But the man never moved toward him. He only stared from the truck, a voyeur in an unreal world. Mongoose stared back, equally out of place.
The hard thunder of an F-16 crossed into his consciousness. The plane was flying high, but very close.
The radio was on the ground. He’d have to take a hand off the gun to reach it.
Not possible.
Unless he shot the guy first. He should just squeeze the trigger and fire. Get him right through the open window, hit him in the face.
He was looking at him with such a blank, open expression. Something like wonder, not hostility.
A real enemy. A real person.
They stared at each other as the fighter’s noise faded. There was no question the Iraqi knew Mongoose didn’t belong here, and no question that by now he would have realized there was a gun in his hands.
Any move, even opening the door, even waving hello, he’d smoke him.
But why didn’t he just kill him now? He had a good, clean, clear shot.
Mongoose remained stock still, his movements held in balance by a hair-thin thread of fate.
Finally, the truck started to ease forward. It moved slowly, only gradually picking up speed, continuing down the highway in the direction it had been going before stopping.
The pilot remained kneeling until it had shrunk to the size of a worm in the distance. Slowly, carefully, he rose. He started to walk down the wadi, gingerly at first, then quickly, his legs falling into a trot.
For some reason he couldn’t fathom, he stopped and looked both ways before crossing the empty highway.
CHAPTER 22
A-Bomb was next in line behind a Marine F/A-18. Thing was, the damn Marine wasn’t used to sipping from an Air Force straw, and had trouble attaching to the hose at the tail end of the KC-135. It didn’t take more than a minute, but A-Bomb had never counted patience as one of his virtues.
Still, he kept his curses to himself. Even if the guy was just a Marine, you didn’t dis him in the air.
Certainly not when he was ahead of you in the tanking queue.
When it was his turn, A-Bomb practically rammed his nose into the long nozzle at the back of the KC-135. The boomer, sitting in the rear of the plane and controlling the refueling apparatus, was supposed to do all the work, but A-Bomb didn’t have time to mess around; case like this, he figured, they ought to have do-it-yourself service. Stick your credit card in the slot and pump it yourself.
The pilot thumped his leg with his hand as the fuel rushed into the Hog’s empty tanks, trying to increase the flow with his own hurried beat. He was off the straw and cranking back toward Iraq faster than a kid skipping out on a bar bill.
Not that he didn’t trust the F-16s to do a good job looking for Mongoose and protecting him. It was just that, some things were better done by a Hog.
The F-16C Fighting Falcon was a good aircraft, a fine, all-around, all-purpose jet. Designed and first flown in the seventies, it had been built ground-up as a close-in dogfighter, a lightweight plane that could actually out-duel an F-15 up tight and carry a full load of bombs through high-g maneuvers. Except for the odd position of the stick — it was alongside you instead of in front of you— it was a sweet thing to fly. There were a million of them in theater, doing everything from reconnaissance to bombing to combat air patrol.
But they weren’t Hogs. A Hog carried sixteen thousand pounds of bombs without thinking about it. A Hog lived in the mud. A Hog just flew and flew and flew.
And a Hog took care of its own. Part of the rescue package or not, equipped for night operations or not, A-Bomb belonged there. Hell, he’d haul Mongoose into the helicopter himself if it came to that. Land in the desert, hop out, pitch him in, and take off again.
An A-10 probably could do that. Just no one thought to try it yet.
A-Bomb tracked back in a straight line, or as straight as any fighter pilot would fly riding into Injun territory without stealth or 120,000 feet between him and the ground.
“You’re back?” Boa One asked as A-Bomb returned to the area where Mongoose had gone down. “I thought you just left.”
“Where’s my guy?”
The Vipers hadn’t heard a thing. They had scanned the wreckage pretty well, and gone low and slow— for F-16s— over the entire area. But they’d seen and heard nothing. Nor had any of the other assets.
Not good news.
A-Bomb nosed the Hog down toward the mud, deciding to trace this thing out. First stop was the underpass where they had encountered the SAMs. The site had been pounded again and it absolutely glowed, as if it were a radioactive dump.
As he approached, aiming to duplicate Mongoose’s pass, he saw a black shadow coming down the road. He nosed forward, made it as an Iraqi army vehicle, a deuce-and-a-half troop-type truck. He lit his cannon, splashing bullets into the thick vehicle. As it veered off into the sand, A-Bomb caught the ground sparkle of the soldiers emptying their rifle clips at him as he started to pull off. The bullets helped him hone in on the target despite the darkness; he pressed on and fired his own cannon, whacking the truck with a quick burst that ignited a pretty fireball from the gas tank.
The Viper pilots were jabbering in his ear as he pulled off, asking if he needed assistance.
“Next time,” he told them, taking a quick orbit around the truck roast. When he was sure nothing was moving down there or nearby, he spun his plane in the direction he had last seen Mongoose taking. He couldn’t be precisely sure of where the major had been, though, and the difference of a small angle would mean a lot.
Plus it was really dark now. Too dark to see with anything but his gut.
Here was the wrecked Hog, lying in pieces strewn across the earth.
A-Bomb pushed his plane down, trying to get another look at the fuselage. He had to face the fact that Mongoose might not have gotten out.
He was going almost slow enough to land. Even so, there was no way to see anything more than a few mangled shadows. Three circuits and he still couldn’t tell for sure if he’d really found the plane, let alone whether Mongoose was still in it.
For what felt like the millionth time, A-Bomb keyed the emergency frequency, looking for his flight leader. The only answer was static.
He put the Hog at two thousand feet and made for the buildings again.
If Mongoose was down there, too much close attention like this would draw the enemy. But damn it, he had to find him so the helos could come and pick him up. All he needed was one little flare, and he’d have the choppers here in no time. They liked making their pickups in the dark.
The Boas handed off to a second pair of F-16s.
Still nothing.
“We’re not giving up on you,” the controller assured A-Bomb when he suggested Devil Two return to base. “But, uh, you’ve been flying a long time now.”
“I’ve got plenty of fuel.”
“We copy, sir. We copy.”
He didn’t add “but,” though it was clearly implied.
But.
But common sense said the longer A-Bomb stayed up, the less efficient he was going to get. And hell, it was dark. The Hog was many things, but it wasn’t a night fighter.
Shit, thought A-Bomb, all I need is a damn flashlight.
At some point, even U.S. Air Force Captain Thomas O’Rourke had to be realistic. Common sense said that there was a reason they weren’t getting a transmission from Mongoose.
Common sense said he wasn’t going to find him in the dark. Sooner or later he would have to call it a day.