The two Hogs patrolled the area in a large orbit at about eight thousand feet, giving themselves a decent vantage to check for movement on the roads. There had been none in the five minutes or so since Skull had called for the pickup.
“Looking at a dust bunny comin’ out of the north,” said A-Bomb. “Shit. Somethings heading down the road, beyond the buildings.”
Skull immediately cut short his leg of the circle and the two planes winged into a combat trail, A-Bomb offset on the right side of the lead and back a half-mile.
“Let’s bring this out to the west then take a fast turn to head back,” said Skull. “I don’t want to billboard Mongoose’s location.”
“Gotcha.”
“Take it up to fifteen, give us a little more margin for error.” He quick-checked his instruments as the Hog began climbing, making sure he was ready for action. He considered calling for reinforcements but decided to hold off until he knew what they were up against. The helicopters were still a good ways off, and A-Bomb’s dust bunny might turn out to be a jeep dragging a screen ― he still hadn’t spotted it.
Even without a lot of ordnance to weigh her down, the Hog took its time going uphill. Take an Eagle and put her nose at the sun and bam, she was there. Same with an F-16.
Thud could climb with the best of them, unless she had a full load. Even then she could go like all hell. The Pratt & Whitney J75 turbojet was a brand new engine at the time, with huge thrust ― nearly 25,000 pounds in afterburner, which could carry the plane over Mach 2. A bear and a half to service, and from the early days there were problems with the autopilot, the computer, and the fire control system. But damn he loved to fly the Thunderchief, a lot more than the Phantom. They said the F-4 was a better plane, but you couldn’t prove it by him.
He’d had his worst days in a Phantom.
Leaving his wingman. Chickened out.
Negated everything else.
“Looks like there’s a whole convoy or something. Be almost nine o’clock, north there.”
For just a second the voice sounded unfamiliar, as if Skull had been expecting Bear to be talking to him from the backseat.
“How the hell did you see that through the ground fog and all?” Skull asked A-Bomb when he finally spotted it. He took the Hog further east, pushing to come at the convoy from the side.
“Got X-ray eyes,” said A-Bomb.
The airborne controller checked in with the SAR helicopter’s time to pickup― twenty minutes. By the time Skull acknowledged, he was close enough to A-Bomb’s dust bunny to see that wasn’t a jeep.
Or rather, it wasn’t just a jeep. There were at least two dozen vehicles on the road. They were moving fast, in the direction of their flier. Skull was up to ten thousand feet, flying a bit slow but in a reasonable position for a Maverick attack. He kept coming, deciding to make his approach angle as steep as possible.
“Looks like we’re going to have to smoke these guys,” he told A-Bomb.
“Hot damn.”
“They must think Mongoose is the fucking President. All right, we freeze the column first. I take the lead truck and whatever else I can get at the head. Put your cluster bombs about a third of the way back if you can. Shit, they may see us ― column’s starting to break up.”
The AWACS controller broke in before A-Bomb could acknowledge. “Devil Flight, snap one-eighty. Snap one-eighty.”
It was a dire warning telling him to take evasive maneuvers by jumping quickly to a new course― enemy interceptors were coming for them.
Ordinarily, Skull would have complied immediately. He was supposed to comply immediately; the warning was meant to save his plane and his life. Taking evasive action was the prudent thing to do.
But he wasn’t being prudent. He was saving his guy. No way he was turning around and running for home with his tail between his legs, not this time.
He ignored the controller.
The AWACS, with its powerful radar, knew instantly that its order had not been followed.
“Devil leader. This is Abracadabra. We have a pair of MiGs taking off from Al Nassiriya. Take evasive action.”
“Noted,” he told the controller. He didn’t bother communicating with A-Bomb; he knew he would stay with him.
“Repeat?” asked the AWACS.
“Noted. We are engaging a troop column approximately ten miles north of our pickup area.”
“Devil Leader, the MiGs are off the field and are vectored in your direction. Snap one-eighty. Repeat, snap one-eighty!”
The first vehicle looked like some sort of armored personnel carrier, wheeled, not tracked. A good, easy target for a Maverick.
Even a greenhorn like him ought to be able to splash the damn thing. Problem was, he couldn’t get the crosshair to move. And all of a sudden he was feeling disoriented, eyes not knowing where to look, TVM or windscreen.
Stick to the monitor, damn it.
The personnel carrier was fat in the middle of the targeting screen, and the cursor sat at the bottom. He switched from the narrow to wide and back to the narrow view but better magnified view, losing his target momentarily. He eased the plane’s nose just a tad and had his target back, juicy and hot. And now the cursor had it right in the middle.
Didn’t make sense, but hey, there it was.
“Devil Leader? The MiGs!”
“Noted,” he told the controller, locking his cursor.
“Sir?”
“Noted!” he said, and in the same second the Maverick thumped off the wing, hiccupping in the air before her motor kicked into high-gear.
CHAPTER 56
The flak vest the sergeant had given him was way too big, and no matter how Dixon tried adjusting it he couldn’t get comfortable in it. For the Special Ops troops used to it, the gear was a lightweight second skin, but for him the damn thing felt more awkward than wearing a parka at July Fourth picnic.
He shifted under it and tried to get a fix through the window on where they were. They had come in over the border more than an hour ago, sitting here so they would be ready to grab their guy once he was found. As far as the air commandos were concerned, squatting in enemy territory was no more dangerous than waiting on line for a roller coaster ride.
The chopper’s massive turboshafts cranked with an immense fury; they didn’t seem to lift off so much as vibrate forward, the big Pave Low lifting off gracefully. The air force crew chief emerged from the pilots’ station and announced that they had a good fix on Major Johnson, even though his radio was out. Shouldn’t be much of a problem snatching him from the jaws of death this time around.
The rest of the men, all well-versed in behind-the-lines operations, grinned and rechecked their M-16s. Most had been completely silent since Dixon came on board.
Iraq passed by ten feet below. The helicopter rushed forward with an angry beat, its powerful rotors churning the sky.
The pilot called back that they were ten minutes from their man. And there was a column of Iraqi Republican Guards racing them for him.
The sergeant chucked him on the shoulder. “No offense, sir, but you just hang back the first few seconds, make sure the area is secure before you go jumping out of the aircraft. Okay?”
“No sweat.”
“Good.” The sergeant stuck an M-16 in his hands. “It’s loaded and ready to rock.”
Dixon’s stomach flipped over backwards as he grabbed the rifle.
“Thanks,” he yelled.
“Don’t mention it. But, uh, sir, again, no offense, but I’d be obliged if you didn’t point it in my direction.”
CHAPTER 57