The sharp maneuvers sent gravity crushing against his body. Even as his g suit worked furiously to ward off the pressure, Hack’s world narrowed to a pinprick of brown and blue, surrounded by a circle of black. He heard nothing. He felt nothing. He knew his fingers were curled hard around the stick, but only because he saw them there.
The plane was going where he didn’t want it to.
He pulled back on the stick, struggling to clear his head and keep himself airborne. The black circle began to retreat. The wings lifted suddenly, air pushing the plane upward. Something rumbled against the rudders.
I’m hit.
Damn, I’m going in.
His lungs had a thousand sharp points, digging into the soft tissue around them.
Do your best.
The plane’s shudder ceased. He caught his arm, easing back, leveling off.
He was free. The missile that had been chasing him had given up, exploding a few yards behind as it reached the end of its range.
Or maybe he’d just imagined it all in his panic. Maybe the g’s rushing against his body had temporarily knocked him senseless; made him hallucinate. In any event, he was free, alive and unscathed, or at least not seriously wounded.
As deliberately as he could manage, Hack took stock of himself and his position. He was about three miles south of the target area, now clearly marked by black smoke. Open desert lay below and directly south. He was at five thousand feet, climbing very slightly, moving at just over 350 knots — a fair clip for a Hog.
Fuel was low, but not desperate.
Where the hell was A-Bomb?
“Devil Two,” he said over the squadron frequency. “Lost Airman. A-Bomb?”
“Yo,” responded his wingmate.
“Where the hell are you?”
“I’m just north of Saddam’s used parking lot, helping them put up the going out of business sign.”
“Where the hell are you?” Hack repeated.
“Relax Devil leader,” said O’Rourke. “I got you. Hold your horses and I’ll be on your butt. We’re clean.”
“What do you mean, we’re clean?”
“I mean the only thing we have to worry about is running into some of those pointy-nose types on their way to mop up.”
“What are you screwing around for? Check your fuel. Come on. Didn’t you get a bingo?”
A-Bomb didn’t answer, which was just fine with Hack. He turned southwards to intersect the original course back to King Khalid, where they would refuel before heading back to the Home Drome at King Fahd.
Dark curls of black wool filled the eastern horizon. Saddam had set the Kuwait oil fields on fire and released thousands, maybe millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf, doing to the environment what he had done to Kuwait.
“Got your back,” said A-Bomb, announcing that he had caught up and was now in combat trail, roughly a mile offset behind Hack’s tail. “How ‘bout we find a tanker instead of going into Khalid? Their coffee sucks.”
“Can it.”
“Man, you’re being bitchy. What happened? That SA-7 get your underwear dirty?”
This time, Hack was the one who didn’t reply.
CHAPTER 6
Lieutenant Colonel Michael “Skull” Knowlington lowered his head toward the desktop, stretching his neck and shoulder muscles until he could feel the strain in the middle of his back. Then he rolled his head around slowly, trying to keep his shoulders relaxed as he completed each revolution, counterclockwise, moving his head as slowly as he could manage. Six more times and he put his chin on his chest, covering his face with his hands, fingers massaging his temples. Then he dropped his arms and sat upright in the chair, breathing slowly.
Though dissipated, his headache had not quite disappeared. The throb was familiar and low-grade, potentially manageable by one of several additional therapies, including what Skull called “the oxygen cure” — breathing pure oxygen through his pilot’s face mask. But there were only two real cures — one was time, the other was a drink.
Or perhaps they were the same, for wasn’t he destined to drink, again, and again, and again, sooner or later?
Knowlington had been sober for twenty-three days before last night. Then, on the ground at KKMC, waiting for his umpteenth debriefing, someone had stuck a beer in his hand and he’d slipped down a long, familiar hole.
Wrong.
No one made him drink the beer. He didn’t slip, he went willingly. He took the beer and drank it, then got another and another.
There were extenuating circumstances. He’d gotten back from a hellacious sortie north, fighting the odds to help rescue one of his pilots, one of his kids. B.J. Dixon had been a ground FAC, helping a Delta team spot Scuds deep in Iraq territory. Dixon — who was or at least ought to be sleeping in his quarters in nearby Tent City — had saved the life of one of the Delta boys but got separated from them in the process. Devil squadron had found him and brought him home.
As squadron commander, Knowlington had felt responsible for the kid and went along personally to bail him out. Everything had gone well — too damned well, which was the problem. He’d let his guard down.
Liar!
He’d wished for it. He’d known what was happening. The tingle in his mouth, the roar in his head — he knew what he was doing.
Just a few beers.
How long had he been sober before that? Two weeks? Three? He couldn’t even remember now.
Yesterday, he could have counted the minutes.
Michael Knowlington pushed back in his office chair, staring at the blank wall of his trailer headquarters.
God, he wanted a drink.
It would take him ten minutes, fifteen tops, to walk over to the Depot, an illegal “club” located just off the base property. A few slugs of Jack Daniel’s and he’d be back on his feet.
He wasn’t fit to command the squadron. He should resign.
Someone knocked. Skull turned toward the door, waiting a moment before saying anything, though he had already recognized the familiar rhythm of knuckles tapping against the frame.
“Come,” he said.
Chief Master Sergeant Allen Clyston pushed into the small office like a bear inspecting a new cave.
Clyston was the squadron’s first sergeant — and much, much more. He personally oversaw the maintenance of Devil Squadron’s twelve Hogs. In the squadron’s stripped-down organization chart, every enlisted arrow pointed to him: Knowlington’s capo di capo, the colonel’s right arm — and his left, and his legs, eyes and ears. Clyston was the last of a veritable mafia of enlisted men who had helped Knowlington through half-a-dozen commands and assignments stretching back to the waning days of Vietnam.
“Allen.”
“Colonel.” Clyston groaned as he slipped onto the metal chair across from Knowlington’s desk. “Ought to let me find you a real chair.”
“Don’t want visitors getting too comfortable,” said Skull. He tried smiling, then realized how forced it must seem.
“I hear ya,” said the sergeant. He folded his arms around his chest, leaning back in the chair so his gray-speckled head touched the wall. “Got a problem I thought you could help with.”
“Fire away.”
“Got a fix for the INS units,” said Clyston, referring to the gear that helped the A-10As navigate. Though a basic piece of equipment, the gear was notoriously unreliable and needed constant readjustments. “Kind of a work-around-upgrade thing, but we need a pair of special diodes I can’t seem to get through the usual sources.” Clyston reached into his pocket for a piece of paper. “Becky Rosen says she can give them a five-year, sixty-thousand-mile warranty if she gets this stuff.”