Salt raised his rifle to fire.
“You may be right,” Wong told him. “But we’re not the judges and you cannot shoot him.”
“Our mission was to fucking kill him.”
“Indeed,” said Wong. “But he has surrendered.”
“I don’t give a fuck.”
“Sergeant, you must realize that I am giving you a lawful order. The welfare of the prisoner is now of prime concern.”
The Iraqi’s hands were trembling but he did not move.
“You gonna fuckin’ kill me if I shoot him?”
“You will not shoot him,” said Wong. His pistol was now aimed at Salt.
“Dyin’d be worth it to nail the son of a bitch,” said Salt.
“I should not think so,” Wong said. “And such a calculation is besides the point. My order is lawful and must be obeyed. I would note also that this is not Saddam. It is an impostor, a lure.”
“What?”
“Saddam Hussein is taller and older. This man is in his twenties. Frankly, he is a poor substitute, though obviously he would confuse a crowd when viewed from a car.”
Salt didn’t change his aim. “I really ought to kill the bastard then. All this for fuckin’ nothing.”
Wong gently placed his left hand on Salt’s weapon and lowered it. The Iraqi collapsed on the ground.
“You did a good job capturing him,” Wong told him. “He will be invaluable.”
“More valuable than your pilot?”
Salt’s question was more to the point than he knew. The rigs that they were to use to leave allowed only two men to be taken; there were or would be only two rigs. So if he found Dixon, someone would have to be left behind.
A decision he would have to make when all the contingencies had played themselves out. The plan had been to make the pickup with an hour of the attack — would Wolf hold to that?
“The prisoner is of more value than any of us.” Wong walked over and pushed the man flat onto the ground. He quickly patted him down, retrieving a small revolver and a knife attached to his leg. The man also had a vial taped to his leg — probably for suicide, as well as some pills in a pocket bottle.
“Quaaludes, I believe,” said Wong, tossing the bottle and pulling the man up by the back of his fatigue shirt. “He does appear somewhat calm.”
“I thought you said you couldn’t hear,” said Salt.
“I couldn’t. Your curses apparently jarred my senses back into working order. I am obliged.”
Salt began laughing. “Fuckin’ comedian.”
Wong told the ersatz Saddam in his poorly accented Arabic that he would allow the sergeant to execute him if he gave the slightest hint of trouble. The man nodded, then began telling him that he was only a poor farmer from the north.
“We will conduct a proper interview at another point,” said Wong, first in English, then in Arabic. The man babbled on, even after Wong pushed him up the hill.
“Where’s Davis?” Salt asked.
“On the other side of the highway, in that direction,” said Wong. While his hearing had returned, he had a peculiar ringing in his ears that made it seem as if he had his head in a fishbowl. “He’s been wounded.”
“Why are we going this way then?”
“Because he is pinned down by a heavy machine-gun approximately thirty yards from here,” Wong explained. “And unless we disable it we will not be able to rescue the sergeant. Will you take point or shall I?”
“Fuck you,” snapped Salt, moving out ahead of him.
CHAPTER 52
Hack winced as Doberman turned directly into the tracers he’d been trying to warn him about. He’d already pickled a Maverick at the Zeus; cursing, he dished another one out at the same target, the AGM falling off the rail just as his first hit.
He realized as the rocket motor flashed that he’d made a nugget mistake, the kind of thing a greenhorn scared shitless lieutenant might do, not a veteran combat flier who was supposed be DO of a squadron. For he’d just lost his night vision gear, as primitive as it was.
He was also out of position, swinging in the wrong direction as Doberman bucked and weaved. Hack swooped lower, back in Doberman’s direction. The only surviving guns now were well to the west and north.
Something flickered across the thin quarter of the moon; Preston nudged left and found the dark hull of a Hog sailing just ahead, apparently none the worse for wear.
“There’s a troop transport trying to get around the APC,” Glenon told him. “Take it out.”
“Can’t. I’m out of AGMs.”
Doberman said nothing, but the static that followed was more than enough to convey his displeasure.
“I used them on the gun that almost brought you down,” Hack said finally.
There was dead air for a second.
“Bank and follow me back to the pickup zone. I have a fuel leak in two of my tanks but I’ve isolated them. I want to make sure I get the STAR pods down, assuming it’s clear.”
Hack followed along dutifully, sliding out on Doberman’s flank. The prime pickup area lay two miles to the southwest of the village at the top of what looked like a succession of long steps leading back in the direction of Saudi Arabia.
Devil Three orbited once then skipped low. While dropping a flare would have made it easier to see, it might also draw the attention of nearby troops. Hack couldn’t see the over-sized gift packs slide off the Hog, nor could he see the chutes, though he had his helmet against the glass, trying to.
“All right, check your fuel,” said Doberman. “And stay in formation. We’re going back and doing a box, like we briefed.”
“I thought you had a leak.”
“I’ve taken care of it,” Doberman said. “I got movement on the highway four miles west of here. Follow me.”
CHAPTER 53
Doberman nudged the Hog’s nose into a thirty-five degree dive, straight on the lead truck — or at least he figured it would be straight on the target, since he was transposing from the TVM, triangulating with the dark shadows before him. He wanted to keep his last Maverick in reserve and didn’t want to risk a flare, figuring it might help the Iraqis find the ground team.
Besides, the GAU tracers would light up the night.
A shadow moved into the middle of his HUD. Doberman centered his targeting cue, waiting while the shadow grew fat. Something kept him from pulling the trigger — the man who normally calculated everything, who did the math on every shot backwards and forwards before pressing the trigger, hesitated because it just didn’t feel right yet.
Damn. A-Bomb was rubbing off on him.
The shadow didn’t move. He was looking at a house or something.
No, it was the truck, but it had stopped. Two others were pulling around it to the right, live targets.
He shifted in his seat, as if merely moving his fanny would move the Hog onto the new targets. Somehow it did — Doberman squeezed the trigger and the black night flashed with the fire of death, the bullets slashing through the thinly protected side hatch of an armored car, up into the turret just to the right of the gun before flailing through the engine. Doberman rode the hot stream into the second vehicle, obliterating it with a long burst. He still had enough of an angle and altitude to get his gun onto a third vehicle approaching down the highway, but he was moving too fast and had come too low to do more than spit a few shells in its general direction before flailing off to the south to regroup.