“BJ! Yo, Dixon, here dude!”
Dixon turned abruptly, continuing on a dead run to a topless Humvee waiting near a building on his right. Though the chassis of the truck was familiar, it seemed to have been modified until it looked almost like a surfer’s vehicle.
“What I’m talkin’ about!” shouted the driver, a large man fully dressed in flight gear — A-Bomb O’Rourke, the one and only. “We’re late. Hop in. You can chow down on the way over.”
Dixon threw his gear into the Hummer and climbed aboard. It didn’t surprise him that A-Bomb had met him, nor was he shocked when offered a large and seemingly authentic McDonald’s bag of fries and a double-cheeseburger.
“My daily McDonald’s fix,” said A-Bomb, whipping the vehicle in the direction of the life support shop, “figured you’d be hungry.”
The food was warm — as incredible a feat, no doubt, as A-Bomb’s inexplicable ability to have one FedExed fresh to him each day no matter where he was. Dixon, who hadn’t realized he was hungry, started wolfing the fries.
“Sorry. All I got’s a Coke,” said A-Bomb, thumbing toward the back. “Was supposed to be a strawberry shake. Can’t count on the help these days.”
“Good to see you,” said Dixon between bites.
“What I’m talking about,” said A-Bomb. He whipped the wheel to the right; the Hummer rose off two wheels and then plumped back down. “Got some Sat pix, map for you,” added the captain.
“Pictures?” Normally Hog drivers did without elaborate target intelligence; most guys considered getting an exact coordinate for an IP, the initial point to start an attack run, to be a comprehensive mission plan. Rarely did they work with photos of what they were going to strike..
“I take care of my guys.” A-Bomb whipped the wheel to the right and then back to the left, dodging a fuel truck. “We cross the border, hook up with the colonel and Antman. Go north, blah-blah-blah. Only thing we worry about is an SA-2 that has some coverage near the southwestern tip of the base. We have to jog around that, which is a pain in the butt, but once we’re in, it’s a free ride. Not much to worry about at the target area. Right now it looks like they have two missile trucks there, SA-9s. I have ‘em marked out. I take that SA-9 on the right, splash some guns on the hills overlooking the field. You get the other launcher, that gun at the far western end. Helos come in. We blow up anything that fucking moves, blah-blah-blah. Routine.”
“Yup.”
“Weather’s improving. Shit-ass wind last night, but supposed to be calm, clear skies tonight. Picnic weather. It’s what I’m talking about.”
“Uh-huh.”
A-Bomb turned to look at Dixon. His voice changed, suddenly serious. “You up for this kid?”
“You sound like my high school baseball coach.”
“You up for this, kid?”
“I can nail it.”
O’Rourke didn’t say anything.
“I’m going to fucking nail it,” Dixon said, glancing forward. “Uh, there’s a truck coming.”
A-Bomb whipped the wheel hard, getting out of the way. His eyes remained on BJ. “Tough time up there. I heard about that little kid.”
“Yeah.” The word bleated from his throat, more a groan than an actual syllable with meaning.
“You got a problem, you let me know. No matter fucking what.”
Dixon nodded. “Let’s kick some fuckin’ butt, huh?”
“What I’m talking about,” said A-Bomb, mashing the gas pedal.
CHAPTER 34
By the time the British transport helicopter approached the small base near the Iraqi border where the Delta and SAS team was holed up, “Hack” Preston knew he was going to nail this mission. Colonel Knowlington and Wong had arranged for him to speak via satellite phone with two different Western experts about the MiG, who had confirmed his own impressions and filled him with good advice. The Fulcrum was a pilot’s plane, steady and predictable, faster than hell, and relatively uncomplicated. It was difficult if not impossible to get her to stall or to spin unintentionally. Takeoff and landing were faster than in most Western jets, but straightforward. Piece of cake.
Of course, they didn’t know the mission details, and only one of them had actually flown the plane. But that didn’t matter — Hack was doing it.
His main worry was starting the MiG off auxiliary power; he decided that if he could figure that out, he could get it into the air. The strip was very short, allegedly twelve hundred feet, which was more than four hundred less than the rated takeoff distance. But the MiG’s engines were powerful as hell and the airplane had been designed for STOL or short-takeoff-and-landing operations. Hack wouldn’t be carrying weapons, nor did he have to worry about having enough fuel for a round trip. Besides, the Iraqis wouldn’t have landed there without having a way to get off.
Once he was in the air, it’d be a piece of cake. He would climb to thirty thousand feet and fly along a prearranged course — nearly due south, with a turn at the border. A pair of F-14s would escort him, communicating with him over the UHF band. His only problem would be landing at KKMC — not technically difficult perhaps, but the first time landing an unfamiliar plane always got the adrenaline going. Still, it would be daylight, in perfect weather, with no traffic and a thousand cheerleaders.
Piece of cake.
Assuming they got the plane. The Brits had assigned forty more men to the assault team, along with a mechanic who had worked on a German MiG during a brief exchange program. But their time on the ground would be severely limited.
If the runway really was that short, maybe the Iraqis didn’t actually intend on flying the plane out. The tanker truck Wong had seen might turn out to be filled with water. The MiG might turn out to have no engines or worse, much worse, just be a wooden dummy.
No way. It was his.
Returning home with a full intelligence report would be fine. Everyone at CentCom would want to talk to him. After the war it would send him on a talking tour of the Pentagon, NATO, and probably Congress as well. But he wasn’t about to settle for that. He was nailing this baby, and he was going to be famous: Major Horace Gordon Preston, the man who stole Saddam’s MiG.
Colonel Preston, more likely.
General Preston, without doubt.
Hack hoisted the canvas duffel bag with his backup flight gear and jumped down from the British transport helicopter as it touched down. Breaking into a trot, he ran past a set of artillery pieces sandbagged near a bunker area. The night was quiet; it was like being on a movie set, not a base a grenade’s throw from the enemy.
“You’re out of your fucking mind if you think we’re getting that plane out of there in one piece,” said Hawkins, materializing from behind a pile of sandbags. They’d never met, but his voice — and attitude — were instantly recognizable. “The Iraqis aren’t going to stand back and let you take it.”
“Listen Captain. You do your job, I’ll do mine,” Hack told him. “And I’m a major, thank you.”
“That don’t mean jack up here,” said Hawkins.
By reputation as well as demeanor, Delta Force was the toughest, most daring unit in the entire U.S. military, if not the world. Hawkins pissed him off, but what did it say that he didn’t think this could be done?
That Hawkins was a wimp. Because Hack was doing it.
“If you think your guys can’t complete the mission, you should have said so,” Preston told him.