by Dale Brown
“Even Strategic Command is supporting planning and targeting for nonnuclear conflicts, using all their staff and computers that were originally dedicated to planning World War III against Russia and China to plan missions in every area in the world where any level of conflict could break out. Nuclear warfighting is all but dead. You have to speak in terms of ‘network-centric warfare’ and ‘low-density conflict.’ Your Air Battle Force sounds like the kind of thing Houser wants to transform Eighth Air Force into, but he wants the shooters to support intel, not the other way around.”
“Then I’d better get up to speed as soon as possible,” Patrick said.
“That sounds pretty positive to me, General,” Griffin said. “I take it you’ll stay on with us for a while?”
“Tagger, to be honest, there wasn’t really that much chance I’d just get up and leave,” Patrick admitted. “I’m not the kind of guy who gets out because I don’t like the working conditions. I’m an Air Force officer, and I go where I’m assigned. If they asked me to get out, I’d be out of here—but they didn’t. Now they have to contend with me.”
“Contend with us,” Trevor Griffin said. He extended his hand, and Patrick shook it enthusiastically. “Welcome to the Nine-sixty-sixth, sir. I think we’ll set this command on its ear—and have some fun doing it.” Patrick was about to say something, but Griffin interrupted him with an upraised hand. “And I truly believe they’ll eventually give you your stars back.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” they heard a voice behind them say.
They turned and found two men standing in the doorway—the command’s chief master sergeant, Harold Bayless, and the commander of the Air Intelligence Agency, Major General Gary Houser. Griffin glanced accusingly at Bayless, and the chief returned his look with a smug smile—they both knew that Griffin had asked the chief to notify him when the commander arrived in the headquarters, but instead Bayless had facilitated this little surprise arrival and eavesdropping opportunity.
“Room, ten-hut,” Patrick said, and both he and Griffin stood quickly and snapped to attention.
Gary Houser stepped over to Trevor and Patrick, keeping his head up to emphasize his height advantage over the two. Gary Houser was at least seven inches taller than Patrick, with a beefy frame, big hands, a square face, dark eyes, and closely cut hair to deemphasize his baldness. After he moved close to both officers in the room, he tried to look into their eyes to read their expressions, but of course he towered over both of them, especially Griffin. Both Griffin and McLanahan stayed at attention, eyes caged.
“So,” Houser asked in a low voice, “which one of you clowns do I have to contend with?” Neither one replied. Houser gave Griffin a warning glare, put his hands behind his back, and went closer to Patrick. “Patrick McLanahan. Long time no see. My long-lost crew navigator who supposedly goes TDY to Fairchild but who mysteriously disappears off the face of the earth and ends up getting involved with cockamamie ideas such as the Border Security Force and…what was that other group? The Night Riders? Night Invaders?”
“Night Stalkers, sir,” Patrick replied.
“Right…the Night Stalkers. Big, bad, vigilante assassination squad. Are you a big, bad assassin now, Patrick?”
“No, sir,” Patrick replied, still standing at attention.
“You a close and personal friend of that big shot Kevin Martindale?”
“No, sir.”
“Are you going to be national security adviser, secretary of defense, or maybe even the fucking president now?”
“No, sir.”
“So you just screwed the pooch too many times at this new super-duper bomber attack base up in Nevada, and you got your ass kicked all the way down to me by SECDEF, is that it?”
“No, sir.”
“Then why are you here, Patrick McLanahan?”
“Reporting as ordered, sir.”
“Why did you lose a star, ex–Major General Patrick McLanahan? Why am I getting a disgraced and demoted general officer who has no intelligence experience, no prospects for promotion, and no future in the United States Air Force?”
Looking straight ahead, standing stiffly at attention, Patrick replied, “Because you’re one lucky son of a bitch, sir.”
Houser’s faced puffed, his eyes bugged out, and for a moment it appeared as if he’d explode with rage. Then he laughed out loud, guffawing directly—and purposely—into Patrick’s face. “Good one, nav!” he barked. “Sounds like you finally got yourself a sense of humor. About fucking time.” He glanced at Griffin and shook his head. “Look at you two, standing at attention like academy plebes! Stand at ease, stand at ease. I don’t want you jokers to pass out on me from the strain.” Griffin relaxed enough to go to parade rest.
Houser stuck out his hand, and Patrick shook it. “How the hell are you, Patrick? Good to see you.” To Griffin he said, “This guy was on my BUFF crew for three damned years. He went from a know-nothing, pud-pounding kid to the best bombardier in SAC, and that’s no shit. We won the Fairchild and LeMay trophies two years in a row and won a shitload of other awards, too. During a competition run, he dropped a shack bomb with a completely failed bomb-nav system and helped the crew shoot down an F-15 fighter. No lie.” He slapped Patrick on the shoulder and added, “All under my outstanding leadership and tutelage, of course.” Both Griffin and McLanahan were careful not to forget to smile and nod in agreement. “You done with him, Tagger?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Follow me, Patrick.” Griffin called the room to attention as Houser strode out.
Patrick turned and extended his hand. “Good to meet you, Tagger. We’ll talk after I meet my troops.”
“Good to meet you, too, Patrick,” Griffin replied as he shook McLanahan’s hand. He gave Patrick a warning glance, and Patrick nodded that he received it.
Patrick had to take giant steps to keep up with the Air Intelligence Agency commander as he made his way downstairs to his office on the first floor. Houser neither acknowledged nor greeted anyone, and most everyone they passed in the corridors, Patrick noticed, chose not to make eye contact with the general. They reached a set of oak double doors flanked by an Air Intelligence Agency flag and a two-star general’s flag, guarded by a lone Security Force armed guard in blue Class A’s with white web belt, pistol holster, shoulder braids, ascot, and spats. The guard snapped to attention and pressed a button to unlock the door.
Houser quickly walked through the outer office, without bothering to order those in the room as they were, and stepped through another set of double doors into his aide’s office. “Coffee, Major,” he said to the officer at the desk.
“On the way, sir,” the aide responded immediately.
Inside his office Houser jabbed a finger at the sofa, and he took the large leather wing chair at the head of the coffee table. He withdrew a cigar from a humidor on the table. “You don’t smoke, as I recall,” he said by way of explaining why he wasn’t going to offer one to Patrick. Patrick didn’t bother to correct him. “So how the hell have you been, Pat?” he asked as he stoked the cigar to life.
“Not bad, sir.”
“Can the ‘sir’ shit, okay, nav?”
“Okay…Gary,” Patrick said. Houser took a deep pull on the cigar, and the silent message conveyed by his rattlesnake-like warning gaze through the cloud of smoke, despite the amused smile, was unmistakable: It’s “General” to you, mister, now and forever.
After the aide brought coffee in for both general officers, Houser sat back in his big chair, took a sip, and puffed away on his cigar. “So, nav, you’ve had one train wreck of a career since you left Ford Air Force Base—when you got shanghaied by Brad Elliott,” Houser began. “Man, you had it made in the shade before you took up with that nut-case. Despite your less-than-firewalled effectiveness reports, me and the wing king had been discussing when to send you to Air Command and Staff College in residence and what your next assignment was going to be—the Pentagon or SAC Headquarters. You were on the
fast track to a senior staff job or even a command of your own.
“But then you got recruited by Brad Elliott to join him at Dreamland,” Houser went on. “You bombed the hell out of the Kavaznya laser site in eastern Siberia, taking out a half-dozen Soviet fighters and a dozen SAM sites plus their big-ass antisatellite laser. Then you—”
“That’s classified, General,” Patrick said sternly, “and I know you aren’t cleared for that information.”
“Shit, Patrick, I and ten other guys here at AIA know everything you’ve done over the past fifteen years—I found out about it a month after I first arrived here,” Houser said. “That mission was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union—and the beginning of this agency. Intelligence became the name of the game starting the day after you dropped that bomb on that laser. Everyone was shocked that we underestimated the laser’s capability, and everyone wanted to be the one to discover the next Kavaznya site.”
“With all due respect, General, I advise you to drop that topic,” Patrick said seriously. “You may think you know everything and that you have the right clearances, but you don’t.”
“Come off it, Pat,” Houser said with a chuckle. “You Dreamland guys—rather, you ex–Dreamland guys—think you’re so special. Remember who I work for: Terrill Samson used to run Dreamland. The place was blown wide open after the Kenneth Francis James spy incident. ‘Dog’ Bastian barely had it under control: General Samson had to clean house to make the place right.” Patrick laughed inwardly: He knew that Colonel Tecumseh “Dog” Bastian had been firmly in control of the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center—in fact, he created the kind of unit that the Air Battle Force had been patterned upon.
It was Terrill Samson, the black man who rose through the ranks after enlisting in the Air Force to avoid being drafted into the infantry during the Vietnam War and who made it all the way to three-star general, who’d never had control. Samson wanted nothing more than to get promoted, to be the newest and greatest black man to be reach the highest echelons of power and leadership in the American military.
But in his quest to become a symbol, he found that the harder he tried to control the men and women at Dreamland, the more he lost control. Samson got his wish: He got himself promoted to lieutenant general and commander of Eighth Air Force, in line to become commander of Air Combat Command, maybe even chief of staff of the Air Force. He left Dreamland without giving it any purpose or direction. The world’s most high-tech laboratory-turned-combat-unit had become little more than a high-tech aircraft boneyard during his leadership, but it had served its purpose—it was the footstool Terrill Samson needed to step up to the next level.
“I’m just giving you my recommendation here, Gary,” Patrick said. “Don’t talk about Dreamland. Let’s change the subject.”
That was three times in a row McLanahan tried to tell a superior officer what to do, Houser steamed, and that was three times too many. “Pat, I know all about the activities there, why you got canned, why you were called back, what you did,” Houser said. “I know Dreamland’s budgets, its projects, personnel, and progress. Same with Battle Mountain, the Air Battle Force, and the One-eleventh Wing—”
“Those units are different, General,” Patrick said. “They’re part of the Air Reserve Forces Command, and their budgets and missions are mostly classified ‘confidential.’ HAWC is still classified ‘Top Secret—ESI’ Level Three, which means nothing gets discussed outside the facility, not even in passing. Let’s drop it before I’m forced to make a report.” He had already decided to make a report—he was just trying to limit the length and detail at this point.
“Nav, don’t lecture me about security procedures, all right?” Houser retorted. “I’m commander of AIA. I live and breathe secrecy and security. You’re the one that needs to be reminded of his duties and responsibilities here, I think.”
Patrick’s mouth literally dropped open from astonishment. “Sir?”
“The way I see it, McLanahan, you’ve been marching roughshod through the Air Force, pulling shit that should have landed you in prison for a hundred years, and somehow you’ve not only gotten away with it but you’ve been rewarded and promoted for it. Only one man, Terrill Samson, had the guts to say, ‘Enough is enough,’ and he pulled the plug on you and your wild-ass excursions into personal aggrandizement. Your buddy President Martindale overruled him and gave you your stars back. I can’t figure out why. But what I do know is this: You screwed up again, your buddy Martindale couldn’t save you, Thorn and Goff wouldn’t help you, and so you got dumped on my doorstep.”
Houser took another deep drag on his cigar. “Maybe the Chief wanted to stick you with me to keep you out of sight, or force you to resign. I don’t know, and I don’t give a shit. But you’re here, and now you’re my problem.
“So here are the rules, and they’re simple: You do as you’re told, you keep your nose to the grindstone, and I’ll help you dig your way out of this shithole mess you’ve gotten yourself into,” Houser said. “You can finish out your twenty right here in San Antonio, maybe get your second star back—maybe—and when you retire, the private consulting firms and security agencies will be throwing plenty of six-and seven-figure offers your way. If the rumors of you going to Washington are true, you can do that, too. You probably won’t be national security adviser, but you can snag some high-ranking post in the White House National Security Council staff—”
“I’m not looking for a government or a private consulting job.”
“I don’t care what you are or are not looking for, General,” Houser said. “I’m just telling you that I don’t like my agency being used as a detention facility for out-of-control disciplinary hard-cases. You were a loner with a give-a-shit attitude when I first pulled a crew with you back at Ford, and you’re the exact same guy now. You may have been able to get away with being like that because of a combination of luck and skill as a bombardier, but that won’t cut it here.
“If you try to pull just one-tenth of the shit you pulled on General Samson, my friend, I guarantee I’ll make your life a living hell,” Houser went on, jabbing his cigar at Patrick. “You’re with the Nine-sixty-sixth now, which doesn’t deploy and gets pretty good face time with the brass and politicos in Washington, Offutt, and Barksdale. That’s a plum job for you. Keep your nose clean, and you can stay there, studying satellite photos and HUMINT contact narratives, then briefing the four-stars on enemy activity, and you might just improve your reputation after a couple years.
“Here it is in black and white, Pat: You were sent here to cool your heels, and I don’t like it,” Houser went on bitterly. “I don’t like you being dumped in my lap, and I don’t like golden boys who think they know it all and can tell their superior officers off. I want you out of my face and out of the limelight. I want you as quiet as I can make you without cutting out your fucking tongue myself with a pair of rusty scissors. Maybe we’ll both get lucky and Thorn will give you a job in his new administration, and then you’ll be out of here soonest. Otherwise you have two years and nine months before you can retire: I would advise you to keep your yap shut and put in your time in the Nine-sixty-sixth, and then you can go out on the lecture circuit at ten thousand a pop or be a talking head on Fox News Channel at five hundred dollars a day.
“The Nine-sixty-sixth commander is a two-star billet, so maybe you’ll get your second star back and regain a little bit of the decorum and pride you’ve squandered over the past few years,” Houser said. “If you play ball, I’ll help you ease on out of here so you can take care of your son, get your cushy government position, or maybe go back to Sky Masters Inc. and rip off the government with those hyperinflated defense contracts your friend Jon Masters is so fond of negotiating. I don’t give a shit what you do after you get out. But while you’re in my unit, under my command, you will shut your mouth and do what you’re told. Am I making myself perfectly clear, Pat?”
Patrick looked at Houser for a long moment, never breaking e
ye contact, long enough for Houser to feel the anger start to rise in his temples. But finally Patrick responded. “Yes, sir. Perfectly clear.”
Houser couldn’t find any hint of rebellion or defiance in that simple answer, which made him all the more angry. “Good to see you again, Pat,” he snapped. He jabbed the cigar toward his office door. “Now get the hell out.”
Over Central Uzbekistan, Central Asia
Days later
Thirty minutes to go, sir,” Hal Briggs said gently. “Time to get moving.”
Trevor Griffin was instantly awake and alert, but he didn’t know where he was. The place was dark, smelled like old oil and even older body odor, and was as noisy as hell—he felt as if he were trapped in a garbage truck roaring down a freeway at ninety miles an hour. Then he remembered where he was, and what he was about to do.
And he thought that this wasn’t a bad place after all, compared to what he was about to step into. Not bad at all. Pretty darn nice, in fact.
Griffin unfastened his safety harness and swung out of the bunk he’d been napping in for the past few hours. He was on the upper deck of a QB-52 Megafortress bomber, a highly modified B-52H Stratofortress bomber. The QB-52 Megafortress was a “flying battleship,” capable of delivering up to sixty thousand pounds of the world’s most advanced weapons, from ultraprecise cruise missiles to antisatellite weapons. Except for a pod on each wing that carried radar-and heat-seeking air-to-air defensive missiles, however, the QB-52 carried no ordnance on this mission.
In fact, as Griffin looked forward toward the cockpit, he reminded himself that this B-52 didn’t carry something else either that he used to think was important: a crew. This B-52 bomber was unmanned—it had flown halfway around the world without anyone’s even setting foot in the cockpit. They received constant messages and updates from the folks back at Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base in northern Nevada, but the plane flew and even aerial-refueled all by itself.