HOGS #5: TARGET SADDAM (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) (29 page)

“Gone.
Ditto a truck, and a flatbed or something they were using for a machine-gun
nest. Took the machine-gun out too. Shame. Probably a Dushka. You ever shoot
one of those, Boss?”

“Splash
it or shoot it?”

“Shoot
it.”

“Negative.
You see the ground team?”

“Negative.
But I’m pretty sure I saw some fire being returned against that machine-gun,”
added A-Bomb.

Knowlington
checked back with Wolf. The ground team had checked in, saying they were
proceeding to Silo, the prime pickup point. Doberman had dropped his two pods
there earlier.

The
controller didn’t mention Dixon. It’d been a long shot, too long— no right to
hope for it, Skull told himself.

Wolf
said the Herk seemed to be running behind a few minutes, but everything was
shaping up nicely.

Except
that the F-16s that were supposed to relieve them had been delayed.

“Can
you remain on station?” the controller asked.

“We’re
going to have to,” replied Knowlington. “Have our tanker move further north so
we don’t have too far to fly.”

“What’s
your fuel situation?” asked Wolf, suddenly concerned. He paused to let Skull
respond, but he didn’t. “Maybe you should go south now,” said the controller,
probably doing the math himself.

“Negative,
negative,” said Skull. “Bring the tanker north and tell him to stand by.”

“I
don’t know if we can do that.”

“Then
scramble the SAR assets to pick us up. We’re not leaving these guys hanging.”

IRAQ

27 JANUARY 1991

2310

Salt’s
GPS told
him
he’d reached the spot, but he couldn’t see the pod containing the STAR kit. He
was starting to get a little concerned— the Herk was due ten minutes ago, and
he wasn’t sure it would hang around. Walking home was not an option.

A
light flared in the distance. One of the Hogs had lit a massive flare four or
five miles to the west.

As
Salt turned his gaze from it back toward the Iraqi holding Davis, he saw a dead
body lying in the shadow ahead, a blanket over his head.

Poor
dead bastard, he thought. Wind ripped his blanket off.

He
took a step forward, instinctually moving to restore the corpse’s decency, even
if it could only have been an Iraqi. Then he saw it wasn’t a body at all, but
the pod he’d been searching for. The second lay a few yards away.

“There.
Stop!” he told the Iraqi, gesturing with his rifle. “Put Davis down.”

The
man stopped but didn’t understand enough to put the wounded sergeant down.
Without time to explain or bother, Salt dropped the com pack and ran to the
long metal canister. He pried it open, fingers desperate. The fall had jolted
the cover, making it more difficult for him to separate the latched casing.
Finally, he got it open just as he heard a plane in the distance.

One
of the Hogs? Or the MC-130?

Salt
fumbled with the gear, dragging the poles upright, setting them in the ground
right there instead of running up to the high point of the area. He screwed in
the connector for the helium inflator, cursing his bum luck, cursing
everything. Where the fucking hell was Wong?

“I
am right here, Sergeant,” announced Captain Wong, running down the short hill
that led to the rendezvous point. “There is no need to get overly flustered— the
approaching plane is an A-10, not the MC-130.”

Salt
spun around as the captain ran directly to the pod, placing his gun on the
ground. He removed two suits, which looked like padded olive green ski gear.
The hoods had fur fringe around them.

“Dress
quickly, and prepare Sergeant Davis,” said Wong. “I will prepare the prisoner.”

“Fuck
the prisoner,” said Salt.

“He
is more valuable than you or I,” said Wong, going to the second canister. “He
will go on the harness set with Lieutenant Dixon,” he added, gesturing up the
hill. “I trust he will be here shortly. He does not run quite as fast as I.”

“Dixon?”

“My
other assignment. Have you radioed to initiate the pickup?”

“I
just got here.”

“I’ll
make the transmission once the gear is set,” said Wong. “The Hercules is
supposed to proceed to Silo even if we do not broadcast.”

“How
are you getting back, Captain?” asked Salt.

“The
future is not our present concern,” said Wong. “Quickly now. The Hercules
should arrive at any moment, and I believe I hear a vehicle in the distance.”

OVER IRAQ

27 JANUARY 1991

2320

If
the Hercules
had
been equipped with an ejector seat, Lars would have pulled the handles by now.
The blare of the RWR warnings, the flak, and the explosions had drilled into
his skull from all directions, carbon-tipped bits eating right through to the
bone.

Yet
not one of the threats, real as they were, had been anywhere near the Hercules
as it flew. MiGs, SAMs, a flight of F-15E Strike Eagles inbound to Baghdad
crossing his path— everything had been miles and miles from his plane. He knew
from Wolf that all hell was breaking lose near his target zone, but couldn’t
see it, flying too low and too slow; nonetheless, every flicker of pink, of
red, of green, panicked him. Somehow he managed to hold the control column
steady as he flew on; somehow the big plane kept herself precisely on the path
for the rendezvous point. They were making bad time— they were roughly
twenty-five minutes behind schedule and getting worse— but there was nothing he
could do about that, and it was decidedly better than being off course.

They
were now inside ten miles of their pickup spot, not yet in contact with the
ground team. Wolf had confirmed that the commandos were alive, at least, and
proceeding toward Silo, the code name for the prime pickup point. But the team
had not checked back.

“I
think we ought to go right in,” said the navigator. “Hit our mark in case
they’re there but can’t use the radio. This low, we’re going to have trouble
hearing them.”

Going
straight in was the briefed procedure, and Lars knew what the navigator said
might be true. Still, Wolf ought to be able to get them on the air, or contact
them through the A-10s flying cover. Lars opened his mouth to tell Kelly to
contact the ABCCC again, but nothing came out. He worked his tongue around his
lips and teeth, swallowed, trying to force some saliva toward his dry throat.

“Try
another hail,” he managed.

“Wolf
would have told us if they’d come up. You’re on course,” added Kelly, leaning
over his shoulder. The flight engineer was looking at the radar unit, or maybe
just pretending to. “Everything’s cool,” added the sergeant, patting his
shoulder.

“Yeah,”
said Lars, seeing his left hand shake but powerless to stop it. “Cool.”

The
assistant jumpmaster and the winch-operator and the tail-position operator
reported that they were ready. Someone else in the back said something, then
there was another voice Lars couldn’t make out. After they snagged the line
they’d have to get it to catch it then clamp it then release it then winch it
then hook it then release it then grab the men.

No,
he had the order wrong. Hook clamp release pull.

No...

Just
fly the plane. That was tough enough.

The
Herk’s GPS NAVISTAR computer projected a crosshair over the target zone as they
approached, just as if they were making a covert drop in hostile territory.
Lars felt his body hitching, weighed down by the helmet and heavy flak jacket.
As he hit his turn and brought the Herk up off the deck, he caught a glimpse of
the moon; it was nowhere near full but it would be bathing them in light,
making them an easy target.

A
flare lit in the distance off their right wing.

We’re
going to fry
, he
thought.
Fry
.

“Wolf
hasn’t heard from them. A-10s say we’re clear and Wolf concurs. Go for it,”
said Kelly.

“Going
for it.”

“Going
to take a first pass to get the lay of the land?” asked the navigator.

Lars
realized he was too high and too fast as he came out of the turn that was
supposed to get him right in front of the balloon.

“It’s
been a while since I’ve done this,” he said, though he wasn’t sure whether he
expected sympathy or outrage.

He
backed off power, got a little more crosswind than he expected but compensated.
He was doing too much; he couldn’t handle all of this. He needed to be at five
hundred feet; he was at seven hundred, sliding down slowly.

“Forty
seconds. Confidence high,” said the navigator. They were on course and somehow
at the right altitude.

“Thirty
second slow down.” Lars cut his airspeed again, holding his altitude at a
perfect 500 feet above the ground. The flight engineer said something but he
missed it.

There
was no flak in the air, nothing. Just like a picnic.

“Five
second slow down,” he said, but stopped himself as he went to cut more power.
The big plane was already down to 140 knots indicated, and its speed was still
creeping downward.

Too
slow and he’d stall. Then he’d really lose it.

Keep
it steady. That was the key.

No
way he could do this. No way.

“Do
we have them on radio? What’s the story?” he blurted.

“Pencil
flare ahead,” Kelly shouted, practically jumping from his perch behind the
pilot to point out the window.

The
flare arched upwards, slightly off to the right.

That
wasn’t the protocol, wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen.

Was
it?

“Shit,
they’re off— I’m replotting,” said the navigator, trying to update the
computer. “Damn it— was it them or what?”

Lars
didn’t need the computer, didn’t need the terrain radar or even the FLIR. He
nudged the big plane as gently as he could manage, edging slightly off-keel,
speed dropping low. The plane’s airframe had been modified to increase its
stability at low speeds and altitudes, but it was still a struggle, still a
battle just to keep it in the air, get it to where he needed to get it.

Had
the small flare come from their guys or Iraqis luring them to their deaths?

“Shit,
there! There, dead ahead!” shouted the flight engineer.

Lars
pushed his head toward the windshield but instead of looking ahead for the
mylar blimp that would show him where the line was, he closed his eyes.

IRAQ

27 JANUARY 1991

2335

A
little less
than
a year before the Gulf War began, BJ Dixon’s mother had died. She had suffered
a massive coronary and gone into a coma, briefly revived, only to plunge into a
fugue state, teetering on death. Besides the severe heart condition she was
found to have several aneurysms of the brain. After a second, milder heart
attack, her doctor said her time left measured in hours, not days, but she
somehow hung on for weeks.

The
night before she passed away, he sat in a chair next to her bedside, praying.
He had never been particularly religious, and the words were mostly haphazard
snippets of things he remembered from childhood, interspersed with simple pleas
for his mother’s life. He had begun praying simply because his mother asked him
to, but as he went on, he started to believe more and more in the words, and
then in their power. Finally he somehow came to think that his mother— who had
been healthy and even strong all her life, who wasn’t yet fifty— would live.
When he finished his last prayer, he was convinced God would save her.

His
mother died a short time later.

He
didn’t blame God exactly, nor did he lose faith— he hadn’t had a vast reservoir
of faith to lose. But the religious inclinations that he might have had drifted
away. By the end of the funeral service, the biblical passages that his mother
had picked out— intended actually for his father, who had been bed-ridden for
nearly twenty years— were no more than vaguely ironic words with references to
faith and an afterlife. He was like millions of other men and women, neither
believing nor disbelieving.

The
war had done nothing to change his attitude. His panic during his first air
mission, his triumphant shoot-down of an enemy helicopter, his free fall into
Iraqi territory, his decision to sacrifice himself so another man would live,
his wandering through the desert— none of these things had made him more or
less of a believer.