“Good shooting,” said Doberman as A-Bomb reached altitude. “You leave anything for me?”
“Tried to,” said A-Bomb. “See now, you could shoot like this if you had one of the medals.”
“What medal?”
“Tinman’s cross.”
“You still pushing that?”
“Told him I would.”
“I can shoot better than you with my eyes closed.”
“Oh man— you mean we’re supposed to fly with them open?”
After dodging the triple-A, Doberman emptied his CUs on the two clumps of vehicles at the far end of the party. A-Bomb took his plane in an arc around the pluming smoke. Nothing was moving.
“Everything’s good and broken,” he told Doberman.
“I think that Rover or whatever it was stayed on the highway,” he told him.
“Nah.”
“Let’s find out.”
“Got ya,” said A-Bomb, reaching into his customized flight-suit to pull out a celebratory Twizzler. Nothing like red licorice to top off a good bomb run.
Doberman led him back along the road. They spotted a bus and some sort of small truck, but not the Land Rover. Then Cougar cut in.
“Break ninety degrees,” the AWACS controller told them. “Bogies coming off A-1. Break.”
A-Bomb listened to Doberman’s curse as the jets snapped onto the new coordinates south. They were nearly at bingo anyway. The two Iraqis were quickly ID’d as a pair of F-1 Mirages and just as promptly chased back to base by F-15s. By the time they disappeared from the tracking screens, Doberman had told the AWACS crew that they were heading back to Al Jouf for the night.
His mood reflective as he headed for home, A-Bomb treated himself to a second Twizzler, then clicked his CD changer to dish up Guns & Roses.
CHAPTER 19
IRAQ
25 JANUARY 1991
1825
The commandos waited until dusk to cross the road. They chose a spot near a short run of rock outcroppings, which would give them a staging area and some protection in case of traffic. The last fifteen minutes were the worst— Dixon’s eyes were weighted with the fatigue of slogging the rucksack and communications gear on his back, not to mention the long day and night before. Two or three times he felt his mind wander off into the null space of pre-sleep. If it hadn’t been so cold, he might have fallen completely asleep and not woken up for at least a week.
Two vehicles passed during that time: a Mercedes panel truck, probably though not necessarily civilian, and a small car which bore a Red Cross.
Dixon wondered about the Red Cross car, thinking that maybe it might be carrying a prisoner. At least one allied pilot had gone down over Iraq during the last two days.
For a fleeting moment he wondered if he should give the order to stop it, and then whether the troopers would have obeyed it.
It was their job to find Scud transports and launchers, nothing else. They had already let a score of other military vehicles go.
But rescuing a pilot was different. That was worth blowing their mission for, wasn’t it?
Shit yeah. He could explain it to them— he’d have to, since they still thought of him as an outsider.
But it was too late now. The vehicle was by them and gone. And besides, he was just an observer, not the boss.
###
In the dull blueness of the fading day, the countryside looked vaguely familiar, almost American, a desert scrubland just beyond farmland. Look carefully and the illusion evaporated. At any moment an Iraqi troop truck, or tanks, or helicopters could materialize and kill them. They had a ton of ammo, but eventually they would be outgunned— they were, as Jake Green had said three times during the last hour, in Saddam’s backyard.
It would be better, infinitely better, to die fighting than to be captured, Dixon decided. If captured, he would surely be tortured and killed anyway. Better to go quickly.
Besides, if they didn’t kill him, it would be worse. He’d be used for propaganda. That was his real fear. To be tortured to the point where he would agree to anything they said— that was the worst horror.
In survival school, they told pilots it was no disgrace to go along if you had to. Bend so you didn’t break. The people who counted back home would realize that you were being coerced. Your mission was survival, not playing hero.
But Dixon didn’t entirely accept that. The shame of being a prisoner, of being helpless— it would be more than he could stand.
He’d learned that lesson flying in combat the first time. Bitterly. He remembered how failure felt.
“Lieutenant? You coming?”
Dixon jumped as Leteri tapped him. He followed across the open ground to the roadway. After two strides he felt the weight of his two backpacks balance him; by the fourth he felt as if he could run forever, adrenaline surging. He gripped his MP-5 with both hands, trotting with it before him as if it set out a force field of protection.
“You’re looking like a Goddamn Delta trooper now, BJ,” mocked Winston as he approached the team leader’s position beyond the roadway.
Dixon was too tired to tell if he was mocking him. He slid down on his knee and waited as the rest of the patrol crossed and scouted ahead.
“Okay,” said Winston after his scouts reported back. “Here’s what I’m thinking. We got the old quarry a mile ahead. If those trucks stopped anywhere around here, it was there.”
“I’ll go with who’s ever scouting it,” said Dixon.
“Not so fast.”
“I got to be close to call a bomber in. I can use this, don’t worry,” said Dixon, holding out his gun.
“Relax. We’re staying together.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“It’s not you I’m worried about,” said Winston. “I don’t want to lose the radio.”
“Yeah, I thought you sounded a little sentimental.”
The comeback surprised Dixon as much as Winston. It was the sort of thing he would have expected A-Bomb or Doberman to say, something that would have come out of the mouth of a guy who’d seen hell a few hundred times and learned to laugh at it.
Winston laughed lightly, shaking his head. “Fuckin’ Hog pilots. You guys think you’re going to win the war all by yourselves, don’t you?”
“If we fucking have to,” said Dixon.
“Yeah, well, you’re not going to. We’re moving forward as a team. Stay close to Leteri, OK?” Winston gave him a chuck and moved out.
Fucking? Had he said fucking? Dixon pulled himself to his feet, moving ahead on sheer amazement alone.
CHAPTER 20
AL JOUF FOA, SAUDI ARABIA
25 JANUARY 1991
1900
No question about it: Wong was definitely allergic to something in the desert. He sneezed into his handkerchief, at the same time muffling a curse that the half-dozen officers assembled around the table pretended not to hear.
It had to be an allergy. Sand maybe. Or the air.
Then again, it could be Major Wilson who insisted on punctuating his briefing on the Fort Apache mission with historical notes on the formation of Delta Force and commando operations in general. Wong wouldn’t have minded this so much if the major didn’t get every third fact wrong.
Captain Wong had actually served with Delta Force twice, once as an advisor on Russian weaponry and, briefly, as something called an “attached adjunctive administrative officer.” This was a cover for an assignment to handle a clandestine drop into the northern Vietnamese jungles, a CIA-inspired mission where he went along to assess the wreckage of what was supposed to be a Chinese super weapon – and which turned out, as Wong knew it would, to be merely the latest version of the F-7, a Chinese copy of the MiG-21. The base model was an antiquated deathtrap Wong wouldn’t allow even his worst enemy to fly. His inspection showed that the Chinese had succeeded in making it even more hazardous.
During that mission he had worked with several outstanding troopers, including a Green Beret Captain
named Hawkins, who encouraged him to believe that occasionally the army bureaucracy lucked into choosing the right men for the right job. But in general, Wong held almost as low an opinion of the Special Ops bureaucracy as he held of the rest of the defense establishment, Air Force partly excepted. Major Wilson’s droning on about “clandestine implants” was doing nothing to disabuse him of his opinion. The man’s knowledge of enemy weaponry and the role of air support were rudimentary, in Wong’s opinion, although he at least recognized that the Hogs would be operating beyond their preferred parameters. Wong was about to second the point when his nose tickled again; he barely managed to pull a fresh handkerchief from his pocket and cover his face in time.
“You wanted to say something, Captain?” asked Colonel Klee, who was in charge of supplying Apache and the infiltration teams associated with it.
Wong nodded as he finished blowing his nose. He had reserved judgment on Colonel Klee; his khakis were fairly crisp, no small accomplishment in this wilderness.
He was also admirably short on patience.
“Well?” asked the colonel. “What is it?”
“I was going to suggest that if we want the Apache Forces to work in conjunction with our attack planes, we institute combat-area refueling procedures. A pair of C-130s flying over Iraqi territory–”
“That’s on hold,” snapped the colonel. “Go on, Major. And skip the history bullshit, will you? These people can get to the library themselves.”
The major unfolded a large map across three easels at the front of the room. Fort Apache had been sketched in about a third of the way from the top left corner; various Iraqi air defenses and other installations were diagrammed in below.
“We want to add a lifeboat contingency,” said the major. “As well as local firepower.”
Between sneezes, Wong listened as Wilson updated the plan to base a pair of “sterile” Little Bird McDonnell Douglas AH-6Gs at Fort Apache. Descendants of Vietnam War-era Loach, the Defenders were special “black” versions of the versatile helo known in official circles as the Cayuse. The small, light choppers were equipped with machine guns and rocket packs. They were excellent support aircraft, could greatly extend Fort Apache’s operating area, and— this is where “lifeboat” came in— could possibly be used to evacuate teams and even the base if necessary.
There was only one problem: the choppers’ loaded range was barely over two hundred miles, and the plan called for them to be loaded to the gills when they went north. Even with a stop to refuel right at the border, that was a stretch. Not even the Special Ops people thought they could make it in a straight line.
A big PAVE-Low could make it, of course. But no way anyone in their right mind would authorize flying an aircraft that valuable that far north. In fact, nothing valuable could go up there.
Which was why the Hogs had been assigned the support mission, obviously.
Finally, thought Wong, the reason I am here. He raised his hand, sneezed, stood, blew his nose and then cleared his throat.
“You want a safe route to Fort Apache, I assume,” he said.
“I have a route to the airfield,” bristled the major, pointing to the line.
Wong took Wilson’s pen and began drawing parabolas around some of the defenses.
“Besides sneezing, what are you doing?” asked the colonel.
“The different performance envelopes of these defenses have not been adequately charted,” he explained. “And I notice that several of these sites are misidentified. This here is an SA-2 battery, a problem for an older support aircraft flying at medium altitude and above, but it should be essentially oblivious to a helicopter running at night, which I assume is how penetration is planned. Additionally, some of your information is incomplete and/or out of date. You have not noted the defenses in this sector. This GCI site was listed as only thirty percent destroyed in the latest assessment. Experience shows that it is best to assume that is optimistic.”
“Meaning?”
“A halfway competent operator would have no trouble frying your helicopters,” said Wong. “Approached from this angle, however, the detectable envelope shrinks dramatically.”
“Are you sure?” asked the major.
Wong sighed. “I assume I was asked to come to this sand trap because I am the world’s expert on Russian defense systems. If you are willing to take great risks, fly in a straight line. I haven’t done the math, but it undoubtedly offers no lower a coefficient of probable success than your course does. And with wing tanks–”
“We don’t have wing tanks, and even if we did, there’s not enough weight left for them,” said one of the helo pilots, a warrant officer named Gerry Fernandez. “We were supposed to be refueled.”
“I did not see that contingency outlined on the map,” said Wong.
“That’s on hold as well,” said the colonel without further explanation.
“We’ve already dropped fuel at Apache,” said Major Wilson. “There’s plenty of fuel for you, once you get there.”
“We’re going to have to lighten the load to get there,” said Fernandez. “A hell of a lot. And carry fuel with us besides. With all due respect to the Major, I’d like to hear what course this captain recommends.”
“Go ahead, Wong,” said the colonel.
Wong went back to sketching a safer course. Wilson started to object again, but this time was stifled by an impromptu dissertation on the effective range of the pulse band radars emitted by the Roland mobile batteries.
The secrecy of the mission imposed a further constraint on Wong’s planning. It was necessary for the helicopters to avoid not only know anti-air defenses, but places where any sizable number of troops might congregate. Wong’s final route, to be flown about six feet off the ground, minimized the helicopter’s exposure to everything but sand mites.
It also totaled close to four hundred miles and was more convoluted than a drunk’s stagger.
Which the pilots promptly pointed out.
“It is necessarily intricate,” said Wong, intending to suggest that if the pilots couldn’t follow it, he knew several who could. But he was cut off by a stout sneeze.
“We can follow it,” said Fernandez. “The question is range.”
The colonel leaned over to hear some advice from one of his lieutenants. Major Wilson whispered on the other side. Finally, the colonel shook his head reluctantly.
“There’s no sense taking this kind of risk if we’re not going to deliver usable supplies,” said the major, straightening. “It makes no sense to fly them all the way to Fort Apache without enough bullets and rockets to fend off an attack. We won’t be able to arrange for a new drop until tomorrow night. By then, we ought to have a new C-130 cleared as a tanker. And if not, we’ll rig something similar to what we did to get the fuel down at Apache. The prudent thing is to wait.”
“What if they need us before then?” said Fernandez.
“I’m not going to send you up there empty,” said Klee.
Wong sighed. He glanced at the colonel, who could only be waiting for him to point out the obvious. Surely both he and the major had realized the solution by now. This charade could only be meant to make him feel more comfortable and withdraw his transfer request. A worthy gesture on the colonel’s part. Perhaps there was hope yet.
Wong walked back to the map and marked an X roughly halfway through the course he had laid out.
“There. They can land and pump the gas in themselves.”
“And just how do we get it there?” said the major. “That’s a hundred miles due south of Apache. Our troops have no way to deliver it. Not to mention they’d have to go through at least one known Iraqi troop placement.”
“Two additional helicopters with fuel drums— .”
“Unavailable,” said the major. “It’s impossible unless we cut the supply load. The whole thing has to be scrubbed.
“Air drop it.”
“How? I don’t have any planes, Wong.”
Wong shoo
k his head. No one could be quite this dense. Clearly, Wilson had adopted the role of devil’s advocate.
“You could use the same method you employed for dropping fuel at Apache,” said Wong. “Of course, you would wish to have some redundancy, so I would suggest. . .”
“We won’t have those planes again for another two nights,” said the major smugly.
“Then adapt other planes for the role,” said Wong.
“What? The A-10s?”
Wong shrugged. “The configuration will require creative thought, but if we examine the. . .“
That doable, Captain?” Klee asked quickly.
“Of course.”
“I like you Wong,” said the colonel. He turned to the lieutenant. “Jack, get the captain some antihistamines, then go find the A-10A maintenance people and see if this can be done. Better yet, Wong, go with him. Get as creative as you can before you sneeze your brains out.”
CHAPTER 21
AL JOUF FOA, SAUDI ARABIA
25 JANUARY 1991
1900
They were calling it Oz West, but compared to the Devils’ maintenance area at the Home Drome, the facilities at the forward operating area were bare-bones at best. Even without the Clyston-supplied amenities of elaborate test benches and gourmet coffee— Sergeant Rosen wasn’t sure which she’d rather do without— she and her “boys” could completely strip down and rebuild a Hog in under twenty-four hours. Twelve, even, if she broke into her stock of the Tinman’s special coffee brew. Hell, with that coffee and the Special Ops people as inspiration, they could probably do it in under six, and wax the landing gear to boot.
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