Hunter Killer

by T. Mark McCurley

  “I’m afraid to ask,” Box said after I submitted the name. “Why Vulture?”

  I smiled.

  “Because we orbit our victims so long they are just as likely to die of old age as be captured.”

  Box rolled his eyes and walked away. Eventually, the squadron voted on and won the name Raptor. It was cool and menacing. Visions of the dinosaur more than the bird ran through my head. But the name fit. Thirty days later, the Air Force revoked the name and gave it to the new F-22. The MQ-9 became the Reaper.

  After flying Reapers for so long, I needed a short retraining program before going downrange. The MQ-1B was an improved version of the aircraft I had flown for so many years, with updated avionics, data links, and targeting pod. It didn’t take me long to get used to the old girl.

  During my downtime, I concentrated on developing my squadron policies. I knew standing up a new unit encompassed building squadron programs and commander’s policies, without which the squadron would be like a rudderless ship in turbulent seas. I had to set the squadron on the right course as soon as I got to country.

  I also learned we were being sent to Djibouti to assist the Joint Task Force in the hunt for al Qaeda in Yemen. Pentagon and intelligence officials deemed the group a direct threat to the United States. We were going to provide imagery and strike capability.

  —

  Colonel Kevin “Fumez” Huyck, the 49th Wing vice commander, invited me to his office just prior to my departure. He was a tall, lanky fighter pilot with a smile that gave him a boyish charm and incredible charisma. He also exuded a competence and leadership that commanded instant respect. He wanted to see me before I deployed. I’d looked to him as a mentor since serving under him the year before. I could tell he had something important to say, so I let him speak rather than waste time with pleasantries or the typical rear-end kissing some officers expected.

  I didn’t kiss ass and Fumez didn’t seem the type who expected me to.

  “Squirrel,” he said. “You’ve got a challenge ahead of you.”

  His eyes told me he wasn’t giving advice to a new commander. This was a warning. I waited in silence.

  “There is a leadership problem in your squadron,” he said. “I don’t know what it is, but there are a lot of unhappy people in theater because of what’s going on.”

  I nodded. It wasn’t the sort of thing I wanted to hear. My mind raced to determine what could have broken down in such a short time. Was it an incompetent advon commander? Flight discipline? Maybe infighting between the operations and maintenance troops? Anything could be the problem.

  My late arrival due to my training couldn’t be helped.

  “This will be your challenge in the next couple months.”

  He didn’t elaborate. I pondered this on my flight to Djibouti. Fumez wasn’t the type to spell out solutions. It was my job as commander to figure out the problem and develop the solution, otherwise, why was I a commander? I had a hunch that part of the problem was differences between what we taught at Holloman and how Creech flew missions.

  At Holloman, we flew to the Air Force standard. Creech aviators, on the other hand, deployed with unapproved abbreviated checklists. The standard thirty-page checklist was condensed to a single sheet of paper known as the “cheater” checklist. The writing, small enough to strain the eyes, made it easy to miss steps. We’d lost two birds in one week because the pilots forgot to turn on the flight controls. They’d missed a step, a step clearly outlined in the approved checklist. I planned to purge the “cheater” checklists from the 60th. Mike told me they didn’t save that much time and only ushered in disasters. I trusted his judgment, since I had not seen one.

  That would be step one, but I had other ideas as I traveled from Holloman to Djibouti. We got delayed in Rota, Spain, for a couple of days by weather and maintenance issues. I used the time to get myself mentally ready for my opening days in command.

  —

  After three days of travel, the Boeing 767 charter plane carrying me and other airmen, soldiers, sailors, and Marines to Djibouti finally landed.

  I stepped off the plane on the civilian side of the airport into a wall of humidity reminiscent of a Mississippi summer. The air was hot and stagnant, the wetness pressing against my chest like a heavy blanket. We’d originally been scheduled to arrive in the morning, but now it was late evening. I suddenly didn’t want to know what daytime felt like.

  Djibouti, on the tip of East Africa where the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea meet, is a small desert country. Though it had once been vibrant with life, weather patterns had turned the land into sand and dust. Now only acacia trees and shrubs grew. The country has the distinction of being the hottest in the world, maintaining the highest average temperature year-round. But its location near Somalia and across the Red Sea from Yemen made it the perfect place to base forces needing access to East African nations.

  I passed through customs and emerged into the main lobby. Mosaic tiles adorned the floor like fine marble. Arches provided a uniquely Arab flair to the otherwise moldy Old World French architecture. The Djiboutians were thin, resembling marathon runners more than anything else. After a cursory look at our myriad bags and Pelican cases, they welcomed us into the country.

  Americans in civilian clothes waited for us outside the terminal with several small buses. More than twenty of us crammed into seats designed for significantly fewer. There was no standing room, as folding seats blocked the aisle. The buses had to skirt the boundary of the airfield, rolling past primitive shanties before reaching the front gate to the brightly lit Camp Lemonnier.

  I hadn’t expected near-peacetime security as we pushed through, one bus after another. Granted, security checked all our identities, but I wasn’t comforted by their relaxed posture. The buses dropped us off at an ad hoc movie theater, where we signed in and were released to meet our units. A stench tainted the air, stale and wretched to the point I could taste it. I hoped that wasn’t normal.

  Jason, a major assigned as caretaker of the unit until my arrival, waited outside next to a white extended-cab pickup. It was a HiLux, much like the ones driven everywhere else in the Middle East. Jason was a longtime Predator aviator like me. He had served as a launch and recovery pilot on previous deployments until finally being named to the advon team for the 60th.

  “Squirrel,” he called out.

  “Jason,” I said, shaking his hand with strength I didn’t feel I had. Three days of travel had worn me out.

  “Welcome to Djibouti.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I doubt I was convincing.

  A couple of maintenance troops tossed my gear into the back of the truck along with the bags of the maintainers who had traveled with me. We climbed into the truck and pulled out, giving way to a mass of other newcomers looking for their unit mates.

  Jason gave a tour as he drove.

  “We’re in the main base right now,” he said. “Navy owns the camp. Most of their offices, along with the HOA”—Horn of Africa—“staff, are in the old base with the French.”

  I looked over in the direction he pointed.

  The French forces worked in old colonial buildings, which were not well maintained. Only the Officers’ Club, really a social club for guys who outranked me, was well preserved. Large murals depicting French naval feats and heroes adorned the walls of the main room. The only paved roads were within the old French section.

  Gravel crunched under the tires as Jason turned away from the main base. Paths not much wider than a single lane interconnected over the remainder of the sprawling base. They weren’t exactly organized, snaking here and there and occasionally to wider avenues. Only walking provided any direct routes.

  “That big building over there,” Jason said, pointing at a brown prefab structure, “is the chow hall. They’re supposed to build a larger one. Started a year ago, actually.”
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br />   He laughed.

  “The local contractors mixed the concrete with salt water,” Jason said. “Foundation crumbled within a month.”

  “Nice,” I said.

  “You’ll be lucky to see the new one before you leave,” he said. “The Navy contracting isn’t moving too fast.”

  “Navy runs the base?” I said.

  “Yep,” he said. “They operate the support staff. Word of warning, if you want something done, don’t ask the Navy.”

  Massive generators the size of eighteen-wheelers passed to the right.

  “Those are the base power supply. Everything is 220 volts here, including the rooms. We couldn’t get hooked into the supply, so we are still geared to 115 volts in the squadron.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “No power junctions near the compound,” Jason said. “Djiboutians charge nearly fifteen hundred dollars a foot to cut the trench we need to connect. So we do it ourselves. The diesel contract is much cheaper.”

  I nodded.

  Huge columns of black smoke belched from the several dozen generators, each column disappearing into the blackness. I wondered where it went and how often I had to breathe it.

  Jason turned again, dropping down a runoff.

  “That the gym?” I asked, pointing at another large brown prefab building. So far, the base was far nicer than any others to which I had deployed, even Al Udeid.

  “Naw,” Jason said. “That’s 11 Degrees North. The bar.”

  “The bar?”

  “It’s a combined officer/enlisted club,” he explained. “Don’t worry, you’ll see enough of this place. The girls will dress in their party outfits and heels just to feel like they’re in the States.”

  The bar was named after Djibouti’s geographic location. The country is located 11°30' north of the equator. I envisioned a lot of discipline problems coming from a bar with easy access to alcohol. A stateside mentality would only be a conflict in combat. Jason pointed away from the club.

  “Housing’s over there.”

  The land sloped downward toward the ocean. Barracks rooms built from Conex containers lay in orderly rows extending almost the length of the base. Each Conex had two rooms. Space was limited for the more than five thousand soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and contractors based at the camp.

  “This is us,” he said.

  He guided the truck around the corner and onto a long straightaway. A brightly lit compound slipped into view. Two massive towers with pointed transmitters perched on top jutted above the fence line. It looked like a ship with two masts sailing through the African desert.

  “That’s Disneyland.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Disneyland,” Jason explained. “The camp folks see a walled-in compound with scaffolding and think of carnival rides. We look like an amusement park.”

  I guessed it fit. Only, our rides weren’t nearly as exciting, and the cost of admission was too great. Besides, the mice were probably real here, as were the villains.

  Jason parked next to a Conex just outside the compound.

  “This is you,” he said. “I’ve got a commander’s billet for you, but I need to finish packing before you can move in. Until then, this will be you while we get you spun up.”

  I looked at the key fob and smiled. It read “F-117.” The F-117 was the designation for the Air Force’s retired stealth fighter. It was funny only because I was exhausted.

  The air seemed worse down near the dorms as I climbed out of the truck.

  “What’s that smell?” I asked.

  “Burn pits.”

  Jason pointed to the south.

  “Djiboutian dump is just past the fence line. They burn everything after dark. You’ll get used to it.”

  His expression told me I wouldn’t.

  “Go ahead and crash,” Jason said. “Sleep as long as you need, no rush. Wander over when you are ready and ask for me.”

  He pointed at a white armored shack outside one of the gates that served as our entry control point.

  I nodded.

  “Thanks, Jason.”

  I dropped my gear in the corner of the room and collapsed on one of the two beds. I could unpack later. Sleep came quickly.

  —

  I awoke a few hours later. I could never sleep during the day no matter how tired I was. My biological clock always knew the sun was up and kept me awake. I couldn’t even use blackout curtains.

  I showered and prepared for my first day in Africa.

  Jason met me at the gate and ushered me into the compound. The 60th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron was at the end of the flight line. The squadron lived and worked in ten tan tents that resembled small Quonset huts. Each of the tents supported a part of the squadron—operations, maintenance, and security forces.

  “We’re the first tent,” Jason said.

  He walked me past several rows of diesel generators. These ran at a high, labored pitch, easily topping eighty decibels as they struggled to power the tents and hangars.

  The first tent was split into two sections. Four desks occupied the front half, where the operations staff sat. One wall had large plasma screens hanging on it and a bank of computers mirroring the monitors in the GCS’s outside. The other half of the tent contained a couch, an entertainment center, lockers, and a cot. The entertainment center had an Xbox and a DVD player.

  A long tube made of the same material as the tent’s skin ran the length of the ceiling. Small vents funneled cool air from the air-conditioning units outside. Black gunk coated the opaque material and collected in the Velcro-sealed duct flaps. At first I thought it was mold. Then I realized it was diesel waste. The units sat next to the generators, sucking in their exhaust and pumping it directly into the work spaces. I felt a headache coming on.

  I stepped outside and saw the GCS set up near the ops tent.

  “That’s the box,” Jason said. “It’s a dual GCS.”

  It looked like the standard Conex container, but instead of one flight rack, it contained two. Jason walked me past the tent city and toward the two large hangars. One had its clamshell door held open by chains.

  “What happened there?” I asked.

  “We just had a big thunderstorm,” Jason said. “Popped up without notice and damaged the mechanism. We can’t lower it, so we tied it up to relieve the strain on the structure.”

  Inside, the hangar was filled with smaller metal containers designed to fit inside the cargo hold of aircraft.

  “We put supply in there until we can fix it,” he explained.

  The ramp, constructed of AM-2 matting, spread out before us. AM-2 is an aluminum-based mat coated in a green rubberized paint designed as a nonslip surface. The ramp was large enough to support two large hangars for our eight Predators. Normally, only six were inside at a time. Another tent, called the sunshade, stood at the opposite end of the ramp. It had no doors and served as a prep station before the Predator launched.

  “You launch from here?” I asked.

  Jason shook his head.

  “No, we’re too close to housing for the camp’s comfort. We launch from the parking ramp about a quarter mile that way.”

  He pointed toward the sea, then walked me out to the ramp. The maintenance team had set up a horseshoe enclosure made of shipping containers. Inside, a Predator waited, two missiles hanging from its rails.

  “We’ll be launching this one shortly,” Jason said.

  “What’s with the revetment?”

  Jason shrugged.

  “That’s to keep the locals from seeing us in the ramp.”

  “As if they don’t see us take off?”

  “Exactly,” Jason said.

  I spent the rest of the day moving into my quarters near the operations tent and getting settled.

 
—

  The next day, Jason introduced me to the camp staff. The N-3 operations officer, who would be my principle support liaison, was our first stop.

  Worm, a Navy helicopter pilot, was a short, fat, pig-nosed man whose mannerisms reminded me of the Lethal Weapon character Leo Getz. He was a lieutenant commander but acted like he was an admiral. We’d just finished shaking hands when Worm started in about the gate. I looked at Jason. He smirked. The ambassador wanted a gate to hide the Predators from the civilian ramp. Jason’s boss, Stern, had initially led the advon. He’d demanded that Worm build a one-hundred-thousand-dollar sliding gate to block our ramp from the taxiway. Stern had left before I arrived but had left me with an angry Worm and this gate fiasco. I’d learn later that Stern had walked around the base demanding all kinds of support and had stepped on a lot of toes. He’d created my leadership problem.

  I still remembered staff work and the ridiculous, petty battles it generated. My guess was that Worm wasn’t going to build the gate on principle; logic didn’t factor into his choice: It was his camp and his decision. But I didn’t have time for this type of thing. We were given only sixty days to move the Predator, a technologically demanding system, to a new, unimproved location and set up full operations. Stern had had to step on toes to accomplish his objective.

  “Forget the automation,” I said. “The Seabees on base can fabricate something to meet the ambassador’s intent, right?”

  I could see Worm visibly relax, as he had expected an argument from me. I hoped the meeting would smooth some of the ruffled feathers I already sensed in the camp. I had a squadron to run, and this kind of pissing match only took me away from my mission.

  —

  I conducted an official assumption of command ceremony. It landed on Christmas Day 2010. We assembled on the AM-2 matting just outside one of the hangars. A Predator waited behind the small formation of airmen from the maintenance section.

  Normally, a unit change of command called for a formal ceremony in front of the entire squadron. The ceremony served to graphically show the departure of the former commander and the arrival of the new commander. But a unit flying combat operations twenty-four hours a day didn’t have the luxury. One of the crews was launching the next mission, and most of the maintenance section was on the ramp supporting. The security forces were manned just enough to guard the compound and couldn’t be spared. Only the roving team stood with the maintenance troops as we assembled.