by Dale Brown
“I believe you know exactly how much the contract is for, Colonel,” Patrick said. “It’s not classified.”
“Yeah, yeah”—Wilhelm mugged—“now I remember: one year, with an option for three more years, for a whopping ninety-four million dollars a year! I believe it’s the largest single contract in the theater unless your name is Kellogg, Brand and Root, Halliburton, or Blackwater. But what I meant was, General, what’s your slice? If I don’t get a star in the next couple years, I might pull the plug, and if the money’s right, maybe you can use a grunt like me in Scion Aviation International. How about it, General, sir?”
“I don’t know, Colonel,” Patrick said expressionlessly. “I mean, what is it you do around here other than act like a big fucking blow-hard?”
Wilhelm’s face turned into a mask of rage, and he shot to his feet, nearly popping the water bottle in his fist apart in anger. He stepped within inches of Patrick, face-to-face once again. When Patrick neither tried to push him nor backed away, Wilhelm’s expression changed from fury to a crocodile’s smile.
“Good one, General,” he said, nodding. He lowered his voice. “What I’ll be doing from here on out, General, is making sure you’re doing what you’re contracted to do—nothing more, nothing less. You slip up, just a red cunt hair’s worth, and I’ll see to it that your sweet rich-bitch contract is canceled. I have a feeling you won’t be around very long. And if you put any of my men in any danger, I’ll solve your little heart problem by ripping it out of your chest and stuffing it down your throat.” He half turned to the others in the room. “Is my damned briefing ready yet, Weatherly?”
“We’re ready, sir,” one of the officers responded immediately. Wilhelm gave Patrick another sneer, then stormed off to his seat in the front row. Several field and company-grade officers were lined up to one side, ready to speak. “Good afternoon, sirs. My name is Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Weatherly, and I’m the regimental executive officer. This briefing is classified Secret, NOFORN, sensitive sources and methods involved, and the room is secure. This briefing will cover the findings of the regimental staff’s study of the surveillance plan presented by Scion Aviation International for—”
“Yeah, yeah, Weatherly, we’re not getting any younger here,” Wilhelm interrupted. “The good general here doesn’t need the whole Air War College dog and pony routine. Let’s cut to the chase.”
“Yes, sir,” the operations officer said. He quickly called up the proper PowerPoint slide. “The finding, sir, is that we’re just not that familiar with the technology being employed by Scion to know how effective it’ll be.”
“They spelled it out clearly enough, didn’t they, Weatherly?”
“Yes, sir, but…frankly, sir, we don’t believe it,” Weatherly said, nervously glancing at McLanahan. “One aircraft to patrol over twelve thousand square miles of ground and over one hundred thousand cubic miles of airspace? It would take two Global Hawks to do it—and Global Hawks can’t scan the sky, at least not yet. And that’s at the widest-scale MTI surveillance mode. Scion is proposing to have half-meter image resolution available at all times over the entire patrol area…with one aircraft? It can’t be done.”
“General?” Wilhelm asked with a slight smirk on his face. “Care to respond?” Turning to his staff officers, he interrupted himself by saying, “Oh, sorry, ladies and gents, this is retired Lieutenant-General Patrick McLanahan, the veep of Scion Aviation. Maybe you’ve heard of him?” The dumbfounded expressions and dropping jaws of the others in the room showed that they certainly did. “He decided to surprise us with his august presence today. General, my operations staff. The floor is yours.”
“Thank you, Colonel,” Patrick said, getting to his feet and giving Wilhelm an exasperated look. “I look forward to working with you on this project, guys. I could explain the technology that Dr. Jonathan Masters here has developed to improve the resolution and range of ground and air target surveillance sensors, but I think it would be better to show you. Clear the airspace for us tonight and we’ll show you what we can do.”
“I don’t think that’s possible, General, because of an op we just found out about for tonight.” Wilhelm turned to a very young, very nervous-looking captain. “Cotter?”
The captain took a furtive step forward. “Captain Kelvin Cotter, sir, director of air traffic management. We just learned about a planned Iraqi operation that they requested backup for, sir. They’re going to a village north of Zahuk to do a raid on a suspected Kurdish bomb-making and underground smuggling operation—supposedly a pretty big tunnel complex connecting several villages and running under the border. They’ve requested persistent surveillance support: a dedicated Global Hawk, Reapers, Predators, Strykers, the works, plus Air Force, Marine, and Army close air and artillery support. The spectrum is saturated. We…excuse me, sir, but we just don’t know how your sensors will interact with everyone else.”
“Then pull all the other UAVs out and let us do all the support,” Jon Masters said.
“What?” Wilhelm thundered.
“I said, don’t waste all that gas and flying time on all those UAVs and let us do all the surveillance support,” Jon said. “We’ve got three times the image resolution of Global Hawk, five times the electro-optical sensor resolution, and we can give you better and faster aerial command and control for the ground support guys. We can do communications relay, act as a local area network router for a thousand terminals—”
“A thousand terminals?” someone exclaimed.
“At over three times the speed of Link sixteen—which isn’t that hard to beat anyway,” Jon said. “Listen, guys, I hate to break it to you, but you’ve been using last-generation stuff out here almost from day one. Block Ten Global Hawks? Some of you probably weren’t even in the military when they started using those dinosaurs! Predator? You’re still using low-light TV? Who uses LLTV anymore…Fred Flintstone?”
“How do you propose to tie in all those different aircraft into your communications network and the Tank…by tonight?” Wilhelm asked. “It takes days to link and verify an asset.”
“I said, Colonel, you’re using outdated technology—of course it takes that long for stuff made ten years ago or more,” Jon responded. “It’s all plug-and-play nowadays in the rest of civilized society. You just power up your planes, get ’em within range of our plane, turn on the equipment, and it’s done. We can do it on the ground, or if the planes aren’t colocated we can do it in-flight.”
“Sorry, kids, but I have to see that before I’ll believe it,” Wilhelm said. He turned to another officer. “Harrison? Know anything about what they’re talking about?”
An attractive red-haired woman stepped forward, dodging around Cotter in his hasty retreat. “Yes, Colonel, I’ve read about instant high-speed broadband networking for remotely piloted aircraft and their sensors, but I’ve never seen it done.” She looked over at Patrick, then quickly stepped off the dais and extended a hand. Patrick stood and allowed his hand to be pumped enthusiastically. “Margaret Harrison, sir, formerly Air Force Third Special Operations Squadron ops officer. I’m a contractor directing UAV operations here in Nahla. It’s a real pleasure to meet you, sir, a real pleasure. You are the reason I joined the Air Force, sir. You are a genuine—”
“Let the man go and let’s finish this damned briefing, Harrison,” Wilhelm interrupted. The woman’s smile disappeared, and she scooted back to her place on the dais. “General, I am not going to risk sacrificing the mission by using unknown and unproven technology.”
“Colonel—”
“General, my AOR is all of Dahuk province plus half of Ninawa and Irbil provinces,” Wilhelm argued. “I’m also tasked to support operations in all of northern Iraq. The Zahuk operation is just one of about eight offensives that I’ve got to keep track of weekly, plus another six minor operations and dozens of incidents that occur daily. You want to put the lives of a thousand Iraqi and American soldiers and dozens of aircraft and ground vehicles in jeopard
y just to satisfy your rich contract, and I’m not going to allow that. Cotter, when’s the next open window?”
“The Zahuk raid’s air support window terminates in twelve hours, so three P.M. local time.”
“Then that’s when you can do your test, General,” Wilhelm said. “You can get a full night’s sleep. Harrison, what UAVs can you let the general play with?”
“The Zahuk operation is using our division’s dedicated Global Hawk and all but one of the regiment’s Reapers and Predators, sir, and they won’t be serviced and ready to fly for at least twelve hours after they land. I might be able to make a Global Hawk available from down south.”
“See to it. Cotter, reserve the airspace for however long they need for their setup.” Wilhelm turned to the security contractor. “Thompson, take the general and his party to support services and get them bedded down.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
Wilhelm got to his feet and turned to McLanahan. “General, you can quiz the staff here on anything else you need. Put in your requests for aircraft service to the flight line guys ASAP. I’ll see you for chow tonight.” He started for the door.
“Sorry, Colonel, but I’m afraid we’ll be busy,” Patrick said. “But thanks for the invite.”
Wilhelm stopped and turned. “How very industrious you ‘consultants’ are, General,” he said flatly. “You will be missed, I’m sure.” Weatherly called the room to attention as Wilhelm strode out the door.
As if released from invisible chains, all of the staff members hurried over to Patrick to introduce or reintroduce themselves. “We can’t believe you’re here, of all godforsaken places, sir,” Weatherly said after shaking hands.
“We all assumed you’d died or had a stroke or something when you suddenly disappeared off Armstrong Space Station,” Cotter said. “Not me—I thought President Gardner secretly sent an FBI hit squad up on the Space Shuttle to off you,” Harrison said.
“Real nice, Mugs.”
“It’s Margaret, you dillweed,” Harrison snapped with a smile. To McLanahan again: “Is it true, sir—did you really disregard orders from the president of the United States to bomb that Russian base in Iran?”
“I can’t talk about it,” Patrick said.
“But you did capture that Russian base in Siberia after the American holocaust and use it to attack those Russian missile sites, right, sir?” Reese Flippin, an impossibly thin, impossibly young-looking private contractor with a heavy southern accent and protruding teeth asked. “And the Russians shot nuke missiles at that base, and you survived it? Hot damn…!” And as the others laughed, the accent completely disappeared, even the teeth seemed to recede to normal positions, and Flippin added, “I mean, outstanding, sir, quite outstanding.” The laughter grew even louder.
Patrick noticed a young woman in a desert gray flight suit and gray flying boots gathering up her laptop computer and notes, staying separate from the others but watching with amusement. She had short dark hair, dark magnetic brown eyes, and a mischievous dimple that appeared and disappeared. She looked somewhat familiar, as many Air Force officers and aviators did to Patrick. Wilhelm hadn’t introduced her. “I’m sorry,” he said, talking around the others crowded around him but suddenly not caring. “We haven’t met. I’m—”
“Everyone knows General Patrick McLanahan,” the woman said. Patrick noticed with surprise that she was a lieutenant colonel and wore command pilot’s wings, but there were no other patches or unit designations on her flight suit, just vacant squares of Velcro. She extended a hand. “Gia Cazzotto. And actually, we have met.”
“We have?” Jerk, he admonished himself, how could you forget her? “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”
“I was with the One-Eleventh Bomb Squadron.”
“Oh,” was all Patrick could say. The One-Eleventh Bomb Squadron was the Nevada Air National Guard B-1B Lancer heavy bomber unit that Patrick had deactivated, then reconstituted as the First Air Battle Wing at Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base in Nevada—and since Patrick didn’t remember her, and he had handpicked each and every member of the Air Battle Force, it was quickly obvious to him that she hadn’t made the cut. “Where did you go after…after…”
“After you closed down the guard unit? It’s okay to say it, sir,” Cazzotto said. “I actually did okay—maybe closing the unit was a blessing in disguise. I went back to school, got my master’s degree in engineering, then got a position at Plant Forty-two, flying the Vampires headed for Battle Mountain.”
“Well, thank you for that,” Patrick said. “We couldn’t have done it without you.” Air Force Plant 42 was one of several federally owned but contractor-occupied manufacturing facilities. Located in Palmdale, California, Plant 42 was famous for building aircraft such as Lockheed’s B-1 bomber, Northrop’s B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, Lockheed’s SR-71 Blackbird and F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter, and the Space Shuttle.
After the manufacturing lines shut down, the plants often did modification work to existing airframes as well as research and design work on new projects. The Air Battle Force’s B-1 bomber, renamed the EB-1C “Vampire,” was one of the most complex redesign projects ever done at Plant 42, adding mission-adaptive technology, more powerful engines, laser radar, advanced computers and targeting systems, and the capability of employing a wide array of weapons, including air-launched antiballistic missile and antisatellite missiles. It eventually became a pilotless aircraft with even better performance.
“And you’re still flying B-1s, Colonel?” Patrick asked.
“Yes, sir,” Gia replied. “After the American holocaust, they brought a dozen Bones out of AMARC, and we refurbished them.” AMARC, or the Aircraft Maintenance and Regeneration Center—known to all as the “Boneyard”—was the vast complex at DavisMonthan Air Force Base near Tucson, Arizona, where thousands of aircraft were taken to be stored and cannibalized for spare parts. “They’re not quite Vampires, but they can do a lot of the stuff you guys did.”
“Are you flying out of Nahla, Colonel?” Patrick asked. “I didn’t know they had B-1s here.”
“Boxer is commander of the Seventh Air Expeditionary Squadron,” Kris Thompson explained. “They’re based in various places—Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Diego Garcia—and stand by for missions as coalition forces in theater need them. She’s here because of the Iraqi operation tonight—we’ll have her B-1s standing by just in case.”
Patrick nodded, then smiled. “‘Boxer’? Your call sign?”
“My great-grandfather came into the U.S. at Ellis Island,” Gia explained. “Cazzotto was not his real last name—it was Inturrigardia—what’s so hard about that?—but the immigration people couldn’t pronounce it. But they heard the other kids calling him cazzotto—which means ‘a hard punch’—and they gave him that name. We don’t know if he was getting beat up all the time or if he was the one doing the punching.”
“I’ve seen her on the punching bag at the gym; she deserves that call sign,” Kris said.
“I see,” Patrick said, smiling at Gia. She smiled back, their eyes locking…
…which gave the others around them an opening. “When can we see this plane of yours, sir?” Harrison asked.
“Can it really do everything you said…?”
“Are you taking over for all the military units in Iraq…?”
“All right, boys and girls, all right, we have work to do,” Kris Thompson interjected, holding up his hands to stop the fast-moving questions being fired at Patrick. “You’ll have time to pester the general later.” They all jostled to shake Patrick’s hand again, then gathered up their thumb drives and papers and exited the briefing room.
Gia was the last to depart. She shook Patrick’s hand, keeping it an extra moment in her own. “Very nice to meet you, sir,” she said.
“Same here, Colonel.”
“I prefer Gia.”
“Okay, Gia.” He was still clasping her hand when she said that, and he felt an instantaneous rush of warmth in it�
�or was his own hand suddenly sweating? “Not Boxer?”
“You don’t get to pick your own call signs, do you, sir?”
“Call me Patrick. And bomber guys didn’t have call signs when I was in.”
“I remember my old ops officer at the One-Eleventh had some choice names for you,” she said, and then smiled and headed off.
Kris Thompson was grinning at Patrick. “She’s cute, in a Murphy Brown kind of way, eh?”
“Yes. And wipe that grin off your face.”
“If it makes you uncomfortable, sure.” He kept on grinning. “We don’t know that much about her. We hear her on the radios once in a while, so she still flies. She comes in to run missions occasionally, like tonight, and then she’s off again to another command center. She rarely stays for longer than a day.”
Patrick felt an unexpected pang of disappointment, then quickly shook the uncomfortable feeling aside. Where did that come from…? “The B-1s are great planes,” he said. “I hope they resurrect more of them from AMARC.”
“The grunts love the Bones. They can get to the fight as fast as a fighter; loiter for long periods of time like a Predator or Global Hawk, even without air refueling; they have improved sensors and optics and can pass a lot of data to us and other planes; and they have as much precision-guided payload as a flight of F/A-18s.” Thompson noted the quiet, slightly wistful expression on Patrick’s face and decided to change the subject. “You’re a real inspiration to those kids, General,” he said. “That’s the most excited I’ve ever seen them since I’ve been here.”
“Thanks. It’s infectious—I feel energized, too. And call me Patrick, okay?”
