Unto the Breach

Chapter Seventeen

Kacey yanked back the door of the Blackhawk and stepped out fast, carrying her flight bag in one hand and a carry-on in the other. Tammie, similarly encumbered, followed fast behind but paused to wave to the crew-chief and slide the door shut.

Their greeting party was a middle height man dressed in casual clothes, more or less ignoring the rotor wash, and a bigger guy that had a look that Kacey somehow tagged as ” local” wearing a digi-cam pattern she’d never seen before. The guy in digicam was wearing a sidearm of some sort in fast-draw holster. It might have been an H K USP, but Kacey wasn’t enough of an expert in side-arms to be sure. The odd thing about the local took a second to sink in: he was so damned good looking it was scary. He looked like he could have stepped off a Hollywood set but she was sure he was a local.

The landing area was a farm in a valley just about surrounded by really high mountains, pretty prosperous with some new tractors working the fields and an SUV or two in sight. But the houses looked pretty much like the ones she’d seen in the Kurdish area in Iraq: dressed stone and slate roofs. They looked like they might have electricity.

“Captain Bathlick?” the casually dressed man asked. “I’m Mike Jenkins. Thanks for coming out here just to talk.”

Up close it was clear that, while casual, the clothes were not cheap. The black comfortable shoes had that look that said “Italian leather”, the pants were exquisite and the golf shirt looked as if it was silk. He’d fit right in at a Palm Beach golf-course. But just as she thought that she heard a crackle of gunfire over the sound of the spooling up rotors. It was the crackle that said “ranges” though, to her ear, not “firefight.”

“That would be me,” Kacey replied, setting down her case to shake his hand. The local immediately grabbed it and the nearly matching one from Tammie and trotted over to the waiting Expedition. Jenkins quickly shook Tammie’s hand as well and then gestured at the Expedition.

“Let’s get out of the rotor wash,” Mr. Jenkins yelled, heading for the SUV. He got in the driver seat after waving them to the back. Once they were in he turned around and grinned. “Welcome to Never Never Land. I’d give you the cook’s tour, but I’m pressed for time. We’ll talk then you can tell me to stuff it or look around and make up your mind.”

“Can we get a vague idea what we’re here for?” Tammie asked.

“I’ve been asked, as a favor, to do something for the US government. And the government of Russia. And the government of Georgia.” Mr. Jenkins put the SUV in gear and headed up towards the road. It was only then that Kacey noticed what could only be described as a Turkish castle straight out of Arabian Nights up on the ridgeline. “To do that favor, I need at least two helicopter pilots. The rest can, has to, wait.”

“The US, Russia and Georgia?” Kacey asked, leaning back in her seat and looking around. Most of the people in the valley were in “local” clothing but here and there there were more people in digicam. A couple were carrying sub-guns, M4s, on friction rigs. Most of them Kacey still tagged as “locals” but a couple had a look that she knew made them Western military. Not sure how to say the difference but it was there. But they clearly weren’t an SF team, they looked more like “security specialists.” What in the fuck was going on? “I guess we should at least stick around long enough to find out why.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mr. Jenkins said, opening up the center compartment and pulling out two envelopes. “Your ‘I’m willing to travel’ money.” He held the two envelopes over his shoulder as he steered onto a winding road that looked damned near vertical.

Kacey quickly snatched the envelopes so he’d have his hands free to drive and handed one to Tammie. She didn’t want to count it, it seemed rude, but it sure felt like what five thousand dollars should feel like. It was heavy. Bills could be paid and that was good. Whatever came from the “interview.” It sounded like Jenkins would be willing to hire anyone who could fly. That meant they’d have to be interviewing him.

The castle turned out to be their destination. There was a curtain wall with some really huge doors on the gate and an interior keep, she’d guess that was what it was, that had been converted into a house. Again, it looked really Turkish, Ottoman was probably the right term. It had a couple of little towers like minarets on it at least.

“In case you’re wondering, this is my house,” Mr. Jenkins said. “And farm. The people who work the farm are called the Keldara. The full explanation of the Keldara is a long discussion. We’ll have to shelve that one, too, for the time being. If you’ll follow me, your bags will be taken to your rooms.”

“We’d like to keep our flight bags with us,” Kacey said, uneasily.

“If it makes you comfortable,” Mr. Jenkins said, smiling. “But they’re only going to your room. Whether you take the job or not you’ll probably prefer to stay overnight.”

“Okay,” Tammie said, handing over her flight-bag with a shrug. She still had a purse. “Lead on.”

Kacey gave up her flight-bag somewhat more reluctantly but then followed the two into the house.

The first thing she noticed wasn’t the décor, it was the women. There were three rather good looking teenage females in school uniforms in the front room of the castle. All three popped to their feet as Mr. Jenkins walked in and giggled then one gabbled at him in what was probably the local language.

Jenkins replied shortly, but in a friendly tone, then turned to Tammie and Kacey.

“These young ladies are Tinata, Lida and Klavdiya. They would like to make your acquaintance.”

“Of course,” Tammie said, grinning and walking over to shake hands. “Hello.”

“Hello, I am pleased to meet you,” one of the girls said, very slowly in English.

“Thank you,” Tammie said, nearly as slowly. “I am please to meet you, too. What is your name?”

“I am Klavdiya,” the girl said carefully.

“Hello, Klavdiya,” Tammie said, smiling. “I am Tammie.”

Mr. Jenkins said something briefly in the other language and the girls then cut the greeting shorter. When the ritual was all over, he waved the two pilots towards the back of the castle.

“To be brutally honest, the girls are members of my harem,” Jenkins said without looking over his shoulder to gauge their reaction. “And, no, none of them are over eighteen. The story of how I ended up with a harem will… ”

“Have to wait,” Kacey said, snorting. “I can tell there are a lot of stories here. But if you’re trying to shock me, or Tammie, we’re pretty much unshockable.”

“Good,” Jenkins said, reaching a heavy wooden door and gesturing them into the room. It was set up as an office but there were no windows and only the one door. The first word that came to Kacey’s mind was “cozy.” There was a nice fireplace, currrently unlit, on one wall. The second word that came to mind, though, was “secure.” Bugging it would be hell except maybe through the fireplace. There was a couch and three overstuffed chairs arranged on one side in a “seating area” a desk and advanced desk chair. No filing cabinets, though. Mr. Jenkins grabbed one of the overstuffed chairs and swung it around so he could face the couch and waved them to it. “Sit, please. I know you’ve been doing a lot of sitting, but I’ve got to go back to teaching HALO as fast as I can and I’d like to get this over with.”

“And that’s another one that begs the question ‘what is going on?’ ” Tammie said.

“Before I get to that, I need to lay out a few ground rules,” Mr. Jenkins said. “Obviously what I do isn’t covered by US security regs. So I can’t throw that at you. But if you’re going to talk, in the military or out, you talk. From what I’ve been told, you’re very good at keeping your mouths shut. It’s one of the requirements I laid on the people I set to finding me some pilots. I didn’t expect females, frankly, but I don’t really care, either. I’ve got females going much more in harm’s way than you’ll be. I’ve got a green intel team that’s going to be doing their cherry combat drop with nothing but green jumpers on their team into nasty terrain in the middle of absolute Injun Country. Two of them are female. So you can see that I don’t hold your sex against you. I’ll use whatever tools come to hand. In this case it is, potentially, you two.”

“We don’t talk,” Kacey said. “But I take it the US government doesn’t want this talked about, either?”

“Not a bit,” Mr. Jenkins said, leaning back. “This is as black as it comes. So black they can’t even use their black ops boys. The term is ‘deniability.’ I don’t work for the US government, they just occasionally let me know about issues that need attending to. If I successfully attend to them, I get some money from that.”

“Enough to maintain your own army,” Tammie said with a snort.

“Enough to train, build and so far maintain it,” Mr. Jenkins said with a slight grin. “So far.”

“That’s expensive,” Kacey said, regarding him closely. “So are helicopters and pilots.”

“I only get called in on very expensive operations,” Jenkins said with a shrug then leaned forward and locked his eyes on first Tammie’s eyes and then hers. “So here is the deal. I have to take my team into Injun Country, which is surprisingly close but also very hard to get to. I have helo transport for part of the trip but for political reasons that is as far as it can go. Once in Injun Country I’m going to need helo support. I’m going to definitely need evac for two people of interest. I’m probably, almost certainly, going to need dust-off and probably resupply. The LZs might be warm, they might be unknown or they might be hot. I’m going to need pilots who really don’t give a rat’s ass; they’re going into the LZ if they’re asked. I don’t say ‘told to’ I say ‘asked.’ If one of my teams is on the horn screaming for ammo or dust-off, I need pilots who are going to be willing to take the same risks as the rest of us. I need pilots who have balls, in your case ovaries, the size of mountains. Because every single person I’ve got has those size balls or ovaries. And because otherwise, well, I hope it was a nice trip but you don’t want to be associated with me.”

“Okay,” Tammie said, half wonderingly. “That’s an interesting proposition.”

“I hate to ask this,” Kacey said. “But I was raised to be practical… ”

“I’d like you as permanent, or semi-permanent anyway, additions,” Jenkins said, leaning back again. “The vig is two-hundred fifty grand per year and combat bonuses. The bonus on this mission is fifty grand. If you don’t make it, a half a mil goes to your beneficiaries. And let me be clear, there is a chance you won’t be around to spend the money. There is a chance that I won’t be around but there are other people to cut the checks.”

“You’re going on this op?” Tammie asked, still with that vague sense of wonder in her voice. Kacey could comprehend it; she felt like she’d stepped through the looking glass ever since the visit from Major Stang.

“This mission is tight any way you look at it,” Jenkins said, shrugging. “I’m taking everyone I’ve got, including me. It’s… very hairy. This area is going to be secured by a Ranger company in our absence.”

“Well, the money’s right,” Kacey said, shaking her head. “But you’ve really got to work on your sales pitch.”

“I’m not out to pitch you,” Jenkins said, shrugging. “I want you here because you want to be here, because you love flying, because you love flying right at the edge of your ability and are hard, cold motherfucker combat fliers. I was told that was what you were, that you bitched unmercifully when the Marines pulled both of you off line duty and that you’d had serious experience in hot, hard, nasty flying conditions so you knew what you were going to be missing. I need that. But I don’t want you here if you’ve lost that edge or you’re not really what you seem.”

“Well, we both ditched a bird in the Carribean and that was about as hot, hard and nasty an operation as you could ask for,” Tammie said with a chuckle. “I’ll add that the bird going down really wasn’t our fault. There were… extenuating circumstances.”

“Oh, crap,” Jenkins said, really leaning back and then grinning, hard. “Wait, were the extenuating circumstances a nuclear blast?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny… ” Kacey started to say and then really looked at him. “Oh my Fucking God.”

“I said I get paid well,” Mr. Jenkins said with a grin. “And that’s because I usually get my ass shot off and I’m very attached to it.”

“That was you,” Tammie said, really grinning now. “I figured you for dead; I’ve only seen that much blood one other time and that guy didn’t make it even with a medic and a defibrillator in the bird. He wasn’t unconscious and strapped into the seat of a cigarette boat.”

“I’m a hard person to kill,” Jenkins replied. “As any number of dead people can attest. I’ll go ahead and add, since it’s really germane and I’ve got to trust such sterling characters as yourself, that we’re on the same track. Three or four Russian nukes. They’re being traded to the terrorists, through the Chechens, for a sizeable sum. We have a location and time of the transfer. But it’s right in Chechen territory. There’s also a scientist, probably working under duress, involved. We need to get the nukes, the scientist and his daughter out, all in more or less functioning order. And, of course, this time keep them from detonating. I’ve got a hundred and twenty shooters and the Chechens have about four hundred, that we know about, in the area. From your POV, they have heavy machine-guns, 12.7 milimeter and possibly some MANPADs. No solid evidence on the MANPADs but it’s the way to bet.”

“That is kind of adverse,” Tammie said, shaking her head. “Blackhawks will take a fair amount of damage, but not a whole hell of a lot, trust me.”

“Oh, that’s one thing I forgot,” Jenkins said. “We’re not using Hawks, we’re using Hinds. That’s why you were chosen. You both did a transition stint with the 6^th SOS. Frankly, I was delighted to get someone Hind qualified.”

The 6^th SOS was a multi-service squadron under Air Force control that flew several non-US helicopter systems, including the Hind-D a Russian attack helicopter. Unlike US attack helicopters, however, it had a crew/cargo area in the rear that could carry five personnel plus a crew-chief or be reconfigured for aerial-ambulance duty. The Hind was heavily armored and generally referred to as a “flying tank.” During the Afghan wars the quote used about the Hind by the mujaheddin was “We do not fear the Russians, but we fear their helicopters.”

Kacey started to reply and then couldn’t help bursting into a half hysterical laugh.

“What?”

“I’m getting Hinds,” Jenkins said with a shrug. “They’re cheaper than Hawks, more robust and I can get them, fast. Two birds are being retrofitted in Czechoslovakia, sorry, ‘The Czech Republic’ at the moment for high altitude conditions. If you agree, and I’ll give you the rest of the day to think it over, you’re on a plane tomorrow for the CR. You’ll go to the factory, refresh and then, in the company of a couple of the company’s pilots, ferry them back here. That will give you just enough time to brief in on the details of the op, get used to the local flying conditions and then do the op. We’re on short time here.”

“Look, you already said this was going to be tough flying,” Tammie said, exasperated. “And you’re talking about birds we’ve got no time in! We transitioned two years ago! I can barely recall where the controls are laid out!”

“You’re going to be ferrying them over a thousand miles,” Jenkins said, shrugging. “Practice.”

“There’s… ” Kacey said then paused. “We’ll have to think about this. But there are a few things that any helo pilot is going to need in this sort of situation.”

“Go,” Mike said, leaning back.

Kacey suddenly realized that despite the strong appearance of focus and animation this guy was tired. Desperately tired. He didn’t show it much, but something about the way he leaned back told her he hadn’t been getting much sleep lately.

“We need ground crew,” Kacey said.

“The Czechs are supplying a crew initially,” Mike said, nodding. “I’m not sure if they can teach the Keldara women everything they need to know. They’re going to be very much starting from scratch and I’m even running out of labor on that side. I may end up hiring some outside personnel. But for this mission you’re going to have a supplied Czech ground-crew, the team leader at least speaking good English.”

“Well we’re going to need a good crewchief,” Kacey said. “What the Air Force calls a flight engineer. Somebody familiar with the birds. More familiar than we are would be best.”

“That’s going to be harder,” Mike said with a sigh. “If you know anybody hireable I’ll hire them, gladly. And if you can’t find somebody, if I have to I’ll tap the Uncle Sam well again. I’d prefer you find them. If you take the job and head to CR you’ll be taking a sat phone. Feel free to use it extensively. Get two. You realize that it might become necessary to solo fly on one or more missions.”

“Solo,” Tammie said. “On a hot mission?”

“Two birds, two pilots,” Mike said, stone-faced. “But I won’t tell you to. If the moment comes you’ll just do it. Or I’ve got the wrong pilots.”

“Pierson.”

“Colonel, this is Major Fowler in USAF Missions Tasking.”

“Go,” Pierson said with a sigh.

“Sir, your office has placed a tasking on us for two C-17s to loft a Ranger company to the country of Georgia and perform an airborne insertion.”

“And we’ve got a high level tasking number on it,” Pierson said. “What’s the problem.”

“The problem, sir, is that we’re flat out of birds for that period,” the major replied. “Sir, you can go through a general or the USAF Chief of Staff or the president, but the problem is that the tasker is in too quick of time. We don’t have birds we can redeploy that fast that aren’t on equal high level taskers.”

“Major, that was a JCS level tasker,” Pierson said, confused.

“Sir, you can look at my board if you’d like,” the major said. “We shot this around for quite a while because it was such a high tasker. But you’re talking about six day’s time and most of our -17s are deployed over in the AOR. And if we turn two birds we’re going to fail on equally high-level taskers. Sir, we’re scheduled out two months not two weeks. Bitch about not having enough lift or whatever you’d like, sir, I fully agree. But we’re out-tasked at the moment. The only birds we could recall would be on the Azerbaijan relief missions and I note that you’ve already taskered one of our birds from that.”

“Time to pound your nuts flat and find me two birds,” the colonel said.

“Sir, I already got out the brick,” the major said with a sigh. “You’re not the first person I’ve had this conversation with today, just the highest tasker. We did come up with an OTB idea, though.”

Pierson, who thought of himself as a master, even if he hated to admit it, of Pentagon speak locked up on “OTB” then managed to parse it. “How ‘Out-of-the-Box?’ ”

“Sir, we can fly them commercial to Ukraine. The Ukrainians finally have those new AN-70s which are essentially identical to C-130s from a jumper’s perspective. They fly and drop about the same, they just carry a bunch more troops.”

Pierson rolled that one around in his head for a moment. It had a certain allure but a dozen problems jumped up immediately in his mind.

“Ukraine is registered as a friendly country, not allied,” Pierson said, musingly. “They’re going to want to get paid for the bird time.”

“There’s a coding for payments for air-time to friendly nations,” Major Fowler replied. “We already checked. The problem from our perspective is that their aircraft aren’t mission certified. The AF mil attache in Ukraine is a former cargo pilot. I contacted him off-record and he says that he’s seen enough of their ops to be able to do a prelim cert but he’s not he could full cert them for airborne ops. He doesn’t have a problem with them being able to do airborne ops, the cert paperwork is pretty complex, though. There’s a way around that, though.”

“Don’t keep me waiting, major,” Pierson said, dryly.

“For TS ops, and I note that this op has has a codeword class over the confidential attached to the op, there’s a point at which we can skip the cert requirement due to mission confidentiality.”

“That sounds like following the letter while violating the spirit,” Pierson said. “I like it.”

“Yes, sir, I thought you might,” the major replied with a chuckle. “But here’s a stranger one, sir. Brace yourself.”

“Go.”

“How about a press release? ‘Elite US military force uses Ukrainian Air Force for training operation.’ ”

“Major, you just noted that this operation is TS codeword,” Pierson pointed out.

“The drop, though, is Confidential. We can get low-level permission to open it to the PIO with certain mission data left out. We think it would be good press and the Ukrainian government would probably appreciate it. They’ve got problems with Russia and showing that their planes can carry American special-ops… ”

Pierson really had to pause at that one. The major in tasking didn’t realize, because that side of the mission was totally black at a very high level, to just what extent it might tweak the Russians.

“Major, begin the tasking but final authority is probably going to have to come after consultation with higher,” Pierson said after a moment’s thought. “Certainly the press release will have to hold. I’ll get back to you. But get working on the tasking and I’ll get back on the rest.”

“Yes, sir,” the major said, deflated. He clearly was enjoying playing at that level.

“Major, I’m not just being an asshole,” Pierson said. “There are parameters to this mission, the reasons that it is codeworded at such a high level, that may be risked at a higher level by some of these actions. The truth is, I’m not qualified or knowledgeable enough to decide. But I can contact those that can better eval the risks and rewards.”

“They want to do what?” the Secretary of State said.

“Mike needs the Rangers to ensure security and for a maskirova,” Pierson said, sighing. “Rangers or somebody like them. I’d actually considered Polish GROM commandoes, but that was just too complicated to set up. So the Rangers are going. But then SOCOM noted that the entire company is just about out of jump pay status due to deployments, one of the reasons they’re back in the States besides to get some down-time. So we were going to throw a jump in as a sweetener and to keep them on status. But we are tasked out for birds. I double checked that one and we really are flat tasked out. There are actually a couple of ARNG units we could call up for it, but they’re out of cert on airborne ops and damned near undeployable or they’d be tasked. So that left looking outside the box. Which means the Ukrainians. They have indicated a willingness, hell an eagerness, to do a drop with our Rangers. But then I got to thinking about how the Russians would react, given what the op is all about… ”

“Vladimir Putin is going to be livid,” the Secretary of State said. “We’ve been tredding very carefully on military contact with the Ukrainians because the situation is so delicate. And this jumps right past half a dozen normal steps. The press release… Brilliant. Just brilliant.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Pierson sighed. “We’ll just fly them commercial to Tblisi, then. Mike has ammo; they can draw on him. The mission won’t be all that long and by the time they’re on their way back we’ll probably have taskable birds so they can get their jump in… ”

“Colonel, at what point did I indicate that I don’t want Vladimir Putin livid?” the SecState asked. “You were right to bring this to my attention. Here’s what we’ll do… ”