Hogs #2: Hog Down (17 page)

Northern Saudi Arabia

22 January 1991

0425

B
y the time
the Huey landed, Dixon had
realized he wasn’t being clandestinely ferried back to the Home Drome,
machinations or not. They had flown northwest, and at top speed; by his
calculations Iraq was about half a stone’s throw away. He decided that
clearance for the Special Ops Scud mission must have come through. His reward—
or maybe punishment— was to be granted observer status on the first mission.

Not
that he was objecting, but . . .

The
Huey hulked in close to the dark hulk of a fat MH-53J. Originally drawn up as a
heavy-lifter, the long-distance helicopter was bigger than a diesel locomotive
and a couple of times more powerful. Something like fifty-five troops could
crowd into the back, along with the three-man crew. Her real asset, however,
were the powerful, long-range electronics and sensors that provided the “Pave
Low” designation.

He
wasn’t sure it was the right helicopter or even if he really, truly, should be
here. But since he didn’t see any other helicopters nearby, Dixon jumped out
and ran for it. He kept his head down though there was plenty of clearance.

“Hey,
you Dixon?” said the sergeant at the door.

“Yeah?”

“Well
come on, Lieutenant. We’ve been waiting for you.”

The
sergeant grabbed hold of his arm and yanked him not only into the Pave Low, but
practically through to the other side. At the last second, he managed to change
his momentum and found himself stumbling toward the front of the big warbird.
Just as he was about to steady himself on a bar near the cockpit, the big bird
lifted off. Dixon bounced to his left then flew back to the right as the helo’s
massive rotors beat the air. He slipped and rolled onto something hard.

It
turned out to be the floor.

“What
the hell you doin’ down there, BJ?” asked the pilot— his old root beer-drinking
buddy, Major Greer.

“I
heard the floors on these things were clean enough to eat off,” grunted Dixon,
trying to get to his feet despite a fresh jink.

Dixon,
who had been aboard a Super Jolly Green Giant before, knew that the choppers
could fly relatively smoothly, even when they were moving fast. Apparently
Greer hadn’t read that part of the sales brochure.

“About
time you got up here,” said Greer. “I been waiting half the night for you.”

“Scud
attack hung me up.”

“See?
I told you. If we were going for them, you wouldn’t have to put up with that
bullshit anymore.”

“We’re
not going after the Scuds?”

“Hell
no. At least, not tonight. We’re going to go fetch us a Hog driver. Nobody told
you?”

“Mongoose?”

“That
Major Johnson?”

“Yup.”

“That’s
who we’re getting.”

“You
found him?”

“I
didn’t say we found him. I said we were going to go get him. I’ve been waiting
for word that he was found. Lucky for you it didn’t come or we would have been
gone.”

Dixon
wondered to himself if the other half of that equation meant Mongoose had been
unlucky.

“We’d
like to make the pickup in the dark,” added the helicopter pilot. “Less people
to shoot at us. Sun won’t come up until almost 0530. But we’ll have some fog
after that, most likely, so we have some leeway.”

“Has
he been spotted yet?”

“No.
But we want to get closer so we can make a quick pick-up. Saddam won’t mind if
we hang out over the fence, you think?”

“Nah.”

“Word
is your colonel knows where he is. Went to mark the way for us.”

“Colonel
Knowlington? No shit.”

“If
we get lucky, we may smoke a stinking Scud launcher on the way back,” said the
major. “Then we’ll all be heroes. Sergeant, fix him up, would you? And keep him
calm. Dixon here blasted an Iraqi Hind the other day and word is he’s bucking
for the Medal of Honor. I don’t want him falling out of my aircraft until we’re
back home.”

On the ground in Iraq

22 January 1991

0430

T
he trucks were
old military model flatbeds—
Soviet he thought, or maybe French— , though as far as Mongoose was concerned
their most notable feature was the particularly uncomfortable ribbed metal bed
in the back. He sat against the wall of the cab, opposite his two guards, who
were crouched a short distance away. Five or six other soldiers clung to
various parts of the open back. They didn’t have to grip too hard; the truck
was moving at a snail’s pace, following in the dark behind the vehicle equipped
with the searchlight. Neither truck seemed to have a muffler, and both were
running rougher than the old Camaro Mongoose had owned in high school. Maybe
the four hours they’d spent sitting idle as the Iraqis searched got his
nonexistent copilot had fouled their plugs.

When
they had captured him, Mongoose assumed the men were part of the Iraqi
Republican Guard, crack troops equipped with the best weapons and generally
regarded as the best disciplined soldiers in the army. Now he wasn’t so sure.
He’d seen pictures of the Guards where they were wearing berets; there were no
berets in sight, and in fact most of these men had fairly plain uniforms. Most
seemed barely teenagers, not the hardened veterans who had fought the Iranians
to a stand-still.

His
guards had rolled the cuffs of their khaki pants away from the heels of their
boots. Even in the dim light, he could tell the ends were frayed. One of the
men made an effort to frown every time he caught Mongoose looking at him. The
other just stared.

The
soldier who had tried to hit him was in the other vehicle. The men on this
truck were more curious than angry, and if it weren’t for the roar of the
poorly tuned truck motor he might have tried striking up a conversation.
Mongoose figured their curiosity was more or less in his favor; it might make
them less inclined, or at least less quick, to shoot him.

There
had been no interrogation yet. The officer hadn’t seemed much interested in
doing anything but making sure he was alone, and then taking him back to
wherever they were going in one piece.

But
the questioning would surely come. And it wouldn’t necessarily be pleasant.

Mongoose
knew a great deal about the Hogs, their tactics and the general situation, but
he hardly possessed any great military secrets. Even so, he wanted to give up
as little as possible. He certainly wouldn’t volunteer information. But he had
to be realistic; it would be impossible to say absolutely nothing if the Iraqis
began torturing him. It was a question of how long he could hold out, and what
information he could hold back.

Part
of him wanted to jump up and dive over the side of the truck right now, make a
desperate, foolhardy attempt to escape. But his job wasn’t to do something
stupid; it was to survive.

Kath
needed him to survive. So did Robby.

Every
night before turning in, Mongoose sat in his tent and wrote a just-in-case
letter, a last word to his wife in case he didn’t make it back. Knowlington
would probably have it by now.

Knowlington.
His opinion of the commander had changed somewhat since the fighting started.
He actually had done a decent job pulling the unit together; only two months
ago it had been organized only on paper, a discordant
melange
of planes
destined for the junk heap with barely enough men to get them there. As
Knowlington’s second-in-command, Johnson had done a lot of the work in Saudi
Arabia himself, especially with the pilots, but he had to admit, ol’ Skull had
a good way about him. He knew just about everybody in the air force. Between
him and Sergeant Clyston— a man whose rating seemed to stretch into triple
digits— the unit was the best supplied on the base, maybe in the entire air
force. Plus, Knowlington just about glowed reassurance, spreading calm and
patience wherever he went. Despite all his personal problems, the guy had seen
this shit before; he put it in perspective. He thought before he spoke, and
actually listened to what people told him.

Maybe
too much, since he had been known to ask an airman what he thought and actually
consider the advice. The colonel wasn’t by-the-book enough for Mongoose’s
taste, not by a mile. And then there was the drinking, which wasn’t much of a
secret, though he seemed to have knocked it off since coming to the war zone.

But
Knowlington’s biggest knock was the fact that he was a low-timer in the Hog;
some of the mechanics probably had flown more. He was an outsider, a fast-mover
pilot and commander who ended up heading the A-10 squadron— technically, it was
a wing, though only at squadron force— completely by accident. If it hadn’t
been for a last minute request by Schwarzkopf himself, Knowlington would have
overseen these planes’ flight to the boneyard, not Iraq. Whoever had cut the
original orders had basically intended him to be a junkyard foreman, not a
combat commander.

But
he was a combat commander, and not a bad one. Maybe a real good one. He’d gone
through hell in Vietnam, with medals and scars to prove it. He was a real
pilot, probably a hero once.

Shit,
some day they might say that about him.

Assuming
he made it back.

Checklist.
Stay in the here and now.

Mongoose
imagined himself with a sign around his neck that said he was a war criminal.
For some reason, he also saw himself naked — and began to laugh.

The
guards looked at him as if he was laughing at them. But he couldn’t stop
himself. It seemed like the most hilarious thing in the world, him naked.

* * *

Ten
or fifteen minutes later, Mongoose was jerked against the cab as the truck
stopped short with a crash, rear-ending the one it had been following. The pain
in his head, which had subsided almost to the point where he didn’t notice it,
returned with a vengeance. His knee gave a fresh twinge of pain.

Both
of his guards fell at his feet. They weren’t curious now— they grabbed him
viciously and pulled him from the flatbed.

“I
didn’t do it,” he said, holding out his hands. “Please. My leg.”

In
the next moment he was tossed over the side. He couldn’t get his arms out in
front of him quickly enough and the bottom of his jaw snapped upwards, barely
missing his tongue, but hurting like all hell anyway. Arms grabbed him and
hauled him to his feet; finally a shout from the captain made his captors ease
up.

The
truck ahead had blown a tire. He thought for a moment that they were going to
put him to work changing it, but the soldiers did that themselves after pulling
the two vehicles apart. The officer in charge passed by him, shaking his head.

He
returned a few minutes later and asked if Mongoose wanted a cigarette.

“Don’t
smoke,” said Mongoose.

“Bad
for your health, right?” The man took a pack of Marlboros from his pocket and
carefully removed a cigarette. “Very difficult to get these days,” he told
Mongoose. “American-dog cigarettes. But we all need our luxuries.”

“How
do you know English?”

“Everyone
knows English.” As he lit the cigarette, the man’s face glowed red. It was not
a gentle face, despite his manner. “I went to college at Midwestern. I am an
engineer.”

“And
you came back?”

“Wouldn’t
you?”

No,
he wouldn’t, thought Mongoose, and then he realized that of course he would— he
would return to his home and family and soon as he could, just as he would when
this deployment ended.

“A
materials engineer. I could be in great demand in Europe. But there are always
complications,” said the officer. “Yourself?”

“I’m
just a pilot.”

“Where
did you go to school?”

Mongoose
hesitated, considering whether the information might somehow help his captor.
Probably not, only in the vague way of helping to build rapport. But that probably
cut both ways; it might make the man more trusting, and easier to lie to.

“RPI,”
he told him. “I was an engineering major, too.”

“Really?
Very good. Very good.” The officer nodded, then took a long drag from his
cigarette. He seemed as if he was going to say more, but one of his men called
him over to the truck.

They’d
taken his watch with everything else, so Mongoose wasn’t sure what time it was.
From the sky, he guessed that it might be an hour before dawn, somewhere in the
long twilight before the sun rose.

If
these guys were Moslems— and that seemed a damn good bet— they’d stop for
morning prayers. Might be a good time to try running for it.

Why
not try now, then? The ground sloped off from the road. The shadows thickened a
short distance away.

The running
lights of the nearby truck flashed on as the motor came to life.

He
caught some low-slung shadows ahead in the strands of moonlit night fog.
Buildings, maybe a city, or just a unit headquarters of some type.

His
destination?

The
truck at the front coughed a few times but refused to start. The motor ground out
an incessant whine.

The
sound reminded him of a moment two years before, during winter, of his wife
having trouble and flooding the car.

He
pushed the idea away. Here and now. Checklist mode.

The
officer shouted to his men as the battery’s charge ground down. A group went to
the back of the truck, as if they were going to push it, and then jump-start it.

That’ll
never work, Mongoose thought to himself. But then the AAA probably didn’t offer
roadside assistance out here.

As
he watched them grunt and groan the vehicle forward, he heard a low, almost
guttural hum in the distance.

A
Hog.

Was
he dreaming it? He looked toward the sky.

The
truck engine sputtered and coughed, then somehow caught. He strained to hear
over the sound. For undoubtedly the first time in his life he cursed the fact
that the A-10A’s turbofans were relatively quiet.

The
truck drowned out whatever he had heard. If he had heard anything.

Run
for it?

One
of his guards put his rifle into Mongoose’s side and prodded him toward their
vehicle. He kept his eyes trained toward the sky for another second, desperate
to see something.

The
guard pushed him forward.

“Into
the truck, let’s go,” the Iraqi captain told him. “Now, Major.”

“I
have to take a leak,” said Mongoose, desperate to hear the noise again.

“You
can relieve yourself when we arrive at our headquarters. It won’t be long.”

“But—
”

“I
should not like to shoot you, but I will certainly do so if you do not get on
the truck.” The captain had his hand on his pistol.

Mongoose
held his hands out. “I’m sorry,” he said, turning and repeating the words to
his guards. Then he pulled himself up onto the truck, hesitating for just a
second as he got his legs under him, wincing because of his knee, and willing
the Hog to return.