CHAPTER 48
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
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
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.
In every battle, there was a time to regroup. It wasn’t necessarily the time you wanted it to be, but if you didn’t recognize it, you usually didn’t get a chance to fight again.
“Back to the Fort,” said Hawkins. “Son of a bitch. Son of a fucking bitch.”
CHAPTER 51
Doberman squeezed his stick tight enough to wring water from it as he got the cannon into the second truck. Hot uranium mixed with explosives as he erased the utility vehicle from the Iraqi order of battle. He tried pushing his rudder enough to get a shot on another vehicle but ran out of space and time, pulling off and flashing to the right so A-Bomb could come in on his own run.
He figured it was safer to smash them without using the flares; the shadows were thick enough, and while it wasn’t necessarily easy to sort what was what, the Iraqis were totally confused and probably defenseless. The few thin tracers raking the air arced in the wrong direction.
Unfortunately, he was into his fuel reserves.
Time to go home.
A-Bomb pulled up, his green and black camo a blur in the dawn light.
“How’s your fuel?” Doberman asked his wingman.
“Yeah, I’m bingo.”
Doberman got their position on the INS and called it in to the AWACS. Then he checked in with the commandos’ helicopter.
“We ought to refuel at Apache,” said A-Bomb after they had set sail southwards.
“You figure out how to land in a thousand feet and take off again, let me know.”
“They’ll have fifteen hundred feet with the mesh they’re talking about,” said A-Bomb. “That’s more than enough.”
“They got bullets and Twinkies?”
“Negative.”
“Then I guess we’re going back to Al Jouf.”
“Man, you’re a grouch in the morning. You ought to drink more coffee.”
“Hold your thermos out and I’ll grab a cup.”
“You got it.”
Doberman half-suspected A-Bomb might try it. He fought the twinge of fatigue tickling the corners of his eyes. Then, he tapped into the commandos’ frequency and hailed the helo pilot, who by now was almost at Fort Apache.
“I understand one of our guys was on your mission,” he told the pilot. “Like to say hi if I can. Lieutenant Dixon?”