Hog Down

CHAPTER 24

Ordinarily, Robby took a nap now. Kathy Johnson counted on it; she used the hour-long break from her infant son to take a shower and, sometimes, to sneak a cigarette on her mother-in-law’s porch. It wasn’t like she had to sneak out to smoke, exactly, but she’d made such a big thing about giving them up during her pregnancy that she felt she’d be letting people down if they knew she had gone back. And as welcoming as her husbands’ parents were toward her and the baby, they were still parents. It was an odd feeling, now that she was a parent herself.

But today Robby didn’t seem to want to nap. He was nearly four months old, born only a few weeks before her husband had gotten the news that he was leaving for the Gulf. She tried rocking him and singing; when that didn’t work Kathy gave him her breast again, swaying gently in the overstuffed old chair in their room. Finally, his eyes stayed closed. She waited until his arms went limp before getting up slowly and gently placing him inside the crib.

Stepping back, she suddenly felt very cold, as if wrapped in ice. She began to shudder. Her mother-in-law kept the thermostat at 72 degrees, and had double-insulated panes behind the storm windows, but Kathy felt the chill deep in her bones. She stood shivering for nearly a minute before it passed, and kept her arms wrapped tightly around her as she tiptoed from the room and headed down the hall toward the bathroom.

She had just started the water when the phone rang. She and the baby were alone in the house; there was an answering machine but she was afraid the noise would wake Robby and she rushed to take the call, even though it meant going all the way downstairs to the kitchen in only her robe.

Her brother Peter’s voice leapt from the receiver.

“Kathy?”

“Peter?”

“Go turn on CNN.”

She knew, then. The shudder she had felt a few minutes before returned with a fury; her body trembled so hard her robe fell open.

“Kath? I’ll stay on the line. Just turn on the TV.”

The phone was cordless. Kath carried it with her as she walked through the smallish Cape Cod to the living room as deliberately as she could manage.

Though she’d been here for weeks, she still hadn’t mastered the cable layout and the remote control. The screen flashed with a picture of a talk show host cajoling some guest into accepting a fashion makeover. Kathy had to go through channel by channel until finally the all-news network appeared.

Two men were talking. She thought she recognized the man on the right, a retired air force officer, though she couldn’t decide whether it was because she had actually seen him before on the channel or because he had a generic, bland sort of face.

They flashed up a picture of an A-10A Thunderbolt II, the plane her husband flew, the plane he and the other pilots called the Warthog, or more simply, “Hog.”

She waited for the rest. There was a map of Saudi Arabia and Iraq. An airbase supposedly used by the Hogs was marked out near the Gulf on the Saudi side of the border. She realized that the location of the air base was incorrect, though she wasn’t sure whether it was a mistake or something done deliberately so the Iraqis wouldn’t know where the Hogs were.

She knew it was supposed to be Jimmy’s base. All the Hogs flew from the same one.

“Kathy?”

She looked at the phone in her hand, unsure how it had gotten there.

“Kath? Are you still there? I hear the TV.”

She stared down at the worn, golden tufts of the freshly washed carpet, her eyes trailing slowly around the perfectly kept living room and its carefully arranged knickknacks and icons: the photographs of the Johnson’s three sons and two wives and their three, now four grandchildren; the souvenir from Disney World and the trophy that Jimmy had won for graduating second in his class and a medal that had been presented to his younger brother during an amateur olympics competition three years ago; and a photo in a pewter frame of the entire Johnson clan last summer at a picnic. Her eyes caught her just-rounding belly, apprehension clearly marked on her face. And then her eyes slipped over to her husband, so proud next to her, so ready to be a father after all these years of trying, so into it, having read every book as if having a child was like reading instruction manuals on a new kind of airplane. He was in his shorts and yes, he had nice legs, with sharp, thick muscles. His chest and arms were well — sculpted, too, but she’d always liked his legs and his eyes the best.

“Kathy?”

And finally, she returned her attention to the television screen, where another photo of her husband was being shown, a still from a video clip apparently taken a day or two earlier by coincidence. Beneath the scratchy frame were the words, “Believed down in Iraq.”

CHAPTER 25

Chief Clyston had just entered the building when he saw his colonel charge through the hallway from the squadron room into his office. The door flew open and slammed shut; almost immediately there was a loud roar as Colonel Knowlington barked at some hapless military operator to get him a so-and-so and so-and-so line to such-and-such in Riyadh, and so-and-so now!

Clyston hadn’t seen the colonel like this in a long, long time— in fact, he couldn’t remember him ever being this pissed off. He realized that it must have to do with Mongoose, but couldn’t quite figure out what would have sent Knowlington ballistic.

The chief master sergeant eased his 267 pounds gingerly down the hallway as the tirade reached new heights.

“Who the fuck gave out the fucking information!” the colonel shouted. “What the hell were they thinking? Using his name! Get me that scumbag because I am going to tear him three new fucking assholes! Johnson has a goddamn wife and a little fucking baby. Shitting hell!”

The stream of curses continued unabated for at least five minutes. Clyston felt himself actually shudder when the colonel hung up the phone. It had been a long time since anything Knowlington did actually scared him. Hell, it had been eons since anything scared him. But here he was, graybeard and all, standing in the hallway and feeling not a little like newbie private on his first assignment. He actually knocked on the door.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me. Chief Master Sergeant Clyston.”

“Come,” snapped Knowlington.

“Colonel?”

“Alan. What the fuck’s up? You hear this bullshit?”

“Major Johnson being shot down?”

“It’s on fucking CNN. Every fucking detail.”

“CNN?”

“Some douche bag with his head up his ass talked to the fucking network! I can’t fucking believe it. They confirmed his name and everything. They could just as well have given the fucking Iraqis a map. Wait until I find out who it was. Just wait.”

There was little doubt in Clyston’s mind that his boss would tear the person in two, no matter what his or her rank was— even if it had been the President himself. Knowlington wasn’t a particularly big man, but at the moment he looked like he could wipe the floor with Mike Tyson.

“Well, what the fuck’s up?”

“I wanted you to know that Devil Three has a clean bill of health,” said Clyston. “And the rest of the squadron is primed and ready, so you’re not going to need any backups sitting back here in the hangars. They can take off at first light. Sooner, if you want.”

Knowlington’s heart rate descended to merely apocalyptic levels. “You read my mind,” he said.

“I thought you’d want us in the mix.”

Knowlington nodded. He was staring beyond the chief master sergeant, as if he could see through the walls all the way to Iraq. “I hate those motherfucking newspeople, Alan,” he said finally. “They screwed us in ‘Nam. Man, they screwed us bad.”

The chief gave him an all-purpose “yup.” This wasn’t Vietnam, though he wasn’t about to point that out. He also had a somewhat different view on the media— in his opinion, it was the brass and politicians who had fucked up; a lot of the newspeople who weren’t jerks were just trying to show how it was from a grunts’ eye-view. Nothing wrong with that. But Skull had personal reasons for his interpretation, and the Capo respected that.

“I got to find Goose’s wife’s phone number,” Knowlington told him.

“You’re going to call her?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Wouldn’t, uh, wouldn’t be my place.”

“Yeah, well, I have to take care of this myself. She’s probably watching the fucking television right now. Jesus H. Christ. Do me a favor, would you? A-Bomb stayed north to try and help the search. He hadn’t gotten back to King Khalid last time I checked. Find Wong and tell him I want to talk to A-Bomb as soon as he lands there. Tell him I don’t care if he has to go up to KKMC himself and lasso him, I want to be talking to him within the hour.”

“Wong?”

“Yeah. He’s got a screwy sense of humor but he’s exactly the kind of guy you can count on in the clutch with something like this. Got those intel and Pentagon connections. Wong’s OK.”

Clyston nodded.

“How’s the crew taking it?” Knowlington asked.

“Everybody wants to do what they can to get him back.”

“You tell them we’re bringing him back if I have to fucking hike up to Baghdad myself and carry him out on my back.”

“Yourself?”

“Yeah. Me.”

“This mission approved by Black Hole?”

“You know, Chief, with all due respect, I can’t remember making you officer of the day, let alone director of operations.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Knowlington’s frown and silence indicated he expected the Capo to tell him what was on his mind, no matter whether it was something he wanted to hear or not.

“Well, uh, taking the mission yourself,” Clyston told him.

“You think I’m too old?”

“No. You’re just, you’re getting a little excited. Usually, you’re ice.”

“Yeah, well I’m pissed. The CNN crapola. I’ll calm down, enough to nail these fuckers anyway.”

“You sound like A-Bomb,” Clyston told him.

Knowlington didn’t answer. His eyes were back in their far-away stare.

The colonel actually sounded like another pilot Clyston had known— Captain Knowlington, Thud and Phantom pilot extraordinaire. The captain had been a hell of a stick man, a balls-out jock as lucky as he was skilled, and smarter than both. That wasn’t a combination you found in a lot of officers.

Brash as all hell, though; forgot to use his smarts and got himself into situations where he needed every ounce of that skill and more than his share of luck.

Clyston liked Captain Knowlington, admired the hell out of him. Captain Knowlington had balls the size of watermelons and a will to match. But even back in Vietnam, the chief had enough experience to know that wasn’t the sort of man who should command a fighter squadron, even during a war. He was too hot headed, too quick to react, too close to the situation to think slowly and carefully. Leading by impulse got a lot of people killed.

Colonel Knowlington had his faults, but Colonel Knowlington was one hell of a boss. Saying he was like ice didn’t cover a quarter of it. Hell, he was as cold and calculating as a goddamn computer, and twice as smart. And he not only cared about his people, but trusted them to do their jobs without his hand on their shoulders. He even asked NCOs what they thought— and admitted taking their advice once in a while.

Since coming to Saudi Arabia, Knowlington had somehow gotten beyond the booze and doubts that had dogged him for years. Something had clicked, and all his experience and the better parts of his personality just fell into place. Maybe the war had brought out the best in him.

They needed Colonel Knowlington to lead the squadron, not Captain Knowlington. They needed cold, well-thought-out decisions that would keep everyone alive while still doing the maximum hurt to Saddam. Morale-boosting respect for even the lowest airman, respect that was genuine, not bullshit, the kind of thing that got a homesick nineteen-year-old out of his tent in the morning determined to check every bolt twice just because the old man was counting on him.

But there was no way to talk about that now.

Damn— was he kidding about flying north himself?

“Something else?” Skull asked.

“Not that I can think of,” Clyston told him. “I’ll see if I can find Captain Wong for you.”

Knowlington didn’t bother answering, already reaching for the phone on his desk.

CHAPTER 26

The Hog was moving a bit too fast for a picture-perfect landing, but A-Bomb didn’t particularly care. He jerked the poor plane onto the concrete with an uncharacteristic screech, annoyed that he had to come down at all. He’d left the area where Mongoose had been hit with only the greatest reluctance. Even if he couldn’t see anything, he felt he belonged nearby.

True, the Air Force had different jobs for different people, and for all he knew as he began taxiing at the end of the airstrip, a division of Special Forces troops were carrying Mongoose back home on their freakin’ shoulders right now. The point was he ought to be there. Hog pilots looked after their own. He was the guy’s freakin’ wingman, and it was half or maybe three-quarters his fault he’d gone down in the first place.

Maybe not, but it was the principle of the thing.

A-Bomb told this in so many words to the airman who was waving the Hog off the landing strip to make way for other planes. Fortunately for the airman, he was several yards away, outside the aircraft, and wearing ear protection.

“What I’m talking about here,” A-Bomb shouted as he moved toward a refitting area, banging on his canopy, “is getting refueled like yesterday. And I need the cannon reloaded. You with me? I’m thinking we can rig an extra set of landing lights, maybe put together some sort of lens that’ll make them into search lights. That’s what I’m talking about. Ten minute’s worth of work. What I’m talking about is smoking any Iraqi that comes within ten miles of him. Can’t be smoking anybody with no bullets. You’re showing me to a candy man, right? To get some new iron? I don’t see no dragon down there and I can use some new bullets in the cannon. Hey kid, you listening to me?”

The jerry-rigged landing light idea had occurred to him as he flew back to base. It wasn’t a bad idea, except for the fact that it would alert every anti-air operator within a hundred miles that he was coming. Sure, the Hog could take a lot of abuse, but the rescue helicopters might catch some of the flak, too. The Iraqis were notoriously bad shots.

What he needed was a pair of Maverick G’s— the enhanced air-to-ground missiles had an excellent infrared seeker that could be pressed into service as night-vision equipment. A squadron had been practicing the technique for weeks.

And if he could find an Army Apache pilot, he’d really strike gold. The Apache drivers had kick-ass night goggles, which worked off the reflected light from the stars and the moon. Have to adapt them a bit for the Hog, but shit, what would that take? A little fiddling with a screwdriver? Some duct tape to completely black out the Hog cockpit, or create a little shade to see through? War was about experimentation.

How would he get an Apache pilot to give his up glasses? Poor shit would probably have to pay for them out of his own pocket.

Maybe a swap— he could trade his customized Colt, a very serious personally modified .45, the kind of gun a real army guy ought to salivate over— for a mere temporary loan. Have them back before sundown, no harm done. Say they were misplaced or in the shop if anyone asks.

Hell, he’d even throw in a couple of Twinkies.

No self-respecting member of the U.S. Army could refuse such a deal. His plan set, A-Bomb shuttled into a parking area a few hundred yards from the end of the runway. He was disappointed— no choppers in sight.

He was just checking his gas gauges to see if he might somehow persuade the fumes to take him a bit further when an army officer ran toward the front of the plane, waving his arms like a jumping jack. The man made a motion as if he wanted him to cut his engines.

A-Bomb leaned his large body out the side of the plane to see if the officer could direct him to the nearest Apache.

“Cut your engines and crank down your ladder!” shouted the man.

He was definitely Army. You could tell by the overly serious expression on his face.

And the fact that he kept his distance from the airplane. In A-Bomb’s experience, the overwhelming majority of Army officers were afraid of flying. Otherwise they would have joined the Air Force.

“I said, where can I find an Apache?” he shouted down to the man.

“Cut your engines and crank down your ladder,” repeated the officer, motioning with his hand to make A-Bomb understand.

Since it was designed to work from front-line bases with minimal amenities, the A-10A was equipped with its own ladder, which the pilot could operate from the cockpit. A-Bomb cut his motors and complied, though unwinding the ladder felt a bit too much like putting down an anchor, under the circumstances.

A flush-red face belonging to an Army major quickly appeared over the side.

“Why the hell didn’t you shut your engines when I told you to?” the officer asked.

“When did you tell me to shut off the engines?”

“You couldn’t see me?”

“Saw you just now,” said A-Bomb, who had decided to be on his best behavior. “Can you direct me to the Apache pilots? There’s a Twinkie in it for you. A little crushed, I apologize, but definitely edible.”

“Listen, are you Captain O’Rourke or not?”

“I was this morning.”

“Look, I don’t have time for bullshit. We’ve just been put on a goddamn Scud alert. You got to get chem gear on and get this plane secured. Then you call your squadron commander.”

“Who?”

“Call your colonel. But before that, get yourself into protective gear.”

“My best protection’s a fully loaded Hog,” A-Bomb told him. “Shit, I got Sidewinders— I’ll nail the damn missiles while they’re inbound.”

The major grumbled something concerning the sanity of Air Force personnel and disappeared back down the ladder.

“Colonel wants to talk to you,” said Captain Wong when A-Bomb finally got a connection to the home drome.

“Yeah, well I want to talk to him.”

“Okay.”

“So put him on.”

“I don’t know where he is.”

“Well I sure as shit don’t.”

“Wait, I’ll look in his office.”

A-Bomb pushed himself back in the field chair. Wong was one of those absent-minded-professor types. Guy had a shitload of knowledge about Russian-made air defenses; he was supposedly the world expert, and had figured out some fairly tricky stuff for Devil Squadron since coming from Black Hole the first day of the war. But he couldn’t put mustard on a bologna and cheese sandwich without detailed instructions.

Bologna and cheese sure as hell would hit the spot right about now. Better: the double Big Mac with extra-large fries and strawberry shake that was undoubtedly sitting in his tent at the home drome.

Amazing where Fed Ex could deliver.

As forward air strips went, KKMC wasn’t particularly spartan, but it did lack a full-service McDonald’s. Still, there were enough army guys floating around. Hog crews pitted here all the time. That much creativity around demanded a bit more research on his part; there might be a fast-food outlet somewhere around here. In fact, now that he thought about it, the round-domed building nearby would be the perfect place for the local Dunkin’ Donuts franchise: If you squinted just right it kind of looked like an upside-down coffee cup.

Super-size Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and two, no make that three, Boston Cremes would definitely charge him up for the return trip north. Chocolate a little gooey on the top, just enough to leave his fingertips covered with lickable creme.

“A-Bomb, where the fuck are you?”

“Hey, good evening to you, too, Colonel.”

“What the hell are you doing at KKMC?”

“Getting more bullets in case I see any rattlesnakes up north.”

Knowlington grunted. A-Bomb didn’t know the commander too well, but Knowlington came with a reputation; he’d kicked serious butt flying over Vietnam and he didn’t dick his pilots around. So when the colonel asked if he’d seen a parachute, A-Bomb didn’t hedge.

“I thought I saw something, but now I’m not even sure of that. I found the wreckage but couldn’t see the seat or the chute anywhere. And I looked.”

“And no beacon?”

“I’m thinking the radio screwed up. Got to be. Probably a transistor blew or something.”

“The backup, too?”

It was a comment not a question, so A-Bomb didn’t answer. He could tell that the colonel, unlike the intel guys he’d spoken to after parking the plane, knew Mongoose was still alive down there. It was just a question of coming up with a plan to get him back.

“I got this idea,” A-Bomb told him. “If I had some Maverick G’s, I could go back and scan the ground. Hell, the eyes in those things are better than an owl’s. Problem is, I can’t seem to drum up any up here. The one sergeant who seems to know what the hell I’m talking about bitches about how expensive they are and claims all of the missiles are at Fahd. I don’t know if it’s true, but I haven’t seen any myself.”

“I doubt they’re sensitive enough to pick him up, even in the desert.”

For just a second, A-Bomb’s faith in his commander wavered.

“We can’t just leave him up there, Colonel.”

“I’m not leaving him up there,” snapped Knowlington. “I’m fucking thinking.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

Had A-Bomb thought about it, he would have realized it was perhaps the first time he had used the word “sir” in Saudi Arabia— and undoubtedly the first time he had ever used it twice in one sentence since training. He hung on the line through a long silence, waiting while Knowlington worked the thing through in his head.

“All right. Go catch some rest,” said the colonel finally. “I have a few things to get around down here. I’ll be up with the Mavericks three hours before dawn, latest. That gives you a little time for a catnap.”

“You’re trucking them up?”

“I’m flying, you asshole. You and I are going to find Mongoose, assuming the Special Ops boys haven’t picked him up by then. You have a problem with that?”

“No, sir. Shit no.”

“Well then get some fucking sleep. I don’t want a zombie watching my six.”

“Yes, sir.”

A-Bomb looked at the handset as the line clicked dead. The old man hadn’t flown a combat mission since he’d come to Saudi Arabia. The word was that Skull Knowlington, who’d originally been assigned to head a squadron that existed only on paper, had maybe a hundred hours in the Hog cockpit, or some ridiculously low amount.

But hell. Knowlington was a god-damn legend. If anybody could find Mongoose— anyone besides A-Bomb that was— the colonel could.

“Fuckin’ A,” said the pilot said. “I think.”

CHAPTER 27

Mongoose aimed the small strobe unit in the direction of the sound. He had already fired a pencil flare to get their attention, and now hoped the strobe would direct whoever was up there to his location.

The strobe’s light was hooded, making it difficult to see on the ground. In theory, anyway. He couldn’t worry about any of that now; he kept strobing, hoping to hear the engine again. The radio was pumping out its own emergency beacon.

But the plane was no longer nearby. He made a voice broadcast; when there was no answer he fired another mini-flare. As the rocket arced upwards, he tried the radio again. Mongoose swung the dial back and forth, from beacon to voice, radioing his distress call.

“I’ll take a pizza with anchovies to go,” he added at the end.

Whatever he’d heard was gone. He settled back against the stones he’d lined up as a small shelter. He’d dug out some of the ground with his boot, like a small fox-hole. It had been something to do, to take his mind off how stinking cold he was.

The radio was probably busted. That wasn’t particularly lucky.

Might’ve broken somehow when he landed. Or it was just one of those dumb, stupid things.

There was another one back in the seat pack.

But where the hell was that now? Could he trace his way back in the dark and the slowly lifting fog?

He heard a noise in the distance, this time on the ground.

Was it really there? His ears buzzed with something, but it didn’t seem real. Slowly, as deliberately as possible, he slid the strobe light back into a vest pocket and removed his pistol from its holster.

He stayed like that, gun just in front of his chest, for a long time. The noise grew louder, then faded. It was definitely a truck, and far off. His eyes ached, filtering the darkness for the head beams or taillights, but they didn’t appear. The moon, a dull crescent, drifted through some clouds, cold and distant.

When he was in Boy Scouts, they used to tell ghost stories about kids so lost in the wilderness they turned into walking skeletons, haunting the woods for centuries. He thought of those stories now as he crouched back into his small, safe place and holstered his pistol.

The stories had scared the piss out of him. He remembered being so afraid that he wouldn’t get out of his sleeping bag to take a leak. Instead, he’d lie awake all night, waiting for dawn.

That was as a second-class scout, still pretty green, his first full year as a scout. The next summer, at the wilderness camp in the Adirondacks, now Star rank, he laughed at the stories, told a lot of them himself, and took a leak whenever he damn well pleased.

He was still a little scared, actually, but no way would he let on, even to himself.

His days as a scout were all flooding back. He remembered one of his toughest tests— to join one of the scouts’ “secret” lodges, he’d had to endure an initiation that consisted of being left alone in the wilderness with only a map and compass. He was given two hours to get back to camp.

He’d hurt his knee a few days before the initiation, and soon after he started he slipped down a ravine and twisted it pretty bad. Mongoose knew from one of his friends that older scouts monitored an initiate carefully; they were always within shouting distance in case something went wrong.

He could have called out. His injury would have been considered a mitigating factor and he would have probably been given another chance at the initiation. But he didn’t. Instead he hobbled on down the mountain, finding a stick to use as a crutch and showing up at camp nearly six hours later, well past the deadline. When the lodge elder— that was what they called the leader— asked why he was so late, Mongoose just shrugged. He’d thrown away the stick before coming into camp, and refused to let his knee be an excuse. He told the others he’d failed the initiation because he had taken too much time hiking in.

A few days later, the kids in the lodge “kidnapped” him from his tent, and made him a member anyway. They all knew what had happened, even though he didn’t tell anyone.

That was one of the proudest moments of his life. Even now. It compared to the first day he’d flown a jet fighter alone, and the day his son was born— actually the day after, when he was telling everyone he knew, because the day it happened was too consuming to feel anything but the moment.

In some ways, the initiation was his most difficult accomplishment. It would have been so easy to make excuses.

Another day strayed into his memory, a snatch of a day. He had his father’s car and hit into another car in a parking lot, breaking the taillight.

He’d gotten out, inspected the cars. There was no damage to his. The other car was a relatively new BMW.

He hopped back into his dad’s car and took off.

Coward.

Mongoose kicked himself for doing that, as if it had happened this morning instead of thirteen or fourteen years before. That wasn’t him — he was the kid who hiked down the mountain on a makeshift crutch, and refused to make excuses. He should have left a note on the guy’s windshield, offered to make good, whatever the consequences.

Plenty of times he had. But the car came back at him now. He pushed down against the ground, kicked out some more dirt in his miniature bunker, felt his knee tweak a bit.

Scouting was a good time. The best camping was during the winter, when you literally froze your tush off just taking a dump. He almost never managed more than an hour or two sleeping at night, even when they stayed in cabins. He was always so tired he’d sleep the entire day when he got home.

It felt colder than that now, and it was going to get even worse. He rubbed his arms against his chest, moved around a bit, stood and walked a little.

He wanted Robby to go into Boy Scouts, assuming they still existed. Assuming they’d let him join with his father in the service. Military life being what it was it could be hard to join an organization. But plenty of kids did.

Tough as hell to raise a family when you were gone fighting a war. To be away when they needed you, when your wife needed you…

He caught himself, got back into checklist mode.

A good radio was essential. He could walk back to the trees, then find his way to the pack from there. He’d use the road as much as he dared; find it from the trees, then walk parallel until he came to the wadi. From there it would be easy to get back to the seat.

First, though, there might be a way to fix the radio he had. Shake it, at least— nothing wrong with banging something to make it work, A-Bomb used to say.

Good old A-Bomb. He’d be busting an artery looking for him.

If he was still alive. More than likely he was in worse shape. Maybe hadn’t even gotten out alive.

And it was Mongoose’s fault. He’d taken the planes low to smoke the Scuds, even though it was dangerous and against all sorts of cautions and orders and common sense.

Not Hog sense, but that wasn’t the same thing.

Mongoose took the radio in one hand and gripped the gun by the barrel. Not exactly something a technician might approve of, but what the hell— he banged them together, then tried another quick broadcast.

When he heard nothing, he put radio away and began walking.

CHAPTER 28

It wasn’t until after Dixon had told Colonel Knowlington about Mongoose that he felt the true depth of his uselessness here. It wasn’t as if he expected to be tasked to fly up there and bring him back— in fact, the air tasking order had already given the Devil Squadron a heavy agenda; there probably was no room in the frag for anything like that and other units were already assigned search-and-rescue duty anyway. But there was no question that Dixon was far from the action, a million miles from where he belonged.

He finished up his work, then checked around to see if anything new had come in on Major Johnson’s flight.

Nothing. Not a good sign. But there was nothing he could do about it, sitting in his Riyadh cubbyhole. Reluctantly, he decided to keep his dinner date with an American family in a “guest” development not far from the center of the city. He hoped real food might take his mind off his uselessness for a few hours.

Thanks partly to their great oil wealth, the Saudis used a large number of foreigners to help run their country. Many of the workers were domestics and drudges from poor countries such as Pakistan. But there was also a fair number of highly skilled workers, including Westerners. Most lived apart from the rest of Saudi society, their “hosts” not wanting to risk the contamination of Western mores in a Muslim culture. His new acquaintances— cousins of an Air Force officer he’d gone through basic training with— lived in one such compound. It was a kind of gilded ghetto where, for the most part, Islamic strictures such as those about women’s dress and alcohol could be safely ignored.

But that didn’t explain why his friend greeted him at the front door in a full-body chem suit.

“You’re late. Where’s your protective gear?”

“Do I have the right house?” asked Dixon.

“It’s me, Fernandez,” said the man through the suit. “I’ve been waiting for you. Come in. We’re on Scud alert. Everyone else is in the shelter.”

“Shelter?”

“It’s not really a shelter, but it will do as long as there’s not a direct hit. The walls are reinforced and it’s airtight. We have an air exchanger but I don’t trust it. Where’s your suit?”

“I don’t have one.”

“What? Well come on, we’ll get you a mask at least. Come on.”

Like a lot of other guys in Saudi Arabia, Dixon didn’t take the chemical warfare threat very seriously. Nor did he think much of the Scuds, which were annoying but not particularly accurate.

Though maybe that ought to worry him a bit.

Inside the hallway, Dixon had to duck around a crystal chandelier that looked like it belonged in an opera house. They walked through the public part of the sprawling one — level house, past a luxurious, Western-style living room and a dining room that could have been in a palace somewhere, then down a second hallway into a back room.

“I know the place looks pretty drab. We’ve packed away the valuables,” said Fernandez through his hood. He worked as an accountant for a Saudi oil concern owned by one of the royal family. “I know what you’re thinking— we don’t have a proper basement. But this wing was supposedly steel-reinforced and good against anything but a direct hit. I don’t know whether to believe them or not. But at least there’s no windows.”

They stepped down a single step and continued through yet another hallway, this one lined with expensive-looking paintings. Dixon wondered what the stuff that had been packed away looked like.

His nose twitched with the smell of roast beef. Before he could ask about it, his host opened the door at the very end of the hall, revealing a thick piece of plastic. He reached down and pulled it up, revealing a room about twenty by thirty feet long. A dozen people, all wearing gas masks or protective hoods, a few in full suits, crowded around a brown leather love seat and ottoman, watching a CNN feed. A correspondent in a chem suit but no hood was speaking to the camera in hushed tones.

“Here’s a whole suit,” said Fernandez, leading him to a table in the corner. He held up a suit that was clearly too small for Dixon’s frame.

“It’s not going to fit.”

“Take the mask, then. Like I said, I don’t trust the equipment.”

“I honestly don’t think it’s necessary.”

His host’s answer was cut off by the peal of a siren. As loud as the siren was, the explosion that followed was even louder.

Dixon quickly began stuffing himself into the gear.

CHAPTER 29

Of Colonel Knowlington’s many friends in the Pentagon, Alex Sherman was among the least sympathetic. For one thing, Sherman was a civilian; he didn’t quite understand the wrenches your guts went through when people shot at you.

For another, Sherman was a reformed alcoholic; he took a tough love stance toward everybody and everything, Michael Knowlington especially. They’d met each other in Saigon, well before either admitted drinking was a problem, let alone something they ought to give up. Sherman was the one media person Skull could stand. Actually, he was a pr consultant, then for the Army, now for the Joint Chiefs, with a title nearly as long as Knowlington’s service record. Sherman’s opinion of reporters was every bit as jaded though far more nuanced than the colonel’s; having fed the sharks for so long, he’d come to understand and maybe like a few.

Which was one reason Skull let him have it full blast for the CNN story.

“Hey, you through? It’s not like I’m the assignment editor, or the guy with the big mouth,” said Sherman. “It’s just one of those things, Mikey. A reporter happened to be around when some guys were talking.”

“One of those things? I thought there were fucking censors to keep the lid on.”

“Yeah, well, somebody’s butt’ll fry on that, believe me.”

“These god damn bozos are going to get him killed.”

“That’s not true. If anything, this may help keep him alive. If Saddam knows we know he’s alive, the odds for survival are better.”

“You have statistics on that?”

“Believe me, we’re just as peed over here as you are.”

“Has anyone talked to his wife yet?”

“Well, by now— ”

“I haven’t been able to get a line through to her. Can you arrange that for me?”

“Me?”

“You have some pull, don’t you?”

“I don’t know if I can get approval, for one thing.”

“Screw approval. Just get me the phone number. We don’t have it for some reason, and it’s unlisted.”

“Mikey, you really think you should talk to her? What the hell are you going to say?”

“You going to help me or what?”

Sherman’s long sigh announced surrender. “Let me see what I can do.”

“I’ll stay on the line.”

“Come on.”

“I may never be able to get you again.”

“Jesus.”

Knowlington leaned back from his desk and saw that Captain Wong was standing uncomfortably in the doorway. “Those Mavericks on the plane?” he asked the major.

“Begging your pardon, sir, but for the record, I’m not a spear carrier.”

As pissed as he was, Knowlington just had to laugh. “Owww — that’s a bad pun. Sometimes you have to give it rest though, Wong. So, they’re on?”

“They’re placing two on the plane as we speak. Colonel, can we discuss my transfer? I’d rather be studying Russian invoices for rivets than dealing with ad hoc, unvetted combat plans that rely on outmoded weapons pushed beyond their technical capabilities into non-functional paradigms of non-optimum performance. Sir.”

“God, Wong, sometimes your jokes go over even my head. Anybody else, I’d think they were serious. Shit, you crack me up, you know that?”

“I am serious,” Wong said.

“Thanks. Listen, go get some rest. I appreciate your schlepping around this stuff for me. Really. And your humor.”

“I wasn’t making a joke.”

“Go on, get out of here.”

Knowlington waved him away with a laugh. Damned best straight man in the air force. It was the face that did it — so damn serious, it set everything else up.

Non-functional paradigms — what a ball-buster. No wonder they kicked him out of Black Hole.

Truth was, Knowlington knew that using the missiles’ infra-red seeker to look for a man on the outskirts of the desert was like using a metal detector to find a bullet in a gravel pit at twenty thousand feet. But they had to do something.

Truth was, the fact that no one had picked up Mongoose’s radio beacon meant that maybe there was nothing to be done. But if you thought like that, you never made it yourself.

“Hey, you still on the line or what?”

“Yeah, I’m here, Alex,” Knowlington told his friend. He stood up in his chair, mouth suddenly dry. The colonel ran his free hand back over forehead, then down his chin and neck.

“Okay,” Sherman said, apparently to an operator. “It’s yours from here, Tommy. And you’re welcome.”

“Hello?” said a woman’s voice, soft and bewildered.

To the colonel, it sounded a lot like one of his sisters. They were, after all, the reason he’d wanted to call. Both had been contacted two different times by the Air Force, once because his plane turned up missing and once when he was actually shot down. He wasn’t sure now whether there had been phone calls or someone in person coming to the house; he just knew they had talked to someone.

The time he was missing was a first class screw-up, all around. They had him dead. But his sisters told him later it was better knowing that someone was at least making an attempt, and knew who they were. Being in the dark was the worst thing; it made you feel farther away than you really were.

“Hello?”

“Is this Kathleen Johnson, Major James Johnson’s wife?”

“Who is this?”

A sliver of steel came into her voice, resolution or stoicism, or maybe even anger.

“Kathleen, this is Colonel Knowlington. Your husband’s commander.”

“Oh.”

“This isn’t an official call. I wanted to talk to you personally and tell you I was sorry about the television broadcast. That was a mistake.”

“The Pentagon people said they weren’t sure how it got out. They already apologized. So did one of the Air Force officers who called to say they were on their way.”

Well, at least someone there was on the ball, Skull thought to himself.

Then he thought, shit. But it was too late not to talk to her.

“I wanted to tell you that we’re doing everything we can to pick him up.”

“He is still alive, isn’t he?”

Knowlington fought back the impulse to assure her that her husband was fine. It was natural and human, but it wasn’t fair.

“I have to be honest, Kathleen. We’re working on that. We’ve spotted the wreckage and he’s not there.”

“You’re sure he ejected?”

Again, he squelched the impulse to lie. “We believe he did. But we have not had confirmation.”

“I see.”

Her voice had become small again. He could hear crying in the background; their child.

“I’m sorry, Colonel, but I have to go. Thank you for calling.”

Knowlington put the phone down and sat at his desk a moment longer, his eyes staring at the blank, smooth top. Was it better to be honest, or was it just cruel?

CHAPTER 30

Chief Master Sergeant Clyston sank into his Stratolounger, luxuriating in the thick richness of the Mozart pumping through his earphones. Don Giovanni was just now being handed the Devil’s bill for his incredible success with women. It was a moment that never failed to please the Capo, rating right up there with the time he had figured out how to knock an entire hour off the overhaul of a GE J79-15 turbojet.

Clyston’s appreciation of justice and its musical expression was not unalloyed, however; the chief had escaped to his highly customized temp tent to contemplate a serious moral question: Should he let Skull fly in combat?

In theory and in law, Colonel Knowlington outranked the chief by a country mile, and could command himself to do anything he pleased. But theory and law did not apply to the Capo di Capo; or rather, they did, but in a way considerably more convoluted than might be laid out in a military handbook.

Any good crew chief feels responsible not only for his airplane but his pilot. Clyston was no different, and in fact as he got older had become something of a father figure to several of the pilots to whom he’d “loaned” his planes. His role was an advisor, though, not a boss; he worked with the officers entirely by suggestion, though admittedly some suggestions were stronger and more strategically placed than others. Shortly after coming to Saudi Arabia, one such suggestion had grounded a suicidal pilot. That was an extreme example, of course; to a man the squadron’s pilots had abilities and “stuff” that even a graybeard like Clyston could admire.

His concern about the colonel went beyond both his normal concern for a pilot and his ancient friendship with the commander. He had the squadron to consider.

Skull wasn’t drinking anymore; he knew that for a fact. The snap was back in his walk, and his judgment was right on. Hell, even drinking the guy made a lot of right moves, if only because he gave his subordinates nearly free reign.

But flying was different. Flying in the dark, miles and miles behind the lines, pushing the plane to do something it wasn’t designed to do?

At his peak, there were few combat pilots in the air force better than Tommy Knowlington. But his peak had passed a long time ago. He’d put in some large hours over the past few weeks and done the flight test on the Hog today without a problem, but no one was shooting at him.

Thing was, even if it wasn’t Knowlington flying, going north wasn’t a particularly smart thing to do. Get into trouble and butts were going to be fried.

Where would the 535^th be if Skull’s ass was the one getting singed?

Worse, what if he was cooked by the same SOB who took down Mongoose? The major could be a class-one, anal prick, but he was a kick-butt flier with high time in the Hog cockpit. Whoever got him wasn’t just lucky, they were damn good.

Clyston was the only one in Saudi Arabia, probably the only one in the air force, who could talk Knowlington out of flying the mission. He was the only one who could go to Tommy and tell him: Listen, you don’t have to prove yourself to anybody any more. You have to run the squadron.

Maybe he couldn’t talk him out of it. This wasn’t about proving he could fly combat again. This was about getting his guy back.

Especially since it was Mongoose. Clyston knew the colonel well enough to realize that, in his mind if no one else’s, Skull thought he should have been the one flying that mission. He’d see getting Mongoose back was not only as his job, but his duty. His guy, his job.

Hard to talk somebody out of doing their duty.

Someone like Knowlington, it’d be impossible.

But what was Clyston’s duty?

The chief leaned back in his chair, listening for clues as Mozart doubled back against his theme.

CHAPTER 31

Mongoose had almost reached the trees when he heard the sound, a low, guttural moan moving in the night. At first he thought it was an animal, a wolf or hyena or something, a beast that had caught his scent and was calling its brothers for the kill.

By the time he flopped to the ground on his belly he realized it was a truck, maybe two. The moonlight showed him the shadows moving a mile away. They felt their way toward him, slow and deliberate.

Mongoose lay on his belly, frozen by a mixture of fear and fascination, as if he were seeing someone else’s nightmare. The trucks crested a small hill in the distance, kept coming.

They didn’t have their headlights on. Smart precaution, but it would make it tough for them to see him here.

They were looking for him, no doubt about it. The shadows stopped and a beam of light erupted from the second, sweeping the ground. It found the trees then arced slowly, still about a hundred yards away from where he lay.

That got him moving. Mongoose jumped up and began running in the opposite direction. He tripped over something, felt himself spilling forward. Somehow he managed to get his elbow out, and roll with the fall. He tumbled back to his feet, ran a few more yards, saw the sweeping light from the corner of his eye and dove once more to the ground.

The light paused on something twenty yards away: The trees maybe, or a shadow that looked like a man. Whatever it was, the trucks put their headlights on and revved their engines, moving again.

Moving toward him.

Now would be a great time for a Hog to appear. They weren’t worth shit in the dark, but they would sure make him feel better.

No Hog appeared. The trucks came closer.

At most, he was a half-mile from the road. Much too close. He couldn’t be sure what they’d seen, but he knew he hadn’t felt the light. He was still hidden. He ran ten yards, up a slight incline, then fell; rolling, he got a mouthful of grit before he managed to stop his fall.

The search beam was trained on the trees. Mongoose scrambled to his feet and started running again, hoping they would be focusing all their attention there, hoping he wasn’t making too much noise. He could get over this dune or hill or whatever the hell it was and he’d be safe.

The pilot had only taken a few steps when something told him to dive for cover again; he flopped down, expecting the searchlight to play over him.

When it didn’t, he turned and looked over his shoulder. One of the two trucks was now between him and the trees. Its searchlight was examining the area carefully, moving over the ground like a worm. Two long shadows blurred behind it. He saw soldiers moving like waves in the light.

Mongoose pushed back up, determined to get more distance between himself and the enemy. A machine-gun opened up as he did. The hollow pop-pop-pop sent him back into the dirt, diving around to face them though he knew, he hoped, the bullets weren’t aimed in his direction. Another gunner began firing— he realized they were automatic rifles, not machine-guns; AK-47s most likely, though Mongoose had never actually heard one off a firing range before.

There were shouts; probably the commander told the men to stop wasting their ammunition, though the pilot couldn’t understand the language.

The soldiers had been spooked by the trees or something. That he could understand.

As they resumed the search, the Iraqis’ shadows fluttered up from the ground, devils emerging from some ghost hole. Dark, over — sized rifles loomed out at him, their barrels searching for his heart. The pilot reached for his pistol and gripped it tightly. He told himself they couldn’t see him. More than likely, they would inspect the area near the road, fire a few more shots to flush him out in case he was nearby, then pile back into the trucks and go on.

Logically, he knew that was what they would do. But it didn’t make it any easier to crouch here, less than a hundred yards away, listening to their grunts and the chink of their equipment as they began searching the area. They cursed loudly. One seemed to trip; again the desert exploded with small arms fire.

The searchlight swung wildly around the area; the dim edge of its shadow reached to within inches of where he had been when he first spotted them.

He had to get up over this hill. Here he was in range of their searchlight. Sooner or later, a sweep would find him.

Mongoose glanced down at the gun in his hand. Only its vague outline was visible, but he could feel it heavy and slightly moist, as if it was sweating.

It was him, not the gun. He was colder than hell and thirsty besides, yet water was streaming from his pores.

If they came for him, should he fire? With surprise on his side in the dark, he could take out two or three before the others knew what was happening.

What then? Could he escape the hail of bullets that would follow?

There was another clip in his pocket. Burn the first one, reload, take them all on?

Yes, that was what he would do.

It would mean he’d die. Inevitably. The odds were stacked. There were at least a dozen shadows in the distance. Sooner or later they would find him and they wouldn’t be inclined to show mercy.

Nothing in Iraq is worth dying for.

Better to be quiet, better to hide. His job was to survive.

His job for Kath, and for Robby.

To survive. That was what the Air Force told him. Survive. Don’t do anything stupid. You’re not Rambo.

And that’s an order.

But no way he could give up. Shit, that would be worse than living. Tortured, used for propaganda and God knows what.

In the dark, in the desert, they’d never find him. They might search a few yards around the trees, no more. He had to get up over that hill.

Mongoose held his breath and got up slowly, watched the shadows for a second, then began moving up the hill in a crouch-walk.

He’d gone about six feet when the Iraqis began shouting again. The search beam swung past the trees in the opposite direction.

Now was his chance.

He had just taken a step when the searchlight swung back toward him.

CHAPTER 32

Everybody in the Air Force had their own specialty. In A-Bomb’s humble opinion, the candy men— the crew dogs who took care of getting bombs onto the planes— were probably the best guys at making chili. He had no theory to explain this, beyond the obvious connection with their profession. There was, at the same time, an inverse relationship between chili quality and geographical origin. A-Bomb had never met a chili chef who’d been born further south than Reston, Va., which was not, per se, a chili-making town. This bomb loader— Sergeant Harris P. Slocum, to be exact— was a case in point, hailing from Milwaukee. Slocum, who was happy to share his chili with an obvious connoisseur, had no explanation for it either.

The sergeant and Chevy, an airman buddy of his, had traded the chili for a pair of A-Bomb’s Devil Dogs, and had thrown in a can of real Coca-Cola as well. A genuine bargain, as far as A-Bomb was concerned, given that the Devil Dogs were a bit mushed. The pilot was so overwhelmed by their generosity that he offered them his last Twizzler licorice sticks as well.

“You’re a walking candy store, sir,” said Slocum, lounging on the dragon that loaded shells into the A-10A’s cannon. “So they let you fly with all this stuff in your suit?”

“Never tried to stop me. You got some more of this chili?”

“All you want, sir,” said Chevy. “Hang on a second.”

He trotted over to a small wheeled vehicle that usually held iron bombs but had been pressed into duty as a kind of tool cart. The back had a pair of coolers— one with hot food, one with cold. A battery rig had been hooked up; a Mr. Coffee was just squirting water into its pot.

A-Bomb thought it was damn good to see ingenuity like that so close to the front lines.

“Buddy of yours went down, huh?” Slocum asked.

“Yeah. I got a bead on him, though. We’ll pick him up before the sun comes up.”

“Tough country up there.”

A-Bomb shrugged. Chevy returned with a fresh cup of chili. It wasn’t a cup, exactly— they used old MRE cans as containers. You had to make sacrifices due to the war and all.

“What’s it like to get shot at?” Slocum asked.

“Shot at?” A-Bomb took a mouthful of the chili. Maybe it could have used another hit of cayenne. “Nothing, really. Hadn’t thought about it.”

“You don’t think about it?” asked Chevy.

“Nah. Mostly what you think about is, how can I wax that son of a bitch for having the balls to try to shoot me? That’s what you think about. That and, maybe I should’ve had the Boss on instead of Nirvana.”

“The Boss?” asked Chevy.

“Bruce Springsteen. You guys never heard of Springsteen?”

“Well, uh, sure we did, sir,” said Slocum. “But, uh, you listen to music while you’re flying?”

“Doesn’t everybody?” A-Bomb got up and showed them his customized Walkman hookup, which he had wired into his suit. They whistled in admiration. “Nothing like listening to ‘E Street Shuffle’ while you’re pounding Saddam’s pissants. Uhmm, you figure that coffee’s ready now?”

His stomach full and thermos loaded with the security crew’s coffee— a little weak, but no sense complaining— A-Bomb did a careful preflight of his Hog. The plane’s stores had been reloaded; its gas tanks, made of a special bag-like material and protected by a fire-suppressant foam, were now filled to the brim. Four Rockeye II cluster bombs had been slapped onto the hardpoints. The big drum that fed the cannon was packed with bullets, and A-Bomb had even managed to scrounge a few plastic-wrapped generic brand cupcakes to refurbish his survival pantry.

Moving from front to back, A-Bomb checked over the plane carefully. He ran his hands across the wings and ailerons, feeling the metal. The plane had flown all day over Iraqi territory, and hadn’t caught a whisker of flak. He gave the big fan jet a pat, moving to the forked tail at the rear of the plane. He touched it gently, almost kneading the metal the way an experienced cowboy might massage a trusted but slightly tired horse. Then the pilot gave the right rudder a good hard slap and continued around the plane, making sure she was ready to go. He gingerly touched the pitot head, used to measure airspeed, and practically saluted the AN/ALQ-119 ECM pod that hung off the right wing — A-Bomb believed in wallowing in the mud, but there was nothing wrong with sending out a good swath of electronic interference while you were doing it, especially when the enemy was spitting flak and missiles at you.

Back at the nose of the plane, he gave the cannon a good tug, just to let it know he was counting on it. Satisfied that the Warthog was ready to go, A-Bomb pulled on his helmet and gave his flight gear a quick check— the last thing he wanted was to misplace his Three Musketeers chocolate bar during combat. Satisfied that he was ready to go, the pilot hoisted himself up onto the wing and clambered atop the plane. He settled against the fuselage, legs extended out from the wing root, head back, trying to grab a Z or two while he waited for the colonel to arrive with the Mavericks.

Hope Mongoose is half as comfortable as this, he thought as his eyelids closed.

CHAPTER 33

Sargeant Clyston took a turn around the back end of the avionics shop, making sure there were no problems before heading out to find Colonel Knowlington. He hadn’t decided on what he was going to do or even say; probably the words wouldn’t be anywhere near as important as the glance that would pass between them.

All of the squadron’s Hogs had returned to base intact after a long day of missions. Clyston’s men — and a sprinkling of women — had inspected each one, repairing and refurbishing them with the speed of an Indy race car crew and the precision of a team of Mercedes mechanics. The Hog was a fantastically tough airplane, designed not only to withstand hot zones but also made to be easily maintained during war. Still, she couldn’t quite take care of herself, and people like Rosen were critical to keeping the squadron in the air.

Which was why he put up with her.

“Chief, we need more tacan fins,” she complained as soon as she spotted him.

“Why? We lose one?”

“Not yet. But—”

“Don’t be jinxing me with that kind of talk then,” said Clyston, sliding away. He could see the colonel walking from the hangar where he’d suited up for the flight.

“Yah, Sergeant, I haft a problem with a ving hinch,” said one of Clyston’s chiefs, a geezer named Tinman who knew nearly as much about the planes as Clyston but was considerably better with an acetylene torch. Tinman’s only drawback was his thick accent, which few could easily identify, much less decipher.

“Wing hinge? What the hell are you doing, making these planes ready for carrier duty?” Clyston asked.

“Daht Tomcat landed earlier. They askt me to inspect. I find damache from flak.”

“Okay, Tinman, I’ll be with you in a second.”

Clyston managed to squeeze away and had Knowlington in sight when another of his sergeants, Pearlman Greene, tapped him on the shoulder. Greene’s black face glistened with sweat and his eyes were narrowed down to slits.

“Chief, could I have a word?”

Greene wasn’t the kind of guy who asked for “a word.” Clyston realized immediately what was up— Greene headed the squadron’s survival equipment shop and had undoubtedly rigged Mongoose’s chute.

He let Greene lead him a few yards away, around the side of one of the hangars.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping, Pearly,” he said when the rigger finally stopped.

“I heard there wasn’t a chute.”

“Ah shit, that’s bullshit. Who told you that? Captain Wong? He’s from the goddamn Pentagon. He doesn’t know what’s going on.”

“Not Wong. Not an officer.”

Clyston scowled, holding it a little longer in case Greene couldn’t quite catch it in the darkness. “It’s still bullshit. Was the guy there? No. Geez, you know how these rumors get going. How long you been in the air force?”

“I never lost a guy. Never.”

“And you didn’t now.”

“I checked the rig as carefully as I could.”

“I know you did, Pearly. Listen, if something fucked up, it wasn’t the chute. I guarantee that. You’re the best rigger I ever met, and let me tell you, I’ve met a bunch. What the hell are you letting yourself worry for, huh? Crap, I guarantee the chute opened.”

Greene didn’t answer. A few guys, not many, but some, could totally divorce themselves from the job. Plane goes down, well hey, that’s show business.

Most though, and certainly the ones the Capo di Capo wanted working for him, felt it to the core. Caring was part of what made them so good. Guys like that, you could logic them to death about how it wasn’t their fault, and they still felt like they’d pulled the trigger on the SAM that took down the plane.

“Thing is, A-Bomb saw the chute,” offered Clyston.

“He did?”

“Damn straight. That’s what I heard, and you know no one’s lying to me and living to tell about it. A-Bomb saw the ejection. Which means he saw the chute. You know Captain O’Rourke. He doesn’t bullshit anybody, right?”

“Captain O’Rourke is okay.”

“Damn straight he’s okay. Listen, Johnson is on the ground cooking up some MREs right about now, probably heating them with one of your flares. Fucking officer, right?”

Greene laughed— weakly, but still it counted for something.

“Thing is, we’re going to get him back,” Clyston told him. “Colonel Knowlington’s going up himself.”

Even in the dark, Clyston could see Greene’s face light up. “The colonel. Wow.”

Clyston nodded solemnly. “You know if the colonel’s going up there, Major Johnson is on the way back.”

“No shit.”

“So the chute must have worked. Because Knowlington isn’t wasting his time heading into bad guy land for someone who’s not there.”

“Yeah, no way. Not the colonel. And he’ll get him back, too.”

“Damn straight. Go catch some Z’s, Sergeant.”

“I will. Thank you, Alan.”

“Yeah, yeah,” grunted Clyston, his legs already churning as he headed away.

By the time he found the colonel, Skull was partaking of a flight ritual his old crew chief recognized well from Thailand.

The pre-flight, below-wing pee. The good-luck piss. The best leak in the business, Knowlington called it.

Unofficially, of course. Doing your business on the edge of a runway wasn’t something a pilot ever did under any circumstances ever, not in the jungle, not in the desert, not anywhere.

And luck? No officer of the U.S. military was that superstitious.

“Combat has some advantages, huh Sergeant?” said Knowlington, business done. His aw-shucks grin made him look twenty-three again. “Have to try that at Andrews sometime and see what the reaction is. What’s up?”

“Nothin’.”

“Plane looks like she’s ready to fly. One of the candy men told me you had them rope on a pair of LUU-2 flares.”

“Thought they might come in handy.”

“I’m coming back. Don’t worry about me.”

“I wasn’t.”

Knowlington laughed. “Sure you were. That was the first time in your life you took a compliment without growling. Make sure the rest of the planes get off okay. If the frag gets screwed up because I took the spares, someone’s going to be pissed.”

It wasn’t like he’d come to say a lot, but Clyston found his tongue tied. “I will,” he managed, smiling and stepping back. Two airmen came over to make some final check and Clyston felt himself drifting back as the colonel jumped up the ladder and slipped inside the A–10A cockpit.

He really did seem like he was twenty-three again, full of vinegar. The old pros called him “Stick Boy.”Part of it was a compliment in honor of his flying skills. Part of it wasn’t.

Long time ago, that. In those days, Clyston hadn’t really thought of making the Air Force a career. But after Vietnam, it just seemed to be the thing to do. No explaining why.

Pre-flight finished and plane ready to crank, Knowlington gave them a thumbs-up signal as the Hog’s rumble turned serious. The plane began edging toward the firing line, ready to launch itself into the darkness.

Chief Master Sergeant Clyston stood and watched until the glow from the twin jets at the back of the plane vanished into specks smaller than the stars. Finally, he nodded, hitched up his pants, and turned to see about where in hell he could find a hinge for Tinman.

CHAPTER 34

When it was obvious that the Scud alert was over, Lieutenant Dixon was the first to shed his gear. He’d had to scrunch over the entire time, and as fascinating as it was to hear a television correspondent explain what it was like to be scared shitless, Dixon couldn’t help but think about the roast beef down the hall, getting cold.

According to CNN, Patriot missiles had nailed the incoming Scuds. There apparently hadn’t been any chemicals in the warhead; at the moment, there didn’t appear to be any casualties either. For all their value as propaganda weapons, the Scuds were fairly useless tactically, amounting to more of an annoyance than anything else.

Plus they pissed people off. Especially ones like Dixon who were waiting to eat roast beef for the first time in months.

Three British army officers were among the other guests, as were two very pretty women who had showed the poor taste of bringing their husbands along to eat with Fernandez, his wife and their twelve-year-old son. The fact that the women were obviously spoken for made Dixon concentrate even harder on the meat.

It turned out to be nice and hot, and even juicier than his imagination had hoped. There were mashed potatoes and gravy, and even the carrots looked good. Steam wafted upwards from the dishes. Lush, sensual aromas filled the air. For the first time in several days Dixon actually forgot about being stuck in Riyadh instead of flying a Hog.

Plate heaped high, the lieutenant barely managed to keep his hands together as one of the Fernandez neighbors launched into a brief benediction. He had just grabbed his fork when one of the two Pakistani servants appeared and announced that someone had come to the front door looking for Lieutenant Dixon of the U.S. Air Force.

“Me?” he pleaded, but the servant had not made a mistake. He found an Air Force security captain and a pair of Army MPs standing in the front foyer.

“Lieutenant, I have orders for you.”

“Now?”

“My understanding was this was to be expedited.” The captain made an expression designed to convey the fact that he couldn’t explain everything with Dixon’s civilian host standing behind him. “That assignment you were waiting for?” he said. “Well, it’s been approved.”

“Darn.” Dixon realized he was talking about the Special Ops gig. Talk about timing.

“Lieutenant?”

“It’s just— I— roast beef.”

“Yeah, smells good.”

“We’ll take up the slack for you, BJ,” said Fernandez. “Open invitation. Come back anytime.”

“How about a doggy bag?”

The captain hitched his fingers into his gun belt. “Say Lieutenant, no offense okay, but I had to shanghai half the Army to come out and find you.”

“All right, I’m sorry,” said Dixon. “I’ll follow you.”

“No, sir. We’ll have someone else take your vehicle back to Riyadh, if you don’t mind.”

Man, thought Dixon, attach the words “Special Ops” to something and people really got worried.

It would be different if he were going to go and get Mongoose. Undoubtedly the squadron DO had been picked up by now— or, more likely, taken by the Iraqis. Even if he hadn’t, it would take the better part of the night if not longer to drive all the way up to the advance base where the Pave Lows operated.

Probably, this was just part of Knowlington’s backdoor plan to get him back to the base without raising any suspicions. But hell, couldn’t it have waited until he finished dinner?

“Really, Captain, it’s no sweat for me to take the car back to Riyadh myself,” he said as he went out the front door.

“I doubt your vehicle will fit in the Huey,” said the captain, pointing to the chopper revving on the front lawn.

CHAPTER 35

In the dark, halfway up to KKMC, Skull felt one of the engines behind him stutter momentarily. It was an infinitesimal, practically unnoticeable thing, maybe an odd current that hit that one engine only or some microscopic impurity in the fuel. But it sent an icy shudder across his spine and around to his ribs; his chest and shoulder muscles spasmed and the darkness of the sky enveloped him. He became a rock, not a pilot. He could hear his breath in his ears and feel the mask pinch his face. His legs felt heavy, his arms paralyzed.

Until that moment, he hadn’t worried about whether he could do this. He felt he had to, and that was enough.

But now his muscles tightened and he had to work hard to control his breathing. The plane was over whatever tiny stutter it had felt, but his was just beginning. He had to think about what he was doing― with his head as well as his hands and legs.

Hog wasn’t exactly a quick mover. Stable as hell, and predictable, but she cut through the blackness like a loaded dump truck working on three cylinders.

For a war zone, there were a hell of a lot of lights visible. Fires, too. Couple of good ones were burning in Kuwait.

Back in Nam, he’d poured the gas on to get away from the guns on the Laos ridge when his wingmate went down.

It wasn’t that he was scared; it was that he’d been taken by surprise. His instincts took over.

And betrayed him.

Or showed who he truly was, beyond the bullshit and hype, beyond the luck. When you stood totally naked in front of the world, when it was all instinct, you couldn’t lie to yourself.

There was a coward in him. He had to face that. They’d never recovered the crew and it was his fault.

Damn, he wanted a drink.

Fortunately, this was the one place in the world that he absolutely couldn’t get one. Colonel Knowlington worked his eyes around the cockpit very deliberately, letting each needle and number soak into his brain before moving on. Everything was working at shop manual specification; not bad for a plane that had received a new engine, control surfaces and sundry repairs within the past twenty-four hours.

If his math was correct, he had fifteen minutes to KKMC. Hog might actually be a bit faster than it seemed.

Two pilots had reported hearing fleeting transmissions over the emergency band as they returned from sorties up north. Whether they were Mongoose or not, no one could tell; they hadn’t been much more than static, and they could even have been Iraqis. The fact that Mongoose’s emergency beacon hadn’t been picked up was not a good omen. Still, the news was vague enough to be interpreted either negatively or positively.

Skull chose positively.

His grip on the stick unclenched. He flexed his thumb back and forth, across, holding the plane’s control stick firmly but gently. The thumb was one place he always got cramped in combat. As if all his tension went there.

You could live with that, though. He knew guys with back spasms. Now that was a ball buster.

Bottom line was, he was bringing Mongoose home. His man, his responsibility. Some people might think he’d lost a step― he’d seen that question in Clyston’s eyes― but they were wrong.

He did worry about his eyes. Vision was the reason he’d plunked MiGs two and three from the sky. The others you could argue luck and flying skill, but two and three― he nailed them because he spotted them, saw the specs and knew instantly what their direction was, where their energy was pointed.

See the enemy first and he’s yours; that was the old fighter-pilot maxim. And forget about 20–20 vision. You needed 20–10, at least.

Skull’s were 20–05, X-ray sharp, on a bad day.

Maybe not now, though.

Didn’t matter. Nothing really mattered, as long as he kept his muscles loose, worked the cockpit well, stayed within the limits of the plane.

He was going to get Mongoose back, or die trying.

Thing was, if he went out that way, then people really would think he was a hero.

A few might even be relieved.

Skull started to laugh.

Fourteen minutes to KKMC.

CHAPTER 36

Mongoose clawed against the hard earth, pushing himself up the hill, away from the light, not even daring to pray that they hadn’t seen him. Suddenly the ground disappeared and he felt himself falling forward, tumbling in confusion. Gunfire erupted behind the hill, but he barely heard it as he found his feet again and began to run.

What he did hear were the trucks. Their engines erupted as lights swung across the sky. The night turned reddish white― the Iraqis had fired a flare.

Open space lay in front of him. No trees, no rocks, no buildings, nowhere to hide.

His pistol was in his hand. He whirled, sighted toward the crest of the hill.

No one there.

Maybe they hadn’t seen him after all. Maybe they weren’t even here. Maybe this whole goddamn thing was a stinking mirage, the result of him hitting his head on the cockpit fairing or some such bullshit when he pulled the handle and got out of the plane.

Maybe he really wasn’t in Iraq at all.

He started running again. The desert seemed to rise up around him, the flare starting to fade. He slipped on something, felt his ankle twist out from under him, had to put his hand out, and lost the pistol.

When he looked up, three men were standing in front of him, three rifles pointed directly at him less than ten yards away.

“You will surrender,” said someone over a loudspeaker from the truck. The English was fairly good, with an American twist to the pronunciation. “You will give up now and you will not be harmed.”

The Beretta was only a few inches from his fingers. He could reach it. He could get these guys.

“You will surrender now.”

He glanced behind him, saw the other truck driving up. He rolled back on his butt, suddenly very tired.

When Mongoose didn’t get up fast enough, one of the Iraqi soldiers pulled his rifle back to hit him. Another caught him, and an officer ran up and began berating the man, screaming something in his face. At the same time, a pair of arms took hold of the American from the back, pulling him away and upward at the same time.

Something inside Mongoose snapped; he decided to try and shoot them all. He raised his arm and snapped his fingers closed, squeezing off the trigger.

Only to remember he had lost the gun.

The man pulling him backwards released him and he fell into a heap. Something heavy and hard caught him in the ribs. The blow pushed the air from his chest and he hunched toward his legs, gulping in pain, darkness edging the corner of his brain as if he were taking ten g’s.

More yelling. Hands over him. Pulling and pushing. Somebody spit. He fought to breathe. They searched his flight suit with hard pats that were more like punches.

They were more than halfway done with their searching before his lungs started working again. By then he was on his back, an Iraqi on each arm and leg. He tried to get his head back into checklist mode, knew that was his job now. The anger had to be stowed where it couldn’t hurt him. When they released him, he rose slowly, standing with his arms held out in a gesture of surrender.

“You are our prisoner,” said the man who had stopped the soldier from battering him. It was his voice he’d heard on the loudspeaker. His English was perfect, though he spoke very deliberately. “You will follow our orders precisely, or the consequences will be grave.”

Mongoose said nothing, but did not offer any outward resistance. One of the trucks swung closer, illuminating the area with its headlights. Four or five Iraqi soldiers stood around him, well armed and equipped. Other men were continuing the search of the area.

“Where is your copilot?” asked the officer.

“I don’t have a copilot,” said Mongoose. “I fly alone.”

“What type of plane do you fly?”

Mongoose hesitated. The truth was, his unit patch had a Warthog on it, so it wouldn’t take much detective work to figure out the answer. But answering the question felt like surrendering.

“It’s only got room for the pilot,” he told the officer. “One man. Me.”

“A fighter?”

“Yeah.”

The officer nodded, and shouted something to the others. It might have been that he didn’t trust Mongoose; their search continued.

The soldiers shifted, each staring openly at his face and uniform. One seemed angry; the rest looked merely curious, as if they were looking at a giant ape who had escaped from the zoo.

As long as the officer was here, Mongoose thought, he wouldn’t be killed; he might not even be beaten. Most likely there was a reward for his safe return to Baghdad.

Or maybe not. Maybe the officer wanted to torture him himself.

When they had searched him, the soldiers found and taken all of his important gear, including his radio, knife and maps. But for some reason they missed his small flare gun, tucked into a leg pocket near his boot; he realized that as he stood uneasily in the semi-circle of soldiers.

Something, at least.

They’d also taken Kathy’s letter. But there wasn’t much he could do about that.

One of the soldiers in the distance shouted. The officer motioned several of his guards toward the shouts and they ran off. The search beam popped on and suddenly everyone was firing. Mongoose cringed, but tried otherwise not to react; he knew it was some sort of mistake, a false alarm. Instead, he focused his eyes on the ground, trying to think of something he could do.

No way he could run off and make it. He was pretty much stuck here.

It took the officer some minutes to calm his men. “You are not afraid?” he asked when he returned. His eyes were set wide in his face; up close he was a homely man, who didn’t appear particularly wise or compassionate.

“I’m very afraid,” Mongoose told him.

“You did not take cover when my man began to shoot?”

“Just now? I told you, there’s no one else. They’re shooting at shadows.”

“A good thing for you,” said the officer. He turned and shouted at the guards— apparently telling them to get up, since they did. He barked out more commands. All but two left to join the others.

The man seemed about his age, maybe a little older. Barely five-eight, he was thin; his uniform hung around him as if meant for a heavier man.

“I could kill you,” the officer told him.

“That’s true,” said Mongoose.

The officer smiled and nodded. “What is your name?”

“Major James Johnson.”

“I am a major as well,” said the man. He switched his pistol from his right hand to his left.

And then he extended his arm to shake Mongoose’s hand.

Not knowing what else to do, Mongoose took it.

Had he thought about it, he might have expected something hard and callused. But this was soft and gentle, almost feminine.

The man smiled and nodded as he pulled back. Then he fished into his pocket and produced the blood chit — a note in English and Arabic that promised a reward for his return to allied hands.

“What is this?” asked the Iraqi captain. It was obvious he had already read it; his voice sounded like a reprimand.

“My people will reward you for returning me safely.”

The officer made a show of ripping the note up and throwing it aside.

“And this?” He held up an envelope — Kathy’s letter. “War plans?”

“A letter from my wife.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

Mongoose shrugged. The man glanced at the letter, smiled, then held it toward him. Mongoose hesitated, then slowly took it.

After returning the envelope to his shoulder pocket, Mongoose looked up to see the Iraqi’s pistol in his face.

“Do not think that because I show you kindness I am weak,” said the man. “If you try to escape, you will be killed. You understand?”

He nodded.

“Into the truck.”

With that, one of the other guards grabbed him roughly and pushed him toward the front of the open flatbed.

CHAPTER 37

She saw them through the window. At first she thought the man and woman in the car were lost, looking for a neighbor’s house. Then another car pulled up behind, followed by a van.

The van had a television station’s logo on the side.

Robby stirred in her arms. He was hungry again. She sat on the couch, opened her blouse and let him suckle. Ordinarily, he was more active in the afternoons, but he seemed to sense that his mother needed him to be calm. He poked her a few times with his hand, happy to be getting his milk, then settled back down.

Her in-laws were still out, not due back until five. The Air Force people, none of whom she knew, were on the way. They were far from an air base, and because the squadron had been patched together at the last minute from other units and reserves their stateside home base existed only on paper. Still, she knew the procession of blue cars would soon make their way through the twisty rural streets, hunting for the tiny house.

Part of her preferred to be alone, though now that the reporters were outside she wasn’t sure what to do. Sooner or later, one of them would ring the doorbell.

She’d locked the door earlier, but double — checked it now just to make sure.

When she realized that the commentators had no real news to report, Kathy had turned the sound off on the television. She kept glancing toward the screen every so often, however, alternately hoping for good news and dreading what she might see.

A new map of Iraq flashed on the screen, too vague to give any real idea of the country. It was followed by a picture of the A-10A lifted from Jane’s, the encyclopedic military reference work. A retired Air Force colonel appeared on the screen, a man she hadn’t seen in any of the sequences before.

The words, “Former POW,” flashed under him.

Had Jimmy been captured? Was he alive?

She reached for the remote control, put the sound back on.

The phone rang as she did. She jumped up and startled the baby. He started to cry.

It was more a moan, forlorn and passive. Not his usual cry.

By the time she soothed him, the answering machine had picked up. A woman’s voice came over the speaker. “Mrs. Johnson, my name is Teresa Fisher. I’m a reporter for WFDC over in Calhoon. We’re very sorry to hear about your husband.”

There were about a dozen reporters outside, the woman told the tape. They wouldn’t come in and bother her, but if she wanted to say anything, they would be waiting outside. Three times the woman said she was sorry about her husband. Her voice sounded sincere.

“If you need anything,” added the reporter, “let us know. We’re sorry we’re disturbing you. You should know that the whole country supports you. We’ve already had calls at the station, saying how much everyone is praying for you.”

Kathy stared toward the kitchen hallway as the phone clicked off. Behind her on the TV, the newscaster was repeating that there was no new information about Major Johnson or the other pilots lost over Iraq.

Then he asked the retired Air Force officer about the possibility of torture.

Kathy pushed the red button on the remote, killing the power.