“I understand, BJ. I appreciate your getting the word to me right away on this.”
“I thought you guys might have heard something.”
“Not yet. Most of the squadron’s just coming in.”
“You want me to…”
Dixon’s voice trailed off, most likely because he didn’t know exactly what to offer. Knowlington told him just to keep his ears open, but otherwise to go about his normal routine. The colonel had more than enough sources, formal and informal, to fill in all the blanks on his own.
“Thanks for calling me,” the colonel told him. “Look, don’t piss anybody off over there. I’m going to get you back ASAP.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
Knowlington just barely resisted the impulse to shove the phone through the wall. Mongoose had been diverted sixty miles north? Shit, why not just send him up to Baghdad and get it over with?
Sending Hogs that far into enemy territory was contrary to just about every lesson the air force had learned since Eddie Rickenbacher got his sights on a German biplane. The plane had been specifically built for close-in ground support. Because of that, she was slow, didn’t carry much in the way of sophisticated ECMs, and was unsuited for anything but low altitude tactics.
She was a fantastic tank buster and a hell of a ground attack meat-grinder; the Army loved her. The men who flew her rated as some of the best stick and rudder jocks Knowlington had ever met. But send her on missions deep into Injun territory and eventually you were bound to lose her. This wasn’t a black jet or a Strike Eagle you were talking about here.
Knowlington had written something like that in a report many years back, when the Hog’s viability was being studied and he was pulling an unwished-for stint on someone’s evaluation staff.
He had, in fact, recommended the plane been phased out.
Ancient history.
But the missions on Day One of the air war had been just as deep, and he had gone along with them. Where was his head then?
More to the point, why did he let someone else lead them? Over-the-hill or not, it was his job, his duty, as commander to be at the head of the line, not back. Screw anyone who had a different opinion.
And screw his other problems. He was beyond them. Today, anyway.
In his experience, the odds on recovery were a real downward curve against time— the quicker you made radio contact, the better the odds of a good extraction. The problem was that things had a tendency to go less than perfectly. In the first rush of landing your head got scrambled and even the most experienced pilot made poor decisions. Shock jumbled your brain in weird ways; he’d heard of guys who’d neglected to use their radios or flares, and even one who inflated his life raft and got aboard in the middle of a jungle.
It was getting late; if they hadn’t already made contact with him, there was a real good chance Mongoose would be spending part of the night in Indian country.
Assuming he wasn’t already a prisoner, or permanent resident.
Looking out his small office window at the steadily darkening sky, the colonel refused to consider those possibilities.
CHAPTER 21
Mongoose dropped flat in the sand. He pushed up and saw the truck, still maybe a mile away on the road, then reached beneath him for his service pistol.
The 9mm Beretta was a serious gun, a good one, well-cared for, meticulously cleaned at least once a day.
Hopefully he wouldn’t have to use it. He tucked his elbows beneath his body and levered himself into a kneel, and then a crouch. He looked toward the roadway and out into the wasteland. The blur driving toward him in the darkening twilight sharpened into a white pickup. It seemed out of place, and for a moment he felt a strange dislocation, as if instead of being in southern Iraq the wind had carried him all the way back to the States, over to Iowa or South Dakota.
Had the terrain looked a hair less desert-like, he might even have believed that.
Just because it was a pickup didn’t mean that it wasn’t an army truck. And even if it was being driven by a civilian, it still presented a very real danger. Most likely there was a price on his head.
Dead as well as alive.
The truck kept coming. The driver had his running lights on but not his headlights; probably he could see well enough without them since the sun had only just gone down. Besides, putting them on was an invitation to get smoked.
Mongoose felt his legs and back stiffening. The truck driver would have a clear view of him, assuming he looked in his direction.
He could easily be seen if he got up and ran. Best to stay still, hope the guy wasn’t paying attention, or the shadows obscured him. Movement attracted the eye.
The Beretta had a faintly oily feel to it. It was warm in his hand, and heavy. He put his left hand around the right, giving himself a good, steady platform to fire from.
Mongoose had learned to shoot when he was ten, plinking cans with his dad’s BB pistol in the backyard. He’d moved up to a .22 rifle, took a gun safety and marksmanship course in the Boy Scouts. By the time he got to the service he’d become a reasonably accurate shot, even with a handgun. He might not be a marksman, but compared to most Air Force officers he was William Tell.
He had a good firing position, well anchored in the ground. If the guy stopped, he could smoke him. The road was less than ten yards away— a good shot with a pistol, but not spectacular.
Belatedly, the pilot thought of trying to hide. But there didn’t seem to be any sense; it wasn’t like he had enough time to dig a hole in the streambed.
It was his job to take out this guy.
No, his job was to survive. First rule, only rule.
Most likely, the guy would pass him by.
If he was like a farmer in Iowa, probably he’d be so focused on his work or where he was going or what was playing on the radio, he’d never notice someone crouching five meters off the road.
But the truck started to slow.
Mongoose’s mouth was dry. The gun was heavy in his hands; he tried to relax his arm muscles a bit, ignoring the pain in his head.
What could the guy have seen?
The plane? Sure, but that was miles away.
The chute?
Maybe. Falling objects did have a tendency to attract attention, even in Iraq.
The truck stopped directly in front of the wadi. It looked like a Toyota, five or six years old at least. Its front end was crimped and crinkled, and it had a dirty sheen to it.
It was ten yards away, even a little less.
The driver cranked down the window and looked at him. The man’s face was illuminated by a dull glow from the instrument panel. It was unshaven, with a thick mustache but a spotty beard, black and grayish whiskers patched around his chin. He was wearing a white shirt and some sort of hat. He stared at Mongoose the way a man might stare at a tiger found in its cage on a city street.
I should smoke him, Mongoose thought.
Had the man gotten out of the truck, had he raised a gun to the window, the pilot would have brought his pistol up an inch and fired. There was no question of hitting him. Mongoose saw it all in a far corner of his mind, saw himself pumping the trigger four or five times, saw one of the slugs catching the man in the shoulder, wounding him only, but enough to stop him from getting away. Mongoose saw himself jumping up from the crouch, breath hot and shallow in his lungs, saw himself run and pump two bullets into the man’s head.
He could have done all this, and he would have had the man done anything but stare. He would have done it without agonizing or even thinking much about it, because it was his job to survive. He would have done it because he had to.