HOGS #6 Death Wish (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) by Jim DeFelice Read Free Book Online

for the Capo would be so foolish as to linger nearby without very good
cause, and they would never, ever overhear something he didn’t want them to.
Ever.
    Rosen sensed what Clyston was going to say and
felt her face go red even as he opened his mouth.
    “Word has it you were asking after Lieutenant
Dixon,” said the chief master sergeant.
    “I was inquiring about his health, yes,” she said,
trying to make her voice as flat as possible. Anyone else she would have told
to screw off, but there was no way in the world to say that to the capo. No
way.
    Clyston’s large chest heaved upwards in an exaggerated
sigh. He shook his head, but said nothing. Rosen found her bottom lip starting
to tremble; she tried biting at it but her teeth couldn’t quite clamp down.
    Anybody else would have gotten a double-barrel of
invective, maybe even a good swing. Anybody else, she probably wouldn’t have cared.
    But the Chief was— well, the Chief.
    “Chief, is my work unacceptable?”
    “That’s not what this is about, Rosen.”
    “Sir.” She clamped her mouth shut, unable to say
anything else. She steadied her eyes, hoping they wouldn’t water.
    Damn, damn, damn. This shit had never happened to
her before.
    Rosen put her head down, waiting for the
inevitable lecture. Clyston was right, of course; enlisted and officers didn’t
mix. And she and Dixon had nothing in common – she was older than him, for
christsakes.
    But damn, damn, damn.
    “Sergeant, these planes have to be ready to fly at
1400 sharp,” snapped Clyston. “Then I’d appreciate it if you helped Vincenzi on
that F-in’ engine. He’s having a hell of a time.”
    “Yes, Chief,” she said, though Hog engines were
hardly her specialty. “Be glad to.”
    “I appreciate it. Vincy makes a hell of a sauce,
but he doesn’t always boil the spaghetti right, if you know what I mean.”
    “Yes, Chief.”
    Rosen listened until the scrape of his boots told
her he was far away before wiping her wet cheek with her sleeve.
     
     
     

CHAPTER 10
    KING FAHD AIRBASE, SAUDI
ARABIA
    28 JANUARY 1991
    1430
     
    Captain Kevin Hawkins wrapped his hand
around the tubular frame of his seat as the British Chinook abruptly jerked
itself off the runway, its Lycoming engines whipping the twin rotors in a fury.
His SAW – an M249 light machine gun or Squad Automatic Weapon, also known as an
FN Minimi— slipped against his leg as the big helicopter bucked forward; he
jerked his hand to grab the rifle and nearly spilled his cup of tea.
    “I thought you said your aircraft were smooth,” he
said to the sergeant next to him on the canvas bench.
    SAS Sergeant Millard Burns turned slowly toward
Hawkins and nodded in his methodical way, a bob down, a bob up. At fifty feet
above ground level the helicopter stopped climbing, leaving her rear end angled
slightly as she sped northwards, finally steady enough for Hawkins to sip his
tea. The nose of the team’s other helicopter, carrying most of the British
commandos, appeared in the window above the opposite bench. The Chinook— or
“heli” as the British soldiers tended to refer to the craft— had a splotchy camouflage
that blended dark green with pink splashes of paint. Referred to as “desert
pink” by the Royal Air Force crew, it was the oddest scheme Hawkins had ever
seen.
    “Good chaps?” asked Burns, nodding at the six
Delta troopers parked along the benches toward the front of the aircraft.
Besides Burns, there were three more British paratroopers aboard the Splash One,
and a dozen SAS men and their captain aboard the second, Splash Two.
    “The best,” Hawkins said. All of the D boys had
been with him on missions north of the border before. He’d known three – Jerry
Fernandez, Kevin Smith, and Peter Crowley –for nearly five years. Armand
Krushev and Stephen ‘Pig’ Hoffman had won medals for their still-classified
exploits in Panama right before the invasion. And Juan Mandaro was a five-tools
player: a communications