Hogs #4:Snake Eaters Read Online Free PDF

no sense arguing with the sergeant, especially since Coors had already begun trotting away. He folded his arms in front of his chest, watching as the sergeant cut back across the terrain and then angled for the road. Even though he was half-crouching, wearing a rucksack and carrying a submachine-gun, Coors made good time, disappearing from A-Bomb’s line of sight in a little more than ten minutes.
    The pilot waited a full thirty seconds, then began his own scoot toward the fuel truck, aiming to get close enough to cover the sergeant in case there was any trouble. Between the wadi and the slope, he had cover for a bit over a mile and a half, which meant he was still a good quarter mile away when somebody started shouting and firing an automatic rifle from the rocks at the edge of the hill.

CHAPTER 6
    H OG HEAVEN
    KING FAHD AIR BASE
    26 JANUARY 1991
    1310
     
    He found himself at the Depot, sitting at the long, black Formica bar top, staring at a pyramid of whiskey bottles. All of his old friends were there, as if gathered for a reunion— Seagram’s and Windsor Canadian, Rebel Yell, Heaven Hill, Jim Beam, Old Crow, Marker’s Mark, Granddad, and Wild Turkey.
    And Jack, luscious Jack Daniels in all his glory, green and black, a serious, serious friend.
    There was a large double shot glass in front of him. Filled to the white line near the rim.
    Was it his first? His third? His fifth? Was he drunk already?
    Skull eased forward on the bar stool. What difference did it make if this was his first or his twenty-first— he was already drunk on the fumes.
    Change from a twenty sat on the bar next to him; a ten, a five, and three ones.
    Two bucks for a double-shot?
    Jesus, no wonder guys said this place had sprung whole from somebody’s wet dream.
    Colonel Knowlington bent toward the drink, thinking about Dixon and the day he’d sent him to Riyadh.
    Shit. He could still see the kid’s face, white as a bed sheet, admitting he’d screwed up.
    The kid had c ome clean. That was who he was; naive, foolish, but honest. A damn good kid, brimming with potential, the kind of kid the Air Force needed. The kind of kid Skull had been once, if only for a very short time.
    It sucked shit to lose him.
    Knowlington fingered the glass. It sucked shit to lose every goddamn man he’d lost, every wingman, every friend, every acquaintance, everybody he’d had to order into battle. It sucked shit for anybody to die in war. Even the goddamn bastards on the other side, the poor slobs working for a madman, were just doing their job.
    His throat contracted, waiting for the bourbon.
    Twenty-two days since he’d last felt the pleasant burn. Twenty-two sober days.
    Why? So he could send more good kids to their deaths?
    No. So he could keep his head clear, so he made the right decisions and kept the casualties down. So people who needed him could look at him and nod. So they could trust him, not have to worry about his decisions.
    Fuck that naive bullshit.
    Skull brought the glass to his mouth. There was a sweet sting on his lips.
    No. Not for this. Not for this.
    Slowly, carefully, he set the drink back on the bar and walked out quietly, leaving his money and the full glass, his first glass in twenty-two days, behind.
     

CHAPTER 7
    O VER SOUTHWESTERN IRAQ
    26 JANUARY 1991
    1330
     
    Dob erman closed his hand around the control stick and narrowed his focus, staring through the heads-up display at the empty blue sky before him. His threat indicator showed clearly that the enemy missile was gunning for him. His electronic countermeasures— supplied by an AN/ALQ-119 ECM pod carried on the Hog’s right wing— were busting their transistors in an attempt to confuse the missile’s Fong Song F radar and guidance system. Ordinarily, Doberman would jink and jive to increase the odds of escaping, but if he did that, he’d run out of gas about thirty seconds after the missiles passed.
    He bent his head forward and back, breathing slowly and willing the jammer