Free HOGS #6 Death Wish (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) by Jim DeFelice Page A

again. This time, the ricochet nearly skinned the
side of his face.
    He threw himself against the plane, this time
putting the gun to much better use as a hammer. Smashing back and forth, he was
finally able to wedge the barrel in and use it as a lever. He paused, took out
the gun and contemplated a fresh attack, when the tape inexplicably spit out.
    “Thanks, Sadie.” Conrad slapped the plane on her
fuselage, then stood back and gave her a proper salute. But any temptation to
linger was overwhelmed by the sound of trucks approaching across the desert. He
took two steps away, turning to his right as the vehicles emerged from the
shadows, ripping through the dust no more than a quarter-mile away. They must
be coming for the wreckage he thought, starting to run, but as he did a shell
landed less than fifty yards away, throwing him forward in the grit.
    But that was just as well— a machine-gun began
firing from one of the vehicles, its stream of red tracers slicing through the
air only a few inches from his head.
    And then a roar from above overwhelmed the noise
of the Iraqi vehicles and their hellish gunfire. The rattling sound could only
be properly described as the snort from a very angry animal.
    A Hog, as a matter of fact.
    Conrad’s guardian angels had arrived.
     
     
     

CHAPTER 19
    OVER IRAQ
    28 JAUARY 1991
    1830
     
    Doberman nudged his rudder pedals, lining
up the crosshairs on the shadow closest to the downed Tornado. Before he could
press the trigger, red sparks spewed from his target.
    “Aim higher,” he told the enemy armored personnel
carrier. Then his thumb danced over the trigger button, first to one side, then
the other. “Bing-bang-boing,” he said, unleashing a flood of spent uranium at
the Iraqi vehicle. The spray decimated the enemy, like hot water eliminating a
spider.
    Doberman worked his pedals, pushing his aim toward
a second shadow; another bing-bang-boing and more than a hundred shells erased
the Iraqi vehicle, this one apparently a truck with some type of medium-sized
gun mounted over the cab.
    Glenon pulled back, sweeping around as he
temporarily lost his bearings in the dark shadows of the fast-approaching
night.
    “I have something moving near the plane,” said Gunny,
viewing the scene through his Maverick’s IR seeker in Devil Four.
    “Pilot?”
    “Uh, can’t see. Should we drop a log?” said his
wingman, asking if they should light a flare.
    “Hold off. Hang on. Fuck.”
    Doberman yanked his stick back with all his
weight, just barely pulling off the ground. Paying attention to the windscreen
instead of his instruments, he’d inadvertently dropped too low. Flying the Hog
at night wasn’t necessarily difficult, but you had to pay attention to what you
were doing.
    He circled south of the two trucks and the damaged
airplane, the altimeter nailed on three hundred feet above ground level. Devil
Four was circling several thousand feet above and slightly to the south.
    The players were getting hard to see. A flare
might be a good idea.
    Except it would help the Iraqis find their guys.
    One of the remaining trucks fired its machine-gun,
the stream of bullets arcing across the desert as Doberman passed. He rolled
the Hog and sailed into what amounted to a 165-degree turn, pushing the wings
out level as he got the nose angled onto the shadow. He lost speed and altitude—he
was maybe ten feet off the ground when he put his nose on his target. Devil
Three didn’t seem to mind, though, nor did she complain when he kicked the
Avenger 30mm Gatling back into action, a full three-second burst obliterating
the tiny stream of machine-gun fire that was now aimed directly at his face.
    Something scraped against his belly as he let off
the trigger. For a moment Doberman thought he actually did hit the ground— he
was very, very low. But as he pulled up past the smoked target, he realized it
must have been bullets from the Iraqi striking the Hog’s titanium armor.
    If they’d done any damage,