“Hell of a call sign,” said Skull.
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic,” said A-Bomb.
Skull could swear the comment had been accompanied by a slurp from a mug.
“Maybe I should get you to rig me up a stereo system,” said Knowlington. “Or a refrigerator.”
“Just drinking coffee,” said A-Bomb.
“All right. We have about zero-five to the closest spot the tanker can meet us,” Knowlington told him.
Wolf had managed to vector the tanker further north than originally intended. A flight of F-15s providing air cover had already flown ahead, a welcome committee for a job well done.
Or escorts for the SAR crew that would be needed if they botched the tank.
“Gonna leave me with two minutes of fuel,” said A-Bomb. “Plenty of time.”
“Two minutes? You’ve been holding out on me,” said Skull.
“Drop back and I’ll drip some in your tanks.”
“Just watch my butt,” Skull told his wingman. “I shaved it for you and everything.”
“See, Boss, now you’re talking like a Hog driver.”
“It’s what I’m talking about,” replied Knowlington.
EPILOGUE:
WARMING THE SOUL
CHAPTER 69
Wong’s shoulder had been dislocated, but one of the Air Force medics had helped get it back into position. Oddly, the jarring had cured his headache, as well as removed the ringing in his ear.
Davis had lost considerable blood but had been stabilized; the odds were fifty-fifty that he would make it. Salt was cursing up a storm, complaining about his ankle, which he had whacked against something as he was hauled in. But if the volume of his obscenities were a rough gauge of his prognosis, he’d be walking in the morning.
The plane’s pilot was resting as well, apparently after suffering a heart attack. His pulse was erratic, but the crew said he actually seemed to have gotten much better.
Dixon sat on the floor of the plane, head back against a metal spar. Worn and battered from his ordeal, he sipped water from a plastic bottle.
“We should be landing shortly,” Wong told the others. “There will be a helicopter waiting to take us home to King Fahd, where we’ll be debriefed.”
“That can’t fucking wait until tomorrow?” asked Salt.
“Command wants to know what we’ve seen ASAP,” Wong said.
“Fuck them.”
“A suggestion that has been proposed in the past,” said Wong. “But one which they do not seem prepared to follow.”
Wong had meant that as a joke, the first he had made since coming to the Gulf. But no one laughed, not even Sergeant Salt.
“We will tell them what we saw,” said Wong, sighing. “I would imagine that Lieutenant Dixon’s testimony will be most crucial.”
“Testimony, geez.” Salt laughed uproariously, the ripping sound rising above the roar of the Herk’s engines.
Exasperated, Wong looked at Dixon. “Lieutenant?”
Dixon stared at the floor.
“We’ll be taken in to Riyadh after we land,” Wong said.
Dixon turned and looked at him as if he were staring across a distant field. “The kid saved us,” he said.
Wong got up and slid down on his knees in front of him to hear better.
“Budge saved us,” Dixon repeated.
“True,” said Wong. “As you saved him.”
“He didn’t know what he was doing.”
“War is not a pretty thing,” Wong said. “That’s why we’re here.”
“He was just a kid.”
Wong frowned. The thoughts of many wise men flickered through his head — Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Plato, St. Paul. None seemed quite to fit. And so he said nothing.
CHAPTER 70
Doberman sat at the edge of the couch, wedged there with his feet up on the cushion. He’d finished debriefing only a few minutes before; normally he’d have gone either straight to bed or over to the Cavern, a just-off-the-base den of inequity and booze. But he was too wound up and too worried about the others, so he’d wandered over to Cineplex. More than two dozen other squadron members, officers and NCOS, milled around the crowded room, waiting word of the Strawman mission. The television was playing something off the VCR — an old Godzilla movie someone had bootlegged. Every so often, they’d hit pause and check CNN. Not that they expected the news station to find out about the mission, but you never could tell.
Among the NCOs clustered near the food table was Technical Sergeant Becky Rosen, whom Doberman realized was looking particularly gorgeous tonight. She smiled at him as she walked nearby, said something along the lines of “Thanks for risking your neck up there.”
He felt like a thirteen-year-old, unable to say anything intelligent in response. He watched her walk away, imagining what she might look like in a dress.
Damn, he was horny.
“So what’s Preston like?” asked Jeff “Truck” Lewis, leaning against the nearby chair with a glass of seltzer. Lewis, a black guy who’d grown up in New Jersey, was a captain who’d flown Hogs for about a year and a half. No one, including Jeff, was exactly sure where his nickname had come from.
“I don’t know,” Doberman told him.
“He flew wing for you, right?”
Doberman shrugged.
“I hear he’s a jerk,” offered Lewis.
“Who knows?”
“He talks nice about you, Glenon,” said Terry Morris. Morris was attached to the intelligence unit that shared some of the trailer office space with Devil Squadron. “He was raving about what a great pilot you were.”
“I’m not in any mood for you guys to pull my chain, okay?”
“No, it’s what he said,” insisted Morris. “Said you kicked butt. Some of the best flying he’s ever seen.”
“Probably wants Doberman to replace him in that fast-mover squadron he came from,” said Lewis.
“Screw off.”
“Hey, Dog, take it easy.”
“You ain’t A-Bomb, Truck. Don’t call me Dog.”
Lewis whistled, but backed off.
“Godzilla’s gonna eat them,” laughed someone, looking at the TV. “Use your slime, Rhodan.”
“Okay, here it is,” said Major Preston, appearing in the doorway. His hair was slicked back from a shower and he’d obviously just shaved. Doberman couldn’t help shaking his head.
“Colonel Knowlington and Captain O’Rourke are spending the night at King Khalid,” announced Hack. “Apparently they tanked with about five seconds to spare. But they’re fine, planes are intact.”
“They better be,” said Chief Master Sergeant Clyston. The pilots laughed, though it wasn’t entirely clear he was kidding.
“What about Dixon?” shouted someone.
“Captain Wong and the two Delta troopers were successfully recovered by the MC-130,” continued Preston. He held up his hands. He was grinning. “And they have Lieutenant Dixon, a bit tired and beat-up, but okay.”
No one said anything, the room suddenly still.
“Dixon’s alive,” said Preston.
“Yes! Yes!” shouted Morris, and everyone began cheering at once. Doberman couldn’t believe it for a second — it was too much to hope for.
Dixon was alive. He was alive.
Yeah, shit yeah.
He jumped up from the couch. Everyone was slapping high-fives and hugging each other, as if they’d won the World Series or the Super Bowl.
The Chief loomed before him.