“Way to go, Captain,” said the Capo.
“Kick ass,” replied Doberman. He patted the sergeant’s broad back, then turned.
Sergeant Rosen was smiling next to him. He hugged her, folding her body into his. Glenon was short, but Rosen was even shorter. And though he knew she was strong — had in fact seen her haul a hundred-pound tool box and carry a knapsack without breaking a sweat — her body felt soft and light in his arms.
Light and soft and delicious.
He leaned over and kissed her. It was a long, long kiss, a dream thing, the kind of kiss you want on the perfect night. He held it, felt her lips against his, felt his heart fading into oblivion.
She pulled away gently. He pulled away, looking into her face.
Her slap nearly knocked him over.
Doberman stared at her as she walked quickly from the room. The celebration continued on around him.
Had he imagined the kiss? Or the slap?
“Captain, I got bad news,” said Preston behind him. He nudged him aside. “It’s not really bad, I guess, just disappointing.”
Doberman, still stunned, listened as Preston told him they hadn’t gotten Saddam.
“The car we hit — the car you hit — it wasn’t Saddam. It was an impostor, part of their ruse. You nailed it though. You nailed it good. You’re a hell of a shot, Glenon. You’re a damn good pilot, one of the best I’ve ever seen. A hell of a lot better than me.”
Without saying anything, Doberman turned and started after Rosen. A meaty hand grabbed him from behind. Doberman snapped around, expecting to see Preston, ready to floor him with a roundhouse.
But it was Clyston who’d grabbed him.
“No offense, Captain. But you’re much better off letting her be. Honest.”
The way the chief said it, the only thing Doberman could do was nod.
CHAPTER 71
King Khalid, aka the Emerald City, was near the border with Kuwait, right on the so-called neutral zone and well within striking distance of Saddam’s troops. As such, it was officially a forward operating area, a place for warplanes like the A-10 to use as temporary bases, a kind of scratch in the earth.
On the other hand, it was a fairly large base in a sophisticated international settlement, home to a large U.S. Army contingent and a massive helicopter force, to say nothing of some of the friendliest Air Force ground crew dogs and Spec Ops Do-it Dudes — A-Bomb’s term — in the world. So Colonel Knowlington wasn’t all that surprised by the warm welcome they received when Devils One and Two touched down. He’d already decided they’d get some sleep there; King Fahd was a good hour’s flight away, and A-Bomb looked like he hadn’t slept in a month.
“Don’t worry about me, Skip,” A-Bomb insisted after they checked over their Hogs on the ground. “I know where I can get some real joe here — there’s a secret Dunkin’ Donuts outpost on the other side of the sports dome.”
The sports dome being a nearby mosque.
“Colonel Knowlington, I’m Captain Hobbes,” said an Air Force officer, hopping from a Hummer as it pulled to a stop in the A-10 parking area. “I’m here to make sure you’re comfortable.”
“You debriefing us?” Skull asked.
“I’m just hospitality,” grinned Hobbes. “I do have a couple of goofy-looking intelligence types interested in talking to you about the missiles you came up against. Guy from CentCom, too, carrying around a clipboard. First I thought he was just doing inventory, but he kept asking pointed questions on what time you guys were supposed to land, so he may think you were trying to steal one of these planes. Couple of Delta types looking to add a squiggle or two to their maps, Spec Ops lieutenant with some adoption papers I think, and a French general who says you saved his son. Can’t tell if it’s really his son, though. I’m not too good with French this time of day.”
Skull and A-Bomb boarded the Humvee without getting out of their flight gear.
Their tour of the flight support shop turned into an international jawboning session as the welcome wagon crowded in to help them out of their fancy dress.
A French helicopter unit based at King Khalid had heard about Skull’s persistence in rescuing their fellow countryman and was determined — “qui insiste,” in all its various and sundry conjugations — to show its appreciation. Their efforts were augmented by a French army general and his entourage, who were convinced that Skull and A-Bomb deserved either medals or the Eiffel Tower for their exploits — it was hard to hear, let alone translate, in the din.
Besides the base contingent, a half-dozen RAF and U.S. intel officers crowded around to ask what it was like to fly against the SA-11s. A Hog driver from another squadron wandered in to find out what was shaking. A colonel came by to ask about a nephew doing maintenance in Devil Squadron. A Saudi sergeant who knew A-Bomb from somewhere walked up to pay off an old debt. Knowlington and O’Rourke were the guests of honor at a ragtag UN meeting. As people continued to materialize, someone decided to move it first to an empty hangar and then off-base to a building commandeered by the French.
Somewhere along the way, someone put a Styrofoam cup in Knowlington’s hand. He got halfway through before realizing it was a beer.
No. That was a lie. He realized it on the first sip. He realized it and felt the light tingle on his tongue. A voice in his head screamed to spit it out, but a louder voice just laughed and said, “drink.”
When he finished the cup, someone put another in his hand, and then another and another. He drank them all, the tingle melting into a steady hum, a pleasant, familiar vibration that warmed his brain and rubbed his back, loosened the knots in his shoulders and asked why he had waited so damn long to feel so damn good again.
A NOTE TO THE READER:
The operations described in the book, while in some respects inspired by actual events, are all invented and should be treated as fiction. Officially, the U.S. and its allies did not target Saddam for capture or execution.
In a few instances, details relating to procedures that could conceivably assist an enemy have either been omitted or obscured. These did not materially affect the story. And of course actions depicted in the book that are contrary to military law and procedures, not to mention good sense, are all fictional.
The STAR retrieval system does exist and works more or less in the manner described — though I for one would rather walk.
C-130s of various descriptions performed a wide variety of missions in the Gulf; though the plane began flying in the 1950s, it remains an important though often overlooked member of the service.
Al Kajuk is an invention.
French aircraft flew a total of 2,258 sorties during the war, roughly 2 percent of the total missions and fourth among coalition partners after the U.S., Britain, and Saudi Arabia. While several French aircraft sustained heavy battle damage, no French pilots were shot down during the war. Naturally, Hog drivers would have been there to snag their butts and haul them home if they had.
Some more boring statistics: The day before most of this story takes place, something on the order of forty percent of the sorties flown against Iraq were devoted to Scud hunting. That represented a major revamping of priorities to go against a small though admittedly politically significant threat. If that’s not an argument for providing a serious defense against ballistic missiles from rogue states and terrorists, A-Bomb’s a neat freak.
— Jim DeFelice