If the SAM operators decided to target the a-10s — and even if no radar anywhere in Iraq had detect them, the planes were certainly low and slow enough to have been eyeballed by now in the early light — the chugging Hog was dead meat.
Insisting that he take all the known targets was equally insane. The Maverick launches were one thing — the AGM-65s could be targeted and fired from a good distance away. But the cluster-bombs had to be released essentially over the target, which meant that likely as not O’Rourke would be plunging into a hail of flak to kick them off. With one engine — hell, with two — yanking and banking to duck even optically guided 23mm shells was not an easy way to make a living. Half the push as you recovered meant the gunners had twice the chance to nail you.
BJ shifted against his seat restraints, hunkering over his stick, pushing himself into the red zone.
The Iraqi missile was probably dead. It hadn’t come up last night. Wouldn’t now.
Dixon checked his weapons panel, made sure he was ready to go with the Mavs, glanced at the targeting screen. It took patience to work the blurs into a hittable target, and he wasn’t feeling particularly patient.
His mind flashed on Becky, the warm feel of her body next to his in bed, her softness. He wanted her warmth. He hadn’t realized how good it could feel before, or perhaps he hadn’t needed it before. It didn’t erase everything. It didn’t banish the memory of the kid or everything else, but it was something he wanted. He didn’t feel cold anymore.
BJ’s eyes itched. He moved them up from the screen, looked outside the plane, checked the HUD, went back to the IR image in the video.
The target area dribbled into the top corner of the screen. Dixon found the dim shadow of an SA-9 launcher, or at least thought he did — definitely yes. He slipped the cursor toward it in case A-Bomb missed. He took a breath and checked his altitude, nudging through thirteen thousand feet. His left hand tightened on the throttle and he looked toward A-Bomb’s plane, watching for the burst that would show he’d fired; waiting for the yell in his ears over the short-range radio announcing the game was on.
He waited, but what he heard was not A-Bomb’s triumphant screech but the warning blare of the RWR, and a scream from the AWACS controller, their impromptu duet announcing that the Iraqi SA-2 battery had launched a pair of missiles in their direction.
CHAPTER 39
Captain Hawkins leaned back, trying to see their target area through the Pave Hawk’s windscreen. It would have taken better eyes than he possessed — Splash was still nearly ten miles away. The two helo pilots worked silently in the cockpit, fingers jumping across the cockpit panels in an elaborate ballet. Every so often one would point to something; inevitably the gesture would be answered by a thumbs-up.
The aircraft the two men were flying was based on the Sikorsky S-70/H-60 Blackhawk, the military’s standard utility helicopter. The successor to the ubiquitous UH-1 Huey, the base model could carry an eleven-man squad and three or four crew members roughly six hundred miles before refueling. While combat use generally shortened the range, the type was considerably faster and longer legged than the versatile Huey. The MH-60G Pave Hawk — an Air Force ship often used on Spec Op missions, as well for combat SAR or rescue operations — differed from the standard H-60 in several key aspects. Among the most important for this mission were advanced ground-following radar, an infra-red radar, satellite communications and position finder, and range-extending fuel tanks.
Hawkins pushed back against the wall of the helicopter, tightening his grip on the restraining strap. He’d been standing pretty much the whole way. He hated sitting for more than five minutes as a general rule; going into combat he could never sit, could hardly even stand still. He didn’t fidget over the operational details, much less worry about what might go wrong or what could go wrong. He also didn’t check his gear a million times — once after takeoff was good enough for him. But he couldn’t sit, and he couldn’t stand still.
Most of the D boys were standing, too. The exception was Fernandez, whom he’d told to mind Major Hawkins and the British mechanic, who were crouched on the floor talking about the MiG. The Delta sergeant perched on a jumpseat behind the two men, occasionally glaring at their backs like an angry babysitter.
The British sergeant was an older man who looked as if he’d been rousted from bed. Huddled on the floor beneath an over-sized parka, he looked more like a mound than a man, his limbs hunched together, his face whiter than porcelain. The man had no more volunteered for this mission than Fernandez had asked to watch him; how much he might really be able to accomplish was anyone’s guess, even though he seemed to know a lot about the plane. He’d told Hawkins his name was Eugene, pronouncing it with great emphasis on both syllables. If he had a last name, it had been drowned out by the noise of the helicopter.
Preston, on the other hand, was practically tap-dancing. He kept gesturing and nodding. Obviously a blowhard, the Air Force major had no perspective on anything beyond his nose.
What the hell did any pilot know about war, anyway? The fucks flew a million miles away from any real danger, pushed a button, went home. That was their war — roll around with a local girl, trying to forget the hardship involved in drinking beer instead of champagne.
Granted, some of the A-10 pilots were different.
Doberman had personally saved Hawkins’s butt by nailing a MiG in air-to-air combat. He was a nasty son of a bitch with a temper so fierce he would have been washed out of Special Operations training — hell, out of the Army — in maybe five minutes. But he used it to his advantage in the air.
BJ Dixon had humped a rucksack and saved one of Hawkins’ best squad leaders, and to hear the old coot talk about the pilot now you’d think he was in love. Dixon had lived off the land for a couple of days and managed to get his butt snared in a STAR pickup — so you knew he wasn’t the usual wimp shit pilot.
A-Bo0mb, what a piece of work. Stranded temporarily at Fort Apache, he’d helped one of Hawkin’s sergeants capture a tanker truck that turned out to be a chemical weapons ferry. Even more impressive, the SOB won a desert “dune buggy” off a Spec Ops command in a poker game and knew more about weapons than half the men in Delta Force.
And Colonel Knowlington had bona fides that stretched back before Hawkins was born. So four exceptions to the general rule of pilots being shitheads.
The only other Air Force officer that Hawkins knew well was Bristol Wong, but he was in a whole different category — a Spec Ops guy born and bred, assigned to the Air Force only by some weird fit of fate, or maybe as penance for serious sins in an earlier lifetime. Just now he was leaning over the door gunner, no doubt offering some arcane tip on how to increase the weapon’s accuracy.
But Preston was a typical goober. No way was he getting the plane out.
Hawkins suspected the MiG would be gone before they got there. The Iraqis weren’t quite as dumb as they seemed.
But what the hell. They were in it now.
He turned his head and glanced toward the sliding window, where one of the crewmen was fingering the 7.62mm mini-gun. A long tube attached to the gun would catch spent shells, ferrying them outside where they could be safely ejected. The gun was similar to the SAW Hawkins had outfitted himself with, and nicely complimented the .50-cal door-mounted weapon.