Tom Clancy's HAWX

Chapter 5

They say it takes one to know one.

To a lot of people who had crossed him through the years, Illinois congressman Halbert Coughlin, Sr., was an asshole. For someone doing business in the killor-be-killed cauldron of Illinois politics, it is almost a prerequisite.

It takes one to know one.

Illinois congressman Halbert Coughlin, Sr., knew an asshole when he saw one, and Troy Loensch, the asshole who had left his son to die on a mountainside in the middle of nowhere, was definitely an asshole.

As if his guilt were not bad enough, Lieutenant Troy Loensch had found out the hard way that having left the son of the chairman of the House Military Appropriations Subcommittee on a mountainside in the middle of nowhere was definitely something that would change your career path.

One week, Lieutenant Loensch had been fast-tracked for a seat inside the cockpit of an F-22 Raptor, the Air Force's premier air-superiority fighter. The next week, his career had taken a turn for the dark side. Calls had been made, favors called in. Thanks to the strings pulled by Hal's influential father, Lieutenant Loensch would not, after all, be getting his assignment to Air Combat Command.

However, the Air Force does not like to throw pilots away, especially ones who slide through SERE without getting caught. Lieutenant Loensch was ordered to report to a nondescript building at Lackland AFB on the edge of San Antonio. On the door was a black and blue shield on which was inscribed a sword crossed with a key under a black chessman. Behind the carefully guarded door marked with this insignia was Troy's new life as part of the secretive Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Agency (ISR).

The ISR is into a lot of things, some of which you see, some of which you don't. The agency is into a whole host of disparate activities, all of them classified, including signals intelligence, cryptography, cyber warfare, and harvesting intelligence on foreign air and space weapons and systems. Its personnel spend their days in windowless bunkers or flying missions in electronic warfare and reconnaissance aircraft around the world.

The ISR's 55th Wing used to fly Looking Glass, the Strategic Air Command's airborne nuclear command post. Since the first Gulf War, the 55th has flown intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions in support of the U. S. Central Command.

The first eighteen months of Lieutenant Troy Loensch's career with the 55th were spent in the right seat of an EC-32 electronic surveillance aircraft, a modified Boeing 757 airliner, flying around the world in a white paint job, while the spooks in the back did their snooping.

On his rare trips home, he had confided in Cassie Kilmer that he felt like an airline pilot. She suggested sarcastically that maybe he ought to get out of the Air Force and get a real job. If he felt like an airline pilot, maybe he ought to be one. Of course, he couldn't just quit. She knew that and she told him so. She just found herself caring less and less about what he did. From her perspective, Cassie had made the transition from "the girl left behind" to someone who was living her life regardless of a man who happened to drop in for a few days every nine months or so — and Troy could sense this, even though it remained unspoken.

Their relationship was definitely unraveling. He should have foreseen this when he had joined up — but foresight had not exactly been the strong point in Troy's life.

The last few weeks of Captain Troy Loensch's career were spent with the 95th Reconnaissance Squadron, a unit of the 55th Wing based at RAF Mildenhall in the United Kingdom, and flying missions out of Souda Bay on the Mediterranean island of Crete.

"Falcon Four… you're cleared for Runway Niner Left."

"Roger, Souda Approach." Troy smiled. "Falcon Four on Niner Left."

In the distance, Crete was a dust-colored patch in the deep blue Mediterranean Sea. He could see the white wake of a ferry headed into the bay, and two miles ahead on the crescent of the Akrotiri Peninsula, he could make out the two runways of the Souda Air Base.

Troy was happy to finally be off the flight deck of the EC-32 and into a fighter. Actually, he was now flying a modified fighter, but it was still a fighter. His new airplane was one of several similar Block 40 F-16C Fighting Falcons that had started their combat career flying combat air support in the Balkans but had later been retrofitted for electronic reconnaissance. Smart eavesdropping pods replaced smart bombs.

Although the bird was still armed with AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles for self-defense, it was a snooper, not a fighter. Technically, it was now an EF-16C, but the Air Force didn't apply such designations for fear of tipping its hand as to the actual function of such birds.

The aircrews in the 95th had hoped for the new Lockheed Martin EF-35Cs, but the Air Force budgets had been running a little on the tight side lately. Troy didn't mind. Whatever the mission, the F-16 was still a fighter, and at last, he was in the cockpit.

As he turned onto the taxiway after a perfect touchdown, Troy noticed two other U. S. Air Force F-16Cs parked near a pair of Hellenic Air Force F-16Cs, which were marked with the red and blue shield of the 115th Combat Wing, the main Greek unit based at Souda. The American Falcons had 95th Reconnaissance Squadron insignia — the bucking mule on a blue disk was a relic of the squadron's heritage as a bomber squadron in World War II — but their tail numbers were not ones that he had seen around Lakenheath since he had arrived.

"Welcome to scenic Souda, Captain." The man in the garrison cap with the bronze oak leaf on it smiled.

Troy had raised his canopy and was removing his helmet when Major Russ Smith of the 95th approached his aircraft. He was surprised to have the commander of the squadron's Falcon Force come out to meet him, but pleased that Smith seemed to be in such a good mood.

Troy forgot for a moment that in the military, good news is usually followed by bad news.

"Wish I could say you have time to enjoy the scenery, Loensch, but Falcon Force will deploy at 1300 hours… today. Don't worry about unpacking your gear. Briefing in twenty minutes in Ops. See you then."

With that, Smith had turned and was headed back to the Detachment Operations shack adjacent to the nearest hangar.

The twenty minutes proved long enough for a pit stop and for Troy to find the vending machines to get a soda and a candy bar.

Stepping away from the soda machine, however, he came abruptly and unexpectedly face-to-face with his past.

It was Hal Coughlin, also now sporting captain's bars and wearing a flight suit.

It was Hal who broke the ice.

"Hello, Troy," he said, hesitantly extending his hand. The two men had not seen each other since that night in the Colville National Forest.

"Hal," Troy said, shaking Coughlin's hand. "Long time, y'know…"

"Yeah… long… long time."

"What are you doing here?" Troy asked.

"I'm with the 95th. Just reassigned. I was at Luke with the 425th, y'know… just got reassigned… what about you?"

"I've been with ISR for a year or so, and with the 95th for a month or so," Troy acknowledged.

With the "what's-ups" out of the way, the two men just stared at each other awkwardly.

This time, Troy broke the ice.

"I shoulda called you… y'know… after..

"For a long time, I thought about what I woulda said if you had… but I haven't thought about it for a long time."

"I woulda said… I shoulda said… that I fucked up, Hal."

"When I was thinking about it… lying on my fuckin' back in the hospital, I went back and forth between thinking you were an asshole and thinking that I was a wimp."

"What did you decide?" Troy asked.

"I still haven't."

The awkward moment of unresolved tension seemed to last an hour.

This time, the ice was broken by Captain Jenna Munrough.

"Loensch," she said loudly as she entered the hallway. "What are you doing here?"

"I was just asked that," he explained, nodding at the 95th Squadron patch on her shoulder. "I guess I'm doing the same thing as you are."

As she glared at him across folded arms, Troy could sense that the anger in her eyes had not diminished, even after nearly two years.

"Guess that means that we all have the same briefing… about now," Hal said, walking away.

Inside the briefing room, Major Smith had his laptop plugged into a slim projector. The first image cast on the wall was a map of Sudan. Troy noticed that among the several people in the room, the only three in flight suits were Hal, Jenna, and himself

"As you know, the United States has had combat forces in Sudan since the beginning of the year in support of government forces fighting the Al-Qinamah rebels backed by Eritrea," Smith droned in a description that sounded as though it had been lifted straight from a briefing paper. This was, after all, a briefing. Troy shrugged.

"Joint Task Force Sudan has been operating out of Atbara, about three hundred clicks northeast of Khartoum," the major said, pointing to a spot on the map next to a squiggly blue line that Troy guessed was probably the Nile River. "The air component of the JTF is the 334th Air Expeditionary Wing… commander is General Raymond Harris….. Falcon Force… the three of you… will be attached to the 334th under his direct command."

"Doesn't he have any other recon?" Troy asked. It was unusual for a wing not to have tactical reconnaissance assets.

"Your job is to get the recon that the strategic planners need to plan beyond tomorrow," Smith replied. "Harris can use the recon he has now for strike assessment and so forth."

The image on the screen changed to a Google Earth aerial view of a city with a river snaking through it. In one corner, the pilots could easily make out the runways of an airport.

"The Atbara Airport here has a 5,905-foot runway," Smith continued. "Harris has got F-16s operating out of here, flying strike missions in Sudan, and C-130s hauling personnel from Khartoum to fields closer to where the action is along the Eritrea border. Technically, the UN mandate won't allow combat ops inside Eritrea, but that apparently doesn't apply to recon flights. Your job is to fly into Eritrean airspace to gather intel."

"Does that mean we can't shoot back if they shoot at us?" Jenna asked. Because she had grown up in rural Arkansas, shooting was second nature for her.

"Fire only when fired upon." Smith nodded. "That's the basic rule of engagement here. Fire only to defend yourself."

"We have to let them shoot first?" Jenna pressed. "That's what's in the rules of engagement here," Smith confirmed.

"But—" Jenna started to say.

"You are flying recon missions, not combat missions. Our rules of engagement preclude offensive operations in Eritrean airspace."

"What if somebody gets shot down while playing this game?" Jenna asked.

"If you get shot down, we can prove from your reconnaissance gear that you were not on an offensive mission," Smith said in an ominous tone.