“If you can handle a gun, you can take a turn as a sentry,” said Hawkins.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” said A-Bomb, jumping up. “Give me a 203 and I’ll be happy.”
Before Doberman could ask what the hell a 203 was, Technical Sergeant Rosen entered the bunker.
“Captains.”
Like any experienced sergeant, she said the word in a way that it made it seem she was referring to an inferior rank.
“I thought I asked you not to break my planes.”
Doberman felt his face turn red. “Yeah, something jammed up the decelerons. I couldn’t get it to deploy at first. That’s why I took the lap. Must’ve been a lucky shot from somebody on the ground. I didn’t feel it.”
“Not your plane, sir,” said Rosen. “She looks like you just took her out of the showroom. It’s Captain O’Rourke’s I’m talking about.”
“What’s wrong with my plane?”
“Aside from the coffee stains on the console, you have a hole in the hydraulic line.”
“No shit,” said A-Bomb. “I thought the controls felt a little woody.”
“Woody, sir?” Rosen made a face. “I’m surprised you landed.”
“Nah. Come on.” A-Bomb shrugged.
“Well, it’s so small, you didn’t lose much fluid. But five minutes more and you would have had a hell of a problem. I’m telling you, Captain; you’re lucky.”
“You’re going to fix it, though, right?” asked A-Bomb.
“I don’t know if I can,” said Rosen.
“Shit, we’re talking a Hog here,” said A-Bomb, now fully serious. “All you got to do is stick some bubble gum on the line and fill the reservoir with piss, I’m flyin’ in no time.”
“There’s no bubble gum on this base,” Rosen told A-Bomb. “I’ll be honest with you, I’m not sure I can fix it.”
“Fuck.”
“If I patch it,” she said, “we have to worry about having enough fluid.”
“There’s two separate systems, right?” said A-Bomb. “Tie one off, the other’s good to go.”
“Not quite that simple,” said Rosen.
“Yeah, but you can do it.”
“What I need is something to make a patch,” she said. “I need some clamps and a narrow hose, at a minimum.”
“Shit, there’s probably something you can use on those helos, no?” asked A-Bomb.
“No, sir,” said Rosen as Hawkins bristled behind her. “I don’t know if Captain Hawkins has told you or not, but there’s no Hog juice on this base.”
“Use the helo fuel,” said A-Bomb. “It’s jet fuel, right?”
Hawkins took a step toward A-Bomb and glared at him.
Shotgun shrugged. “Just an idea.”
“Jet fuel’s jet fuel,” said Rosen. She looked at Hawkins. “But the helos are already low. I don’t know if they’d make it down to Saudi if they have to. Their orders are to keep two hours’ worth in reserve, and they say their inside that now.”
She glanced at Doberman. Did the glance mean she thought there was more fuel than Hawkins was letting on? Or did it mean something else?
Doberman wanted it to mean something else, something like:
I wish I could kiss you but there are too many Delta types around and they’d get jealous.
Doberman had had the hots for her since Al Jouf, and he suspected— hoped, really— the feeling was mutual.
“Why don’t you use the fuel you have?” suggested Wong.
“Yeah right,” said Doberman. “I landed with ten minutes of reserve left, if that.”
“Me, too,” said A-Bomb.
“Take Captain O’Rourke’s fuel as well,” said Wong. “Ten minutes plus ten minutes will give you twenty; enough to make the border. You could meet the tanker, top off and come back. Once on the ground, half of your fuel could be loaded into Captain O’Rourke’s aircraft, allowing him to take off once repairs are completed.”
“If repairs are completed,” said Rosen.
“Ten minutes and ten minutes won’t make twenty,” said Doberman. “For one thing, getting off the ground is going to eat up a lot. I doubt there’d even be enough for takeoff.”
“You know what, Dog man? I think Brainiac’s onto something,” said A-Bomb. “I had a good amount sloshing around when I landed. Must’ve been three thousand pounds, at least. Maybe more. Could be five.”
“If you had so much fuel, why didn’t you fly back to Saudi Arabia?”
“What, and leave you all alone?” A-Bomb grinned and shrugged. Five thousand pounds translated into nearly half-full. “We ought to at least check it out. You might be able to do it. Hell, you know every gas gauge ever invented is pessimistic. It’s some kind of oil cartel law or something.”
Hawkins gave a noncommittal grunt.
“Captain Glenon is right,” Rosen said. “Even if we can suck every last drop out and get it into the plane, I don’t know that you’ll have enough to take off and fly to the border, no matter what the gauges say. I don’t know, Captain. You’d be taking a hell of a risk.”
She turned her green eyes toward Doberman. In that instant, he knew he could do it. He knew he could do anything, except stay here where he couldn’t touch her.
“Yeah, well, let’s find out,” said Doberman, his eyes locked on hers. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here useless on the ground.”
CHAPTER 3
Colonel Michael “Skull” Knowlington slid back in his office chair and craned his neck upwards so he could stare out the small window of the trailer that served as Devil Squadron’s headquarters. All he could see from this angle was blue sky.
Not very appropriate. But at the moment the colonel lacked the energy to find something else to stare at. He’d just come from the “Bat Cave,” where a general in charge of Special Operations had informed him that Lieutenant William James Dixon, temporarily assigned as a ground FAC or forward air controller with a special Delta Force unit, was MIA and presumed killed in Iraq.
Knowlington had been with the Air Force a long time. He’d had three tours in Vietnam in two different aircraft. He’d lost a wingman there, and had punched out once himself. Since then, he’d witnessed three fatal mid-air mishaps, including one where he was flying chase. The colonel knew death; he knew how delicately balanced life really was, how the chance movement of a thin wire at the wrong time upended everything, momentum twisting backwards into flame and destruction. He’d seen death not merely in the lifeless eyes of a pilot tossed from his plane, but in the empty stares of men who’d survived one mission too many. The ones who’d traded their souls to get down to ground safely, only to find the bargain too dear.
And yet, Dixon’s death hit him harder than any other. It hit him physically, pinching the ends of his liver like a forceps plunging into an un-anesthetized body. BJ was just a greenhorn kid, a nugget lieutenant not bright enough to steer clear of hair-brained Special Ops schemes. He’d volunteered for the Iraq mission— volunteered, the asshole! — without Knowlington’s permission.
The fact that the kid had sacrificed his own life to save the life of one of the Delta Force team members angered Knowlington even more. It wasn’t that he begrudged the wounded sergeant Dixon had saved; it was the fact that, in Knowlington’s mind, neither sacrifice was worth what the mission was supposed to achieve. The Delta teams had been planted to finger Scud missiles for Hogs and other fighter-bombers. In Knowlington’s opinion the missiles were tactically useless.
The colonel had reluctantly helped plan the Scud hunting mission and arranged for its support. He had heard all of the arguments for attacking them. They were all political, which in his opinion, was the exact reason not to proceed.