Hogs #2: Hog Down (19 page)

Over Iraq

22 January 1991

0500

T
he first truck
frothed beneath the weight
of the bullets, crackling into dust as A-Bomb stood on the rudder pedals,
walking the cannon back and forth through the son of a bitch like he was
working a drill into a piece of diseased wood. His eyes stung a bit from the
flare and the world had a bit of a washed-out tint to it but he wasn’t pausing
even to blink them now. Keeping the A-10 in her dive, he eased off the trigger,
giving the gun a brief rest before picking up the second truck. The bullets
skipped out of the plane again, the kick pushing the Hog back as if the force
of the gun alone could keep the plane in the air.

A-Bomb
started to drift off target and realized he was running out of space; he held
on for just a half-second more, squeezing off a good burst before yanking into
his escape. He pushed the plane for all she was worth, vulnerable now; he’d
wiped the trucks but there was always a chance, remote but there, that some
patriotic Iraqi had scrounged an SA-16 and managed to survive the on-rush of
uranium and high-explosives. The plane’s nose sniffed for the darkness, welcoming
the cover like a real warthog escaping into the bushes.

Somebody
was aiming at him. He felt a flash from behind, small for a rocket and well
behind him, but coming for him nonetheless. Without hesitating or waiting for
Skull’s warning he goosed off some decoy flares and gave the Hog all the
throttle she would take. A-Bomb closed his eyes against the new flare’s light
but even when he opened them the glare was worse than flying through a blizzard
with a pair of arc lamps strapped to the fuselage. It took an eternity for the
plane to climb away. His eyes struggled to regain their night vision; he
couldn’t even see his instruments.

Not
that he needed them. This morning the Hog was just about flying herself. She
did that, when the stakes got high enough. The plane wagged her fanny in the
air as she climbed, now out of range of any shoulder-fired heat-seeker. From
her point of view, it hadn’t taken long to get away at all. Her pilot said go
and she went.

As A-Bomb
brought the plane around and began looking for his lead, he saw that one of the
two trucks had caught fire.

He
decided he’d get the other on his next swing.

“What
was with the flares?” asked Skull.

“I
felt something.”

“I
had your six. Bring your course around another forty degrees.”

“I
was thinking another pass.”

“Negative,”
snapped the colonel. “You wiped their asses on your first pass. No sense
wasting any more bullets. You see me yet, or you need me to key the mike?” he
added, offering to use the radio as a crude direction finder, since the A-10A’s
gear could show the direction of transmission.

“No,
I got you,” said A-Bomb.

“We’re
going over that spot near the buildings with a fine tooth comb.”

“Listen,
I didn’t mean that I thought you wouldn’t warn me if someone was shooting at
me. I just had a hunch, like I felt something coming off the ground for me.”

Knowlington
didn’t bother answering.

On the ground in Iraq

22 January 1991

0500

M
ongoose landed arm
first and felt a bone in his
forearm snap.

His
head blanked. His whole body moved away from him. Dirt pushed into his nose and
mouth. He bit the inside of his lip, felt the dizziness come, and rolled.

The
pilot remembered the flares tucked inside his flight suit. He got to his knees
and reached for the bandoleer. Halfway there the pain overwhelmed him and his
right arm fell limp; he fell forward onto his head, scraping against the dirt.
Bent into the earth, resting on his shoulder, he reached for the flares with
his good hand, tearing at his suit to retrieve them.

There
was shouting and moaning and crying behind him. The A-10s had pulled off,
probably to line up for another pass. They’d see the flare if he fired.

The
gas tank on one of the trucks exploded. He felt the heat on his back, felt
himself pitched to the side. He rolled, loosing the bandoleer with the flares
before he stopped against something large and soft.

It
was one of the Iraqi soldiers. Reaching to push himself away Mongoose felt the
man’s uniform. It was wet; he’d been so scared he’d peed himself.

Shuffling
himself to his knees Mongoose, realized the man was dead. It wasn’t piss, it
was blood. His left hand was smeared with it.

He
turned away, looking for the bandoleer. The flare the Hogs had launched was
still descending but its light was becoming fitful. One or two men moved on the
far side of the road. He heard crying. His own arm hurt so bad he couldn’t be
entirely sure the moans weren’t his own.

He
saw the flares and pushed his body down for them as if he were a snake, not a
man, curling in the cold fog and fine dirt. He made an effort to keep his right
hand close to his body and immobile, but firing the flares was more important.
He grappled with the holder and the small gun, had to use his bad arm, and might
have screamed with the pain, but his head was swimming now with adrenaline. He
managed somehow to push the jackhammering throb to one side. He rolled back on
his haunches into a seated position, cradling the launcher on the ground, and
fired.

Nothing
happened.

He
started to move his head forward to take a look when the rocket hissed upward,
streaking toward the sky like a July 4th firework. Shocked, he jerked backward,
dropped the launcher, and fell onto his back as the rocket climbed quickly to
nearly six hundred feet, where its small warhead ignited with a red burst.

Did
they see it? The LUU-2 was still burning, and now there were other flares just
north of them, decoys probably; whoever was flying the Hogs was worried about
ground missiles.

They
hadn’t seen him. He would have to fire another. Mongoose scooped up the
bandoleer and forced it into his right hand. His fingers had numbed but he
managed to hold it steady enough to remove another of the small, cylindrical
metal cartridges. There were like mini-thermoses, filled not with water but
life-giving fire.

“No,”
said a voice behind him.

Mongoose
turned and saw the Iraqi captain, his pistol aimed at his face. The man’s
uniform was singed and tattered; fog and smoke swirled around him. But his
mouth and eyes looked calm and determined despite the chaos.

“If
you try to fire another flare, Major, I will kill you. Put the launcher down.”

The
jets had moved off. Their engine noise was gone; they’d missed him.

“Put
the launcher down. Now, Major. I will not tell you again.”

Slowly,
carefully, Mongoose complied.

Over Iraq

22 January 1991

0505

C
olonel Knowlington pushed
the stick hard, felt the
world drop away. His brain split into two halves. One contained the fuzzy TVM
image, and the other the blur of dark earth in front of the Warthog’s nose. He
wanted to be low so Mongoose would be sure to hear them. He wanted to make this
fast, just in case someone other than his pilot was down there.

He
also wanted not to plow into the earth.

But
he worked the roll and dive well, pushing the plane over, then around, and finally
into a majestic swoop as pretty as poetry, pulling out and starting to recover
just as the altimeter touched two hundred feet. He rocked across the path he’d
mapped above as perfectly as if he were drawing it on paper.

The
TVM was blank. The dirt here was cold and dead, without so much as an old log
on the surface. He pushed around, checked his altitude, checked the screen,
looked outside. Nothing.

The
Warthog loved it down here. She felt like a horse finally released from the
paddock.

Most
likely, A-Bomb hadn’t meant the flares as a vote of no-confidence.

Knowlington
nudged the Hog into another turn. He made four more low-level circuits,
scanning the entire area as carefully as a miner working an old stream.

The
TVM stayed blank. He couldn’t get the shadow back, not even a hint of one.

“See
anything?” he asked his wingman.

“Negative.
I was hoping for a strobe, but nada.”

“I’m
going to do it again.”

“Gotcha.”

He
got his airspeed down even further for the second low-level pass, dropping down
toward a hundred knots, slower than a car on a highway. Plane didn’t seem to
mind; she seemed capable of just about stopping in midair.

He
knew Mongoose wasn’t here but he made a complete circuit anyway. Where the hell
could he be?

Most
likely, the Iraqis had gotten him already. That explained why there were no
radio transmissions.

There
could be another explanation. The pilot’s body could be lying back there in the
wreckage, mangled beyond recognition. They could be wasting their time, and
risking their own necks for nothing.

He
was going to catch holy shit when Glosson found out about this little
adventure. It’d be worth it if he came back with Mongoose.

What
the hell. At his age, the only thing he was really good for was getting yelled
at.

No.
He could still fly. Damn Hog proved that. For all the bad things he’d once said
about her, she didn’t hold even the barest of grudges. She might be smirking a
little bit, just around the edges, but otherwise she did what he asked, real
smooth and professional.

Knowlington
began pulling up as he returned to his starting point. This time A-Bomb asked
him if he’d seen anything.

“Negative,”
Skull told him. “Maybe that shadow wasn’t anything, or maybe he heard all the
commotion and started heading north. Let me come up a bit and then let’s follow
the highway.”

“Gotcha.”

“Say
A-Bomb, I have a question for you. Is that music I hear behind your
transmissions?”

“The
Boss. Bruce Springsteen.”

Knowlington
snorted into his mike. “You planning on blasting the Iraqis with it?”

“I
told Clyston it would be a good idea,” said A-Bomb. There was no question he
was serious. “A couple of speakers mounted below the wings and I could scare
the piss out of them while I was taking a bomb run. Like a Stuka’s siren.
That’s what I’m talking about.”

Hog
drivers.

But
hell, Knowlington thought, I’m one of them.

“Don’t
let it break your concentration,” he told his wingman, fixing his eyes back on
the TVM as he swung onto the new course.

On the ground in Iraq

22 January
1991

0510

H
is arm hurt
like all hell. The pain
seemed to push his whole body off at a strange angle, twisting his movements
into a tortured caricature as the various muscles and nerves tried to
compensate for the imbalance the injury had caused.

Mongoose
had sprained his wrist twice in high school playing football, but this was a
million times worse. His stomach felt as if he’d swallowed a bowling ball. His
temples were cold and sweaty. It might be because he was tired and hungry and
thirsty, drained from the ordeal of the last twenty-four hours, or maybe it was
just the way broken bones felt. He sat with his head against his knees, eyes
closed, as the Iraqi captain surveyed the remains of his command. The bandoleer
with its flares was only a few yards away, but it might as well be miles now.
Mongoose mouthed a piece of his flight suit into his teeth, gritting against it
as if it might offer some sort of relief.

“Your
arm,” said the Iraqi, standing over him. “What happened?”

“When
I fell off the truck. It broke, I guess.”

“You
friends did that to you.”

He
didn’t answer. The captain didn’t know how right he was. The attackers had
definitely been Hogs, and they must have been looking for him. He would bet
anything that A-Bomb had been one of the pilots.

Pretty
damn ironic.

“My
division headquarters will send troops to pick us up. You will not escape.”

Mongoose
nudged his head back toward his knee, bit again. The ground was tilted to his
left, keeling over on its axis.

He
wondered how long he could remain conscious.

“All
right, Major, let us move back to the road. There is more light there. Come on
now, get up.”

Mongoose
flinched when the man touched him under the shoulder, but once again his grip
was light, not quite gentle but not wrenching either. He stumbled, aware that
the captain had his pistol drawn.

“Go,
ahead of the trucks. I am right behind you.”

Mongoose
began walk. They were alone. Four or five bodies were scattered near the trunk,
including that of the man he had landed against when the gas tank exploded.

There
had been at least a half-dozen more, but they were nowhere around. It was
possible they were biding their time in a defensive position up the road, or
had regrouped with an NCO. But Mongoose didn’t think so; he thought they had
run off. They were mostly kids, after all, and it was a good chance that this
had been their first real combat.

He’d
heard a lot of things before the war about how tough the Iraqis were; the
country had sustained a long conflict with Iran, after all. But the Iraqis
didn’t seem to be living up to their advance billing.

“Ahead
of the truck and onto the road,” said the major. “Keep moving.”

Mongoose
corrected his course. Walking along the highway had its advantages; it would
make it easier for the Hogs to find him.

They’d
be back soon. The sun was starting to peek up at the far edge of the horizon.
They’d have an easy time spotting him once it was light.

What
would the major do then?

Shoot
him most likely.

They
walked together for no more than five minutes, Mongoose leading the way slowly,
holding his damaged right arm but not looking at it.

“Stop
now. We’ll rest here. Let me see your arm.”

“It’s
fine,” Mongoose told him.

“Let
me see it,” said the captain. He held his pistol in his left hand, close to his
body. Mongoose eyed it, thought of trying to wrestle for it. The Iraqi didn’t
seem particularly powerful, but of course Johnson had only one good arm. And he
was too far away; he’d get off at least two shots before Mongoose even came
close.

Bile
welled in his throat as he held his right arm out. If he’d had anything in his
stomach besides water he would have puked.

“Undo
your shirt sleeve. This is as close as I’m getting.”

As
Mongoose reached to his sleeve, he realized it was covered with blood. His
first thought was that the blood had come from the Iraqi he’d stumbled over
earlier, but as he curled his fingers beneath the cuff he realized it was
wetter beneath the sleeve. The involuntary startle sent a fresh wave of nausea
and pain through his body. He dropped his arm with a groan and sank slowly, finally
overwhelmed. Everything beyond the immediate confines of his body disappeared
into a hazy buzz.

“Do
not move,” said the captain from inside the haze. Mongoose felt the barrel of
the pistol against his cheek. A knife appeared at his sleeve and he felt the
fabric being torn away. The pain he felt in his arm made Mongoose shriek. He
stumbled against the captain, then cringed, his eyes closed, expecting the man
to shoot him.

But
he did not. The Iraqi waited for Mongoose to catch his balance with his good
arm, then calmly took two steps backwards. He slipped the knife back into its
sheath.

“You
have a compound fracture. It will have to be set as soon as we get back. There
will be a doctor. Just be sure to say that I did not do that to you when we
reach my headquarters.”

Mongoose
stuttered a yes. The buzz began to subside, the pain receding or his ability to
deal with it growing. He leaned back from his three-point stance, resting in a
crouch.

It
seemed inconceivable that the officer would be this kind. Surely, if their
situations had been reversed and his own men were lying dead nearby, at least
some of his anger would have shown through. He might even have shot the son of
a bitch. No one would blame him, and he could always say the guy was trying to
escape.

If
anyone even bothered to ask.

Maybe
it was a duty thing, the major under orders to fetch the pilot back alive.
Maybe there was a reward, and it would only be paid if he was unharmed. Still,
to act so mildly toward him— it seemed incredible.

And
yet he was the enemy, not a friend. He had meant it when he said he would shoot
him if he tried to escape; there seemed no doubt about that.

“I’m
going to put a canteen on the ground. When I step back, you can have a drink.”

“Thank
you, Major.”

“You’re
welcome, Major.”

Mongoose
focused his eyes on the ground in front of him, waiting for the canteen. His
tongue was dry in his mouth, brittle; he wanted water so badly, his heart
started pounding.

It
could be a trick, he thought when the canteen failed to appear. Maybe perverted
revenge.

But
no, he had only been unscrewing the top. The Iraqi stepped back and motioned
for Mongoose to come forward.

He
did quickly. The water felt incredibly delicious. He knew he shouldn’t have too
much— more than a few mouthfuls on an empty, parched stomach and it would all
come shooting back, leaving him more dehydrated than before. But it took great
effort to stop. He squatted with the canteen between his legs and fixed the cap
with his good hand.

“Very
creative,” said the Iraqi after retrieving the canteen. “You must have been a
good engineer.”

“Actually,
I probably sucked. All I’ve ever really wanted to do was fly. Engineering was
just a backup.”

“Too
bad you didn’t choose it.”

“I’ve
done all right.”

As
Mongoose finally rose, a fresh breeze scratched at his face. He didn’t feel its
chill; instead, it seemed to push more of the pain away.

He
remembered Kathy’s letter and reached for it involuntarily.

“Stop!”
demanded the Iraqi.

“It’s
nothing. Just the letter you gave me back before. From my wife.”

It
was too dark to read his face clearly, but the major’s tone said that he would
no longer completely trust him. “Empty your pocket slowly,” the Iraqi told him.

Mongoose
reached inside and took out the letter. He held it up.

“Just
the letter from my wife. It’s not worth anything to you. You already saw it and
gave it back.”

They
were silent for a moment. The Iraqi reached forward to grab the letter and
Mongoose felt anger well up inside him. For a half-second he thought he was
going to dive into the man; his muscles tensed for what would have been a
quick, suicidal fight.

Then
the major snatched the letter from his hand and jumped back. Any chance of
attacking him was gone.

“I
haven’t read it yet,” said Mongoose.

“You’ll
have plenty of time later. Let’s find something to make a sling,” said the Iraqi.
“And then we will walk. It is better than sitting around waiting for your
friends to come back, don’t you think?”