Hogs #2: Hog Down (7 page)

OVER IRAQ

21 JANUARY 1991

1825

M
ongoose yanked at
the stick, angry that
they’d wasted so much time and ammunition on the desert parking lot. Both planes
had only their cannons left— excellent weapons, but it was going to be harder
than hell to get a good shot at the bastards under the overpass.

Not
really. Not at all. Hell, they’d done this sort of thing maybe a hundred times
in training, working over highways throughout Europe. Not one underpass ever
got away. All he had to do was take the Hog down to where it was designed to
operate, and the missiles would be easy pickings.

Granted,
they weren’t supposed to fly so low. But Scuds overrode everything.

Besides,
he wasn’t flying a stinking Strike Eagle or a BUFF. He was in a Hog.

Mongoose
mapped a quick game plan— a low-altitude scream and pop, quick away, then up
for the border, head for a tanker, track directly south instead of KKMC. The
tanker contingency was a nod to their dwindling fuel supply and any problems
that might follow their close encounter of the Scud kind.

A-Bomb
practically took his ear off with a war whoop when he told him they were going
to nail the bastards at fifty feet.

“See,
this is what I’m talking about,” said his wingman. “This is the way to fight
with a Hog.”

Mongoose
could feel the mask pinching his jaw as he worked to keep his voice flat.
“We’ll swing back and use what’s left of the sun,” he told his wingmate. “It’s
lined up almost perfectly. Let the fucking chips fall where they may.”

“Yeah,
I’m on you. Show me the way.”

The
flight leader marked the INS and gave the ABCCC the location. Then he swung
northwest, working to get into position to make a straight-on shot up the road,
sun at his tail. He began picking up momentum, energy and speed fanning each
other as the plane revved herself toward a feeding frenzy.

“Ready?”
he asked A-Bomb as he geared into the attack.

“I
was born ready.”

Mongoose
felt the plane roar as her nose sniffed out the underpass. The ground became a
pebbly blur, the asphalt of the highway a thick black arrow pointing her toward
hell. Mongoose sorted out the target area ahead in his windscreen, working his
eyes deliberately, slowing the world down so he could nail the crap out of it.
The underpass was very wide and deep, maybe even designed from scratch as a
bunker area. There were three support vehicles in the front on his right,
lighter trucks that as far as he was concerned were mere annoyances. Two Scud
carriers were at the left end of the thick underpass. There was a big cloud of
dust and sand beyond the roadway, a tractor or something moving. The terrain
rose to the right; he saw more activity there, a truck moving around.

If
there was going to be any air defense, it would be there. His RWR was clean but
shit, at this altitude, a guy with a water pistol could get a bead on you.

The
pilot blew a long, hard wad of air from his mouth, trying to control his
adrenaline. Anger rumbled through his stomach— he wanted to nail the Scuds and
wring Saddam’s neck personally.

Bad.

Push
the buttons and do your job. Checklist mode. Getting angry got you killed.

He
was at two hundred feet, nearly dead on. He kept coming, nose in the dirt, eyes
starting to itch, a vague pinch around the edges of his body, partly from the
increasing g’s and partly from tension. He edged right slightly, felt himself
falling into that perfect space, his spine aligned with the plane’s spine. The
missile carriers had grown from distant cigarettes to thick, enticing sausages,
and finally into big fat targets filled with very combustible fuel.

Mongoose
squeezed the trigger, the gun growling an angry roar as its one-and-a-half
pound charges leapt toward the enemy. The pilot leaned into the trigger, his
eyes following the smoke. He gave the ship rudder to hold the line of bullets
into the rear of the missile truck nearest the road. The force of the gun was
so awesome it held the Hog back, slowing it in mid-air so that the plane seemed
to hang around him, defying all laws of gravity and motion.

The
underpass evaporated beneath the onslaught. He pushed his aiming point to the
right without a clear target, searching for the next missile. He fired and he
fired and finally the Scud’s rear fin or something was right there, right in
the middle of his bullets. He fired some more and thought he could feel the
heat of his gun firing. The plane rocked with the cannon, everything jumbling
into one tremendous quake. He’d nailed the rear units of both missiles.

Webbed
in fine fuzz of total concentration, Mongoose pushed himself and the plane to
get away. His throttle was full out as he zoomed away, beyond the attack.

It
was a vulnerable moment; he was moving quickly but well framed against the
horizon. He pushed his stick, kicked his rudders and bent his body hard to the
right. He hit flares as a precaution against a shoulder-fired weapon, and bolted
from the bubbling cauldron of fire and burning sand. They were shooting at him.
All Iraq was trying to kill him; even if their bullets were puny, a bullet was
a bullet. He held it full bore, hell-bent on getting away, skimming the ground
low enough to count grains of sand. Finally sensing he was clear, Mongoose
started to nose up, grabbing for more sky. He felt his chest muscles relaxing.
There was a vehicle now he hadn’t seen here along the highway; they were
firing, too, a lot of shit reaching out for him but nothing he couldn’t handle.
He pushed the plane to get around, to get back and cover A-Bomb’s run.

He’d
smashed the crap of Saddam, nailed both Scuds. Who knew? Maybe the stinking
chemical crap the bastard intended dumping on the Americans— or maybe the
Israelis— was now wafting below, killing his own men.

Served
them right.

Mongoose
took a long, relaxed breath, the easiest since they had cross the border, and
keyed his mike to tell A-Bomb he could start his pass.

In
that second, something thumped behind him, and he felt a flutter in his stomach
that extended all the way back to his engines.

OVER IRAQ

21 JANUARY 1991

1840

A
-Bomb shouted when
he saw the flash from the
far end of the underpass. By then it was far too late for anything he could do
to have much of an effect, but he didn’t think about that. He keyed his mike to
give the warning, and in practically the same motion he pushed the nose of his
plane down and smashed the trigger, hoping that his flailing bullets would
suppress any more fire. He couldn’t hold the angle well enough to nail the
target, which passed by in a blur; he tried rolling and diving back but even A-Bomb
could only bend Newton’s laws so far. He got a good glimpse of the bastard,
though— a Roland SAM launcher, sitting atop an AMX tank chassis and just about
ready to dish up another missile.

At
him.

He
yanked the Hog hard to the north, goosing the throttle and hunkering down,
wondering why the Scuds hadn’t caused a big enough explosion to take out the
Roland. The Hog’s ECM unit was useless against the missile’s Siemens J-band low-PRF
tracking radar, which used techniques perfected well after the pod came on
line. All he could do was jink and fly like hell.

A-Bomb
keyed his mike and shouted his warning to Mongoose again. Then he concentrated
on his own plane, his own body, pushing it away. He had the throttle to the
firewall. The Hog leapt forward with the lust of a race horse leaving the gate.
He let the plane have her head for a few seconds, then took another hard turn,
rolling out at the same time and just about cracking the plane’s back as he
whacked it sideways, exploring new dimensions in geometry. He flew the Warthog
harder than an aerobatics plane, pushing it over, and under, and back again,
trying to undo the knot the SAM had tied.

The
Roland could move just over Mach 1.6. She had a limited range, though; he could
win if he could run just a little further.

He
glanced back and saw it coming for him, just about softball size and getting
bigger in the rear quarter of his canopy.

Maybe
he didn’t see it at all; maybe his imagination was painting it there for him,
because no way in real life could you see a Roland this long after it had been
fired. He’d gone what? Ten miles at least. And still he felt the damn thing
homing in on his head like Saddam had painted a big bull’s eye there.

No
way it could still be coming for him. Damn thing weighed less than 150 pounds,
and it couldn’t all be fuel.

He
jinked again, this time so low to the desert floor he would have had to look up
to change the oil on a Jeep. There was a thud or something behind him; the Hog
seemed to gain speed. A-Bomb pushed his stick hard and held on, fingers
crossed, one more gut-smearing turn before he was finally sure that the cloud
of dirt and shrapnel represented the last remains of the French and German
missile.

A-Bomb
blew a breath and caught a glimpse of Mongoose’s plane, well east and much
higher than him, flying in the opposite direction toward Kuwait.

“Jesus,
‘Goose, I thought they got you,” he told his wingmate.

Devil
One continued to climb to the east, rising from its run as easily as if were on
a training mission. The ugly dark green shades of camo smudged into a black
blur, its pudge nose and fat tail as pretty as a black Ferrari steaming around
a race track. The late sun gleamed off the front of the canopy, its glint
refracted into reddish-white fingers of light.

Then
he saw the Hog waddle in the air, its left wing flailing upwards, out of the
pilot’s control.

Most
of the other wing was gone. One of both of the missiles had blown right through
it.

“Bail
out, Goose!” A-Bomb called. “Bail the fuck out!”

OVER IRAQ

21 JANUARY 1991

1841

T
he emergency indicator
lights were on. The engine
was screaming. The plane was trying to pull herself over.

Hit.

Engine,
must be. Right side.

Checklist
mode.

Compensate
for the dead engine, push the rudder, hold the stick.

Wing
took something, too.

Rudder
not responding. Hydraulics out. Go to manual reversion.

Shit,
there’s no plane here.

Manual
reversion.

Is
there time?

Checklist
mode.

Caution
panel dotted with more lights than a power grid station.

Controls
still not doing their job.

Blue
sky ahead.

Air
speed dropping.

Still
climbing.

Momentum’s
a beautiful thing. Still moving somehow.

Stick
feels like it’s not connected.

Do I
have Kathy’s letter?

Restart
the other engine.

Not
this slow, no way.

Five
thousand goddamn feet, a miracle to be this high.

Pointing
north. Wrong direction.

Shit,
no wing.

Can’t
hold it.

Have
to jump now while the jumping is good.

Shame
to leave this old Hog. Hell of a plane. Rescued from the scrap heap to whup
Saddam’s butt.

Got
two Scuds at least.

* * *

Less
than three seconds passed from the moment he was hit until Mongoose’s eyes shot
down toward the big yellow ejector loops at the edge of the ACES II seat. His
body was still going through the motions but his head was already outside the
plane.

Eject.
Eject.

He
reached up and made sure his crash visor was down, hard hat secure, passport
punched.

Eject.
Eject.

He
felt a soft pop, then closed his eyes as a powerful force yanked his legs back
and pushed him against the seat. Wires below were severed by razor knives as
the canopy blew out with a rush and the space below him exploded with a mad
froth. Mongoose felt himself hurled upwards, enveloped in an icy whirlwind,
then wrapped in a dark, blank void beyond time or place.

OVER IRAQ

21 JANUARY 1991

1843

A
-Bomb pulled eight
or nine g’s in the turn,
whacking the Hog down into the dust and going like all hell. He had to take out
that Roland or no way anybody could get close enough to pick up Mongoose when
his chute landed.

He
saw, or thought he saw, an ejection, even though Mongoose didn’t acknowledge.
He’d have to go back for him; the Roland had to be taken out first.

A
nice little Spark Vark jamming plane flying overhead right about now would have
been immensely convenient. That or an up-to-date ECM pod on the right wing,
where the ancient ALQ-119 was hanging.

But
hell, A-Bomb told himself. He didn’t need that fancy stuff. He was flying a
Hog.

He
came at the site about twenty feet off the ground, so low and close he could
see the Roland crew members working frantically on the top of the mobile
missile launcher. They had rolled it out from under its hiding place, whether
to reload or get away from the fire on the other end, he couldn’t be sure.

And
he really didn’t care. A-Bomb pressed his trigger and tore the hell out of the
lightly armored piece of French dog meat, framed by the roadway behind it. A
dozen armored piercing and high explosive shells ripped through the tank
chassis, the metal steaming with death. The four or five men who’d been atop it
literally vaporized as the pilot sat on his trigger.

Some
enterprising troops had set up a fifty caliber machine gun at the edge of the
packed dirt road about twenty yards beyond the overpass. A-Bomb gave them the
finger as he zoomed out, whipping back for a run at the Scud carriers. As he
came back and started to get into position to take his aim, he saw that both
missiles were lying in splinters beneath the underpass.

They’d
been decoys.

No
matter— he danced his bullets into the underpass as he galloped forward,
working his pedals to rake the area right to left. Then he turned his attention
to the machine-gun, awarding his own personal medals of heroism to the soldiers
manning it.

When
he came around for another pass, all he saw were dead bodies.

One
more quick turn revealed nothing else was moving. He started climbing, heading
in the direction he had last seen Mongoose’s plane take. As the Hog gained
altitude, he tuned his radio to the emergency band, hoping for a locator
beacon.

All
he heard was static.