“Gary’s his name.”
“Gary?” It was the first time since they’d met that her face betrayed anything but dead certainty. “Really?”
“We’re going to leave you here and get our guys,” said Hawkins. “You run into trouble, call us.”
“What if the radio doesn’t work?”
“If we don’t hear from you, we’ll come back,” he called back, already trotting toward his helicopter.
CHAPTER 68
There was no way he was sneaking up on this guard, and no way was he getting lucky enough to dump him easily either.
Twenty feet of rubble and a sixty-degree slope separated Dixon and the soldier posted near the summit of the cliff. The man had his side to Dixon and his back to the lip of the bomb crater where the man with the missile was. And he was paying attention to his job— Dixon had to duck back around the cliff wall as the man walked his short line back and forth across the ledge.
Rush the man now and everyone would hear. He might be able to kill the soldier, then get up over the lip of the crater and take out the man with the missile, but only if the second man wasn’t armed. And only if this guard was the other soldier he’d seen climbing the hill with him.
Too many ifs.
He could wait until he heard a plane. The Iraqis might find him by then.
Dixon could walk back around to the other side and try to get a firing position. That would take at least forty-five minutes, and he’d be in the open much of the way.
If he went back and put on the uniform of the man he’d killed, he might be able to get close enough to take them out before they realized he was an American.
Nah. It was covered with blood and too small.
Dixon stuck his head around the corner of the rocks. The guard had walked further along his lookout ledge and was out of view, though Dixon could hear his footsteps scrunching in the dirt.
The ledge blocked most of the cliff face directly below his sight. If Dixon could go down about twenty feet and then tack out across the rock face, he’d get by him without being seen. That would put him a few yards from the side of the crater, with a good view of the soldier with the missile.
That would also put him in clear view of the guard.
He’d have to take them both out very quickly.
Doable. Then fire the missile into the dirt.
Better yet, into one of the tanks. If he could figure out how it worked.
Dixon studied the cracks on the quarried rock face below the guard. It wouldn’t be easy.
Doable, though. Best way.
The guard turned and Dixon ducked back behind cover. He’d have to wait until the guard was about halfway before starting.
Dixon was going across. It would take fifteen minutes and some luck.
Make it ten, he decided. And screw luck.
CHAPTER 69
“Try it!” Rosen shouted.
Nothing happened.
But damn, all the wires were together. She had current. There was definitely fuel. What the hell?
Her fingers were just touching the body of the engine when she felt a vibration. At first she thought it was an electrical shock; she yanked her hand back as the turbine coughed.
It started, coughed again, and stopped.
Progress.
“Shit,” said the pilot.
“Give it another shot.”
“These things are supposed to start right up.”
Rosen rolled her eyes. Pilots!
Sergeant Clyston wouldn’t have this problem. When he told a pilot to do something, they damn sure did it.
It had to do with the way he used his voice.
“Give it another shot,” she said, trying to sound exactly as the sergeant would have.
The engine cranked to life.
“Let it run!” she shouted, running to the cockpit. “I have to make some adjustments and see what I can do about the panel. Then I’ll get the radio to work.”
“Radar’s out. No radio,” said the pilot. “How the hell am I going to fly without a radio?”
She ran back to the engine shaking her head. Pilots.
CHAPTER 70
Dixon slid his hand into the crack, pushing it sideways to get as secure a grip as he could manage before swinging his right leg toward the foothold.
His boot slipped and he had to strain to hold himself up. He pushed off with his left foot and caught a got foothold just as the ache in his arms became unbearable. He breath deeply, then inched his left hand to the same crack as his right, pulling his body across the face of the rock as he found a new place for his right hand.
He had maybe five feet to go, five easy feet. All he had to do was get there and he’d be beyond the guard and have a line on missile boy in the crater. His head sagged backward. He was tired as hell, but he wasn’t stopping now. As he flexed his shoulder muscles slightly, the guard’s footsteps approached above him to the left. He froze, waiting for the man to continue his rounds, walk past him, turn, then go back the other way.
While he waited, Dixon plotted his next two hand-holds: large, squared notches on the rock. He had a good ledge for his feet, though it was a bit of a stretch to get to the holds. As the guard turned and began walking back, Dixon moved his right leg, found solid footing, then pulled for the new spot. He was there, he had it, only two feet to go and he’d be on the rocks, scrambling toward the top.
Something gave way behind him.
Rocks tumbled. He heard curses and people running. Dixon curled his body into a ball and plunged to the right, landing hard on the rocks at the side of the hill where he’d been aiming. He pulled the submachine-gun up, ready to take a long blast, make something out of nothing before they killed him.
But the shouts weren’t for him. A helicopter was approaching, a dark bee in the distance.
And something else, something that exploded nearly straight down from the sky. It came faster than an archangel and with considerably more prejudice, not to mention a lot more explosives.
The Hogs had arrived.
CHAPTER 71
A-Bomb had both tanks at about eight-thousand feet and three miles off, a turkey shoot for the Mavericks, which were salivating in anticipation on his wings— and who could blame them? But he had to hold them in reserve, in case Doberman missed. As unlikely as he knew that was, it was the plan, and so A-Bomb merely sighed and soldiered on, getting ready to drop the iron bombs instead. He fixed the Hog’s nose at nearly a ninety-degree angle toward the ground, nonchalantly making his wind adjustments and bopping to the beat of E Street shuffle.
Finger itching on the pickle button as he framed the first tank in his HUD, A-Bomb decided that The Price is Right was just what he was looking to play here.
Or rather, The Bomb is Right.
“Who’s today’s lucky winner, Johnny?” he asked as the target grew fat and ever more juicy. “Why, it’s tank number one, a lovely little T-72 model fresh from the factory at Minsk. I know it’s not really Minsk, Bob, but I just love saying that. Minsk. Minsk.”