“No fuckin’ way,” she said. “Just go get Tinman. He’ll tell you what to do if you can’t handle it.”
“Sump’s shot out,” said the sergeant.
“You want me to fuckin’ kiss it and make it better?”
The sergeant scurried back under the plane.
“Getting on them kind of hard this morning, no?” said Sergeant Clyston from behind her.
“There’s no fucking way we’re losing an airplane because it has a dent,” Rosen told him. “It can be fixed. I checked it myself.”
Clyston nodded, but said nothing.
A half-hour later, Lieutenant Dixon and Gunny landed. By then, details of the mission had spread through Oz. Rosen and the others knew that the SAS men had been rescued and the MiG stolen. They also knew that Dixon’s radio had been shot out— and that Major Preston had been killed when the MiG malfunctioned and he had to bail.
Sergeant Rosen stayed back in the hangars when Dixon landed. With any other pilot, on any other day, she would have among the first to inspect the plane. Instead, she busied herself with a balky INS unit, working at a bench at the furthest end of Devil Squadron Hangar 1.
Still, her hands trembled when she heard his voice behind her.
Still, her heart seemed to stop when he touched her shoulder gently.
She let herself step back into the borrowed body for a brief moment, turning and hugging him. It was a warm hug, and even though the world sat at a slant, even though the light seemed all wrong, there was a certain comfort— maybe a great comfort.
“Gotta work,” she said, pushing away sharply, regaining herself. “Gotta get this done ASAP. Sorry.”
Silent, Dixon stood watching her. How long he stood there, she couldn’t say, but she knew when she turned that he would be gone; and he was.
CHAPTER 65
KING FAHD
29 JANUARY 1991
1200
“You did a goddamn good job,” the general told Knowlington after he picked up the phone in his office. “You hit a grand slam.”
Knowlington pulled out his chair and sat down as the general continued. The British were ecstatic, the Delta people were ecstatic, even the CinC, the man himself, was ecstatic.
They all knew that he’d lost a pilot. They weren’t being insensitive; they were putting it in perspective.
Actually, they were being insensitive, but that was the way it was. Skull would have expected no less if he had bought it and Preston managed to get the MiG back to the base intact.
He’d circled the wreck while the SAR people came in. The pararescuers told him Preston had been ripped from the parachute by the force of the ejection. The Iraqi gear had been damaged somehow; one of the clasps had come loose, the strap ripped, or both. Even so, it was a freak accident, a one in a million shot.
“Just unlucky,” said the pararescuer.
The plane had crashed in the desert about a mile away. A team had already secured it for transport. There had been no fire. Wong, who was en route to the scene, suspected that the plane’s fuel system had malfunctioned and the tanks had run bone dry.
Maybe one of the gauges on the dash had malfunctioned. Maybe Hack had miscalculated by using the afterburners. Maybe they’d made a mistake on the ground when they loaded the fuel in. Any of those things could have happened. Maybe all of them had.
Even so, it shouldn’t have been fatal. Worst case, Hack should have been able to float down to earth, cursing the whole way.
A freak, unlucky thing.
There’d be a thick report circulated around the Pentagon and Congress and even the White House.
“Preston deserves a medal,” said the general.
“Absolutely,” Knowlington agreed.
“We want that in high gear. We may go for the big one. I think it’s worth it. Risked his life under fire. Honor for us all.”
“Okay,” said Knowlington.
The line went silent for a moment. “Preston wasn’t a friend of yours, was he?”
“Hated my guts, I think.”
“Word is he wanted your job.”
“Wouldn’t want a DO who didn’t.”
“We’ll get you a replacement. Say Mike, did you call to give me a backdoor on the mission? Or was something else up?”
To quit, to walk away— it would be like leaving a job half done. It would be like letting down his guys, his kids, his boys.
Damn, he wanted a drink. He wanted it so bad his tongue burned and he could feel anger rising inside. He wanted it so bad he felt like yelling into the phone, screaming: “I just lost a goddamn pilot! And why? Why? Because grabbing a plane out from Saddam’s nose was just too cool a thing to pass up!. . . Because I felt sorry for myself and wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. . . Because Hack wanted my job and figured he could get it by pulling off the impossible.. . Because of some freak, uncontrollable accident.”
Because that’s the way war was.
He wanted a drink, and somehow that was enough to make him stay.
“Yeah,” he told the general. “I knew you weren’t in the loop.”
“I appreciate it, Mikey. Commendation in this for you, too. Maybe a medal.”
If he’d had just a little more strength, or been a little less tired, or needed a drink a little less badly, he might have told the general what he could do with the medal. Instead he just hung up the phone.
THE END
A NOTE TO READERS
While “suggested by an actual operating area near the front line, Ar Kehy is an invention, as is the Iraqi base. As usual, I played around with some of the architecture and furniture of the historical places mentioned in the book.
RAF Tornados served with great distinction in a variety of roles during the Gulf War. Sister Sadie and her crew, of course, are fictitious, although the advanced near-real-time reconnaissance systems described in the book are not.
At the time this book was written, British SAS operations were covered by the Official Secrets Act, but there have nonetheless been some interesting and detailed reports about British goings-on in Iraq. Among the most entertaining is Andy McNab’s Bravo Two Zero, which was published in America in 1994 by Island Books.
Some specific details relating to actual combat operations or procedures that could conceivably aid an enemy during war have been omitted or obscured. Some details covering special operations, intelligence, and technical information-gathering processes have been slightly altered. The changes haven’t materially affected the tale.
I’d like to say thank you to my wife and editorial assistant, Debra Scacciaferro, who re-edited and updated all six of these long-out-of-print books in the original Hogs series into e-book format so that these stories would find a new audience in the 21rst century.
Check six, and whatever you do, don’t spill the coffee.
— Jim DeFelice
www.jimdefelice.com
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Other Books by Jim DeFelice
Number One New York Times Bestselling author Jim DeFelice (American Sniper), writing as James Ferro, originally published the six-book HOGS series in paperback for Berkley in 1999. This Kindle series includes:
Hogs #1:Going Deep
Hogs #2: Hog Down
Hogs #3: Fort Apache
Hogs #4: Snake Eaters
Hogs #5: Target Saddam
Hogs #6: Death Wish
Hogs ShortStory: Birthday in Iraq
Jim’s newest book Code Name: Johnny Walker is due out in hardcover from HarperCollins in February of 2014. A unique Iraqi War memoir, it offers the harrowing story of an Iraqi civilian who put his life on the line to work as an interpreter for the U.S. military forces, including Navy SEAL Chris Kyle.
Jim’s other e-books on Kindle include:
Novels:
Leopards Kill
Brother’s Keeper
Havana Strike
Coming in spring 2014: War Breaker- the e-book edition
Short Stories:
Wolf Flight (WWII)
Military History:
Omar Bradley: General at War
Rangers At Dieppe (WWII)
Andy Fisher FBI techno thrillers:
The Helios Conspiracy
Cyclops One
Threat Level Black,
Patriot Spy Revolutionary War series:
The Silver Bullet
The Iron Chain
The Golden Flask
You can also find his co-authored series listed on Jim’s Amazon Author’s page:
Rogue Warrior with Dick Marcinko
Larry Bond’s First Team and Red Dragon Rising series
Dale Brown’s Dreamland and Whiplash series.
The first five books in the Stephen Coonts Deep Black series
HOGS #6 Death Wish (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) Page 21