The Warbirds (3 page)

The Hercules abruptly jerked and skidded to the right, running off the packed dirt of the runway. Luna shouted over the interphone, “Differential thrust!” He fought for control of the Hercules as its props picked up dirt and gravel and threw it in front of them, seriously reducing his visibility.

One of the propellers on the left side had not gone into reverse, which let the props on the right create more drag, flinging them to the right. Both pilots’ hands bounced off the throttles. Luna fumbled for the controls as he fought to keep the Hercules from skidding further to the right. Finally, he found the levers and instinctively threw number four prop on the right out of reverse. On a normal runway, he would have returned all four to idle, but he needed braking action if he was to stop the heavily loaded cargo plane in the little space that remained.

With a prop on each side giving him even braking, Luna regained control of the big cargo plane as it hurtled straight for the crowd of scattering villagers.

16 July: 1100 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 0700 hours, Washington, D.C.

Colonel Eugene S. Blevins stalked into the Watch Center in his normally dismal early morning mood. If anything, his natural state of depression was more intense, for
he had convinced himself that his career was in jeopardy. The brigadier general selection board was to meet soon and nothing spectacular had happened to him. And unless his sponsor could do something for him, Blevins was going to be just another “nobody” name for the board to consider.

A scan of the big situation boards did nothing to improve his disposition.

The on-duty watch commander, Tom Gomez, was sitting in the battle cab, the glassed-in balcony that overlooked the entire operation, and had seen Blevins studying the boards. When he caught Blevins’ eye, Gomez motioned him to come up the stairs for an update briefing and go through the motions of a change of command.

The Pentagon tried hard to promote the image of a formal, serious procedure, and Blevins believed that it should be one, given the responsibilities involved. But off-going Watch Commander Gomez was of an entirely different disposition and not concerned with formalities that he considered meaningless. His total disregard of established procedures infuriated Blevins, smacking as it did of unprofessionalism. But Gomez was a colonel and slightly senior to Blevins, so what could he do about it? Besides, the man was nothing but a broken-down fighter pilot on his last assignment before retirement. It irritated him that a pilot had been placed in such an important position only because he wore wings and had combat experience in Vietnam. Big deal. He, on the other hand, had done yeoman labor in Intelligence, working up through the field. He knew the subject inside and out; he was one of the people who knew how to make the system
work
. The other colonel was a Johnny-come-lately, and all because he wore wings on his chest.

The sergeant monitoring the entry control point into the battle cab had been watching Blevins since he stepped onto the main floor. Master Sergeant John Nesbit had worked many shifts with Blevins and knew what the colonel was thinking. He shuddered at the thought of spending a twelve-hour shift with a man full of self-pity.

Colonel Tom Gomez read the sergeant’s mind. “Hey, Sarge, he won’t hurt you. Might frighten the staff a bit if
his coffee is cold, but he knows this business. He’s not a twenty-watter, that’s for damn sure.”

Blevins arrived at the door, awaiting entry. Nesbit pushed a button, unlocking the door. The sergeant gave an audible sigh, looking at the two colonels. Blevins resembled a field grade officer, slightly over six feet tall, carefully styled dark hair, with an immaculately tailored uniform. Tom Gomez was two inches shorter, stocky, cut his graying hair in a brush cut, and shambled about unconcerned with his uniform.

The Watch Center in the Pentagon was a pivotal fusion point between Intelligence, Communications, and Command and Control. During a crisis involving the military, it was the primary intelligence center for the War Room. When a crisis started to form, the colonel on duty recalled the three Air Force generals that made up the Watch Center’s battle staff. The generals gathered in the battle cab overlooking the main boards and decided what information should be upchanneled to the War Room. Their function was critical in preventing the higher echelons of command from being inundated with irrelevant information.

Also, the generals or the watch commander could initiate orders to certain Air Force operational units should a fast-breaking situation require an immediate response. Each colonel was aware of the visibility that went with the position; provided the right incident happened, a good performance could result in promotion. However, there was a risk. If the colonel produced an interpretation of events that ran counter to the preconceived notions of the generals on the battle staff, the watch commander was in for some rough handling.

Over the course of a year, Nesbit had seen both Blevins and Gomez in action during a number of crises, or “flaps.” Blevins had proven himself to be very adept at avoiding any controversy or producing his own estimate for the generals to scrutinize or criticize. He always had an intelligence analyst from the main floor available to analyze the situation and take any heat from the generals. Gomez was totally different and the junior officers still
talked about the way he had handled the latest in a long series of incidents in the Persian Gulf.

General Lawrence Cunningham, the Air Force chief of staff, had put in an unexpected appearance in the battle cab shortly after an unidentified fighter had bombed a Kuwaiti oil refinery. He had permanently relieved the on-duty watch commander before Gomez reported in for not giving him the answers he wanted. As soon as the colonel had cleared the door, Cunningham had hit him with a barrage of questions, a few well-chosen expletives, and a very pointed comment about Gomez’s career expectations if some sense wasn’t made out of the situation.

Gomez had only said, “Excuse me for a moment, sir. I have to get my ducks lined up.” He had left the general to stew for three minutes while he reviewed the message traffic. After a brief scan of the situation boards, he was sure of the situation and had turned to Cunningham. “This was a hit-and-run raid by the Iranians. There won’t be any follow-up. Right now the only fires being lit are here, not in the Gulf.”

Cunningham’s reaction amazed everyone in the cab, most of whom had just put Gomez down as a candidate for castration. He nodded in agreement and left the battle cab. The Watch Center reverted to its normal routine, monitoring the military disposition, Order of Battle (OB), of potential enemies. The analysts liked to think of their job as guarding against the “Pearl Harbor option.”

Most information received by the Watch Center was already processed and evaluated. However, something happened to common sense when raw data moved through the system. Tom Gomez had learned a valuable lesson when one of the analysts correctly interpreted a series of events that had almost increased the nation’s DEFCON status. A large portion of the Soviets’ civil air fleet, Aeroflot, had been suddenly grounded after landing at the Red Army’s collection bases for deployment. The analyst, a female captain, had called it correctly when she pointed out that the aircraft had gone into the bases to pick up the annual replacements for the Red Army in Eastern Europe. They had not launched because the weather at their drop-off points in East Germany was below landing minimums.
Further, she observed that the number of aircraft grounded in Russia was the same as that used every year for the redeployment of troops to Eastern Europe.

Gomez learned something else from that incident. He had concentrated on the analyst’s legs and not on what she was saying. He later realized that he had brought too many preconceived ideas about women over from his operational experiences in tactical fighter aircraft. It came as a shock to him that a woman could think and be pretty at the same time.

He never made that mistake again.

Master Sergeant Nesbit resigned himself to the next twelve hours as Blevins adjusted his controlled area badge, insuring its straight alignment. The sergeant groaned as Blevins marched up to Gomez who was sitting in the center captain’s chair at the main console. Blevins snapped a smart salute and reported in. “Morning, Colonel Gomez. Colonel Blevins reporting for duty.”

Nesbit groaned louder.

Tom Gomez waved a salute back to Blevins. “It’s all yours, Gene.” An intriguing thought tickled the back of Gomez’s mind. With a little effort, he could arrange to have a series of perfectly valid, yet totally insignificant facts funneled to the pompous colonel. If he did it right, the man would screw himself into the floor before he decided what to do. There were plenty of willing conspirators down on the main floor.

Erasing the thought, Gomez gave Blevins a quick rundown of the current situation. “Europe’s quiet. The Fourth Air Regiment in Romania has stopped its conversion to Flogger Gs. Not sure why yet. Captain Marshall thinks the aircraft are being diverted to Ashkhabad, near the Iranian border.”

Gomez began to type a series of commands into the computer, calling up different display maps on the situation boards. He paused over North Africa. “The Grain King food and relief flights for the UN are still going full bore in the southern Sahara. The buildup at Kano in Nigeria as a central staging base is working well. There are six C-130s operational down there today. But Sara is wor
ried. She believes the Libyans are starting to get antsy again.

“Well, she’s wrong,” Blevins said. “The Libyans have bought into the UN food relief missions as a way to create some good will. That should be perfectly
obvious
to everyone in the Watch Center. They’ve even given the UN permission to use their airfields and airspace.”

What a shame, Gomez thought, that he doesn’t have the courage to argue with the generals this way when he knows he’s right. “Nothing has changed in the Mideast,” Gomez continued. “Iran is its usual mess, quiet for the moment. Most of the analysts think the fighting will start up again. They don’t have anything definite.”

Blevins interrupted him, nodding in agreement. “Like I’ve said many times, the analysts don’t have the big picture, but they are right this time. Iran and Iraq have worn themselves out but Iran is still spoiling for a fight.”

Gomez continued, “The reports of an alliance between Iran and Afghanistan were only rumors. The Kurds are back at it, fighting both Iraq and Iran.” He sped over the rest of the world, ending on the Soviet Bloc. He called up the Warsaw Pact’s OB by type, strength, and location. “No major changes other than the normal seasonal ones. Just that glitch about the Fourth Regiment Floggers. Any questions?” Gomez asked.

“Thank you, Colonel Gomez, no questions,” he replied, stiff as a board.

“See you next time around,” Gomez said, rising from the captain’s chair and disappearing down the stairs onto the main floor.

Blevins leaned over the main console, peering at the situation boards. He noticed that Gomez was still on the main floor talking to Captain Sara Marshall. They were engaged in an intense conversation and Blevins hoped that the colonel was reprimanding her for the length of her skirt, which was always shorter than the regulations allowed, revealing her shapely legs. Blevins wished he could make the junior officers see the relationship between meeting the Air Force’s regulations on dress and appearance and doing the job right. Too often, he’d seen shoddy job performances and sloppy appearances go hand in hand. If
her sudden laughter meant anything, Gomez was not talking hemlines.

Frustrated, he turned his attention to the boards and called up NATO’s Order of Battle, placing it opposite the Warsaw Pact’s. Nothing had changed since his last shift. Although the display was exactly as he expected, he still found it frightening. He doubted that any politician could survive an election if the American public could see and understand those numbers the way he did. Blevins was echoing an article of faith held by the generals on the Watch Center’s battle staff.

The state of depression that had curdled the colonel’s existence returned to dominate his thoughts.

Something
had
to happen if he was to shine.

He clicked over possible scenarios in his mind, and what he would do in each.

If something didn’t happen soon, he would never make general.

16 July: 1200 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 1400 hours, Alexandria, Egypt

“What I need is a ghost writer for these damn things,” Fairly muttered, disgusted with himself. Normally he would write an efficiency report in fifteen minutes. The squadron commander glared at the blank Officer Effectiveness Report (OER), AF Form 77, and willed the words to appear on the OER. Nothing happened. He carefully printed Jack’s full name in the appropriate space in neat block letters. No other words came to him.

He tried to find the right phrases by staring at Jack, then Thunder. Both were slumped in the two most comfortable chairs in the alert shack. Jack was thumbing through an old
Playboy
magazine while Thunder was reading a book on the Civil War. Fairly threw down his pencil. “Jack, let’s go into the kitchen. I need to talk to you.”

Jack immediately followed the older man into the small kitchen, pausing to shoot a glance at Thunder, who arched one of his bushy eyebrows in reply.

“I guess this is why the boss pulled alert,” Jack mumbled, calculating there was bad news waiting for him. He
followed Fairly into the small kitchen and closed the door behind him.

“Sit down and relax, Jack. We need to talk about your career.” Relief flowed over Jack; he had been certain that Ambassador Pearson had sent down the word to crush him. The lieutenant colonel was going through the motions of doing annual career counseling of junior officers as the regulations required. Fairly was doing “square filling,” Jack decided.

“Jack, I’m worried about you. You’re one of the best pilots in the wing. But you’re all balls and no forehead once you crawl out of the cockpit. Get your act together. Try to remember that the Air Force wants you to act like a responsible officer on the ground. Because if you don’t…”