Chains of Command

NINE

It was very much like a state visit — the honor guard at the airport, the greeting by Secretary of State Harlan Grimm, the motorcade through the streets of Washington, and the greeting at the White House by the President, the First Lady, and members of the Cabinet and Congressional leadership. The greeting for Valentin Ivanovich Sen’kov, former prime minister of Russia, senior member of the Congress of People’s Deputies, and the moderate opposition leader to hard-line Russian president Vitaly Velichko, was almost as grandiose as those accorded a popular state leader.

Sen’kov was in his late forties to early fifties, tall, slender, handsome, and unmarried. He was a former colonel in the SPETSNAZ, the Red Army’s Special Forces, a veteran of Afghanistan. Sen’kov was a strong ally of Boris Yeltsin, the now deposed and exiled former Russian President. When Yeltsin was still in office, Sen’kov was named Deputy Chairman of the Congress of People’s Deputies, the third-highest position in the new Russian Federation. But with the ascension of Vitaly Velichko, Sen’kov was removed from that post and stripped of most of his official powers. Ideologically, the young Sen’kov was a reformer who wanted closer ties to the West, and he went out of his way to show the world how exciting it could be for a Russian to embrace the West — he had established very close ties to many Western governments and was a star of his own TV talk show in Russia and in an English-language version of the show shown overseas. Politically, however, Sen’kov swung with the winds. He was careful to make powerful friends both in Russia (including the military) and overseas, especially to show his Russian colleagues what real Western wealth was about. Although not tremendously popular with the bureaucrats or the military, his popularity with the Russian people and people from all over the world could not be ignored. He was certainly a very atypical Russian politician.

There were the usual photo opportunities at the White House, but instead of sitting around in the Oval Office, seated on the usual chairs in front of the fireplace surrounded by photographers, the President, who was a bit younger than Sen’kov and every bit as athletic, took the Russian politician out to the covered, winterized White House tennis courts for a game. The President preferred jogging, but he knew the Russian loved tennis. The press went crazy at every hit. The easy “batting the ball around for the press” turned into a serving warm-up, which evolved into a quick game, which turned into a set, which turned into an all-out head-to-head battle. It was a close game, with no real winner apparent until the very last point — Sen’kov, always politically prudent, lost. They returned for iced tea and ice cream in the Oval Office. Ice cream was one of the President’s weaknesses, and it added to his girth. The press was allowed to stay for only a few minutes before being escorted out.

“I wish I could claim a true victory, Valentin,” the President drawled in his deep southern accent, as they were joined by the First Lady, “but I had to fight for every point, and I think you let me win.”

“I wish I could claim that I let you win, Mr. President,” Sen’kov said, “but I cannot.” Sen’kov, after spending a long time overseas — including getting a master’s degree at the President’s own alma mater at Oxford — had only a very slight Russian accent when he spoke English, which made both the President and First Lady feel very comfortable around him. “We must make it a point to play more often.”

“That’s tough to arrange these days, Valentin,” the President said.

They sat in silence for a few moments, drinking iced tea and toweling off; then the First Lady said, “Valentin, I know it must be very difficult for you to leave your country at a time like this. Russia is on the front page every day, especially with that recent tragedy of that transport being shot down by the Moldovan Air Force. How awful.”

“I understand you knew many of the men on that aircraft,” the President added.

Sen’kov seemed to hesitate a bit, but whether that was from a sad memory or because he was thinking of being double-teamed by this formidable political duo, it was difficult to tell. “I thank you both for your thoughts,” he said in a low voice, seemingly choked up by their comment — which, he hoped, would make them feel a bit guilty and perhaps back off a bit. “Yes, I did know some of the senior officers on that plane.” He paused again, and the couple could see his expression change from one of sadness to one of rising anger. “It was a senseless thing to do.”

“You mean the Moldovans shooting down your transport, and the Ukrainians informing the Moldovans of its presence?” asked the President, putting a big spoonful of ice cream in his mouth.

“No, Mr. President, I mean it was a senseless thing to do to send those paratroopers in the first place like that.”

“You mean you would have sent them in at night, or in more than one aircraft, or by a different route?”

“You misunderstand,” Sen’kov said in earnest. He hesitated, then decided to be as blunt as possible: “I think it was an insane mission to begin with, perpetrated by an insane man.” Well, Sen’kov thought, at least they knew now that he had not supported the Russian mission into Moldova. Sen’kov rested his head on his hands and made a pyramid with his index fingers (he had been taught once by the KGB that doing this made one look very pensive, as if deliberating very hard on a subject), then said, “May I tell you the truth?”

“Please do,” the President said.

“I could put a bullet in President Velichko’s brain myself for what he has done,” Sen’kov said, “and not because he botched the job, but because of the way he is conducting this entire line of foreign policy.” He modestly nodded to the pretty blonde First Lady. “I am sorry if I offended you.”

“I understand, Valentin,” the First Lady said reassuringly. “No offense taken.”

“Thank you. You know what he is about, Mr. President, ma’am. He appeals to those in my country who want the old ways, to bring back the strong central government, to weaken the military, to protect Russians living overseas. Instead of embracing the West and the emerging third world, he shuns it. Instead of trying to strengthen the Commonwealth by strengthening the Republics under a free market society, he tries to strengthen Moscow and bully the independent Republics into allowing Russians to keep all the property and privileges they controlled under the old oppressive regime. It cannot be done. It must ultimately fail.”

The First Couple nodded in complete understanding. Shortly after the President had taken office, one of the first crises he’d had to face was the continuing loss of influence and power by Boris Yeltsin, a man the President — and most of the Western World — had hoped could keep the newly formed Russian Republic moving toward democratic reforms. During his first state of the union address, the President had called upon more aid for Russia to help Yeltsin implement his social and economic reforms. But the country, facing an enormous deficit, high unemployment, and a sluggish economy, informed him through their Congressional representatives and Senators that it was time to care for America’s own first. The President, at the urging of the First Lady, the Secretary of State, and others, was undaunted. He continued to make speeches pressing for aid.

Then, in March of 1993, former President Richard Nixon came back from a trip to Russia — he still knew the country better than anyone in or out of office — and met privately with the President, reiterating the dire need for American aid. Nixon even wrote an editorial in The New York Times declaring disaster ahead if America didn’t get involved. And then, step by step, things began to unravel for Yeltsin. In an extraordinary four-day session, the Congress of People’s Deputies stripped Yeltsin of a lot of his powers, putting them back into the hands of his opposition.

The President, sensing the urgency of Yeltsin’s decline, called upon the major industrialized nations to pump up emergency aid for Yeltsin. His pleas fell on deaf ears. The Germans were struggling with the economic effects of reunification, the Japanese were still reeling from their own faltering economy, the French were typically more concerned about their own country than anyone else, and the British simply had no money.

Nixon, the southern Democratic president realized, had been right all along. Before the summer was over, Yeltsin was out, and Vitaly Timofeyevich Velichko was in.

Velichko was not only President of Russia, but President of the Commonwealth of Independent States’ (CIS) Council of the Heads of State; Chairman of the Socialist Motherland Party (which was formerly the Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union); Commander in Chief of the Russian Armed Forces; as well as the Commander in Chief of the Joint Commonwealth Forces. He was the most powerful man in Russia, and he shared ultimate control over the nuclear weapons in the CIS states that still had them with his Minister of Defense and his Chief of the General Staff.

Under the Soviet government prior to 1992, Velichko was Deputy Defense Minister and the chairman commander of the Main Military Council, the principal group charged with maintaining wartime readiness in peacetime (the equivalent to the U.S. Strategic Command). In wartime the Main Military Council becomes the Stavka, the highest wartime military body, and the President takes direct control.

After the Soviet Union’s humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan, Velichko’s primary job was the restoration of the image and fighting timbre of the Russian Army, and he did it with ruthless abandon. He blamed the failure in Afghanistan not on Russian troops, but soldiers from the outlying, more pro-Muslim republics. Velichko ordered imprisonment and executions for desertion, drunkenness, insubordination, and conduct unbecoming a Soviet soldier. In particular, non-Russian soldiers were policed, even persecuted. Soldiers with Muslim families or a Muslim heritage were removed from the Red Army.

Rather than alienate himself from the military, he actually endeared himself to them, especially hard-line Russians. Velichko was instrumental in continuing many strategic military programs despite huge budget deficits and soaring inflation — the SS-25 and SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Tupolev-160 strategic supersonic bomber, the Typhoon-class nuclear-powered submarine, and others.

It was Velichko’s job to align the Russian military with the pro-Communist plotters during the August 1991 coup attempt, and when the coup failed and Yeltsin came to power, Velichko faded into the background, remaining in his Black Sea dacha on the Crimean Peninsula of the Ukraine. His popularity with the military was so great that, even after the Ukraine’s independence in November of 1991, the Crimean Peninsula became a virtual Russian military enclave, with all naval and naval air bases there remaining in Russian hands. No one dared challenge Velichko and Russian ownership of those installations.

But in a stunning peaceful coup precipitated by threats from the military commanders, in the summer of 1993, Yeltsin was forced to give up his presidency in order to avoid a military takeover. The Congress of People’s Deputies, the unelected legislative body in Russia, announced Velichko president, pending elections in 1995. Velichko did not call for elections for members of the Congress, and so he solidified his hold on the government.

Quickly, tactics not seen since the days of the old Soviet Union started emerging. The KGB was refortified and renamed, beefed up with budgetary dollars meant for the people, persecution and disappearance of political enemies escalated, freedoms enjoyed since the fall of the USSR began to evaporate: free speech, the right to openly practice religion, and the right to travel between the CIS states were tightened. He also seized many of the industries that had, during Yeltsin’s rule, been taken into private ownership. Velichko ruled Russia with an iron fist reminiscent of Khrushchev, but unlike Khrushchev, many (including the U.S. President and the CIA) felt that Velichko was a psychiatrically defined sociopath. In other words, he was nuts, which made him all the more dangerous.

“You know,” the President was saying, “you’re gonna have to get your Congress together and tell him he’s gonna fail. Big-time. He’s going to drag your whole country into war with the United States or NATO, sure as hell.”

“It is hard to speak of calm and cooperation in the dead of winter,” Sen’kov said. “The truth is, many in my country like Velichko’s explosive rhetoric. There are many who blame the Ukrainians, the Muslims, the Romanians, the Baits, for Russia’s problems. In their minds, an invasion would solve everything.”

“So that transport was carrying an invasion force,” the First Lady said as if she knew it all along.

Sen’kov looked as if perhaps he was going to deny it; then: “I’m afraid so, ma’am. Reinforcements for the rebels in Kishinev, and SPETSNAZ commandos to stage cross-border raids against Romanian and Ukrainian air defense installations.”

“Velichko promised me that aircraft was full of humanitarian relief supplies,” the President said. “He said those men that died were relief workers and aircrewmen.”

“Quite the contrary, sir. It was a small but very lethal fighting force. Petition the Romanian government to examine the wreckage.”

“We did that,” the First Lady interjected. “As expected, the Moldovans said it was carrying troops. We have evidence that they doctored the cargo to make it look like an invasion force.”

“It was, madam,” Sen’kov said. “Look at the plane’s radar installation. You will find it is different than the normal navigation and weather radar — it has been modified for all-weather terrain-avoidance operations. Normally explosives are planted when military equipment such as this is installed in civil aircraft, to destroy these components in a crash, but I know that most aircrews will disable the explosive device on most low-level flights because they fear turbulence will cause the charges to go off.”

The President finished his ice cream, poured himself more iced tea, walked around the Oval Office a bit, then said, “You know, I feel powerless, Valentin. I can’t get any more aid approved for Russia until Velichko backs off or is ousted. What else is there to do? What’s your prediction here? How far is Velichko prepared to go?”

“I know that I may not be considered an impartial reference, Mr. President,” Sen’kov said. “I lost my office to his hard-line socialist party; I have made it quite clear that I intend to run against him in the next election; and I certainly do not share his extreme views. But in my opinion, sir, Vitaly Velichko is a madman. He will not stop until the Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltic states, Kazakhstan, and Georgia are all firmly in the Commonwealth, back under Russian domination. The presence of American warships in the Black Sea, and Ukrainian airmen in Turkey training with NATO forces, is proof to him that Russia is doomed unless he acts, with all the speed and power of the Russian military.”

“But what is he going to do?” the First Lady asked. “How far is he going to take this?”

“Madam, a planeload of SPETSNAZ troopers is only the beginning,” Sen’kov said. “Velichko feels he was betrayed by the Ukrainians, with American and Turkish assistance. The recent news that the Ukraine has been stockpiling weapons in Turkey is simply more proof. Romania or Lithuania is not a great threat to Russia — but the Ukraine is. He will have to deal with the Ukraine.”

The President and the First Lady looked at each other and suddenly felt uneasy.

TEN

Pavlo Grigor’evich Tychina was mad enough to chew nails. If he heard one more wingman grouse about having to pull another night of air patrols, he was going to put a missile up his butt.

For the sixth night in a row, Tychina was leading a gaggle of twelve MiG-23 fighters, NATO code name Flogger, on air patrol of the Volynskoje Uplands of northwestern Ukraine. To Tychina, it was an honor to lead this large formation of planes. It was unusual for such a young aviator to command such a large flight, especially when the patrol was at night — not to mention the very tenuous political and military conditions under which the patrol was now operating. Because the Air Force had been conducting these patrols round-the-clock for over six months now, the thought had crossed his mind that they were running low on fresh, seasoned pilots and were digging deeply into the less-experienced crews to lead night patrols. He, Tychina, was the leader, and had been for nearly a month and twenty sorties now.

“Lead, this is Blue Two.” The radio call came a few moments later. It was Aviation Lieutenant First Class Vladimir Nikolaevich Sosiura again. “My fuel gauge is oscillating again. It’s bouncing on empty. Maybe I better take Green Two back to base. Over.”

“Vlad, dammit, this is the second ‘oscillating fuel gauge’ in three nights,” Tychina said. Sosiura’s roommate and drinking buddy was in Green Two — how obvious could Vlad be? “Maybe you had better talk to your plane captain and get some different malfunctions. In the meantime, hold your position.”

“Go to hell, Pavlo,” Sosiura in Blue Two replied. “If I flame out, it’ll be your fault.” Sosiura’s “butt-comfort duration” was about forty-five minutes, and most of the time it didn’t take longer than thirty minutes before he or someone else in the twelve-ship formation started seeing “malfunctions” crop up in their planes. Tychina thought they gave “soft” new meaning.

The twelve Mikoyan-Gurevich-23 single-engine, single-seat jet fighters were on a night air-combat patrol of the Volynskoje Uplands, nicknamed the “Polish Bunghole” because of its vast stretches of dark wasteland and its close proximity to Poland and Belarus. Air patrols of the Bunghole were necessary because long-range radar coverage in this region was so poor: the L’vov radar adequately covered the Polish border and even into Slovenia, but radar sites in Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, and Vinnica in central Ukraine were short-range approach radars only, leaving huge gaps in radar coverage in the northwest. They had installed outdated, unreliable Yugoslavian portable radar units in the area, but they rarely worked, and the more reliable Soviet- and Ukrainian-made mobile radar units had limited range. With tensions this high, the Ukraine needed reliable long-range eyes in the sky.

By forming six gigantic racetracks in the skies over the Bunghole, Tychina was able to fill that five-hundred-kilometer-wide gap. The six ovals were aligned north to south. Each was about one hundred kilometers long, and separated by about seventy-five kilometers, spread from west to east from the Ukraine-Poland border to Zitomir, about one hundred fifty kilometers west of Kiev, from where surveillance and ground-controlled intercept radars would pick up the air defense task. Each oval had two fighters in it, orbiting apart from one another so that when one plane was turning southbound, the other was turning northbound. This way a solid wall of radar energy was always being transmitted northward to cover the Belarus-Ukrainian border west of Kiev. Similar radar pickets had been established in the skies between Kiev eastward to Char’kov, covering the Russia-Ukrainian frontier, and more conventional air patrols were in the skies near the Crimean Peninsula and over the Black Sea.

Almost a hundred MiG-23, MiG-27, and Sukhoi-17 fighters were involved in this night operation, rotating in two-hour shifts from air bases at L’vov in western Ukraine, Kiev and Vinnica in central Ukraine, Char’kov and Doneck in eastern Ukraine, and Odessa on the Black Sea. Three more groups of a hundred planes each patrolled the rest of the day — the patrol operation involved two-thirds of the Ukraine’s fleet of combat aircraft. In addition, four-fifths of the Ukraine’s eight hundred military and government helicopters — not just combat or patrol helicopters, but transport, communications, liaison, and command helicopters as well — patrolled the Russian, Belarussian, and Moldovan frontiers day and night. It was easily the largest air armada ever launched by a former Soviet republic.

Tychina was proud to be part of this vital mission and happy to be commanding this large air patrol, but a little worried as to exactly why they were up here. He knew that relations were strained to the point of war between Russia and two of its Commonwealth of Independent States’ allies — Moldova and the Ukraine — over a tiny enclave of Russians living in the Dniester region of Moldova (what used to be the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic). And just last month, Moldova had blasted that Ilyushin-76 Russian transport right out of the sky. Still, that little skirmish was between Moldova and Russia. Or was it?

Tychina finished his northward leg with nothing showing on radar. “Task Force Imperial lead turning,” he reported. The rest of the formation was supposed to time their turns with him, but it was easy to get out of sync. One by one the pilots reported their turns to their orbit-mates. The formation was staggered a bit, no more than a minute or two off — the Belarussian border was still being covered. Tychina turned his radar to STANDBY on the southbound leg, started a stopwatch to time his next turn, did a cockpit check, made a few fuel calculations — about twenty minutes left before they headed for home — and settled in his narrow, uncomfortable ejection seat to wait. The next shift of fighters should be calling airborne from L’vov in about ten minutes, and in thirty minutes he’d be back on the ground. They’d be down long enough for a refueling, a bathroom break, a quick snack, and another plastic bottle of apple juice before launching for the second shift.

The young pilot went back to thinking about the mess that seemed to be drawing former allies into battle. One thing he knew for sure: it was important for the Ukrainian people to secure their own borders and get out from under the shadow of their former master. This air patrol, although probably insignificant, was still important. No one, especially Russia, should be allowed to push anyone around, especially an ally.

These round-the-clock patrols were staged more for Moldova’s and Romania’s satisfaction — and for the Ukrainian people — rather than for any tactical military considerations. Romania and Moldova were charging the Ukraine with siding with Russia in the Dniester dispute, and this was a way of showing them it wasn’t true. More importantly, the newly elected liberal government in Ukraine needed support for its policy of international cooperation and openness. So this was a way of showing the world how much they desired peace — and a way of showing the Ukrainian voters how tough they could be.

Yeah, right, he mused. As if throwing a few old fighters up against the cream of Russia’s crop showed anything but how desperate you were. Well, if nothing else, this was flying time, and logable formation-lead time, as well as task force leader time. More points toward promotion to Major of Aviation, which young Pavlo Grigor’evich Tychina could expect in—

“Inbound, inbound,” a voice suddenly came over the radio — in English, of all languages! “This is Lubin air traffic control center on GUARD, aircraft at zero-seven-three degrees from Lubin at one-three-eight kilometers at one-two thousand meters, descend and maintain one-zero thousand meters, contact me on frequency one-two-seven-point-one, and squawk four-two-two-five normal. Acknowledge all transmissions. Welcome to Poland. Over.”

Tychina shook his head, totally confused. Lubin was a Polish air traffic control sector, about a hundred kilometers west of the Ukrainian border — but the location of the unidentified aircraft they were talking to was in the Ukraine. The Polish air traffic controller was obviously giving the Ukrainian jets a friendly “heads-up” about the intruders, disguising it as a standard initial call-up to an inbound flight. But night flights by commercial aircraft were prohibited at night over most of Eastern Europe. Who was out there?

Tychina hit the radio button on his throttle: “Amber Two, this is Blue One, you have contact on that unknown?”

“Say again, Blue One?” the pilot of Amber Two, Aviation Lieutenant Maksim Fadeevich Ryl’skii, replied. Ryl’skii’s voice plainly sounded drowsy. Good thing all the aircraft were separated by at least fifty kilometers or else they’d be running into each other for sure.

“Christ, Mak, aren’t you monitoring GUARD?” Tychina yelled. “All Imperial aircraft, check your switches and monitor GUARD channel. Lubin air traffic control called unidentified traffic over our airspace, and he wasn’t talking about us. Northbound Imperial flights, configure for aircraft above one-zero-thousand meters and sing out if you see anything.”

Seconds later, Tychina heard, “Imperial, this is Amber Two, I have radar contact at zero-two-zero degrees and thirty kilometers from Reference One, altitude one-two thousand meters.” Reference One was the city of Kovel, about seventy kilometers south of the Belarus-Ukraine border … the unknown aircraft was definitely in Ukrainian airspace.

Thank God for the Polish air traffic controllers, Tychina thought — the Ukrainians liked to make fun of the Poles, but they may have just saved their asses.

“How many you got, what direction, and what speed, Amber One?” Tychina demanded. Come on, damn you, Tychina cursed silently. Don’t go to pieces on me now—give me a proper radar report. Some fighter jocks always sounded so macho, so competent, until a real emergency happened, then they turned to putty.

“I got multiple inbounds, headed south, at seven hundred kilometers per hour,” Ryl’skii replied several moments later, his voice shaky. He had never seen so many unidentified aircraft on his radar screen before. The Sapfir-23D J-band attack radar in the MiG-23s had been recently upgraded to allow more autonomous air intercepts — the older system was made for ground-controlled intercepts, but that was useless if you no longer had many ground-controlled radar systems. “Andrei, get your ass up here and help me … my God, there must be a dozen inbounds up here!”

“Relax, Amber Two,” Tychina radioed. “Amber One, you start your turn yet?”

“Affirmative,” Aviation Captain First Class Andrei Vasil’evich Golovko in Amber One replied. Golovko was an experienced pilot and a former flight commander, sent back to pushing a jet because of one drunken episode several months ago. Tychina thought the demotion was unwarranted but was glad to have Golovko in his unit. “I have got you and the bogeys on radar; Amber One, you can turn off your exterior lights. Pavlo, we have got multiple inbounds heading south. Jesus, at least fourteen … what the hell is going on? … Pavlo, I’d call ’em hostile. There could be jokers in the deck. What do you want to do?”

For the first time since leading these patrols, Tychina had to make a real command decision. Their orders were to intercept and, if necessary, destroy any unidentified foreign aircraft crossing the border. The caveat “if necessary” disturbed Tychina — it was anyone’s interpretation what that might mean. It would also be virtually impossible to get a visual identification. Some of the MiG-23s, including Tychina’s plane, were equipped with the TP-23 infrared search and track system, and they could use it for a visual identification if they could safely close within about ten kilometers. But closing in that much meant possibly tangling with the “jokers” Golovko was warning him about — enemy fighters. If this was a flight of Russian bombers, it was very possible that they’d bring along fighter escorts.

Pavlo Tychina paused, then ordered, “Amber One, keep the aircraft and Amber Two in sight. Take a high patrol perch if you can. Break. Blue Two and Green Flight, rendezvous with me over Reference Two; I will be at base altitude plus four, so join in the block.” Tychina knew that, other than landing in poor weather, most aircraft accidents occurred during night-formation rejoins. He would try to bring his wingman and the two planes in the adjacent orbit areas over to a reference point, stacked one hundred meters below his “base altitude” plus four thousand meters, then hope they could all use radar and visual to join on him.

They practiced a lot of night rejoins, but Tychina could start to feel his own pulse quicken and sweat start to pop out on his own forehead — the rejoin would be difficult and very dangerous under normal training circumstances, and all the harder with hostile aircraft nearby. “All other flights in task force Imperial, I want you to stagger your patrol orbits westward fifty kilometers and shorten your orbits to increase surveillance time along the border. Purple One Flight, contact L’vov and tell them to get task force Royal airborne as soon as possible. Out.”

With a steady stream of prompting (as in swearing, yelling, vectoring, and cajoling) from Golovko, the two Amber Flight aircraft joined, climbed to fourteen thousand meters, and approached the unidentified aircraft. They were operating at the very upper end of their altitude capability — a MiG-23 could not fly much above fifteen thousand meters’ altitude, and even at fourteen thousand the possibility of flameout or compressor stall was very good — and so far the intruders weren’t descending.

Tychina wasn’t having the same luck rejoining Blue and Green flights. Suddenly everyone’s Doppler navigation systems were running away or frozen, their radio navigation beacon receivers weren’t operating correctly, their intercept radars were blanking out, or their identification beacons weren’t painting on radar.

Technically it was illegal to join aircraft that had inoperable radars or beacons — but Tychina wasn’t going to put up with any shit from his timid wingmen. He performed several 360-degree turns with all of his position and anticollision lights on full bright, shouting on the radio, “Green flight, dammit, I got a visual on you — you should be able to see my lights … Blue Two, I’ve got you on radar, I’m at your four o’clock, six klicks — open your eyes, dammit … Blue One rolling out heading three-zero-zero, Blue Two, I’m right ahead of you and above you, c’mon, let’s go.”

It was a mess and getting worse — no one could do anything right.

“Imperial, this is Amber One, I’ve got the easternmost bandits in sight,” Golovko radioed. Tychina smiled in spite of himself — Golovko, who had visited quite a few Western air bases and even attended a NATO fighter weapons training class in Germany, liked to use American fighter slang like “bogey” and “bandit” a lot. “I have got a Tupolev-95 bomber, repeat, a Tupolev-95 Bear bomber.” The nickname Bear was a NATO reporting name, but of course Golovko would prefer to use it. “I see weapons mounted externally. Moving in for a closer look. Stand by.”

“Don’t move in until you locate and identify any defensive weapons,” Tychina called over. “Have your wingman hang back on the opposite side.”

“Copy,” Golovko replied. “Amber Two, you are cleared to the high perch. Keep me in sight.”

“Amber Two copies.”

Blue Two had finally joined on Tychina’s right wing and was hanging close — he had no IRSTS (Infrared Search and Track System) pod, so he had to rely on Golovko’s position lights to stay in formation. Green Flight was taking its time joining on Tychina. “Green Flight, do you have radar contact on me yet?” A few long, irritating moments later, he replied that he had radar contact and that Green Two had him in sight and was closing in. “Blue Flight is climbing to base plus seven and increasing speed.”

“Imperial, this is Amber One, I can see a ventral gun turret, repeat, I see a belly turret with twin guns. No tail guns in sight. I call it a G-model Bear. The weapons mounted externally appear to be cruise missiles, I repeat, cruise missiles, probably AS-4, one on each wing. How copy, Imperial? I need instructions immediately. Over.”

Tychina swallowed hard. The AS-4 missile was an older-design cruise missile, first developed over thirty years ago, but it was capable of flying over four times the speed of sound — even faster than the R-23 and R-60 air-to-air missiles the MiG-23s were carrying — and from its current launch altitude the AS-4 could fly over five hundred kilometers. It carried 900-kilogram high-explosive warheads, devastating enough to destroy a large office building — or it could carry a 350-kiloton nuclear warhead.

“Amber Flight, this is Imperial, confirm the weapons loadout … Andrei, are you sure they’re AS-4 missiles?”

“No doubt about it, Pavlo,” Golovko said. “I am pulling back to trailing position. What do you want to do?”

Tychina found his throat as dry as an old boot and his breathing was rapid.

Russian bombers.

They were carrying cruise missiles, powerful weapons that could devastate L’vov, or Kiev, or Odessa. He had never thought about the possibility of attacking a Russian aircraft …

… But what were they doing here?

What was going on …?

“Pavlo, get with it,” Golovko radioed. “What are your—”

“Fighters!” Ryl’skii in Amber Two shouted. “Fighters launching missiles, Andrei! Break right! Get out of there!”

Tychina cobbed the throttle to max afterburner and swept his wings full aft to help gain speed. The Russians had just made his decision for him: they indeed had fighter escorts, and they waited at very high altitude until Golovko started moving into attack position. Tychina shouted on the radio: “Imperial Flight, this is Imperial lead, attack inbound Tupolev bombers and unidentified fighters. Check your beacons and lights. Purple Flight, radio to base in the clear, Imperial Flight is under attack by large formation of Russian bombers and unknown numbers and types of fighters. Tell them to declare an air defense emergency! Break. Andrei! Amber Two, what is your condition?”

“I’m in deep shit, that’s what, Pavlo,” Golovko radioed back. His voice was as icy-calm as if he were sitting in church — the only giveaway that he was locked in aerial combat was the occasional heavy grunting sounds he would make as he strained his stomach muscles against the G-forces to try to keep blood in the upper part of his torso and keep himself from blacking out. “Maksum got hit right away. No radar warning indications — they’re firing heat-seekers, slashing down from high altitude, then popping up for the tail shot. I think they’re MiG-29s. Go after the bombers, Imperial Flight. Don’t try to mix it up with the fighters — they’ll eat your lunch for you. Go in fast, take a shot at the bombers, and break up their formation. One bomber turned back already when he saw us coming in — I think they’re primed to go home. Come in fast, shoot, and extend. Don’t—”

There was a loud bang! a screech of static — or was it Golovko screaming? — and then the transmission abruptly ended.

Two Ukrainian fighters gone in the space of about fifteen seconds.

By then Tychina had passed Mach-one and had moved to within radar range of the Tu-95 bomber formation. His radar picked out two of them. They were still at high altitude, cruising at relatively high speed on the same track as was first reported by the Polish air traffic controller. Straight-and-level attack run — the Russians must’ve thought they weren’t going to encounter any resistance.

At forty kilometers, he armed his first R-23 and locked on to the bomber. The MiG-23’s normal armament was a 23-millimeter cannon, two medium-range R-23R radar-guided missiles, and four R-60 heat-seeking missiles. But because there were so many planes involved in this patrol, the IRSTS-capable fighters had been given only two R-60s per plane tonight; the planes without IRSTS had only radar-guided missiles and no heat-seekers, because they would not have enough intercept guidance to maneuver into IR missile position. Tychina hated not having a full-up load of missiles. He knew things were bad in his country, but there was usually no shortage of defensive weapons like guided missiles. He had heard rumors about the black market stealing weapons and equipment.

Pay attention to what’s going on, Pavlo, he reminded himself, trying to stay calm. He had passed Mach-1.5, and the R-23 radar-guided missile had a speed limit of Mach-1.2. But Tychina didn’t care: speed was life, and he wasn’t going to slow down. He did pop the afterburner off to conserve fuel and keep the Russian fighters from picking up his afterburner plume, but he aimed his nose directly at the lead bomber. As he picked up more targets, he adjusted his radar lock-on, always aiming for the leader. If the wingmen saw their leader go down, they might be more inclined to break off their attack.

At exactly twenty-four kilometers he got a steady ping — ping — ping indication in his helmet headset, indicating that the R-23 missile was in range and ready for launch. Tychina pressed and held a safety switch on the side of the control stick, which resulted in a rapid ping-pingping warning tone. The missile’s fins were uncaged, the missile was ready to fly.

The entire world seemed to erupt into fire at that very moment. An R-73A heat-seeking missile fired from another attacking Russian MiG-29 fighter missed Tychina’s right engine by less than a meter, flew over the fuselage until it was several meters away, then detonated its fourteen-kilogram warhead. The top and top front portion of Tychina’s canopy shattered, sending hundreds of razor-sharp shards of glass into the young pilot’s head and upper torso. Tychina’s helmet was nearly sliced away from his head by the force of the explosion, by the sudden cockpit decompression, and then by the supersonic windblast. Incredibly, the majority of the cockpit canopy stayed intact.

To his own amazement, he was alive and still conscious. The windblast pounded away at his body, but he could no longer hear the thunderous roar. He was protected from the direct supersonic windblast by what remained of his canopy. The subzero air was somewhat soothing, freezing the blood vessels in his nose and face shut and preventing any serious blood loss.

And, more importantly, his jet was still flying, the controls still responded, the engines were still turning — and when he pressed the launch button on the control stick, an R-23 radar-guided missile leaped from its rail on the left underwing pylon. It wobbled frantically as it tried to stabilize itself — now Tychina understood why there was a speed limit on the missile — but just as he thought it was going to spin off out of control, it steadied out and tracked the radar beam. He had to keep his nose aimed at the Tu-95 Bear bomber so the missile could track, but he was rewarded several seconds later with a large flash of light, then darkness, then a stream of fire off in the distance.

His gloved fingers were moving as soon as he saw the hit. He was at eighteen kilometers when he fired his last R-23 missile at another bomber, then immediately switched to the heat-seeking R-60 missiles and started searching for a new target. A second bomber exploded, scratching a blazing meteor in the night sky right down to the frozen earth. All of the Tu-95 bombers started ejecting chaff and flares, but mysteriously stayed on course, and the streams of flares were like large lighted arrows pointing right at them.

Tychina had forgotten all about his wingmen and about everyone and everything else except what Golovko had said before he died: go in fast, shoot at the leaders, and get out.

The infrared search and track system was effective at about ten kilometers, and the bombers appeared as tiny dots on a semicircular indicator in his cockpit. Tychina shut off the attack radar at that point — no use in broadcasting his position any longer than necessary — lined up the seeker boresight reticle on one of the dots, and activated his first of two R-60 missiles. He could no longer hear the telltale growling sound as the missile’s seeker detected the hot glow of the Tu-95’s huge Kuznetsov turboprops, but he gauged the distance from the readout on his IRSTS indicator and fired the first missile at five kilometers, the missile’s maximum range.

Too early. It had not locked on to an engine, but a decoy flare. At Mach-1.22, he was traveling almost a half a kilometer per second, and he barely had enough time to select and fire another missile. The impact of the missile on a third bomber was almost instantaneous, and he could feel chunks of metal from the explosion pepper his plane. Tychina ignored the impacts.

He tried to select another missile, but he carried only two. Damn, what a time to run out of missiles! Tychina switched to his 23-millimeter GSh-23L belly gun pack and fired off a full one-second burst, passing close enough to a fourth Tupolev-95’s counterrotating propellers to feel the incredible rhythmic beating of the huge props against his fighter’s fuselage. The stream of cannon rounds sliced across the bomber’s fuselage, right engine nacelles, and right wing. Tychina cleared for a right turn, saw a Tupolev-95 banking hard right above him with the ventral gun turret aimed at him, and instead threw his MiG-23 into a hard left bank.

When he cleared left after a full 180-degree turn, he nearly yelled in surprise: not one, but two Tupolev-95s were going down. The bomber he hit with cannon fire must’ve turned right into the path of another bomber, because there were two blobs of fire spiraling to earth. He couldn’t see the rest of the bomber formation, but another radar sweep told the story — the bombers were heading north again. He had done it! The attack was over! He had—

Tychina saw the missile in its last one-fifth-of-a-second of flight, with a large plume of yellow fire encircling a small black dot, just before the small R-73A missile fired from the pursuing Russian MiG-29 fighter plowed into his MiG-23 and tore off his entire right wing. His head hit the right rear side of the cockpit, finally rendering him unconscious, as the fighter swung wildly to the left and started a lazy spin to the earth.

But luck, even a last bit of good luck, was on his side. The loss of the canopy after the first missile’s near-hit had fired all but the last few ejection-seat squib charges and armed the seat. When the fuselage fuel tanks ruptured and exploded from the hit, the shock and vibration caused the ejection seat to fire Tychina’s unconscious body clear of the stricken fighter. The seat was automatic and worked properly. Tychina continued in free-fall until about four thousand meters’ altitude, when the automatic baro timers fired, releasing his seat harness and tightening a strap along the inside of the seat that snap-launched him from his seat. That action automatically pulled the parachute ripcord, and Tychina was under a full parachute canopy by the time he reached two thousand meters.

Unable to steer himself clear, Tychina landed in a stand of poplar trees that mercilessly raked his face and chest like a wild animal.

Townspeople and firemen from the village of Myzovo cut him down several minutes later and found him still alive, nearly conscious, and amazingly unhurt, except for his face and torso, which were horribly disfigured by the trees and by his last seconds in the cockpit of his plane.

But he would live to fly and fight another day.

His victory over the Russian invaders that night would turn out to be the rallying cry for a nation.

ELEVEN

“Valentin Sen’kov hit the nail right on the head,” the President said. He was meeting with his National Security Council staff in the Cabinet Room of the White House, next door to the Oval Office. Unlike the rest of them, the President was dressed casually in slacks and a sweatshirt — even the First Lady, who was sitting on the President’s right beside the Vice President, was dressed in business attire. “He predicted that Velichko would go after the Ukraine, and he did it.”

That got a very demonstrative reaction from General Philip Freeman, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: “Excuse me, sir, but Secretary Scheer and I briefed you on the need to provide support for our NATO allies against an obviously bold and provocative Russia. Now, I never would have expected Velichko to go so far as to invade a fellow Commonwealth country, especially the Ukraine, but the handwriting’s been on the wall.”

“I hardly think dismissing Mr. Sen’kov’s observations in favor of your own is constructive here, General,” the First Lady admonished, glaring at him. “I think what’s needed here are a few ideas on how to deal with this event.”

What Freeman wanted to say was, Why don’t you ask your pal Valentin Sen’kov? What he did say was, “Very well, ma’am, I and Mr. Scheer do have some recommendations.”

“We feel it’s essential to pledge full support to our NATO allies, Mr. President,” Scheer said. “We need to show them in no uncertain terms that we will not allow Russia to intimidate them. President Dalon of Turkey has requested some assistance, mostly in defensive armament and aircraft, and I recommend we authorize that aid.”

“More aid to Turkey?” Secretary of State Harlan Grimm retorted. “Sir, Greece is crying bloody murder about our support for Turkey after the Islamic Wars — they think we’re arming Turkey so they can retake Cyprus. Besides, we banned high-tech-weapon exports to Turkey for a reason — if they don’t get what they want, they try to steal it. We caught them red-handed with truckloads of Patriot missile technology they tried to steal from Israel.”

“Sir, we need to stand by our allies,” Freeman repeated earnestly. “If we don’t, not only the allies, but Russia as well, will think we don’t care what happens in that part of the world. And that invites disaster.”

“If I can’t get a consensus in my own Cabinet,” the President interrupted, “it must mean we haven’t got a solution yet. I need more information — on Turkey, on the state of the alliance, on what Velichko has in mind. I think a NATO ministers’ meeting in Brussels is in order.”

“Let’s bring them over here and down to Miami Beach, where it’s warm,” the First Lady chimed in. She got an appreciative chuckle from that remark.

“Good idea, honey,” the President said. “And I need a face-to-face with Velichko, in Europe. Can you make it happen, Harlan?”

“Unlikely, Mr. President,” Grimm replied, “but I’ll work on it.”

“All right. Anything else I need to consider?”

“Excuse me, Mr. President, but there’s a whole list of things we need to consider,” General Freeman said. “I’m really disturbed about the latest Russian air attack in Europe. The Russians appear to be using their heavy bombers for much more than antishipping and maritime reconnaissance — they had ground attack weapons on board. This is a whole new threat being posed by the Russians, and I think we ought to respond to it.”

“How?” asked the President, interested.

“I, and several members of the Joint Chiefs, feel the Russians’ actions in Europe warrant Strategic Command gaining the bomber alert force and … going back into the nuclear strategic deterrent mode again.”

Freeman could have taken off all his clothes and mooned the entire National Security Council and gotten a more muted reaction than he received just then — and the most vocal voice was that of the Steel Magnolia. “Have you lost it, General?” she sneered. “You want to go back to round-the-clock alert with nuclear bombers and missiles? You want to start orbiting the Arctic Circle with B-52 bombers again? I thought the Strategic Air Command was dead.”

“Ma’am, let me explain.”

But the room was in complete dismay. Donald Scheer leaned over to Freeman and whispered, “Nice try, Phil.”

“I think everyone’s voiced their opinion on that idea,” the President said with a smile. “Now, is there anything—”

“Mr. President, I do think this is important,” Freeman pressed on, surprised by the completely negative reaction. “Sir, I’m not talking about going to war, and no, ma’am, I’m not talking about airborne alert — we did away with that in the sixties. I’m talking about sending a credible, rapid, and powerful message to President Velichko — back off or we’ll be back in the Cold War business again. I’m talking about taking one-third of our long- and medium-range bombers, about one hundred aircraft, plus three hundred single-warhead Minuteman III land-based missiles, and putting them on alert. We practice it, it’s very safe, and my staff has been gathering data on how rapidly we can accomplish this.”

The members of the National Security Council quieted down a bit after hearing some of the actual numbers. Not long ago, there used to be over three hundred bombers and over a thousand land-based missiles on alert — Freeman was suggesting a much smaller number, about one-third of what used to be a common thing. “How exactly would we accomplish this?” Michael Lifter, the President’s National Security Advisor, asked.

“We’re already putting out feelers to the units that will be affected,” Freeman replied, “getting hard numbers about what they have available and how fast they can get it all together. Right now the book says four days from whenever the President says ‘go.’

“An order comes down from here to Strategic Command in Omaha — the Strategic Air Command has gone away,” he said pointedly to the First Lady, “but it’s been replaced with Strategic Command, which is the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff in peacetime and in effect transforms into the Strategic Air Command in wartime. They execute the war plan that we approve. Strategic Command gains aircraft and crews from the Air Force Air Combat Command and other major military commands and assumes operational control of all the nuclear weapons in our arsenals. The commander in chief of Strategic Command, General Chris Laird, reports directly to the President. General Laird becomes responsible for the survival of his forces and for carrying out the emergency war plan, called the Single Integrated Operational Plan, or SIOP.”

“World War Three,” the First Lady declared.

“We hope not, ma’am,” Freeman said. “The primary purpose of the alert force is deterrence. We’re hoping that having nuclear-loaded bombers on round-the-clock alert will keep President Velichko from trying anything against NATO.”

“So it’s MAD all over again,” the First Lady interjected again. “Mutually Assured Destruction. The balance of terror.”

“It’s also a way to assure our allies that we’re ready to act in case an attack occurs,” Freeman said, looking right at the Steel Magnolia, not the President. “And it is a response to the Russians’ newest threat of putting land-attack long-range cruise missiles on their reconnaissance and maritime aircraft. As you know, there are Backfire bombers stationed again in Cuba — the Russians claim these are only long-range patrol planes, but we know now that they could have a land-attack capability and could very easily strike half of the continental United States.”

“All right, General,” the President said. “I think I’ve heard enough. I think it’d be a very wise precaution to investigate putting bombers on alert again. At the very least, it’s a bone we can toss to Dalon and the other allies.”

“Sir, with Russia knocking at Turkey’s front door, do you think it’s wise to just be tossing bones?” Scheer asked. “Perhaps a more positive move is warranted.”

“You-all put together what you think that move should be, and I’ll look at it,” the President said. “Like I said, I need information. The General has given me plenty to think about, but I need more input from the other members before I can decide.”

“At the very least, Mr. President,” Freeman said quickly, guessing that the President was on the verge of ending this meeting, “allow my staff to brief you on the emergency-action procedures, including responding to the airborne command post and establishing remote and mobile communications with the National Military Command Center.”

“Sure, Philip,” the President replied, winking away a very concerned glare from his wife. “I think we can squeeze it in tomorrow morning. How about a power breakfast meeting, say, after the First Lady’s Health and Human Services breakfast meeting?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but the First Lady doesn’t have Top Secret-SIOP-ESI clearance,” Freeman said firmly. “She can’t attend these briefings.”

“She can’t?” the President asked incredulously. “How do you figure, General? She can sit in on NSC meetings, she can come and go in the Oval Office at any time — but she can’t sit in on a briefing on how to use the doohickey in the briefcase that Navy officer follows me around with all the time?”

“Under current law—”

“Let me have Carl Abell look into it,” the President said in a slightly perturbed tone, referring to the White House counsel. “He’ll get together with you and whoever else we need and get her a clearance.”

Freeman said, “Very good, sir,” and he smiled and pretended not to take offense at the smug, satisfied expression the Steel Magnolia gave him right then.

TWELVE

The alarm rang at five A.M. Rebecca C. Furness was already awake, so she quickly slapped the alarm clock silent, then dove back under the covers. The bedroom was cold, so she exposed only her head and her flannel-nightshirt-covered shoulders above the thick down comforter. The chill air was sharp, and as she breathed it in it seemed to fill her body with energy. There was no place like Vermont in wintertime, she thought, even at a frosty five A.M.

The man beside her in the bed rumbled his displeasure when the alarm went off, but he went back to his gentle snoring a few moments later. Furness playfully decided that he shouldn’t be allowed to go back to sleep if she had to get up, so she put her hands under the thick comforter and ran them along his shoulders and neck. She was surprised at how cold his skin felt. It was only about 45 degrees in the bedroom — few real second-story country-home bedrooms were heated — but Ed Caldwell insisted on sleeping in the nude regardless of how cold it was. After all, Ed would say, only little boys sleep in bedclothes — even if he died of hypothermia, he would never wear anything to bed.

Her hands moved down to his back, then to his buttocks and the back of his thighs. Despite only being in his late thirties, a few years younger than herself, Ed already had a small set of “love handles” developing on his waist, but their skiing weekends and his job kept him in pretty good shape otherwise. Rebecca hoped the little bit of cold air drifting across Ed’s back and shoulders or her warm touch would wake him up. It would be at least a week before they would see each other again. She wanted to snuggle, talk a bit.

Caldwell pulled the comforter tightly over his shoulders, piled them up around his neck to seal out the cold, and sleepily snorted his disapproval at being disturbed. Five A.M. was definitely too early for Ed. Disgruntled, Becky rolled out of bed, slipped on a robe and a pair of moccasins, and made her way downstairs to make coffee.

Sunrise was still an hour or so away, but the brightening skies to the east rising over the Green Mountains was still spectacular. Furness’ house was on the eastern shore of Grand Isle, a large island in Lake Champlain between northern New York State and northern Vermont, and a large picture window in her living room opening up on the lake afforded a spectacular view year-round. She could see as far south as the Highway 2 bridge running from Mallets Bay to South Hero. On clear nights she could see the glow of the city of Burlington on the horizon about thirty miles to the south. The lake was not frozen yet, but the white carpet of ice was running farther offshore every morning and would soon form a near-solid five-mile-wide bridge to the Georgia Plains of northwestern Vermont.

Rebecca Furness lived on a small, secluded plot of land she rented from her uncle, a United States senator from Vermont, nestled between Knight Point State Park, the Hyde Log Cabin Preserve, and Grand Isle State Park. Grand Isle was mostly state parks nowadays, with only three small settlements remaining on the entire forty-mile-long island. Furness’ uncle used his influence and was able to get his small plot of land on the shore designated as a wildlife habitat, which kept the developers, the hunters, the skiers, and the state parks commissions from taking his land. The island was like a large, annual version of mythical Brigadoon — it came alive only during the fall for tourist “colors” season, and slept in blissful, isolated peace for the rest of the year, with only a handful of persons a day taking the short ferry ride from Grand Isle to Plattsburgh, New York, or the longer drive on Highway 2 through Grand Isle north almost to the Canadian border.

The house was actually an old barn that had been remodeled into a residence, after the original farmhouse burned down some years ago. Rough-hewn logs and boards made up the ceiling, and huge round rocks plowed up from the surrounding fields made up the big double-sized fireplace. The kitchen was the main room of the house, with a small dining area near the back porch and a huge black cast-iron stove and oven. The large old-style wood- and gas-fired stove provided most of the heat for the house, and even though she would be leaving soon, Rebecca automatically slid another round dry log onto the red-hot coals in the firebox. Normally she would boil water for coffee in the big copper kettle, but she was in a hurry this morning, so she settled for the Mr. Coffee. The thing looked so out-of-place in the house.

When the coffee was finished brewing, she took a cup back out to the living room so she could work on the computer and watch the sunrise through the front picture window. The living room served double duty as a parlor and office, with a large light oak desk and two oak lateral files along one wall. A computer keyboard slid out from the center drawer, and by sliding a few papers out of the way she could see the monitor through a glass panel in the desktop. Rebecca did all her books, scheduling, her record-keeping on that computer — it contained virtually her entire life.

With a few keystrokes, Rebecca was connected to her computer at Liberty Air Service, a small air charter and fixed-base operator at Clinton County Airport, across the lake near Plattsburgh, New York. She owned the company, trained commercial pilots, and did a few cargo or passenger runs to fill in for sick or vacationing pilots — but not this week. Calling up this week’s schedule on the computer showed nothing but canceled appointments, all with the annotation HELL WEEK.

Well, Liberty Air could spare the boss for a few days, thanks to the Air Force Reserve.

The electronic mailbox link with her office in Plattsburgh had a few messages, which she briefly answered, mostly with “I’ll take care of it when I get back.” She noticed that the two late-night runs, one to Bradley International in Connecticut and the other to Pittsburgh, had made it off despite low ceilings and the threat of freezing drizzle. Furness’ small eight-plane charter fleet was still composed of all piston-powered planes — all instrument equipped and certified for flight in known icing conditions, but hardly what anyone would call an all-weather fleet. In a matter of weeks she would be looking to buy her first turboprop cargo plane, a single-engine Cessna 208B Caravan with a cargo bay, which would give Liberty Air a true medium-size all-weather cargo capability. Unfortunately, she needed it last week, or even last month. Soon her fleet would be all but weathered in.

Calling up the next thirty days’ calendar found it full of FAA inspections, check rides, meetings, deadlines, and of course the beginnings of tax season — all the things that most people put off during the holiday season were now coming due. Things were busy enough with her working six, sometimes seven days a week, but by the time she returned from Hell Week, she would have enough work to last her until spring.

Hell Week was a part of the new American military and a part of Rebecca Furness’ new life. She had left the active-duty military in early 1992, during a six-month voluntary RIF (Reduction In Forces) period, in which active-duty Air Force officers were asked to voluntarily resign their regular commissions and accept Reserve commissions before their normal enlistments were completed. The Air Force RIFed ten thousand officers in eight months in an election-year firing frenzy that created so much controversy, so much anguish, that it helped, along with an awful economy, bring down a seemingly unbeatable Republican president.

In one of his very few politically savvy moves concerning the military, the new President eventually invited those officers RIFed in 1992 to join a new program, called the Enhanced Reserve Program, which was meant to increase the capability and viability of the Reserves and National Guard while continuing steep cuts in the peacetime active-duty forces. After all, even with an eye on a huge deficit, the President knew he had to look like a true commander in chief, especially since he had evaded the draft during his own call to duty years ago.

Half of the Reserves and two-thirds of the National Guard were placed under the Standard Reserve Program, or SRP — their basic commitment was one weekend per month and two weeks per year, plus occasional meetings, training schools, and other functions. Those in high-tech specialties such as aviation were placed under the new Enhanced Reserve Program, or ERP, a sort of part-time military where members served at least fourteen days per month, including one continuous week of intensive refresher training. Members in the ERP received approximately half of their active-duty pay, but no other free benefits such as medical care, educational programs, base exchange, or commissary — it was still a cost-cutting system, so all possible benefits and incentives had been eliminated or were offered at reduced cost to members. Reserve and Air National Guard bases were either collocated with municipal airports or were drastically downsized — the base personnel, most of them Reservists, had to rely on the local economy for goods, services, and housing.

Many military experts, including the very vocal members of the Joint Chiefs, feared that the United States was shooting itself in the foot by decreasing the size of the full-time military forces so much — by the end of 1994, the Reserves and Guard composed nearly 50 percent of the total U.S. military force, as opposed to only 30 percent two years earlier. The military budget as a whole was reduced — amid bloodbaths in Congress — by a full 40 percent. The cost savings were staggering. Although the direct effect on the budget after the first year was negligible, the second year the Air Force alone had realized a full 10-percent savings — over 8 billion dollars in just one year. The savings in the future were expected to go even higher, while the national debt was continuing to fall.

As long as no serious world conflicts broke out, the target was a Reserve force of 600,000 men and women, or 60 percent of the total one-million-person American military, by the end of 1996. Of a total 380,000-person Air Force in 1996, over 260,000 were expected to be Reservists or Air National Guard troops.

For the next seven days, Rebecca Furness would leave her business, leave Ed, leave her life on the “outside,” and become a soldier.

Furness logged off the computer terminal, finished the last of the coffee, and made her way upstairs to get ready to report to the base. The Enhanced Reserve Program created hardships for a lot of its members because of the amount of time it required, but Rebecca loved it — and needed it. Having Liberty Air Service was challenging, fulfilling, and gave her the time to keep flying for the U.S. Air Force, building up points for retirement — but it paid very, very poorly. Expenses and insurance costs were high, and surviving the lean winter months was always difficult, so her salary was always the first to get cut. She had made the decision to trade in a big portion of her piston fleet for a few turboprop planes to give her more of a year-round cargo and passenger capability, and that had decreased her margin even more. She needed this ERP position to keep herself afloat.

Rebecca showered, staying under the hot water a long time to shave her legs and let the sharp stream of water massage her tense shoulders — hot showers were the only luxury she could still afford. No flying was scheduled today, but just going out to Plattsburgh Air Force Base, the oldest military installation in the United States, and its very busy flight line, always made her a bit tense. After staying in the shower a few minutes longer than she really had time for, she slipped into a big fluffy bathrobe to stay warm and continued to get ready.

For the flyers like Furness, Hell Week was designed as a sort of mini-deployment, so they had to pack their standard deployment items in a big B-4 duffel bag: two flight suits, six pairs of heavyweight socks, thermal underwear, toiletries, T-shirts, and underwear. Since an arctic deployment was possible (and some U.S. non-Arctic bases, such as Plattsburgh, were sometimes cold enough to resemble Arctic bases anyway), they also brought along thick knee-high mukluks, large woolly mittens, fur caps, wool facemasks, and jacket liners. Rebecca had packed most of this stuff the night before, but she did a double-check since there would be an inspection first thing after reporting in.

After rechecking everything in the bag against a predeployment checklist, she zipped the bag up and began to get dressed. Every Hell Week started with a personal inspection, all by regulation — AFR 35–10 (uniform, personal grooming, standards of appearance), AFR 35–11 (weight standards), AFR 36–20 (drug and alcohol screening), AFR 40–41 (civil violations and records check), AFR 50-111 (emergency procedures and aircraft technical order knowledge), and ACC 20–89 (deployment and emergency aircraft dispersal). Anyone not complying with any part of those regulations would be written up in their permanent records and sent home to fix the problem, with a loss of one day’s Reserve pay and an “incomplete” for their ERP commitment. Three “incompletes” would mean expulsion from the program.

Flight suits were the uniform of the day, and she had hers cleaned, pressed, and ready to go. Because flight suits chafed so much in the crotch (they were still not allowed to alter their flight suits), she first put on a pair of men’s long boxer shorts. They looked silly as hell, but it sure made wearing a rough baggy flight suit all day at least bearable.

“I really hate it when you wear those things,” a voice behind her said. Ed Caldwell had finally come to life. He gave her a pat on the bottom as he stalked toward the bathroom.

“When have I heard that before?” she asked. Ed didn’t reply, so she continued dressing: heavy wool socks, athletic brassiere, thermal underwear top, dog tags, then the flight suit. It was just starting to feel comfortably warm.

She had just zipped the flight suit up when Ed, still naked despite the near-freezing temperatures, emerged from the bathroom. This time he stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her, burying his stubbly cheeks into the back of her neck to give her a nuzzly kiss. “Mmmm, you feel so good, even in that flight suit.”

Rebecca smiled, arched her neck back a bit, and gave him a light kiss on his stubbly cheek. She had been seeing Ed Caldwell for a little over two years, and exclusively for the last year.

Like other lovers and boyfriends before him, Ed had nothing to do with the military or the Reserves. After Rebecca had joined the Reserves, she decided to maintain her no-date policy regarding her fellow officers. Yes, a whisper still passed her ear now and then, questioning her preferences, but far less than when she’d been on active duty. People in the “real world,” it seemed to her, were far more tolerant, far less judgmental, than some of the active-duty boys. After all, Reservists had other lives, had to work daily with people of every variation and lifestyle, religion and color … a far broader range than what you’d find in active duty. When she thought about it, the Reservists had to be a bit more … politically correct. Pull some of the stuff in civilian life that the fly-boys tried in the armed forces, and a corporation would kick them out so fast their heads would spin. “Tailhook,” she was convinced, would never have happened at a private-industry convention.

Ed’s large hands roamed up and down her flight suit while she was trying to finish zipping it up. “I’m freezing, Becky, you gotta warm me up.”

“You are?” she teased. “You’re walking around butt-naked and it’s only forty or fifty degrees up here. Why not go down and stand by the stove while I finish dressing?”

He slipped the flight suit off her shoulders and let it drop to the floor. He tried to take off the thermal underwear top and undo the clasps of her athletic brassiere, then decided not to wait. He dropped her thermal underwear bottoms, then grasped her by her still-covered breasts, smothering her with kisses, licking the side of her neck slowly, nibbling on her ear …

“Ed, c’mon, it’s getting late.” This was an almost monthly ritual between the two of them. Ed usually waited until she was almost completely dressed in her flight uniform, then he’d playfully try to seduce her. Sometimes it worked.

“Oh, God,” she murmured. “Ed, please … I’ve only got twenty minutes to catch the ferry. If … I’m … late.”

Ed, big and strong and completely awake, was working his magical touch all over her, making it increasingly harder for her to resist. The only thing she could say about him, she aggravatingly mused, was that he knew how to make her most hardened resolve and resistance crumble.

“Ed …”

He wasn’t listening.

“Oh, what the hell …” she moaned. “But hurry!”

When they were finished, she had to really hustle.

“I’ll call you tonight, Ed,” she said as she rushed out the door. No reply — he was already sound asleep again. She grabbed her winter-weight flying jacket, watch cap, and wool-lined leather gloves, poured one more cup of coffee, and headed out the door as fast as she could to make the six-twenty ferry.

Thankfully the engine-block heater and trickle battery charger had done their jobs. Her eight-year-old Chevy Blazer four-by-four started right up, and she put it into four-wheel-drive immediately after leaving the garage. The snowplows had not yet been down her lakeside street, so a four-wheel-drive was a necessity. A half mile of four-wheeling on Hyde Log Cabin Road got her to Highway 2 south, where she could feel the crunch of the road salt under her all-terrain tires and put the truck back into two-wheel drive. Four miles south on Highway 2, right on Highway 314, and five miles to the ferry landing. Furness knew the sights of a snowy morning on Grand Isle were beautiful, but she had no time to notice them — the ferry was due to leave at any moment, and she could not be late.

She wasn’t. The deck crews were just beginning to hop on board and raise the ramp when she showed her commuter pass, and they stopped when they saw her familiar truck speeding down the road. A few minutes later they were pulling away from shore and crunching through the thin layer of ice on Lake Champlain for the twelve-minute trek on their way to the Cumberland Head landing on the New York State side.

The snack bar on board the Plattsburgh Ferry, which normally served an excellent egg sandwich in the morning, was closed because of the cold, so Rebecca had to stay in the truck, drink cold coffee, and gnaw on a piece of beef jerky she had left in the glove compartment for snowbound emergencies. Enjoying the ferry ride from the inside of her truck, looking out into the black, sooty interior of the ferry, at least gave her a few quiet minutes to think.

She was still feeling that warm postsex satisfaction that went through her after being with Ed, but as fond as she was of him, as wonderful as their sex life could be, she really wished her relationship had remained on a professional level with him. Caldwell was a Burlington banker whom she had met while investigating financing sources for her proposed fleet of turbine-powered planes. Their meetings at the bank had changed to meetings over lunch, then dinner, then Lake Placid … finally, to her place. He was, by most women’s standards, a real catch. Good-looking, professionally turned-out without coming across as stiff, athletic, and occasionally, when the time really called for it, sensitive.

A bit, anyway.

Ed still had a long way to go in really understanding women. Sometimes she felt he simply indulged her in her passion of flying. He did get her a bank loan of one million dollars for her first fully equipped Cessna Caravan turboprop, after she had to sell three piston Cessnas and collateralize Liberty Air Service to the hilt. But he did come through. But sometimes she couldn’t help but feel Ed thought of her company as an expensive diversion from doing things like staying in the kitchen and making babies. She sighed. Even in the 1990s, some men — Ed included — would prefer women to stay out of the workplace, stay out of business in what they felt was a man’s world. God knows they would never, ever admit it. But they felt it. She knew they did.

As she gazed out of her truck as it made the crossing by ferry, Rebecca visually drank in the beautiful early-morning surroundings and realized that as content as she should be, something was missing in her life.

What it was, she did not know.

As the ferry moved across the water, she thought back to what had happened to her during the past few years … little did she know during those opening days of Desert Storm that her time on that KC-10 Extender, the Air Force’s supertanker, were numbered. Thinking about it now, she still resented the chain of events that led her back to Plattsburgh and this new military-civilian career. Although the recent months had been some of the most fulfilling in her Air Force career, Desert Storm — specifically that incident with the FB-111 bomber — had badly tarnished her reputation. She never knew exactly what was going on that day with that navigator named Daren, but whatever it was had been big: the FB-111 incident had been classified to the highest levels in the Pentagon, and the rumors about her only intensified: Furness was a maverick, a lone wolf. A woman who didn’t follow Standard Operating Procedures. A woman who put her crew and plane in danger unnecessarily. Yes, Sam Marlowe, the prick, had filed the report he’d threatened to do that day. After that, no one wanted to hire someone like that. In the ensuing RIFs, she lost her assignment at March Air Force Base, then lost her regular active-duty commission, then was turned away from all the major airlines.

So she did two things: one, she decided to start the company, Liberty Air Service, and two, something she had never done before — she called on her uncle, Senator Stuart A. Furness.

It was in his Washington, D.C., office, and for the first time in her life she asked him for a favor.

“I have the skills, I have the training, I have the credential, I have the experience,” she remembered telling her uncle. “But I’m getting doors slammed in my face everywhere. I either accept the lowest level of step-pay or go somewhere else. Is there anything you can do?”

The senator from Vermont was tall and wiry, with a lean angular face and short, bushy white hair. Cataract surgery forced him to wear thick glasses, which he removed in anyone’s presence, even his niece’s. He was always impeccably dressed and carried himself with grace and authority at all times. The photos on his wall told of a man with powerful international connections, both in business and politics. It was sometimes hard for Rebecca to believe this man was a close relative.

But despite his obvious power and command, Stuart Furness was uncomfortable discussing the subject of sex discrimination with his young niece. He didn’t seem like the kind of man to fidget, but he was doing a bit of it as he addressed his niece: “Flying is a man’s game, Rebecca,” he had said. “Why not let them handle it? You’re young, and pretty, smart, well-spoken, and a war veteran.”

“All of which has added up to zero, Uncle Stuart,” Rebecca interjected.

“It may seem that way, Rebecca, but remember the Northeast still is in the grips of a recession — whether it is real or contrived, it is perceived as real and it is affecting businesses everywhere. Perhaps a change of perspective would do some good.”

“But I’m not looking for a regular job, Uncle Stu,” Rebecca replied with determination. “I’m a pilot. I’ve been a pilot for over ten years.”

“And you were one of the best,” the Senator concluded. “But times are tough now. Competition for women in male-dominated jobs everywhere was always tough, and I don’t foresee it ever getting any easier.”

“I’ll put my record against anyone else’s,” Rebecca fired back. “But I’m getting aced out by low-time rookies. I’m losing jobs to guys that have no jet time, even zero turbine time. I’m losing out to guys with fresh commercial tickets! Look, I’m a flyer. I enjoy military flying. I know the President is trying to increase the size of the Reserve forces and draw down the active-duty forces, but I just can’t seem to find a unit to take me.”

“Where have you looked?”

“I’ve applied to every Guard and Reserve unit in the country, Uncle Stu,” she said. “I’m on waiting lists in eight units. But I put myself on a mobilization augmentee list in New York so I can get a little better position on the waiting list for an assignment in Plattsburgh, Rome, or Niagara Falls, but that freezes me off the lists in other states.” She looked at her uncle carefully, then lowered her voice respectfully and said, “Uncle Stuart, you’re on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and you’re on the select panel dealing with this new administration’s push for an expanded Reserve force. Can’t you help me break through some of this red tape?”

He ignored her question at first, staying deep in thought about something else. Rebecca was afraid she had overstepped her family bounds by asking for a favor, but what the hell, what were relatives for?

“Why New York? If you want my help, why aren’t you signing up for augmentee slots in Vermont? I’m a senator in Vermont, Rebecca.”

“I love Vermont — you know that,” Rebecca said, “but they have only one military unit, the fighter group in Burlington, and I’ve read that it may be disbanded or moved. New York has more units. I even heard they want to start a Reserve RF-111G bomber unit in Plattsburgh too.”

Stuart Furness looked surprised. “You heard that, did you?”

“It was just a rumor,” Rebecca admitted. “The Air Force was considering a Reserve composite wing, similar to the active-duty wings, where each base has its own mini-air force — fighters, bombers, tankers, transports, all that stuff.”

“You seem to be very well informed.”

“Unemployed people have a lot of time to read the papers, Uncle Stu.” She paused, scanning her uncle’s distant, thoughtful expression for a moment, then: “What is it, Uncle Stu? You heard something about the new wing in Plattsburgh? They’re really going to do it? An all-Reserve composite air battle wing?”

“Yes,” he finally said, speaking to her but still lost in thought. “New York State has approved the expansion of the base for up to eight thousand military and civilian personnel, and expanded flight operations. They want to move a squadron of F-16 fighters, KC-135 tankers, and your RF-111 reconnaissance planes there.”

“They are? That’s great!” Rebecca crowed. “Can you get me an appointment to meet the new commander? Uncle Stu, I would be forever grateful. I’d really make you proud of me.” She paused as she noticed that lost, faraway stare again. “You can’t recommend me for a slot? Because I’m not a Vermont resident?” No reaction. “Because I’m a woman? Is that it?”

“No, that’s not it … well, in a way, it is,” Senator Furness stumbled. “There are a few provisions of the bill that I don’t like. First, they want to take the 158th Interceptor Group out of Burlington and move them to Plattsburgh to form the new air battle wing.”

“I’m sure you can work out something.”

“I don’t want to just give it away, Rebecca,” Stuart Furness said. “Having a military base in your home state that another state wants has real value.”

“Can’t they just take it? Can’t the Pentagon just order it moved?”

“They can, and they have tried,” Senator Furness said. “But although we have a Democrat in the White House and a Democratically controlled Congress, we Republicans in the Senate can still shake things up a bit. They want the 158th — and they want a lot more, too. So they’re going to have to pay for it.”

“What other things do they want?”

“The big one, Rebecca. The Great Experiment. Women in combat. They want to start putting women in some combat positions this year.”

“You’re kidding! They’re really going to do it?”

“The President made a promise during his State of the Union address, and it looks like he’s going to keep it.” Senator Furness sighed. “A draft resolution has been in the works for years, but it’s never made it out of committee. The Senate sent it to committee last week. My committee.” He stood, walked to the front of his desk, and sat on a corner to be closer to his niece. “I’m opposed to the measure.”

“You are?”

“I think women have no business in the military, period, to be perfectly honest,” her uncle said. “But women in combat, I feel, would be a great mistake. But be that as it may, the House and the President have decided that women should be allowed into certain combat specialties. Top of the list will be Air Force female combat pilots.” He paused, studying his niece. She wore an excited expression with a hint of a smile. “Your thoughts, Rebecca?”

“I think it’s about time,” Rebecca replied quickly. “I think it’s a good idea.”

“Even with certain … extraordinary conditions?”

“What sort of conditions?”

The Senator ticked off the ideas one by one on his fingers, watching his niece carefully for her reactions. “One, they must be experienced — no UPT graduates or FAIPs — First-Assignment Instructor Pilots. Captain or higher, aircraft commander, with at least two thousand hours’ total time as pilot in command.”

“Nothing extraordinary about that,” Rebecca said.

“I’m not finished, my dear. Two — and it’s the big one — mandatory, flight-surgeon-supervised, long-term contraception or voluntary sterilization.”

“What?” Rebecca retorted. “Sterilization? Why?”

“Two reasons. One, pregnant women who strap on a G-suit, climb around fuel and hydraulic fluid, and start pulling lots of Gs can harm a fetus, and I would hate to see that. Children, even unborn children, mean everything to me, and I will not pass a law that could knowingly harm an innocent child.

“Secondly, a woman captured during wartime will get raped by her captors,” the Senator continued. “No nation locked in war, even those who hold human rights dear, as we do, can guarantee that women captured in combat will not be raped. Obviously the woman can’t be concerned with oral contraceptives, because she won’t have them after captivity, so the contraceptive method would have to be long-term and unobtrusive, like Norplants or sterilization.”

“Norplants?”

“Subcutaneous implants that meter hormones into the body. It lasts for two to three years. You’ve heard about ’em.”

“I should think women would consider that a violation of their rights or something.”

“Many will. But women need to make a choice — combat or children. If you want the gift of being able to carry a child, you can’t go off to fight. If you want the right to bear arms to defend your country, you should be willing to accept the responsibility of not exposing an unborn human being to such danger.”

Rebecca Furness was watching her uncle in stunned silence — she found herself nodding in agreement. “Actually, it… you know, Uncle Stuart, it makes sense to me as well. But are you proposing that women who fly in combat can’t have children at all?”

“The mandatory contraception or sterilization would take care of that question. Women must make a choice — flying in combat or children. Children may come before or after your flying assignment, but not during. Could a combat pilot afford to miss twelve to twenty-four months of training because of pregnancy and family leave?”

“No way,” Rebecca replied. “The unit would need to find a replacement, then find another slot for her when she returns. It would mean one extra crewmember for every woman in your unit.”

“Which would not be acceptable in this day and age of cost-cutting,” the Senator said.

“This is getting pretty complicated.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Senator Furness said. “The public thinks it is an easy call — simply let women do everything men can do.”

“It seems to me that if a woman can pass the same qualification standards that exist right now in those other specialties, she should be allowed to serve,” Rebecca said. “But don’t exclude women just because they’re women — exclude them because they’re not right for the job.”

Senator Furness looked off for a moment, lost in thought once again; then: “Now I have a serious topic for discussion, Rebecca, and it has to do with you. Tell me about the morning of January 17, 1991, Rebecca.”

Rebecca opened her mouth to say something, then closed it in surprise. “I know it’s classified, Rebecca,” the Senator added. He opened a drawer, showed her a red-covered folder with Top Secret/NOFORN marked on it, flipped it open to a page marked by a paper clip, and put his finger on a specific paragraph. It was a short profile on one Captain Rebecca Cynthia Furness, U.S. Air Force, situated within the text of a detailed report on the incident with the FB-111 bomber over Iraq during Desert Storm. “I know their side of the story. Tell me yours.”

She did, in short descriptive sentences and making no apologies. After another short pause she asked, “Is that the reason why I can’t get a job? Why no Reserve or Guard unit will hire me?”

“Partly so,” Senator Furness said. “But it is also one of the most stirring stories I’ve heard about the Gulf War. It is the story of a true combat hero. Had you not done what you did that morning, the entire complexion of the war could have changed in a matter of hours. The Coalition could have lost the war, and Saudi Arabia and Israel could be in the hands of the Iraqis right now.”

“I don’t understand. Why? What was that FB-111 doing?” And then she stopped. She suddenly understood.

“I can’t get into it with you, Rebecca,” Senator Furness said uneasily. “Most commanders below four-star rank don’t know the particulars either, so they just assume you screwed up very badly and they don’t want to have you in their organization, period. I saw this happening, but I could do nothing to help you — until now.

“I’m going to see how badly they want women in combat, Rebecca. I’m going to use you as a guinea pig. If you want the challenge, if you think you can stand the heat, I’m going to do it.”

“Do what?”

“Rebecca, I’m going to make you the first woman combat pilot in the United States Air Force,” Senator Furness said proudly. “Not only that, but I’m going to put you in command of a hot new weapon system, the RF-111 strike/reconnaissance plane, at Plattsburgh Air Force Base. It’ll be a Reserve assignment, and it won’t be a brand-new F-15E or F-22 fighter, but you will be the first American woman to fly in combat. How does that sound?”

Well, it had sounded great, of course. The Women in Combat law was passed, allowing women to apply and compete for all combat specialties, in all branches of service. Women could even compete for elite combat units, such as the Navy SEALS or Army Special Forces, although it was acknowledged by all that few if any women could hope to pass the rigorous physical requirements of those jobs.

Like the Mercury astronauts in the sixties, the first women combat soldiers in each branch of service were chosen, and they were put on display for the whole world to see, one from each of the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. Not all were pilots, and not all services were anxious to have women combat crewmembers, which reflected in their initial assignments. Rebecca Furness got the best of the lot as aircraft commander of a new Reserve RF-111; the Marine Corps woman pilot got a CH-53 Super Sea Stallion transport helicopter, operating in a combat training battalion at Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Depot in California; the Navy copilot received a Navy Reserve P-3 Orion submarine chaser based in Brunswick, Maine; and the woman Army warrant officer, the first noncommissioned female crewmember in the United States, became a crew chief/gunner in a Washington Air National Guard AH-IT Super Cobra gunship. Their training progress was given extensive media coverage — even down to photographers and news crews waiting outside the clinic to interview Rebecca after her Norplant contraceptives had been inserted.

Despite life in a media fishbowl, Furness scored near the top of her RF-111 Fighter Lead-in class in almost every aspect — bombing, gunnery, precision course control, and emergency procedures — and scored impressively well in physical training tests. Her arrival at Plattsburgh Air Force Base coincided with the standup ceremonies for the new 394th Air Battle Wing (AF Res), the first Reserve composite combat air wing, and the dedication of the new RF-111, nicknamed the Vampire.

Nearly a thousand women were now flying combat aircraft in the Air Force, and almost every month brought news stories of yet another traditional male-dominated job being taken by a woman. Although it was very routine work for her now, Rebecca Furness still enjoyed a bit of celebrity status because of her rapid rise in authority within the unit.

She became a flight commander just a few months ago, and because of her rank and skill, she was in line to become “A” Flight commander and operations officer in another year and then compete for an Air Command and Staff College slot. Her goal: to be squadron commander within five years, go to Air War College, and to become bomber/recce group commander within ten years.

And she was determined to do it.

THIRTEEN

“In summary, the situation in Europe has gotten much worse,” Major Thomas Pierce, the 394th Air Battle Wing chief of intelligence said to the dozen persons seated before him in the tiny wing command post at Plattsburgh Air Force Base. “As I stated in my intelligence summary sheet, the Pentagon feels a state of war definitely exists between Russia, the Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania over the Dniester Republic, especially given the unpredictability — and presumed unstable mental state — of Russian President Velichko. Another air invasion can be expected at any time. What effect this will have on continental U.S. units, particularly ours, is hard to guess, knowing the current administration’s unwillingness to commit to combat. However, we should expect some action fairly soon. Any more questions?” There were none, so Pierce, a somewhat nerdy but studious forty-year-old, took his seat.

Brigadier General Martin Cole, the old war-horse commander of the 394th Air Battle Wing, was silent for a long moment after Pierce sat down. The atmosphere in the tiny room next to the Wing communications center was quiet and reserved, yet charged with dreaded electricity.

Cole was a twenty-six-year veteran of the United States Air Force and the Air Force Reserve, after serving in a wide variety of positions from duty officer of a radar post in the Aleutians to assistant to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, and this was his first Reserve combat command. After a year on the job, he was faced with one of the biggest challenges of his long career. He was going on fifty years, and his black hair was thinning, so he kept it cut in a flattop.

“Thank you, Major.” Cole sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose to relieve a bit of the tension he was feeling. “I think that clearly explains the gravity of the warning order issued by Strategic Command at Offutt this morning.” It was only about six A.M., but they had all been up for the past two hours when a warning order message from United States Strategic Command, Offutt Air Force Base, Omaha, Nebraska, came in. Strategic Command, formerly the Strategic Air Command, was a joint services command that managed America’s nuclear arsenal. Unlike the early days, when SAC controlled all the land-based intercontinental nuclear-armed bombers and missiles, Strategic Command, or STRATCOM, had no aircraft or weapons, only plans and target lists — until war was imminent. Then Strategic Command could “gain,” or take control of, any weapon system it required to carry out the plans and missions as directed by the President of the United States.

That time was coming.

“Strategic Command headquarters has advised me that the possibility exists that within the next seventy-two hours all aircraft of the Fifth Air Battle Force, including our units, may be placed on DEFCON Level Four, or higher, for the first time since 1991,” Cole said solemnly. “Within three days, we could be back to pulling nuclear alert once again.” DEFCONs were Defense Configurations, with DEFCON Five being peacetime and DEFCON One being all-out nuclear war.

There was a murmur of voices through the room, and eyes all around the semicircular table showed both surprise and grave concern. All throughout the Cold War, in order to prove to America’s enemies that the country could not be defeated in a surprise attack, American strategic nuclear forces stood on round-the-clock alert. The level of those alert duties changed with world tensions, from peacetime to all-out war.

In 1991, when President George Bush removed all but some nuclear-powered sea-launched ballistic-missile submarines from strategic nuclear alert, the forces stood at DEFCON Five for the first time in over thirty years. They remained that way ever since — until now.

“The warning order,” Cole continued, “directs no specific DEFCON or posture for any of the forces, according to STRATCOM regulations. However, it does direct the commanders to evaluate the readiness of his forces and to report his overall readiness state to the Commander in Chief when so directed. Air Combat Command regulations spell out the nature of that readiness review, and that is the regulation we’ll follow. I need every group commander to go over those ACC regulations. You’ll find they direct a preliminary readiness review report within twelve hours, and a full report with all squadron commanders within twenty-four hours. I make my report to Air Battle Force headquarters six hours later, and the full report goes to Strategic Command, the Pentagon, and the White House within forty-eight hours.”

Colonel Greg McGwire, the Operations Group commander, in charge of all the aircraft and aircrews at Plattsburgh, shook his head and leaned back in his seat. “General, with all due respect, how in the hell am I supposed to do that?” he asked in total exasperation. “I’m just starting Hell Week. Everyone is scheduled to fly, including you and me and most of the staff. I’ve already asked my squadron commanders and some of the flight commanders to work six extra unpaid days a month just to keep up with the paperwork — they don’t have the time to do anything else but train during Hell Week.”

“Greg, the request from STRATCOM was not optional or negotiable,” Cole said.

“STRATCOM puts us through this just to know if we’re ready to fight?” McGwire asked irritably. “General, we demonstrate our mobility capability, our operational flexibility, and our warfighting skills every day. Send the bean-counters out here and we’ll show them!”

“Enough, Colonel,” Cole interrupted, lighting up an expensive cigar. “You’ll have your opportunity to show General Layton how good your folks are. After all, he’s arriving to inspect the Bravo exercise in about an hour.” McGwire rolled his eyes wearily, wearing a pained expression as if his back had just broken under the last straw. Cole continued. “I want to see those preliminary reports on my desk by eighteen hundred hours — that’ll give us time to clean them up before we transmit them. Get your staffs and your squadron commanders together and get those reports in.

“And just to make matters worse,” Cole concluded, taking a big puff of the cigar, “the Reserve training week will continue as planned, and the warning order is not to be discussed outside this office. If necessary, you can tell your staffs that the preliminary readiness report was ordered by Fifth Air Battle Force, period — further explanation is not necessary and not permitted. Questions?”

No response — everyone was eager to get out of there so they could open the regs and start cranking out the paperwork.

“That is all.”

The group commanders bolted for the door. Only two men remained: Colonel James Lafferty, the vice commander of the Air Battle Wing, and the Wing’s newest group commander, Daren Mace. “Have a seat, Colonel Mace — it’ll probably be the last bit of rest you get in quite a while,” Lafferty said. Lieutenant Colonel Daren Mace took his seat at the battle staff conference table. Lafferty went over to ask the clerk for coffee, and General Cole used that distraction to get a first look at his newest Wing staff officer. He studied him, in between drags on his cigar.

Frankly, Cole thought, he certainly looked like he could cut the mustard. Well-built, obviously in shape, perfect grooming, alert green eyes. Somewhere in the back of Cole’s mind, the image of Daren Mace seemed familiar … like one of those faces on television, or that blond guy in the movies his wife always swooned over. The Condor guy. Redfern, or something like that. Cole nodded to himself, savoring the cigar. Yeah, that was it. He looked like that guy in the movies.

He also, Cole thought, looked a helluva lot more like some hot-shit pilot than an Aircraft Maintenance Group commander. Sure, Maintenance was the toughest job on the base, bar none — in charge of three friggin’ squadrons and over two thousand men and women, working round-the-clock every day of the year. Tough as hell. No wonder they had the largest percentage of disciplinary actions, AWOLS, personnel turnover, and job dissatisfaction of any group on base. But as Cole himself knew, it was also the most vital position on base, save for that of the wing commander himself, though it was usually occupied by a full colonel. Mace would have to really hump to stay on top of this job.

“Welcome to the 394th Air Battle Wing, Colonel Mace,” Cole finally said as Lafferty closed the door to the battle staff conference room. “We seem to have brought you on board right in the middle of a hornet’s nest, I’m afraid.”

Mace shrugged casually and said, “Bravo exercises are important, sir. It’ll give me a good opportunity to see the unit at work. And I’m accustomed to working in the midst of an alert as well. Old home week for me.”

Mace’s last assignment before this one had been as the senior weapons and tactics training officer of the Thirty-seventh Tactical Group at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, training NATO crewdogs how to fight together as teams. That was back in ’93 and ’94. The group commander, Colonel Wes Hardin, had said Mace had done a helluva job, running circles around others Hardin had had in that position. The fact that he probably knew more than anyone else in the country of the F-111 weapon system didn’t hurt either.

“I’m uh, sorry that Colonel Lambford couldn’t be here to help you with the transition, but he, uh … well…” Cole was nervously rolling his cigar, clearly uncomfortable taking about it. Lafferty and McGwire were doing all they could to suppress smiles, knowing the reason for Cole’s discomfort: everyone, including Mace, was aware that Lambford, the old MG (Maintenance Group Commander), had been kicked out of the unit and discharged for calling his squadron commanders’ wives while their husbands were on duty, trying to engage them in phone sex. When the commanders found out, they kicked him out so fast he landed right in a psychiatric hospital somewhere. Lafferty and McGwire joked that he was probably playing with himself in some rubber room, trying to figure out what went wrong.

“… well,” Cole continued, “I just want to assure you that you’ll get all the help you need from Colonel Lafferty here, Colonel McGwire, and, of course, myself.”

Mace said, “Thank you, sir. Colonel Lafferty, in fact, has already been very helpful in working on my relocation, so I don’t think the transition will be too bad.” Mace watched calmly as Lafferty’s eyes clouded in confusion, not sure whether Mace was setting him up or not. As they both knew, Lafferty, instead of really being helpful, had tried to pass off the new arrival’s sponsorship duties to his staff, and the staff dropped the ball. Nobody in the room, or Lafferty’s staff, knew where Mace was living; if he had a family or what any of his needs were. Nothing. Which was fine with Mace.

“Where are you coming from, Daren?” Cole asked.

“Air Command and Staff College, in residence, just after getting RIFed and getting my Reserve commission,” Mace replied. “Before that, I was the deputy commander of maintenance for the 7440th Provisional Wing at Incirlik, primarily in charge of the bomber maintenance departments.”

“You were assigned to Incirlik after Desert Storm ended? For Operation Provide Comfort?” Cole asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, sir. I was there for the Islamic War, too.”

Operation Provide Comfort, the American air blockade of northern Iraq, was at first passed off as nothing more than a public relations effort by the Bush administration — no one knew that the 7440th Provisional Wing had single-handedly kept the Persian Gulf War from reigniting several times. Jordan, Syria, and Iraq had tried to break the blockade, singly and collectively, and were pushed back by the 7440th’s F-15E and F-111 fighter-bombers, and by Turkish F-16s. Overseeing the maintenance for that unit must have been a true nightmare.

Cole noticed Mace’s unpolished silver command navigator’s wings on his uniform and asked, “Did you fly in Desert Storm?”

Mace hesitated for a moment, then smiled before replying, “Yes, sir.”

“I know you were assigned to the 337th Test Squadron at McClellan just before Desert Storm, and an FB-111 squadron before that,” Cole said. “Were you involved with the testing for the five-thousand-pound GBU-28 ‘bunker buster’ bomb? That was an incredible development project.”

“I can’t really discuss my role in Desert Storm, sir,” Mace interjected. That denial confirmed Cole’s suspicions. “Besides, it was a time I’d just as soon forget.”

“It was a great victory, Colonel,” Lafferty said, pleased that Mace hadn’t hung him out to dry in front of Cole, now kissing his ass. “We should all be proud of it.”

“I think the victory we won was not the victory we wanted, sir,” Mace said.

“You mean we should have gotten that bastard Saddam Hussein once and for all,” Lafferty said. “I agree.” Mace was about to open his mouth — to agree, to disagree, to argue, to curse, Cole couldn’t tell — but he merely nodded and said nothing.

“Well, we’re damned glad to have you aboard, Colonel,” Cole said with satisfaction. “It’s good to see you came early to in-process, because we need you out on the line today to kick off the Bravo exercise. And you’ll need to give a briefing for General Layton later on today.” Mace smiled a bit when he heard the name. “You know the General?” asked Cole.

“We’ve spoken,” Mace replied, that same small smile on his face, being careful not to mention that Layton and that ass Army boss Eyers had once ordered him to launch a nuclear missile during Desert Storm that would have killed thousands of people and wiped out half of ancient Babylon in the process — and whacked him for not doing it, then praised him for not doing it. “We’ve not kept in touch, though. I didn’t know he was Fifth Air Battle Force commander until he recommended me for the MG position here.”

“You might have a chance to get reacquainted,” Cole said. “I hate to have you give a dog and pony show on your first day in the harness, Colonel, but we’ll give you all the help you need — just let us know. I understand you’ll be flying with the squadrons once or twice a month — excellent. I think all the MGs should get some flying time — Lambford never cared to fly. You can’t command a maintenance group from your office.”

“I agree one hundred percent, sir,” Mace replied.

“Excellent.” Cole opened a drawer and handed Daren Mace a small foldup cellular phone, spare batteries, a laminated card with phone numbers of the other wing staff officers on it, and car keys with a white plastic Ident-O-Plate vehicle service card attached to the key ring. “Tools of the trade for the MG, Colonel. Your car is outside, gassed up and ready to go. I hope you have utility uniforms handy, then, Daren, because your first task is to grease up eight Vampires for deployment in about twelve hours.”

“I’ll be changed before I leave headquarters, sir. I want to meet with my staff as soon as possible.”

“It’s only six A.M., Colonel.”

“They’ve been waiting since five-thirty, sir,” Mace replied. “I called them in when I got the call from you.”

Cole blinked his surprise, then looked at Lafferty. “Good. Very good. I’ll let you get to it, then.” They shook hands all around, and Mace saluted and departed the battle staff room.

“What do you think, Jim?” Cole asked, stubbing out the last of his cigar after the newcomer had left.

“Not bad. Maybe a bit too officious,” Lafferty said. “But as long as he’s got what it takes.”

“General Layton installed him in the slot himself. Vouched for him personally,” Cole said, rising out of his chair. “Air Combat Command didn’t bat an eye. He must be hot stuff.”

“Right. But how come we can’t find out what he did in Turkey or in Desert Storm?” Lafferty asked. “Pretty strange, if you ask me.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Cole decided. “He may be Layton’s fair-haired boy then, but he’s in Plattsburgh now. This job has a way of bringing out the worst in a man, and his honeymoon ended about five minutes ago. Let’s just hope he doesn’t end up in a rubber room like Lambford. Jesus.”

The standard Air Force dark-blue station wagon was hubcap deep in snow, and Mace had to brush four inches of snow off the windows and put tire chains on it himself — as if by magic, no one came out of the front door of the headquarters building for the entire time he was working on the car to help him out. Thankfully, the car started on the second try, and he headed for the flight line.

If the sorry status of his vehicle was any indication of the status of the entire Maintenance Group, Mace grimly thought, he was in for a very long tour of duty. If the group couldn’t take care of one lousy car, how could they take care of a billion dollars’ worth of war machines?

For a few stirring moments he forgot about the bone-chilling cold and looked over the aircraft parked on the ramp—his aircraft, until the aircrews signed for them, he reminded himself — especially the sleek, deadly RF-111G Vampire reconnaissance/strike aircraft. Man, what a beauty.

They had once been FB-111A strategic nuclear bombers, back when Daren Mace flew them not too long ago. Everyone said now that the Cold War was dead the world no longer needed nuclear bombers. Sure. That little presumption could end any day now, thanks to the conflict raging in Europe. The military had taken the supersonic FB-111 and given it a photo, radar, and electronic reconnaissance capability. Their top speed was Mach-two, over twice the speed of sound, and with terrain-following radar and advanced avionics, the RF-111G Vampire was one of the world’s greatest combat aircraft, even after almost thirty years of service. Of course, this version still retained its strike capability, including laser-guided bombs, antiship missiles, TV-guided bombs and missiles, antiradar missiles, and thermonuclear bombs and missiles.…

… Like the AGM-131X missile he had almost launched during the opening hours of Desert Storm.…

He shuddered even thinking about that day. Besides its being the most harrowing day of his life — flying that Aardvark through Indian country with nothing more than glue holding it together — it also ended on the worst possible note. After almost killing himself to save the camp and his pilot, to then be called a … traitor.…

All for not launching a nuke that he wasn’t supposed to launch anyway.

Both he and Parsons survived the crash fairly well, and the two nuclear-tipped missiles were recovered intact, but while Parsons was recovering from his wounds in a hospital, Mace was confined to an empty barracks at Batman Air Base in Turkey, where he was interrogated for three weeks straight. The interrogation took an inordinate amount of time while Washington and the brass played political football, scratching their heads trying to figure out what to do, while covering their fat asses at the same time. As Mace was entering his fourth week in isolation, somebody with balls at the Pentagon and in the Air Force finally decided what had happened wasn’t that bad. That perhaps Mace had done the world a favor by not cooking off the nuke, that the war was going to be won anyway … so without another word he was released and returned to his unit.

But word got around. How could it not, being stuck in isolation for almost four weeks? Speculation and whispering was passed from one serviceman to another … something had happened out over the desert. Something Mace had done that resulted in the injuries sustained by his squadron commander, the destruction of an expensive aircraft, and the failure of a mission … all because of him.

“A flake …”

“Coward …”

“Screwball …”

He had heard them all whispered at some point or another, but the most damaging, the most gut-wrenching of all, was the word Parsons himself had muttered: “Traitor.”

As the buzz and speculation continued on base regarding Mace’s conduct on that mission, he found himself effectively ostracized from the Air Force flying community. He was taken off flying status for several months until being reassigned into a maintenance officer’s role in Incirlik, Turkey, and, to his surprise, he found he enjoyed the challenges of keeping dozens of high-tech war machines in the air seven days a week as much as he had being a radar navigator.

Even after he was removed from the Air Force during the Reduction in Forces cutbacks and then given a Reserve commission, Mace knew he wanted back into maintenance. He was still entitled to fly, and he did so to retain his flight pay, but he no longer wanted to kill for his country … at least not directly. Instead, he wanted to care for the machine that saved his life that morning.

That was the mark Operation Desert Fire had left on Daren Mace, and though he loved the maintenance work, caring for those planes, his personal life never seemed as orderly as his military one. While he was based in Turkey, he found the more he came into contact with people, the less he wanted to be around them, as if somehow they too knew what had happened in his other life and would question him, hold it against him. Wait and watch for him to screw up again. He knew it was ridiculous, even a bit paranoid, but at least Mace had the strength of introspection to recognize these feelings for what they were — emotional baggage. And yet he decided to live with it until it subsided. During that time, even contact with his family was limited. His romantic life in Turkey was nonexistent. Daren would see someone for a few dates, and then when they learned what kind of job he had, the women would wax about the romanticism of it all, the power of being in a big cockpit, of having that stick right there, controlling everything … and then they’d try to get him to tell war stories, make the fantasy even more romantic.

And Daren Mace would cool down. Withdraw, close up. It usually ended up being the last date with the woman in question once she started getting all hot and bothered by his uniform. He frankly didn’t see the point. It was his uniform that had put him in the situation he was in there in Incirlik. Being hammered for something he correctly judged not to do.

The price for Desert Fire had been high for him, but over time, he began to feel he had paid down his debt. He had given the Air Force what they wanted — exile in a shithole base. And he had given himself time to do what he needed — recover. But, stuck there, he’d done the best damned job of his life. Not for them, but for himself. And so, when his group commander, Colonel Wes Hardin, had told him in Incirlik that the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Robins, Georgia, had called and said to him that now-Lieutenant General Layton wanted him to become the maintenance group commander for an RF-111G wing, his old FB-111 Aardvark, he jumped at the chance. He had a love for that plane like no other. It meant going back to the beautiful Northeast, back to changing seasons, back to peace and quiet. As an Enhanced Reserve Program member, he would have steady work and good pay and still lots of time to be by himself. He went to Plattsburgh several weeks early, found a part-time job cleaning and servicing beer and drink taps for local area bars and restaurants — Plattsburgh has more bars per square city block than any city in America. He moved into an efficiency apartment downtown, and found himself ready, even excited, to get started as the new MG when he heard the early-morning roar of F-111s taking off. After a lot of downtime, he was glad to be back in the traces.

Now, sitting in his staff car surveying his flight line, he knew he had a daunting task ahead of him — made worse by the warning message from Strategic Command about some possible action very soon. He was going to have to give this unit a real kick in the ass, shake things up. When — not if but when—the shit hit the fan and they were tasked to go fight overseas, he wanted these warplanes to be ready.

The flight line was virtually deserted. In the growing dawn, Mace could see snow heaped on airframes, fire bottles buried in snow, and taxiways surrounded by ridges of plowed snow and ice so high that visibility was impeded — one mountain of snow near the flight line, piled high by snowplows and truck-powered snowblowers, was over thirty feet high! Mace remembered back to his days at Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire when they would put a bomb wing flag atop a snowpile like that and take bets on when the flag would reach the ground — mid-May was the best bet — but now, as the MG and not a give-a-shit crewdog, that pile of snow wasn’t funny anymore.

A few crew chiefs were out working on planes with no shelters, no warm-up facilities, no support vehicles, not even a power cart to stand beside for warmth. Security police trucks were cruising up and down the taxiways between planes, the drivers slouched down in their seats, coming dangerously close to aircraft wingtips and pitot booms. Only a few of the tall “ballpark” light towers were on, and each tower was missing a good number of lamps. The aircraft were parked next to one another haphazardly, mainly because the crew chiefs or marshalers couldn’t see the taxi lines through the snow. The place was a mess. It was time to kick some butt.

Mace’s first stop was the nearly empty base operations building, located just below the control tower, where he changed into green camouflage fatigues over thermal underwear, thick wool socks under cold weather mukluks, a grey parka with a fake fur hood, and a gray fur “mailman’s” hat (real fur this time) with black subdued lieutenant colonel’s rank pinned on the front crown. He grabbed a cup of coffee and a microwaved egg sandwich while receiving a report from the weather shop.

Mace then drove over to Maintenance Group headquarters, located in a large aircraft hangar adjacent to the flight line. He was met inside the front door by Senior Master Sergeant Michael Zaparski, the Group NCOIC (Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge), a short, thick-waisted, barrel-chested, gray-haired man wearing a long-sleeved shirt and tie. “Colonel Mace?” he greeted his new superior officer, opening the door and shaking hands with him. “Glad to see you, sir. Afraid you might have gotten lost.”

“Nice to meet you, Sergeant Zaparski,” Mace said. “No, not lost, but I wanted to get a weather report first before briefing the staff.” He removed his hat, jacket, and gloves, stamped snow off his boots, straightened his fatigues, then turned on his heels and marched into his office, where the three squadron commanders and three division commanders snapped to attention.

The Maintenance Group consisted of three squadrons, whose commanders reported directly to Mace, and three division staffs of deputy commander status. The largest squadron in the group, and the largest single unit in the entire wing, was the 394th Aircraft Generation Squadron (AGS), with over a thousand men and women, who were responsible for day-to-day maintenance, launch, and recovery of the forty-four planes at Plattsburgh. The AGS was divided into two aircraft-maintenance units, or AMUs, one for the RF-111G Vampire reconnaissance/bombers and one for the KC-135E Stratotanker aerial-refueling tankers. Each AMU was composed of the aircraft crew chiefs and assistant crew chiefs who were colocated with their respective flying squadrons and worked side by side with the aircrew members, plus maintenance specialists that assisted and supported the crew chiefs. The 394th Component Repair Squadron repaired avionics, engines, aircraft systems, fabricated aircraft parts, and maintained the sophisticated electronic sensors used in the aircraft; and the 394th Equipment Maintenance Squadron repaired aircraft ground-support vehicles, performed phase and periodic aircraft inspections, maintained and stored the weapons, and maintained the aircraft weapons release and carriage systems. The group’s three division staffs — Operations, Quality Assurance, and Personnel — assisted the group commander in carrying out day-to-day operations.

“It’s very nice to meet you all, and thank you for coming in so early,” Daren Mace said tightly to his assembled staff. “I wish I could sit down, tell you about myself, and give you my philosophy of life, but this is the first day of Hell Week and the flight line looks like shit, so the honeymoon will never even start.” The polite smiles on the faces of the squadron and division commanders abruptly disappeared.

Mace’s assistant group commander, Major Anthony Razzano, was impatiently standing beside Mace’s desk, obviously perturbed at being awakened two hours early. He was wearing a long-sleeve Air Force blue shirt, a clip-on tie, and dark-blue trousers with Corfam shoes — how the hell he made it into the building without getting a shoeful of snow, Mace couldn’t figure. Beside the door Mace noticed a young black female lieutenant, Alena Porter, who was the maintenance group’s chief of administration — she was in utility uniform, camo fatigues and boots. Every one of the division staff officers except Porter was in blues.

“First off, nobody shows up in this office during Hell Week in anything but utility uniform,” Mace said, affixing his gaze briefly on Razzano to hammer down the point. “This is a combat unit getting ready to deploy, and you will wear utility uniforms. Next, I want—”

“Excuse me, sir,” Razzano interrupted, obviously interested in testing the boundaries of the new “old man’s” style right away, “but it’s too uncomfortable to work in this office with fatigues.”

“Major Razzano, I was not considering your comfort when I issued my instructions — I was thinking of the combat effectiveness of this unit,” Mace said. “However, speaking of comfort …” He turned to Major William LeFebre, commander of the Component Repair Squadron. “Major, perhaps you could explain to me why three CRS troops are on the ramp working on aircraft without a shelter.”

LeFebre shrugged his shoulders, looking for help from anyone else in the room, not finding any, then stammering, “I … I didn’t know about that, sir …”

“And why, Major Razzano, was Civil Engineering not advised to clear my ramp and taxiways so my maintenance troops can get out to their planes?” To the Aircraft Generation Squadron commander, Major Charles Philo, he said, “And why do my planes have six inches of snow on them? And why don’t I have six airplanes in the shelters ready to generate this morning? You know there’s going to be a Bravo exercise, Major.”

“Sir, we don’t usually start generating aircraft until we’re given the word from headquarters,” Philo said. “We’re supposed to act as if we’ve been given a mobility order … you know, go from a standing start …?”

“Don’t give me that crap, Major,” Mace retorted. “That sounds like a line of bullshit from some of the old, lazy MGs that used to be around, the MGs and their staffs who allow snow to pile up on combat aircraft and who allow their troops to stand in knee-deep snow in freezing weather. This is a combat unit, people. We don’t do exercises — exercises are for units that have a mission only if combat starts. We train for war. Does everybody understand this concept? We don’t need exercises, we need to be ready to go to war at any time. Is that clear to everyone?”

“But sir, we’re not at war,” the Equipment Maintenance Squadron commander, Major Emily Harden, interjected.

“You listen to the news this morning, Major?” Mace interrupted. “You know about Russia invading the Ukraine?” Judging by the expressions on some of the faces around him, it was obvious that many in the room, including Razzano, did not know about the events happening half a world away.

“Of course, sir,” Harden replied uneasily. “But I’m referring to this Reserve training week. Bravo exercises are not preparations for war — they’re just, well, exercises. “

“Sergeant Zaparski, give me a copy of the tasking order for this week’s ’exercise’ and give it to the Major,” Mace said. Zaparski did as he was told. “Read it, Major, and tell me if you find the words ’exercise,’ ‘simulated,’ or any such term in there.”

Harden read the message quickly, her eyes widening in surprise. After a few seconds, she said, “Well … no, but we’re deploying to Plattsburgh, for one thing. We’re loading training weapons …”

“Major, I can assure you, a real deployment order looks exactly the same as that order does,” Mace said. “The location may be different, and the weapons loadout would be different, but the order looks just like that one. Now, if you knew that a war was coming, would you wait for that piece of paper to arrive before you began to prepare?”

“But this is an exercise, sir,” Harden said resolutely. “It’s training, pure and simple. We have certain rules, certain ‘academic situation’ changes that differentiate this from an actual deployment. To give you an example, it says prepackaged mobility stockpiles in certain categories will not be available. Now I know they’re available, because I check them myself, so it means they’re simulated for this exercise.”

“Those items are gone, Major,” Mace said. “I got the word this morning. They were loaded on a LogAir flight and departed about four hours ago — coincidentally, this was a few hours after the Russian air attack in the Ukraine. Everyone get the picture?” Mace could see his new staff member’s eyes widening in surprise — they were indeed getting the picture. “Nine pallets, eleven-point-seven-two tons, intermediate destination Langley Air Force Base, final destination is classified.”

“That’s crazy,” Harden said incredulously. “They can’t take prepack mobility items without coordinating with me!”

“They can and they did — I confirmed it with Resource Plans Division,” Mace said. “They were going to let us know just before the battle staff meeting. You people just lost half your prepackaged spares and tools, and you didn’t even know it. We’re behind the eight ball, people. You think you know it all, you think you got it wired, you think it’ll all go smoothly — and you’re all wrong.

“Now I know, and you know, that the commander is going to order us to generate eighteen bombers and twenty-two tankers in a few hours. Why are we sitting on our asses? Why aren’t my ramps plowed? Why aren’t we prepared to go to war around here? And how in the hell can you people think that everything is normal when the fucking Russians sent a full squadron of Bear bombers on an obvious cruise-missile launch run over the Ukraine just a few hours ago?

“For us, war begins right now, and I don’t just mean the Bravo exercise. I want six … no, I want eight planes in the shelters immediately, fueled and ready to upload, and from now on I want eight aircraft in those shelters at all times in four-hour generation status. Is that clear?”

“Eight planes on round-the-clock four-hour status?” Razzano asked wide-eyed, already calculating his work load with dread. Four-hour status meant that all of the weapons preload functions had been accomplished, the aircraft had been fueled and preflighted by AGS, and it was ready to upload weapons — no more than four hours from start to fully combat-ready. “Sir, it takes more manpower to get a plane up to weapon preload status than normal training status — keeping eight planes in weapons preload status will be a nightmare. We need to coordinate with security, get permission from Logistics and Mobility to service the shelters—”

“Gentlemen and ladies, whatever it takes, I want it done. Weapon preload status will be our normal aircraft status from now on,” Mace said, impatiently holding up a hand to silence Razzano. “I will not tolerate this arbitrary ‘training’ status on my airframes. The normal day-to-day status of all airframes in a combat unit such as ours is supposed to be category two, which is at least 50 percent of all aircraft in combat preload status. I see nothing in the regs or the wing ops plan that directs the MG of this wing to keep his planes in anything other than combat preload status, so that is what we will do.

“We have eight alert shelters on our flight line, and from now on I want all eight of them filled with bombers ready to upload weapons or photo pods. The same goes with our tankers — I want twelve planes, not just four, on strip alert status, fueled, preflighted — deiced and ready to fly in thirty minutes. Is that clear?”

Heads with surprised faces nodded all around the room.

“Next item,” Mace continued. “Squadron commanders, your place is on the flight line with your troops, not in the office with your feet up. I know you all have paperwork and administrative chores to do, but when you’re not working on squadron business I want you on the flight line or in the shops with your troops. They need to see the officer cadre, and you need to know what they need and where the bottlenecks are. You all have cellular phones, so start learning to work on the move with them. Is that clear?” He received murmured “Yes, sirs” from the squadron commanders.

“In order to make the previous directive work, I want division staffs to start taking over the routine daily functions of the squadrons,” Mace continued. “Security, compliance, safety, manuals, training, inprocessing — I want all that stuff handled by the division staff instead of each squadron having its own safety officer, newcomers officer, training officer, and so on. These units are spending too much valuable time on shuffling papers and not enough time fixing airplanes, and that will stop right now.” Now it was the squadron commanders’ turn to smile, and the division staff officers’ turn to look grumpy and displeased. Routine staff functions and additional duties not involving aircraft maintenance did eat up a lot of every airman’s time, and finally the squadrons were going to get some relief.

“That’s all I have right now, ladies and gents — we have airframes to generate. I’ll see you all in the field. Major Razzano, a word before you leave.”

When the door to Mace’s office was closed behind the departing squadron and division staff officers, Razzano crossed his arms on his chest and said, “Well, I think you got everybody’s attention now. What do you do for an encore?”

“We make it work, Tony,” Mace said, running a hand through his blond hair. “It’ll be a ball-buster, but it’s gotta be done. We’re going to do it until someone orders me to stop.” Mace paused for a moment, waiting for another challenge from Razzano; then, when all he got was a disapproving, skeptical glare, Mace asked, “Why didn’t they make you group commander, Tony?”

“Why ask me, sir?”

“I checked your records: you have more specialty experience than I do, and although you’re not a flyer, that’s never been a requirement for MG. Why aren’t you in command? I don’t see anything in your records that would have disqualified you.”

Razzano was obviously stung by the pointed question, and Mace could see the ire rising in his face: “Why aren’t you a wizzo anymore, sir?” Razzano asked, clearly agitated. “I heard you screwed the pooch back in the Sandbox. Is that why they stuck you in maintenance, sir?”

The question stung Mace a little, but it didn’t slow his response down. “You’re not privileged to hear that information, Major, but I can tell you this: yes, I had my eyes open and my brain in gear and I didn’t let anybody else tell me what was bullshit or the truth. Yeah, I got hammered for it, and yeah, I got stuck in maintenance over in Turkey. But when I got in maintenance, I kicked ass. Now I’m the MG for the only Vampire wing in the goddamned world, I still got my promotion, and I still got my wings.

“I know you, Tony. I got the same give-a-shit attitude as you,” Mace lectured. “The difference between you and me is that you go around saying, ‘I don’t give a shit,’ and it doesn’t get done, while I say, ‘I don’t give a shit,’ and I press on and do it anyway. Most people don’t care what you do, Major — they just want you to take charge, take responsibility, do something. That’s what I want to do.

“I know guys like you, too. You play golf with the brass, go boating together, go to each other’s picnics. You can stop me from doing the things I want to do. The question is, are you going to play ball with me or are we going to tangle?”

“You’re the MG, sir,” Razzano said, “but I’ve been running this shop now for four years. You want my help, we gotta work together.”

“You know how to put together an ACC readiness report?”

The question took Razzano by surprise. He hesitated, searched his memory, then replied, “No, sir, but I—”

“Lieutenant Porter!” Mace shouted through the door. A few seconds later, Porter opened the door and stood in the doorway. “Lieutenant, you know how to put together an ACC readiness report?”

“All I need is the message time, sir,” Porter replied.

“Good. Lieutenant Porter, you are the new chief of staff.” Her mouth dropped open in surprise. “And since the MG is not authorized by regulation to have a vice commander, Major Razzano, and since you’re not qualified to be either chief of staff or MG, you are out of a job. Report to General Cole’s office for reassignment.”

“What?” Razzano retorted. “Hey, you can’t do that!”

“I can and I did,” Mace said. “I just got here, Major, but I know the regs better than you do. You were made vice MG because the last two MGs were weak-dicks, but they didn’t make you the MG, so that makes you a weak-dick too. This group was in your hands for four years, and you let it go to hell, and you’ve obviously demonstrated your unwillingness to work with me, so you’re out of here.

“Oh, and one last piece of advice, for whoever the next unlucky sonofabitch is you happen to work for: impress the new boss, even if you think he’s a dickhead or you think you should have gotten his job. Shovel his staff car out of the snow, drive him to his headquarters, shovel the sidewalks leading to his headquarters, spiff the place up, and make him coffee when he arrives in his office for the first time. You can’t even suck up properly. You’re out. That is all.”

Razzano was so embarrassed, so deflated, that he stormed out of the office too shocked to say another word.

“Lieutenant, you’re a captain, effective today,” Mace said. “Field promotions are authorized in case of unusual staff requirements, are they not?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied sheepishly, “with command approval within.…”

“I’ll either get the approval immediately or get myself shit-canned. In any case, you’re authorized to wear the new rank until the orders come down. I suggest you have the clerk send your utility uniforms out to the parachute shop to get the rank changed right away — don’t ask me why. The ACC action message came down two hours ago. When can you have the report ready for me?”

“Preliminary report immediately, sir,” Porter said. “The divisions update the group status daily on the computer. Full report in about two hours.”

“Good answer, Lieutenant,” Mace said with a hint of a smile — this one knew what she was doing! “Call me on the phone as soon as the full report is ready. You’re in charge of the office and the staff, and your signature is as good as mine as of right now.”

He headed for the outer office and started putting on his jacket and gloves. “I’m heading out to the flight line,” he told Porter, “but I don’t want to see that station wagon ever again after today. Tell Transportation I want the largest vehicle they have with four-wheel drive, preferably a step-up maxi-van. I want all the FM and UHF radios and telephones on board, I want exterior floodlights front and rear, a crew bench in back with heaters, and I want it equipped just like the maintenance supervisor’s truck. No use in anyone driving out on the flight line unless they’re carrying spare parts and tools. I want to pick the truck up before lunch. Anything for me, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir,” Porter said. “I’ll need you to block out some time for inprocessing, and I’ll need your home address and phone.”

“My home address and phone are—” Mace looked at the phone number on his staff officer’s cellular phone and gave it to her. “That is where you can reach me, now and forever. Mail my paychecks right here to the office. I’ll do all the other inprocessing when the ‘war’ is over. Have a nice day, Lieutenant.” He grabbed his coat, hat, and gloves, and hurried out the door.

Alena Porter returned to her desk in a total state of shock. She picked up the phone to call Transportation — the thought of the MG driving a big, lumbering Step Van supply truck, known as a “bread truck,” around the base was a funny thought, but that’s what the man wanted — but instead went out to the hallway, put a quarter in the pay phone, and took a few moments to call her mother at home.

“Mom? It’s me. The new boss arrived today … what’s he like? He made me a captain … yes, just like that, a captain. He’s a wild man, Mom. A wild man.”

FOURTEEN

The ferry Rebecca Furness was on unceremoniously bumped and slid into the docking slip at Cumberland Head. Furness started the truck’s engine and waited her turn to pull out. The roads were much better on the New York side, so she made good time driving into Plattsburgh, arriving at the base a little before seven A.M.

The base was divided into the “old” and “new” sections, with the flight line, flying squadrons, and newer family housing areas in the “new” section (built in the 1930s) to the west, and the command, administrative, and senior housing areas in the “old” section (the original base, established in 1814 and still in use ever since) to the east, bordering Lake Champlain. Instead of heading for the base gym on the east side of the base, Furness took a right turn at the small air museum at the entrance to the “new” base, checked in with the security guard, and headed for the flight line. She had a little time to kill, and Plattsburgh’s almost round-the-clock flight line operations were exciting to watch.

The KC-135 Stratotanker aerial-refueling tankers, the largest and loneliest planes on the parking ramp right now, sat silent vigil in the cold morning air. They were going on forty years old, but they would still be in service well after the year 2000, Furness knew. A few of the planes out here, known as R-model tankers, had been re-engined with more modern turbofan airliner engines, which significantly improved their range and load-carrying capability, and a few had been equipped with integral cranes and load-handling devices to give the KC-135 some true bare-base cargo capability. But most of the tankers here at Plattsburgh were A- or E-models, old and slow and underpowered. They were nothing like the new KC-10 tankers, though, Furness thought. The KC-10 could run rings around these beasts. She sometimes missed the old days in the KC-10 Extender, the Air Force’s “supertanker”—no alert, few dispersals, comfortable seats, few cold-weather assignments, no cold-weather bases.

But she certainly wasn’t complaining.

Rebecca wanted to drive down the flight line road far enough to see “her” plane, number 70-2390, nicknamed “Miss Liberty,” but she had run out of time and she had to report in for duty. She made her way to the old side of the base, through another guard gate, drove a few blocks to the base gymnasium, parked in the closest space, grabbed her deployment bag, and headed for the entrance. She saw she was the last to sign in, even though they had fifteen minutes to their scheduled seven A.M. muster time. Anyone reporting in after the scheduled muster time would be given an “incomplete” for the day, and with greater competition for ERP slots, all performance standards, even for Reservists, were stricter than ever before. Being five seconds late for Hell Week could quite possibly get one kicked out of the program for good. The squadron was beginning to line up for inspection, so Furness went over to her place on the gym floor without stopping to exchange pleasantries with anyone.

Plattsburgh had twenty-two RF-111G bombers, matched up with twenty ready crews (eighteen in the squadron plus the squadron and wing commander’s planes, leaving one spare plane and one “hangar queen” used for spare parts or ground training). Each plane was assigned a flight crew and a ground crew, both of whom stayed with that plane as long as possible. The Reservists, even in the new ERP that received many former active-duty members, tended to be older, smarter, and, because it was “their” plane and “their” base in “their” hometown, they took a lot of pride in their Reserve duties.

As commander of Bravo Flight, Furness was first in line in the second row. She set her bag down at her feet and lined up directly behind the flight commander of Alpha Flight, Major Ben Jamieson, allowing enough room between her bag and Jamieson’s row for the inspector to walk. The rest of her flight lined up on her, and Charlie Flight lined up behind her. After allowing a few moments for everyone to get situated, she stepped out of place and walked down her row to count noses and take a look at her flight before the inspection.

Even though it was considered a “super Reserve” duty, the Enhanced Reserve Program attracted a great variety of characters, and they were all represented right here in Bravo Flight. It was impossible to pinpoint exactly what each crewmember had in common — they all came from diverse backgrounds and had widely varying skill and experience levels:

First Lieutenant Mark “Fogman” Fogelman was Rebecca Furness’ weapon system officer, or “wizzo.” He graduated with a commission from Air Force ROTC and a degree in business from Cornell University, and was one of the lucky few to draw the new RF-111 fresh out of undergraduate navigator training. The rumor had it that Fogelman’s parents, who owned a ski resort and lots of property near Lake Placid, used considerable political pull to get their son a choice assignment, but Furness was not going to bad-mouth that plan of action because she had relied on personal influence as well.

The 715th Tactical Squadron and its sleek, deadly Vampire bomber had attracted a lot of “political” appointees, persons with important families with powerful political ties. Promotion and more desirable positions were almost guaranteed if one was lucky enough to score an RF-111G assignment. It was considered a “front-line” combat assignment — everyone had to be nuclear certified under the Personnel Reliability Program and given a top secret security clearance — but because the unit’s primary mission was tactical reconnaissance, it was considered a relatively benign assignment.

Just out of Fighter Lead-in Training at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico, “Fogman,” only twenty-five years old, was the youngest crewmember in the unit. Because she was so “by the book” and demanding, Rebecca Furness often drew the squadron’s new weapon systems officers — it was found that Furness would either straighten the new guys out or drive them so completely nuts that they would quit. She had no doubt that a lot of veteran weapons systems officers preferred not to have a woman aircraft commander, so Rebecca ended up with the new guys who had little say in who they were teamed up with.

The kid never had his uniform completely up to standards, but Rebecca hated helping Fogelman fix his uniform because she always felt like a fussy mother doting over her child. But she had no choice. She ripped the squadron patch off his right sleeve, the F-111 “Go-Fast” patch off his left arm, and swapped the two. “Jesus, Fogman, aren’t you ever going to get these straight?”

“I was in a hurry this morning, Becky,” he replied, not offering any apologies. He gave her flight suit a quick appraisal, found something amiss, and gave her a smug grin. She remembered that she had been rushed, too, and the reason why, and wished she had checked herself in a mirror before reporting in. Oh well, too late now. Besides, she looked ten times better than Fogelman on her worst day. When Fogelman noticed Furness looking at his deployment bag, which looked significantly more empty than everyone else’s, he said quickly, “It’s all there, Major. I checked.”

“I hope so.”

“You can check mine if I can check yours,” he said smugly.

Furness stepped right up close to Fogman, sticking her face right into his. He did not retreat and had no room to get out of her way — he was trapped. “Was that a joke, Fogelman? Were you trying to make a funny? Or was that a sexual innuendo, like perhaps you were offering to show me your wee-wee? If so, get me a magnifying glass.”

Fogelman could feel several pairs of eyes on him now. “Yes … I mean, no, I wasn’t …”

“Or do you want to sniff my underwear? You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Fogman? Does women’s underwear turn you on? Maybe I’ll find some women’s underwear in your bag if I looked.” She backed off right away, giving him a chance to retaliate, but everyone was looking now so he didn’t try it. Furness gave him a half-amused, half-exasperated glare and continued on.

She did not presume to try to criticize most of the other members of her flight — they were all fairly experienced flyers. Her wingmen in her flight were Captain Frank Kelly and Lieutenant Colonel Larry Tobias. Kelly was a five-year veteran of F-111s, and Tobias, the oldest flying crewmember in the unit at age forty-eight, was his weapon system officer. Tobias had seniority over everyone in the squadron except for the squadron commander, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hembree, but Tobias, a twenty-one-year Air Force veteran, had no command experience, nor had he attended Air Command and Staff College, and so was not eligible for command. He was a flyer, and preferred to stay that way. Furness simply greeted the two crewmembers, asked if they needed anything, and moved on.

Three of her other six crewmembers were new and relatively inexperienced. First Lieutenant Lynn Ogden, married with one child, was a WSO who spent three years as an RC-135 navigator before cross-training to the RF-111. It turned out that Ogden had volunteered for several dangerous reconnaissance missions during Desert Storm, and her reward was a coveted RF-111 assignment. First Lieutenant Paula Norton, unmarried, a former T-38 instructor pilot and C-21 military jetliner pilot, had been a mission specialist candidate for NASA’s space shuttle program, and had been given the RF-111 as a sort of consolation prize; she had made it known to everyone, not in words but in her attitude, that being in the 715th Tactical Squadron was a brief “pit stop” on her way to a high-visibility job flying generals and Cabinet officials around in VIP special transport duties like Air Force One. Major Ted Little, married with three children, another WSO and an ex-B-1B bomber navigator, had been out of active duty for nearly two years before joining the Reserves and landing an RF-111. In those two years, he had starred in several major motion pictures, three of which had become major box-office smashes, and had amassed a small fortune. The reasons why he moved from Hollywood to upstate New York, joined the Reserves, and flew the RF-111 were unclear, but he did qualify. Everyone joked he was simply doing research work for another movie. The other five crewmembers — Majors Clark Vest and Harold Rota, and Captains Bruce Fay, Joseph Johnson, and Robert Dutton — were veteran F-111 flyers who had been suddenly and unceremoniously dumped from active duty but had immediately found Reserve billets.

Everyone looked pretty good. Fogelman’s hair length was pushing the edge of the envelope, as usual, but that was the worst offense she could see in Bravo Flight. Only Lieutenant Colonel Hembree had access to military personnel and civil records, so there could still be some surprises — having unit members getting busted for DUIs, traffic violations, child support arrears, that sort of thing, was fortunately getting less common, but it still happened once in a while. Furness took her place at the left side of the row and stood at ease until the squadron was called to attention by First Lieutenant Cristina Arenas, the squadron executive officer; then squadron commander Lieutenant Colonel Hembree, operations officer Lieutenant Colonel Alan Katz, and squadron NCOIC Master Sergeant William Tate walked out onto the gym floor precisely at seven-fifteen A.M.

The squadron was ordered to parade rest, and the inspection began.

Rebecca could see this was going to be a tough morning. Colonel Hembree was not picking bags and people at random — he was inspecting everyone. The Alpha Flight commander, Major Ben Jamieson, and his WSO passed, but the first pilot in the flight was pulled out of the ranks and his bag tossed aside by Hembree himself. “Captain, maybe you better just go home and start all over again,” Hembree shouted, loud enough for everyone on the floor and almost everyone else in the gym to hear. “Your uniform looks like shit, you got a mustache and sideburns that look like something out of the damned sixties, and it looks like you’re ready to deploy to some beach in Florida instead of to a cold-weather base. You just lost one day’s training. If you’re not back here in one hour with a clean uniform, proper gear and proper grooming, you’ll lose the entire week. Get out of my sight.”

Hembree broke off his inspection and began circling the squadron like a shark closing in on a wounded whale. Hembree was a big, square-jawed, powerful black man in his late forties, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and dark, electric eyes. His voice all but rattled windows, especially when he was angry — which was right now: “I will not have any of you slacking off here. You will report to training week ready to deploy, ready to fly, and ready to fight, or I don’t want you here at all. We are not Reservists, dammit — we are the United States Air Force. Got that? We are the main combat force. Because we train only two weeks per month, we have to do it better than the active duty units. We have to look sharper, fly better, and move faster. I will not tolerate anyone in this unit who thinks he or she can get away with something here. I am going to pound this fact into you people and make you believe it.”

He completed his circle, letting everyone get a taste of the medicine, before resuming his inspection. Fortunately for Ben Jamieson, everyone else in A Flight passed inspection. Hembree assigned Jamieson two nights’ worth of duty officer shifts for allowing one of his pilots to report in without his required gear, then moved on to Furness’ flight.

She called the flight to attention, saluted, and said, “Bravo Flight, ready for inspection, sir.”

Hembree returned Furness’ salute, looked up and down the row, then said, “You think you’re ready, huh? Well, we’ll have to do some pictures first. Perhaps you can tell me about tech order warnings and cautions for the UPD-8 recon pod, Major Furness?”

“Yes, sir,” Furness replied immediately. Questions and answers during inspection was something new for Hembree, and this was no idle exercise. Hembree had something on his mind … but she had no more time to think about it. She knew the capabilities and functions of all of the eleven different reconnaissance pods that could be fitted to the RF-111 aircraft, and she could recite warnings and cautions in her sleep:

“There are two warnings, two cautions, and seven notes in the tech order about the UPD-8 radar reconnaissance pod,” she began. “The most important are: stay clear of the sensor domes until aircraft power and battery power is removed; and ensure all ground crewmen are clear of the aircraft for a distance of at least one hundred feet while running the ground BIT test because of stray emissions—”

Hembree suddenly stepped closer to Furness and interrupted her with, “Did you sleep in that flight suit, Major? It looks like hell.” Hembree had caught its postsex rumpled look. Furness fumed inside — not at Hembree, but at Ed Caldwell. Christ, how did she let that happen?

“I know these are only utility uniforms, Major,” Hembree snapped, “but if you don’t take care of them in peacetime, what assurances do we have that you’ll take care of them if we go to war? You have duty officer for two nights after Major Jamieson. Reach into your deployment bag and show me six pairs of wool socks.” She quickly did as she was told, then put them back, but Hembree was already moving down the line, so she had to hurry to catch up.

First Lieutenant Mark Fogelman seemed amused by the egg on her face, and Furness wished she could kick him in the balls for wearing that damned grin during open-ranks inspection. Hembree cast an angry look at Fogelman’s deployment bag and gave him and Furness a stern, warning look, then moved along. It was obvious that he knew Fogelman didn’t have all his gear, and he was silently telling both of them that he knew, but he chose not to put them in a brace about it. That would come later.

“Major Furness, at eleven-thirty A.M. you will brief me on the contents of Air Force reg 35–10 regarding personal grooming standards,” Hembree snarled after he finished inspecting Bravo Flight. “Most of your people don’t seem to know what those standards are, and since there seem to be so many violations of those standards in your flight, I assume it’s because you aren’t familiar with them. You will also personally ensure that your troops have complied with those regulations. If they have not complied by tomorrow’s inspection, you will lose a half day’s training for each violation. Is that clear?”

It was clear — and extremely severe. But Furness answered, “Yes, sir.”

He finished the inspections for Bravo and Charlie flights quickly, finding one WSO’s deployment bag missing a pair of long underwear and nearly throwing the bag out into the hallway in disgust. He went through the crew chief’s ranks with the same zeal, this time venting his displeasure at Master Sergeant Tate, his NCOIC, when he found a discrepancy.

“I want another inspection before this week is over, and this time if I find one discrepancy in a deployment bag, I’m sending the offender out in the street,” Hembree warned. “This unit will be fully combat ready by the end of this week or I’ll recommend that Fifth Air Battle Force stand this entire squadron down. Our job is deployment, people, and if you’re not ready to deploy when you have five days to get ready for it, how the fuck are you going to do it when the call comes in the middle of the goddamned night? Jesus Christ, I will not stand for it! I want performance, I want perfection, or I’ll shit-can everybody. Is that clear?” Wisely, no one replied. Hembree scowled silently at the entire squadron for a few more seconds, then snapped, “Major Jamieson, take over — if you can.” Major Jamieson called the squadron to attention, but Hembree was already out the door.

They spent a few minutes going over the results of the open-ranks inspection. Mark Fogelman and Paula Norton had been written up for 35–10 violations, and Norton had also been written up for not wearing cold-weather gear for the inspection — she wore a regular cotton T-shirt instead of turtleneck thermal underwear. Furness had Fogelman empty his deployment bag, then turned to Paula Norton. Long hair had to be off the collar while in uniform; she had left two thick strands hang down on each side of her head: “Paula, what gives? You forget how to pin your hair up?”

“Hey, what’s with the old man these days?” Norton asked by way of a reply. “He’s really got a bug up his ass.”

“Forget about the Colonel and fix your hair,” Furness said angrily, “unless you want to get kicked out of the program just because some hair is out of place. You know the regs. Why push it? And where’s your cold-weather gear?”

“Hell, the Colonel never checked us that close before,” Norton sneered. “Usually he checks out my chest and moves on. Did the guy swear off women or what?” Paula Norton was young, blonde, and beautiful, with bright blue eyes and a full, rounded figure. Men of all ages and ranks felt so self-conscious staring at her, especially during an open-ranks inspection while standing at attention, she usually received only cursory glances up close. Hembree was obviously not so distracted this time. “Besides, we just change out of thermals right after the inspection for PT.”

“So you thought you’d get ahead of the program by showing up for a winter inspection in a T-shirt?” Furness asked. “Real smart. You have thermals with you, don’t you?” Norton nodded. “Have them on for the next inspection. And when it’s time to get serious and play war, Paula, even boobs won’t distract a guy all the time.”

“Tell me about it,” Norton lamented as she started to rearrange her hair.

Furness then turned her attention to Fogelman. The little prick had his bag open, but had not begun spreading the contents out as she had asked. “Let’s go, Mark, hop to it.”

“The Colonel didn’t write me up, Major,” Fogelman hissed. “Not on my gear.”

“Who said anything about your gear, Mark?” Furness asked. The little creep, why in hell would he show up for a required formation knowing he wouldn’t pass inspection? “The Colonel gave you a break, then, because your hair is too long and he knows and I know that you don’t have all your stuff.”

“How do you know that?”

“Fogelman, are you really that dumb or just pretending to be?” Furness said with total exasperation. “Your bag is half the size of everyone else’s. Now open it up.”

“I wish you’d stop picking on me, Major,” Fogelman whined, raising his voice a bit so others in the squadron could hear his complaints. “If you want me out of the flight, just say so.”

“What I want is for you to open your damn bag, Lieutenant,” Furness said, eyes dead-on him.

He finally did as he was told. “Missing two flight suits … no mukluks … no mittens … no long underwear … no socks,” Furness summarized as she rifled through the musty, wadded-up clothes and gear inside. She found condoms, money, odd pairs of ski gloves, receipts with women’s names and numbers written on them, and parking tickets. Lots of parking tickets, some months old. They hadn’t yet shown up on his civil records check. “You left all your winter stuff up in Lake Placid again, didn’t you?” Fogelman didn’t answer. He liked to use his military cold-weather gear when he went up to his family’s resort in Lake Placid — he thought wearing military gear on the slopes made him look cool, like he was some Special Forces arctic commando or something — and he often left the stuff up there. “I hope it’s not too cold or too snowy, because you got a long drive ahead of you.”

“You want me to drive all the way to Lake Placid? In this weather? After the first day of Hell Week? How about lending me some stuff out of your spare bag?” Fogelman asked in a loud voice. All of the flight commanders had a spare deployment bag filled with odds and ends; Furness had two full.

Furness shook her head. “Because this isn’t the first time I’ve bailed your ass out with my spare bag,” she replied, trying to lower her voice to avoid attracting any more attention to her secret stash of gear, “and because you still haven’t returned the stuff you borrowed last time — you probably gave my last set of thermals to one of your ski bunny friends. Forget it. Figure out what you’re missing and go to Supply during lunchtime. Tell them you lost your stuff, and they’ll issue you new stuff.”

“And make me pay an arm and a leg for it!”

“It’s your fault, Mark. And get a damned haircut.”

Physical training (PT) was held every morning of Hell Week and was mandatory for everyone who was not flying. Furness had a good opportunity to observe Hembree during the PT test, and what she saw made her a bit nervous. Instead of allowing each squadron member to count his own reps and laps and report the score to the executive officer, Hembree and Lieutenant Colonel Katz supervised each event themselves, even to the point of coaching squadron members who appeared to be relaxing or quitting. Their voices, especially Hembree’s, could be heard echoing throughout the gym, and they weren’t words of encouragement — they were words of provocation, even admonishment. Since everyone in the unit could run pretty well, the two commanders carefully supervised the strength exercises, even getting down and yelling at members to grind out one last pull-up or do two more sit-ups “for the Seven-Fifteenth!” It was, she realized, an extremely intense display of… what? Determination? Although Hell Weeks in the past had been tough, the commanders usually tried to keep things relaxed and businesslike, not harsh or intense. The more she thought about it, the more Rebecca began to realize that this display by the commanders was more than determination. It wasn’t out of pride or creating an esprit de corps.

No, it was a display of concern.

And urgency.

Perhaps even fear.

Something was going on.

FIFTEEN

Everyone passed the PT test, although many had scores that Hembree found unacceptably low, so another test was going to be run at the end of Hell Week. The squadron members had ninety minutes to shower, change back into flight suits, grab a breakfast-to-go from the Burger King right outside the front gate, and report to the squadron for academics, testing, and situation briefings.

The RF-111 Vampire reconnaissance/strike aircraft had twelve “bold print” items—124 words, 27 lines — of such critical importance that they had to be committed to memory and written out or recited word for word. The rest of the morning was taken up with aircraft systems-and-procedures lectures, followed by a multiple-choice test. Fortunately, no one scored below 80, but Furness got another warning stare from Hembree when it was discovered that Fogelman got the lowest score in the squadron.

Then came the blood tests at the base hospital. Along with a severe downsizing in the American armed forces and the growth of the Reserve forces after the 1992 elections was a general distrust of the military, especially the citizen-soldiers who now flew such advanced warplanes. Every military person on active duty, and those Reservists federalized for active duty, was routinely screened for substance abuse. They also tested for sexually transmitted diseases, such as AIDS, and weight and blood pressure, which were considered telltale signs of stress, poor health, and subsequently poor performance.

Rebecca passed all of her physical training, academic, and medical tests, but by the time she had finished all these Gestapo-like “preventive” and “zero tolerance” screenings, gulped down a rabbit-food lunch at the Officers’ Club, and reported to the wing headquarters building at one P.M., she felt as worn out as if she had ran a marathon — and the afternoon sessions were just as demanding.

The first order of business was a worldwide intelligence briefing. The officer giving the Hell Week intelligence briefing was one of the sharpest and — in Rebecca Furness’ opinion at least — one of the most interesting and best-looking guys in the entire wing.

“This briefing is classified secret, not releasable to foreign nationals, sensitive sources and methods involved,” Major Tom Pierce began, “which means you probably saw it first last week in Aviation Week or will see it tomorrow night on the six o’clock news. Anyway, make sure the door back there is locked and let’s get started.” Major Thomas Pierce, the wing intelligence officer, was tall, trim, and good-looking, with close-cropped brown hair, an infectious smile, and round glasses which made his boyish face look even more innocent and inviting to Rebecca. Unfortunately, he was also very married, and apart from her self-imposed ban on dating members of her own wing, married men were definitely off-limits as well. Pierce was an ex-flyer who was bounced out of active-duty flying during the RIFs when the Air Force refused to grant any more medical waivers for his color blindness, so he joined the Reserves as a senior staff officer. He was a major filling a lieutenant colonel’s billet, which made him a real fast-burner in the Air Force, and it showed every time he gave one of these briefings.

As it had been for the past year, problems in Europe took center stage. “The conflict between the Ukraine, Russia, and Moldova over the disputed Dniester Republic seems to have gotten worse over the past few weeks,” Pierce began. He had an Operational Navigational Chart of the area in question, with the disputed region outlined in black — roughly five hundred square miles in southwestern Ukraine and central Moldova. “Now we know how bad it really is, because Russia tried to launch an air attack last night.”

The room erupted with surprise and chaos. Pierce let it burn on for a few moments until they were ready to hear more, then continued. “Well, I see you fly-boys and fly-girls are keeping up with world events. Yes, as you children were sleeping, thinking you were safe and sound, it appears that Russia tried to launch a number of conventionally armed cruise missiles from Bear bombers. Likely targets were air bases in the Ukraine and possibly in Romania.”

“Who stopped them?” someone asked. “What happened?”

“The Ukrainian Air Force, such as it is, jumped them in MiG-23s, shot down five, and got the other estimated twenty Bears to turn tail,” Pierce replied. “The whole thing lasted about three minutes. No cruise missiles were launched. A few more seconds, and at least one Ukrainian air base would’ve been history. Four Ukrainian fighters were shot down by Russian fighter escorts.

“As you all remember from my briefings in the past, the Russians living in the Dniester region of central Moldova, including the cities of Bendery and Tiraspol, and assisted by units of the former Red Army’s Fourteenth Motorized Rifle Division in Kishinev and the Twenty-eighth Motorized Rifle Division headquarters in Malayeshty, declared themselves independent when the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic split from the USSR and declared its independence back in 1991. Although the Russians are a minority in Moldova, they comprise most of the inhabitants of this particular region, which is the industrial heart of Moldova and a major manufacturing and shipping center. Mother Russia has no direct access to the disputed Dniester region, except in accordance with the outlines of the Commonwealth of Independent States treaty between the former Soviet republics. The CIS treaty allows member nations to cross one another’s borders in times of emergency. Russia has been stretching this definition to the very limit, thanks to their wonderful President, Vitaly Velichko.”

Pierce pointed to the ONC chart and went on. “As you can see, Moldova is surrounded on three sides by the Ukraine and on one side by Romania. Moldova was once a province of Romania.

“This situation obviously stresses out the Russians still living in Moldova because they believe they would become a persecuted people, so in August of 1991, just before Moldova itself declared its independence from the Soviet Union, the Russians in Dniester declared themselves independent from the Moldavian Soviet Republic and formed the Dniester Republic. They formed a militia soon afterward, comprised mostly of men and equipment from the Red Army Fourteenth and Twenty-eighth divisions. The Russians claimed that these two divisions had disbanded and had returned to Russia, but in fact they went underground in the Dniester Republic.

“Like most of the Republics, Moldova tried to annex all Soviet military bases within its borders except for strategic installations like bomber and intercontinental missile bases. They were not successful in Dniester. When the newly formed Moldovan Army tried to enforce the new law, Russian soldiers from Malayeshty resisted. When fighting broke out, the Russian military, contrary to orders from then-President Yeltsin, sent troops to the region to reinforce the militia in the two cities and beef up the Russian garrison.”

There was no reaction to any of this, so Pierce raised his voice and stepped closer to the crewmembers to get their attention. “But how, you may ask,” he shouted, causing one sleepy WSO to jump in his chair, “did they get troops into the Dniester area to help out their fellow Russians?”

“They bullied their way in,” someone responded.

“Exactly,” Pierce acknowledged. “In fact, Russian supply ships had sailed from the Black Sea Fleet ports near Sevastopol, into the Dnestr estuary, and up the Dnestr River to Bendery, and Russian naval aircraft also landed in Tiraspol’s airport — all this without consulting the Ukraine or requesting permission for access or overflight. This obviously ticked off the Moldovans, who accused the Ukrainians of duplicity, so Moldova sent troops to the Ukrainian border, which pissed off the Ukrainians. But the Russians also pissed off the Ukrainians because it was a violation of their sovereignty and a violation of Commonwealth of Independent States joint military agreements.”

“And the Ukraine was already pissed off at Russia about the Black Sea Fleet,” Furness chimed in, getting into the lively exchange. Pierce had a habit of turning these otherwise dull intel briefings into rather entertaining history-current affairs discussions. “Boy, it sounds like everyone’s pissed at everybody else.”

“Exactly, O curvaceous one,” Pierce said. The room erupted with a few chuckles. Pierce continued. “The disposition of the Black Sea Fleet, about 120 warships and about 300 combat aircraft, including 28 submarines, one aircraft carrier, and one vertical takeoff and landing cruiser, has been a major problem between the Ukraine and Russia since 1991. The original plan was to let Russia keep all the nuclear-capable aircraft and ships, then split the remaining ships equally between the two. But Russia claimed that all but 34 vessels, mostly mine warfare ships and small patrol corvettes, were nuclear-capable — Russia was going to cede only 17 patrol ships to the Ukraine and keep the other 86 ships for itself, as well as the bases on the Crimean Peninsula, which are some of the best pieces of real estate in all of Europe.

“Since 1991, the Ukraine and Russia have been tap-dancing around the issue. There were a few incidents — a Ukrainian crew mutinied and hijacked a frigate to Odessa, a few collisions and near-collisions between ships in the Black Sea, things like that — but negotiations were going along smoothly until the Dniester Republic conflict blew up. So, enough history. Let’s bring you up to date on what the hell’s going on over there.”

Pierce pointed to several large circles near Odessa and other towns near the Ukrainian-Moldavan border. “The Ukrainian president, Yuri Khotin, has been trying to gently defuse this entire situation and keep on a defensive stance only, but they’re getting pressure from the Ukrainian parliament to act. So recently the Ukraine set up an air defense battalion at the small airfield near Limanskoye, which is right on the border of the disputed region, armed with mostly older 100-millimeter antiaircraft artillery pieces and SA-3 surface-to-air missile units, in response to their warning to Russia to stop overflying their territory. The Russians simply circumnavigate the area. The weapons would not have been capable against the AS-4 cruise missiles, had those Bear bombers managed to launch them last night.

“Anyway, this low-key show of force hasn’t satisfied the Moldovans, who have been staging raids into the Ukraine, trying to blow up bridges, canal locks, port facilities, and communications towers to try to slow down the Russian resupply convoys to the Dniester Republic. Romania is actively resupplying the Moldovans with weapons, in preparation for an all-out war, and has mobilized its reserve forces and sent five divisions of troops to the Moldovan border. It is felt that Romania can seize the Dniester Republic in less than a week, but Russia has warned that a state of war will exist if Romania crosses an inch over the Moldovan border.

“Romania mobilized their active duty units to level-one readiness, and the ready reserves have been mobilized to level-two readiness as well — they could have a half a million men under arms by now, with another half million within six months. They ignored Russia’s warnings and sent about half of the Romanian armed forces — two tank divisions, four motorized rifle divisions, a few antitank and artillery brigades — from their bases in southern and eastern Romania, principally in the army bases in Iasi, Bacau, and Braila, into staging bases in western Moldova. Air patrols from Constanta air base in southeastern Romania, mostly MiG-29s, are patrolling the border round-the-clock, and Romanian MiG-27 bombers have been seen over the Black Sea with antiship weapons. All this obviously prompted the Russian air attack last night.

“If hostilities were to break out, Romanian airborne and ground forces would move in from Iasi, led by fighter and bomber units from Constanta. Air operations against the rebels in Bendery and Tiraspol could begin immediately. Four tank and motorized rifle divisions could be in Kishinev to relieve the Moldovan capital in a few days or less, and they could be engaging the rebel divisions soon after that. The Russian and Romanian ground units are fairly equal, considering their sophistication versus numbers. The Romanians can put a lot of air power up front fast, but if the Russian Air Force fully engages in Moldova, it’ll be over real quick.

“The Ukraine’s trying to stay cool, but their cool is slipping,” Pierce went on. “In response to the border incursions by Russia, Moldova, and Romania, the Ukraine deployed what they call a Special Action Detachment of approximately thirty thousand light infantry troops along the border, and light patrol boats now patrol the Dnestr River. They are looking for guerrilla forces and illegal cargoes, so they have stopped several Russian, Romanian, and Moldovan vessels, including Russian and Romanian warships. Romania has retaliated by seizing Ukrainian warships on the Black Sea, but that can’t last long because Romania’s navy is laughable, at best.”

Another map of Europe was put up on the overhead projector, this time one of Germany and Central Europe. “One other nonmilitary event is creating a lot of strain on military forces in the region, and that’s the refugee problem,” Pierce said. “Finland, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia and Ceska — what used to be Czechoslovakia — Romania, and the three Baltic states have taken in an estimated one million Russian refugees in the past five months. Many of these refugees are making their way into Germany and Austria, where antiforeigner sentiment is already at the flash point. Slovenia has closed its borders to Russian refugees, and Romania has imprisoned many of the male refugees over the age of fourteen as possible combatants or spies. Budapest and Warsaw are practically being overrun by starving refugees — their own economic situation wasn’t that good to begin with, without another extra quarter of a million hungry mouths added to it. And now the Russian government is threatening to punish any country that does not treat the Russian refugees with compassion.”

Fogelman commented, “Their economic policies and threat of war forces the Russian people to flee the cities, and then they warn other countries to be nice to them or else? What total buttholes.”

“The warning was primarily aimed at Romania, which has been virtually holding the refugees hostage as the Dniester crisis escalates,” Pierce pointed out. “But here’s something I know you haven’t seen in ‘Aviation Leak’ magazine yet.” Pierce put up a slide with some satellite photos of a large military air base, with very large aircraft lined up in exhaust-blacked parking spots. “Here’s what else the Russians are doing — this time in our own backyard. This is San Juan de los Baños military air base, south of Havana, the largest Soviet-built airfield in Cuba. Apparently in response to the so-called goodwill visit by the U.S. Navy into the Black Sea, Russia has sent Backfire bombers into Cuba again and based them here, as they did up until 1992.

“The Russians call them ‘maritime reconnaissance’ planes, and in fact no offensive weapons have yet to be detected, but of course the Russians would be able to move a large number of land attack and antiship cruise missiles into Cuba very easily. So far we count six Tupolev-22M Backfire-C bombers, plus two Il-78 Midas tanker aircraft. The Backfire-Cs have a reconnaissance capability, but they are primarily dash-and-flash bombers. They can carry every weapon in the Russian arsenal, including nuclear and conventional cruise missiles.”

“Not much of an offensive force,” one of the flight pilots said with a bit of bravado. “The Black Knights can probably take out San Juan de los Baños and all the planes with a sneeze. What about fighters?”

“Well, San Juan de los Baños is also the headquarters of the twenty Mikoyan-Gurevich-29 fighters remaining in the Cuban arsenal — they lose about five planes per year during training missions,” Pierce said with a faint smile. “The -29s are the top-of-the-line counter-air fighters, and they have a full ground attack capability and aerial-refueling capability as well. The Cubans also have about three hundred various other fighters deployed around the island, but they put their money in the MiG-29s for sure. Half the Cuban arsenal of surface-to-air missile units is in the Havana area as well.

“That’s for air-base defense. The Russians have stationed three MiG-29 or MiG-31 fighters in Cuba for every bomber as possible bomber escorts. You’ll notice during Hell Week that the 134th Green Mountain Boys from Burlington won’t be playing with you — they’re all committed to air defense duties. Some Backfires have been flying as far north as Newfoundland on their coastal patrols. What do you think of your chances now?” The pilot who made the smug remark was silent. The MiG-29 and -31 were the Russians’ top-of-the-line jet fighters, almost as good as the American F-15 Eagle and nearly a generation better than the F-111. Not even the Vampire’s low-level supersonic capabilities would be a match for a MiG-29 if they got caught over open ocean.

“Christ, I feel like I’m watching TV from the sixties,” Larry Tobias said. “Most of you punks probably don’t remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I do — and this is just like it.”

“The Russians have been quiet since the coup in 1991, and they’re coming out again in a big way,” Pierce concluded. “Bottom line: things are getting pretty bleak over in Europe, and if the two most powerful republics of the former Soviet Union start slugging it out for real, it’s anybody’s guess what will happen. Russia has committed itself to asserting its position with military force, including in the Western Hemisphere.”

“Now, wait a minute, Major Pierce,” Major Jamieson said between gulps of coffee. “You’re the intel officer here — you’re supposed to guess about what’s going to happen, or at least pass on what the powers-that-be think is going to happen. Don’t cop out on us — tell us.”

“Our job is not to give you opinions, Ben,” Pierce replied. “We only give you the latest facts.”

“Yeah, right. Okay, tell us your opinion. Are we going to get involved in a fight in Europe?”

The question obviously made Tom Pierce uncomfortable. Even nervous. Furness could see the anxiety in his face. “All right, I’ll tell you my opinion for what it’s worth: the Ukraine is the darling of the West right now, especially the United States. Russia has been dragging its heels with economic reforms, while the Ukraine is opening consulates and trade offices all over the place in an attempt to attract foreign investors. While Russia still hasn’t cut back its conventional military forces according to the Conventional-Forces-in-Europe-Treaty, Ukraine has fully complied — they have scrapped over ten thousand tanks and other armored military vehicles in just the past two years, plus they halted the sale of that half-completed aircraft carrier to mainland China. And while Russia still maintains a substantial nuclear force, including battlefield nuclear weapons, the Ukraine got the United Nations to certify it as a nuclear-free nation late last year. Besides applying for membership in the NATO alliance, there’s talk of the Ukraine joining the European Economic Community — the Ukraine wants to do this because they’ve been under Russia’s thumb for hundreds of years, and a new alignment with the West would help them prosper.”

“So we like the Ukraine better than Russia — nothing earth-shattering about that idea,” Jamieson said. “But what’s going to come of it? What’s the chance of a war between Russia and the Ukraine — and U.S. military intervention?”

Pierce nodded thoughtfully, then shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Russia has made it clear that they consider ethnic unrest and foreign military influence in the former Soviet republics a major threat to their sovereignty. They have pledged to use every means at their disposal, including nuclear battlefield weapons, to protect Russians living in the former republics and to secure their borders. Now, they haven’t made any threats or done anything to suggest they’re ready to start a full-scale war, but Velichko has made his intentions plain. There’s obviously a power struggle going on between the civilian and military leaders in Russia, and it has yet to run its course.

“So,” he continued, “what if war does break out? The Ukraine has a pretty potent military force, even with all the downsizing and civilian conversion they’ve been doing, but of course they couldn’t stand up for long against Russia, and everyone knows it. Despite their differences, the Ukraine and Russia are still tied pretty closely together economically, socially, diplomatically, politically, every which way — and no one thinks that the Ukraine wants a war.

“But now we got three U.S. warships making a port call in Odessa this week — they call it a goodwill visit, although the timing of this whole visit creates anything but goodwill in the area — and the balance-of-power shift those ships create could push someone over the edge. Russia has repeatedly warned the U.S. about getting involved in the crisis.”

“The President’s an asshole,” Mark Fogelman interjected. For once, Rebecca had to agree with him. “Didn’t he realize how dangerous and how provocative that can be?”

“Like Russia sending Bear and Backfire bombers into Cuba again?” Tobias interjected. “It looks like a lot of government leaders around the world are being pretty stupid. But the President had to do something.”

“Yeah. Twist the tiger’s tail,” Fogelman said in disgust. “Piss off the Russkies so they have to respond.”

With all the concern and agitation Colonel Hembree seemed to be expressing that morning, Rebecca wanted to know if the crisis in Europe had anything to do with Hembree’s near-manic emphasis on readiness, but she put that question on her mind’s back burner as Pierce began describing yet another potential world crisis.

“The point of all this malarkey,” Major Pierce said in conclusion, “is that there are lots of other forces alive and strong in the world right now, not just the United States, and they have their own plans for the New World Order. We are most certainly the strongest superpower in the world, but that is mostly in terms of military size and industrial potential, and even that is shrinking. If we go at it, we might very well go at it alone.”

A fairly ominous picture, Furness thought, from a man usually upbeat. She made a point of intercepting him as he was heading out the door after completing his briefing: “Hey, Tom, you giving up on the human race, or what?”

“Uh, no, Becky. No, nothing like that,” Pierce said. “The Wing King is really concerned about events between Ukraine and Russia. He wants situation briefings every morning and every couple hours, which means I’m in here by five A.M. every day. He wants the worst case, too, and I’ve been inundated by some pretty serious stuff lately.”

“Are you concerned about us deploying or something, Tom? I’ve had this feeling lately. Everyone’s uptight, but no one’s coming clean. Has the General been getting any messages, any directives?”

“Whoa, whoa, Becky, you’re asking the wrong dude. I know nothing, nnnothssing,” Pierce replied, imitating Sergeant Shultz of Hogan’s Heroes fame to emphasize the last part of his too-emphatic denial. “I just report the news, not make it. Talk to the Wing King yourself — he might just tell you. Gotta go. See ya.” He gave her a mind-blowing smile and quickly departed.

Well, the last thing she needed to do, Furness thought, was to meet with the wing commander and talk about world problems, especially after the day she was having. Better to wait until nearer the end of Hell Week, after a few good flights and a no-writeup inspection before trying to get any information from the brass.

But … the feeling of uneasiness persisted. It was a feeling, Rebecca Furness realized, that both excited and frightened her. She tried to shake it out of her head and walked on.

SIXTEEN

After the latest intelligence briefings had concluded, the squadron members reported back to the squadron, where the next day’s ATO, or Air Tasking Order, was just being posted. The Air Tasking Order was the unit’s game plan, detailing the location and mission of every aircraft involved in an operation. The usual plan was for Alpha Flight aircrews to launch as soon as possible, with the first six aircraft that were ready to go. Bravo Flight would follow in the next six aircraft, but they would accomplish a strike or reconnaissance mission first, then recover at the “deployment” base. Charlie Flight in the last six planes could do either role, but, because they had the least-experienced crews, was usually tasked to bring more weapons and spare parts for the other planes.

The other units within the Fifth Air Battle Force, the composite-force unit headquartered at Plattsburgh, would contribute to the week-long exercise as well, although, except for the 336th Air Refueling Squadron’s KC-135 tankers, none of the other squadrons were based at Plattsburgh. The F-16 C- and D-model multirole fighters from the 134th Fighter Squadron at Burlington Airport, which had long-range interceptor, tactical air superiority, precision bombing, and close-air support versions of the single-engine fighter, would play a dual role in this operation: some would act as escorts for the bombers, while others would play enemy fighters and try to hunt down the bombers while they made their bomb runs. The Wing also used C-130E Hercules transports of the 328th Airlift Squadron based at Niagara Falls International Airport, C-141 Starlifter transports from the 756th Airlift Squadron in Maryland, and C-5A Galaxy transports from the 337th Airlift Squadron in Massachusetts, to practice loading deployment equipment. Sometimes they also practiced joint deployments with A-10 Thunderbolt attack squadrons and even Navy and Marine Corps Reserve units, practicing the important task of joint air operations.

All this was known as the “surge,” the most important aspect of the unit’s mission — the ability to get a combat tasking order, deploy in the fastest way possible, set up shop at another location, strike targets in just a few short hours after notification, then conduct continuous strike and tactical reconnaissance operations with only the bare essentials until the rest of the Wing arrived. With the drastic downsizing of the U.S. military and the reliance on Reserve forces for national defense, rapidly mobilizing, deploying, and operating inactive combat units was more important than ever.

Lieutenant Colonel Hembree, Lieutenant Colonel Katz, and the Wing Operations staff had already broken down the Air Tasking Order when they arrived back at the squadron building. In the staff meeting that began a few minutes later, Hembree laid out the plan. “Ben Jamieson’s flight is already headed out to the aircraft,” he began. “So far the first six airframes look pretty good — they should be ‘deploying’ by sundown. The new MG jumped the gun and started generating bombers and tankers early, but the General obviously likes his ideas, so we’re ahead of the game this morning.

“Bravo Flight’s attack stream will be launching at about seven A.M. We’re looking at two radar bombing platforms, one GBU-15 bomber, two PAVE TACK bombers, and one recon bird in Bravo Flight. The GBU and PAVE TACK planes will have live weapons on board, one GBU-15 and two GBU-24s — Headquarters finally came through and got us a few real bombs to play with, so I want to be able to tell the boss that they weren’t wasted. Charlie Flight will be all strike — two laser, four radar, with one GBU-12 and one Mk-84 shape per laser plane. They say more live bombs may be authorized this week.” Employing all these precision-guided weapons during a Hell Week was very rare. “The recon bird from Bravo Flight will quick-turn and fly photo recon for both strike packages. Rebecca, that’ll be you.” Hembree put up a slide on an overhead projector, which showed the schedule of activity for each flight.

Furness was disappointed. In a real-world attack, the first planes over the target were the most important — the first hits had to be deadly to minimize the threat for the rest of the squadron following behind — so you sent your best troops first. Flight commanders usually led the strike packages using the PAVE TACK pod, a combination infrared seeker and laser designator designed to deliver laser-guided bombs with pinpoint precision. The flight commanders were supposed to lead, not come in after the “bad guys” had already been blown away. Flying photo reconnaissance was an important function of every combat operation, but that task was usually left to someone else in the flight.

Not only that, but they had real bombs to use in this surge.

She copied the critical times off the ATO for her flight, double-checking the numbers and weapon loads. “I’ll expect package briefings from the flight commanders at sixteen hundred hours,” Hembree continued. “I present the packages to the General at five, and then I’ll come back with any changes. Questions?” There were none. “Okay, let’s do it.”

Furness stepped up to Hembree just before he left the briefing room. “Hey, Dick, what about—”

“About you and Fogelman flying the photo bird? General’s orders.”

“He give any reason?”

“Nope,” Hembree replied. “I issued a report to him on the squadron inspection this morning before lunch, including Mark’s apparent disregard for 35–10 and for preparing for deployment — but I don’t think that had anything to do with the decision. He wants you to fly the photo bird, period. He also specified Ogden on the TV bomber and Little on one of the laser birds. If he has a reason for specifying the lineup like this, he didn’t tell me.”

“But Lynn just qualified on the GBU-15,” Furness said, shaking her head. Every crewmember entered the 715th Tactical Squadron from F-111G fighter lead-in qualified to do level radar, level visual, dive, and computer-toss bomb deliveries only — the unit then qualified them to fly visual toss, photo reconnaissance, PAVE TACK laser-guided bomb deliveries, then finally GBU-15 TV-guided bomb runs. The GBU-15 was by far the most difficult weapon to use because it required a great deal of crew coordination and it was very labor-intensive — the weapon system officer had to use the TV camera in the bomb to guide the plane to the target, then guide the weapon to the target after release, while the pilot initiated evasive maneuvers. Because of the skills involved and because the weapons were so expensive to use just for training, it sometimes took years for a crew to qualify. “She needed five bombs to qualify, almost twice the normal number. Larry Tobias needed only two to qualify, and he hasn’t had any since then.”

“Rebecca, I hear you,” Hembree said, “but the General laid down the law — he didn’t make ‘suggestions,’ he didn’t leave it up to me, and he didn’t staff it. Ogden gets the Dash-Fifteen, Little on a laser bird. And he wants to see Ogden and Vest do toss releases, and he wants to see a buddy lase.” A toss release was a bomb-release procedure in which the bomb is released “whip-crack” style while in a steep climbing turn to avoid overflying a target. A buddy lase was an attack in which another aircraft in an attack formation laser-designated a target for another aircraft carrying the weapons, which allowed more precision-guided bombs to be used with fewer PAVE TACK laser designators.

Both these techniques required an extraordinary degree of crew coordination and planning to accomplish properly. Rebecca didn’t doubt that her crews could do these procedures, but it was a lot of work for the first flight of a Hell Week.

As if to emphasize this point, Hembree continued, “It sounds to me like he wants to challenge this unit, to see what the newbies can do.”

“I’m just saying that maybe we should be easing into this a bit slower, Dick.”

“Becky, give me a break,” Hembree said. “The Wing King’s also trying to determine the proficiency and combat readiness of our outfit. Look at all the shit going on in Europe, in Korea, in Asia — we could find ourselves up to our asses in alligators in any one of these places at any time. A crew proficient with Dash-15s is an asset; a crew that’s not is a liability. We need to change them into assets as fast as possible. I don’t want this squadron broken up into crews that can do TV bombs and those who can’t — everyone will be proficient in all of our assigned weapons and tactics. I want our crews to be happy, and I want to reward the top performers, but I want combat-ready crews more than anything. Ogden and Vest do the toss Dash-Fifteen, and I expect to see a shack — you, me, the crew, and the General will watch the videotape together. Anything else?”

“You wanna talk about the inspection this morning?” Furness asked. “I’m prepared to give you an Air Force Regulation 35–10 briefing.”

“No. Just make sure Fogman has his shit in the bag and Paula does her hair.”

“She says she pushed her boobs out for you so you’d be too nervous to stare at her, but it didn’t faze you.”

Hembree chuckled, and for the first time that day Furness watched some of the tension melt out of his face. “I was distracted, but not that distracted. I noticed her damn hair and her uniform. Tell her to stop playing games and get her shit together.”

“I did. Fogman too.”

“Good,” Hembree said. “When the exercise is over, I’ll have you give a standup during Commander’s Call about 35–10. But General Cole has to hear it through the grapevine that I cracked the whip during morning inspection or I’ll be back pushing a crew. ’Nuff said?” Furness nodded, happy that Hembree was at least a little bit back to his old self. “Let’s brief here at sixteen hundred with your strike package, and tomorrow morning at oh-five-hundred for the mass briefing. I gotta go check on Ben and Alpha Flight. See ya later.” Furness headed back to the mission planning room where the rest of her flight was waiting.

“Well, I guess age doesn’t have its privileges anymore,” she said as she distributed the takeoff and target times and other information from the ATO. “Lynn and Clark, you guys got a GBU-15 toss tomorrow morning out on the Fort Drum range. Don’t screw it up.”

“You’re kidding!” Clark Vest exclaimed happily. “Man, that’s great!”

“Such unexpected largesse for a regular Hell Week,” Tobias observed, obviously disappointed that he didn’t get the TV-guided mission. “Something’s heating up. I know it.”

“I think you’re right,” Furness said, “but I don’t know what — Hawkeye’s not talking. Anyway, we got some live stuff, so let’s make the most of it. Paula, Ted, you got a live one too, a PAVE TACK shape; Bob and Bruce, you guys got the other one, and the Wing King wants a toss. Make sure you got your PAVE TACK preflight procedures down cold — you’ll be launching early in the morning with a cold pod. Ted, I expect to see some mind-blowing videotape of an in-your-face shack.”

“You got it, Becky,” Ted Little replied.

“The flight order is going to get shaken up a bit,” Furness continued. “I’ll lead cell number one, with Johnson and Norton on my wing. Johnson and Rota will be going in first, dropping ‘beer cans,’ and then will be buddy-lasing for Norton and Little. Frank, Larry, you will lead cell number two. You’ll be a radar bomber with BDUs, and you’ll drop beer cans third and buddy-lase for Bob and Bruce.” Beer can bombs, or BDU (Bomb, Dummy Unit)-48, were small ten-pound cylindrical smoke bombs that resembled large juice or beer cans with fins — although they were small and did not resemble a bomb at all, their ballistics closely resembled those of a B61 or B83 parachute-equipped nuclear bomb. An F-111 normally carried two SUU-20 racks, one on each wing, with two BDU-48 bombs in each rack. “Paula and Ted, you’ll be fifth with the TV bomb. Everyone else, don’t feel bad, because it looks like everyone’s getting at least one live round this week.”

“Buddy-lase, toss bombs, TV bombs, all on the first flying day of Hell Week?” Tobias muttered, just loud enough for everyone to hear. “Man, have the Iraqis invaded again?”

“We’ve got wall-to-wall brass watching us today, so everyone needs to be sharp,” Furness reminded them. “Me and Fogman will be at the top of the block when Johnson goes in, we’ll stay at the top of the block while everyone else enters the route, and we’ll be tail-end charlie and photograph the entire thing.”

“What?” Fogelman retorted, as if the realization of what was going on finally sank in. “How come we’re in the recon bird? I got more time on PAVE TACK than Ogden.”

“But you don’t have as much time on the recon pod,” Furness replied. She didn’t know that for sure, but there was no doubt that Fogelman’s expertise with the reconnaissance suite on the RF-111G was poor. “We also quick-turn and shoot pictures for Alpha Flight, too, so you’ll get lots of practice. I said everyone should get a live round this week, so don’t sweat it.” Fogelman scowled his displeasure. “Okay, let’s get to work.”

But while they were assembling the paperwork, they also used the time to catch up on each other’s civilian activities. Most of the men in the flight were airline captains with liberal schedules that allowed them to take extended days off for Reserve duties — exactly the same kind of job Furness had been searching for years.

The technician from Major Pierce’s intelligence office came by to hand out the latest “intelligence” of the target area, so each crewmember had photos and computer-generated radar and visual predictions of the targets. Their usual live bomb targets were mock airfields, small buildings made of stacked 55-gallon steel drums, and plywood vehicle-shaped targets. The most important part of the briefing was the position of Multiple Threat Emitter System, or MUTES, transmitters on the range: “They appear to be out gunning for you on this pass,” the technician said. He passed out coordinates of four MUTES trailers that would be on the range. The MUTES devices were truck-towed, self-powered radio transmitters that simulated enemy surface-to-air missile and antiaircraft-artillery tracking radars; Air Force technicians would accompany the MUTES trailers on the range and evaluate each crew’s evasion techniques as the MUTES sites “attacked” the strike aircraft during their runs. “Latest info says they’re on the move as well.”

The R-5201 bombing range in northern New York State was only three hundred square miles — four MUTES sites in that small area would place the strikers under almost constant “attack.”

“What are we looking at?” asked Furness.

“Brigade or battalion stuff, but they’ve got the biggest and best waiting for you,” the technician said. “Mostly you’ll be looking at SA-8 B-model, max range nine miles; the SA-11, max range seventeen miles; and the SA-15, with a max slant range of eight miles. But you can also expect a surprise in the possible presence of an SA-12 that could ‘attack’ the RF-111 bombers well before they enter the target area.

“The greatest threat you’ll face, however, is from fighters,” the intelligence technician continued. “If they can spare any — they’re busy shadowing those Backfire bombers flying out of Cuba, but we might get a few to play with. Players will have Russian radar emitters installed, so your detection gear will respond just like real.” That was a bit unusual. The emitters were simply tiny radio transmitters that mimicked enemy fire-control radars. That wasn’t routine for Hell Week.

Mission planning was mostly done by computer after that. In sixty minutes, the planning was done for the entire six-aircraft strike package.

No sooner had the charts and flight plans been spit out of the printer and the mission been briefed than Furness saw Fogelman slipping his flight jacket on. “Going someplace?” she asked.

“I’m going to get my gear and a haircut, like you said,” Fogelman grumbled. “Supply was closed during lunch.”

“We have to proof these charts and flight plans,” she said. “I’ve got a briefing for the battle staff in one hour.”

Fogelman looked at his watch, groaned, and said, “Supply closes at three — I’ve got ten minutes to get over there. I’ve got to leave now. Have Tobias proof the stuff for you. Better yet, just take it as is. The computer stuff is always perfect anyway.”

Furness was about to rag on him some more, but there wasn’t time. Besides, she preferred Larry Tobias’ company anyway — in fact, she preferred anyone’s company over Fogelman’s. “All right, all right. But the show time is five-thirty, and you better have a haircut and a complete mobility bag.”

“Haircut and three bags full. You got it.” He hurried away, leaving Furness to check all the charts and flight plans on her own.

With Tobias’ and some of the other crew’s help, chart and flight plan validations were over in just a few minutes. Hembree came into the mission planning room a few minutes after they finished, and they briefed him on the morning’s sorties. He accepted the briefing without comment, but seemed preoccupied. It wasn’t unlike him to say nothing during a mission briefing, especially just before going into the General’s office at headquarters to give the same briefing. But Furness didn’t knock it.

Like most of the Reservists reporting in for Hell Week, Furness stayed on base in the old alert shelter near the flight line. The dark, windowless alert shelter was a throwback to Plattsburgh’s days as a B-47, B-52, KC-135, and FB-111 bomber base, when as many as half the bombers, tankers, and aircrews on base were assigned strategic nuclear alert duties. Rebecca had done that very same thing as a young KC-135 Stratotanker copilot nearly ten years ago, and she remembered it well. A crewdog could expect at least one alert exercise during a seven-day alert tour, and they alternated day or night exercises to keep all the crews proficient in both.

When Furness cross-trained from the KC-135 to the KC-10 tanker in 1988, she no longer pulled alert. Thank God, she thought as she unpacked her bags, changed into jogging shorts and a sweat shirt, and put in a two-mile run on a treadmill in the Pad gymnasium. After a shower, she changed into jeans, a heavy wool sweater, a down jacket, and hiking boots, and checked out with the Charge of Quarters.

Until the Bravo exercise was in full swing, the alert facility dining hall was open only for breakfast. So the flyers and their crew chiefs’ new social club was Afterburners, a small tavern and restaurant on the lower floor of a hundred-year-old hotel in the center of old downtown Plattsburgh, and that’s where Furness met up with most of the members of her squadron.

The flyers and crew chiefs were in the TV lounge portion of the bar, watching the big-screen TV for the latest news about the skirmishing between Russia and the Ukraine over the Russian minorities in Moldova and the sovereignty of the former Soviet republics versus the unity of the Commonwealth of Independent States. “See that?” Captain Frank Kelly, her wingman, said to Rebecca, pointing at the TV screen. A group of protesters were throwing Molotov cocktails at a tank. “Another riot in that Moldavan city. The media are pointing to the Moldovan soldiers and saying they’re inciting the riots, but no one seems to be blaming the Russians.”

“That’s because the Moldavian Army is kicking the hell out of the Russians,” someone else said. “If they’d just leave the Russians alone, there wouldn’t be any fighting.”

“That’s ‘Moldovan’ Army, not ‘Moldavian’ Army,” Larry Tobias interjected. “Get it straight, son.”

“Gee, Dad,” the other crewmember quipped. “I didn’t know class was in session.”

“Hey, Larry, my WSO has forgotten more than you’ll ever know,” Kelly said in defense of his weapon system officer. “But as long as you’re the expert here, Larry, tell us: What is all this shit about? The rumor is NATO might get involved, which means us. Is that right?”

“Because it is the beginning of the Russians’ land grab,” Larry Tobias replied. “There are less than one hundred thousand Russians in Moldova, but ten Russians or a million — Russia would still be involved. Russia wants Moldova back. They care about only one thing — secure borders, a secure homeland,” Tobias said. “You people may not remember this, but over the past forty years, all of the Russian leaders have fought for the same thing. It is not enough to have massive standing armed forces — they want to put a buffer zone between Mother Russia and all foreign territory, especially those countries with foreign troops stationed on them. A lot of Russian leaders fought in World War Two, and every family in Russia lost relatives in the war. The Russians discovered in World War Two that alliances don’t always mean security — occupying and holding land is the key to security for them.”

“But why do we give a damn if Russia invades the Ukraine or Moldova?” one of the crew chiefs asked. “Who cares? Hell, most people don’t know where Moldova, or Romania, or the Ukraine are on the map. I remember the press had to tell thirty percent of all Americans where Kuwait was before we went to war there.”

“We care because Russia is involved,” Tobias replied, taking a deep swig of his beer. “Ever since the first Slavic Neanderthal ventured out of his cave, he not only cared about what his neighbor was doing — he wanted to control what he was doing. Russia doesn’t want the Ukraine to go Ukrainian, or Moldova to go Romanian, or Georgia to go Turkish. They sure don’t want any of them to go Islamic, and they sure as hell don’t want any of them to go democratic. That’s probably the worst. Russia will fight to make sure the peripheral republics go nowhere. It’s as simple as that.”

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

“It makes perfect sense — just not to you and me.” Tobias burped happily, glancing at a large wall clock on one wall. A sign on the clock had a 715th Tactical Squadron patch, the words Drop Dead, and an arrow pointing at the 7 on the clock, indicating the twelve-hour alcohol limit for those flying the next morning. “We still got fifteen minutes,” Tobias said. He turned to Furness. “Buy you a beer, boss? No, wait, you’re into red wine, right?”

“Sure, Larry,” Furness replied. “Barkeep, last round for the Black Knights over here.” They searched for a waitress, but none were in sight. “Yo, anybody awake over there?” She spotted a blond guy, good-looking, carrying two large soda and carbonated gas tanks from behind the bar to the back room. “Hey, guy, how about taking our order?”

“I’m not a waiter.”

“You can remember a few drinks, can’t you? C’mon, take a chance.” The man put the tanks down next to the bar, wiped his hands on his apron, then hesitantly walked over. He was tall and a little weathered, but in good shape, with piercing green eyes. Furness noticed his GI haircut right away — obviously military, a Reservist most likely, a crew chief or clerk, having to pull down a night job to help make ends meet. She knew the tune to that song, all right. “Thatta boy, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“I’ll get your waitress,” he said.

“Forget the waitress, guy, you got the job,” Furness said. “Got a pencil?”

The man rolled his eyes, losing patience, but he shrugged his shoulders, sighed, and replied, “I can remember.”

“You can, huh? Very impressive.” Furness gave a sly smile to the rest of the crewdogs seated at the table — they had a little game they liked to play on the new waitpersons at Afterburners. After a little nod to make sure everyone was ready, she said, “Okayyy … make mine a 1989 Eagle Falls cabby estate.”

Just then, Furness and the other five people at the table got up and, in a mad scramble, changed seats with someone else. The barman couldn’t believe what he was watching — it was a mini-Chinese fire drill at the table.

When they were finally seated again, someone else blurted out, “Stoli up with a twist,” and they changed seats again.

“Glenfiddish neat with a Fosters chaser …” Another seat change.

“Crazy Billy, no lime, tall …” They weren’t sitting down this time, only changing seats every time another drink order was fired off.

“Bowmore and water, Islay pre-1980 …”

“Dos Equis with a lime …”

The melee had attracted a lot of attention by this time. The barman waited patiently until they were seated again. Furness asked with a smile, “Okay, sport, you got all that? Or do you want to go get that pencil now?”

Without batting an eye, the barman pointed to her and recited, “Eagle Falls cabernet sauvignon, 1989 estate.” To the next person, he said, “Crazy Billy, no lime, in a tall glass. You want salt?”

“N-no …”

“Fine. Bowmore scotch and water …” He recited them all, perfectly, without a hitch. “Separate checks or all together? You want popcorn, too, lady?” Furness and the others were too shocked to respond, so the man just gave them a smug grin and stepped away. The onlookers applauded, and even a few of the stunned crewdogs at the table had to clap for him.

“He’s pretty amazing,” someone offered.

“He looks GI,” Furness decided. “Anybody know him?” No one did. “Whoever he is, I’d love to have him on my crew.”

“Or would you just love to have him, Becky?” someone teased.

Furness gave a sly grin, which made the others at the table give her a knowing “Ahhhh …” But she added, “Nah, I don’t know where’s he’s been. He could have the whole viral history of Plattsburgh State College’s coeds implanted on his snake for all I know. Anyway, he’s got more brains than Fogman could ever hope for.”

Just then, the man returned … with a tray of six tall beers. “Six Buds, six bucks,” he said.

Tobias started chuckling, but Kelly blurted, “What is this? This isn’t what we ordered.”

Furness was surprised at first, then pissed. “Take this back and bring us what we ordered.”

“You’ll pay me six bucks and drink your beers or you can all get on your fucking knees and kiss my ass,” the man snapped, glaring at each and every one of them, including Furness. “I told you I wasn’t your waiter, but I played your shitty little game, and now you got your drinks. You can pay up, shut up, drink up, and get back to the base, or we can take it outside to the alley and I’ll make you wish you never came here tonight. What’s it going to be, children?”

The group was too stunned to reply. Furness considered going to the manager, but Tobias wisely reached into his pocket, pulled out a ten, and gave it to him. The man withdrew his wallet to make change, but Tobias waved it off.

“Have a nice evening,” Lieutenant Colonel Daren Mace said, then walked away, picked up his tanks, and carried them into the back room. They didn’t notice the cellular telephone stuck in his back pocket, the one that all military personnel knew as belonging to a Wing staff officer.

“Whew,” Furness said finally, after a long, stunned pause. “I …

I think I’d like to get to know that guy better.” Everyone at the table knew they had just been told off by one of the best.

“I’m married with two kids,” Frank Kelly said, “and I’d like to get to know him better.”

Everyone laughed.