Read HOGS #6 Death Wish (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) for Free Online Page B

Hack?”
    “What’s the deal?”
    “I just told you. The British lost a pair of SAS
commandos. There’s a chance they’re at that base. Not a very good chance, but a
chance.”
    “But. . .”
    “That’s the whole story.”
    For a moment, Skull felt like slugging him.
    Knowlington and Preston had briefly worked
together a year before when they were both posted to the Pentagon— Skull
heading a working group on interservice Special Operations, Preston pulling
temporary duty as snot-nosed aide for a general who, among other things, hated
Skull for having helped kill one of his pet projects years before. Preston had made
noises about making an issue of Skull’s drinking— undoubtedly at the general’s
suggestion, though Hack was enough of a prig to think about it on his own.
There had been rumors of disciplinary action, and a not-too-subtle attempt to persuade
Knowlington to retire. Skull had had to go deep into the favor bank to derail
the whole mess.
    And yet, he would freely and honestly admit that
Hack was a good pilot with a wide range of experience and a good helping of
natural ability. It was possible, even likely, that Major Preston would make a
decent commander.
    God, Skull wanted a drink.
    Without saying anything else, Knowlington turned
around and walked to his office.
    “Colonel?”
    Skull stopped at the door, his hand cold against the
cheap metal knob.
    “You want to see me, right? You just asked me to
see you.”
    “Let’s just skip it, okay?” said Knowlington. And
without waiting for an answer, he pushed inside, closing the door behind him.
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER 9
    KING FAHD AIRBASE, SAUDI
ARABIA
    28 JANUARY 1991
    1324
     
    Technical Sergeant Rebecca Rosen gave the
radio aerial a gentle but firm tap, nudging the metal fin into its slot behind
the cockpit. Draped on her stomach over the fuselage, she screwed it in
quickly; the UHF/TACAN antenna had given her so much trouble going in, she
feared it might just decide to jump off.
    The metal fin atop the Hog wasn’t much bigger than
a CD case. Still, this was at least the third one she’d had to replace in the
last four or five days. All had been pockmarked with bullets or shrapnel.
Either the Iraqis were using special bullets that homed in on radio signals, or
Devil squadron pilots were putting their planes in places where they shouldn’t
be much too often.
    Upside down, even.
    “Yo, Rosen, what the hell are you doing?
Sleeping on the job?”
    “No, Chief!” she shouted, bolting upright but not
looking down at Chief Master Sergeant Allen Clyston.
    “Another F-ing aerial?”
    “Yes, Sergeant.”
    “Damn. These pilots are not taking care of my
planes properly.”
    “No, Sergeant, they’re not. Damn sloppy of them,”
said Rosen, finishing with the aerial. She rolled off the plane and jumped down
to the tarmac. “They have to be scraping the suckers when they’re landing,
because there is no way those ragheads could shoot them off. No way.”
    Clyston grunted in agreement. “We ready to go?”
    “Almost. Have to double-check the ECM pod.” Rosen
gestured toward the ALQ-119 on the wing.
    “Older than me,” said Clyston derisively of the ECM,
the first dual-mode jammer ever put into operation.
    “No way, Chief. But I bet you worked on it.”
    “Prob’ly,” said the capo. He finally smiled.
    A radical breakthrough when first developed, the
ECM confused enemy radars by filling the air with noise as well as false
signals. It had been around for a very long time, however, and was fairly
useless against sophisticated weapons systems like the SA-6. Replacements had
been promised, but the A-10s didn’t rate high enough to get them.
    “We’ll be ready,” Rosen told her boss.
    “I’m counting on it,” said Clyston. He bunched his
hands on his hips.
    “You selling something, Sergeant?” Rosen asked.
    Clyston made a show of glancing around, as if
worried that another crew member was within earshot. In actual fact, no one who
worked