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  “So you and me — we’re the old heads, right?”

  “The HAWC guys, they’ve done some shit,” Rebecca said. “I’m not saying they’re total neophytes. They’ve been in some scrapes even since I’ve known them, so I’m sure there are dozens of other adventures they’ve been involved in that I just as soon don’t want to know about. There are some things you’ll learn about this place, the missions that we prepare for, that’ll curl your toes. But technology is the answer to everything for them. Everything has to be done by a satellite link or computer. The days of sitting down at a table, unfolding a map and a frag order, and building a strike mission from scratch are definitely over.”

  “Fine with me. I’m perfectly happy to let a computer draw up flight plans and steer the plane,” Daren said. “So what do they need us for?”

  “Because as brilliant and high-tech as McLanahan and his buddies from HAWC are, they don’t know very much about running a flying unit,” Rebecca said. “McLanahan has recruited kids — and I literally mean kids—to come here.

  “I think it’s our job to build the squadron and let McLanahan and his egghead cronies build the machines. The kids these days know computers. As soon as they can sit in a chair by themselves, they know how to use a computer. What they don’t know is organization, discipline, esprit de corps, teamwork, and mutual support. It’s up to us to teach them.”

  “God, Rebecca, you’re making me feel pretty damned old right now,” Daren said wryly. But he shrugged and patted the top of the instrument panel’s glare shield. “I’ll make them a deal: If they teach me how to talk to B-1 bombers, I’ll teach them how to think like a team.”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” she said. “Listen, there’s going to be a lot of brass hanging around in the next few days. Rumor is the president and secretary of defense are going to stop by sometime in the next couple days for the nickel tour.”

  “Cool. Well, this place will certainly water their eyes.”

  “The general has this big project he wants to get funded.”

  “He briefed me on his project,” Daren said. “It’s awesome, but we’ve got a lot of work to do. You want me to stay out of sight, Rebecca?”

  Furness looked at the deck for a moment, then back at Daren and said, “Let’s just say that we’ve used some creative accounting practices to fund a few of the general’s pet projects.”

  “So you need me to play along — make like I know and approve of all the ‘creative accounting practices.’ “

  “Something like that.”

  Daren shrugged. “I’m a team player. You got nothing to worry about from me.” He smiled at her, then nodded knowingly. “It’s nice to be sharing a cockpit with you again, Rebecca,” he said. “Really nice. I miss it.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Me, too, partner,” she said, smiling back. “Me, too.”

  BATTLE MOUNTAIN AIR RESERVE BASE

  Early the next morning

  A few minutes before six-thirty in the morning, an Air Force full colonel strode quickly and purposefully over to Daren Mace in the squadron lounge — Daren’s de facto office most of the time — and practically snapped to attention in front of him. “Colonel Mace?” He extended a rigid hand; Daren stood and shook it, stifling an amused smile at the guy’s officiousness. “Welcome to Battle Mountain, sir. I’m Colonel John Long.”

  “Good to meet you,” Daren said. He looked around the room. “Is that two-star here again?”

  “General McLanahan? No, sir.”

  It was meant to be a half-joking, half-sarcastic remark, but this guy Long was all business here. “Then let’s dispense with the ‘sir’ stuff, okay, John?” Long was — contrary to his name — short, wiry, and tough-looking, with dark brown hair, beady little eyes, and a pointed nose. He looked like a bantamweight prizefighter — mean and jittery, his eyes, hands, feet, and mouth all in constant, rapid-fire motion. “We’re both full birds.”

  “But you are senior to me,” Long explained with a strange expression on his face. Then he gave Daren a conspiratorial wink and added, “But we’ll dispense with the formalities when the bosses aren’t around, how about that?” Then he relaxed and did away with the academy routine.

  Daren finally realized with faint surprise what the bastard was doing — he was reminding Daren that, although he was senior and outranked him by time in grade, Long was the boss. Daren kept his amused smile, but inwardly he was saying, Why, you little prick. We’ve known each other for just sixty seconds, and you’ve already proven what a jerk you can be.

  “As you know,” Long went on, dropping all pretext of friendliness, “there is no lead-in program for the EB-1C Vampire, so I built the training program for both pilots and mission commanders — we don’t call you ‘navigators’ anymore. It’s a pretty tough program. Normally it takes a well-qualified officer about four months to complete the course. I hope you’ve been reading the tech order, Colonel.” They took a seat. “We’ve got you on a pretty steep learning curve.”

  “I’m a fast study,” Daren said.

  “I hope so. McLanahan cracks the whip pretty hard around here.”

  “He seems like a nice guy.”

  “That’s only for the folks who don’t know him,” Long said. “Once you get to know him like I do, you’ll find he’s really the ultimate prima donna. His only saving grace is that he wears navigator’s wings. If he was a pilot, he’d be the king of the assholes.”

  Daren thought about the phrase “the pot calling the kettle black” but decided not to verbalize it.

  “So. Tell me a little about yourself,” Long said. It was an idle question. He immediately began fiddling with some paperwork moments after asking it, not really listening.

  “Not much to tell, John,” Daren replied. “I’m just happy as hell to be here.”

  “What was your last assignment?”

  “Office of the secretary of defense,” Daren replied.

  Long nodded, impressed. “Very good,” he said. “Which division? Plans? Operations?”

  “Protocol. I was in charge of flipping slides, making coffee, and emptying wastebaskets.”

  Long gave him an amused smirk and said, “Well, I guess someone’s got to do that stuff. Where before that?”

  “Beale Air Force Base, standing up the RQ-4A Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance squadron; I did Wright-Pat with the Air Force Research Labs, on UAV projects. Before that, deputy commander of the Thirty-ninth Wing at Incirlik. Before that, Air War College.”

  “Not much operational experience,” Long observed haughtily.

  Daren had no doubt that if he hadn’t gone to any schools, Long would’ve criticized him for that, and it made him wonder what Long’s background was.

  “Global Hawk, huh? All this talk about unmanned aircraft and weapons scares me,” Long commented. “If you listened to all the brass around here, you’d think the entire force is going to be unmanned in a few years.”

  Sooner than you think, Daren thought.

  “The Thirty-ninth was the support unit for units deploying to Turkey and the Middle East?”

  “Yep.”

  “Any operational command experience at all?”

  “Not since I was the DCM at the Three-ninety-fourth Wing at Plattsburgh — until they closed the base.”

  “Maintenance group commander at a Reserve unit?” Long exclaimed. “Did you do any flying?”

  “I flew both the RF-111s and the KC-135s based there—”

  “Because you had to. Your unit deployed to Turkey and got itself creamed,” Long said. “I learned that unit’s history from General Furness. What a goat-fuck that turned out to be. We’re all lucky a nuclear war didn’t break out.”

  All that wasn’t exactly true, but Daren didn’t correct him.

  “What was your last flying assignment?”

  “Seven-fifteenth Bomb Squadron.”

  “The B-2 stealth bomber squadron at Whiteman?”

  “No. The FB-111A. Pease Air Force Base, New
Hampshire.”

  “The Aardvarks? They retired the FB-111s in… in 1992?” Long said, wide-eyed. “That’s the last operational assignment you’ve had? Over eleven years ago?”

  Daren shrugged.

  “When was the last time you flew?”

  “I’ve kept current.”

  “In what — Piper Cubs?”

  “Anything I could get my hands on at Andrews and Maxwell — everything from C-37s to T-37s and T-38s, even a couple rides in F-15Bs.”

  “So you haven’t flown operationally in over eleven years, and you have no operational command experience. Not exactly what I’d call the ideal candidate for command of a bomber squadron. And you’re probably the oldest guy on the entire fucking base.”

  Prick. “Makes me wonder why they didn’t give the command to you, John.”

  Long narrowed his gaze at Mace but let the comment slide off him. “I was the ops-group commander of the One-eleventh Bomb Wing,” Long said. “I’ve already put my time in with the Bones. My skills are better utilized on the wing-command level.”

  “The One-eleventh? Sorry to hear about your last predeployment. You’ve obviously bounced back from being the only Air National Guard wing ever to go non-mission-effective in peacetime.”

  Long’s nostrils flared angrily. “Where’d you hear that nonsense?”

  “You’re denying it, John? You’re saying it didn’t happen?” Long wisely decided not to say anything. “I worked at the secretary of defense’s office, remember, John? I prepared weekly briefings for SECDEF on each unit’s mission effectiveness. I know everything that happened out in Reno.”

  “What happened to my wing in that pre-D had nothing to do with my fliers and everything to do with General McLanahan,” Long retorted. “The fix was in — we were programmed to fail from day one so he could act like he was going to save us, be the big hero, and then snatch us up and drag us off to Tonopah for his big, crazy ideas. We were doing fine before he showed up.”

  “Of course. I should know better than to listen to all the things I heard at SECDEF’s office about you guys,” Daren said with an evil smile. “What with all the hotdogging, the accidents, the procedure violations — you guys were in fine shape the whole time. What a relief to know that.”

  Long blanched. He didn’t like the idea of his name’s coming up in conversations at the secretary of defense’s office.

  “Good thing they had you, John.”

  Long’s jaw tightened at that remark, but he didn’t respond. “This wing will be fully mission-ready, Colonel — I’ll see to that,” he said. “I have my doubts about exactly what your contribution is going to be toward that effort, but I wasn’t consulted on the choice of squadron COs.”

  “I’m sure you had other wing-command-level decisions to make.”

  Long quickly decided to stop the verbal sparring. He wasn’t scoring any points at all. “All right. Well, let’s get you started.

  “The mission of the Fifty-first Bomb Squadron is to equip and deploy the EB-1C Vampire bomber for intercontinental strike, anti-ballistic-missile defense, antisatellite operations, and long-range-reconnaissance missions,” Long began. “Your squadron has twelve EB-1C Vampire bombers in the Pit.” Most everyone called the underground hangar complex the “Lair,” which Daren thought sounded much cooler than the “Pit”—it was no surprise to Daren that Long called it something less flattering. “Normally we’re able to keep nine to ten operational and one in training status, but frankly, our maintenance guys need a swift kick in the ass sometimes to keep them up to speed.”

  “I used to be a maintenance-group commander,” Daren reminded him. “And I know that no one responds well to ‘a swift kick in the ass,’ especially maintenance techs.”

  “You motivate your troops the way you see fit, Colonel,” Long said. “You do whatever it takes to get the job done.”

  “Yes, sir,” Daren said. “I see no reason we can’t keep the training birds mission-ready at the same time. We’ll figure out a way.”

  “One reason might be the rotary launchers,” Long said. “Since rotary launchers are maintenance-intensive, we generally don’t upload them in the training birds.”

  “I’ll have RLs in every bird on the line, training or not, loaded or not,” Daren said. “RLs need to be used. The bearings in those things are designed to rotate twenty thousand pounds of weapons at ten rpms at minus fifty degrees Fahrenheit at up to nine Gs. They like to be exercised frequently, or they get cranky.”

  “It puts the squadrons at a great disadvantage if we end up with a broken rotary launcher,” Long said with growing irritation. “We run the risk of going non-mission-ready if a sortie goes down because we can’t use an RL. We will not use them unless absolutely necessary.”

  “That’s why they break down, John,” Daren repeated. He noticed that Long bristled when he used his first name, but, hey, screw him — there was an unwritten code about officers of the same rank not calling each other “sir,” even if one was your boss. “If you want RLs that work, you put them in the planes, hook them up to power, hydraulics, and air, fly them, and use them. Every mission. Without fail. From now on.”

  “Hey, Colonel, how about we do it my way until you’re up to speed?” Long asked pointedly.

  “Whatever you say, John,” Daren responded.

  Long gave Mace a warning glare, then, in an effort to defuse the tension between them, said, “In my opinion it’s hard to motivate guys who work eighty feet underground. Why McLanahan chose to build the aircraft shelters underground, I’ll never figure out. For what he spent on that complex, we could’ve fielded five more planes.”

  “I did some research on this complex, John,” Daren said. “McLanahan didn’t build it.”

  “What? Of course he did. It’s been under construction for the past three years—”

  “The big runway and all the high-tech gadgets, yes,” Daren said. “But the underground complex was actually built about fifty years ago. It was first created as an underground ‘doomsday’ shelter, designed to house almost two thousand civilians plus an F-101 fighter-bomber squadron. It’s been used in various ways since then: as a classified-weapon research center, as a nuclear-weapon storage facility, even as an emergency Strategic Petroleum Reserve storage facility. Before McLanahan got the funding to turn it into an air base, Battle Mountain was the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s national civil command center for the western U.S.—”

  “Whatever,” Long interrupted. “It’s a stupid place for an airfield. That’s my bottom line. Let’s move on. We’ve had a lot of success with the EB-1C, and we’d like to maintain our string of successes. Unfortunately, General McLanahan’s recent mishap hasn’t helped our mission-effectiveness record.”

  “The crash in Diego Garcia?” Daren asked. “I remember something about it in the news.”

  “The mission was a disaster, we were embarrassed, we lost two unmanned drones and nearly lost a B-1 bomber, and we still don’t know exactly what happened,” Long said angrily. “But instead of getting his ass chewed out, characteristically, General McLanahan is treated like the conquering hero. He nearly closed down America’s most important Asian air base and disregarded orders that came from the Pentagon.”

  “He saved his plane and his crew,” Daren observed. “Crew prerogative — do whatever it takes to save your people and your aircraft. Who cares if it caused a mess on some ramp in Diego Garcia?”

  “General Furness saved the aircraft. It was probably McLanahan who pushed to keep on going with the mission.”

  “An operational test is still an operational mission — it just means the unit isn’t mission-ready,” Daren pointed out. “I’m sure the crew was responsible for bringing their plane back in more or less one piece.”

  “Apparently the Pentagon saw it the same way,” Long grumbled. He handed Daren a sheet of paper.

  “What’s this?” Daren asked.

  “What’s it look like, Colonel? Bold-print malfunction-procedu
res test. Required before every flight. Closed-book and solo effort. It needs to be one hundred percent correct, word for word, or you don’t fly. Turn it in before you step.”

  “I didn’t know there was going to be a test first,” Daren commented softly. He looked at the test — it was twice as long as any bold-print test he ever remembered having to take. “I haven’t had much time to study this stuff yet, John.”

  Long eyed the new squadron commander with a look of disgust. “Then maybe you shouldn’t be flying right away, Mace,” he said. “Maybe you need to get into the books a little more.”

  Daren did not respond. He knew he needed to get back into the tech orders, especially on this new aircraft, but he badly wanted to get back into the air. He didn’t want to spend three months in academics, just watching the rest of his squadron flying without him.

  Long shook his head, then shrugged his shoulders. “But the boss wants you flying as soon as possible, so I guess we’re going flying anyway,” he said. “Get together with your instructor pilot and complete the test before you step.”

  “You got it.”

  “I’ve built a qualification course for you and the other newbies in your squadron. You’ll start the flying phase of that course today.”

  “I appreciate that, John, but I think getting me stick time in these planes is a waste of everyone’s time,” Daren said. “It seems to me that I was hired for some other reason than to be a flying squadron commander. I need to know how they work, not how to fly them. General McLanahan has hinted about doing some special engineering mods to the fleet. I think I’d better be—”

  “Colonel, again, how about we do it my way until you’re up to speed out here?” Long asked irritably. “We’ve got you scheduled for several meetings with the folks from Sky Masters Inc. and the engineers at the Tonopah Test Range. You’ll get a briefing on the current project status and the completion timelines. Your job will be to ensure that they all meet the milestones — or give me a damned good reason why they missed it.”

  “I got a copy of the project timelines from the general. I think we can beat those deadlines,” Daren said. “We should think about bringing the engineering staff from TTR up here.”