Authors: Dan Hampton
Fuck it.
I shoved the throttle and the nose forward.
At a thousand feet I still couldn't see the ground,
since the weather continued to deteriorate. Nudging the jet slightly left, I
dropped down to 500 feet and slowed to 400 knots. Brown crud whipped past the
cockpit and sand was caking into any part of the jet that wasn't slick. Like
ice. Brown, dry ice. What a weird place.
In 2.7 miles, I nudged the fighter down to 200
feet, praying there were no towers or cables to hit. The gun was up and I
. . .
there it was!
The road.
Holding rock-steady, I craned my neck sideways to
see around the HUD and lined up on the road.
“ROMAN . . . ROMAN . . . more
trucks . . . from the north . . . we . . .
overrun.” The Marine sounded like he was right next to me. He sounded
scared.
“C'mon . . . c'mon . . .” I
muttered, straining to see.
Suddenly a boxy shape appeared at the edge of my
vision . . . and another. Trucks! Big military trucks. About twenty of
them, lined up on the road and heading south toward the Marines as I dropped out
of the dust like an avenging angel.
My left hand touched the MASTER ARM switch as I
stared through the HUD. Long-ingrained habits took over, and I lined up on the
far end of the string of vehicles. I was less than a mile and a half from the
closest truck.
Bunting the nose down, I let the little aiming
circle with the dot in it wriggle around at the bottom of my HUD. The idea was
to drop toward the earth while the circle, the gun pipper, rose up toward the
target. You made surgical adjustments to your airspeed and your aim to put the
pipper on the target close enough to kill it. It was good not to kill yourself,
either, by hitting the ground at 800 feet per second.
Passing a hundred feet, the pipper was still well
short of the truck, so I eased back slightly and physically pulled the nose of
the jetâand, hence, the gunâup to point at the truck. The moment the little
green pipper touched the big tailgate, I squeezed the trigger with my right
forefinger.
“BUURRRPPP . . .”
The jet rocked sideways as the Gatling gun spat out
a few hundred 20-mm shells. I instantly pulled up again and then bunted forward,
aiming at the middle of the convoy.
“BUURRRPPP.”
Rolling and pulling off to the right, I cranked up
on one wing and flew sideways down the column. Dark little figures were
scattering both ways off the road and jumping behind bushes or into ditches. I
was so low I could see small Iraqi flags painted on the doors of the
vehicles.
Several things happened next.
Groups of soldiers turned, and I clearly saw them
bring weapons to their shoulders. Seconds later, they began shooting at meâI was
well within their range.
“BINGO . . . BINGO . . . BINGO
. . .” The audible warning system, called Bitching Betty, also started
screaming at me over my low-fuel state.
Then two of the trucks at the back of the convoy
blew up. Zipping down the road at a bare hundred feet, I booted the rudder,
rolled again, and zoomed up to about 300 feet.
“CHIEFTAIN . . . ROMAN 75 is off to the
south and west . . . vehicles burning. The column has stopped in
place.”
“ROMAN . . . hit 'em again
. . . hit . . . Rags are . . .” And he faded away
again into crackling noise.
I knew I didn't have enough fuel left to go all the
way back out and re-attack as I'd just done. So, when the front of the convoy
passed off the left wing, I turned and locked my eyes to it, staring so hard
that my eyes watered. As it began to disappear in the dark, blowing sand, I
slammed the throttle forward, popped straight up, and rolled nearly inverted to
the right. Using the 200 feet of altitude I'd gained, I sliced down toward the
ground and the leading Iraqi vehicle. It was a Russian-made armored personnel
carrier (APC).
And it saw me, too.
Pulling the throttle back, I skidded sideways to
line up, and the thing opened fire at me. A double line of green tracers arced
off to my left and began correcting as the gunner got a better look at me.
I ignored it and rolled my wings level, letting the
pipper come up to the target. I was close enough to see that the gunner wasn't
wearing a helmet and he had a mustache. As the pipper reached the front bumper
of the APC, I squeezed the trigger again.
“BUURRRPPP.” The vehicle disappeared in a sudden
fog of chewed-up dirt and sparks. As I pulled up and bunted over again, my eyes
flicked to the
ROUNDS REMAINING
counter and then
to the radar altimeter. Fewer than a hundred rounds left, and I was less than
140 feet above the ground.
There wasn't time for finesse, so I just manhandled
the pipper to the leading truck and opened fire for the last time.
“BUURRP.” And the gun shuddered to a stop as I
passed through 50 feet.
Cranking up hard off to the west, I kicked the
rudder to spoil anyone's aim, pulled on the stick, and looked over my right
shoulder. Just then the truck exploded, shooting off thousands of rounds of
ammunition, and I flinched reactively. One cannon shell must've hit the next
truck in line, because it blew up, too. As the ground vanished into the brown
haze, I saw the remaining trucks and BTRs sliding off the road into the
ditch.
Swallowing several times to get some spit back in
my throat, I selected the point for the TWITCH refueling track and began a
steady climb.
“CHIEFTAIN . . . ROMAN 75 is off to the
west . . . Bingo . . . Winchester and RTB.”
That was the short way of saying I was leaving the
target area, out of gas and weapons, and returning to base. But it didn't
matter, because he didn't answer and I had other things to worry about now.
Seventeen hundred pounds of fuel.
I was so far below Bingo that I wasn't sure I could
reach the border, much less a forward-divert base in Kuwait. I felt the cold
sweat drying on my skin as I safed up my weapons and eyeballed the engine gauges
to make sure I hadn't picked up a stray round or two.
Passing through 8,000 feet heading southwest toward
the border, I broke into the clear. Not much in my life has looked better to me
than that weak blue sky. Dropping my mask again, I wiped my stubbled chin and
rubbed my eyes.
“ROMAN Two . . . One on Victor.” I keyed
the mike and waited.
No answer. I changed frequencies and tried the
AWACS. “LUGER . . . this is ROMAN 75.”
Again, no answer.
And now I had a decision to make. Maybe my last
one. The tanker track was roughly 120 miles off my nose, but there was no
guarantee I'd find a tanker there. Or, if I did, he might not have any gas to
spare. In which case, I was screwed.
About the same distance off my left wing was
Kuwait. There were several bases I could probably coast into and manage to land.
But without talking to AWACS, I had no way of knowing which ones were open or in
good enough shape for me to land. And then I was still screwed.
What a shitty day.
I'd now been strapped in a fighter cockpit for more
than eight hours, and I'd refueled five times. I'd planned on a normal six-hour
mission and hadn't brought food or water. My butt hurt and my eyes ached. I
turned the heat up because my sweat-soaked flight suit was making me shiver.
I'd flown more than one hundred combat missions by
the time
this
war began and was no novice in combat.
I had a hatful of campaign ribbons and medals, including a Purple Heart, from
earlier conflicts, and by the time I retired, I had been awarded four
Distinguished Flying Crosses with Valorâone for the First Gulf War, and three
for my service in the second war in Iraq. But that was all either in the past or
the future. For right now, not far to the west, one of nature's true nightmares
was fast approaching. The khamsin, the sandstorm, was an ominous wave of dirt
stretching north and south along the horizon as far as I could see. The sky
above the storm was gone.
It was appalling.
The momentary relief I'd been feeling leaked out of
me. A storm like that could ground every aircraft on the continent, and I
realized maybe that was why I hadn't heard from anyone.
That
was a nasty thought. Swallowing again, I passed 15,000 feet and
stared out at the brown carpet stretching out before me. If I managed to get to
25,000 or 30,000 feet, I could glide to the border and at least eject over
friendly territory.
Like I said, it had been a shitty day.
And it wasn't over yet.
The
New York
Times
bestselling author of
Viper Pilot
,
U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) DAN HAMPTON flew 151 combat missions
during his twenty years in the USAF (1986â2006). For his service in the Iraq
War, Kosovo conflict, and First Gulf War, Col. Hampton received four
Distinguished Flying Crosses with Valor, a Purple Heart, eight Air Medals with
Valor, five Meritorious Service Medals, and numerous other citations. He is a
graduate of the elite USAF Fighter Weapons School, USN TopGun School, and USAF
Special Operations School. Hampton was named his squadron's Instructor Pilot of
the Year six times and pioneered air-combat tactics that are now standard. A
graduate of Texas A&M University, he has published articles in the
Journal of Electronic Defense
,
Air Force
magazine,
Airpower
magazine,
and several classified tactical works for the
USAF Fighter
Weapons Review
.
Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive
information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from
Viper Pilot
copyright © 2012 by Dan Hampton
THE MERCENARY. Copyright © 2013 by
Dan Hampton. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the
nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book
on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded,
decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information
storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or
mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written
permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition MARCH 2013 ISBN:
9780062264671
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022