“Shit yeah!” yelled Fernandez. “I knew he’d make it.”
The others were laughing and cheering. Hawkins pushed back into the helicopter, where he found Wong leaning against the wall, examining a diagram of the base drawn out on one of the satellite photos.
“You pulled it off,” Hawkins told his old friend. “Another medal.”
Wong looked up from the map and blinked twice, an owl surprised by a searchlight in the forest. Hawkins laughed so hard he nearly lost his balance.
“What?” asked Wong.
“Nothing, Bristol.” He looked back at his men, who were now settling in along the far side of the Pave Hawk. From their perspective, it had been a kick-ass mission — one enemy base neutralized, one front-line fighter stolen. Saddam had had his ass kicked, and his toilet paper stolen from his stall for good measure. The D boys were all wearing smiles, trying to tell stories over the steady beat of the MH-60’s rotors.
Things weren’t likely to be so light-hearted in the SAS choppers. Miraculously, the crew in the Chinook that had crashed had gotten out with only minor scratches. Still, the Brits had lost two men — Sergeant Burns and one of the paratroopers assaulting the buildings. There had been maybe a half-dozen wounded besides. More importantly, the captured SAS men hadn’t been found.
Two men, a helicopter. Even without the hijacking of the MiG, the general commanding the operation would no doubt consider the losses acceptable, given their objective. You took care of your own, no matter the odds or circumstance.
Hawkins agreed with that. But Burns hadn’t died in the assault on the buildings. He’d been killed getting the plane, maybe by Hawkins himself. The plane wasn’t worth a man’s death. Wong himself said the West already knew a great deal about the fighters.
But they were all going to look like heroes, Hawkins especially.
Fernandez said something and everyone around him, even Eugene, laughed. As Hawkins leaned toward them to catch what it was, Wong grabbed his arm, pulling him with him as he leaned into the cockpit area and peered through the front glass.
“What’s up?” Hawkins yelled to him.
The Air Force intelligence officer ignored the question, pointing back to the east and yelling at the pilot. The Pave Hawk helicopter pilot pitched the helicopter back toward the southern edge of the base.
“What’s the story, Bristol?” Hawkins yelled as Wong slipped over to the window next to the Minimi gunner.
“The bunker area south of the base,” said Wong.
“Yeah? We pinned them down but left them. They were too far to bother us, and across a minefield.”
“Why were there soldiers there?” said Wong. “Why so far from the area of importance when they could not expect an attack by land? The bunkers, well hidden — what do they hold?”
He handed Hawkins the sketch he’d been examining before. Hawkins stared at the area Wong had referred to, but saw nothing.
“Bombs?”
“Too far away.” Wong pointed. “Buzz that gully there, running south from the road. There is another bunker there.”
“What?”
Wong frowned, then pushed past to talk to the pilot. Hawkins put his head to the window.
Dead Iraqis lay in the distance, slumped behind the meager defensive posts they had manned. The base lay well beyond them, the smoke now thinning.
A scratch road, no more than a trail in the desert, ran along the perimeter of the base, linking the defensive posts. It jogged south at a point parallel to the southwest corner of the airstrip, running to a small circle in front of a bunker. Calling the dug-in position a bunker was giving it a status it didn’t deserve — it was more like a tarped lean-to, and a small one at that.
There were footprints in the sand near it, though, a lot of footprints. As he stared at them, Hawkins realized that there was another bunker there, this one an actual concrete structure hidden by the sand.
“The guns, man the guns!” he shouted. “Yo, get your weapons. Wake up! Wake up!”
A figure popped out of the bunker, then another, and another. The .50 caliber gunner took aim.
“No,” said Wong, grabbing the man. “They’re surrendering.”
Wong was right. Six Iraqis came out of the bunker in the desert, waving white and tan shirts.
Two other figures came out behind him.
The paratroopers, who had now reversed roles with their captors. They motioned at the Iraqis, and all six of the soldiers dropped to their stomachs, hands on the backs of their heads.
“Holy shit fuck,” said Fernandez. Hawkins had to grab him to keep him from leaping from the helicopter. They were still a good fifty feet off the ground.
“Obviously not Republican Guards,” said Wong, who seemed disappointed. “We may have to call for help to take the prisoners,” he added. “There won’t be room.”
“I think we can manage to squeeze the bastards in,” said Hawkins, far from disappointed. “I think we can manage very well.”
CHAPTER 56
Skull had run ahead of the MiG as Hack took off, but the Mikohyan made up the distance quickly, climbing upwards faster than the A-10 could go in level flight. The last of the helicopters cleared off the ground a few seconds later. Skull’s job there was done.
He tracked onto the MiG’s trail, intending to run behind until the backup escorts caught Hack. In the meantime, he gave the AWACS a good read on its location and direction, relaying the fact that “Splash Bird” had no radio communications.
“Devil Leader, be advised Vapor Flight has been diverted,” added the controller. He told Knowlington that not only the F-14’s but the backup flight of F-15C’s had now been vectored north in an attempt to splash Iraqi MiGs. A pair of F-16s were being pressed into service as guard dogs for the helicopters, which were now clear of Splash and flying to the west.
Coyote asked Skull to hang on with Preston as long as he could. “Mirage 2000s’s en route, call sign Jacques. Should meet you near the border. Request you hold your present course until they arrive.”
“The escort is French?”
“They speak English,” snapped the controller before giving him their frequency and contact information.
Skull took down the data, then clicked into the Frenchies’ circuit, but couldn’t pick them up. The planes flew out of Bahrain and were still a good distance away; even optimistically, they wouldn’t be within radar range for at least ten minutes.
The AWACS had alerted the Allied fighters to the fact that the MiG running south was on their side. The controller assured Skull he’d broadcast updates on its position, as well as warn anything that came close. At the moment though, Skull was the only plane even near him.
Near, being an extremely relative term, as was evident by the controller’s fix. Hack was twenty miles ahead and pulling away.
“Still climbing,” said the controller.
“Thirty angels was briefed,” Hack reminded Coyote. They had set thirty thousand feet for the egress to lessen the possibility of getting nailed by gunfire or pursuers, but the relatively high altitude was a problem for Skull. The Hog’s engines whined just clearing fifteen thousand feet. Thirty thousand feet might very well be a world altitude record for a Hog.
Maybe Hack would bring it down a bit when he realized the pointy-noses had missed the rendezvous. Hopefully, he’d at least slow down.
Preston would be okay as a commander. He would come off as too arrogant, a bit to stuck up — but hell, after this, he’d have the bona fides. Show down one MiG, stole another. People would line up to serve with him.