“No shit, captain,” he said, anger finally spiking. He hated the Delta assholes — he was tempted, sorely tempted, to tell them to go and fly right into the frickin’ SAMs.
“What?”
Hack hated everyone and everything connected with this stinking operation, the RAF crew for getting shot down, Knowlington for making him take the mission.
He hated himself. He was blowing it big time.
“I’ll get to you when I know something,” he told Hawkins, abruptly flipping back to the squadron frequency and hailing Doberman.
“Are you in contact with Sadie?”
“Affirmative.”
“Nice of you to tell me.”
“I’ve been trying to raise you,” said Doberman.
“Does Coyote know?” he asked, referring to the AWACS controller, who would alert SAR assets.
“Can’t raise him either,” said Doberman.
The whole damn mission was going to hell.
“Hold on. I’ll take care of it,” said Preston.
“Shit, we have company,” said Doberman.
“Repeat Three.”
“Vehicles, three vehicles. Must be homing in on our boy’s transmission. Shit.”
“Smoke ‘em,” cut in A-Bomb.
“Yeah, no shit,” responded Doberman. “Gunny, on my back.”
“Covered.”
Preston went back to Hawkins. “Give me your position.”
“We’re in the same fucking position we were in ten minutes ago. What is the situation at Splashdown? Repeat. What is the situation…”
Hack pushed the transmit button before Hawkins finished. The mission was finished now — there was no sense sending the assault team to rescue men who might or might not be there, when there were two downed fliers who needed help ASAP.
“Splash One, stand by for coordinates to pick up Sister Sadie’s crew.”
“Fuck you,” sputtered Hawkins.
“Fuck yourself,” said Hack. “Stand by for coordinates. Iraqi vehicles en route. We’re on them.”
He could see Doberman starting to dive to the north, and worked out a vector and distance for the Chinook.
“Tell the helicopter pilot to look for the burning trucks ten miles to your north,” he added. “Go!”
CHAPTER 18
In life, Tornado GR.Mk 1A ZA981 SS Sister Sadie had worn a speckled brown coat, the latest fashion in desert dress. In death, she wore a very appropriate black, her twisted frame wrenched across about a quarter of a mile of shadowy desert. Her arms had been shorn off and her tail scattered into several pieces, but Conrad was interested specifically in her fuselage — and even more specifically in the mission tapes, which would show what her sensors had recorded. Always an agreeable girl, Sadie had had the good sense to wedge herself into the dirt at only a slight angle, making it comparatively easy for Conrad to pick his way through the mangled metal and retrieve the video.
Except that the cartridge refused to budge.
“Haven’t all day, Sadie,” Conrad complained, but the stricken plane refused to give up her prize. The pilot stepped back, unholstered his personal pistol — a German Glock, as it happened — and fired a salvo at the locking mechanism guarding the access panel.
Sadie groaned, but the foreign bullet glanced harmlessly away. Conrad tried again. This time, the ricochet nearly skinned the side of his face.
He threw himself against the plane, this time putting the gun to much better use as a hammer. Smashing back and forth, he was finally able to wedge the barrel in and use it as a lever. He paused, took out the gun and contemplated a fresh attack, when the tape inexplicably spit out.
“Thanks, Sadie.” Conrad slapped the plane on her fuselage, then stood back and gave her a proper salute. But any temptation to linger was overwhelmed by the sound of trucks approaching across the desert. He took two steps away, turning to his right as the vehicles emerged from the shadows, ripping through the dust no more than a quarter-mile away. They must be coming for the wreckage he thought, starting to run, but as he did a shell landed less than fifty yards away, throwing him forward in the grit.
But that was just as well — a machine-gun began firing from one of the vehicles, its stream of red tracers slicing through the air only a few inches from his head.
And then a roar from above overwhelmed the noise of the Iraqi vehicles and their hellish gunfire. The rattling sound could only be properly described as the snort from a very angry animal.
A Hog, as a matter of fact.
Conrad’s guardian angels had arrived.
CHAPTER 19
Doberman nudged his rudder pedals, lining up the crosshairs on the shadow closest to the downed Tornado. Before he could press the trigger, red sparks spewed from his target.
“Aim higher,” he told the enemy armored personnel carrier. Then his thumb danced over the trigger button, first to one side, then the other. “Bing-bang-boing,” he said, unleashing a flood of spent uranium at the Iraqi vehicle. The spray decimated the enemy, like hot water eliminating a spider.
Doberman worked his pedals, pushing his aim toward a second shadow; another bing-bang-boing and more than a hundred shells erased the Iraqi vehicle, this one apparently a truck with some type of medium-sized gun mounted over the cab.
Glenon pulled back, sweeping around as he temporarily lost his bearings in the dark shadows of the fast-approaching night.
“I have something moving near the plane,” said Gunny, viewing the scene through his Maverick’s IR seeker in Devil Four.
“Pilot?”
“Uh, can’t see. Should we drop a log?” said his wingman, asking if they should light a flare.
“Hold off. Hang on. Fuck.”
Doberman yanked his stick back with all his weight, just barely pulling off the ground. Paying attention to the windscreen instead of his instruments, he’d inadvertently dropped too low. Flying the Hog at night wasn’t necessarily difficult, but you had to pay attention to what you were doing.
He circled south of the two trucks and the damaged airplane, the altimeter nailed on three hundred feet above ground level. Devil Four was circling several thousand feet above and slightly to the south.
The players were getting hard to see. A flare might be a good idea.
Except it would help the Iraqis find their guys.
One of the remaining trucks fired its machine-gun, the stream of bullets arcing across the desert as Doberman passed. He rolled the Hog and sailed into what amounted to a 165-degree turn, pushing the wings out level as he got the nose angled onto the shadow. He lost speed and altitude — he was maybe ten feet off the ground when he put his nose on his target. Devil Three didn’t seem to mind, though, nor did she complain when he kicked the Avenger 30mm Gatling back into action, a full three-second burst obliterating the tiny stream of machine-gun fire that was now aimed directly at his face.
Something scraped against his belly as he let off the trigger. For a moment Doberman thought he actually did hit the ground — he was very, very low. But as he pulled up past the smoked target, he realized it must have been bullets from the Iraqi striking the Hog’s titanium armor.
If they’d done any damage, the emergency lights weren’t admitting it. All systems were in the green.
“Saved the best for last,” said Gunny. “You nailed a tank. T-54, looks like.”
“Three,” said Doberman. He’d flailed back at the target so fast he hadn’t even known what he was hitting.
“Thanks, Yanks!” shouted a voice over the emergency rescue band. It was Sister Sadie’s pilot.