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

headache had not quite
disappeared. The throb was familiar and low-grade, potentially manageable by
one of several additional therapies, including what Skull called “the oxygen
cure” — breathing pure oxygen through his pilot’s face mask. But there were only
two real cures— one was time, the other was a drink.
    Or perhaps they were the same, for wasn’t he
destined to drink, again, and again, and again, sooner or later?
    Knowlington had been sober for twenty-three days
before last night. Then, on the ground at KKMC, waiting for his umpteenth
debriefing, someone had stuck a beer in his hand and he’d slipped down a long,
familiar hole.
    Wrong.
    No one made him drink the beer. He didn’t slip, he
went willingly. He took the beer and drank it, then got another and another.
    There were extenuating circumstances. He’d gotten
back from a hellacious sortie north, fighting the odds to help rescue one of
his pilots, one of his kids. B.J. Dixon had been a ground FAC, helping a Delta
team spot Scuds deep in Iraq territory. Dixon— who was or at least ought to be
sleeping in his quarters in nearby Tent City— had saved the life of one of the
Delta boys but got separated from them in the process. Devil squadron had found
him and brought him home.
    As squadron commander, Knowlington had felt
responsible for the kid and went along personally to bail him out. Everything
had gone well— too damned well, which was the problem. He’d let his guard down.
    Liar!
    He’d wished for it. He’d known what was happening.
The tingle in his mouth, the roar in his head— he knew what he was doing.
    Just a few beers.
    How long had he been sober before that? Two weeks?
Three? He couldn’t even remember now.
    Yesterday, he could have counted the minutes.
    Michael Knowlington pushed back in his office
chair, staring at the blank wall of his trailer headquarters.
    God, he wanted a drink.
    It would take him ten minutes, fifteen tops, to
walk over to the Depot, an illegal “club” located just off the base property. A
few slugs of Jack Daniel’s and he’d be back on his feet.
    He wasn’t fit to command the squadron. He
should resign .
    Someone knocked. Skull turned toward the door,
waiting a moment before saying anything, though he had already recognized the familiar
rhythm of knuckles tapping against the frame.
    “Come,” he said.
    Chief Master Sergeant Allen Clyston pushed into
the small office like a bear inspecting a new cave.
    Clyston was the squadron’s first sergeant— and
much, much more. He personally oversaw the maintenance of Devil Squadron’s
twelve Hogs. In the squadron’s stripped-down organization chart, every enlisted
arrow pointed to him: Knowlington’s capo di capo, the colonel’s right arm— and his
left, and his legs, eyes and ears. Clyston was the last of a veritable mafia of
enlisted men who had helped Knowlington through half-a-dozen commands and
assignments stretching back to the waning days of Vietnam.
    “Allen.”
    “Colonel.” Clyston groaned as he slipped onto the
metal chair across from Knowlington’s desk. “Ought to let me find you a real
chair.”
    “Don’t want visitors getting too comfortable,”
said Skull. He tried smiling, then realized how forced it must seem.
    “I hear ya,” said the sergeant. He folded his arms
around his chest, leaning back in the chair so his gray-speckled head
touched the wall. “Got a problem I thought you could help with.”
    “Fire away.”
    “Got a fix for the INS units,” said Clyston,
referring to the gear that helped the A-10As navigate. Though a basic piece of
equipment, the gear was notoriously unreliable and needed  constant
readjustments. “Kind of a work-around-upgrade thing, but we need a pair of
special diodes I can’t seem to get through the usual sources.” Clyston reached
into his pocket for a piece of paper. “Becky Rosen says she can give them a
five-year, sixty-thousand-mile warranty if she gets this stuff.”
    Skull’s head