by Dale Brown
Just then, Furness and the other five people at the table got up and, in a mad scramble, changed seats with someone else. The barman couldn’t believe what he was watching—it was a mini-Chinese fire drill at the table.
When they were finally seated again, someone else blurted out, “Stoli up with a twist,” and they changed seats again.
“Glenfiddish neat with a Fosters chaser …” Another seat change.
“Crazy Billy, no lime, tall …” They weren’t sitting down this time, only changing seats every time another drink order was fired off.
“Bowmore and water, Islay pre-1980 …”
“Dos Equis with a lime …”
The melee had attracted a lot of attention by this time. The barman waited patiently until they were seated again. Furness asked with a smile, “Okay, sport, you got all that? Or do you want to go get that pencil now?”
Without batting an eye, the barman pointed to her and recited, “Eagle Falls cabernet sauvignon, 1989 estate.” To the next person, he said, “Crazy Billy, no lime, in a tall glass. You want salt?”
“N-no …”
“Fine. Bowmore scotch and water …” He recited them all, perfectly, without a hitch. “Separate checks or all together? You want popcorn, too, lady?” Furness and the others were too shocked to respond, so the man just gave them a smug grin and stepped away. The onlookers applauded, and even a few of the stunned crewdogs at the table had to clap for him.
“He’s pretty amazing,” someone offered.
“He looks GI,” Furness decided. “Anybody know him?” No one did. “Whoever he is, I’d love to have him on my crew.”
“Or would you just love to have him, Becky?” someone teased.
Furness gave a sly grin, which made the others at the table give her a knowing “Ahhhh …” But she added, “Nah, I don’t know where’s he’s been. He could have the whole viral history of Plattsburgh State College’s coeds implanted on his snake for all I know. Anyway, he’s got more brains than Fogman could ever hope for.”
Just then, the man returned … with a tray of six tall beers. “Six Buds, six bucks,” he said.
Tobias started chuckling, but Kelly blurted, “What is this? This isn’t what we ordered.”
Furness was surprised at first, then pissed. “Take this back and bring us what we ordered.”
“You’ll pay me six bucks and drink your beers or you can all get on your fucking knees and kiss my ass,” the man snapped, glaring at each and every one of them, including Furness. “I told you I wasn’t your waiter, but I played your shitty little game, and now you got your drinks. You can pay up, shut up, drink up, and get back to the base, or we can take it outside to the alley and I’ll make you wish you never came here tonight. What’s it going to be, children?”
The group was too stunned to reply. Furness considered going to the manager, but Tobias wisely reached into his pocket, pulled out a ten, and gave it to him. The man withdrew his wallet to make change, but Tobias waved it off.
“Have a nice evening,” Lieutenant Colonel Daren Mace said, then walked away, picked up his tanks, and carried them into the back room. They didn’t notice the cellular telephone stuck in his back pocket, the one that all military personnel knew as belonging to a Wing staff officer.
“Whew,” Furness said finally, after a long, stunned pause. “I …
I think I’d like to get to know that guy better.” Everyone at the table knew they had just been told off by one of the best.
“I’m married with two kids,” Frank Kelly said, “and I’d like to get to know him better.”
Everyone laughed.
PART THREE
The grim fact is that we
prepare for war like
precocious giants, and for
peace like retarded pygmies.
—Lester Bowles Pearson
SEVENTEEN
394th Air Battle Wing Aircrew Alert Facility, Plattsburgh AFB, NY The Next Morning
As usual when Furness woke up after her first night in the alert facility, she didn’t know where she was. The windowless rooms were completely dark, illuminated only by the red 3:45 AM LED numerals on the alarm clock—again, she had awakened several minutes before the alarm. The feeling of vertigo was so bad that she had to feel for the edge of the bed and the cold whitewashed concrete wall before attempting to move out of bed. It reminded her of the reason why she had no curtains over the triple-paned windows on her Vermont farmhouse, and she suddenly longed for its quiet privacy, its isolation, its serene beauty.
Showering in the open-stalled bathroom in the alert facility brought her back to reality very quickly, and Rebecca got out of there as fast as possible. In twenty minutes she was dressed. She was ready to head upstairs to get breakfast when the phone startled her.
“Becky? Ben here.” It was Ben Jamieson, the Alpha Flight commander, who was acting as duty officer in the facility for the evening. “You better get up here. Fogelman just made an ass out of himself—and you.”
In the CQ office, her heart sank—Colonel Hembree was waiting for her along with … Mark Fogelman. At least it looked like Fogelman, except this character had a shaved head! “Fogman?” she gasped, forgetting for a moment that Hembree was standing there. “Is that you … ?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Fogelman replied matter-of-factly, his voice uncharacteristically official and disciplined. Not one hint of his usual smug grin.
“Major Furness,” Hembree began irritably, “maybe you can explain what’s going on here. Lieutenant Fogelman claims that you ordered him to cut his hair like this. Is this true?”
“Wha— No, it’s not true!”
“With all due respect, ma’am, you’re not telling the truth,” Fogelman said. The word “ma’am” coming from Fogelman’s lips sent a chill down her spine, like fingernails down a chalkboard. “I distinctly remember you giving me an order to cut my hair, and then you ordered me to cut it all off.”
“I did no such thing!”
“I will be happy to get witnesses for you, sir,” Fogelman told Hembree. “It was right after the open-ranks inspection. She was upset at me after the inspection, and she warned me that I had better not show up today without a haircut, and then she ordered me to cut it all off, to make sure I passed inspection, I suppose. Why would I do this unless she gave me a direct order?”
“Because you’re a little prick, that’s why, Fogelman.”
“That’s enough, Major,” Hembree said. “Addressing a fellow officer like that is out of line, and I won’t stand for it, hear me? As far as your haircut, Lieutenant—well, it’s within the regs, and you did it to yourself, so you have to deal with it. You are dismissed.” Fogelman snapped to attention, turned, gave Furness a satisfied grin, then departed. “Major, I want a word with you.” Hembree walked into the adjacent facility manager’s office and closed the door after Furness followed him inside.
“Rebecca, what the hell is going on here?” Hembree asked angrily. “I’ve got the wing commander and the commander of Fifth Air Battle Force coming out here in twenty minutes to view this exercise, and what’s he going to see? Two of my crewmembers arguing and sniping at each other like children. What is with you two?”
“I told him to get a haircut and to get his mobility gear together, that’s all,” she replied. “He made a joke about cutting off all his hair—hell, I didn’t think he’d really do it. I’m not trying to bust his nuts, Dick, but he shows up for work clearly out of uniform and without his required equipment, and he fights me at every turn—”
“Becky, I could see you two weren’t getting along, but I was hoping that would change,” Hembree said wearily. “I thought he’d get over this attitude problem he has, especially toward you, and I was hoping you’d straighten him out. I was wrong on both counts, but I’m especially disappointed in you. Fogelman has a suck attitude—I think bringing him out of C Flight so early was a mistake—but you have got a chip on your shoulder the size of a concrete block. Bravo Flight does
n’t need someone to constantly challenge them like you do.
“As soon as this exercise is over, I’m splitting you two up and putting you in C Flight,” the Colonel said. “Martin Gruber will take B Flight, and you’ll take C Flight. I’ll put Fogelman with Gruber or Alomar.”
“Dick, I don’t deserve this,” Furness said. “I spent almost twelve months in C Flight, longer than any other instructor. When Fogelman came out of C Flight four months early and before qualifying on PAVE TACK, I recommended against it. Give me Gaston from C Flight and—”
“It’s already been decided, Rebecca,” Hembree said. “Listen, your experience and knowledge will be good for C Flight, your effectiveness reports will still go to the one-star for his signature, and you and Fogelman won’t be in each other’s hair.”
“If you send me down to C Flight you’ll be giving Fogelman what he wants—the satisfaction of busting me.”
“This is not a demotion, Rebecca, it’s a change that reflects your management style, your expertise in the weapon system, and the need for your knowledge with the newcomers,” Hembree said. “The newcomers in Charlie Flight need a strong hand, and your style would fit in better there. Maybe next time you’ll think more carefully about what you tell your troops. You like playing games with people’s heads, and this time it cost you. And lay off the name-calling in front of the staff—if this shit gets outside the squadron, you may both find yourselves out on the street. Now let’s go to work. Your flight will be the first ones through the range today, and half the Air Combat Command will be watching. I want your people firing on all cylinders this morning. Anything else?”
Furness didn’t want to argue the haircut incident anymore—it made her look bad. “Are you going to fly with us?”
“General Cole and Vice Commander Lachemann of Fifth Air Battle Force want to observe our deployment procedures, so I’ll be on the ground with them while your flight does their bomb runs,” Hembree replied. “Alpha Flight has landed from its ‘deployment’ but hasn’t configured for strike yet, so I’m sure the brass will want to watch that, and C Flight is getting ready to ‘deploy.’ I’ll probably fly in C Flight’s first strike mission after the brass leaves.”
“One more thing, Dick—nothing to do with Fogelman. I’ve noticed that things seem really … well, tense around here. Is anything imminent? Are we going to be mobilized?”
“Who the hell knows, Rebecca?” Hembree replied irritably. “Nothing specific has come down. Everyone’s looking for another Desert Storm, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. No, no one’s going anywhere. You just worry about your flight for now. Both Cole and Lachemann want to see the bomb-run video when your planes land, and they want to see shacks. Let’s make sure it happens.” Hembree stormed out of the office.
Well, that was a great way to start the morning. Chewed out by the squadron commander. And now she had to go fly with Fogelman, the little sonofabitch.
About an hour later, after a quiet breakfast during which Furness and Fogelman silently glared at one another and other crewdogs avoided the lightning bolts shooting between them, the flight held a mass briefing at the squadron. As promised, Brigadier General Cole and Major General Lachemann, a tall, hefty man with dark hair, dark complexion, and an even darker mood, sat in on the briefing. It was times like this, Rebecca thought as she stood to begin the briefing, that she wished she wasn’t a flight commander.
After a few minutes, Furness was about to run through the sortie when a beeper on the two-star general’s belt went off, and he and Cole quietly excused themselves, ordered that the briefing continue without calling the room to attention, and trotted out. For the first time that morning, Furness felt able to relax and continued her briefing. She spoke about the mission objectives, training rules, the tactical situation, current intelligence, the overall route, formation procedures, force timing, and join-up and recovery procedures.
When she was finished, Larry Tobias then briefed the low-level flying route. Furness asked for questions, then concluded the briefing and turned it over to Colonel Hembree.
“As you can see,” Hembree began, “we’ve got some high-powered visibility today. Everyone wants to know how the Reserve fast-burners will perform. What the generals want is shack scores. What I want is safe, heads-up flying. I want it done right. I want a successful completion of our training objectives, but if the shit starts piling up and you are getting overloaded, fly your airplane right-side up and away from the ground, stop whatever you’re doing, and think. Fly aggressively, but fly safe and fly smart. Now get out there and let’s show these off-base generals what the Eagles can do.”
The crews headed out to collect their gear, and loaded up into crew buses and headed to the flight line. One by one, the bus driver deposited the crews in front of their planes. The crew chiefs for each plane, who had already been out on the flight line for the past five hours, thankfully jumped on board the crew bus to get warm as it stopped, and the crews went over the maintenance logs and preflight inspection checklists in the warmth of the bus before venturing out into the cold. After reviewing the maintenance log, they collected their gear and headed toward the plane.
Working the RF-111G Vampire bomber could best be described as a series of checklists—virtually nothing was done in or around the plane, on the ground or in the air, without referring to a checklist. Before even setting a bag inside the cockpit, the first few items of the Before Preflight Inspection checklist were run right from the ladder, looking into the cockpit with a flashlight without touching anything: external power disconnected, ejection handles and capsule life support systems levers pinned, and battery and external power switches off. It was dangerous just getting near the sleek, deadly aircraft without double-checking to make sure it was safe to start working around it.
After stowing all the personal gear in the plane, the Power-Off Exterior Inspection, or “walkaround,” was next. Usually this inspection was accomplished by both crewmembers, especially with weapons aboard, but Furness and Fogelman only had the reconnaissance pods uploaded, so Fogelman went right to work preflighting the camera pods.
The RF-111G reconnaissance plane carried two electronic reconnaissance pods, mounted like external fuel tanks on the number three and six wing weapon pylons. The UPD-8 pod, mounted on the right-wing pylon, was a synthetic aperture radar that took high-resolution radar images of terrain or seas around the plane for a range of up to fifty miles. The radar images could pick out small vehicles hidden under foliage or in bad weather, and had enough resolution to pick out tank tracks in sand or dirt. The AN/ATR-18 Tactical Air Reconnaissance System pod on the left wing was similar to standard optical camera pods, with telescopic, wide field-of-view, panoramic, and infrared cameras for use at night, but the photographs were digitized, stored on computer chips, and data-linked to ground stations up to two hundred miles away. In this way, the results of their photo runs could be transmitted and distributed to friendly forces hours before the plane landed and hours before standard film images were available.
Fogelman simply assumed everything was okay, swept his flashlight around the pods, then scrambled back up into the cockpit to get out of the cold. He stowed his flying jacket behind his seat, closed both canopies, and slapped his left fist against his open right hand, a signal to the crew chief to get warm air flowing inside the cockpit.
The crew chief, Staff Sergeant Ken Brodie, trotted around to Rebecca Furness. He knew that the reconnaissance pods needed power soon to keep from “cold-soaking” the electronics, and he knew that it was damn cold in the cockpit—but he also knew that the external power cart would create a lot of noise, especially for someone up inside the wheel-well areas as Furness was, so he thought it would be better to ask first: “The wizzo wants power,” he hollered in her ear over the sound of power carts starting up nearby.
That was the first time Rebecca noticed that Fogelman wasn’t going to do the walkaround with her, and it made her angry. “Wait until I’m clear of the main
wheel well,” Furness told Brodie. “Let him cold-soak for a while.”
A few minutes after that, Rebecca finished her exterior inspection, climbed into the cockpit, and began her interior power-off, before engine-start, and engine-start checklists. At the briefed time, Furness called for the crew chief to get into position and began the engine-start procedures. Two minutes later, the engines were started and the power-on preflights were begun.
Most of the upgrades on the RF-111G Vampire bomber had been done on the weapon systems officer’s side. The navigation, bombing, and reconnaissance avionics were all high-speed digital systems, so getting the ship ready to navigate was virtually automatic and very easy: turn ten switches from OFF to ON or STBY.
All that was left was to preflight the rest of the avionics, check the mission computer for the proper preset data points, and check the reconnaissance pods. All the checks were automatic and mostly done by computer. Preflighting the reconnaissance pods was simply a matter of making sure they had power, checking the data-link system was active, and making sure the radar could transmit—Fogelman did all his checks without referring to his checklist. In less than fifteen minutes, he was ready to go.
Rebecca’s checks took substantially longer. After twenty-five minutes, her checks were complete. At the preplanned check-in time, she switched to the squadron common frequency. “Thunder Flight, Thunder One, check in and advise ready to taxi.”
“Two.”
“Three. Getting a new videotape. Ready in two.”
“Four.”
“Five.”
“Six. I need a few more minutes.” Everyone was on frequency. As usual, Paula Norton needed more time to complete the exhaustive after engine-start and before-taxi checklists.