Hogs #3 Fort Apache (17 page)

In
Iraq

26
January, 1991

0405

H
awkins
coughed ferociously,
trying to dislodge
something from his throat. It was big and felt like a Brillo pad, scratching tender
flesh. He coughed and coughed, arms drained of feeling, head spinning.

It flew out. Moisture flooded onto his face and chin.
He looked down, saw he had spat up blood.

But he could breathe again. He pushed himself up, then
remembered he was strapped in the helicopter.

But he wasn’t. He was free. The helicopter was a few
feet away. He’d stumbled out somehow, just after it crash landed. He was
sitting on the ground. Hawkins stood up, reaching to his belt for his pistol,
then felt himself yanked back to the ground.

A quick burst of rifle fire ragged the air above him.

“Hang tight, Captain.”

The voice was familiar. Leteri or Ziza, one of the New
Yorkers. He twisted to see who it was. Instead, he was distracted by the white
light of a shell hitting in the distance.

“Assholes don’t know quite where we are.”

It was Mo Ziza. He quickly laid out the situation. The
team had been surrounded by the Iraqis, who acted like they knew the commandos
were there but couldn’t locate them in the dark. The Iraqis had mounted the
hilltop overlooking the road, posting about a dozen soldiers there while the
rest of the heavy stuff stayed between the plateau and the road. Rather than
letting the helicopters walk into an ambush, the troopers had opened fire as
soon as they heard the helos approaching; they’d managed to wipe out the bastards
on the high ground even before the rest of the Iraqis began to return fire.

“We disabled one of the APCs before you got here but
then they got lucky,” said Ziza. “Joe Leteri and Bobby Jackson are dead. Turk’s
still holding them off up there.”

“Where’s Winston?”

“Sergeant Winston couldn’t travel. Lieutenant Dixon
stayed back with him at Sugar Mountain.”

“What?” Hawkins struggled to clear his head. “Shit.
Why the fuck didn’t you radio that in?”

“We tried. Radio got hit when we walked into those
mines.”

“Dixon?”

“He didn’t want to leave the sergeant.”

“No shit. Why the fuck did you let him stay?”

“He told us it was an order.”

“Oh fuck that, he’s a goddamn pilot. Shit fucking
hell.”

“He’s got balls for a pilot.”

“The helicopter. Fernandez.” Hawkins jumped up and ran
back to the chopper. Ziza followed, reaching him just as Hawkins got to the
door.

Fernandez was slumped forward in his harness, chest,
neck and head laced with bullets.

A line of holes arced up across the top of the AH-6G’s
front glass. Otherwise the chopper seemed in good shape, though he was far from
a mechanic. Or a pilot. He didn’t even know how to turn the panel on.

A fresh round of gunfire sounded from the Iraqis
position beyond the hilltop plateau. His second helo passed overhead,
unleashing machine-gun fire in that direction.

“How the hell did they get Fernandez and miss me?”
Hawkins said as he ducked.

“They didn’t. The side of your head’s bleeding.”

Hawkins touched his temple. It was wet. He pushed his
finger gently along the skin, felt something small and sharp; a piece of metal
or glass. But it must not be serious or he’d be dead; unconscious at least.

“All right, let’s go get Turk and get the fuck out of
here while we still can,” he told Ziza. “Show me the way.”

Ziza stooped slightly as he trotted. Hawkins huffed to
keep up. He had a good feel for the situation now, had it laid out in his head.

His other helo was behind them somewhere. They would
retreat and get picked up. Swing around and get Dixon and Winston. Go back to
Fort Apache. Get their one spare pilot, maybe a mechanic. Bring back the downed
helo.

Mechanic had broken his leg; wasn’t going anywhere.

Fuck that. He’d cart him there in a stretcher if they
had to.

Ziza slid in behind the hulked ruins of an Iraqi truck
as the enemy began firing mortar rounds. They were way off the mark and their
first corrections were in the wrong direction. Hawkins ducked nonetheless,
trotting toward Ziza and Staffa Turk. Turk was hunkered over guns on one end of
a wrecked Iraqi vehicle. Four or five dead Iraqi soldiers lay on the ground,
most still clutching their weapons.

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.

OVER
IRAQ

26
JANUARY 1991

0410

D
oberman
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
— t
he 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.

OVER
IRAQ

26
JANUARY 1991

0414

T
alk
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?