Free Hogs #1: Going Deep by Jim DeFelice Page B

take your pick. If it's
fixed tonight you can go back
to Fahd. If not, we get you a bunk. Check the sheets before you turn in; the
pilots are ball busters.”
    Dixon shrugged. The prognosis on the parts sounded hopelessly optimistic, given the chaos
on the field in front of him, but he wasn't about to argue with anything that
even pretended to be good news.
    “Second thing, my colonel wants to know if you can help out the intelligence guys. They're,
uh, kind of overworked.”
    “Okay,” said Dixon. “What do I do?”
    “Find a Major Bauer,” said the lieutenant, flipping
through the pad to see what his next errand was. He'd already mentally crossed Dixon off the
list. “Uh, he'll give you
the rundown. Your stuff stowed with your Hog, right?”
    Dixon nodded. He rose, surprising the officer with his height. “Where is Bauer?”
    “Got me,” said the officer, trotting back toward the tower area.
    Dixon asked half a dozen people if they'd seen Bauer without getting a positive response.
Finally he flagged down a
marine captain with a clipboard who was trotting toward a British plane. Jet engines were
roaring all around andhe had to practically tackle the officer, shouting directly into his ear.
    “I'm looking for Major Bauer.”
    “Why?”
    “I'm supposed to help debrief pilots.”
    “Here you go,” said the captain, handing over the clipboard.
    “You're Bauer?”
    “No. But my plane's ready and I got to get back to my unit. Bauer's up there. There's a
communications set up in the Humvee. See it?”
    He didn't, but the marine, obviously shanghaied into the
job earlier, disappeared before he could ask for more directions.
    The clipboard had a thick sheaf of unlined, completely blank paper. There was a pen beneath the clip, which
turned out not to work .
    While he recognized the type of plane before him— it was a two-place Tornado, one of the
most common British types in the Gulf— he wasn't precisely sure what kind of mission it would typically be tasked.
    Had a hell of a drawing on the nose, though. A woman who was primarily boobs was getting a
missile right where it counted.
    “Like the tart?” the pilot yelled down from the fuselage.
    “Excuse me?” Dixon yelled back.
    “The drawing. It's m'wife.” He laughed. “It's the backseater's wife, actually.” He
laughed again.
    Between the roar of incoming jets and the subdued whine of the Tornado, not to mention the
pilot's accent, Dixon caught maybe a third of
any given sentence.
    “I'm supposed to debrief you,” he shouted.
    “What?”
    “What was your mission?” yelled Dixon.
    “My mission? Talmud.”
    “Tail what?”
    “Talldaul Air Base.”
    “Did you hit it?”
    “Of course.”
    “How bad?”
    “Bad.”
    “Like?”
    “Like what?”
    “How bad did you hit it?”
    “Well I didn't have a bloody chance to land there and find out, now did I?”
    “Was it, uh, destroyed?”
    “What, the runway?”
    “Damage?”
    “Like a tart’s face.”
    “Tart?”
    “Prostitute, son. How bloody old are you?”
    “Can you spell it?”
    “Tart?”
    The lieutenant took out his own pen and scribbled something he hoped approximated the
shout. Meanwhile, airmen were
waving the Tornado pilot forward, urging him toward a tank truck. Dixon got the man's unit,
his call sign, and the fact
that he had nearly “gone empty” before the surrounding confusion and revving Turbo-Unions
overwhelmed the conversation.
Giving up, Dixon took a few steps back— and nearly
got run over by a taxiing Hornet.
    ***
    “Okay,
that would be Tallil. So did they hit the field?”
    “Yup.”
    “How
bad?”
    “Like a prostitute's face, if that means anything.”
    “Did he get both JP 233s on it?”
    “I don't know.”
    “JP 233s, the things they use to muck up the runway.” The
Brits like that word. Did he say, 'muck'? “The JP 233s?”
    “I know what you're talking about. He said it was as cratered as a prostitute's face.”
    Bauer crossed his eyes, then sighed. Though