s lap. It was the worrying. You felt responsible for everyone, and it weighed on you, began to eat you away. It had only been as a commander that Knowlington himself had come to feel real pressure; only as a professional worrier that he had fallen into despair, and worse.
And, truth was, he’d known these guys would volunteer.
“All right,” Knowlington told them. “Go get some sleep.”
The two pilots left, but Wong remained.
“Captain?”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but I wonder if we could discuss the aspect of my transfer.”
“Which aspect is that?” Knowlington asked. He was tired and not particularly in a mood to enjoy Wong’s usual routines.
“The aspects of its existence. I’m of no use here,” continued Wong. “My role is reduced to fetching people and pointing out the mistakes in incompetent estimates.”
Knowlington started to dismiss him when a light went off in his head: Wong was angling to get involved with Fort Apache.
He should have realized it immediately. Poor guy probably felt insulted that he hadn’t been asked to volunteer. For someone with Wong’s record and abilities, it was a real put-down not to be included. But what the hell could he do at Al Jouf? Help coordinate the bombing missions?
Probably. But the commandos had their own intelligence guys. Not as good as Wong, but damn good.
Still, it might make sense to have Wong out there, scoping the air defenses for Doberman and A-Bomb. Special Ops people weren’t going to be experts on SA-6s or Rolands, and there were plenty of them where they were heading. Wong knew his shit, even if he used phrases like “parabolas of probable destruction” and compared missiles to inchworms.
Damn ball-buster.
“I need you around, Wong,” Knowlington told him. “Your insights are important. Seriously.”
“With all due respect, sir, a trained monkey could perform the services you require.”
Typical Wong-style exaggeration— the whole reason Knowlington kept him around.
But didn’t his guys deserve the best?
“All right, Wong. Look, I have to go talk to Chief Clyston. Hook up with the team he puts together and get out to Al Jouf ASAP. You have my blessing. Just remember, you’re still my guy, not theirs.”
Wong turned purple, or at least reasonably close.
“Al Jouf?”
“That’s where they’re running this from.”
“Colonel. . .”
“Yeah, I know,” Knowlington said, slapping him on the back as he started away. “You owe me big time.”
CHAPTER 6
KING FAHD AIRBASE, SAUDI ARABIA
25 JANUARY 1991
0005
Chief Master Sergeant Clyston’s quarters at the home drome were a testament not merely to the role of the squadron’s first sergeant, but to the entire institution of the noncommissioned officer. Clyston’s tent was located in the heart of Tent City, placing him in the very midst of the people he led. Outwardly, it was unostentatious to a fault, a billboard that said to the entire squadron of techies, specialists, ordies, candymen, crew dogs, and wizards that their premier sergeant, their first among firsts, their man, their capo di capo, their CHIEF (as he preferred to be called, capitalization included) was, on some admittedly imperceptible level, one of them.
Inside, it was better equipped than a Pentagon suite, and a hell of a lot more comfy.
Some noncoms, having reached the exalted heights that Chief Clyston had, let it get to their heads, thinking that just because they really ran the show, they had to make sure everyone, officers especially, knew it. Some sergeants, having extended their careers into the rarefied air of chiefdom, not only lorded it over their airmen and lower NCOs, but let their commanders know who was really in charge at every turn. But a major part of the sergeant’s success was his subtlety as well as his efficiency. Just as he was approachable by the lowliest of airmen (assuming, of course, the capo di capo had already had his first cup of morning coffee), so the ostensible commander of Devil Squadron, Colonel Knowlington, felt he was entering the tent of an old friend, albeit an extremely important one, as he knocked at the door. And, in truth, he was. The two men had been a pair since Clyston helped get Knowlington’s Thud ready for a flight over the Ho Chi Ming Trail in the Dark Ages: a flight that earned the then-lieutenant his first air-to-air kill.
“Disturbing you, Alan?” he asked Clyston, who was sitting in a recliner, eyes closed, stereo headphones on.
“Colonel. You surprised me.” Clyston took off the headphones and pushed the recliner closed.
Knowlington plopped himself into one of the over-stuffed chairs nearby. How Clyston had managed to get such decidedly non-military furnishings into the middle of Saudi Arabia hardly ranked among the panoply of Clyston-esque achievements.
“I was just listening to Chopin,” he said. “London Symphony bootleg.”
Knowlington nodded.
“Root beer?” Clyston asked. “I have some from Schmmy’s.”
Schmmy’s was a small, old-fashioned soda-fountain in a small upstate town where a friend of the sergeant’s lived; it was, in the opinion not merely of the capo but of half the squadron, the creator of the world’s best root beer. Knowlington found himself agreeing, despite his intention to go grab some sleep as quickly as possible. The sergeant reached into one of his refrigerators – he had several of various sizes and purposes – and retrieved a small hose and spigot. He then took a frosted mug from an ice chest and pumped the colonel a glass.
“You ju
st wanted to talk?” asked the sergeant as he handed him the glass.
“I wish. We need to send a few people over to Al Jouf.”
“How many?”
“Enough to keep two Hogs in the air indefinitely.”
“Geez, I don’t know if I can spare anybody.”
“It’s important.”
In theory, Clyston wasn’t on the very short list of people with a need to know about Fort Apache, and so the colonel had not told him about it. But Clyston was a five–star member of the Pipeline, and the look and slight nod that he gave the colonel confirmed that he knew all about it, quite possibly in greater detail than the men who had planned it.
It was also obvious that he had already given the matter some thought.
“Going to have to send Tinman,” said the sergeant. “I hate to, but there’s no one who knows metal better than him. He’ll take three places.”
Knowlington nodded, as he did at the other names— until the last.
“Rosen? Again?”
Clyston shrugged. “Colonel, she’s the best on the base at all the avionics crap. And not just on Hogs.”
“She’s a pain in the ass.”
“True. But the thing is, she knows what she’s doing. I’ve seen her make radios work that had half their parts. Besides that, she can strip and reassemble three-quarters of the engines we got in half an hour, and that’s not even her specialty. She’s also a certified parachute packer. Hell, I saw her take an f-ing OV-10 Bronco completely apart and put it back together last year. You know, when she first joined the Air Force . . .”
“It’s not her ability I’m worried about,” Knowlington interrupted. “She’s an Einstein. But she’s got the personality of the Wicked Witch of the West.”
“That’s not precisely fair,” said Clyston. He nodded to himself, as if considering his words, though Knowlington had heard most of this speech before.
Several times.
“She just gets involved in difficult situations,” said Clyston. “People try to hit on her.”
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