HOGS #6 Death Wish (Jim DeFelice’s HOGS First Gulf War series) by Jim DeFelice Page A

is wise and what
is folly,” agreed the minister. “Would you like to get a drink?”
    “A drink?” Hack laughed. “No.”
    “Ministers drink.”
    “I know that,” Preston told him. “But I have a,
uh, a kind of thing I have to do.” Splash was top secret and he couldn’t give
any details. “I’m on standby.”
    “Oh,” said the chaplain, clearly disappointed.
“Coffee?”
    “Nah,” said Hack. “Thanks anyway. Nice service.”
     
     
     

CHAPTER 26
    TENT CITY
    28 JANUARY 1991
    2145
     
    BJ Dixon stared at the canvas ceiling of
his tent, trying to remember what it felt like to fly. Wind rattled the fabric,
a whispery hush that made it seem as if he’d fallen into a void. He couldn’t
remember how to fly— he could barely remember how to walk. The yellow air of
the tent pressed against his chest like Iraqi dirt; the rumbles in the distance
were the groans of men dying, of the grenade exploding against the little boy’s
stomach.
    “BJ?”
    He turned his head toward the door.
    “Lieutenant?”
    Dixon sat up and swung his bare feet off the cot.
He had on dress uniform pants; they were the only pants clean enough to wear.
Cold, he’d layered all four of his clean T-shirts on. “It’s okay,” he said.
    Becky Rosen slid slowly inside, holding the door
open only far enough to let her slender body through.
    “I saw your light,” she said.
    “Can’t sleep,” BJ told her.
    “I. . .” She shrugged.
    “What?”
    “I was wondering how you were, after everything up
there.”
    “Okay. Cold.”
    “I heard you were going home.”
    “No.” He folded his arms around his chest, a wave
of cold air hitting him. “They said I could. I don’t feel like it. I want to be
here.”
    She nodded. “Get back on the horse? Fly again?”
    “It seems like it’s been forever since I flew, you
know?”
    “Those your dress pants?”
    “Yeah.” He laughed— briefly, barely, but still, it
was a laugh. “Nothing else is clean.”
    “I know the feeling.”
    They’d kissed once, in the dark, by accident
really. Her lips had been warmer and deeper and softer than anything he’d ever
felt. But it had been so long ago now, before he’d known anything, before going
north, before the kid.
    Rosen shifted her body, her head moving backward.
Dixon realized he didn’t want her to leave, but could think of nothing to get
her to stay.
    “You were in Iraq?” he blurted out. Wong had told
him about the mission she’d volunteered for.
    Yes.” She laughed, a tiny little laugh. “I
parachuted in with Captain Wong. He’s some sort of skydiving specialist. A
regular James Bond.”
    “Saved my life,” said Dixon.
    “Thank God.” She flexed her fingers, rubbing them
together. He’d never seen anyone so beautiful.
    “Cold in here,” he said.
    “Really? I feel warm.”
    “Yeah.” He worked his tongue around his dry mouth,
trying to work up some moisture. “It was so cold in Iraq, I’m still frozen.”
    “You’re a hero.” She blurted the words out.
    “Nah.”
    “That helicopter you shot down.”
    “That was luck.”
    “Well, you saved that sergeant’s life. I saw that
ridge and the quarry you were in. It must’ve been hell.”
    “You saw that?”
    “I was in one of the helicopters. The AH-6.
Captain Wong didn’t tell you?
    “No.”
    “Yeah, I was.”
    “Yeah,” he repeated. His head became hollow again;
he remembered climbing along the rock face, the wind rushing around his body as
he waited for his chance to kill a man— three men, as it turned out, one with
his bare hands.
    “They wouldn’t have, they wouldn’t have sent you
to Iraq if they, they didn’t think you were— brave,” said Rosen.
    Her words jerked him back to the present.
     “I got tangled up with Delta on my own,” he said.
“Ground FAC. I volunteered. I ended up working with Doberman and A-Bomb.”
    “Captain Glenon saved us, our helicopter.”
    “Good guy.”
    Rosen’s cheeks turned red. She said nothing.
Surprised,