They’d have more than ten minutes— the colonel had figured it at nearly thirty minutes and maybe more, depending on their load configuration— but it was just like Doberman to complain about that, rather than the problem of actually flying so far behind enemy lines in an airplane built to stay close to the front. Even from Al Jouf, a small, forward operating area on the other end of Saudi Arabia, it would take about an hour at nearly top speed, through some of the best anti-air defenses in the world, for the Hogs to reach the area where the commando teams were operating. Granted, allied Weasels had whacked most of the SAM batteries pretty hard. But all it took was one to nail you.
“Hey, time on target’s no big deal as long as they got the targets picked out,” said A-Bomb. “What we need is a good ground controller calling the shots. Somebody who’s familiar with Hogs, you know what I’m talking about?”
“Well, we’ll have one,” said the colonel. “In fact, he’s one of our guys.”
“One of our guys? No shit,” said A-Bomb. “Who?”
“Dixon. He parachuted in with one of the commando teams a few minutes ago.”
Both men couldn’t have looked more surprised if he had told them the world was actually flat.
“Dixon?” said Doberman.
“The lieutenant apparently volunteered,” said Knowlington.
“He’s just a fucking kid,” said Doberman.
“No shit,” said Knowlington.
“Hey, BJ’ll do fine,” said A-Bomb. “He knows what it’s about.”
“He’s a fucking kid,” Doberman told him.
“Whatever he is, he’s on the ground in Iraq now,” said Knowlington. “And it’s too goddamn late to get him back. Wong, you’ve been awful quiet. What’s your opinion?”
Knowlington felt lucky to have snagged Wong for his team. Hijacking him just after he had come to the Devil Squadron on a weapons assignment for CENTCOM. Wong was the self-professed expert in Russian weapons. But for Knowlington, his real asset was the drollest sense of humor he had heard since his days in Vietnam. Sometimes it was so subtle, only the colonel could pick it up, and even he couldn’t always tell whether Wong was goofing or being serious.
He was serious now, definitely.
“The entire operation is a waste of time,” said Wong. He gave a sigh so deep that it sounded like it came from a draft horse. “The so — called Scud or Russian — made SS-1 presents a minimal military threat, even if fitted with chemical warheads. As we saw during the Afghanistan War— ”
“You were there?” asked Doberman, about as sarcastic as a reporter questioning a congressional junket.
“For a time,” said Wong without missing a beat. “Even when massed with the most accurate targeting radars and intelligence available, the SS-1 family was of scant use against the rebel insurgency, with an ineffective damage ratio and a destructive envelope that is frankly less intimidating than the average grenade attack. The Iraqi targeting and launch capacity is even less organized. The parabola of probable destruction has the slant of an inchworm at rest. Given the infrastructure and resources necessary to support the infiltration, targeting and disposal of these minor annoyances, it would make much more sense to —”
“It’s not our job to argue yea or nay,” said Knowlington. “We just have to hit what they want us to hit.”
Wong’s mouth and throat contorted, as if the rest of what he was going to say had been written on a sheaf of paper and he swallowed it whole.
“Yeah, all right, what the hell. I volunteer,” Doberman told Knowlington.
“I wasn’t going to ask you to volunteer.”
“I volunteer anyway.”
“Me, too,” said A-Bomb. “There’s your two-ship. When do we leave?”
With Mongoose due to be shipped back to the States, Doberman and A-Bomb were, at least arguably, the best two pilots in the squadron; by asking them, Knowlington had fulfilled his promise to the general.
Now he proceeded to try and talk them out of it. Both had seen more than their share of action in the past few days and were due serious rests. Doberman especially looked a little ragged around the edges. And with Mongoose going home, the squadron needed a new DO — one who was here at Home Drome, not out in the desert.
“That’s no argument to get me to stay,” said Doberman. “Listen Colonel, no offense intended, but I want to fly, not sit behind a desk.”
“Major Johnson didn’t sit behind a desk,” he told him. “Mongoose flew as much as anybody.”
“Yeah, but I can do without the bullshit, you know? Besides, it screws up your head.”
Knowlington nodded. Doberman was more right than he knew. The downside of the job wasn’t paperwork or bureaucracy or even so much the dealing with the personnel matters that inevitably fell in the DO’s lap. It was the worrying. You felt responsible for everyone, and it weighed on you, began to eat you away. It had only been as a commander that Knowlington himself had come to feel real pressure; only as a professional worrier that he had fallen into despair, and worse.
And, truth was, he’d known these guys would volunteer.
“All right,” Knowlington told them. “Go get some sleep.”
The two pilots left, but Wong remained.
“Captain?”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but I wonder if we could discuss the aspect of my transfer.”
“Which aspect is that?” Knowlington asked. He was tired and not particularly in a mood to enjoy Wong’s usual routines.
“The aspects of its existence. I’m of no use here,” continued Wong. “My role is reduced to fetching people and pointing out the mistakes in incompetent estimates.”
Knowlington started to dismiss him when a light went off in his head: Wong was angling to get involved with Fort Apache.
He should have realized it immediately. Poor guy probably felt insulted that he hadn’t been asked to volunteer. For someone with Wong’s record and abilities, it was a real put-down not to be included. But what the hell could he do at Al Jouf? Help coordinate the bombing missions?
Probably. But the commandos had their own intelligence guys. Not as good as Wong, but damn good.
Still, it might make sense to have Wong out there, scoping the air defenses for Doberman and A-Bomb. Special Ops people weren’t going to be experts on SA-6s or Rolands, and there were plenty of them where they were heading. Wong knew his shit, even if he used phrases like “parabolas of probable destruction” and compared missiles to inchworms.
Damn ball-buster.
“I need you around, Wong,” Knowlington told him. “Your insights are important. Seriously.”
“With all due respect, sir, a trained monkey could perform the services you require.”
Typical Wong-style exaggeration— the whole reason Knowlington kept him around.
But didn’t his guys deserve the best?
“All right, Wong. Look, I have to go talk to Chief Clyston. Hook up with the team he puts together and get out to Al Jouf ASAP. You have my blessing. Just remember, you’re still my guy, not theirs.”
Wong turned purple, or at least reasonably close.
“Al Jouf?”
“That’s where they’re running this from.”
“Colonel…”
“Yeah, I know,” Knowlington said, slapping him on the back as he started away. “You owe me big time.”
CHAPTER 6
Chief Master Sergeant Clyston’s quarters at the home drome were a testament not merely to the role of the squadron’s first sergeant, but to the entire institution of the noncommissioned officer. Clyston’s tent was located in the heart of Tent City, placing him in the very midst of the people he led. Outwardly, it was unostentatious to a fault, a billboard that said to the entire squadron of techies, specialists, ordies, candymen, crew dogs, and wizards that their premier sergeant, their first among firsts, their man, their capo di capo, their CHIEF (as he preferred to be called, capitalization included) was, on some admittedly imperceptible level, one of them.