“Spare me the dissertation,” said Doberman. “No matter where it is, a thousand feet isn’t long enough to land anything. Let alone take off.”
“Shit, Dog, that’s doable,” said A-Bomb. “What do you say, Braniac?”
Wong seemed not to understand why he had suddenly been nicknamed after a character in the Superman adventures. But it didn’t prevent him from spewing forth.
“They wish to double the length and land C-130s there. That will require considerable work and earth-moving equipment, a most inefficacious contingency though they seem undeterred by such considerations,” the captain told them. “If they can achieve that, then by all means your planes could operate there was well, assuming reduced weights and combat schemes. In fact, with the modest extensions to the present configuration that are already planned, the Fort Apache strip would be theoretically accessible to an A-10A, as you already undoubtedly are aware.”
To Doberman, Wong sounded like a kid on a quiz show who wouldn’t shut up. And A-Bomb egged him on, bobbing his head up and down like a toy on a dashboard.
“If you operated at forward combat weight of approximately 32,771 pounds, you would need just 1,450 feet to take off,” continued Wong. “Of course, there are several contingencies, including the wind and, in Captain O’Rourke’s case, how much candy he happens to be chewing at the time.”
“And whether I got the stereo cranked,” said A-Bomb, grinning.
“But the idea of placing American warplanes so far behind the lines where they would be open to a concerted ground attack is itself insane,” said Wong.
“Thank you,” said Doberman.
“It’s not that crazy,” A-Bomb told Doberman after they finally managed to get Wong to point them in the colonel’s direction. “If we could refuel there we wouldn’t have to go home every time the AWACS calls out a snap vector. Shit, we’re flying so goddamn far north as it is, what difference is landing going to make?”
“Strip’s only a thousand feet,” said Doberman.
“Yeah, but Wong said they’re extended.”
“Wong.”
“Guy’s a brain, Dog Man. He’s the world’s expert on Russian weapons.”
“And what does that have to do with lengthening airstrips?”
“Hey, you look at him, you say: there’s a guy who knows concrete.”
“Only because he’s going to end up buried in some.”
Even though the idea of landing a Hog two hundred miles deep in Iraq sounded crazy, Doberman realized that there was a certain logic to the insanity. It would immensely increase their time on station— hell, they would always be on station. And while the actual bomb runs were no picnic, the most perilous part of their missions were actually the long legs to and fro. Flying high made them immune to triple-A, but if the wrong SAM site picked the wrong second to come on line, a dozen Weasels couldn’t take out the radar quickly enough to protect them. Even the old SA-2s— flying telephone poles which had been around since Vietnam— were potent weapons against a slow, heavily laden Hog. And a Roland or SA-6— forget about it.
So Doberman didn’t immediately punch A-Bomb when he mentioned using Apache to the colonel in the command bunker.
Actually, the reason he didn’t had more to do with the fact that A-Bomb was across the room.
Even the Special Ops colonel could tell landing the Hogs at Apache was crazy. His mouth and cheek worked up and down, as if he’d gotten something caught in one of his back teeth.
“You know, son, I used to fly Hueys up Ho Chi Ming’s butt,” he said finally. “You don’t have to impress me.”
“I’m not pushing a permanent Home Drome,” said A-Bomb. “What I’m talking about is a fuel depot, and maybe get some gun dragons up there, load up the cannon between shows. Dump in a few hundred iron bombs while we’re at it. Nothing big. That’s what I’m talking about.”
The colonel gave Doberman a look that said, he’s crazy, right.
Doberman shrugged. Klee turned back to A-Bomb.
“You boys just do this fuel drop tonight, all right? We’re going to be goddamn lucky to have it work,” said the colonel.
“Excuse me, colonel, can I get a word in here?” said Doberman.
“I wish you would, Captain.”
“I’m not saying we can’t do this, assuming those tanks don’t explode when we drop them.”
“They tell me they won’t,” said Colonel Klee. “We’ve made similar drops from MC-130s. Assuming your people rig them right.”
“If they can be rigged, our guys will do it,” said Doberman.
“Then it’s in your court.”
Doberman clamped his teeth together, trying to choke back his bile. He didn’t like being treated like a flunky. The colonel’s dismissal of the problems involved in the mission was, in his mind, reckless.
But it was difficult for him to say that without exploding.
“Damn straight it’s in our court,” he finally managed. “Damn straight. We’re going to do a kick-ass job and you can count on it. But realistically, Colonel, realistically we’re not equipped for night fighting. Our navigation systems are not exactly state of the art. This drop has to have a pretty wide margin of error. Unless we use flares, we’ll be bombing blind.”
“No flares,” said Klee. “We’ll live with whatever margin of error you give us.”
“Skull and I used Maverick G’s when we rode up and grabbed Goose,” said A-Bomb. “If we can round up a couple of those suckers, we’ll be able to see the ground at least.”
“Get them,” said the colonel. “If you have to put X-ray machines in those planes, do it. But nothing that gives the helicopters away before they get there.”
Doberman blew another long breath, this one calm enough to exist through his mouth without rattling his teeth. He told himself he was just pissed about the colonel’s personality, which wasn’t an important thing to be pissed about.
The gig was impossible, but what the hell. They’d done harder shit. As long as it was him and A-Bomb taking it, they’d figure something out. And if it weren’t for the fact that Dixon’s neck was on the block up north, he wouldn’t give a flying turd’s crap what happened to this jerk-ass of a colonel’s command. If he wanted to risk stranding two helicopters so deep in Iraq that it took the entire Army and Air Force and maybe the Marines to rescue them, what the hell.
“When are the helos taking off?” A-Bomb asked.
The colonel glanced at his watch. “They should be in the air by now. They’re refueling at the border. According to Wong’s timetable, they needed a good head start. You have a little over three hours to meet them. You miss them, don’t bother coming back.”
CHAPTER 23
It was Leteri who realized the ground between the two hills was mined. Something about the neatness of it tipped him off just in time to grab Dixon’s arm and yank him physically backwards.
“Stop!” yelled the sergeant. “Everyone freeze right where you are.”
He didn’t use the word “mines.” He didn’t have to.
Winston and Green were nearly twenty yards deep in the minefield, which lay below the sheer rock of the old quarry. Staffa Turk was five yards behind Dixon, himself maybe seven or eight yards deep. The others were stretched out in a jagged line either ahead or over toward the road on the rocks, apparently safe.
Maybe. It was fairly dark and difficult to tell.
“What we’re going to do is go back exactly the way we came in,” Winston told the others. He pulled the flashlight from his vest; the others did the same. “We’re going to do it one person at a time, and we’re going to move slowly no matter what happens. Turk, you go, then the Lieutenant. Use your lights to check the marks on the ground. Watch for mine nubs, if you can.”