Wong walked back to the map and marked an X roughly halfway through the course he had laid out.
“There. They can land and pump the gas in themselves.”
“And just how do we get it there?” said the major. “That’s a hundred miles due south of Apache. Our troops have no way to deliver it. Not to mention they’d have to go through at least one known Iraqi troop placement.”
“Two additional helicopters with fuel drums—.”
“Unavailable,” said the major. “It’s impossible unless we cut the supply load. The whole thing has to be scrubbed.
“Air drop it.”
“How? I don’t have any planes, Wong.”
Wong shook his head. No one could be quite this dense. Clearly, Wilson had adopted the role of devil’s advocate.
“You could use the same method you employed for dropping fuel at Apache,” said Wong. “Of course, you would wish to have some redundancy, so I would suggest…”
“We won’t have those planes again for another two nights,” said the major smugly.
“Then adapt other planes for the role,” said Wong.
“What? The A-10s?”
Wong shrugged. “The configuration will require creative thought, but if we examine the…“
That doable, Captain?” Klee asked quickly.
“Of course.”
“I like you Wong,” said the colonel. He turned to the lieutenant. “Jack, get the captain some antihistamines, then go find the A-10A maintenance people and see if this can be done. Better yet, Wong, go with him. Get as creative as you can before you sneeze your brains out.”
CHAPTER 21
They were calling it Oz West, but compared to the Devils’ maintenance area at the Home Drome, the facilities at the forward operating area were bare-bones at best. Even without the Clyston-supplied amenities of elaborate test benches and gourmet coffee— Sergeant Rosen wasn’t sure which she’d rather do without— she and her “boys” could completely strip down and rebuild a Hog in under twenty-four hours. Twelve, even, if she broke into her stock of the Tinman’s special coffee brew. Hell, with that coffee and the Special Ops people as inspiration, they could probably do it in under six, and wax the landing gear to boot.
The Hogs were designed for battlefield maintenance. Rosen had to hand it to the engineers for keeping things very basic. But it was also true that her skeleton crew of Jimmy, Elephant and most of all the Tinman were the best crew-dog technical expert ground wizards in the Air Force. The fact that the Capo had put her in charge of the operation made her determined to bust twenty more guts than normal; she was good and damned if she wasn’t going to be better.
So if the truth be told, when the two Devil ships came back to base looking like they’d spent the day in an auto dealer showroom, she was a little disappointed. It wasn’t that she was looking for something to do. They were going to be here for a while and had a ton of organizing to do, not to mention the fact that their talents could always be used helping the base detachment with other planes. It was just that she felt like there ought to be something more challenging.
And, since she’d heard that Lieutenant Dixon had been assigned to this mission, she was more than a little disappointed he hadn’t shown up.
Which was part of the reason she went to report the detachment status to Captain Glenon personally. Glenon and Captain O’Rourke were still debriefing in the makeshift intelligence area, a sandbagged tarp not far from the runway.
“Captain, just wanted you to know, both Hogs are good to go.”
“Jesus. We landed ten minutes ago,” said Glenon. He seemed annoyed. Rosen was used to that, having dealt with the squadron’s DO, Major “Mongoose” Johnson, a world class ball-buster.
Still, they’d just busted their butts getting the planes ready. She’d worked with Glenon a few times and never had any trouble with him before; for an officer, he’d seemed all right. But that was then, and this was now. Stinking officers were all the same.
“I’m sorry if you expected them sooner, sir,” she said, her lips pressed together tightly.
“No, that wasn’t what I meant. Relax, Sergeant.”
“Relax, sir?”
“Yeah, you don’t have to kill yourself,” said the captain. “We won’t be flying until tomorrow morning.”
“Speak for yourself,” said A-Bomb. “I was thinking of going camel hunting.”
Rosen recognized that that was supposed to be a joke. She laughed politely, and looked back at Glenon. All right, so he was okay. For an officer. Short guy, all muscle, quick temper, but okay. Kind of guy you could trust.
“The planes will be ready the second you want them, sir.”
“Okay. Get some sleep or food or whatever.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Rosen, but she didn’t move.
“Something up?” asked Glenon.
“Oh, um, nothing sir, just— I was wondering about Lieutenant Dixon.”
“Dixon? What about him?”
“I hadn’t seen him, but I heard he was assigned to this mission.”
“BJ’s uptown with the commandos,” said A-Bomb. “Crazy fuck parachuted down with them last night. They went out at like 35,000 feet— you believe that?”
Rosen nodded and stepped back to let the men pass. She felt her side stitch up, as if she had been running for a half-hour. She massaged it gently, but knew it wasn’t going away.
CHAPTER 22
“You want to drum up a card game after dinner?” A-Bomb asked Doberman as they walked from the briefing area.
“Nah,” said Doberman. He was feeling tired and a little beat-up from the two long runs north. “I’m just going to bed.”
“Bed? Shit, are you kidding me? Bed? Instead of cards?”
“Screw off.”
“Oh man, you’re making a big mistake,” insisted A-Bomb. “I’m tellin’ ya, that cross of Tinman’s gonna be hot-shit at the poker table.”
“I’d be careful about playing cards with these Special Ops types if I were you,” said Doberman. “You win too much they may bury you in the desert.”
“Yo, look who’s here,” said A-Bomb, spotting Wong walking toward them. “Hey Braniac, where’s the food at?”
“Food. Right,” said Wong.
“Seriously, there a place where we can get something to eat?” Doberman asked.
“There are several, though I wouldn’t advise any of them. Before you eat, Colonel Klee wants to see you.”
“What’s up?”
Doberman listened with disbelief to the scheme to drop fuel for the helicopters.
“That’s impossible,” said Doberman.
“Merely difficult,” said Wong. “If it were easy they wouldn’t be interested.”
“How’s that air strip coming?” asked A-Bomb. “You think we can use it soon?”.
“Don’t be crazy,” Doberman told his wingman. “It’s just about in Baghdad.”
“Baghdad is quite a distance away,” said Wong. “Given the layout of the Iraqi defenses as well as their overly centralized command structure, the base might as well be in Riyadh. This is a classic outgrowth of the Soviet philosophy, the inherent flaws that were first pointed out by Herman Dedorf in his 1951 report and subsequently demonstrated by a little-known project entitled—”