Hogs #1: Going Deep (14 page)

KING FAHD ROYAL AIRBASE

1855

Even Clyston was
amazed at the amount of damage on
the
A-10 Doberman
brought in. While the structure of the wing was intact— a miracle in itself— a
good chunk of the surface panel was gone or chewed up, with the nearby interior
guts twisted beyond recognition. It looked nearly
impossible to fix.

Which was why he'd called the Tinman in.

"I don't know, Chief," said the Tinman. The
ancient mechanic— rumor had it he had worked on Billy Mitchell's planes in
World War II— shook his head. The Tinman had an odd accent, though no one could
figure out where it came
from.
Besides dropping the occasional verb, he stretched out
words in odd ways.

"I don't know, Chief," said the mechanic.
"You want
a new wing."

Wing, in Tinman's mouth, sounded like "wink."

"Nah," said Clyston. "We don't need a whole
wing. Come on,
Tinman. You got spare parts.
Use them."

"Chief. Demolition derby cars I've seen in better
shape." Tinman shook his gray
head. He stood about six and a
half feet tall and weighed perhaps 160 pounds.
"You could slap new sheet metal
on it, maybe, but heck. I
don't know."

"See, there we go. Now you're getting
creative," said
Clyston.
"Georgie and his guy's'11 get the new motor up
while you're taking care of the wing.
What do you think, a
couple of hours?"

"Days, Chief. Days. We could fly in a new wing."

"No time for that," said Clyston. "I need
this plane
tomorrow."

"I don't know, Chief."

"Just as a backup." Clyston turned his palms to
heaven.
"No big
deal. Come on, Tinman— I'm counting on you here. I
know you can do it. We're in a war."

The Tinman shook his head again, but then he put his
bony fingers to his face and pinched
his nostrils together—
the sign Clyston had
been looking for.

"Good man," the capo di capo told him.
"Tell me what
you'll need and it's
yours."

"A new wing."

"Besides that. Ten extra guys?"

"Maybe some coffee."

"Good
man."

KING FAHD ROYAL AIRBASE

1900

Captain “Doberman” Glenon
had long since left Hog Heaven. He
would, in fact, have been celebrating his safe return home
with a very sound sleep had it not
been for A-Bomb, who was standing over his bed, urging him to get up and party.

"Screw off," said Glenon. "Get out of my
tent. I'm
tired."

"Doberman, you are one lucky motherfucker. You have
to
celebrate."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Anybody else would have been shot down."

"I call that skill."

"You're on a roll, man. It's time to celebrate.
Come
on, let's hit the
Depot before it wears off."

"I'm not going near Depot for the rest of the
war."

"Well at least come and play cards. Shit, I want to
sit
next to you."

"Why, so you can look at my hand?"

"So your luck rubs off on me. Hell, man, today's
the day
you win the lottery."

"Damn it A-Bomb, leave me alone. I
^’
m not
lucky. I'm
unlucky."

"How do you figure that?" asked Mongoose,
coming into
the room.

"Doesn't anybody knock anymore?" complained
Doberman.

"I did. The canvas doesn't make much noise,"
said the
major.
"What are you doing in your underwear?"

"I was trying to jerk off until A-Bomb got here."

"Aw, you always let me watch," said A-Bomb.

"No shit, I got something serious to talk
about," said
Mongoose, pulling over a
small camp chair.

The major amenity of Doberman's tent was its cement
slab. He and the other Devil squadron
pilots had arrived at King Fahd far too late to command any of the good berths.
After a few days, the
fact that they were living in tents had become a point of honor among them. They
voted to refuse the offer of better quarters— trailers being
considered moderately better— when it
was made.

Doberman hadn't been present for the vote. No one took
his request for a recall seriously.

"What do you think I ought to do about Dixon?"
Mongoose
asked.

"What do you mean, do about him?" said
Doberman.

"He fucked up."

"He lost me because my radio went dead," said
Doberman.

Mongoose shook his head. "No. It was more than
that. He
totally missed
SierraMax, didn't call in, didn't answer the
AWACS
until he was halfway back to Al Jouf."

"Jeez, Goose," said A-Bomb. "Give the kid
a break.
None of that's
worth hanging him on. He got turned around.
You know how garbled the radio transmissions were. All
his Mavericks scored."

"He could have cost Doberman his life," said
the major.
"He
should have been on his back when the Mirage jumped
him."

"Aw Geeze, leave the kid alone," said
Doberman. "It was
my fault."

"Your fault? How the hell do you figure that?"

"I should have looked for him after my bomb run.
Things
got busy. I didn't
realize the radio was screwed up."

"I don't see how it was your fault," said Mongoose.
"You're lucky you're alive."

"Stop calling it luck!" shouted Doberman.

***

A-Bomb listened to the two pilots debate what had
happened on the mission for a while longer. They were rehashing what they'd
said at the debriefing without going
anywhere, and finally he just left.
Mongoose seemed bent on keelhauling
Dixon— though he never specified how— and Doberman was determined to defend
him. Both men were getting angrier by the minute.

A-Bomb had little patience for formal debriefings, let
alone this bullshit. He was just
deciding whether to find
the
poker game or slip into The Depot when Colin Walker, one
of the clerks assigned to squadron
supply, ran up to him
with a pair of
envelopes.

"These just got here," said the clerk. "I
didn't know
they had Federal Express in Saudi
Arabia."

A-Bomb nodded solemnly as he took the package.

"You gonna open it?" Colin asked.

"Can't out here, kid. Sorry."

Colin's eyes opened wider than the opening on a sewer
pipe. "Classified?"

A-Bomb leaned toward him. "I didn't say that,
right?"

"No, sir. Never. Jeez, what's in there?"

"Did you see the manifest?"

"No, sir. I mean, well, you mean the air bill? Says
it's
from D.C."

A-Bomb winked, then turned quickly and walked to his
tent.

Which quickly filled with the aroma of McDonald's as he
ripped open the envelope.

With the help of a few old friends, A-Bomb had managed
to have a happy meal overnighted to
Saudi Arabia. Two Big
Macs,
extra large fries and strawberry shake.

Separate bags, of course. To keep the shake cool.

As he finished his first Big Mac, A-Bomb wondered if
there was some way to get his Harley
over. Not by Fed Ex, of course. That was the sort of thing you left to UPS.

KING FAHD ROYAL AIRBASE

1900

Dixon debriefed with
one of the intelligence officers in
the hangar area. He answered questions about the bomb damage and other
questions about the mission
succinctly, with as little
detail
as possible. It helped that the officer had already
spoken with the others and written the
report. Over-burdened, the lieutenant was as anxious as Dixon to be done
with the interview.

Dixon told him he’d fired the
Mavericks very poorly, no matter what
the tape showed. He told him about seeing the radar dish and then losing it; he
admitted that his memory now was so hazy it might not even have been a dish–
especially since they now were pretty sure Doberman’s missile had blown it to
pieces.
As for the
cluster bombs,
he said
he hadn't seen them hit, and frankly doubted they
had done much damage, because he knew he had pickled them
from too high an altitude. Their fuses had undoubtedly ignited too high,
causing the bomb pattern to disperse too widely.

Leaving out the details about how he'd panicked and run
away might not have been lying, but
he felt inside like he had committed high treason. The only thing worse was the
cowardice that had led him to it.

The pilot slipped away, then wandered aimlessly through
Tent City, working off the raw anxiety
churning in his stomach. When anyone greeted him, he either shrugged
or looked beyond them, continuing on.

He did this for more than an hour. Finally realizing he
was hungry, he started in search of
food, then lost interest. Somehow, he found himself in the canvas GP or
general purpose tent he shared with
two other lieutenants.

It was empty. Erected on a concrete pad, the tent and
its furnishings were an odd mix of monkish austerity and
modern luxuries. His pillow was a
scavenged sack filled with T shirts; one of his "bunkies" had shipped
in a stereo setup worth several thousand dollars. The stereo nightly accounted
for half of the unit's theoretical power allotment.

Dixon sat on the edge of his cot, the mission replaying
over and over in his head. He'd been
fine, cocky even, until Doberman pushed ahead to start his Maverick run.

He followed. They started taking flak very, very high
unaimed triple-A, much thicker than
had been predicted.

The next thing he knew, he was in a cloud of gunfire, a
few feet from making a permanent
impression on Iraqi real estate. Everything streaked together in a nightmare
blur.

He was such a god damn great pilot— how could he panic
like that? How could he screw up? That
wasn't him.

William James Dixon never ever screwed up. He had an A
average through high school, and was
summa cum laude in
college,
even with a heavy athletic schedule. Aced every test
from grade school to flight school.

And failed the only one that counted.

How many linebackers had tried to shake him up on the
gridiron, get him to lose his cool?
Couldn't happen.

But it had.

Dixon took his silver Cross pen from his pocket and
stared at it, working the point up and
down with his hands by slowly revolving the casings. His mother and father— his
mom, really, since dad
was pretty much shot by then— had
given him the pen for his high school graduation.

She was an odd woman, his mom. Hard working and loving,
but the kind of person who kept her
only son at arm's
length.
She'd never been too crazy about his joining the Air Force, even though he'd
talked about flying jets since he
was nine or ten. It was the only way he could afford
college, one of the rock bottom goals
she'd given him; still, there was a certain look on her face whenever he wore
his uniform.

What the hell was he going to do? Ask to be grounded?

Maybe Major Johnson had already done that.

What sense was being in the Air Force make if he
couldn't fly?

He wasn't scheduled for another mission until Saturday.
Johnson would undoubtedly be on
his ass before then. He
didn't
buy what Dixon had told him. Who could blame him?

And Colonel Knowlington. A no-bullshit bona fide war
hero, with two flying crosses and a
piece of shrapnel in his
back
for good measure. A couple of guys whispered that he was a washed out drunk,
and everybody knew he had been assigned to command the Hogs more or less by
accident— but
hell, he'd earned those medals.

Sitting on his bunk, Dixon fought the bile that kept
creeping up his throat. He'd never
been much of a drinker,
but
he considered it now, only to decide it would depress
him more. Sleep was impossible. He'd
read nearly everything in the tent, including the mattress labels, at least
twice.
Finally his eyes
fell on the pile of "Any Servicemen
Letters” on a nearby footlocker. The CO had suggested
that
squadron members
take a few at random and respond; good for
morale at home. A clerk had delivered the lieutenants'
modest allotment of two letters
apiece the other day; since
then, the six letters had been moved only to get to the gea
r stored in the footlocker.

Dixon picked up the top two and took them to his bed.
He fished out a yellow pad, and began
reading.

The first letter was from a fifth grader in Florida.

Dear Sir or Madam:

Thank you for taking
the time to fight for our country. My classmates and I want you to know that we
appreciate it. Thank you for losing your blood.

James Riding

An easy one, Dixon thought, beginning to write:

Dear James:

Thanks for your letter. I'm real
proud of being here to serve you. ...

His pen stopped; he considered for a second being completely
honest with the kid; tell him how bad he'd
choked.

As if he didn't have enough trouble. He continued:

Myself and my buddies are
thankful for your support.

Believe me, I'm trying not to spill
any blood. My own, especially.

Lt. BJ Dixon

The second writer had enclosed a photograph of herself;
she was nineteen, attractive, and
Dixon suspected she was
looking
for a husband. She wrote in frank terms about how
lonely she was back home and how
happy she was to have this
chance
to cheer someone up. The photo would undoubtedly
supply someone with several weeks worth of
fantasies; Dixon
slipped
the letter and snapshot back into the envelope.

In its place, he found one written in a shaky hand on
unlined white paper, obviously
labored over, with cross-outs
and corrections.

Dear Serviceman:

I know what you're going through. I
served in the Second Marine Division
on Okinawa. I won't bore you with the details; you've probably read in your
history books enough already. There isn't anything that words can do about it,
anyway. Things are always more
important
than you can say.

I hope that you will remember two
things while you are over in Saudi
Arabia.

Number one is, your family and your
country love you. No matter what you
hear. We had our Tokyo Roses, too.

Number two is, you will survive. No
matter what happens. You will see a
great many things. You will be
changed.
Some of
the things that you find out
about yourself, you will not like. Believe me, I know. When you see a
buddy get shot and have to leave him there, screaming, etc., because if you
moved,
then you
would be the next to die - that
is the most horrible experience of all. But somehow, you
get through it.

Remember that. Remember to keep
your head up and moving toward the
next
battle.

I wish you the best. I know you will
do very well. I know all of the
men, and now I guess women too, will.

Make us proud.

Sincerely yours,

Lance Corporal

Frank L. Simmons (ret.)

Finished reading, Dixon stared at the letter a while,
the shaky blue letters blurring into
a haze. Finally he
folded
it and put it back into its envelope. He started to
put it back in the pile, then
stopped; he slid it into his
pocket. Getting up from the cot, he told himself maybe
having a drink wasn't all that
horrible an idea.