Hogs #3 Fort Apache Page 15

  The Iraqi mortar stopped firing. Turk nodded at the captain, then handed his starlight viewer to Hawkins, pointing out the Iraqi forces.

  “They seem to think we’re still up on the hill,” he said, pointing to the rise on his left. “That APC has sat there since one of the choppers opened up. It’s got a gun and it works, but maybe its wheels are gone on the other side. I can’t tell. There’s about a squad of men clustered around that truck, and maybe three more over there with that one. Something fired once from there; I heard it, but that was it. Sounded like it might have been a grenade launcher, but then I thought mortar. Shell landed closer to Baghdad than to me.”

  Hawkins scanned the positions. There were two wrecked APCs between them and the main body of the Iraqi force. Further right was a tracked vehicle with a four-barrel turret; obviously an anti-aircraft gun, though it would be deadly against ground forces. The enemy troops were arrayed as if the threat lay on the plateau, which rose about twenty-five yards to his left.

  “What’s behind these guys?” he asked Green.

  “Out to the road? There’s at least one tank. I heard it moving around before. You figure they stopped shooting because they think we’re all dead?”

  Hawkins laughed. “Yeah, that’s what I think.”

  Both men knew the Iraqis were merely regrouping.

  “I’ll give them one thing,” said Ziza. “They’re smart enough not to fire a flare.”

  “That’s only because they don’t know how outgunned we are,” said Hawkins. “We have to drop back and hook up with the helicopter before they figure it out.”

  “Assuming he’s still here,” said Ziza. “I haven’t heard him for a few minutes.”

  “He’s there.” Hawkins knew the pilot would take the AH-6G back and watch for them.

  Have to move now, though. Any second the Iraqis might get their shit together and realize where the Americans were. Tanks could roll them up here.

  “Okay, let’s pull back in the direction of that chopper,” said Hawkins. He pointed to the downed helicopter. “We’ll go to the helicopter, then move back into that open area. There’s a shallow ridge maybe a mile beyond us. That’s probably where the other helo is.”

  He got up.

  “Ziza, you lead the way.” He pushed him forward, waited a second, then tugged Turk. There was a flash behind them. Truck engines revved. He ran like his life depended on it.

  Which it did. The Iraqis realized they were no longer on the hill and were coming across the plain.

  “Tank!” yelled Ziza as something whizzed through the air ahead. “Tank’s firing!”

  Hawkins fell toward the ground, spinning away from a white-red flash that momentarily silhouetted the middle of a large, hulking shadow.

  In the next second, a fierce shriek split the earth ahead. Hawkins realized he and his men were doomed.

  Then, an enormous white metallic light turned black Hell into bright Heaven. The air was rent by the concussion of a three-hundred-pound shaped Maverick G warhead smashing open the top of an Iraqi tank and incinerating its crew.

  The commandos’ guardian angels had arrived.

  CHAPTER 46

  OVER IRAQ

  26 JANUARY 1991

  0410

  Doberman heard A-Bomb shout over the radio as the Maverick flashed dead on the turret of the T-72 tank, bursting through the relatively thin coat of armor and exploding inside. Forty tons of Iraqi metal went from an average 37 degrees Fahrenheit to over 300 in a half second. The turret popped up like the top on a boiling pot of water and the only thing that escaped was steam and ashes.

  Doberman saw part of the tank begin to burn in the bottom corner of the Maverick’s cathode-ray tube as he edged the aiming cursor into the shadow of the APC. But he couldn’t set it— the damn pipper wouldn’t stay pipped. He cursed and relaxed his fingers, trying to feel himself into the target, then lost it completely. He felt the plane buck as the anti-aircraft gun on the edge of the Iraqi position finally figured out where the hell he was. He yanked to throw the gunner off, saw the cursor slap into place, steadied the plane, but lost the target again.

  Doberman took a hard breath and got it back, did his thumb thing quick— bing, bang, bam— and nailed it down tight. He pickled the Maverick and kicked the god-damn missile into gear. By now the air around him was percolating with exploding flak shells. Doberman jinked hard, blood and gravity rushing to his head as he reached to key his mike and ask A-Bomb where the hell he was. The ground rippled brilliant red as it filled the top and side of his cockpit’s bubble glass. Doberman let the Hog fall into a swoop as he realized the triple-A had stopped; A-Bomb had just taken out the gun.

  Okay, he thought to himself, points for timing.

  Without the Maverick Gs, Doberman could make out only shadows and fires on the ground. Swinging behind the Iraqi position, away from the Americans, he called A-Bomb off, then fired one of the illumination flares his ground crew had thoughtfully packed under his wings. As the flare ignited beneath its slow-falling chute, Doberman spun back to the attack. The battlefield splayed out in his windscreen, Iraqi metal fat and juicy beneath him.

  He nosed down to get a good bombing angle, slanting onto the thickest part of the Iraqi position between the road and the side of a shallow plateau. A fat truck with a machine-gun or something similarly impotent spat at him in the middle of his windscreen, while the shadows of rats scurried away. He stayed cool, in control, got his mark. He pushed the bomb trigger.

  After he let off, he realized he’d skipped his bing-bang-bam ritual. He also realized he’d drifted off target as he pickled. His iron landed well behind the truck.

  Recovering, he temporarily lost sight of the battlefield and its white and red glow. A-Bomb’s plane pulled out about half a mile ahead; shadows danced against the stars as his wingmate’s bombs exploded. Doberman banked, getting the battlefield full in the right half of his cockpit glass. There were a lot of small fires but as near as he could tell, no more tracers.

  “What do you think?” asked A-Bomb.

  “I missed,” said Doberman.

  “No way. Everything’s dead.”

  “I want to take another turn to make sure,” said Doberman.

  “If that helo’s going in, he’s going soon. Fuel’s low.”

  “Yeah, okay. Hang back.”

  Doberman put the Hog on her wing, tightening his circle to shoot over the battlefield. Something about the fading glow of the ground bothered him.

  The helicopter was an easy shot for anyone on that plateau. The pilot wasn’t in radio contact with the ground forces and would have to take his time looking for them.

  Iraqi soldier could make himself a hero real quick by playing dead, then pop up with a little ol’ SA-16 and whack the helicopter to Kingdom Come.

  Even nail him with a machine-gun from that hill. Even a lucky shot would take him down.

  Screw luck.

  He came over quick but saw nothing.

  Still didn’t feel right.

  “I’m dropping a flare at the far end,” he told A-Bomb. “Then let’s take a pass and see if anybody shoots at us.”

  “I got your butt,” said his wingman.

  CHAPTER 47

  OVER IRAQ

  26 JANUARY 1991

  0414

  Talk about crappy timing:

  A-Bomb was pitching the Hog onto her wing, Jethro Tull was wailing about Aqualung, and the damn batteries in his custom CD player ran out:

  “Hey there, Ack – wuhhhhhhhhhh-lunnnnnnnnggg”

  Click. Dead stop.

  There was nothing worse than losing the juice on a golden oldie. A-Bomb hit the player several times as he swooped behind and to the east of Doberman, both Hogs waltzing slow and easy over the entire Iraqi position. They were easy targets at five hundred feet, the flare above them.

  Son of a bitch. He’d changed the batteries before the last flight. And they were alkalines. No reason for them to give out, especially now. You needed a sound
track this low.

  And damn, he loved the classics.

  A-Bomb felt a little naked, hand on the throttle, ready to flood the gates if his RWR or instincts told him something was coming. His eyes darted in every direction, scanning the ground like sophisticated radar.

  Worst thing was, he didn’t have spare batteries aboard.

  Inexcusable, really. Kind of thing they drummed into you in basic, for christsakes, like always check your fuel before taking off and never go anywhere without an extra set of underwear.

  The Iraqis, obviously unaware that he was so vulnerable, made no move to attack. A-Bomb pushed the Hog around into a bank, playing follow the leader. As he did, his fingers flew into his suit, flicking the player on and off, hoping to squeeze a last volt from them.

  Still nothing.

  Maybe he could get one of Clyston’s guys to rig up some sort of power draw off the Hog itself. Need a transformer or something, but how hard could that be to get?

  Hog’s only flaw— no built in stereo.

  “See anything?” asked Doberman.

  “Nah.”

  “Let’s take another pass. I’m going lower.”

  “You worried about something?”

  “Just making sure.”

  A-Bomb was just making his turn when Doberman barked something over the radio. The front of the lead plane began spitting bullets, the tracers dancing a tight line down to the edge of the hill in front of them. A-Bomb swooped around and upwards, trying to quickly build altitude to get his own run in, but by the time he was reoriented it was over. The flare gave him a good view; nothing was moving. Doberman was already circling out.

  “Shit, what happened?” he asked Doberman.

  “Thought I saw something. Maybe not.”

  Dead now, if anything, Dog Man,” said A-Bomb.

  “Yeah, OK, I’m bringing the helo.”

  “I’m doing a pass and clearing west,” said A-Bomb. The Hog gave a throaty roar as she hunkered down into the fumes of the vanquished enemy. She loved being here, and snorted for more, as if the cannon’s ammunition drum were overloaded and she could only get some relief by blowing a couple of hundred rounds.

  A-Bomb wanted to oblige her, and scanned the approaching shadows and curling smoke for signs of the enemy. He realized now that he shouldn’t have cashed his chips in for the buggy ride— what he really wanted, damn it, was a set of night-vision binoculars. That was what he was talking about. A pair of those suckers and he could see fleas moving down there.

  Something was running in the corner of his screen, down on the flat plain where the commando helo had gone down. He gave rudder to line up better, trigger ready. Every part of his body was in the windscreen, inching into the target.

  One shadow, two, three.

  His guys? Or the enemy?

  Damn music would have told him. Music gave him a sense of things. Flying without music was like flying blind.

  Worse.

  The helicopter was between him and his target. He slipped right, riding the Hog as slow as his old pickup truck in reverse. It wasn’t easy to nail something as small as a man.

  Wax ‘em or let them go? He strained to get a good view in the darkness.

  Should he shoot or let ‘em go?

  Clash song.

  Which was another thing: He’d left his Clash CD back at King Fahd.

  A-Bomb swung low, pushing the Hog into the dirt. The three shadows loomed in the crosshairs. He had them easy, felt the trigger starting to give way under the pressure of his finger.

  Something made him hold off. They threw themselves on the ground as he passed. He picked the Hog up by her tail, flopped around and back for another run. He was low now, really, really low, even for a Hog, barely twenty feet off the ground. He was going slow enough to land – or stall, which would pretty much be the same thing.

  His guys or the enemy? The helicopter popped up from behind a small rise not far away. Any of these guys could take her out with a pop gun.

  The Gat jumped up and down below his feet. He had all three shadows dead on, dead if he wanted, but now, only now.

  Had to be his guys.

  If they weren’t, his guys were dead.

  “It always tease, tease, tease, tease,” he sang, supplying his own music from the Clash song.

  Definitely his guys. He gave them a barrel roll as he passed overhead.

  “We got something moving up there on the highway, ten miles,” said Doberman. “Other side of Sugar Mountain. They’re cranking.”

  “I got people moving here.”

  “Ours,” said Doberman. “Helo’s got ‘em. Come on.”

  A-Bomb leaned his head back as he accelerated to follow. What song should he try next?

  CHAPTER 48

  The Cornfield

  26 January, 1991

  0418

  Hawkins gripped his grenade launcher as a second shadow erupted near the tank, this one bursting into a brilliant all of fire.

  “The Hogs!” Ziza shouted as the dark shadow of an A-10A crossed against the flickering flames. A stream of red tracers erupted from the anti-aircraft gun – and then it too erupted in an explosion. Hawkins and his two men stood and gaped as the warplanes ripped up their enemy. In less than ninety seconds, the entire Iraqi contingent had been vacuumed away. A flare exploded above. The commandos watched in awe as the ugly forks of death mopped up.

  The A-10’s were the last thing the Iraqi force had been expecting. They were about the last thing Hawkins had been expecting as well.

  But shit damn, they had great timing.

  “Let’s go,” he shouted, jumping into gear as the airplanes took a breather. The three commandos began running toward the open plain where they expected the helicopter to appear.

  He’d taken two steps when Hawkins felt something in his leg tear. He began to limp, then nearly fell over.

  One of the Hogs came in low, thundering overhead. They were supposed to be quiet for jets, but damned if the plane’s engines didn’t sound like tigers spoiling for a fight. Pushing back to his feet, he decided he loved that sound.

  The helicopter came over the far hill and blinked a searchlight, either to show them where it was or to tell them to get their butts in gear. His leg was fucked up bad, and he felt blood as he reached down to hold it, hobbling forward. Turk grabbed him by the arm, half supporting him, half pushing.

  The Hog took another turn overhead, like a sheepdog pushing her lost lambs toward the shepherd. The helo was less than fifty yards away, loud and beautiful in the fading flare light.

  Hawkins would have sworn the A-10 pilot gave him a victory roll before pulling off.

  CHAPTER 49

  OVER IRAQ

  26 JANUARY 1991

  0419

  Heavy felt the F-111F move ever so slightly to his left, Klecko compensating for some turbulence.

  In the next instant he found their target.

  “Yes!” he shouted, and the plane popped upward. In the next few seconds a million things happened, but as far as Heavy was concerned, nothing, absolutely nothing happened: he kept the thin needle of laser light trained on one infinitesimally small shadow of a pipe. The plane banked and rolled out, wings swinging and Pratt and Whitney’s whining. The Paveways edged their fins and adjusted their glide slopes, striving toward the laser pinprick. Heavy just sat there, all 136 pounds of flesh, bone and muscle thrown into a small dot in the middle of a thin shadow near the center of his target screen. His eyes, his brain, his fingers were all there, all locked, as much part of the bombs as part of him.

  The shadow mushroomed into whiteness once, then again and again. The fourth bomb either missed or malfunctioned or he just totally lost it. They were gone now, cranking away, accelerating and he let himself ease back, taking a break to celebrate.

  “Good,” said Klecko.

  “Good,” Heavy said back.

  And damn if his neck didn’t hurt like hell.

  CHAPTER 50

  THE CORNFIELD
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  26 JANUARY 1991

  0419

  Hawkins threw himself at the door of the helicopter. Turk grabbed him and pulled as the AH-6 began moving away, its pilot trying to get the hell out while the getting out was good.

  Hawkins rolled on the floor, got up, and then wedged himself between the two front seats. He was practically kissing the control panel.

  “Go to Sugar Mountain,” he told the pilot. “The rock quarry. We got two guys waiting for us there.”

  “With all due respect, sir, we’re going to be lucky if we get back to the Fort. Real lucky,” said the pilot. “Part of our tail’s shot up and the gauges say the fuel’s iffy.”

  “Screw that,” said Hawkins.

  The pilot grimaced but began an arc in the northward direction toward the quarry. Hawkins managed to squeeze into the forward seat, changing places with Quilly. He wasn’t quite settled when the Hogs radioed the helicopter to tell the commandos they had spotted a new convoy heading east on the highway. The column had trucks and tanks and was about four, maybe five miles from Sugar Mountain.

  “They’re going to see us, maybe even beat us if they stay on the road,” said the pilot.

  “What about the Hogs?” Hawkins asked. “Can they take those bastards down?”

  “One of them just called bingo,” said the pilot. “They’re low on fuel. They’re engaging the vehicles on the highway but they’re going to have to break off.”

  “Just get us the fuck there!” said Hawkins.

  As the pilot picked up the tail and began scooting toward the mountain, the horizon flashed white. The Little Bird’s FLIR went crazy for a second.

  “Bomber just took out the bunker,” said the pilot.

  “Fuck,” said Hawkins.

  “Hogs are bingo. They’re breaking off. What are we doing, sir?”

  As much as he didn’t want to leave his men, Hawkins realized going to Sugar Mountain now was beyond foolish. They might not even be alive, depending on where they were when the bombs hit.