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
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?