“Who?”
“Call your colonel. But before that, get yourself into protective gear.”
“My best protection’s a fully loaded Hog,” A-Bomb told him. “Shit, I got Sidewinders— I’ll nail the damn missiles while they’re inbound.”
The major grumbled something concerning the sanity of Air Force personnel and disappeared back down the ladder.
“Colonel wants to talk to you,” said Captain Wong when A-Bomb finally got a connection to the home drome.
“Yeah, well I want to talk to him.”
“Okay.”
“So put him on.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
“Well I sure as shit don’t.”
“Wait, I’ll look in his office.”
A-Bomb pushed himself back in the field chair. Wong was one of those absent-minded-professor types. Guy had a shitload of knowledge about Russian-made air defenses; he was supposedly the world expert, and had figured out some fairly tricky stuff for Devil Squadron since coming from Black Hole the first day of the war. But he couldn’t put mustard on a bologna and cheese sandwich without detailed instructions.
Bologna and cheese sure as hell would hit the spot right about now. Better: the double Big Mac with extra-large fries and strawberry shake that was undoubtedly sitting in his tent at the home drome.
Amazing where Fed Ex could deliver.
As forward air strips went, KKMC wasn’t particularly spartan, but it did lack a full-service McDonald’s. Still, there were enough army guys floating around. Hog crews pitted here all the time. That much creativity around demanded a bit more research on his part; there might be a fast-food outlet somewhere around here. In fact, now that he thought about it, the round-domed building nearby would be the perfect place for the local Dunkin’ Donuts franchise: If you squinted just right it kind of looked like an upside-down coffee cup.
Super-size Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and two, no make that three, Boston Cremes would definitely charge him up for the return trip north. Chocolate a little gooey on the top, just enough to leave his fingertips covered with lickable creme.
“A-Bomb, where the fuck are you?”
“Hey, good evening to you, too, Colonel.”
“What the hell are you doing at KKMC?”
“Getting more bullets in case I see any rattlesnakes up north.”
Knowlington grunted. A-Bomb didn’t know the commander too well, but Knowlington came with a reputation; he’d kicked serious butt flying over Vietnam and he didn’t dick his pilots around. So when the colonel asked if he’d seen a parachute, A-Bomb didn’t hedge.
“I thought I saw something, but now I’m not even sure of that. I found the wreckage but couldn’t see the seat or the chute anywhere. And I looked.”
“And no beacon?”
“I’m thinking the radio screwed up. Got to be. Probably a transistor blew or something.”
“The backup, too?”
It was a comment not a question, so A-Bomb didn’t answer. He could tell that the colonel, unlike the intel guys he’d spoken to after parking the plane, knew Mongoose was still alive down there. It was just a question of coming up with a plan to get him back.
“I got this idea,” A-Bomb told him. “If I had some Maverick G’s, I could go back and scan the ground. Hell, the eyes in those things are better than an owl’s. Problem is, I can’t seem to drum up any up here. The one sergeant who seems to know what the hell I’m talking about bitches about how expensive they are and claims all of the missiles are at Fahd. I don’t know if it’s true, but I haven’t seen any myself.”
“I doubt they’re sensitive enough to pick him up, even in the desert.”
For just a second, A-Bomb’s faith in his commander wavered.
“We can’t just leave him up there, Colonel.”
“I’m not leaving him up there,” snapped Knowlington. “I’m fucking thinking.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
Had A-Bomb thought about it, he would have realized it was perhaps the first time he had used the word “sir” in Saudi Arabia— and undoubtedly the first time he had ever used it twice in one sentence since training. He hung on the line through a long silence, waiting while Knowlington worked the thing through in his head.
“All right. Go catch some rest,” said the colonel finally. “I have a few things to get around down here. I’ll be up with the Mavericks three hours before dawn, latest. That gives you a little time for a catnap.”
“You’re trucking them up?”
“I’m flying, you asshole. You and I are going to find Mongoose, assuming the Special Ops boys haven’t picked him up by then. You have a problem with that?”
“No, sir. Shit no.”
“Well then get some fucking sleep. I don’t want a zombie watching my six.”
“Yes, sir.”
A-Bomb looked at the handset as the line clicked dead. The old man hadn’t flown a combat mission since he’d come to Saudi Arabia. The word was that Skull Knowlington, who’d originally been assigned to head a squadron that existed only on paper, had maybe a hundred hours in the Hog cockpit, or some ridiculously low amount.
But hell. Knowlington was a god-damn legend. If anybody could find Mongoose— anyone besides A-Bomb that was— the colonel could.
“Fuckin’ A,” said the pilot said. “I think.”
CHAPTER 27
Mongoose aimed the small strobe unit in the direction of the sound. He had already fired a pencil flare to get their attention, and now hoped the strobe would direct whoever was up there to his location.
The strobe’s light was hooded, making it difficult to see on the ground. In theory, anyway. He couldn’t worry about any of that now; he kept strobing, hoping to hear the engine again. The radio was pumping out its own emergency beacon.
But the plane was no longer nearby. He made a voice broadcast; when there was no answer he fired another mini-flare. As the rocket arced upwards, he tried the radio again. Mongoose swung the dial back and forth, from beacon to voice, radioing his distress call.
“I’ll take a pizza with anchovies to go,” he added at the end.
Whatever he’d heard was gone. He settled back against the stones he’d lined up as a small shelter. He’d dug out some of the ground with his boot, like a small fox-hole. It had been something to do, to take his mind off how stinking cold he was.
The radio was probably busted. That wasn’t particularly lucky.
Might’ve broken somehow when he landed. Or it was just one of those dumb, stupid things.
There was another one back in the seat pack.
But where the hell was that now? Could he trace his way back in the dark and the slowly lifting fog?
He heard a noise in the distance, this time on the ground.
Was it really there? His ears buzzed with something, but it didn’t seem real. Slowly, as deliberately as possible, he slid the strobe light back into a vest pocket and removed his pistol from its holster.
He stayed like that, gun just in front of his chest, for a long time. The noise grew louder, then faded. It was definitely a truck, and far off. His eyes ached, filtering the darkness for the head beams or taillights, but they didn’t appear. The moon, a dull crescent, drifted through some clouds, cold and distant.
When he was in Boy Scouts, they used to tell ghost stories about kids so lost in the wilderness they turned into walking skeletons, haunting the woods for centuries. He thought of those stories now as he crouched back into his small, safe place and holstered his pistol.
The stories had scared the piss out of him. He remembered being so afraid that he wouldn’t get out of his sleeping bag to take a leak. Instead, he’d lie awake all night, waiting for dawn.