Hog Down

PROLOGUE

Finally, they’d gotten a day with nearly full sun, the sort of day you’d expect in the desert. The weather had been horrible the past few days, more like Idaho than Saudi Arabia.

Private Smith rubbed his mouth, trying to chase away the late-afternoon dog breath. A few more hours and the sun would set: he’d go off duty and get some real zzzs — assuming Saddam didn’t lob any Scuds their way tonight.

The slime.

Leaning forward against the sandbags, Private Smith stared out across the vast wasteland in the direction of the enemy, his eyes straining to separate the dust from the earth. A huge earth berm sat a few hundred yards away. It was both the border of the country and the line between boredom and insanity.

Private Jones poked him in the back good-naturedly.

“How’s it going?” asked Jones.

“Not too bad,” said Smith. “You get any action going on the Super Bowl yet?”

The answer to his question was drowned out by a sudden roar. Two dark monsters swept up over the nearby berm, almost on top of them. The jets were so close to the earth, their wheels would have touched if their landing gear was out.

“Motherfucker!” screamed Smith, throwing himself on the ground.

The ground rattled with the sudden roar of the planes. Their noses bristled with the business ends of GAU-8/A Avenger seven-barrel rotary cannons, whose 30mm shells could chew through a concrete wall in a heartbeat. Thick wings jutted defiantly straight out from the fuselages, throwbacks to an earlier, rougher era. The planes’ huge engines hung off their backs like a devil’s forked tail: the rear rudders looked like legs trailing a flying witch.

The two fighter-bombers pounded over the sand like a pair of Satan’s minions sent to return some escaped soul to eternal torture. Smith cowered, sure that his next address would be chiseled in granite.

“Relax,” Jones told Smith as soon as the planes passed. He laughed, reaching down and hauling his companion to his feet. “They’re only the Warthogs.”

“Shit. I didn’t even hear the bastards.”

“Good thing they’re on our side, huh?”

“Damn fug-ugly planes,” said Smith, staring after them. “Uglier than the back end of a Humvee.”

“Uglier than your girlfriend.”

“That ain’t no thing.”

“Kick-ass ugly plane,” agreed Jones. “Gonna go tank up, then go back and rip some Iraqi hide.”

“I’m for that,” said Smith.