He hoped Dixon, if that really was Dixon, had seen the helicopter and got his butt into the damn whirly sardine can. Playing Rambo in the rocks was all well and good, but it was time for him to call it a day.
CHAPTER 74
SUGAR MOUNTAIN
26 JANUARY 1991
1034
Metal and pulverized stone hung thick in the air as Apache One raced toward the position Turk had given them. Hawkins started to warn the pilot about an APC with machine guns in their path, but he was already greasing his rockets and veering right. They flew directly over another gun position before spotting the hideout, well hidden on the hill next to Sugar Mountain.
Hawkins caught himself against the frame and thought they’d been hit, cordite and God knew what else blowing around his head. But the pilot was only trying to get down onto the hill as quickly as possible. The Iraqis were firing everything they had as the helicopter’s skids neared the rocks.
A grenade or something equally obnoxious exploded near enough to send dirt ripping through the helo rotors. The pilot shouted something but Hawkins was out of the craft by then.
He saw Dixon squatting and shooting a few yards from the position; a grenade shot off in the direction of the Iraqi trucks.
Sergeant Winston was lying behind rocks in a shallow trench, right in front of Hawkins. As slowly and calmly as he could, the captain bent down over him, waiting as Stone brought the backboard and stretcher.
“Take your time, take your time,” Hawkins said, as much to himself as to Stone. Despite a fresh hail of bullets and screaming explosions all around them, the captain did his best to make sure Winston’s neck was secure as they lifted him out.
He felt himself slip on the rocks, caught his knee against something hard, and felt his gut wrench. His head suddenly felt light and he knew he’d been hit. He bent forward and managed somehow to get to his feet, guided by the stretcher. Soon, they were strapping Winston stiff to the skids. The pilot was screaming in his face. They got aboard, Dixon scrambling and jumping. The helicopter rose into the air, the cabin shaking as it was laced with gunfire. One of the Hogs streaked in front of them, inches away it looked like, smoke and fury pouring from its mouth as it nailed the Iraqis who were trying to kill them.
“Tell them to do it. Take out the bunker,” Hawkins hear himself say twice, three times, and he turned around to congratulate Dixon, make him an honorary member of the Death Riders because goddamn he deserved it.
Except it wasn’t Dixon. And though he was sure as shit pleased to see his man back alive, what the hell had happened to his Air Force lieutenant?
CHAPTER 75
OVER IRAQ
26 JANUARY 1991
1034
There was so much goddamn smoke it was screwing up the IR targeting head in the Maverick. Doberman cursed as the helicopter stayed on the ground, taking fire as the Special Ops people ran to retrieve their men. If they didn’t move quickly he was going to have to bank away and reposition himself to make sure he had a clear shot.
He was so low he could hop out and run alongside the damn airplane. These bastards were going to figure out where he was eventually and start firing at him.
And son of a bitch— he was bingo fuel.
“I’m going to cover for that helo,” said A-Bomb, slashing overhead.
“You check your fuel?”
“Can’t see the gauge from here.
“Don’t get in my fucking way,” said Doberman. He cursed and kicked the Hog into a turn to reposition himself, not really mad but stoking his emotions anyway, building the adrenaline as he spurred himself into the fight. He got a strong whiff of kerosene or something in his nose, imagining that his fuel tanks had sprung a leak. He started to laugh because that was just ridiculous. The oxygen was as pure as heaven, and he had a good view in the screen as he came back into his attack pattern. He was lined up and loose; feeling like he did the first time he ever fired a Maverick on a practice run— he’d nailed that sucker and nailed everyone dead-on since.
The helo skittered away. A-Bomb cleared.
It was his turn.
The Iraqis seemed to have a thousand guys down there, every one of them armed with a machine-gun, every one of them blasting away at him.
Good fucking luck hitting me. And I mean that sincerely.
Doberman put his head nearly onto the Mav screen, leaning as close to it as his restraints would allow, big fat cursor nailed two-thirds of the way up the door.
Next and nailed. He let it go, squeezed, and kept going, up and on— go, go, go. He pickled again— no thumb thing, no luck, no ritual, no bullshit, just squeezed the son of a bitch faster than anybody ever thought possible, faster than any engineer would calculate.
He kept going, watching the first missile slam in, the second missile flying right behind it.
Doberman banked through the hail of nasty, small machine-gun bullets. It was all up to the missiles now, all luck if it happened the way Wong said it should.
Luck.
What the fuck.
CHAPTER 76
Sugar Mountain
26 January, 1991
1034
Dixon threw the missile launcher away, rolling himself to the ground and scooping up the MP-5. He slammed a fresh clip into the gun and aimed it back in the direction of top of the crater, but no one was there. He slid out to the side of the ledge, leaned his gun over, then pushed his head down.
Nothing.
He scrambled ahead, the end of the submachine gun trained on the rocks. He reached the corner of the rock face without seeing anyone and ran across the ledge. Still no one appeared. He began picking his way down the boulders that had forced him onto the rock face earlier.
The helicopter’s loud whine reverberated through the quarry. Dixon lost his balance, slamming his chin into the rocks but scrambling up immediately. He took two steps, then felt himself going down again, only half conscious that he was doing it on purpose. Someone was shooting at him from the edge of the crevice leading back to Winston’s hiding place.
He pushed himself into the smallest space possible, waiting for the shooting to let up. When it did, he reached up and let off a quick burst from his MP-5. When he raised his head to see where his enemy was, he spotted the barrel of the AK-47 emerging from behind two large boulders. Dixon ducked as a fresh round salvoed behind him.
It was only a single shot, poorly aimed. Dixon ripped a quick burst from his own gun. It was answered by another single round.
The Iraqi must be preserving ammo. Didn’t matter now. Dixon decided he would fire again, wait for the round, then leap up and run forward. The two shots had flailed well to the left; he would hug the opposite wall.
The helicopter engine revved on the other side of the hill.
Dixon squeezed the trigger, waited for the Iraqi to shoot. He began running. He saw the gun barrel and a figure; he fired, squeezing the trigger as hard as he could, the gun’s smooth burp pushing the metal stock against his rib.
But only for a second.
Then nothing.
The H&K had jammed. Dixon squeezed twice as the Iraqi rose. He threw the gun and himself forward to the ground as his enemy fired a single shot. The bullet wailed harmless overhead. As Dixon hit the dirt, he saw the man take aim again.
Dixon rolled over and grabbed for his pistol. He fired, saw the bullet hit.
Then he heard a sound like a steam locomotive whooshing from a tunnel. There was a loud bang, followed by a rattling, muffled explosion and a second loud whoosh.
The mountain across from him erupted in every direction with a tremendous rumble. Dixon stumbled forward, off guard and unable to protect himself. Something hit his head and he slid into a warm bed, every muscle relaxing, every ache and pain evaporating— as if a down-filled comforter had slid over his body and his head had nestled softly into a deep, deep pillow.
CHAPTER 77
OVER IRAQ
26 JANUARY 1991
1042
The first missile nailed the door precisely two-thirds of the way up. Its warhead burst a hole through the thick steel as easily a screwdriver piercing a can of tuna.
The second missile wavered momentarily, just far enough behind the first to survive the initial explosion, but now confused, unsure where to go.
Electrons danced in its control module, feinting left, right, trying to compute whether the interference was a mere diversionary tactic, or if the world really had turned upside down.
Unsure, they took the course that seemed most logical to them, directing the Thikol rocket motor to keep on trucking, riding the straight and narrow.
Precisely 1.8 second later, the missile flew through the hole the first Maverick had created. As it did, it flew into a shower of light debris.
Close enough, decided the electrons, and the warhead exploded, precisely on target.
###
A-Bomb had managed to get his plane stable and ready to take the backup shot as the first Maverick hit. Staring at his small TVM screen, he saw the shadow of the second missile enter the cloud where the door of the bunker had been.
The explosion that followed rippled through a massive fissure in the rocks, a fault line planted a million years before by the churning of tectonic plates, aggravated by years of quarrying and amplified by the F-111 strike a few hours before. Sugar Mountain collapsed inward, hundreds of thousands of tons of rock and dirt burying the deadly toxins Saddam had counted on as his ultimate vengeance weapon.
“Looking ugly!” screamed A-Bomb as he whacked the stick and jostled the Maverick, hoping to unleash it on one of the few remaining targets.
CHAPTER 78
The Cornfield
26 January, 1991
1045
They were in the air, without radar but with the radio, at least enough of it to monitor the chaos at Sugar Mountain. Rosen hooked her arm around the restraints, her attention divided between the radio and the readings on the displays in front of her.
The situation over at Sugar Mountain was chaotic as hell, but she recognized Captain A-Bomb O’Rourke’s voice screaming through the chaos:
“I just shacked the APC with my last Maverick. That was kick-ass, Dog Man! You double-banged the fucker.”
The helicopter pilot turned to her, as if asking for an explanation.
“I think that’s good,” she told him.
The pilot of the other helicopter made a transmission to the Hogs, reporting some battle damage and wounded.
“Is Captain Dixon okay?” Rosen blurted over the com set.
For a second there was no answer. She knew she had keyed her mike because Slim Jim gave her a dirty look. That wasn’t enough to prevent her from asking again, though this time she dressed up the communication with a slightly more professional tone, adding “over” at the end of the transmission.
“Air Two this is Air One. Lieutenant Dixon is not on board.”
“Shit. Repeat?”
“Dixon is not on board.”
Rosen grabbed the sleeve of her helicopter pilot. “Go over to Sugar Mountain.”
“What?”
“One of our men is still on the ground down there.”
The pilot said nothing, but gave her two answers nevertheless. One answer was with his eyes, which summarized the helicopter’s precarious mechanical state, their low fuel reserves and lack of ammunition in a look that clearly asked, Do you think I’m out of my friggin’ mind?
The other was with his hands, which yanked the helo’s control column nearly out of its bolts and put the AH-6G on-line to the foaming clouds of smoke that marked the Iraqi stronghold.
CHAPTER 79
SUGAR MOUNTAIN
26 JANUARY 1991
1052
“Apache Two, this is Devil One. I copied that transmission. We will cover you to Sugar Mountain. Over.” Doberman let go of the mike key and ran his eyes quickly over the Hog’s indicators, with the notable exception of the panel detailing his dwindling fuel supply.
“Got your six,” said A-Bomb.
He was as short of fuel as Doberman was, but it was senseless ordering him home. The two Hogs cut tight angles in the air as they whacked back for Sugar Mountain.
“I’m thinking that must have been Dixon who nailed the missile launcher on the crater,” said A-Bomb. “That’s just the sort of thing a Hog driver’s gonna do, you know what I’m talking about?”
“We’ll buzz the crater and have the helo follow us in.” said Doberman, straining to see the quarry through the dust and smoke ahead. “Check for machine guns, if you can find the damn things. I can’t see shit.”
He took the Hog into a shallow but quick dive, moving down through four thousand feet as he accelerated. The smoke, rocks and wreckage divided into distinct clumps, several of which began to fire furiously at him from the periphery of the quarry. Doberman didn’t have a particularly good shot on any of them and decided to truck on past, concentrating on looking for Dixon. He figured A-Bomb would be more than happy to clean up for him.
Picking out something as small as a man from an airplane under any circumstances was extremely difficult. Picking out someone in the rocks while people are shooting at you was nearly impossible.
Doberman nonetheless pushed the Hog in, practically crawling as he scanned out the right side of his cockpit. Pulling off to the west, he took a slow, low orbit and watched as A-Bomb rode in on one of the gunners, letting the A-10A’s cannon eat up the dirt.
The cannon’s kick was so fierce, it slowed the plane down, nearly holding the Hog still as the bullets stuttered right and left. A-Bomb worked the rudders like pedals on a piano, playing the Death March for the unlucky slobs who had dared aim at him. And then he was beyond them, spinning off as Doberman put his Hog onto another of the heavy machine guns, pelting it with the Gatling’s big shells. Doberman winged through the haze and got a good view of the landslide that had crushed the storage bunker closed for good.
He couldn’t see Dixon. Nor could A-Bomb when to took a second run through. The machine-gun fire had stopped, at least. Doberman cleared the helicopter pilot in for a closer look.
As they watched the helo approach, their AWACS controller asked, semi-politely, if they had left the allied air forces and established one of their own.
He had some pointed questions about fuel consumption as well.
“Somebody’s feeding him information,” squawked A-Bomb over the short range radio.
Doberman told the AWACS they had the situation under control, then asked for the nearest tanker track, knowing before the coordinates came back that it was going to be tight.
One of the machine-guns started firing again as the helicopter pushed in. Doberman cursed, nearly pulling the wing off the plane as he spun the Hog to take the bastard out. The helo pilot yelled something he couldn’t understand.
There was a dead man at the lip of the crater.
Helo was taking fire.
Doberman leveled off briefly and flailed back in time to see the helicopter work its way toward the back of the mountain. His Hog was sucking dirt now, down under five hundred feet, slipping to three hundred. Doberman spotted something brown moving in the crevice formed by the rocks between them just southeast of the hill he’d just hit.
“Two bodies,” said the helo pilot, except it wasn’t the helo pilot, it was Rosen.
Something flashed in the corner of his eye.
“Watch the hilltop!” he shouted as he passed. He started to bank back and transmitted the warning again, unsure if he had even keyed the mike to send it.
There was a gunner flailing at the helicopter. A-Bomb saw him and was diving at the hill. The helicopter yanked away, bullets erupting from its side.
A-Bomb yelled.
The helicopter pilot yelled.
Rosen screamed.
And in the middle of it all the AWACS controller, his voice calm and ice cold, dished out a snap vector: Two MiGs were taking off from a nearby Iraqi airstrip.
“We’re
hit but we’re okay,” announced the helicopter pilot.
“Was that Dixon?” Doberman asked.
“Those bodies aren’t moving,” said A-Bomb. “Dog, we got two pick-ups on the road in warp drive heading for Sugar Mountain. Got guns in the back, looks like.”
“OK, everybody get the hell out of here,” said Doberman. “Take the AWACS vector, A-Bomb.”
“What about you?”
Doberman hesitated for a second. The kid was down there somewhere; dead probably, but he couldn’t leave him.
Dixon wasn’t dead. No way. No.
Doberman’s Hog was almost out of fuel, two MiGs were heading this way, and more Iraqis were playing Rat Patrol. Dixon or no Dixon, he had to go.
There wasn’t anything he could do for the kid now. No amount of skill— or luck or superstition— would help him. Neither would pounding the Hog into the dirt.
“Yeah, I’m on it,” he told A-Bomb, slamming the Hog onto the get-away course.
CHAPTER 80
OVER IRAQ
26 JANUARY 1991
1058
Technical Sergeant Rebecca Ann Rosen slid back in the hard seat of the McDonald Douglas AH-6G, letting her submachine gun fall between her legs. She had nailed the son of a bitch on the ridge who’d been firing at them; she saw the bastard fall backwards, saw the ripple of blood appear on his chest even as the helicopter had jerked away.
But she’d seen something else, something more gruesome and bitter. She’d seen Dixon’s body face-down in the rocks, dead.
She had no way of knowing that it was truly Dixon, except that she did. The man was wearing the brown Special Ops camo, unlike the Iraqis she’d seen. And besides, she knew it.
Hogs #3 Fort Apache Page 22
