CHAPTER 59
OVER IRAQ
29 JANUARY 1991
0725
Hack bounced the radar controls back and forth, trying to cajole the radar into action. He’d hit the buttons, then jerk his head back up and grab the control column, nervous about taking his attention off the sky for too long.
He ought to be able to see the Hogs, at least. And any Iraqis coming for them.
The smoke from Splash— he hoped it was Splash— filled a small finger of the hazy horizon in the lower left quadrant of his windscreen. His eyes hunted for a black stick in the mist, or a glint, or anything moving.
Turning back was dumb. He was eating up fuel.
Although not according to the gauge. Three hundred kilos for takeoff, only two hundred since then. Much better than expected.
And it was all flowing fine. Forget the gauge— he could hear the engines humming.
Go by time in the air. Forget the tanks, he told himself.
He glanced at his watch.
Twenty-five mini-minutes after the hour.
Mini-minutes. What a joke.
Wisdom and folly, folly and wisdom. It depended on who was making the interpretation.
They were going to think he was very, very wise after this.
A black bird flapped in the sky below him, rolling its wings before belly flopping down.
One of his Hogs.
About time. Hack banked, turning the MiG back toward Saudi Arabia. She had a tight turn— he could feel the g’s popping him in the chest, even with the suit.
Too bad for the Iraqi pilot. Might have been interesting if they had captured him alive, gotten him to talk to them.
Hack hadn’t been thinking of that in the hangar. Wong had mentioned it as a possibility before.
Wong. What a character.
Hack glanced at his watch. It was still 7:25 A.M. Had it stopped?
No. Time was just moving very slowly. He must not be having any fun.
His left arm jerked upward, the wrist and forearm muscles spasming . Hack stared at them as if they belonged to a creature that had somehow invaded the cockpit from a cheap sci-fi movie. Finally he put his hand back down on the throttle, slowly palming the thick level.
Time to go home. His legs and arms and head were heavy as hell.
So were his eyes.
Jesus, he was tired. Normally, Hack carried a small packet of amphetamines in one of his small flap pockets. While he loathed using them— had in fact never used them— he reached down now, afraid he wouldn’t be quite up to the demanding task of landing the unfamiliar plane without them.
He tapped his fingers against his leg, then felt a wave of disorienting panic— the pocket with the pills wasn’t there.
He’d forgotten he was wearing the Iraqi gear.
The Hog was on his right, climbing through maybe fifteen thousand feet, struggling to reach his altitude. Hogs were great at everything except climbing.
The MiG jerked sharply to the left, plunging downwards as its wing tipped toward the ground. Hack’s head floated somewhere above his body as warning lights flashed. As his lungs gasped, he stared at the dials, unsure what had happened.
Fuel. He was out of fuel.
Fuel?
No, the RPM gauge indicated that the left engine had stopped working.
Hack struggled to clear his head, struggled simply to breathe. His hands seemed to work on their own, stabilizing the MiG as if fell through sixteen thousand feet, grabbing it by its bootstraps.
Restart, he told himself. Go.
His fingers fumbled; his brain stuck in a block of plastic, unable to communicate with the rest of his body.
The fuel flow. What was the stinking gauge saying?
Why was he so concerned with fuel? He had plenty— just go for the start.
The engine rumbled, seemingly on its own. Hack tried to calm his breathing, pulling the MiG back level. Knowlington had swooped on his right, trying to close up the distance. Hack gave him a thumbs-up but was too busy to try any other hand signals.
Both of his briefers had said the Mikoyan never flamed out, and if it did, it would be easy to keep from spinning.
Easy for them to say.
Forget that. Both power plants were working now.
He’d been doing nothing that should have given the engines trouble. More than likely, the problem was a result of crappy Iraqi maintenance, not his flying— hardly reassuring. Hack gingerly pulled back on the control column, leveling off at 4,500 meters, roughly fifteen thousand feet.
Fifteen thousand white-robed angels, fluttering in the sky.
He glanced at the yellow handles beneath his leg. The seat would save him, but damn, no way he was going out now. Not this close. They couldn’t be more than two minutes from the border.
The RWR lights blinked on.
Two contacts, on his left wing. The lights’ colors would have given him more information, but he couldn’t remember the code.
Had to be friendlies. Where the hell was his Hog?
On his right, maybe a hundred yards away. Knowlington.
It would be Knowlington, that son of a bitch. He was an alky in D.C., but here, damn it, here he was a hero. Couldn’t ask for a better commander or wing mate.
Jesus, his head hurt. He blew a wad of air into his mask. Sky was dark.
Fifteen thousand feet. Damn low. The lowest he’d ever flown.
High for a Hog driver.
His head felt too light. The amphetamine had kicked in.
He hadn’t taken the amphetamine.
Oxygen, numbskull.
Problem with the oxygen.
You’re hyperventilating.
CHAPTER 60
OVER IRAQ
29 JANUARY 1991
0730
Skull pushed his nose level as Hack knifed downward on his left wing, slinging the MiG nearly parallel to him. It was a nice piece of flying, actually, thought for a moment if seemed as if the MiG’s engines had flamed, the plane stuttering in the sky.
“Jacques One to Devil Flight, we are advised that you and your friend are now on course.”
“Devil One. Affirmative. You still don’t have us on radar?”
“Negative,” said the Frenchman, whose accent sounded slightly British. In any event, his voice was clear and crisp. “We should be within radar range shortly.”
The French warplanes were equipped with a pulse-Doppler unit that was supposed to be able to pick up targets from outside fifty miles. But the specs were proving too optimistic: the AWACS commander told Knowlington they were now within forty miles, and he should correct due south five degrees if possible to complete their intercept.
“Hang with me, Hack,” said Skull, turning to eye his silent wingman. He waved again, trying to signal the course adjustment and that the Mirages were ahead, but Preston’s eyes remained fixed dead ahead.
“Won’t be long now,” he said, checking his position against the map. He made it five minutes to the border.
The MiG spurted ahead as Skull made his adjustments. Coyote asked for a situation report, and Skull told him they were still looking for the Mirages.
“You have clear skies to Emerald City,” said the supervisor, sounding jaunty— or at least jaunty for an AWACS controller. This was one mission no one was going to forget. “How’s his fuel?”
“No way of knowing,” replied Skull. “Maybe tight, maybe not.”
“You’re over Saudi territory. Anything happens and he wants to bail, he’s safe,” said Coyote. “Half the Air Force’ll be there to grab him.”
“Thanks.”
“Affirmative.”
No way Hack would bail now, thought Skull. He pushed his throttle, trying to keep up.
CHAPTER 61
OVER IRAQ
29 JANUARY 1991
0732
The MiG’s altimeter pegged 4,800 kilometers. He’d never gone over 6,5000 klicks, which was about twenty thousand. Too low for him to suffer decompression pr
oblems— in theory.
But when Hack looked at the panel, he saw that not only wasn’t his oxygen hose snugged, it wasn’t in at all. He must have pulled it out at some point, probably twisting his arms across his body. He’d been hyperventilating for God knows how long. No wonder he thought everything was a joke.
Preston reached over to the panel, angry that he’d let himself get tripped up by something so simple. He shouldn’t even need oxygen here. This was a Sunday drive. All he had to do was breathe slow and easy.
His wrist gave way as he touched the nozzle end and shrieked with pain. He pushed back in the seat, gathered himself, made sure the MiG was flying all right, then did his instrument check. Finally, he reached across to push the nozzle in with his right hand.
The left engine picked that moment to quit again. But this time, the right engine joined it.
Hack slammed the tube adaptor home. Then he grabbed the stick, pulling back in an attempt to stop the MiG from entering a dive. Realizing he’d pulled too hard, he eased off. Two full, clean breaths of pure oxygen later, the black haze that had been slowly strangling his brain melted away.
Hack began working through the restart procedure, fingers fumbling against the panel on the right side of the cockpit as he tried to hold the control column with his left hand. But the buffeting against the hydraulic controls was too much for his injured wrist, and the plane jerked from his weakened fingers
He grabbed for the stick with his right hand. As he did so, his gaze fell on the fuel gauges, and he realized that he had been misreading the indicators from the start.
The engines hadn’t stalled. They’d run out of fuel. The flow seemed to be restricted somehow, but at this point, he no longer trusted the indicators or his ability to read the gauges.
And in any event, it was rapidly becoming academic.
The plane yawed sharply to the left, fighting the stick. He was losing altitude fast.
He calculated what he had to do: keep his hand on the stick, get the plane stable, then play with the fuel selectors and try to restart.
Glide you son of a bitch. Glide!
He got the wings even, got the nose almost level. He gave a push against the stick, nudged his left elbow there, holding the plane as he tried to restart the engines.
But it was too much to do with only one good arm.
Out! Out! I have to get out.
Out!
Fuck that. Not now.
Restart. There had to be fuel in the damn thing. Switch the tanks. Get into the sumps.
You’re not flying a Hog.
Out! Out! Level the wings and get out!
Just out!
His body seemed to spin from inside his spine. His stomach pushed out through the flightsuit, past the restraints. His left hand screamed with pain and his legs were being pushed against the seat.
The handle, pull the handle.
He already had. The canopy failed to clear but Hack shot through it anyway, propelled like a human cannon ball from the plane as it turned upside down. He was shooting toward the ground faster than the speed of sound, yanking around as the seat did its magic, the world a complete blurry rush. He remembered his father, saw him now smiling at him when he was nine, a Little League game.
“Hey dad, I hit a home run. I hit a home run.”
And then the strap from the Iraqi pilot’s suit, which had been ever so slightly torn by the shrapnel from the grenade that killed its owner, gave way.
CHAPTER 62
OVER IRAQ
29 JANUARY 1991
0734
The crash happened so quickly that Skull didn’t realize what was going on until the MiG started to spin.
The way he saw it, the way he would tell it to the investigators later, both engines quit at the same time. The plane edged down, then one of the power plants caught again, hard, exploding as if the afterburner suddenly slammed on, sending the plane into an uncontrollable yaw.
Until that moment, Hack had probably figured he could control it. That was the kind of guy he was— he didn’t give up and was cocky enough to figure he could work himself out of any jam.
But everyone has his limits. Hack must have gone for the handles. The canopy didn’t come off, but the seat sure came out, flying almost straight down. Skull started to bank, keeping one eye on the MiG which was now pirouetting not fifty yards from him.
Knowlington saw, or thought he saw, the chute to the seat open. Debris was in the air, or at least he thought he saw debris, or just sensed there was something. Pulling up on his stick, he tried to stay clear.
He circled back, dropping low and slow. By that time, the parachute was skittering along the ground, crazy-curled by the wind.
Skull spotted the seat, and then saw Preston, who ought to have released the chute, who ought to have been standing there, probably kicking the desert because he had been so God damn close, so stinking damn close, to hitting a grand slam, landing an Iraqi MiG back on a U.S. base for all the world to see.
But he wasn’t. Preston was lying in the sand, his body crumpled. It didn’t take more than a single pass to know he was dead.
Epilogue:
HANGING AROUND
CHAPTER 63
KING FAHD
29 JANUARY 1991
0905
No way in the world was it possible to debrief a mission— to even think about a mission— without coffee. Hell, it was against Air Force regulations and probably the U.S. Constitution to even try that. The Geneva Convention probably even declared it punishable by hanging. The UN undoubtedly had a commission on it.
So as soon as A-Bomb touched down at the Home Drome— right after he parked and popped the hood and plopped down on the tarmac next to Sergeant Rosen, who was taking personal care of his aircraft this morning; right after he gave the rest of the crew a quick thumbs-up and pointed to the holes in the airframe (unnecessary, actually, due to the rather obvious gashes and dripping fluids); right after giving the appropriate shrug to an airman’s incredulous “You actually managed to get home like that?” remark— A-Bomb ambled over to the only place at King Fahd that could be relied upon for A-1 Debriefing Strength Joe: his quarters.
Regrettably, A-Bomb had not yet completed his plans to rig his commercial Bunn coffeemaker to an IFF device, which would allow the unit to begin grinding and brewing as his Hog approached the runway. He therefore had to wait an excruciating ninety seconds as the machine ground a choice selection of hand-picked African and Columbian beans before dripping distilled mountain water into the pot.
The interlude gave him time to contemplate a philosophical question: What should he have for breakfast, Freihofer’s or Entenmann’s?
Technically, neither of the famed Northeast bakeries was listed among the official military suppliers providing food at the mess. But A-Bomb had a direct line to outlet stores for both. With the help of several well-connected supply sergeants— there were no other kind of supply sergeants, after all— he had managed to schedule regular deliveries from both. In fact, a C-5A with a fresh load of cheese strudel and sticky buns ought to be due at any moment. Still undecided, he filled his thirty-ounce ceramic coffee mug and left the tent.
A-Bomb had walked about two sips’ worth toward the unloading area when one of the squadron pilots, Billy Bozzone, flagged him down.
“Coffee’s in my tent,” he told Bozzone, a lieutenant who had grown up on Staten Island but was otherwise a good sort. “Going over to grab some Entenmann’s, I think. Or maybe Freihofer's. Kind of waiting for inspiration to strike.”
“Intel guys are looking for you,” said Bozzone. “Delta major, too.”
“Yeah, I’m on my way,” said A-Bomb. “What’s the rush?”
“You haven’t heard? Preston’s dead. MiG malfunctioned and he fell out of the parachute harness.”
For the first time since he came to the Gulf, A-Bomb could find nothing to say.
CHAPTER 64
KING FAHD
29 JANUARY 1991
1012
Sergeant Becky Rosen’s fingers betrayed her, fumbling everything from screws to cables, even slipping off the controls of an oscilloscope. She couldn’t staunch the adrenaline, couldn’t slow the thump of her heart as she worked.
Was BJ all right? What had happened north? Where the hell was he?
Every comment from someone in Oz threw her. Every roar of a jet or whistle of landing gear took her attention away from what she was doing. Finally, after nearly smashing a screwdriver through the radar unit in A-Bomb’s plane, she put down her tools and walked away.
“Sarge, what’s up?” called one of the crew.
“Gotta take a leak,” she told him mildly.
“You selling tickets?”
“You won’t make enough money in three lifetimes, Tommy,” she said. “Put that unit back together for me, will ya?”
“Gotcha, Sarge.”
Her legs began to shake as she walked toward the small restroom stall in the back of one of Oz’s hangars. By the time she pushed the door closed behind her, her knees were jelly. As she sat on the commode, her hands began to shake and she realized she was crying.
I can’t do this, she told herself. There’s no way I can do this.
Joining the military didn’t mean you had to give up being human. Nor did it mean that you had to stow your emotions.
But.
But.
Rebecca Rosen felt as if she’d slipped into someone else’s body. The limbs didn’t work quite the same way. The head seemed at a permanent tilt. The borrowed eyes made the light seem more yellow.
No. This wasn’t her. She wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t.
Feet scuffled along the floor a few yards away. Sergeant Rosen ran her fingers through her short hair and kneaded the skin behind her ears. She took a long breath, reached around and flushed the commode.
Outside, she scowled when a staff sergeant said something about A-Bomb’s plane needing an entire overhaul: new sumps, new fuel system, new skin..
HOGS #6 Death Wish (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) Page 20