Rank gave him the right. He made these kinds of judgments every day.
All the more reason to be sane now, to assess the odds carefully, calmly — like the CinC and his staff. Not a word they had said at the meeting had been out of line or wrong. The odds were long, long, long.
“We’re here to volunteer.”
Skull snapped around, startled by Doberman’s voice at the door. He hadn’t heard the door being opened, much less a knock.
“We’re going,” said A-Bomb, entering the small room behind Glenon. “What’s the game plan?”
“Where is it you’re going?” Knowlington asked them.
“Don’t bullshit us, Colonel,” said Doberman. His face was tinged red; his voice snapped with the bark that had earned him his nickname. “We just talked to Wong. We’re in.”
“Wong?” Skull folded his arms into his chest. Both Doberman and Glenon had just gotten back from an incredibly taxing gig supporting Scud hunting operations north of the border. By rights, they deserved at least a few days off.
If not months.
“You guys get any sleep last night?”
“We slept like babies,” said Doberman. “When we taking off?”
“Close the door,” Knowlington said. He sat back, examining the two men standing side by side in front of him. They couldn’t be more different physically. Doberman was short even for a pilot and probably weighed no more than one-twenty. A-Bomb loomed over six feet; his burly frame had to be at least twice as heavy as Doberman’s.
They were different temperamentally as welclass="underline" Doberman ready to go off like a bomb fuse set too high; A-Bomb about as laid back as a human could be, at least until he was diving on his target.
Typical Hog drivers, though, each in his own way.
“You giving us the deal, or do we have to torture it out of you?” asked A-Bomb finally.
“Our end’s straightforward,” said Skull. “Four planes total, two elements. Take off from here around dusk. Zig out from KKMC around one or two SAM sites, then northwest to a point about sixty miles south of Kajuk, the village you hit yesterday. Two planes go up toward Kajuk to cover a drop about three miles south of the village; two hold back as reserves. Most of that is at fifty feet to hide from some serious missiles Wong’s worried they’re movin’ in.”
“Twinkie material,” said A-Bomb. “Piece of cake.”
“That’s sixty miles at fifty feet, in the dark,” said Knowlington.
“Devil Dogs,” said A-Bomb. “Cream filling on the inside.”
“We wait for word from the controller, then we move up and check an LZ southwest of the village,” continued the colonel, “make sure it’s clean, then clear an MC-130 in. At the same time, F-111s take out two of the SAM sites. We drop retrieval pods, then circle south in case we’re needed. We don’t want to be too close or we draw attention to the ground people. On the other hand, we don’t want to be too far away. Our linger time is what gets us in the picture. Nobody else can stay up there that long. Other element comes north, we swap jobs. Keep going back and forth as long as we have to. Drop should happen right at 2100; pickup should be four hours later. That’s two tanks apiece; could be less, depending on how we manage our fuel and what else happens. Could be more.”
“Lota flyin’ time,” said A-Bomb, nodding. “I like it.”
“What’s happening on the ground?” Doberman asked.
“MH-130 drops three men — two Delta boys and Captain Wong. They wait for Saddam and they look for Dixon. Saddam’s due at midnight.”
“What if he’s late?” said A-Bomb.
“Wong says if he’s late he’s not coming,” Skull told him. “From our perspective, that just gives us a little more time to find Dixon.”
“That’s a long time to fly up there,” said Doberman. “A lot of tanking.”
“Could be,” Skull admitted.
“A-Bomb and I can handle it.”
“The only thing I want you guys handling is sleep,” said Knowlington.
“Screw sleep.”
“What I’m talking about,” said A-Bomb. “We don’t need sleep.”
“I don’t know. You both look dog tired.”
“I’m going,” said Glenon.
A-Bomb put his hand on Glenon’s shoulder. “It would make sense for us to fly the mission,” he said. “We’ve been back and forth across this terrain a couple of times now.”
That was the thing about A-Bomb. One second he was carrying on about food and making junior high jokes and pretending he was the world’s biggest bozo. Then all of a sudden he got more serious than Johnny Quest.
“I know you guys haven’t much sleep lately,” Skull said. “And I don’t want that to be a factor.”
“Shit, all we did at Al Jouf was sleep,” said A-Bomb.
“I’m flying,” said Doberman.
“You guys both look like you’re for shit,” said Skull.
“Hey, you ain’t winnin’ no beauty contest yourself, Colonel,” said A-Bomb.
“Dixon’s a friend of ours, Skull,” said Doberman. “You have to let us go. We’re you’re best guys and you know it. You need us.”
The truth was, Knowlington knew they’d both volunteer. Because they were Hog drivers. And he knew that what Glenon had said was true — he did need them.
But he hadn’t necessarily admitted it to himself yet, at least not officially.
“Let me think about all this,” he told them.
“Shit yeah,” said A-Bomb, punching the air.
“I haven’t decided anything, except that I’m getting something to eat,” said Knowlington. He got up out of his chair then stopped, realizing he hadn’t told them about the new D.O. “Look, one other thing. We have a new pilot in the squadron. His name is Major Horace Gordon Preston. He’s a good pilot and a good office. He’s going to serve as Director of Operations. If you don’t need the rest, we’ll have a hello meeting at thirteen hundred in Cineplex.”
“We’ll be there,” said Doberman.
Glenon’s face tinged red again, and Skull wondered if he knew Preston from somewhere. But that was neither here nor there.
“All right,” said the colonel. “I’ll tell you my decision after that. Nothing is decided, A-Bomb. You just cool your jets.”
“What I’m talking about,” said the pilot. “Question is, where am I going to find Devil Dogs on such short notice?”
CHAPTER 15
As approved, the mission bore only the slightest resemblance to the one Wong had originally proposed. Not that it was impossible, just that it was far less than optimal. And even optimal was a hard play against the odds.
Wong and two troopers would make a parachute drop two miles southwest of a bend in the highway leading to Al Kajuk. Unfortunately, the drop could not be conducted as a high altitude, high opening HAHO jump from a C-141B as most other Iraqi infiltration missions were; there wasn’t a plane available. Besides, the SAMs would have an easy time picking out the planes — and possibly notice the chutes along the way.
Instead an MC-130 would be pressed into service, flying a low-altitude course right up to the LZ, where it would pop up for the drop from a relatively low eight hundred feet. The pop-up would have to come just seconds after F-111s hit the SAM site; between their bombing and the jamming provided by a Spark Vark, the Hercules should have an ample window to proceed undetected. It would then fly south, using its extra load of fuel to orbit in a “dark” area devoid of enemy defenses until needed. While this added to the mission difficulty, it couldn’t be avoided. There were only a small number of MC-13 °Combat Talons equipped with the snagging gear in the Gulf — in the world. Even without the stranglehold on available resources, it might not have been possible to line up another plane.