A slightly smaller banner hung beneath it: “Eat This, Saddam.”
Preston shook his head. That would have to go.
“Hog Heaven, sir,” announced the driver as the Humvee skidded to a stop a few yards from a patched-together trailer complex off the side of the main area of the base. Closer to the planes and the Spec Ops areas than the other A-10A commands, the ramshackle building looked like a carny camp without the charm.
Preston pulled himself out of the Humvee, which jerked away before he could properly close the door. Hack walked across the patched concrete and climbed up the rickety stairs. Inside, the building seemed to sway as he passed down the hallway.
In the civilian world, seven o’clock in the morning was relatively early; most people would still be making their way to work. Hog squadron was experiencing a lull as well — but only because most its planes had already left on the morning missions assigned to it by the “frag” or fragment of the Air Tasking Order that laid out the allied game plan for the air war. The squadron shared quarters with an intelligence group at the far end of the hallway; Preston, with no signs on the doors to guide him, walked toward the buzz. As he passed a room on the right he stopped short — it was a large lounge dominated by a massive projection-screen TV. The set was tuned to CNN, where Bernard Shaw flashed his impressive eyebrows as he spoke into a microphone.
The CNN screen changed. It was night. Hoses of red tracers filled the sky. Preston stepped into the room as words appeared in the lower right. “Downtown Baghdad.” Suddenly light flashed in the lower right corner of the screen — a bomb or missile hitting. The camera jumped. More explosions, secondaries most likely. Fire filled the sky.
The scene changed. It was morning. “Live,” according to the words at the bottom.
Buildings. “An Iraqi Factory” claimed the words.
Undoubtedly a lie, Hack thought.
“Excuse me,” said a gravelly voice behind him.
Preston stepped to the side to get out of the way. The other man walked inside, past the large, overstuffed couches to the side the room. Three large refrigerators and bins of junk-food snacks sat along the wall, next to a long wooden table. There was a coffee machine there — next to a bean grinder. The officer poured himself a cup without glancing at him.
It was Michael Knowlington. Hack had worked with him, briefly, during an assignment at the Pentagon about a year before. They hadn’t gotten along particularly well.
“You’re early,” said Knowlington without looking up. “Good.”
Before Preston could answer, the colonel had replaced the coffee pot and begun striding from the room. All Hack could do was follow down the hall to a small office on the right. The colonel took no notice of him, and in fact had reached to close the door behind him when Preston pushed himself into the doorway.
“Colonel, I —”
“Come in if you’re coming,” said Knowlington.
In contrast to the room with the TV, the squadron commander’s officer was as spartan as a porta-john on a remote campsite. There were exactly three pieces of furniture — a three-drawer metal desk pushed against the wall and two metal folding chairs, neither of which had any padding. The walls were blank; a set of blinds hung down over the window. Knowlington sat in the chair behind the desk, turning it to face the other seat, which was against the wall near the door.
Guy was so low on the totem pole, Preston thought to himself, he couldn’t even get furniture. Obviously the rumors must be true.
“I understand you helped out near Apache yesterday evening,” said Knowlington. “Thanks.”
“Apache? You mean the MiG that attacked the helicopter?”
Knowlington nodded. Preston and his wingmate had actually been involved — though at the last minute, and then largely as spectators to the main event. While they tangled with several MiGs that had apparently been launched as decoys, two Hogs had somehow managed to fight off a Fishbed closing in on a Spec Ops helo.
More than fought it off — one of the Hogs had nailed the SOB, an incredible feat in the slow moving A-10.
“Those were your planes?” Preston asked.
“Two of my best pilots. They should be back soon. They’ll be here for your coming out party.”
Anyone else would have said the last words with a smile. Knowlington said them as if he were reading off a list of numbers on an engineering chart.
Hack nodded. On the flight out he’d considered whether he ought to say something about burying the hatchet or getting along or letting bygones be bygones — make some reference, at least, to their “disagreement” in D.C. But now that he was here, sitting two feet from Knowlington, he didn’t know what to say.
At least he didn’t smell like booze.
“I’d like to get to work,” Hack told him. “First thing, I think, is review the duty roster, then look over the maintenance. I want to make sure the planes are ready to go. Right off, I thought I would —”
“I believe you’ll find that Chief Master Sergeant Clyston has everything under control.”
“Clyston?”
“You know Allen?”
“No. But who’s the officer in charge of…”
“If there’s a readiness problem with the planes, it comes straight to me,” said Knowlington. “Clyston oversees the maintenance sections. He reports directly to me.”
“Ordinarily…”
“We’re not fully staffed,” said Knowlington. His voice remained as neutral as ever. “That’s an advantage, because it means we don’t have a lot of extraneous bullshit and red tape. We have just enough people to get our job done. Most days.”
Not a laugh, not a hint of humor.
“Well I’m not in favor of extraneous bullshit either,” started Hack. His “but” never got out of his mouth.
“Good. I’m due in Riyadh in two hours and I have some details to look after,” said Skull, standing and opening the door for him. “We’ll introduce you formally at 1300 or thereabouts. Bernie’ll get you situated. He’s down the hall with the Intelligence people; we share resources.”
There was just the hint of irony in Knowlington’s voice. Angry at being brushed off but not exactly sure what to do or say, Preston got up as deliberately as he could, only just managing not to slam the door behind him.
CHAPTER 8
Doberman cursed himself as he whacked the Hog engines to maximum power, goosing the throttle for all he was worth. Diversionary flares shot out of their wingtip dispensers, bursting in the path of the shoulder-fired missile.
Truth was, he’d been caught flat-footed, at very low altitude without a lot of flight energy or momentum to help him escape. He hadn’t expected someone to be sitting down there behind him with a heat seeker.
Stupidity.
No, worse: Pilot arrogance, one of the seven deadly sins. He’d flown like he was invincible and now had to pay the piper. The only question was whether he’d pay with sweat or blood.
The SA-7 the Iraqi soldier had launched at him was a relatively primitive heat-seeking missile. Its nearest Western equivalent was the Redeye missile, a 1960s’ man-portable weapon outclassed by contemporary SAMs like the Stinger and the Russian SA-16, to say nothing of systems like the British Blowpipe or the Swedish RBS 70. Still, the SA-7 flew at just under 1,000 miles an hour and had a range of two miles; the Hog was well within its lethal envelope. About the only thing Doberman had going for him was its fuse — a direct-action device that required the missile to actually hit something before detonating the RDX/AP explosive.