Hogs #1: Going Deep (21 page)

HEADING FOR IRAQ

0515

As he made
the turn to head over the border,
Doberman
took a careful
break from flying, flexing each arm and then
each leg methodically, hoping to ward off cramps. The
Hog
didn't have an
automatic pilot, so he couldn't exactly do a
yoga routine. Still, he liked to stretch to keep the
kinks
away.

According to his watch, they'd fallen three minutes
behind schedule. Doberman frowned
as he rechecked his instruments. The
one interesting obstacle in their course lay ten minutes ahead, and he
wanted to be ready.

With no time or fuel to get fancy, the line to and from
the target had been drawn as straight
as possible.
Unfortunately,
the straight line went almost directly over an SA-6 site. The mobile missile launchers
were fairly impressive pieces of machinery, with radar the Hog's primitive
electronic counter-measures pod couldn't hope to jam. Once a plane had been
acquired by a ground battery's Straight Flush radar, the missile was difficult
to lose; it
could mid-course
correct and used its own semi-active system
to score a kill. It loved high-G maneuvers, moved faster
than greased lightning and had a much more potent warhead than the puny
shoulder-launched weapon that had given Doberman so much grief yesterday. With
a range of about ten
miles
and an effective altitude above twenty thousand feet,
it could barbecue a Hog any day of the week.

They had planned three tight course corrections to skim
around the outer edges of its radar
coverage while maintaining as direct a course to the target as possible.
Doberman visualized the Iraqi radar
groping through the early morning sky with long, slender fingers. It reached
desperately, a blind man in a
cluttered room, trying to find
the doorway.

Not the doorway, exactly. Just his plane.

Doberman laughed at his fears. It was a nervous laugh
all the same. He longed to key his
mike and ask A-Bomb what
music he was
listening to.

This was the worst part of a mission, knocking down the
miles until things got hairy.

Finally, the INS and his math told him it was time to
turn. But Mongoose, flying dead
ahead, didn't make the
angle.

Had he lost Dixon? Or was the kid's INS also screwed
up, Doberman wondered.

Every second would take them closer to getting nailed.

The RWR would at least warn him of the launch. But it
couldn't save him.

He'd never see the missile coming for him in the dark.
It would be worse than yesterday. He'd
writhe violently,
ducking
and weaving, thinking at last he had escaped. Then
he would hear a last-second hush, a
vacuum of noise just
before the wallop.

Bail out in the dark, deep in Indian country. Now that
was where luck was involved.

But hell, nobody could be as unlucky as he had been
yesterday. Getting banged around
twice? What were the odds?

The small circles of blue exhaust dead ahead smeared
into oblong cylinders and disappeared. Doberman took the
cut, checked his watch, realized his
heart was starting to
race.

The next angle was the hairy one. Because of the
configuration of the enemy radar,
they would be turning and
flying
directly toward the missile site. In theory, there was a hole in the coverage
there, allowing the Hogs to
slingshot towards their target with their final cut.

In theory. Reality was never as neat as the carefully
calculated clouds showing optimum
radar detection envelopes.

Doberman held his breath. His INS said it was past time
to cut back, but once more Mongoose
was lagging.

Jesus, he thought, a tiny mistake here is going to take
me right over the stinking god damn
site. Let's go.

Hell, maybe the missiles are destined to hit me. Maybe
my card's overdue.

The pilot saw the SAMs in his mind's eye, wheeling
around on their truck. Their noses
swung upward, hit the
stop, came back.

Something creaked in the cockpit. It was nothing— a
strap on his seat, maybe, shifting with his weight. But Doberman jumped, nearly
bringing the stick with him. If he
hadn't been belted in, he might have gone through the glass.

Mongoose was gone. Doberman yanked his stick hard,
taking the
turn,
correcting to bring it back to the proper heading. His heart became a race car,
surging in his chest.

Settle down, he told it, settle down.

He checked the INS. They weren't where they were
supposed to be, but now he wasn't sure
about the
coordinates.
Was the difference the same as when Dixon made
the
first turn?

There was only blank sky in front of him. Blank
darkness, and a trio of missiles
waiting dead ahead.

***

A-Bomb reached to his chest and poked the CD player.
Springsteen's “
Candy's
Room” kicked back to the beginning.

"Driving deep into the night" he sang, echoing
the
Boss.

He glanced at the compass and INS. If the instruments
were to be believed, they were
tracking a bit north, flying closer to the missile site and its radar than
planned.

What the hell; stinking Iraqis couldn't hit the
broadside of a barn.

Besides, he was flying behind the luckiest SOB in the
Air Force. Some amount of that luck
had to wash off on him.

Time for a Tootsie Roll, thought the pilot, slipping
his fingers into his vest. They were
hell to chew with the
mask on but worth every
sticky moment.

***

Sweat funneled behind Doberman's ears and down his
neck, tingling as it ran across his
shoulders. He saw the
missiles
clearly now, saw the cluster of them turning on their rail as the radar waited
for the optimum moment to
fire.

The RWR was clear. But their ECMs were worthless against
such advanced missiles.

The AWACS
would warn them if the radar came on. But by then, it would probably be
too late.

Relax, Doberman told himself. There's a good cushion
around the site. And hell, the damn
SAMs were probably moved
during the night.

You're running scared. Not like yesterday. Luck wasn't
involved— you are a kick ass pilot.
Nothing is going to
touch you. Nothing.

But his heart kept pounding despite the pep talk. He
couldn't see Mongoose. His eyes
flailed through the sky.

Nowhere.

This close to the missile site, he didn't dare use the
radio. He was completely on his own, not just now but for
the rest of the flight. He couldn't
even be sure A-Bomb was
where he was supposed
to be.

Doberman squinted at the compass heading. The bearing
was right. By his watch, he had
another thirty seconds on
this course.

But the navigational system disagreed. It was telling
him to stay on course ten seconds
beyond that. He ran the
equations
back and forth through his head. That translated
into about a tenth of a mile which would be
compounded by
the angle
of the turn into roughly a fifteen-to-forty-eight second error, south or north
or God knew what of the target.

What will it feel like to die?

God damn hell, he shouted at himself. Screw the math,
screw the numbers. Forty-five seconds
isn't going to make
one bit of stink ass
difference.

See the raise and get on with the game.

Doberman took the Hog in toward the SA-6 site the extra
ten seconds to prove to himself that,
despite the water
pouring
down his back and chest, he wasn't scared. Even so, he gulped air as he yanked
onto the new course.

And then he saw the soft blue glow of Mongoose's rear
end dead ahead, right where it was
supposed to be.

APPROACHING IRAQ

0531

T
he helicopter's heavy
whomp rattled Captain Hawkins'
teeth as it took off, making it
difficult for the Special
Forces
officer to sip from the canteen of tea. Fortunately,
the Earl Gray had cooled somewhat; it
didn't burn as it sloshed around his mouth and dribbled onto his chin. You
could say a lot of things about the
MH-53J Pave Low IIIE
helicopter, but smooth
wasn't one of them.

Not that he necessarily wanted it to be. The craft's
hulking presence was somehow reassuring.
Though officially
an Air Force
helicopter, the special forces troops
considered that a mere technicality, and looked on the
nimble linebacker as a flying version of the Bradley
fighting vehicle.

Only not quite as pretty.

The captain capped the canteen and glanced over the
gunner's shoulder into the dark
morning, low clouds mixing
with
a dusty haze. The basic reality here was desert,
unending and unrelenting.

Approximately ninety miles ahead, a downed RAF pilot was
staring up at the sky,
freezing his butt off, waiting for this helicopter to materialize and pick him
up.

Assuming no one had found him during the night.

"Iraqi border coming up in two," said Sergeant
Winston,
a wiry young
non-com from the South Bronx. Looking at Winston, you wouldn't think he was Special
Forces material,
but he
was pound for pound one of the toughest soldiers Hawkins had ever come across.
Yesterday, Hawkins had seen him pick up a 250-pound Special Forces corporal— not
exactly a wimp himself— and lug him back to
the helicopter after he'd been hit and knocked
unconscious.

"What do you think? They hit those guns yet or not?"

Hawkins shrugged. "Not supposed to for a
half hour yet."

"Going to cut it close."

The captain nodded. If the site wasn’t taken out
, the mission would be difficult.
Their helicopter and the one following right behind as a backup would be
sitting ducks not only for the guns, but for anybody the Iraqis scrambled into
the area. The British major had had the bad luck to go down not only near Iraqi
air defenses but an air field and army
barracks
as well.

Hawkins had the option of turning back if the base
hadn’t been hit at five minutes past six.

He didn't plan on doing that. But he didn’t plan on
getting shot down either.

The captain opened the canteen for another swig of the
Earl Gray. "From what I hear,
those A-10 pilots like to play
it close to the vest," he told Winston. "Otherwise they
don't look like heroes."

The sergeant scoffed. "As long as they show
up."

"Oh, they'll show up. Planes that ugly can't afford
to
miss a date."

OVER IRAQ

0553

The clouds were
incredible. Dixon stared down at
them from fifteen thousand feet. They seemed as thick a
s an overloaded chocolate shake.
The lieutenant leaned against his shoulder
harness,
urging the Hog
forward. They had a little less than two minutes worth of flying time before
their stubby wings and
dolphin
noses would kick off the ground radars.

A little less than two minutes before the most
important part of their job, and the
most dangerous, was
done.

The radar warning system would alert him that
the radar had snapped on and the guns
had found him. Then
he
^’
d be able to
breathe again.

He couldn't breathe now. Dixon felt his throat
tightening, pulling back into his
chest. Don't wimp, he told himself, pushing the plane through the cloud over.

Eighty seconds. Maybe less. But the radar detector
still hadn't tripped off.

Come on, come on. Wake up down there. Just shot at us
already.

What a thing to wish for.

He heard something that very second. It was faint,
delicate almost; he thought it had
come over the radio, but
the
sound itself was nothing he had ever heard on a Hog
communications set; nothing he'd ever
heard in an airplane
before, period.

It was a bell, a vague tinkle of a ring, as if the
clapper of a small hand chime had
gently kissed its metal
mouth.

Silence followed in the next second and the next.

Then another.

He glanced at the RWR. Nothing.

He glanced at the other indicators. All were at spec.
Nothing wrong, no alarms.

Time was moving in ultra-slow motion. He heard the
sound again— gentle, almost quiet.

It was nothing like an alarm, or anything else in the
A-10A cockpit.

A muffled church bell?

Except that it wasn't muffled, exactly, nor distant. It
was as if a small bell were
whispering.

And again and again and again.

***

As soon as Mongoose followed Dixon into the cloud bank,
he realized they were already being
fired at. Shells were
popping all around him.

Doberman
yelped on the radio that they had their targets, bright and shiny.

"Go, BJ. Break," he barked. "Good show.
Turn off."

He put the Hog in a hard pull over his right shoulder,
wrestling the spitting airplane away as he realized they had
flown in a little closer to the guns
than originally
planned.
Otherwise, the kid had done perfectly.

The Iraqis hadn't bothered to turn the big radar dish
on, or at least if they did, it hadn't activated the RWR. A thousand thoughts
shot through his mind, propelled by the onrush of images and the plane's
momentum. He held the Hog
steady,
kinetic energy devoted entirely to gaining speed,
altitude still dropping. He set a
spot where he would start
recovering,
orbiting back to wait for word from the other element. He felt the Hog shake in
the air, buffeted by the violence Saddam's guns were wrecking on the
atmosphere. He pulled back, rolling and yanking and turning, zipping off the
chaff, bundles of the metallic, radar-confusing tinsel
s
preading out from his wings as he
pressed the Hog into
retreat, diversion
accomplished.

***

The sounds grew closer together, as if they belonged to
a song he could not hear, a triangle
twanging on a solitary track as the orchestra wailed away on the main line.
Dixon held his plane steady; he knew he had only to fly this straight line and
no matter what else happened today, no matter what Major Johnson might say, he
would have done his job. That was all he was interested in, all he had to prove—
that he belonged.

Each second of his life equaled about five hundred feet.
So why was he still in the clouds? He had been diving
through them for whole minutes, not
seconds. How thick could a cloud bank be, anyway? A few thousand feet, max?

But there were still clouds all around him, and the
light tinkle of the bell, a church bell.

Johnson's voice chased them away.

Break off, he was saying. Break off. They're shooting
at us.

I'm not running away, Dixon thought to himself. Not
this time. I'd rather get shot down.

He held the stick steady, descending through the angry
gray chocolate. The damn clouds
couldn't last forever.