HOGS #5: TARGET SADDAM (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) (26 page)

What
Doberman really wanted to do was scoop up Dixon. It wasn’t his job— Wong and
the others were doing that— but he’d do anything to get the kid back, including
landing and tossing him on the back of the plane. The kid was like his little
brother— exactly like him, which was why he was in trouble in the first place,
as a matter of fact.

He
hailed Wolf, but they hadn’t heard from the ground team either. He told the
controller that the pods had been put down and mapped out the trucks they’d
just hit. Wolf told him a pair of F-16s were coming north to assist. In the
meantime, a flight of F-111s out of Turkey had been rerouted to hit the
stranded convoy one more time.

From
Turkey?

Doberman
acknowledged, setting his nose back toward the convoy area, still unsure how
long they were going to stay there. Hack radioed that he had just passed bingo.
His voice was flat and matter-of-fact, the way a Hog driver’s ought to be.

He
could just send Hack home alone.

Might
get lost.

Had
to take him back. And give the devil his due, he had taken out the Zeus and he
had ignored the MiG warning.

Which,
come to think of it, had evaporated.

“Devil
Three this is One. Doberman, what’s your situation?”

Skull’s
voice, unexpected and a bit tinny, nonetheless had a tone that permitted
nothing but a full set of the facts, including a layout of the positions as
well as their fuel and ammo stores.

“Go
south,” Skull told him. “You and Preston head back. We’ll stay here until the
Vipers arrive.”

Doberman
had heard Knowlington tell Wolf about the downed Frenchman. There was no way he
and A-Bomb had more fuel than they did. Even without doing the math, he doubted
Devils One and Two could linger more than two minutes before heading
desperately for the tanker.

But
there was also no way of disobeying Skull’s directive.

“Glenon,”
said Skull.

“We’re
setting course now,” he told him.

IRAQ

27 JANUARY 1991

2215

Dixon
shepherded Budge
down the hill, trying to move as quickly as he could without running into the
Iraqis. It took forever and longer, every step slowed by caution and speeded by
anticipation. The battle unfolded on the plain before them as they descended,
flaring and dying and then flaring again. Several times they hunkered down and
watched for falling debris as missiles erupted overhead. Installations to the
north and east reverberated, hit by bombs or long-range surface-to-air
missiles.

There
were definitely Hogs involved. Their target seemed to be trucks or buildings
about a half mile down the highway, perhaps further; there was gunfire there,
and Dixon guessed that must mean the commandos were in that area. There was
also a tank and an Iraqi outpost that had been struck on the left foot of the
hill. He and Budge found a path and began running, nearly to the bottom now. Dixon
picked up the boy and carried him about a hundred yards until he saw a truck
sitting at the bottom of the slope, thirty feet ahead.

BJ
nudged Budge to the right, aiming to get around the vehicle. Something flashed
as they moved on the sloping soil of the hillside— a lightning bug flickering
in the dark.

No,
a man on the back of the truck, squeezing off a single, almost silent rifle
shot. The truck was a Land Rover, sitting pug-nosed in the dark a few feet from
the roadway.

Dixon
pointed his rifle at the man. As he took aim, he realized another Iraqi vehicle
sat less than five yards to the left of the Land Rover, obscured from Dixon’s
view by a bluff at the edge of the hill. It was thick and long, with a gun at
the top— a tank or more likely a BMP, a tracked armored personnel carrier
exported by the Russians.

The
man in the Land Rover fired another round. He seemed to be trolling for a
response, unsure what if anything was out there. He moved too deliberately to
be panicked, yet seemed to be shooting randomly.

It
wouldn’t take much of a shot to hit him. But the BMP was probably loaded with
men. The bluff would prevent it from training its turret up the slope, but
Dixon and Budge would be quickly outnumbered.

Infinitely
safer to keep sneaking to the right, flank the position and then cross the
road. At that point, he could swing toward the firefight, maybe help out by
coming up behind the enemy.

Assuming,
of course, the Iraqis were shooting at something more than ghosts.

“Okay,
Budge,” he told the kid. “This way.”

“Budge,”
agreed the boy. He got up and walked with BJ across the slope, then slid down
toward the road with him. A trench ran along the highway; Dixon stopped Budge
for a moment and pointed to it.

“Go,
Budge,” he said, pushing him forward.

“Budge!”
yelled the kid.

They’d
gone only a few yards when the boy yelped. As Dixon moved to clamp his mouth
shut he realized there was an Iraqi with a gun a few yards away.

Tugged
from behind by Budge, he tumbled back into the ditch as the Iraqi began to
fire.

IRAQ

27 JANUARY 1991

2215

Salt
saw the
Dushka
and its crew about ten yards to his left, set up behind the wrecked chassis of
a truck. Mounted on a thick tripod, the DShKM was a thing of austere beauty,
from its double-circle muzzle brake to the wooden pegs of its rear handles.
Capable of spitting just over nine rounds of 7.62 mm ammo a second, the gun was
as rugged and dependable as any machine-gun ever used, and at least as deadly.

Salt
had a shot on only one of the three men behind the gun. If the others managed
to swing the weapon around at him, he’d be dead meat— he had no cover himself.

Carefully,
he began moving to his right, trying to flank the position from the rear,
hoping to get into position where he could hit the entire crew with one burst.
The wreckage of the truck helped camouflage him, but it also made it impossible
to see the gunners. The Dushka’s metallic thud sent him diving to his right; it
took a moment for him to realize the Iraqis had fired not at him but at
whatever was in front of them— Davis, most likely.

As
a general rule, Salt didn’t like officers, especially those giving him orders.
He’d been willing to put up with Wong because his bonafides were there— the guy
had, after all, done a HALO jump a few nights ago with some buddies of Salt’s.
But the bullshit about Saddam pissed him off.

Not
that Wong didn’t have a point. It was the way he expressed it that pissed him
off.

That
and the fucking SiG he’d pointed at his neck. He had half a mind to just drop
back and let Wong deal with the machine-gunners— more than likely they’d fry
him, and he could whomp Saddam in revenge.

Not
to overvalue revenge. He began crawling on his belly, paralleling the wrecked
truck. He paused parallel to the rear of the truck; he could spring up and be
behind them with two steps.

Three
guys, three slugs. Didn’t need cover.

Unless
they were behind something themselves.

Sneak
close to the truck, take a peak before he attacked.

The
machine gun stopped firing with a jerk and a metallic snap. They’d run through
the clip.

Salt’s
brain was still processing the sound as his instincts took over, propelling him
to his feet with a leap. He took a step, brought the rifle to his side, took
another step and fired point-blank, the first burst catching the actual gunner,
the second catching the man to his right, the third the man on the left.

Except
that it didn’t. He’d run through the clip, leaving the third man unharmed.

Salt
cursed his stupidity, cursed his shit luck, cursed the world. He ejected the
cartridge and reached for another. But as his fingers fumbled the Iraqi drew a
pistol, and before Salt could reload there was a tremendous boom in his ears,
the sound of a massive bullet hitting home.

Hitting
the Iraqi, not him. Captain Wong had run up behind Salt and now stood over him,
a Desert Eagle smoking in his hand.

“Shit,”
said Salt. “Shit.”

Wong
said nothing, turning quickly and running to grab the Saddam impersonator from
the ground a few feet away; it wasn’t clear if Wong had left him there or if
the man had been trying to escape by crawling away. He dragged him over to the
machine-gun position. He scanned the ground, then knelt next to it. By the time
Salt got there he had disabled the weapon.

“They
were out of ammunition,” the captain told him. “Sergeant Davis is this way.”

“Hey,
uh, Captain— thanks. You saved my butt.”

Wong
gave him a quizzical look, as if he didn’t understand or his hearing had once
more gone on the fritz. But maybe that was just his way of saying “you’re
welcome”— the Air Force captain was an odd duck.

“Sergeant
Davis is this way,” said Wong, pushing the prisoner ahead.

They
found Davis huddled over his leg, half-conscious. He’d been hit by three
bullets, one of which had shattered his bone. Wong quickly bandaged the leg and
gave Davis a hit from the morphine syringe. The D boy had been fortunate— the
wounds had come from the submachine-gun, not the Dushka. The big machine-gun
would have taken his limb right off.

“At
least he got the bastard,” said Salt, who could see the body on the ground behind
the nearby truck.

“Actually,
I eliminated the soldier wielding the sub-machine gun,” said Wong.

“You
know, Captain, you talk kind of funny.”

Again,
Wong gave him a goggle-eyed stare. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

Salt
started to laugh.

“I
will never understand why everyone in the Gulf has such a bizarre sense of
humor,” Wong told Salt. Then he turned to the Iraqi and asked him to carry
Davis.

To
Salt’s surprise, the Iraqi was actually able to get him over his shoulder.

They
ran back across to the road to the spot where Davis had left the com gear. Wong
immediately went to work on it, fingers flying over the controls like a mad
typist finishing up the last bit of paperwork before a long weekend. Salt
scanned northwards. The tank had been taken out by one of the planes. There
were two vehicles to the east right at the foot of the hill, guarding the
highway. They were maybe a half-mile from them. Salt couldn’t remember now
whether they were there when all of this started— it seemed like eons ago.

“Strawman
was an impostor,” Wong told Wolf when he succeeding in contacting the ABCCC
craft. “We are proceeding to rendezvous site.”

The
controller apparently said something the captain didn’t like; he frowned and
said only, “understood,” before ending the transmission.

“Take
the Satcom and go to the pickup site,” Wong told Salt. “The STAR pod will have
been dropped by now.”

“You
think Davis will make it?”

“If
he’s placed in the harness,” Wong said.

“That’s
not what I meant.”

“My
medical knowledge is limited,” said the captain. “Obviously he cannot survive
here and must be evacuated.”

“Where
are you going?”

“I
am going to complete my assignment,” Wong told him. “If I am not there for the pickup,
leave without me.”

“What?
When?”

“The
plane is on its way. You will recognize the spot from the photos we reviewed
after takeoff; set up near the highest elevation and present yourself
southwards. Quickly; you have no more than twenty minutes. Apparently the
Iraqis are scrambling every force at their disposal into this area.”

“Shit.
What about him?” Salt gestured to the Iraqi.

“He
won’t give you trouble. Place him in the second set of harnesses. The Hercules
will make two passes.”

“You
trust me not to kill him?”

“Of
course, Sergeant. You have your orders.”

“Yeah.”
Salt frowned, then looked over at the Iraqi, who was bending forward under
Davis’s weight. The man seemed to have lost the glaze in his eyes; maybe Wong
had sobered him up. “You understand what I say, fuckhead?”

“He
doesn’t speak English,” Wong said. “Simply point.”

Wong
picked up Davis’s SAW and several cases of ammunition.

“Hey,
Captain. Thanks,” Salt told him.

This
time, Wong nodded and actually seemed to smile.

“All
right you, move out,” Salt told the Iraqi, gesturing. “Go.”

Davis
groaned as they started. Salt figured that was a good sign, and ignored the
fresh explosions and gunfire in the distance.