Hogs #3 Fort Apache
Read Hogs #3 Fort Apache Online
Authors: Jim DeFelice
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HOGS 3
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Air War in the Gulf
FORT APACHE
By Jim DeFelice
writing as
James Ferro
Book #3 in the HOGS air
war series based on the exploits of the A-10A Warthog pilots in the 1991 Gulf
War
Copyright ©
2000 by Jim DeFelice, writing as James Ferro
Black Coyote
Inc.
All rights
reserved
This book may
not be reproduced in whole or in part, by any means, without permission from
the author, except for quotes in reviews or discussions. The author appreciates
your buying this book, which is how he makes his living. The contents reflect
his dedication to research, authenticity, and the time it takes to create an
enjoyable series of action air war stories for his readers. Contact:
[email protected]
NORTHWESTERN
SAUDI ARABIA,NEAR THE IRAQI BORDER.
24 JANUARY 1991
1655 (aLL DATES & TIMES LOCAL
)
P
rivate
Smith and
Private Jones had spent the
whole day arguing about the Super Bowl. So when their duty shifts wound down,
Private Smith found a football and tossed it to Jones.
“Go long,” said Private Jones, dropping back to
unleash one. “Here comes a bomb.”
Smith had played tight end in high school. He’d done
pretty damn well, too
;
made all-county his junior and senior year. People
used to say he ate defensive backs for breakfast, or at least lunch.
So when he put his head down and darted across the
Saudi desert in a post pattern, he felt as if he were reliving a little of his
old glory. He felt damn good, turning back with impeccable timing as Jones’
bomb arced overhead.
One second, the pigskin fluttered in the evening sky,
headed for his outstretched arms.
The next second it had been swallowed whole by a dark
angel of Hell.
The demon swallowed the ball and kept coming. Smith
threw himself head-first into the sand. He thought he was a dead man. He said
the only prayer he knew.
“Now I lay me down to sleep.”
His words were drowned by the roar. The ground shook
so hard that he thought the devil best was chewing him whole.
Then he realized it had passed him by.
“Yo, what the hell are you doing?” asked Jones,
nudging him in the back with his foot as the ground stopped shaking.
Smith turned over. “Didn’t you see that? Shit. I’ve
never seen anything like it. That... thing... came right for me.”
“What? The Warthog? They always fly low around here.”
“Warthog?”
“Yeah. It’s an A-10. Mother-fucker of an airplane.
Ugly as hell. Kills Iraqis just by lookin’ at ‘em.
Smith pulled himself up. “That was an airplane?”
“Meanest stinking bomber in the whole damn Gulf,” said
Jones. “Say, how’d your pants get wet?”
__PART
ONE___
I
INJUN
COUNTRY
OVER
IRAQ
24
JANUARY 1991
2200
T
his is
what
happened when you had a big
mouth:
You ended up staring through the open door of a C-141B
Starlifter, 35,000 feet over Iraq, sucking oxygen from a mask, waiting to kill
yourself.
You also shivered your damn butt off. But at least
that took your mind off what was going to happen when you jumped.
A little.
Air Force Lieutenant William B.J. Dixon would have
given anything— anything— not to be standing in the dim red light of the
unpressurized cargo hold, wind whipping everywhere, weighed down by what the
Special Ops paratroopers around him swore was only thirty–five pounds of
equipment but felt like at least five hundred.
But it was his fault. He had opened his big mouth.
Worse. He had committed the unpardonable sin.
He had volunteered.
Idiot.
Technically, Dixon hadn’t been lying when he told the
Delta Force officer in charge of the operation that he had parachuted at night.
He had— once, as part of a recreational sky diving program in college.
But that jump was a hell of a lot different than this.
Much different. And while the Special Ops people had obviously thought he was a
heavily experienced jumper, the truth was Dixon hadn’t even made the hundred
jumps necessary for a Class A skydiving license.
In fact, he hadn’t made half that.
Or a quarter.
But five jumps did qualify in his mind as “a lot,”
which were his exact words when asked how often he’d jumped.
It had been a seemingly innocent, offhand, and
irrelevant question at the time, precisely the kind that demanded a vague and
even baloney-squash answer.
You’d think.
Until tonight, the highest altitude he’d ever jumped
from was twelve thousand feet. Or eight thousand. He couldn’t quite remember.
The commando in charge of the team, a Delta trooper
named Sergeant Eli Winston, gave him a thumbs-up and nudged him toward the
Starlifter’s door.
All these guys were serious nut cases, but Winston was
the worse. The rest of the commandos had M-16s or MP-5s, serious but
lightweight weapons. Created by Heckler & Koch, they could spit through
their 30 round-clips in less than three seconds and were generally accurate to
two hundred yards. Impressive, but not gaudy.
Winston, a wiry black man who stood maybe five-seven,
was carrying an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon or “SAW,” a fierce machine-gun more
than twice the size of the MP5. He had four plastic boxes of belted ammo
strapped to his body within easy reach, augmenting the bulky clip of 5.56s in
the SAW’s gut. Dixon was convinced the sergeant was planning on using all five
clips before he hit the ground.
Thing was, to a man the Special Forces troops he was
jumping with thought Dixon was as crazy as they were. Crazier. He flew a Hog,
after all. He’d shot down a helicopter, after all. And he’d accepted the
surrender of an entire platoon of Iraqi soldiers while riding along with a
Special Ops group on a rescue mission just a few days before.
But of course what cinched it was the fact that he’d
volunteered.
So no wonder they figured Dixon would have no problem
jumping out of a cargo plane going, Mach 25, more than a hundred miles into
Iraq in the dead of night.
Hog driver? Shit, those guys are born crazy. Ever see
the plane they fly? How low they go? How many bombs they carry?
Got to be nuts.
Jumping out of an airplane in the middle of the
night’s like going to a drive-in movie for those guys.
Dixon’s decision to volunteer had actually been part
of his plan to get back to his squadron, the 535
th
Tactical Fighter
Squadron, affectionately known to Saddam and anyone else who tried messing with
them as Devil Squadron. Punished for an admittedly stupid screw up the first
day of the air war, Dixon had been temporarily shunted into a do–nothing job in
Riyadh. So naturally, he’d salivated when one of his newfound Special Ops
buddies suggested he tell a certain colonel he was available to help train ground
FACs.
Ground FACs— also known as forward air controllers—
worked with attack pilots to pick out targets on the front lines. In some
cases, the job was actually handled by pilots, but that wasn’t particularly
necessary: mostly all you had to do was work a radio and have a good sense of
direction and a rudimentary understanding of a plane’s capabilities. Telling a
Hog driver what he needed to know would take all of three seconds: point to
something big enough to blow up, then duck.
It was a time-honored profession, and Dixon figured he
could make as worthy a contribution to it as the next guy. A few lectures, a
bunch of donuts, and the job would be done.
And since the Special Ops units were headquartered at
King Fahd— also his squadron’s home drome— the assignment seemed a perfect
chance to worm back into his squadron commander’s good graces. His boss, Colonel
Michael “Skull” Knowlington, would certainly have cooled off by now, and volunteering
to help a brother service would surely count in Dixon’s favor.
It was all going to be piece of cake, especially since
there was no real need for FACs until the ground war started— weeks, if not
months from now. Dixon had figured that with a little luck, string-pulling and
maybe some strategic whining, he’d be back dropping bombs with Devil Squadron
inside a week.
Except something had gotten lost in the translation. Because
there wasn’t anyone to train.
And the Special Ops troops weren’t waiting for the
ground war to start. They needed somebody north right away.
Far north. As in: Iraq.
By the time he realized what was involved, a night HAHO
jump into Iraq for starters, it was too late to back out without looking like a
complete coward.
And there was also the fact that he had fibbed
slightly about his colonel’s permission regarding the assignment.
It wasn’t a fib, exactly. He had given an accurate and
direct response, though the question had been posed casually, in what seemed
like idle conversation. .
Or maybe it hadn’t. Because who in God’s name would
actually give permission for something like this.
Or volunteer, for that matter.
But here he was, Dixon with the six men who
constituted Team Ruth, waiting in the C-141B to jump into an area just south of
the Euphrates River. They weren’t alone, exactly. A larger group, code-named
“Apache,” had parachuted into the southwestern desert a few minutes before.
Apache was setting up a base to support Dixon’s teams and others Scud hunting
in the north and east of the country.
From what Dixon could see, two dozen or so man had
parachuted into a black void of nothingness. And they’d stepped off into it gladly,
like ascetics giving themselves up to the spirit world.
Damned poetic way of describing idiocy.
Dixon was startled by a sharp punch to his shoulder. Wincing,
he turned to face a fully loaded paratrooper wagging a finger across his
equipment as if he were a witch conjuring a spell to keep him safe.
No such luck. Just the communications or “como”
specialist, Sergeant Joey Leteri, checking his equipment. Leteri was the
squad’s jumpmaster.
Leteri gave him an extended middle finger and a grin
beneath his mask.
That was supposed to mean he was ready to go. Funny.
Winston submitted to the check next, exchanging
fingers and shoulder chucks. Then he turned to Dixon and gave him a peace sign.
Not peace. It meant two minutes.
Two minutes to live.
Dixon nodded, then realized the sergeant wanted a more
emphatic answer.
He gave him the finger. Not necessarily without
malice.
Winston used the SAW to offer a shoulder-chuck back.
If he hadn’t been braced against the side of the plane, Dixon would have gone
straight to the deck. As it was, he swore he dented the metal.
The C-141 was flying in formation with two B-52s. The
idea was to make the mission look like just another high–altitude bombing run
instead of a deep infiltration. Which undoubtedly it would, since who’d think the
Americans were this crazy?
Winston leaned closer to the door. Dixon had to go out
before him. Or at least, he was supposed to.
So how much of a coward would they think he was if he
stayed in the plane?
Big time. Better to shoot himself with the MP-5.
Might be less painful, actually. Certainly a lot less
scary.
Winston turned and motioned him forward. Dixon took a
small step, then felt himself being pushed forward by Leteri or some other
fool.
Arch. That was what he was supposed to do, right?
Arch. Frog position.
Screw it, as long as he didn’t tumble too badly. They’d
given him an automatic deployment device. Sooner or later, the chute would open
no matter what.
Or maybe not.
The wind kicked up. Even wearing an insulated jumpsuit,
Dixon began to shake with the cold.
He thought about the possibility of a freak wind
current scooping him into one of the C141’s Pratt & Whitney’s? What if one
of the B-52s was out of position.
Oh boy, he thought, it’s dark out there.
Oh boy, I got to take a leak.
Oh boy, here we go.
And then he was dancing at the edge of the universe, assisted
with Leteri’s nudge.
He was flying.
Holy Jesus, he was outside the plane.
Holy Jesus, he was falling.
Oh yeah, he thought to himself as his stomach left his
body, this is why I dropped out of that goddamn skydiving program.