He stared, and then the body moved, twisting and raising its his head. The man looked directly at him, and for a short second his face was clear in the viewer.
It was Leteri.
In the next instant, Dixon found himself running down the hill toward the highway, determined to rescue him.
CHAPTER 53
The flaps on the A-10A snapped tight at twenty degrees as Doberman slowed to a figurative crawl above the tarmac at Al Jouf. The Hog nudged into her landing gently, rolling along the runway like a Mercedes out for a Sunday spin. Doberman trundled quickly toward the repitting area, determined to rearm and refuel in record time so he could return north. But even as the engines wound down he could see that wasn’t going to happen; a special ops officer was waiting to take him and A-Bomb directly to Colonel Klee for a personal debriefing.
Not to mention butt-chewing, since the Hog pilots had “forgotten” to clear their flight nor with him.
“You pull a stunt like that again, Glenon, and I don’t care what Knowlington thinks of you, your next post is Alaska. Yeah, you’re right,” continued the colonel as Doberman tried to object, “you saved their butts. Damn straight. You were in the right place at the right time, and that’s your job. You were fucking lucky big time. You pull that crap again and you’re in shit-ass trouble for the rest of your career. You won’t have a career except replacing toilet paper in johns across Antarctica. You got that?”
Doberman had expected some grief. Even so, it was a struggle to corral his anger. “Yeah,” he spat.
“Tell me what you saw on the ground.”
The colonel didn’t even nod as Doberman spoke. While Doberman’s account was in the best Hog tradition— brief and to the point, without taking credit for anything he wasn’t absolutely positive about— it should still have been obvious that they had saved the day. But Klee didn’t so much as hint ataboy. He told them that Hawkins, the captain in charge of Fort Apache, felt the helo left at the ambush site was worth retrieving. The colonel began peppering them with skeptical questions. Doberman felt his anger stoking up again. He half-expected to be asked why he hadn’t tossed down a tow-rope and hauled the damn thing back home.
“Keep yourselves available,” said the colonel.
“Excuse me, Colonel,” said Doberman. “We’d like to get back in the air right away. The planes’ll be rearmed and gassed by now.”
“See, our buddy’s still on the ground back there,” added A-Bomb. “We don’t want him having all the fun.”
“You’re to stay here until I tell you to fly. That’s an order.”
Only A-Bomb’s tug kept Doberman from exploding.
“We saved their fucking butts,” he complained to A-Bomb outside. “His whole fucking operation would be smoke right now if it wasn’t for us. Fuck him.”
“Your misinterpreting him. It’s a Special Ops thing,” said A-Bomb. “Like tough love. The way he looks at it, he was kissing our butts.”
“Yeah, well, he can fuck himself. If it wasn’t Dixon up there, I swear to God, I’d fucking punch somebody out right now. Let them throw me in jail or where ever the hell they want. Shit. I have a half a mind to tell them to screw off and just jump in the plane. I’ll bring the kid back if I have to land on the goddamn roadway and carry him on the wings. What the hell are you laughing at?”
“Man, your ears turn bright red when you get mad. You want to go find a card game?” A-Bomb asked.
“Screw yourself,” said Doberman, storming toward the planes.
Doberman was still fairly ballistic when he reached the pitting area, where the Hogs were being presided over by Rosen and the rest of the Devil Squadron crew dogs. Doberman waved at the crew members, then sat sullenly on a small folding chair near the “dragon” used to reload the Warthog’s cannon.
“Whose cat did you run over?” asked Rosen.
“Excuse me?”
“You in trouble, sir?”
Doberman shook his head.
“You want some coffee, Captain?” she asked.
Rosen had a roundish face and a few freckles, a nose that seemed to lean slightly, as if it had been broken long ago in a fight. Her impish grin revealed perfect teeth, and her eyes changed color in the light, sparking green from light brown.
“Yeah,” he said.
Rosen disappeared for a moment, returning with a thermos, two cups and a small campaign chair.
“Mind if I join you?” she asked, unfolding the chair.
“Go ahead. I’m sorry if I barked.”
“Oh, you didn’t bark at all,” she said, pouring him a coffee. She started to hand it to him and then stopped. “Oh.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Well, if you’re going to fly again— ”
“Of course I’m going to fly again. Don’t worry about it.” He reached and took the cup. “Hey, don’t worry about it. My bladder’s not that small.”
“Colonel was peed, huh?”
“Fucking asshole prick.”
Rosen nodded. “Colonel Knowlington’ll back you up.”
“Yeah. If I need it.”
“Damn straight. He’s very fair.”
She sounded like she meant to add, “for an officer,” but said nothing else. Doberman couldn’t help but look at her breasts. They were well hidden beneath her shirt, and yet they seemed inviting.
She seemed inviting. Not in a sexual way, in a good-comrade, fellow-squadron-mate, crew chief kind of way.
Damn.
“How’s Lieutenant Dixon?” Rosen asked.
Doberman shrugged. “He missed the pickup. He’s still on Sugar Mountain. That’s the quarry where the F-111 hit.”
“He missed it?”
“He decided to stay back with a wounded soldier.”
“Wow.”
“Just like Dixon, huh? We’ll get him. I’m going to fucking get him. They’re working up something now.”
Rosen looked worried.
“We can handle it,” Doberman told her.
“Excuse me, Captain,” she said, tossing her coffee onto the ground. “I have to go check on something.”
She had a strained expression on her face, as if someone had punched her in the gut. She got up from the seat and quickly began trotting in the direction of the crew tents, probably to a bathroom, Doberman thought. Damn food was screwing up everybody’s stomach.
CHAPTER 54
From Sugar Mountain, it had seemed as if the entire Iraqi force had been wiped out, but even before he got within a mile of the battlefield Dixon realized that wasn’t true. He heard an engine turn over several times, cough and die out; then he heard voices, a strange cacophony he assumed must be Arabic, or whatever the Iraqis spoke. He began tacking south, arranging the landscape in his head as he tried to remember not only what he had seen from the mountain but what he remembered from the day before. The sun was still just below the horizon, but there was more than enough light to see without using the NOD. He left the roadway and headed for the stream the team had followed the day before, stopping every so often to try and see where the Iraqis were. The helicopter— not yet visible— should lie about a mile northeast, beyond some of the empty ditches.