Still, her heart seemed to stop when he touched her shoulder gently.
She let herself step back into the borrowed body for a brief moment, turning and hugging him. It was a warm hug, and even though the world sat at a slant, even though the light seemed all wrong, there was a certain comfort — maybe a great comfort.
“Gotta work,” she said, pushing away sharply, regaining herself. “Gotta get this done ASAP. Sorry.”
Silent, Dixon stood watching her. How long he stood there, she couldn’t say, but she knew when she turned that he would be gone; and he was.
CHAPTER 65
“You did a goddamn good job,” the general told Knowlington after he picked up the phone in his office. “You hit a grand slam.”
Knowlington pulled out his chair and sat down as the general continued. The British were ecstatic, the Delta people were ecstatic, even the CinC, the man himself, was ecstatic.
They all knew that he’d lost a pilot. They weren’t being insensitive; they were putting it in perspective.
Actually, they were being insensitive, but that was the way it was. Skull would have expected no less if he had bought it and Preston managed to get the MiG back to the base intact.
He’d circled the wreck while the SAR people came in. The pararescuers told him Preston had been ripped from the parachute by the force of the ejection. The Iraqi gear had been damaged somehow; one of the clasps had come loose, the strap ripped, or both. Even so, it was a freak accident, a one in a million shot.
“Just unlucky,” said the pararescuer.
The plane had crashed in the desert about a mile away. A team had already secured it for transport. There had been no fire. Wong, who was en route to the scene, suspected that the plane’s fuel system had malfunctioned and the tanks had run bone dry.
Maybe one of the gauges on the dash had malfunctioned. Maybe Hack had miscalculated by using the afterburners. Maybe they’d made a mistake on the ground when they loaded the fuel in. Any of those things could have happened. Maybe all of them had.
Even so, it shouldn’t have been fatal. Worst case, Hack should have been able to float down to earth, cursing the whole way.
A freak, unlucky thing.
There’d be a thick report circulated around the Pentagon and Congress and even the White House.
“Preston deserves a medal,” said the general.
“Absolutely,” Knowlington agreed.
“We want that in high gear. We may go for the big one. I think it’s worth it. Risked his life under fire. Honor for us all.”
“Okay,” said Knowlington.
The line went silent for a moment. “Preston wasn’t a friend of yours, was he?”
“Hated my guts, I think.”
“Word is he wanted your job.”
“Wouldn’t want a DO who didn’t.”
“We’ll get you a replacement. Say Mike, did you call to give me a backdoor on the mission? Or was something else up?”
To quit, to walk away — it would be like leaving a job half done. It would be like letting down his guys, his kids, his boys.
Damn, he wanted a drink. He wanted it so bad his tongue burned and he could feel anger rising inside. He wanted it so bad he felt like yelling into the phone, screaming: “I just lost a goddamn pilot! And why? Why? Because grabbing a plane out from Saddam’s nose was just too cool a thing to pass up!… Because I felt sorry for myself and wanted to go out in a blaze of glory… Because Hack wanted my job and figured he could get it by pulling off the impossible… Because of some freak, uncontrollable accident.”
Because that’s the way war was.
He wanted a drink, and somehow that was enough to make him stay.
“Yeah,” he told the general. “I knew you weren’t in the loop.”
“I appreciate it, Mikey. Commendation in this for you, too. Maybe a medal.”
If he’d had just a little more strength, or been a little less tired, or needed a drink a little less badly, he might have told the general what he could do with the medal. Instead he just hung up the phone.
A NOTE TO READERS
While “suggested by an actual operating area near the front line, Ar Kehy is an invention, as is the Iraqi base. As usual, I played around with some of the architecture and furniture of the historical places mentioned in the book.
RAF Tornados served with great distinction in a variety of roles during the Gulf War. Sister Sadie and her crew, of course, are fictitious, although the advanced near-real-time reconnaissance systems described in the book are not.
At the time this book was written, British SAS operations were covered by the Official Secrets Act, but there have nonetheless been some interesting and detailed reports about British goings-on in Iraq. Among the most entertaining is Andy McNab’s Bravo Two Zero, which was published in America in 1994 by Island Books.
Some specific details relating to actual combat operations or procedures that could conceivably aid an enemy during war have been omitted or obscured. Some details covering special operations, intelligence, and technical information-gathering processes have been slightly altered. The changes haven’t materially affected the tale.
I’d like to say thank you to my wife and editorial assistant, Debra Scacciaferro, who re-edited and updated all six of these long-out-of-print books in the original Hogs series into e-book format so that these stories would find a new audience in the 21rst century.
Check six, and whatever you do, don’t spill the coffee.
— Jim DeFelice
www.jimdefelice.com
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