Hogs #4:Snake Eaters by Jim DeFelice Read Free Book Online Page A

canteen, lowering it to the surface of the water. There was at least six inches; he filled the canteen only halfway before rising. He intended on pouring the water over his fingers, to see if it was clean, but as he tilted the metal bottle his thirst jerked his hand up and he poured it nearly straight down into his mouth, every part of him trembling. He did it two more times, silt and grit rubbing against his teeth, choking in his throat.
    Nothing liquid had ever tasted as good. He leaned back, balancing on his haunches; finally he put the rifle down next to the ammo box and removed the campaign hat from his head, soaking it and then wringing it over his face.
    As he straightened, he hear d trucks on the road a half-mile away. He pulled the hat down, took the gun and the ammo box, and crawled up to watch them pass.
    Except that they didn’t pass. They slowed and then stopped along the highway. He raised his head as high as he dared and saw someone running toward the Ural truck he had inspected before. The man shouted something and two or three others got out of a white pickup and came over.
    Dixon couldn’t see what they were doing. The pickup truck was part of a convoy of four or five vehicles, one of which was an APC.
    At the tail end were two tractor-trailers with long tarps covering their loads.
    He’d stared at them for nearly five minutes before he realized he was looking at a pair of Scud missiles.
    By then, the Iraqis had concluded they couldn’t do anything with the 6x6 and had returned to their vehicles. Dixon rose; he watched the pickup jerk ahead, then the APC. Black smoke puffed from the exhausts of the lead Scud carrier as the motor revved.
    Belatedly, he pulled the assault rifle to his shoulder and aimed at the truck. He had it in his sights, but he was so far away that even if he managed to hit it the bullet would barely graze the canvas.
    Better to follow, get close, find a way to destroy it.
    Madness.
    But what else was there left for him to do? Stay here and die of starvation?
    Die for a purpose, at least. Better to go out in a blaze of glory than starve. Or worse, be found alive but passed out. The Iraqis would use him. That would be worse than torture, worse than death.
    Dixon shouldered his rifle and walked back up the low hill to study the area ahead. He couldn’t be sure, but it appeared that the last of the Iraqi vehicles that had just passed was following a turn in the road just beyond the hills.
    There’d be food if there was a village or settlement there. His stomach would stop hurting.
    He’d have to kill for it. Kill to eat, to survive.
    Dixon shrugged, as if he’d been debating with himself. Killing to survive meant he might kill civilians.
    So be it. There were no more civilians as far as he was concerned. Civilians were his father and mother, back home in the States.
    His father; Mom was gone.
    Could he kill his dad, standing face -to-face; shoot him if his own life depended on it? If he didn’t know him?
    If he couldn’t, if he wouldn’t, how could he shoot anyone?
    Dixon opened the ammo box and stuffed the extra clips into the belt and his pants. Pushing himself forward, Dixon stumbled once or twice but kept moving, gaining momentum as he walked.
     

CHAPTER 10
    FORT APACHE
    26 JANUARY 1991
    1430
     
    Wh en Kevin Hawkins was seven years old, his Irish grandmother came to stay with him. Within her first hour at the house, she had introduced him to stud poker and Earl Gray tea. Hawkins gave up poker when he joined the Army, but the Delta Force captain’s appreciation of the tea had only grown since basic training. Sipping a cup as he crouched at the edge of Fort Apache’s makeshift runway, he felt his fatigue drifting into the nearby sand. The bergamot-scented liquid worked like an amphetamine, pumping him up, restoring him, at least temporarily, more completely than eight hours of sleep.
    Hawkins watched as a dark green vulture approached from the south. Fifty feet off the