by Dale Brown
“What predeployment line?”
“You mean you don’t know what’s going on?”
“I’ve either been drugged to hell or this ringing in my ears and this pain blocks out everything. What’s going on?”
“We’re generating SIOP alert sorties, Mark,” Furness said solemnly. “Russia invaded the Ukraine and hit ’em with low-yield nuclear weapons. Alpha Flight is uploading nukes, and the rest of the fleet is getting ready to deploy.” If Fogelman’s mouth could have dropped open in surprise, it would have—his eyes widened to nearly normal proportions at her words. “You mean you didn’t know? Nobody told you?”
“I don’t believe it … this really sucks,” Fogelman mumbled, coughing. His head dropped back on his pillow in complete exasperation. “Nobody”—he groaned, staring at the ceiling, trying to control his breathing to combat the pain—”has told me shit. Hembree, Cole, no one has been by since I’ve been awake. I guess I know why now. Shit, a nuclear attack in the Ukraine. It’s not as if we haven’t been expecting something like this—ever since Velichko ousted Yeltsin. Jesus. Who would’ve thought it? And we’re uploading nukes? I haven’t looked over my nuke stuff in a long time. I think I’ll stay here until this is over.”
“Smart move.” She smiled. After a long pause she asked, “They may not have let your folks on base to see you because of the recall and alert,” she offered. It was the only reasonable, less painful explanation as to why he had no visitors yet—unfortunately, she expected the painful reason was the true reason: no one much liked Mark Fogelman, so why should they care if he was in the hospital? “My planes have been grounded out at Clinton County for the same reason. You want me to give your folks a call? When you get a regular room they’ll get you a phone, but until—”
“The doctor called them—left a message.” Fogelman sighed. “They’re off to the Keys for the rest of the winter, I think. It’s no big deal.”
Furness never thought it possible, but she actually felt sorry for the guy. The guy crash-lands an armed bomber and goes into a coma for over twenty-four hours from a severe head injury, and when he wakes up he learns that no one had ever come to see him. Not even his parents or fellow pilots. Even if he was an ass, it still wasn’t right to just ignore the guy. “I’ll call one of your friends. Who was the last one I met? Josette? Judy?”
“It was Josette, but she’s … not available,” Fogelman said, still staring up at the ceiling. Rebecca heard the faint catch in his voice and noticed the glistening of tears. “Just forget it. I’ll be okay.”
“Are you sure?” she asked with genuine concern.
“Yes.” He coughed.
They sat in silence for several long, awkward moments. Then Rebecca sighed. “Hey, the plane made it down in pretty good shape. I met the new MG—in fact, he pulled us out of the cockpit. Turns out I know the guy, from the Persian Gulf War. How about that?” No response. “There’s a story behind how I know the guy, and when you’re out of here I’ll tell it to you over a beer at Afterburners. You won’t believe it.” Fogelman nodded noncommittally and continued to stare at nothing in particular. “Anything else I can get for you? You want some clothes, toothbrush, anything?”
“No.” He sighed.
Furness rolled her eyes in complete exasperation and got to her feet. “Jesus, Fogman, if it’s a pity party you want, this is the right time and place for it. A nuclear incident has happened in Europe, you barely survived a plane crash, and we’re getting ready to go to war with … well, I don’t know who, but we’re mobilizing for a war. But the worst thing of all is that no one has come to see Mark Fogelman in the damned hospital.”
“It’s because no one gives a shit about me.”
“No one came, Mark, because everyone’s busy generating planes and moving nukes around the ramp.” She wasn’t about to say that the real reason was that he was a shit. “You’re warm and safe and dry here, and they’re freezing their butts off trying to get some thirty-year-old bombers up on the line.”
“Well … you came to visit.” He smiled.
“Yeah, and look at me: I crash a plane, my business has been closed down because of the generation, my planes are snowed in, and I’ve got a new plane in my hangar that’s costing me ten thousand dollars a month taking up space that no one can fly and that’ll put me in the poorhouse in two months. On top of all that, I catch my jerk boyfriend sleeping around on me. Your situation looks a hell of a lot better to me right now. In fact, move your skinny ass over—I’m staying here. You go generate my sortie.”
Furness was surprised to see a painful grin spread across Fogelman’s face. “You’re making all this up just to make me feel better, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, right,” Furness said wryly, with a hint of a smile. “Listen, Mark, I’m going to the pad for some rest. I think my line comes up late tomorrow morning, so I’ll come by to visit you in the morning. Are you sure you don’t need anything?”
He paused for a moment, shrugged his shoulders, then replied, “I might as well start looking over my Dash-One to get up to speed on the nuclear stuff. If you brought my flight bag from wherever they’ve stashed it, I’d appreciate it.”
Rebecca looked at him as if she hadn’t heard right. “You … what? You want to read your Dash-One?” This was a new side of Fogelman, Furness thought. Hell, he didn’t usually get into the books unless it was time for his check ride—now he wanted to read it to pass the time! “You got it, Mark.” She got up to leave.
“Rebecca?” She turned toward him. He hesitated, an embarrassed smile on his face, then said, “Thank you for bringing me back okay.”
“We did it, Mark, not just me.”
“No … no,” Fogelman said emphatically. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, Becky. That was the first time I’ve ever flown the G-model with serious malfunctions in it. The thing always worked before, so I never much worried about the systems. When everything crapped out, I was nothing more than a damned passenger. I didn’t realize until then how much I don’t know. If I had a pilot that had the same attitude I had about flying the Vampire, I’d be dead now. Dead.” He paused again, staring at some spot far away, then added, “With a nuke going off in Europe there’s probably thousands of dead, but that doesn’t affect me a fraction of what my own death does. I was ready to punch out. I was ready to drop into the cold Atlantic Ocean hundreds of miles from here rather than trust you with the knowledge and skill I knew you had. I’m a total jerk.”
“Mark, I don’t fly with passengers, I fly with crewdogs,” Furness said, patting his arm. “I won’t step into the cockpit with someone who doesn’t know their shit. You have a relaxed attitude about flying, I’ll admit that, but you’re not unsafe—just casual. We fly simulator missions and take tests all the time, so I know you know your shit. Just don’t give up on yourself. I’ll get your books, and I’ll even get a weapons officer to come out here and give you a briefing. I know the accident investigation board will be out to debrief you as soon as they find out you’re awake. You’ll get lots of visitors now.”
“Thanks, Becky,” Fogelman said. “Back to the real world, huh?”
“If you can call it that, Mark,” Furness said. She gave him a thumbs-up and a friendly smile, a sincere one for the first time in many months, and departed.
“Rebecca!” Lieutenant Colonel Larry Tobias greeted her as she entered the squadron building. He gave her a big fatherly bear hug. A bunch of her Charlie Flight crews were in the mission planning room with their helmet bags and flight gear, getting ready to head out to generate their bombers. “It’s great to see you, Becky. I see you’re on the schedule. How’s Fogman? Have you seen him?”
“He’s pretty beat up, but he’s awake and doing okay,” she replied. “I tried to find Ted, but they say he was released.”
“They let him go home for a couple of days. I guess he got creamed harder than they thought. Some mucky-muck movie guy from New York City came and picked him up in a limo.”
&nb
sp; “Stand by for a real shocker,” Furness said. “Fogman wants his pubs. Anyone know where they stashed his books?”
“Fogman wants his tech orders?” Frank Kelly asked in astonishment. “For what—to prop up a nurse’s ass before he screws her?”
“He says he wants to study,” Furness replied, giving Kelly a disapproving glare, “and he even asked for a briefer to get him up to speed.”
“That knock on the head must’ve shaken some cobwebs loose.” Kelly chuckled.
“Hey, the guy’s on the case. Give him a break,” Tobias interjected. Rebecca realized a fellow navigator was actually defending Mark Fogelman. The war, the DEFCON change, and the nuclear-alert generation was pulling this unit together very quickly.
Properly admonished by his WSO, Kelly showed Furness where Fogelman’s pubs bag was. It was in the squadron commander’s office, marked with pieces of yellow tape to signify that they had been inspected by the accident investigation board and were cleared to be returned. A check to be sure that each crewmember’s required onboard publications were up to date was routine in investigations such as this—although they did pubs checks often, Furness would be surprised if Fogelman’s regs were completely up to date. After retrieving the bag, Furness went out to check her scheduled show time to start generating her alert line.
Rebecca had been assigned one of the last alert lines in the follow-on Charlie force, sortie 39. Because Ted Little was on convalescent leave from his minor injuries during the near-collision with the F-16 fighters, Furness was scheduled as the weapons officer, not as a pilot, and paired up with Paula Norton. The sortie was scheduled to come up at ten A.M. the next morning, but a note pinned to the bulletin board advised all crews to be ready to report in two hours early and to show one hour earlier than posted because Maintenance was getting the bombers ready faster as the generation progressed.
Staying at the alert facility was going to be impossible. Every crewmember assigned to Plattsburgh Air Force Base was there, either generating a sortie or already on alert, and they were already three to a room and breaking out the cots to put crews in the hallways. They had packed up her bags and moved her out of her room in the facility anyway—Rebecca noticed the yellow inspection stickers on all her bags, which meant that members of the accident investigation board had checked all her belongings, looking for any evidence of misconduct or inappropriate behavior that might have a bearing on the accident—prescription or controlled drugs, alcohol, a “Dear John” letter, anything.
There was a small bed-and-breakfast hotel downtown near the lake where Rebecca liked to put guests when they came to town to visit, so she checked in herself for the night, then walked the ten blocks or so over to Afterburners, the Plattsburgh aircrews’ customary hangout downtown, for a sandwich.
The place was absolutely deserted.
“Hey, Brandon,” Rebecca greeted the bar’s owner, a huge, bearlike ex-biker type with a full beard and who wore sunglasses twenty-four hours a day. “Can you find me a good table?”
“Hey, pilot, about time someone showed,” Brandon replied, escorting her to the bar and placing a menu in her hand. Rebecca waved off the glass of wine, and the barkeep put a Perrier on ice in front of her instead. Brandon only referred to his patrons as “pilots,” “navs,” “chiefs” for the maintenance guys, “brass” for the commanders, or “legs” for the nonflyers: “You’re the first crewdog I’ve had in here all night. Had to put up with a bunch of legs whining about the Russians and all the noise you’re making out on the airpatch.”
Rebecca looked around the empty bar and asked, “Well, they’re not here anymore, so what’d you tell them?”
“I asked them which sound would they rather hear,” Brandon replied, “the sound of freedom or the sound of Russian bombers screamin’ overhead? I think they got the message—go complain someplace else.”
“Thanks for sticking up for us,” Furness said. She handed the menu back to him. “Burger and fries tonight.”
“Uh oh, sounds like the old man got on your nerves.”
“How in hell do you know that?”
“You only order the gut-bomb and skids when you’re upset at the pencil-pusher,” Brandon replied. “Why don’t you let me take care of the geek for you, honey? The boys need some excitement.” He was referring to his Hell’s Angels buddies that Brandon occasionally rode with—they rarely came to the bar, but when they did they seemed to empty a room real fast. Fortunately they got along well with the military, especially the flyers.
“I can handle him, Brandon,” Rebecca replied, “but thanks. I don’t have many friends who offer to commit mayhem for me.”
“Anytime, pilot.” The big barkeep shuffled off to fire up the grill and deep fryer, leaving Rebecca alone with the big-screen TV in the corner.
The news was switching back and forth from international to national news, and all of it centered on the outbreak of war in Europe. Moldova, Romania, and the Ukraine had been pounded by waves of Russian bombers. Russian President Velichko was shown in the Politburo pounding his fist on the podium, but she couldn’t hear what the voice-over was saying he was ranting about. Thankfully, the use of low-yield nuclear-tipped missiles was not repeated, although the follow-on conventional bombing raids were fierce and probably claimed more lives than the nuclear attacks. For now the attacks were over, but the casualty estimates were astounding—nearly ten thousand dead after the first series of attacks alone. The Ukrainian capital of Kiev had been bombarded and the government had fled, their destination unknown. The Romanian government was dispersed into air raid shelters, even though the capital, Bucharest, was not under attack. Moldova was in the hands of the Russian rebels after the capital of Kishinev was bombarded and the Moldovan and Romanian troops in the western part of the country were pounded by waves of tactical and heavy bombers. Russian military aircraft were patrolling the skies all over the region, enjoying absolute control of the skies.
Now, Russian air bases near the Black Sea, such as Rostov-na-Donu and Krasnodar, were seeing large numbers of smaller jet bombers such as the Sukhoi-24 and -25 and Mikoyan-Gurevich-27 arriving there from interior bases, well within unrefueled striking range of the Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania. The Russian Air Force was encountering little or no resistance. They were taking a breather from the blitzkrieg attack and were now accomplishing a steady generation of tactical forces, preparing for an invasion. Once fully mobilized, she thought, Russia could probably squash Moldova, the Ukraine, and Romania like insects.
Jesus, she thought, if it weren’t right there on the television, she would have sworn the whole thing was like something out of a Dale Brown novel. Maybe—she sighed—that’s where Russia got the idea.
The network news cut away to the local stations. The Burlington TV station aired a teaser about “confusion over the war in Europe” causing an F-111G bomber crash at Plattsburgh Air Force Base. Rebecca noted that there was no mention of the plane being a reconnaissance jet, choosing instead to highlight its bomber role in light of the war in Europe, and she felt sick at the thought of the accident being broadcast to thousands of homes all over the area. Her neighbors, her family, her uncle in Washington would all hear about it soon. Bad enough going through the ordeal without having the whole world know about it.
She was halfway into her burger and fries and beginning to regret ever ordering them when she saw Brandon shaking hands with one of his employees. When the man turned around, she recognized Lieutenant Colonel Daren Mace, the Maintenance Group commander for the 394th Air Battle Wing. “Colonel?”
Mace turned around. He appeared to be annoyed that someone called him by his rank in this place—or perhaps annoyed that he was recognized—then pleased that it was her. Brandon handed what appeared to be a big fold of cash to him, which Mace refused. Brandon stuck the cash in Mace’s shirt pocket and slapped Mace’s chest, a friendly but definitive—and no doubt painful—warning that Brandon was not in the mood to argue. Mace then shook hands with the barkeep, moved
to the other side of the bar, and sat next to Furness.
“What was that all about, Colonel?” Furness asked, popping a french fry in her mouth.
“ ‘Daren’ in here, okay, Rebecca? We had a deal: maintenance work on his taps and condenser units, and a little electrical work, in exchange for room and board. Now he—”
“You were staying here? At the bar?”
“He’s got a nice couple of rooms on the second floor,” Mace said. “He lives on the fourth floor. He’s got rooms on the third floor, but I didn’t ask what goes on there.”
She laughed. “Knowing this place, I can guess.”
“Yeah,” Mace agreed. “Anyway, Brandon insisted on paying me for my work anyway. He may be a gangster, but he’s a decent gangster.”
“Well, at least his reputation—and the Harleys outside—keep the college kids and tourists out,” Furness said, “which means more room for crewdogs. How long have you been staying here?”
“A few weeks, right after Air War College, when I found out I was coming to Plattsburgh,” Mace replied, reaching across the bar and pouring himself a glass of Pepsi from the bar gun. “I came in here for a beer and for a phone book and ended up getting a job and a place to stay.”
“What are you doing here now? Aren’t you supposed to be at the base?”
“I’ve been at the base for the past two days straight,” Mace replied wearily. “I told them I need a break. Besides, I had to get this one last job done for Brandon. I’ve got a feeling there won’t be many breaks after tonight.”
“On your night off from fixing airplanes you fix beer taps? Incredible.”
“I guess I’m just an incredible guy,” he deadpanned. “But I just quit. I’m going to miss this place. This was a kind of Bohemian place to work, sort of Greenwich Village. Everything was pretty nice”—he waited until she was going to take another bite of the burger, then added—”except for the food.”
She stopped in midbite and asked, “What’s wrong with the food?”