A-Bomb realized what the Iraqi was doing as a fresh set of tracers flared at an angle past his windshield. He bucked the Hog so low he’d have to pull the nose up to extend the landing gear, and tried a full circle. The MiG stayed right with him, occasionally winking its GSh in his direction.
With an afterburner, the Hog would have easily snapped away and been gone. But A-Bomb didn’t have the horses to outrun the Iraqi, or even to break the twisting yo-yo. He cut left, then right, and got some fresh tracers.
Only one thing to do — crank up the Boss and wait for Doberman to nail him.
Good thing he’d had the foresight to put on The River before setting sail north. This might take a while.
CHAPTER 55
All of thirty seconds had passed since A-Bomb had chased the MiG from his tail. To Doberman it felt like a month.
He broke left as the MiG broke right, clearing the Iraqi pilot and the swirling chaos that had wrapped itself around his head. Banking to the north, trying to sort the situation, he saw the dark shadow of the AH-6 picking itself up off the ground.
There were two F-15 Eagles somewhere above. Another four were rushing north. The Iraqi MiG was either extremely lucky or flying too low for them to get a good fix. A-Bomb, after his initial radio yahoo, had gone silent and, for the moment at least, disappeared. All Doberman could hear over the radio was a loud hushing roar— something like the sound of a freight train out of control.
Doberman felt his anxiety growing as he hunted for his wingman. Be just like A-Bomb to get nailed saving his butt.
A-Bomb? Nailed?
Yeah, right. Hostess would stop making cupcakes before that happened.
An oblong blue flame caught Doberman’s attention as he began pushing his Hog’s nose further south. He squeezed the throttle for its last ounce of thrust. Two dark specks twisted against the ground a mile and a half in front of him. Tracers lit the night. The second plane had a commanding position on the first plane’s tail, but the lead pilot refused to give in, somehow knowing exactly where his enemy was going to fire before he did. The planes swirled to the south.
No way in the world A-Bomb would have missed at that range. He must be the one in the lead.
Doberman felt disoriented. He pushed the stick right then slammed it left, dead-on the tail of the MiG, four miles behind it.
Something screamed— it was the AIM-9Ls, begging him to fire already.
He squeezed off, felt the swish, keyed his mike to sound the warning that the missile was away.
“Fox Two! Fox Two!”
Before he got the words out of his mouth, the MiG exploded.
EPILOGUE
SOME OTHER PLAYER
CHAPTER 56
Doberman’s legs began shaking as he lifted himself over the side of the Hog. He was cold, tired, hungry, barely alive— but the thing that got to him was Becky Rosen standing on the access ramp, waiting to congratulate him. About a dozen people, including A-Bomb and Tinman and a parcel of Delta troopers, stood behind her, but all he saw was her. Somehow, he got down the ladder without falling.
“Hey,” he said, finally getting his feet firmly on the ground.
She jumped on him and he fell back against the ladder. She kissed him on the cheek and his face flushed. The others swarmed in, pumping him on the back, shoulder, and head, whatever they could touch.
As far as anyone knew, Captain John “Doberman” Glenon was the first Hog pilot to score the first ever shoot down of a MiG in the slow and lumbering A-10A.
“It’s what I’m talking about!” A-Bomb declared, more or less summarizing everyone’s sentiments.
Everything hit Doberman at once— the long day and night of missions they’d endured before the forced landing at Apache, the retank, Al Kajuk, the dogfight. Doberman squeezed Rosen hard, then laughed and found A-Bomb in the press of people right in front of him.
“You saved my life,” he told him. He threw his arms around his wingman— not an easy task. “You saved my goddamned life. That MiG almost nailed me.”
“Ah, you would have gotten away from him sooner or later,” A-Bomb said. “Sorry it took me so long to get off the ground here. I wasn’t even across the border when the AWACS told me you’d just sent the Pave Hawk home. I figured you’d head over to Apache.”
“I don’t know how I ended up there,” admitted Doberman. “I was ducking a SAM site and some MiGs. I swear to God, I just looked down and there was Apache. No shit. I thought I was about fifty miles closer to the border.”
“Lucky for us you got lost,” said Rosen. “You saved us.”
“Damn straight,” yelled Hawkins, the Spec Ops captain from Fort Apache. Everybody started yelling and touching him for good luck again.
Later, when Doberman managed to slide free, he walked over to the end of the wing. He stood there, gazing at the double-rail of Sidewinders— now with only a single AIM-9L.
“I got it,” he said, suddenly overwhelmed by what he had achieved. “Shit. I got it.”
Several hours later, a grim-faced Air Force officer wearing a fairly crisp uniform and the gold oak leaf of a major found Doberman sitting alone against a set of sandbags, not far from the A-10A service area Rosen and her team of techies had dubbed Oz West.
Doberman had slipped away from the others, intending at first to go to sleep, but he was too pumped for that. He’d ended up sitting and staring at the plane in the dark. At first he thought about the mission. Then he started thinking about Dixon, the Hog driver who’d died up north working as a spotter with the Delta team. Kid reminded him a lot of his little brother.
“Captain Glenon?” asked the major, who’d flown in from Riyadh. “I’d like to speak to you.”
Doberman lifted his eyes slowly, struggling to focus on the man in the dim light reflected from the work area. The major was probably here to debrief him. He’d already spoken to two intel officers, though admittedly their interviews had barely covered the bones of what had happened. There was much more information to be gleaned; Black Hole and the Central Command would be especially interested in the Scuds and the mosque.
But Doberman felt too drained for it all.
“Do you mind if we do this in the morning?” Doberman asked him. “I’m a little tired.”
“This isn’t something that can wait,” said the major stiffly. “And I’m afraid you’re not going to like it.”
Doberman listened as the officer told him, succinctly, without emotion or diversion, that he would not be given credit for the air-to-air kill. Fort Apache and the rest of the Delta missions north had to remain a closely guarded secret. That included the airplanes that had assisted them, and their missions.
“Officially, you’re still at King Fahd,” the lieutenant major told him. “You never shot down a MiG; the kill will be credited to another unit. I’m sorry, I know it must feel like a punch in the gut, but it’s to save other people’s lives. I know that’s important to you, Captain.”
Doberman pulled himself to his feet.
“Captain? Are you all right?”
Doberman shrugged. He honestly didn’t care about getting credit.
Poor Dixon. The kid had been a great stick and rudder man, a real talent— raw and inexperienced, naive, but damn good. On the ground, though, he was just so much fodder.