Bag motioned Waldo forward and snapped the traditional salute a crew chief gives his departing jet. He held it while Waldo taxied past. Waldo turned onto the main taxiway and disappeared in the smoke. Bag ran for the controls to close the doors. “What the fuck for?” he wondered aloud. He stood there for a moment, not knowing what to do. Then he ran for a shelter with a good Warthog. At least he would have company.
Waldo turned on the aircraft’s radio. Nothing. He turned up the volume on his personal radio and screwed the earpiece into his ear, holding the radio to his lips. “Chicken Coop, Waldo. I’m in the hangar queen and taxiing south.”
“Say intentions,” Maggot radioed.
“I got a gun on this puppy and figure I can taxi around and use it to kill a few tanks.”
Maggot answered with the traditional reply of all command posts when faced with something new. “Stand by one.”
“Stand by too fuckin’ long,” Waldo shouted, his adrenaline in full flow, “and you’ll get a tank up your ass!”
Maggot ignored him as he coordinated with Rockne. “Roger, Waldo, say position.”
Waldo calmed down. “On the west taxiway, headed south”—he peered into the smoke—“passing shelter West-Three.”
“Gotcha,” Maggot answered. “You’ve got a tank with troops approximately a thousand meters at your twelve o’clock heading toward you. Hold at shelter West-Two until we can get fire teams to support you.”
“Now, that’s a plan,” Waldo said. He slowed as he approached the next shelter. Three fire teams emerged out of the smoke, two men on his left and four on his right. He pushed up the throttle. “How do I make this happen?” he said to himself. He hit the ground override switch on the back of the left console and moved the master arm switch to the up position. But the lights on the weapons-armament panel were out. He turned on the HUD to get a gun-sight display. Nothing. “Doesn’t anything work!” he shouted. “Oh, shit,” he breathed. A tank emerged out of the smoke and darkness, barely a hundred meters in front of him. He pressed the trigger, half expecting the cannon not to fire. The GAU-8 roared, and reddish brown smoke poured out the vent. The aircraft shook, pounding at his kidneys, and shot backward. The recoil of the cannon was so great that it had stopped the Hog’s forward motion and backed it up. Waldo released the trigger. The cannon on the A-10 has a slight downward tilt, and the rounds had hit the ground seventy feet in front. Not only had he missed, but the rounds had cut a trench in the concrete as he backed up. He had to get the nose up, but how?
The tank fired. Like Waldo, it missed, and the round whistled overhead. The muzzle lowered slightly as it reloaded. “Fuck me in the heart!” Waldo shouted as he firewalled the throttle. The Hog leaped forward. He was vaguely aware of his fire teams laying down a barrage. He pumped the brakes. The Hog’s nose rocked up and down as he held the engine at max throttle. Waldo mashed the trigger and held it. Again the cannon gave off its deafening roar, sending rounds into the sky and then down into the concrete, kicking up dirt and debris and blinding the tank’s gunner. Eight rounds ripped into the tank’s carapace a fraction of a second before its cannon fired. The thirty-millimeter depleted-uranium slug was designed to kill a heavily armored tank at a distance of over two thousand feet. At less than three hundred feet, the lightly armored Type 63 simply came apart. The turret blew back as the cannon fired, sending the eighty-five-millimeter round arcing high over the base. Fire belched from the hole left by the turret as an explosion literally blew the engine out the back.
Waldo coughed, gagging on the smoke from his own cannon. He retarded the throttle as he taxied past the wreckage. “Shit oh dear,” he muttered, stunned by the carnage. Until that moment he had no idea of what the GAU-8 did to the enemy. He held his radio to his mouth. “Chicken Coop, Waldo. Scratch one tank. Say position of next target.”
“Roger Waldo,” Maggot replied. “Stand by one.”
“Absolutely fuckin’ lovely,” Waldo grumbled, his fangs now fully out.
Pontowski moved across the shelter, talking to the wounded men lying on the floor. He knelt beside the one man Doc Ryan held little hope for. The security cop opened his eyes and managed a half smile. “I’m gonna make it, sir,” he promised. Pontowski held his hand until he died. Then he slowly came to his feet and walked to the next man. A series of sharp clanging rings filled the shelter, and he dropped to the floor. He looked up and saw Ryan pointing to the blast doors. It was small-arms fire ricocheting off the outside.
Another fusillade raked the doors, and Pontowski ran for the telephone on the sidewall, his ears ringing. He punched at the button for the command post, and Clark answered immediately. “We’re under attack,” he told her.
“Help’s on the way,” she promised.
“Your driver is bringing in wounded,” he said.
“I’ll try to raise him on the radio and warn him off.” She broke the connection.
Waldo taxied south on the west taxiway. Eventually he would loop around the south end of the base, pass the exit to the main gate, and turn back north on the east taxiway, toward the command post and the base med station. He stopped when two more fire teams joined up and talked to the three teams already with him. The smoke seemed less dense, and he squinted, looking to the east. The first glow of dawn marked the horizon. A sergeant gave him the thumbs-up when the teams were in place, and he nudged the throttle forward. The Warthog moved down the taxiway with the fire teams spread out in a V behind him.
“Waldo,” Maggot radioed. “Say position.”
“Passing shelter West-One heading for the exit to the main gate.”
“A tank is reported in that area,” Maggot told him.
“Copy all,” Waldo said. He pushed the throttle up, forcing the fire teams to run to keep pace. The rattle of a heavy machine gun carried over the sound of his engine as he made the loop to the south. He was surprised when Clark’s van cut across in front of him and disappeared through the trees, heading north. “What in hell is she doing out here?” he wondered aloud to himself. The point man on his left waved furiously at him, then gestured down the side taxi path leading to the first hardened aircraft shelter on the east side, East-One. He saw the rear end of a tank stopped on the taxi path and firing point-blank into the empty shelter. “Okay by me if you want to waste your ammo,” he muttered.
He turned down the narrow taxi path as his fire teams engaged the soldiers with the tank. He lined up at the tank’s six o’clock. “It’s the guy you never see who kills you,” he said to no one, repeating one of the truisms fighter pilots live and die by. The tank’s turret started to traverse to the rear, but it was too late. Waldo pumped the brakes and squeezed off a short burst, now getting into the rhythm of it. The tank disappeared in a flash of flames and smoke. “Always check six,” he muttered. The gunfire died away as the soldiers ran for safety. He looked around and groaned. The destroyed tank was blocking his way, and the taxi path was too narrow for the Hog to turn around and return to the main taxiway. He yelled at his fire teams and pointed to his rear. “Hey, I need a push!”
The phone on the sidewall buzzed, and Pontowski picked it up. “I can’t contact my driver,” Clark said, “but he did pick up two wounded and was last reported heading toward your shelter.”
“We’re still taking small-arms fire here,” Pontowski replied.
“Rockne says he’s got two fire teams on the way.”
“We’ll get the van inside,” Pontowski promised. He hung up and ran to the doors. “Doc!” he yelled. “The van is coming in with wounded.” Ryan ran for the peephole and unbolted the shutter to look out. Pontowski heard a horn honking furiously.