Target Saddam

CHAPTER 69

Wong’s shoulder had been dislocated, but one of the Air Force medics had helped get it back into position. Oddly, the jarring had cured his headache, as well as removed the ringing in his ear.

Davis had lost considerable blood but had been stabilized; the odds were fifty-fifty that he would make it. Salt was cursing up a storm, complaining about his ankle, which he had whacked against something as he was hauled in. But if the volume of his obscenities were a rough gauge of his prognosis, he’d be walking in the morning.

The plane’s pilot was resting as well, apparently after suffering a heart attack. His pulse was erratic, but the crew said he actually seemed to have gotten much better.

Dixon sat on the floor of the plane, head back against a metal spar. Worn and battered from his ordeal, he sipped water from a plastic bottle.

“We should be landing shortly,” Wong told the others. “There will be a helicopter waiting to take us home to King Fahd, where we’ll be debriefed.”

“That can’t fucking wait until tomorrow?” asked Salt.

“Command wants to know what we’ve seen ASAP,” Wong said.

“Fuck them.”

“A suggestion that has been proposed in the past,” said Wong. “But one which they do not seem prepared to follow.”

Wong had meant that as a joke, the first he had made since coming to the Gulf. But no one laughed, not even Sergeant Salt.

“We will tell them what we saw,” said Wong, sighing. “I would imagine that Lieutenant Dixon’s testimony will be most crucial.”

“Testimony, geez.” Salt laughed uproariously, the ripping sound rising above the roar of the Herk’s engines.

Exasperated, Wong looked at Dixon. “Lieutenant?”

Dixon stared at the floor.

“We’ll be taken in to Riyadh after we land,” Wong said.

Dixon turned and looked at him as if he were staring across a distant field. “The kid saved us,” he said.

Wong got up and slid down on his knees in front of him to hear better.

“Budge saved us,” Dixon repeated.

“True,” said Wong. “As you saved him.”

“He didn’t know what he was doing.”

“War is not a pretty thing,” Wong said. “That’s why we’re here.”

“He was just a kid.”

Wong frowned. The thoughts of many wise men flickered through his head — Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Plato, St. Paul. None seemed quite to fit. And so he said nothing.

CHAPTER 70

Doberman sat at the edge of the couch, wedged there with his feet up on the cushion. He’d finished debriefing only a few minutes before; normally he’d have gone either straight to bed or over to the Cavern, a just-off-the-base den of inequity and booze. But he was too wound up and too worried about the others, so he’d wandered over to Cineplex. More than two dozen other squadron members, officers and NCOS, milled around the crowded room, waiting word of the Strawman mission. The television was playing something off the VCR — an old Godzilla movie someone had bootlegged. Every so often, they’d hit pause and check CNN. Not that they expected the news station to find out about the mission, but you never could tell.

Among the NCOs clustered near the food table was Technical Sergeant Becky Rosen, whom Doberman realized was looking particularly gorgeous tonight. She smiled at him as she walked nearby, said something along the lines of “Thanks for risking your neck up there.”

He felt like a thirteen-year-old, unable to say anything intelligent in response. He watched her walk away, imagining what she might look like in a dress.

Damn, he was horny.

“So what’s Preston like?” asked Jeff “Truck” Lewis, leaning against the nearby chair with a glass of seltzer. Lewis, a black guy who’d grown up in New Jersey, was a captain who’d flown Hogs for about a year and a half. No one, including Jeff, was exactly sure where his nickname had come from.

“I don’t know,” Doberman told him.

“He flew wing for you, right?”

Doberman shrugged.

“I hear he’s a jerk,” offered Lewis.

“Who knows?”

“He talks nice about you, Glenon,” said Terry Morris. Morris was attached to the intelligence unit that shared some of the trailer office space with Devil Squadron. “He was raving about what a great pilot you were.”

“I’m not in any mood for you guys to pull my chain, okay?”

“No, it’s what he said,” insisted Morris. “Said you kicked butt. Some of the best flying he’s ever seen.”

“Probably wants Doberman to replace him in that fast-mover squadron he came from,” said Lewis.

“Screw off.”

“Hey, Dog, take it easy.”

“You ain’t A-Bomb, Truck. Don’t call me Dog.”

Lewis whistled, but backed off.

“Godzilla’s gonna eat them,” laughed someone, looking at the TV. “Use your slime, Rhodan.”

“Okay, here it is,” said Major Preston, appearing in the doorway. His hair was slicked back from a shower and he’d obviously just shaved. Doberman couldn’t help shaking his head.

“Colonel Knowlington and Captain O’Rourke are spending the night at King Khalid,” announced Hack. “Apparently they tanked with about five seconds to spare. But they’re fine, planes are intact.”

“They better be,” said Chief Master Sergeant Clyston. The pilots laughed, though it wasn’t entirely clear he was kidding.

“What about Dixon?” shouted someone.

“Captain Wong and the two Delta troopers were successfully recovered by the MC-130,” continued Preston. He held up his hands. He was grinning. “And they have Lieutenant Dixon, a bit tired and beat-up, but okay.”

No one said anything, the room suddenly still.

“Dixon’s alive,” said Preston.

“Yes! Yes!” shouted Morris, and everyone began cheering at once. Doberman couldn’t believe it for a second — it was too much to hope for.

Dixon was alive. He was alive.

Yeah, shit yeah.

He jumped up from the couch. Everyone was slapping high-fives and hugging each other, as if they’d won the World Series or the Super Bowl.

The Chief loomed before him.

“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.