Hogs #4:Snake Eaters (20 page)

O
VER IRAQ

25
JANUARY 1991

1914

A
ll of thirty
seconds had passed since A-Bomb had chased the MiG from his tail. To Doberman it felt like a month.

He broke left as the
MiG broke right, clearing the Iraqi pilot and the swirling chaos that had wrapped itself around his head. Banking to the north, trying to sort the situation, he saw the dark shadow of the AH-6 picking itself up off the ground.

There were two F-15 Eagles somewhere above. Another four were rushing north. The
Iraqi MiG was either extremely lucky or flying too low for them to get a good fix. A-Bomb, after his initial radio yahoo, had gone silent and, for the moment at least, disappeared. All Doberman could hear over the radio was a loud hushing roar— something like the sound of a freight train out of control.

Doberman felt his anxiety growing as he hunted for his wingman. Be just like
A-Bomb to get nailed saving his butt.

A-Bomb
? Nailed?

Yeah, right. Hostess would stop making cupcakes before that happened.

An oblong blue flame caught Doberman’s attention as he began pushing his Hog’s nose further south. He squeezed the throttle for its last ounce of thrust. Two dark specks twisted against the ground a mile and a half in front of him. Tracers lit the night. The second plane had a commanding position on the first plane’s tail, but the lead pilot refused to give in, somehow knowing exactly where his enemy was going to fire before he did. The planes swirled to the south.

No way in the world
A-Bomb would have missed at that range. He must be the one in the lead.

Doberman felt disoriented. He pushed the stick right then slammed it left, dead-on the tail of the MiG, four miles behind it.

Something screamed— it was the AIM-9Ls, begging him to fire already.

He squeezed off, felt the swish, keyed his mike to sound the warning that the missile was away.

“Fox Two! Fox Two!”

Before he got the words out of his mouth, the MiG exploded.

SOME O
THER PLAYER

A
L-JOUF

2
6 JANUARY 1991

2000

D
oberman’s legs began
shaking as he lifted himself over the side of the Hog. He was cold, tired, hungry, barely alive— but the thing that got to him was Becky Rosen standing on the access ramp, waiting to congratulate him. About a dozen people, including A-Bomb and Tinman and a parcel of Delta troopers, stood behind her, but all he saw was her. Somehow, he got down the ladder without falling.

“Hey,” he said, finally getting his feet firmly on the ground.

She jumped on him and he fell back against the ladder. She kissed him on the cheek and his face flushed. The others swarmed in, pumping him on the back, shoulder, and head, whatever they could touch.

As far as anyone knew, Captain John “Doberman” Glenon
was the first Hog pilot to score the first ever shoot down of a MiG in the slow and lumbering A-10A.

“It’s what I’m talking about!”
A-Bomb declared, more or less summarizing everyone’s sentiments.

Everythi
ng hit Doberman at once— the long day and night of missions they’d endured before the forced landing at Apache, the retank, Al Kajuk, the dogfight. Doberman squeezed Rosen hard, then laughed and found A-Bomb in the press of people right in front of him.

“You saved my life,” he told him. He threw his arms around his wingman
— not an easy task. “You saved my goddamned life. That MiG almost nailed me.”

“Ah, you would have gotten away from him sooner or later,”
A-Bomb said. “Sorry it took me so long to get off the ground here. I wasn’t even across the border when the AWACS told me you’d just sent the Pave Hawk home. I figured you’d head over to Apache.”

“I don’t know how I ended up there,” admitted Doberman. “I was ducking a SAM site and some MiGs. I swear to God, I just looked down and there was Apache. No shit. I thought I was about fifty miles closer to the border.”

“Lucky for us you got lost,” said Rosen. “You saved us.”

“Damn straight,” yelled Hawkins, the Spec Ops captain from Fort Apache. Everybody started yelling and touching him for good luck again.

Later, when Doberman managed to slide free, he walked over to the end of the wing. He stood there, gazing at the double-rail of Sidewinders— now with only a single AIM-9L.

“I got it,” he said
, suddenly overwhelmed by what he had achieved. “Shit. I got it.”

* * *

Several hours later, a grim-faced Air Force officer wearing a fairly crisp uniform and the gold oak leaf of a major found Doberman sitting alone against a set of sandbags, not far from the A-10A service area Rosen and her team of techies had dubbed Oz West.

Doberman had slipped away from the others, intending at first to go to sleep, but he was too pumped for that. He’d ended up sitting and staring at the plane in the dark. At first he thought about the mission. Then he started thinking about Dixon, the Hog driver who’d died up north working as a spotter with the Delta team. Kid reminded him a lot of his little brother.

“Captain Glenon?” asked the major, who’d flown in from Riyadh. “I’d like to speak to you.”

Doberman lifted his eyes slowly,
struggling to focus on the man in the dim light reflected from the work area. The major was probably here to debrief him. He’d already spoken to two intel officers, though admittedly their interviews had barely covered the bones of what had happened. There was much more information to be gleaned; Black Hole and the Central Command would be especially interested in the Scuds and the mosque.

But Doberman felt too drained for it all.

“Do you mind if we do this in the morning?” Doberman asked him. “I’m a little tired.”

“This isn’t something that can wait,” said the major stiffly. “And I’m afraid you’re not going to like it.”

Doberman listened as the officer told him, succinctly, without emotion or diversion, that he would not be given credit for the air-to-air kill. Fort Apache and the rest of the Delta missions north had to remain a closely guarded secret. That included the airplanes that had assisted them, and their missions.

“Officially, you’re still at King Fahd,” the lieutenant major told him. “You never shot down a MiG; the kill will be credited to another unit. I’m sorry, I know it must feel like a punch in the gut, but it’s to save other people’s lives. I know that’s important to you, Captain.”

Doberman pulled himself to his feet.

“Captain? Are you all right?”

Doberman shrugged. He honestly didn’t care about getting credit.

Poor Dixon. The kid had been a great stick
and rudder man, a real talent— raw and inexperienced, naive, but damn good. On the ground, though, he was just so much fodder.

Central Command probably had him listed as being back at King Fahd, too.

“Captain?” asked the man from Riyadh.

“I’m just a little tired right now,” Doberman told him, finally feeling like he could fall asleep. “Whatever you guys want to do, that’s fine with me.”

T
ABUK AIR BASE

26 JANUARY
1991

2000

F
inal credit would
have to wait for an exhaustive review of the tapes and AWACS data, but the rest of Piranha squadron welcomed Major Horace Preston as a conquering hero. They’d already gotten verbal confirmation from the AWACS controller that both of his Sparrows had nailed their targets.

He’d also come close to downing the first A-10 of the war, a fact he made clear as he and Johnny debriefed the mission. If the Warthogs were going to go so far north, they sure as hell better have their IFFs working properly. It had been just a freak thing that he got the ID before firing the Sidewinder.

“AWACS tried calling you,” Johnny told him when they were alone. “They had the A-10 ID’d.”

Hack bristled. He’d been surprised to find all four radar missiles on his
wing mate’s wings when he returned. He had shrugged noncommittally at the captain’s explanation that he couldn’t lock up his targets; it was certainly possible that there had been some sort of mechanical screwup. But he planned on checking on it himself in the morning.

“The
A-10 was still pretty lucky,” said Hack.

“Definitely. Still, guy must be a pretty good pilot,” said Johnny. “To nail a MiG with a Sidewinder.”

“Yeah,” said Hack grudgingly. Undoubtedly the shoot down had been due to luck, not skill. But he was too tired now to argue.

The Warthogs didn’t belong north of the border without heavy escort; he’d make that clear to the general when he talked to him tomorrow.

On the other hand, maybe he shouldn’t bring that up. The way his luck was running, he’d get stuck baby-sitting them.

* * *

A few hours later, Hack was woken from a fitful sleep by a sergeant who told him he had an important phone call. The sergeant claimed not to know who it was, which led Hack to guess it was an Air Force public relations liaison. He’d seen other guys interviewed after successful dogfights; now it was his turn.

He pulled on his boots and dressed quickly, shaking his head to wake up. The brass in D.C. would undoubtedly be listening in. This was definitely a career builder, a chance that wouldn’t come again.

The squadron commander met him at the door to his office.

“Come on, Hack. Don’t want to keep the general waiting too long.”

“General on the phone? Who?”

The squadron leader smiled, as if that were answer enough. Hack slipped down into his boss’s well-padded leather chair and held the receiver to his ear.

“Hack? This is Bobby Sherman. Congratulations.”

“Thanks, General. Thank you very much,” he said. Sherman, a two-star general with the Tactical Air Command back in the States, was one of several people who had helped mentor him through the ranks. It was flattering that he had called
— still, it was a bit of a letdown. Hack had been hoping he would be on the
Today
Show, or at least CNN.

“It wasn’t that much, really
,” Hack added. “It happened so fast.”

“So fast? What are you talking about?” the general asked.

Hack straightened in the chair. “The shoot down, sir? The two MiGs.”

“Hack, you son of a bitch—
you splashed two MiGs?”

“They’re uh, not confirmed yet, sir.” He was confused
. Why had the general called?

“That’s fantastic. Well listen, I have news for you
. You’re now DO of the 535
th
Tactical Fighter Squadron. Which actually sets you up very nicely to become its new commander, especially with those MiGs to your credit.”

“Excuse me, General?”

“The papers are on their way. You’re to report ASAP. I knew you’d want to know. This is the big one, Hack. The 535
th
is technically a wing— you’ll be a wing commander as soon as it’s brought up to strength. I would expect things to fall in place very, very quickly.”

DO wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. At best, the director of operat
ions was the second in command— the guy with all the crap work to do. And the 535
th
? Whose unit was that?

“Hack?”

“The 535
th
is an F-16 squadron?” he asked.

“No. A-10s. The word is, the CO’s on the way out. He’s a washed up old alchy past due for retirement. He’s got a few friends here and there, but they won’t be able to cover his ass much longer.”

Hack tried to think of a way to gracefully refuse the assignment. No position with an A-10 squadron, not even commander, was acceptable.

Warthogs! Shit.

“I didn’t realize you had so many hours in the Warthog cockpit until I went through your file,” added Sherman. “That made it simple. I could have done this last year if I’d known. Hack, you with me?”

“I, uh, I.” There was no way to be diplomatic about it. “I’d like to stay with F-15s,” he blurted.

“This is your career we’re talking about,” snapped the general. Hack could practically feel the fire.

“I, uh
. . .”

“I woke you up, didn’t I?” said the general, sliding back into his good ol’ boy voice.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well go back to bed. Relax. You’ll be heading that wing in no time. Commander’s a guy named Michael Knowlington. You know him?”

“Oh shit,” said Hack, every muscle in his body sagging.

“Hack?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“Stay on his butt and you’ll be commander and full colonel in a month.”

Hack slid the phone back onto the cradle without saying anything else.