Wong appeared on the right wing, shouting.
They’d stopped the tractor.
“The configuration appears to be the most primitive export model,” said Captain Wong. “Do you concur?”
“Yeah, whatever,” said Preston, pushing himself up. He pulled the oxygen hose out from under his leg, untangling himself in the process. He found the end and inserted it into the panel, then sat back down, getting his bearings now — remembering himself, his plan, his checklist.
He needed his flight board. Not for the few notes he’d scribbled. Hell, they were useless now. He had all the important stuff memorized and he could, would remember it. But the cartoon, and Ecclesiastes, and most of all his dad’s advice — he couldn’t fly without them.
Wisdom exceeds folly.
Do you best
Don’t be superstitious, he told himself.
Hack turned his attention back to the plane. It had been outside the hangar, so the Iraqis might have already fueled it.
Power the instruments, find out.
Hack turned to the power panel on the right and began walking himself through the checklist he’d repeated on the flight from KKMC to the Delta base.
Power, number one. Switches set, check them front to back.
He remembered Lieutenant Romochka Dmitri Krainiye, the Commie pilot who took him up at Kubinka. He had walked Hack through it step by step. Easy stuff.
They’d puffed that engine, though, starting off an external power source.
Do your best.
Hack looked at the voltmeter in front of his crotch.
He had a good battery. Hot shit.
What was next?
As his eyes rose across the rest of the instruments, he felt a twinge of vertigo, dizzy suddenly, the rush from the hangar catching up with him.
Do your best.
He remembered his dad saying that to him during a Little League game when he was walking to the plate, bases loaded.
He’s struck out.
Blinking and then rubbing his eyes, Hack stared at the gauge faces. He recognized the clock, an old-fashioned dial at the base of the panel. It was his anchor.
Compass at the top right. HUD, of course, slaved to the radar. Gear below it. Armament on his right — hard to reach in a dogfight, not natural.
No place for a critique, he told himself.
Fuel gauge was a bar indicator with a flow gauge on the right side of the central panel. He’d had trouble keeping track of it during his flight at Kubinka — you had to stare at the damned thing to figure it out.
No fuel.
“Do you have power?” asked Wong.
“Yeah. Needs fuel. Get us some juice. I can go!” he yelled to Wong, pushing up out of the seat. “Four thousand kilos, no more. The runway’s damn short and I need this plane light.”
Wong started to complain, but Hack pulled himself out, rolling off the plane to get the flight gear.
Flames licked out of the hangar.
He’d have to undress the dead pilot, use his own helmet.
Preston rolled over the side of the plane, intending to walk along the cowling. He slipped, plummeting right to the ground. He hit awkwardly, but kept his balance, running to the dead man as a Hog whipped overhead, fifty feet off the runway. The ground shook with a massive explosion. An arm caught him as he began to fall.
“The Iraqis are sending reinforcements,” said Captain Hawkins, pulling him up and yelling in his face as two Apaches crossed overhead. “Maybe tanks and helicopters. If you’re going, you better make it fast.”
CHAPTER 43
Skull banked his plane back south, cutting back over the line of hills that lay to the east of Splash. Smoke curled from a dozen places as he flew, the battle sorting itself into several messy knots.
Closest to him was the hangar and apron area, where he could see the MiG being worked on perhaps seventy yards from the hangar. A Pave Hawks at the edge of the runway; .50-caliber bullets spitting from its doorway. An RAF Chinook skittered from the hangar area toward the buildings on the northwestern end of the complex.
Apache gunships zipped around the buildings, peppering them and the surrounding emplacements with rockets and gunfire. Smoke furled everywhere, in every sort of permutation — gray wisps and thick black clouds, red-tinted mushrooms, and diaphanous white scarves.
The commandos had entered the buildings. From what Knowlington could decipher from the excited communications, neither team had found any trace of their quarry. The SAS men were using mobile infrared radar units and other detectors. To lessen the chance of hitting their own men, the Apaches were in direct communication with the helicopters, but the gunships were not exactly subtle — every so often their chins would erupt in smoke and blue flame, and part of the buildings would implode.
The F-16s, their services not needed for the initial assault, had diverted to nearby secondary targets, including a small ammo dump or bunker area just below the runway. They were already en route home, leaving three A-10s — Skull and his wingman Antman, along with Dixon — to cover contingencies. The scheduled escort flight of four Navy F-14s had been reduced to two, apparently because of mechanical problems, the planes had just relieved the F-15s and would remain to escort Hack and the MiG back.
As Skull banked west, he saw a glint on the road about ten miles away, up toward the river and the highly populated area. He told Dixon and Antman to stay in a wheeling orbit over the airfield, then nudged his stick. As he did, he noticed a cloud of dust where the highway should be.
Splash Controller came over the circuit, reporting that one of the Apaches had seen a column of vehicles and possibly a helicopter approaching. Someone else came on the line, ignoring the controller’s attempt to keep them quiet. By the time the circuit cleared, Skull had changed course and identified targets in the dust cloud:
A dozen vehicles, including at least three light tanks or self-propelled guns and a jeep, coming along the highway toward Splash.
“Add two transport helicopters,” Skull told the Splash controller as the helos caught up to the column.
They were at a very low altitude, slowing as they caught the column. Mi-8 Hips, probably, large transport types that occasionally carried rockets in side packs along the cabin.
Skull studied the area beyond the helicopters, expecting escorts or other Hips to appear. He suspected there would be more — an entire formation of Mi-8’s and Mi-24 Hind gunships and Fishbeds, everything Saddam could throw at them.
Nothing.
They’d have to swing with the highway at a bend three miles away. Get the lead vehicles there with Mavericks, while the F-14’s splashed the helicopters.
On beam for that.
“I’m at two o’clock,” Dixon snapped as Skull alerted his flight. “I have the Hip.”
“Negative. Let the Navy boys take the helicopters. Stand off and let them in,” Skull told him. “We’ll get the column as it clears that bend northeast of the airport.”
Devil Two swooped ahead, well out of formation.
“Dixon? What the hell are you doing,” Skull said, flipping the transmit button off quickly and listening for an answer.
“Dixon, you’re supposed to be east where I told you to orbit. Acknowledge. Dixon! Dixon!”
CHAPTER 44
The seeker head in the Hog’s Sidewinder misled growled at him, anxious to launch. It had locked on the helicopter’s hot turbine engines from nearly eight miles away — much too far to fire and guarantee a hit.