Hogs #1: Going Deep Read Free Page B

of him, pushing the trigger an extra second to complete the destruction. Then he
pulled up, feeling the rubber of his mask and the tight fit of the helmet
around his pudgy head. He could taste metal in his mouth and felt the steady
rush of his breath down his throat into his lungs.
    A-Bomb put the Hog on its wingtip, scanning ahead for the flight leader, Major James “Mongoose”
Johnson. A greenish-black hulk was climbing maybe a quarter of a mile off to
his left. A-Bomb checked his fuel, and did a quick scan of his instruments and
warning indicators. Clean,
he pitched the Hog more or less level.
    “Devil One to Three. A-Bomb, you back there?”
    “I got your butt in my sights,” A-Bomb replied.
    “Let's dance down to SierraMax and pick up Doberman and his pup,” said lead.
    “Gotcha.”
    Mongoose could be a hard-ass— a lot of the maintenance people hid when he came around the
hangars— but he and A-Bomb
went back a ways. A-Bomb had seen him pull strings to keep a fellow pilot from going to
jail in Germany for a minor brawl; in his opinion that was as true a test of desirable character as any known to man.
    The two jets climbed as they flew south. Without the weight and drag of the bombs, the
ride to twenty thousand- practically
outer space to a Hog pilot- wasn't nearly as hard as it had been when they set
out from their home base at King Fahd air base a million hours ago. But they took
their time about it, careful to keep parading their eyes through the sky around
them in case an intruder somehow managed to
sneak nearby.
    They were still climbing as they approached the checkpoint set for the rendezvous with
their two mates. Devil
One angled toward an easy orbit; Devil Three fell in behind. They were about sixty seconds
early- an eternity for
the notoriously punctual Doberman, who was leading the second element.
    A-Bomb eased himself in his harness, loosening not only
his restraints but his mask and helmet. Steadying the Hog with his left hand, he reached his
right hand down to a custom-sewn
pouch on the leg of his flight suit. There he removed a small titanium thermos- bulletproof,
naturally- notched the
cap to the open position with his thumb, and took a sip.
    His radio crackled mid-swallow.
    “A-Bomb, you want to look me over for damage while we're waiting?” asked Mongoose.
    “Be with you in a minute,” he grunted back.
    ***
    Mongoose guessed what A-Bomb was up to. Few if any other Hog pilots would drink coffee on
such a long mission- hell,
on any mission. And at twenty thousand feet! If the sheer logistics didn't get
you, the piddle pack would. But that was one of the many wondrous things about A-Bomb-
he never seemed to have
to pee. And no obstacle, whether it was gravity, an enemy missile or a general
out for his butt, ever stopped him from an
objective.
    Which made him the perfect wingman.
    Mongoose shook his head, then rechecked their position for the third time. After they picked
up Doberman and Dixon, they
would fly back across the border to Al Jouf, a small spit of a strip in
northwestern Saudi Arabia. There they would be refueled and rearmed. After
that, they were supposed to cross back north and put some dents in Iraqi tanks- child's play after this
mission, though as far as he could tell things had gone pretty damn well so
far.
    Assuming Doberman and the kid showed up soon.
    Thinking about anything too much made you worry aboutit, but sometimes it was impossible to clear your head. As flight leader and the squadron
director of operations or DO, Major Johnson felt enormously responsible, not just for the mission but
the men flying it. And that made him think. He thought about Doberman and
Dixon, willing the two Hogs to appear. The cloud cover had gradually thickened; he
worried that the
second half of the mission would be grounded. He wondered about the other
members of the 535th, who had been assigned to fly with other squadrons for the opening day festivities.
    Mongoose took another gander at his