Hogs #2: Hog Down (12 page)

King Khalid, Saudi Arabia

21 January
1991

2105

T
he Hog was
moving a bit too fast for a
picture-perfect landing, but A-Bomb didn’t particularly care. He jerked the
poor plane onto the concrete with an uncharacteristic screech, annoyed that he
had to come down at all. He’d left the area where Mongoose had been hit with
only the greatest reluctance. Even if he couldn’t see anything, he felt he
belonged nearby.

True,
the Air Force had different jobs for different people, and for all he knew as
he began taxiing at the end of the airstrip, a division of Special Forces
troops were carrying Mongoose back home on their freakin’ shoulders right now.
The point was he ought to be there. Hog pilots looked after their own. He was
the guy’s freakin’ wingman, and it was half or maybe three-quarters his fault
he’d gone down in the first place.

Maybe
not, but it was the principle of the thing.

A-Bomb
told this in so many words to the airman who was waving the Hog off the landing
strip to make way for other planes. Fortunately for the airman, he was several
yards away, outside the aircraft, and wearing ear protection.

“What
I’m talking about here,” A-Bomb shouted as he moved toward a refitting area,
banging on his canopy, “is getting refueled like yesterday. And I need the
cannon reloaded. You with me? I’m thinking we can rig an extra set of landing
lights, maybe put together some sort of lens that’ll make them into search
lights. That’s what I’m talking about. Ten minute’s worth of work. What I’m
talking about is smoking any Iraqi that comes within ten miles of him. Can’t be
smoking anybody with no bullets. You’re showing me to a candy man, right? To
get some new iron? I don’t see no dragon down there and I can use some new
bullets in the cannon. Hey kid, you listening to me?”

The
jerry-rigged landing light idea had occurred to him as he flew back to base. It
wasn’t a bad idea, except for the fact that it would alert every anti-air
operator within a hundred miles that he was coming. Sure, the Hog could take a
lot of abuse, but the rescue helicopters might catch some of the flak, too. The
Iraqis were notoriously bad shots.

What
he needed was a pair of Maverick G’s— the enhanced air-to-ground missiles had
an excellent infrared seeker that could be pressed into service as night-vision
equipment. A squadron had been practicing the technique for weeks.

And
if he could find an Army Apache pilot, he’d really strike gold. The Apache
drivers had kick-ass night goggles, which worked off the reflected light from
the stars and the moon. Have to adapt them a bit for the Hog, but shit, what
would that take? A little fiddling with a screwdriver? Some duct tape to completely
black out the Hog cockpit, or create a little shade to see through? War was
about experimentation.

How
would he get an Apache pilot to give his up glasses? Poor shit would probably
have to pay for them out of his own pocket.

Maybe
a swap— he could trade his customized Colt, a very serious personally modified
.45, the kind of gun a real army guy ought to salivate over— for a mere
temporary loan. Have them back before sundown, no harm done. Say they were
misplaced or in the shop if anyone asks.

Hell,
he’d even throw in a couple of Twinkies.

No
self-respecting member of the U.S. Army could refuse such a deal. His plan set,
A-Bomb shuttled into a parking area a few hundred yards from the end of the
runway. He was disappointed— no choppers in sight.

He
was just checking his gas gauges to see if he might somehow persuade the fumes
to take him a bit further when an army officer ran toward the front of the
plane, waving his arms like a jumping jack. The man made a motion as if he
wanted him to cut his engines.

A-Bomb
leaned his large body out the side of the plane to see if the officer could
direct him to the nearest Apache.

“Cut
your engines and crank down your ladder!” shouted the man.

He
was definitely Army. You could tell by the overly serious expression on his
face.

And
the fact that he kept his distance from the airplane. In A-Bomb’s experience,
the overwhelming majority of Army officers were afraid of flying. Otherwise
they would have joined the Air Force.

“I
said, where can I find an Apache?” he shouted down to the man.

“Cut
your engines and crank down your ladder,” repeated the officer, motioning with
his hand to make A-Bomb understand.

Since
it was designed to work from front-line bases with minimal amenities, the A-10A
was equipped with its own ladder, which the pilot could operate from the
cockpit. A-Bomb cut his motors and complied, though unwinding the ladder felt a
bit too much like putting down an anchor, under the circumstances.

A
flush-red face belonging to an Army major quickly appeared over the side.

“Why
the hell didn’t you shut your engines when I told you to?” the officer asked.

“When
did you tell me to shut off the engines?”

“You
couldn’t see me?”

“Saw
you just now,” said A-Bomb, who had decided to be on his best behavior. “Can
you direct me to the Apache pilots? There’s a Twinkie in it for you. A little
crushed, I apologize, but definitely edible.”

“Listen,
are you Captain O’Rourke or not?”

“I
was this morning.”

“Look,
I don’t have time for bullshit. We’ve just been put on a goddamn Scud alert.
You got to get chem gear on and get this plane secured. Then you call your
squadron commander.”

“Who?”

“Call
your colonel. But before that, get yourself into protective gear.”

“My
best protection’s a fully loaded Hog,” A-Bomb told him. “Shit, I got Sidewinders—
I’ll nail the damn missiles while they’re inbound.”

The
major grumbled something concerning the sanity of Air Force personnel and
disappeared back down the ladder.

* * *

“Colonel
wants to talk to you,” said Captain Wong when A-Bomb finally got a connection
to the home drome.

“Yeah,
well I want to talk to him.”

“Okay.”

“So
put him on.”

“I
don’t know where he is.”

“Well
I sure as shit don’t.”

“Wait,
I’ll look in his office.”

A-Bomb
pushed himself back in the field chair. Wong was one of those absent-minded-professor
types. Guy had a shitload of knowledge about Russian-made air defenses; he was
supposedly the world expert, and had figured out some fairly tricky stuff for
Devil Squadron since coming from Black Hole the first day of the war. But he couldn’t
put mustard on a bologna and cheese sandwich without detailed instructions.

Bologna
and cheese sure as hell would hit the spot right about now. Better: the double
Big Mac with extra-large fries and strawberry shake that was undoubtedly
sitting in his tent at the home drome.

Amazing
where Fed Ex could deliver.

As
forward air strips went, KKMC wasn’t particularly spartan, but it did lack a
full-service McDonald’s. Still, there were enough army guys floating around.
Hog crews pitted here all the time. That much creativity around demanded a bit
more research on his part; there might be a fast-food outlet somewhere around
here. In fact, now that he thought about it, the round-domed building nearby
would be the perfect place for the local Dunkin’ Donuts franchise: If you
squinted just right it kind of looked like an upside-down coffee cup.

Super-size
Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and two, no make that three, Boston Cremes would
definitely charge him up for the return trip north. Chocolate a little gooey on
the top, just enough to leave his fingertips covered with lickable creme.

“A-Bomb,
where the fuck are you?”

“Hey,
good evening to you, too, Colonel.”

“What
the hell are you doing at KKMC?”

“Getting
more bullets in case I see any rattlesnakes up north.”

Knowlington
grunted. A-Bomb didn’t know the commander too well, but Knowlington came with a
reputation; he’d kicked serious butt flying over Vietnam and he didn’t dick his
pilots around. So when the colonel asked if he’d seen a parachute, A-Bomb
didn’t hedge.

“I
thought I saw something, but now I’m not even sure of that. I found the
wreckage but couldn’t see the seat or the chute anywhere. And I looked.”

“And
no beacon?”

“I’m
thinking the radio screwed up. Got to be. Probably a transistor blew or
something.”

“The
backup, too?”

It
was a comment not a question, so A-Bomb didn’t answer. He could tell that the
colonel, unlike the intel guys he’d spoken to after parking the plane, knew
Mongoose was still alive down there. It was just a question of coming up with a
plan to get him back.

“I
got this idea,” A-Bomb told him. “If I had some Maverick G’s, I could go back
and scan the ground. Hell, the eyes in those things are better than an owl’s.
Problem is, I can’t seem to drum up any up here. The one sergeant who seems to
know what the hell I’m talking about bitches about how expensive they are and
claims all of the missiles are at Fahd. I don’t know if it’s true, but I
haven’t seen any myself.”

“I
doubt they’re sensitive enough to pick him up, even in the desert.”

For
just a second, A-Bomb’s faith in his commander wavered.

“We
can’t just leave him up there, Colonel.”

“I’m
not leaving him up there,” snapped Knowlington. “I’m fucking thinking.”

“Yes,
sir. Sorry, sir.”

Had A-Bomb
thought about it, he would have realized it was perhaps the first time he had
used the word “sir” in Saudi Arabia— and undoubtedly the first time he had ever
used it twice in one sentence since training. He hung on the line through a
long silence, waiting while Knowlington worked the thing through in his head.

“All
right. Go catch some rest,” said the colonel finally. “I have a few things to
get around down here. I’ll be up with the Mavericks three hours before dawn,
latest. That gives you a little time for a catnap.”

“You’re
trucking them up?”

“I’m
flying, you asshole. You and I are going to find Mongoose, assuming the Special
Ops boys haven’t picked him up by then. You have a problem with that?”

“No,
sir. Shit no.”

“Well
then get some fucking sleep. I don’t want a zombie watching my six.”

“Yes,
sir.”

A-Bomb
looked at the handset as the line clicked dead. The old man hadn’t flown a
combat mission since he’d come to Saudi Arabia. The word was that Skull
Knowlington, who’d originally been assigned to head a squadron that existed
only on paper, had maybe a hundred hours in the Hog cockpit, or some
ridiculously low amount.

But
hell. Knowlington was a god-damn legend. If anybody could find Mongoose— anyone
besides A-Bomb that was— the colonel could.

“Fuckin’
A,” said the pilot said. “I think.”

On the ground in Iraq

21 January
1991

2203

M
ongoose aimed the
small strobe unit in the
direction of the sound. He had already fired a pencil flare to get their
attention, and now hoped the strobe would direct whoever was up there to his
location.

The
strobe’s light was hooded, making it difficult to see on the ground. In theory,
anyway. He couldn’t worry about any of that now; he kept strobing, hoping to
hear the engine again. The radio was pumping out its own emergency beacon.

But
the plane was no longer nearby. He made a voice broadcast; when there was no
answer he fired another mini-flare. As the rocket arced upwards, he tried the
radio again. Mongoose swung the dial back and forth, from beacon to voice,
radioing his distress call.

“I’ll
take a pizza with anchovies to go,” he added at the end.

Whatever
he’d heard was gone. He settled back against the stones he’d lined up as a
small shelter. He’d dug out some of the ground with his boot, like a small fox-hole.
It had been something to do, to take his mind off how stinking cold he was.

The
radio was probably busted. That wasn’t particularly lucky.

Might’ve
broken somehow when he landed. Or it was just one of those dumb, stupid things.

There
was another one back in the seat pack.

But
where the hell was that now? Could he trace his way back in the dark and the
slowly lifting fog?

He
heard a noise in the distance, this time on the ground.

Was
it really there? His ears buzzed with something, but it didn’t seem real.
Slowly, as deliberately as possible, he slid the strobe light back into a vest
pocket and removed his pistol from its holster.

He
stayed like that, gun just in front of his chest, for a long time. The noise
grew louder, then faded. It was definitely a truck, and far off. His eyes
ached, filtering the darkness for the head beams or taillights, but they didn’t
appear. The moon, a dull crescent, drifted through some clouds, cold and
distant.

When
he was in Boy Scouts, they used to tell ghost stories about kids so lost in the
wilderness they turned into walking skeletons, haunting the woods for
centuries. He thought of those stories now as he crouched back into his small,
safe place and holstered his pistol.

The
stories had scared the piss out of him. He remembered being so afraid that he
wouldn’t get out of his sleeping bag to take a leak. Instead, he’d lie awake
all night, waiting for dawn.

That
was as a second-class scout, still pretty green, his first full year as a
scout. The next summer, at the wilderness camp in the Adirondacks, now Star
rank, he laughed at the stories, told a lot of them himself, and took a leak
whenever he damn well pleased.

He
was still a little scared, actually, but no way would he let on, even to
himself.

His
days as a scout were all flooding back. He remembered one of his toughest tests—
to join one of the scouts’ “secret” lodges, he’d had to endure an initiation
that consisted of being left alone in the wilderness with only a map and
compass. He was given two hours to get back to camp.

He’d
hurt his knee a few days before the initiation, and soon after he started he
slipped down a ravine and twisted it pretty bad. Mongoose knew from one of his
friends that older scouts monitored an initiate carefully; they were always
within shouting distance in case something went wrong.

He
could have called out. His injury would have been considered a mitigating
factor and he would have probably been given another chance at the initiation.
But he didn’t. Instead he hobbled on down the mountain, finding a stick to use
as a crutch and showing up at camp nearly six hours later, well past the
deadline. When the lodge elder— that was what they called the leader— asked why
he was so late, Mongoose just shrugged. He’d thrown away the stick before
coming into camp, and refused to let his knee be an excuse. He told the others
he’d failed the initiation because he had taken too much time hiking in.

A
few days later, the kids in the lodge “kidnapped” him from his tent, and made
him a member anyway. They all knew what had happened, even though he didn’t
tell anyone.

That
was one of the proudest moments of his life. Even now. It compared to the first
day he’d flown a jet fighter alone, and the day his son was born— actually the
day after, when he was telling everyone he knew, because the day it happened
was too consuming to feel anything but the moment.

In
some ways, the initiation was his most difficult accomplishment. It would have
been so easy to make excuses.

Another
day strayed into his memory, a snatch of a day. He had his father’s car and hit
into another car in a parking lot, breaking the taillight.

He’d
gotten out, inspected the cars. There was no damage to his. The other car was a
relatively new BMW.

He
hopped back into his dad’s car and took off.

Coward.

Mongoose
kicked himself for doing that, as if it had happened this morning instead of
thirteen or fourteen years before. That wasn’t him — he was the kid who hiked
down the mountain on a makeshift crutch, and refused to make excuses. He should
have left a note on the guy’s windshield, offered to make good, whatever the
consequences.

Plenty
of times he had. But the car came back at him now. He pushed down against the
ground, kicked out some more dirt in his miniature bunker, felt his knee tweak
a bit.

Scouting
was a good time. The best camping was during the winter, when you literally
froze your tush off just taking a dump. He almost never managed more than an
hour or two sleeping at night, even when they stayed in cabins. He was always
so tired he’d sleep the entire day when he got home.

It
felt colder than that now, and it was going to get even worse. He rubbed his
arms against his chest, moved around a bit, stood and walked a little.

He
wanted Robby to go into Boy Scouts, assuming they still existed. Assuming
they’d let him join with his father in the service. Military life being what it
was it could be hard to join an organization. But plenty of kids did.

Tough
as hell to raise a family when you were gone fighting a war. To be away when
they needed you, when your wife needed you . . .

He
caught himself, got back into checklist mode.

A
good radio was essential. He could walk back to the trees, then find his way to
the pack from there. He’d use the road as much as he dared; find it from the
trees, then walk parallel until he came to the wadi. From there it would be easy
to get back to the seat.

First,
though, there might be a way to fix the radio he had. Shake it, at least–
nothing wrong with banging something to make it work, A-Bomb used to say.

Good
old A-Bomb. He’d be busting an artery looking for him.

If
he was still alive. More than likely he was in worse shape. Maybe hadn’t even
gotten out alive.

And
it was Mongoose’s fault. He’d taken the planes low to smoke the Scuds, even
though it was dangerous and against all sorts of cautions and orders and common
sense.

Not
Hog sense, but that wasn’t the same thing.

Mongoose
took the radio in one hand and gripped the gun by the barrel. Not exactly
something a technician might approve of, but what the hell– he banged them
together, then tried another quick broadcast.

When
he heard nothing, he put radio away and began walking.