Wong’s Arabic was rusty and the captain’s handwriting poor. Jostled in the tight cabin, he stared at the scribbles for more than two or three minutes before finally realizing that they were in code. Wong looked up suddenly, realizing that Golden was staring over his shoulder.
“What do you have?” asked the sergeant.
“The first sheet contains a set of coordinates which are useless without the map they refer to,” said Wong. “But the second has hand-copied instructions, I believe. Can you decipher them?”
“Are you kidding?”
“No.” Wong took the paper back without asking why everyone thought he was always playing the comedian. “Incidentally, your diversion proved useful, as it sent most of the Iraqi force away at an opportune time. How precisely did you acquire the AK-47?”
“What AK-47?”
“You did not fire near the northern base of the hill?”
“The north side? Hell no. We were in the village. We came back up the east slope. I didn’t even know you’d been captured until the shooting started. You saved us, not the other way around.”
“You were never on the northwestern side of the hill? Or on the ground there?”
Wong asked the question, though by now he realized that was impossible. He reconsidered the battle, sorting it into its different components.
Wong rose slowly, grabbing one of the long belts at the side of the bird’s cabin to steady himself as he passed forward. The helicopter’s pilots sat at a pair of well-equipped consoles, separated by a wide console with more dials, buttons, and indicators than the average nuclear power plant.
“Excuse me,” said Wong, bending across the central console. “I’d like to speak to the commander.”
“Yo,” said the pilot on the right.
“I will require immediate transportation to King Fahd Royal Airbase,” said Wong.
“Uh, Captain, first of all, don’t put your hand up there, all right? You’re too damn close to the throttle.”
Wong removed his hand without noting that it had been nowhere near the control in question.
“Thank you,” said the pilot. “Now as for King Fahd— that’s where we’re headed, assuming we cross ten million miles of SAMs, anti-air guns, hostile troop positions and rattlesnakes. I would appreciate it if you took a seat.”
“Very good,” said Wong. “Let me assure you that there are no known species of rattlesnakes in Iraqi, or in Saudi Arabia for that matter. Indeed, they are a New World species exclusively.”
“Ha, ha,” said the pilot. “Very funny.”
At a loss to understand why, Wong merely shrugged and went to the back.
CHAPTER 43
Doberman hunched to the side of the cockpit, leaning over the throttle console as he tried to get a good view of the highway. Four British Tornadoes had been detailed by the AWACS controller to mop up. Doberman had been asked to play impromptu spotter for them, mapping out the site. The F-16s, meanwhile, were swinging south to shadow the Pave Hawk in case it got into trouble.
There were three or four good-sized fires going where the Vipers had dropped their bombs on the highway. Red and yellow mixed with a black smoke so dark and inky it stood out in the heavy twilight. Doberman leaned the Hog gently on her wing, fixing his eyes on the largest and nearest fire. It seemed to be a fuel truck, not a missile, though from six thousand feet even in the daylight it would not be easy to tell. A second hulk further along seemed definitely to be a missile; only the tractor cab was burning. He continued south, spotting three medium-sized shadows near where he’d hit the erector. They looked like the most likely targets, though he wasn’t sure what they were.
He banked northwards, making sure the SA-9 sites were smashed. The ground looked flat— no flames, no smoke, nothing. The Vipers had reported a hit on the remaining launcher and they looked to be correct— if there had been a live SAM launcher down there, Doberman would be swinging from a parachute.
“Devil One, hay-low Yank, this is Tory Leader. We are five klicks south of you and request target guidance.”
“Yeah, One to Tory, hang tight,” he told the British pilot, who was under thirty seconds away. “I got three trucks near the erector. Hang tight, I’m coming back low and slow to eyeball this mess.”
Doberman lined up his weary Hog for one more walk through. He pushed his nose toward the ground, coming over the highway toward the smashed tanks and hill in a straight-at-the-road diving, dropping his altitude below two thousand feet. There was an armored vehicle of some sort, smaller than a tank, at the corner of the hill beyond the tanks he’d unzipped. He stayed with the road over the village, no longer drawing anti-aircraft fire. The idiots had shot themselves dry.
Doberman felt his heart beat picking up as he nosed closer to the road, down at a thousand feet now. It was low for a plane flying in the dark without ground terrain radar, even though he felt he knew the area pretty well. He arced toward the burning fuel truck, its flames flickering toward his hull. Two long cylinders lay in the dirt about a hundred yards away. One was definitely smashed — it looked like a broken crayon stomped into a carpet.
He couldn’t be sure about the other. He steadied the plane, riding out to the erector south of the highway. One of the shadows he’d seen was clearly a tent; the other two were small panel vans.
Not much for the Tornadoes to hit, but that was their business. He gave Tory Leader a quick rundown, offering to mop up himself with his cannon while they went on to another target.
“Thanks Yank, but we’ll stay with this tea party all the same,” said the British pilot cheerfully. “Our primary was scratched which was why we were sent here originally. And I’ve just received word that our secondary target has been hit out as well. You Americans are putting on quite the show. Hogging all the glory, eh?”
The Englishman meant it as a joke and even something of a compliment, but it struck Doberman the wrong way. He punched the mike button, intending to snarl that nobody here was doing it for the goddamn glory. Nobody. He wanted to scream that he’d lost a squadron mate today, a good kid, to this bullshit, and worried that he’d lose more.
He didn’t say it, though. For one of the few times in his life, Doberman controlled his temper and gave only a brief acknowledgment. Then he pumped the throttle and gave himself stick, setting course for the long and hazardous trip home.