Hogs #1: Going Deep (17 page)

THE DEPOT, SAUDI ARABIA

2030

Officially, the club
didn't exist.

Unofficially, it didn't exist either.

But its thick, smoke-laden air was real enough. The bikini-clad
Pakistani waitresses— with a few similarly dressed men thrown in to provide
gender balance— were actual flesh and blood. Mostly flesh. The dim lights, live
music, and flowing booze
had a hallucinatory quality at first
glance, but soon proved as physical as anything else
here.

"Never been in The Depot before, huh Kid?" A-Bomb
asked as he threaded his
way through the crowd at the bottom
of the entry stairs located just a few yards from the base
property line.

"No," said Dixon. He looked a bit like a
five-year-old
taking his first trip to the
circus.

Or a whore house.

"Used to be a bomb shelter. I think. People get
kind of
bristly when you
ask. My idea is, enough guys had enough wet dreams and it sprang together out
of thin air. Or sand.
Whatever."
He stomped Dixon's shoulder to show he was
kidding.
"Here come on, this is my spot."

A-Bomb slid in behind a round cocktail table in a
corner. From here, he had a perfect
view of the small stage,
in
case one of the unscheduled floor shows stoked up.

"Shit-faced, kid, that's what we're getting,"
he told
him. "And
then, we're going to have to cook you up a nickname. BJ sounds a little too,
you know, suburban. You
need something
new."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. You need something that fits you.
Finding the right nickname is a
delicate art. How long have
you had BJ?"

"All my life."

"That's what I'm talking about. Time for a
change." He
motioned
over a waitress in a black leather thong. "Pair of Buds," said A-Bomb.
"And maybe
later, talk to the kid a
little."

"I'd love to," she purred, running her fingers
lightly
across his head before disappearing.

A-Bomb laughed as the kid turned paler. "Lighten up,
BJ. Hell, you were in
combat today. You're a man from now
on. Cherry
broken."

"I don't know."

"Hey, relax. Uncle A-Bomb isn't going to make you
do
anything you don't
want to do." He leaned across the table.
"And
they all get shots once a week."

***

Doberman found them sitting in A-Bomb's favorite
corner.

"How much have you guys had to drink?" he
asked.

"Hello to you, too," said A-Bomb.

The pilot pointed to the half-emptied bottles. "How
many?"

"Relax," said A-Bomb. "We just got here.
I’ve had a sip and Junior’s been too interested in the floor show. You’ll
catch up in no time."

"I'm not catching up. Knowlington's called a big
meeting over at Cineplex."

"For when?"

"Now." Doberman glanced at Dixon. He expected
to find
A-Bomb here, but
the kid - hell, he went to church
services, for crying out loud. Doberman glared at him;
Dixon, who looked paler than the
albino strip artist on
stage, remained silent.

Obviously in shock.

"No shit," said A-Bomb. "What's up?"

"The GCI site BJ and I hit this morning is still on
the
air. Apparently the
stinking radar dish I hit didn’t stay hit. There's a British flier on the
ground somewhere near
there
that they want to rescue first thing in the morning,
and the squadron's been tasked to shack
the shit out of the dish and the guns on the southern side."

"Ouch. Who's going?"

"Believe it or not, Mongoose wants to."

"Figures." A-Bomb pushed the beer away.
"And here I
thought
I'd get some sleep. Oh well— who needs sleep when
you can fly?"

"You're going?"

"Aren't you?"

"Yeah," said Doberman. "But I ain't
fucking happy about
it."

"Who's happy?"

"You're crowing," said Doberman. "Like
you're happy."

"Nah."

"I'm going because it was my job in the first
place,"
said
Doberman. "I screwed it up; I'll fix it. You stay
home."

"Tie me to the fucking bed and I'll bring it
along,"
said A-Bomb. "No way I'm not
going."

"I screwed it up," blurted Dixon.

"Relax kid," said Doberman. "Drink your
beer."

"I blew it. I saw the dish and then I lost it. I
thought you took it out."

"Hey, nobody blew it." said A-Bomb. "You
guys have to
learn to
deal with reality. Sometimes you miss."

"You're giving lessons on reality?" said
Doberman.

A-Bomb started to say something, but then just waved
his hand. "Let's get back,"
he said instead, standing.
"How'd you
know we were here, anyway?"

Doberman rolled his eyes, then stuck his finger into
Dixon's chest. "Him, I'm
surprised about."

"Hey, easy on the kid," said A-Bomb. "BJ's
okay. Hell,
he's coming
on the mission, too. Right kid?"

"I, uh— "

"Look at his face, Dog Man. Kid's a Hog driver. All
we
got to do is come up
with a new nickname for him."

"Like?"

"I don't know. But BJ sounds like he ought to be on
Little House on the
Prairie
, don't you
think?"

***

Lieutenant Dixon followed along as they threaded out of
the club, heart pounding wildly. It
had begun as soon as he
heard the words,
British pilot.

He was being handed a chance to redeem himself. He had
to get back in the sky and grab it.
Everything he had been
wanted to make it
right.

But another part of him said no. Another part said stay
home. You'll never make it. You'll
screw up again.

It wasn't that he was afraid of dying. He was afraid
that he'd panic again. He felt his
hands trembling as he gripped for the stair rail,
climbing back toward the night air.

KING FAHD ROYAL AIRBASE

2105

Rosen found Tinman
grumbling as he leaned head-first
into the wing of the damaged Hog. In
her opinion, his curses
had
a Celtic-Scandinavian lilt to them, though she was as
clueless as anyone about his background.

"Sergeant Clyston asked me to help you out,"
she called
up.

Tinman grunted something in her general direction.

"What happened to the rest of your crew?"

"Go sleep. Tired."

"What about you?"

"Work. Work," he said, adding more
unintelligible
words.

Rosen surveyed the wing from the bottom. The hole had
been squared off and the interior
guts replaced— quick
work, all things
considered.

"Was the wing spar okay?" she asked.

"Checked out, yes," he answered. "Bones
okay. New lines. Check, check.
Lots of
work."

I'll bet, she thought to herself. Lots of work for a lot
of people. And it wasn't like this was the only A-10A
that had been damaged— the plane
Dixon had flown back was
sitting
not very far away, the last bullet hole being
patched by an airman with a trusty drill set.

"Hey, Tinman, you got any electrical work that
needs
fixing?" she
yelled up. "Otherwise, I'm going to bed."

"New wink, that's what we need," grumbled the
mechanic,
pulling himself
up. "But Chief doesn't want to hear about
it.
Have to do this from scratch."

"You put this aileron in by yourself?" she
asked
incredulously,
looking at the large and obviously new wing
section.

"No time to fool around," he said, hopping
down the
scaffold. "Chief
wants it flying tomorrow."

“Chief is out of his mind."

"You tell him."

Not even Rosen would try that. "If there's anybody
who
can fix it by then, it's you," she
said.

"Thank you. I'm your friend, too," he said,
nodding.
"How was Al Jouf?"

"Not bad. I was talking to one of our pilots there.
Lieutenant Dixon. He's actually kind
of cute."

Tinman shook his head, "Bad idea, sergeants and
pilots."

Rosen felt her face blush. "You need help or
not?"

Something in the crusty old mechanics eye twinkled.
"You help me find patch metal?"

"Patch metal?"

Rosen started to protest, but Tinman blinked
mischievously. "Chief said we
could have anything we
need.
Come, you can work acetylene with me."

“Acetylene? Hold on a minute. Tinman? Where are you
going?”

Rosen followed as the skinny old-timer walked briskly,
not into the parts area, but back behind the hangar where a damaged
C-130 had been stowed two days
before, waiting for engine
parts.

"Oh, Tinman," she moaned. "You're not
thinking what I
think you're thinking."

"Why not? Need new wink."

"Wing. You mean wing."

He shook his head up and down, pointing at the big
general cargo plane.

"You mean the C-130?” she protested. “That one doesn't
need a new wing."

"It will," he said. "Come on. Help me get
torch. Then,
we need some paint."

KING FAHD ROYAL AIRBASE

2140

Mongoose nearly fell
over when he walked into Cineplex
and found it filled not only with all
of the squadron's
pilots
but a good portion of the NCOs as well.

"There you are, Major," said Knowlington,
standing at the front. He rocked a bit on his legs, smiling bashfully— as if
Mongoose had caught him talking about him behind his
back. A rough diagram of the GCI site
Doberman and Dixon had
hit
had been sketched on the large easel behind him. "I was
just bringing everyone up to speed on
Mudaysis."

Mongoose was so flustered he wasn't sure what to say.
Until now, Knowlington had pretty
much left him to run the
squadron.
He actually felt disoriented, slipping into a seat
near the door as the colonel relayed
a generalized version
of his conversation with
Black Hole.

"I'm not going to kid you guys," concluded
Knowlington,
"this
isn't an easy mission. It's long and grueling, as the
pilots who undertook it this morning
can tell you. Cloud
cover
is going to be very low, which will make things a hell of a lot more dangerous.
We have to hit the site at 0600.
The helicopters will be coming through this way, close enough to get
into trouble if something goes wrong. There’ll be a Weasel
in the area, but the odds are the dish
itself will stay off; it’ll be our job to make sure it sleeps permanently. Now,
participation will
be voluntary . . ."

"Hey, I'm leading the flight," said Mongoose.

Knowlington looked at him, nodding as if he had been
going to suggest that.

"A-Bomb and me are going, too," said Doberman.
The
pilot was sitting in
the back of the room, arms folded and
frowning. "And BJ. We're the
volunteers. We missed it and we're
going back to nail the
mother fucker."

He was so emphatic that no one stated the obvious
objection— the pilots would have no,
or nearly no, sleep
before the mission.

Not that Mongoose would have let that stop him. But he
would have used it as an argument to
keep Doberman and
A-Bomb home.

And as for Dixon, no way did he want him on the
mission.

"That's great guys," said Knowlington.
"But slow down for a second. We only have two planes. I think Johnson and Glenon,
if they're up for it, get the first shot. Rank and
time of service."

"I'm up for it," snapped Mongoose.

"Great."

Before he could say anything else, Knowlington swept
the group into a discussion of tactics,
as if they were all sitting around a bar discussing possible baseball trades.
It
wasn't that anyone
was saying anything particularly stupid
or wrong. There were only so many ways to go after the
radar dish and trailers. What Mongoose objected to was the
discussion itself. Planning a raid
wasn't a team sport.

And given the sudden change in Knowlington's behavior,
it was impossible not to think he
might have hit the bottle.

But he sure acted sober.

"Assuming we get these two guns here,” said the
colonel, pointing to the board, “we go for the dish next. The
question I have is, what else is left
up there that we have to make sure we get
?"

"Damned if I know," said Doberman. "If the
Maverick didn’t hit the dish, who knows what else we missed. I don’t understand
how the missile could have screwed up.”

"Maybe the guidance didn’t," suggested Captain
Blake, one of the pilots with extensive weapons training. “It might be that it
flew right through, if the fuse screwed up. So you’d just have a hole.”

“Could have just blown up part,” said another pilot.
“But left enough for it to work, or at least send out a signal.”

“Maybe we should put the cannon on it,” said A-Bomb,
talking like he was going to fly on the mission. “No way you miss with that.”

“Way too dangerous,” said Jimmy Corda, the squadron's
intelligence
officer. He
had come back a few days ago from serving as a liaison with Black Hole and had
helped plan the original mission. "You’ll we walking through a minefield.
"

"There's a hell of a lot of triple-A," said
Doberman. "You go low enough to make sure you hit it, the plane'11 get
fried. And the cloud cover’s supposed to be worse tomorrow
than it was today."

"We have to make sure we get hits," said A-Bomb.
"Hell, if we can’t trust the
Mavericks, what can we trust?”

"There's another dish!" blurted Dixon.

Everyone turned around to look at him. He'd been
standing behind the couch, arms
stiffly at his side.

"What do you mean, BJ?" asked Knowlington.

"I— when I started to make my second run with the
Maverick, I saw a dish. It was
strange, because I knew that Doberman had fired on it already. I didn't think
he could
miss."

"A second dish?" asked Corda. "It didn't
show on the
photos."

"Locate it for us," suggested Knowlington.

Dixon walked slowly to the front of the room. Mongoose
saw that his hands were shaking.

Kid was fried. He felt sorry for him. He'd had a hell
of a lot of promise, but not the stomach.

"I don't know," said Dixon. He took the target
photos
the squadron had
received, and the map, trying to correlate them and put the spot on the
diagram. "Maybe this shadow. I
— I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. If I could back up there
and see— "

"Let me see," said Corda. He took the photos
in his
chubby fingers,
examining them. "You know, if it is there,"
he told Knowlington, "the satellite’s
angle might have obscured it."

"If there were two dishes instead of one,"
said A-Bomb, "then it explains what the problem was. And it
explains why the radar is still up
when we know Doberman's
Maverick hit."

"Yeah, okay," said Doberman. "I didn't see
another one. But you know, the RWR got something that I couldn't account for.
Like a second dish being turned on for a quick second.
I thought it was just a flakeout."

"There are definitely two," interrupted Wong.
He walked to the
front
of the room with the intel photos. "The layout of the
trailers gives it away."

"In case you haven't met him, this is Captain Wong,
the
newest member of the
squadron," Knowlington explained. "The
captain came over working on a little intelligence
project, and now he's going to hang out with us a while."

Wong's head practically snapped off its neck in
surprise.

"I just talked to the general and it's all
set," Knowlington
told
him. He turned back to the group, ignoring Wong's
expression— which was somewhere
between confused and ballistic. "Captain knows more about Russian weapon
systems
than the goddamn
commies. Or ex-commies, excuse me. Come on,
Captain,
give us the spit."

Wong stifled his objections and began explaining how
Soviet intercept radars were configured; a few paragraphs
into his lecture, one of the pilots
cut him off. "So why
didn't Black Hole
catch it?"

"It is camouflaged, as you noted. Some things even I
cannot answer."

"It's not their job. They only get the sites and
then
dish them out in
the frag," explained Corda. "They don't usually
get so specific, like trailer A, not
B. Besides, there's a
real
disconnect between the planners and the intel people. Hell, I'm surprised we
got this much data to begin with.
Pictures, shit! Anybody here ever see photos in an A-10
strike folder?"

"Only of Goose's wife," said A-Bomb.

He was about the only one in the squadron who could
make that crack and not get his butt
kicked.

"You can target both dishes to make sure,"
said Wong. "Let me make another suggestion," he added, walking to the
dry-erase board and its layout of the target area. Taking a black felt marker
from his pocket, he
pointed
to two Xs in the lower left-hand corner, sites where
23 mm guns had been located earlier
in the day. He added two more Xs, then moved his pen across the board and
added several more.

"If I can see those photos again, please." He
waited while they were passed up, then once more began drawing on the board.
"There are many more guns here than you have diagrammed. And they are not
merely 23 mm weapons, though, of course those can be quite effective at low altitude,
even if you jam the radars and they use optical aiming. Of greater importance
for your strategy are these 57 mm S-6 canons. Very significant weapons. We can
quibble about the guidance systems, but that is academic if you are hit, I
assure you.”

He scratched his cheek. “The four at the south are all
big ones. There are considerably more large-caliber weapons than the Iraqis
usually employ.
So they
have you high and
low. By
high I mean for you; these guns are not
particularly effective above, oh, we should say,
thirty-five hundred meters. This is an
interesting deployment, incidentally. The Russians use
this pattern themselves every so often for a number of reasons. . . "

He was about to list them, but changed
gears at a glance from the colonel.

"The thing that is important is that they are
effective
at a much
higher altitude and longer range than you have calculated," he said.
"If you are protecting your helicopters, you must consider that."

“No shit,” muttered A-Bomb, just loud enough to provoke
a nervous laugh from half the room.

Wong ignored it. "The configuration gives them very
potent killing cones through eleven thousand feet. Even when optically aimed,
they are bound to hit anything passing through these arcs."

He drew a pair of thick cones that included the flight
pattern Doberman took on his bombing run this morning.

"Those Xs at the bottom aren't 23 millimeter?"
asked
Corda.

Wong shook his head. "This barrel configuration, do
you
notice it?"

"Looks like a cat's whisker to me."

"A very deadly meow. So you make your attack at six
thousand feet, thinking
you are safe, but you are not. Your plane had that problem today. They will be
difficult to spot until they begin firing: you see how concealed they are. Most
experts would miss it, thought of course not someone like me. Now,
this camouflaging I have seen only in
a few other places. I think that the idea came from a Major Andre. . ."

"Yeah, okay," said Doberman. "So what do
you suggest?"

Wong smiled. "If you know where they are, you can
attack them safely from a distance. For that, you must use their tactics to
your
advantage. If they
acquire you here first," said Wong,
pointing at his X's on the bottom, "and think you
are
attacking from this
direction, all of the guns will be aimed in this arc. Let the radars think they
have you. They all
fire.
Then you come quickly from the rear. You will have no
less than ten seconds to make your attack."

Somebody in the back whistled.

Wong shrugged. “Of course, sooner or later, they run out of
ammunition. The Iraqi supply. . .”

“Thanks Captain,” cut in Knowlington. “Okay, so we have
four guns down here that have to go, plus the dishes. How do we get close enough
to see them?”

“What if we tickle them at twelve thousand, look for the
sparks, and then hit them?” suggested Corda.

"Then, we'd need more than two planes," said
Doberman. "The first two come in on the south, turn around, and the others
nail the bastards.”

“You’re going to need four planes just to make sure you
hit everything,” said Corda. “Can we take them off another mission?”

"This is more complicated than a stinking
ballet," said
A-Bomb.
"I say just pour on the gas and take out the mothers. Hogs weren't made to
bomb from twelve
thousand
feet. We got to get in the mud, man. That's our
job."

"Our job is to take out those radars," said
Knowlington. "And to come back in
one piece. Everyone.
Wong's
idea makes a hell of a lot of sense. The problem is,
we need four planes. Every Hog we have capable of flying is
allotted."