Executive

…17

Brigadier General Seth Nichols went through a heap of paperwork, turning page after page from a massive dossier. He wasn't finding what he was looking for, and he was losing his patience. He picked up the phone.

"Jim?"

"Yes, sir," his adjutant on the other end of the line responded promptly.

"Get me the Kandahar Airfield commander, Colonel Sheridan. What time is it there?"

"They're eight and a half hours ahead of us, so that would make it 2:15AM, sir."

"Get him anyway."

"Yes, sir."

A minute later, the phone rang.

"I have Colonel Sheridan for you, sir," Jim advised, then put the call through.

"This is Sheridan, sir, good morning." The colonel's voice was almost covered by the background noise of roaring jet engines.

"Good morning, Sheridan. I got your report on the friendly fire mess on the 20th. I've read the reports you sent me, but I see no conclusions were drawn yet. What's the delay? Do you know what happened out there?"

"Not yet, sir. We're still working on it. The reports I've sent are covering everything we know so far, but there are still questions to be answered."

"Well, how hard can it be? Did we fire on the Canadians or not?"

"That's exactly it, sir. Our ground systems do not show any record of a missile launch. But, as far as we know, we were the only ones flying drones in the area, and the Hellfire signatures have been confirmed — they were ours."

"I've seen you debriefed the pilots. What are they saying?"

"They are not saying much. They maintained their original statements, that it was an uneventful drone deployment, which was completed without anything out of the ordinary to report."

"Sheridan?"

"Sir?"

"You need to get to the bottom of this and fast, do you read me? We have to issue a full report as soon as possible. We can't delay this any further. The media is already on this, as you would expect."

"Yes, sir, we're on it."

"Keep me posted," Nichols said, and then hung up. "What a mess," he said to himself, closing the thick file that held no answers.