“I suppose you’ll want our replica Wright Flyer?” Ryan spoke bitterly.
“No Sir, not under current plans. But we would like to talk to you about your B-36.”
Executive Office, Alexander Arms Corporation, Radford Arsenal, Virginia
“Mister Alexander Sir, it’s a Colonel Matthews from the Defense Logistic Agency.” Alexander’s secretary sounded urgent.
“Put him through then Jeanie.” There was a click on the line “Bill Alexander here.”
“Mister Alexander, its Colonel Matthews here from the DLA. If you haven’t heard already, you will be fairly shortly, our M16s and M4s aren’t showing up very well in Iraq. Don’t have the stopping power to finish off a baldrick. So, we need to change approach fast. You’re making. 50 Beowulf M16s for the Coastguard, well, you can start expanding that production line right now. We need you to start mass-producing. 50 Beowulf upper receivers with a 24 inch barrel right away. We’ll issue them and mate them with in-service lower receivers. We’ll be faxing you the paperwork later today. Take this telephone call as authorization to start work.”
“How many?”
“Our initial production target will be one million sets of parts needed to convert in-service weapons. For your information, the new rifle will be the M16A6 and the M4A5.”
The room was swimming around Alexander’s eyes. “We’re a small company, there’s no way we can make that number of rifles. And the ammunition.”
Matthews sounded more than slightly irritated. “Then license other producers. Talk to Ordnance, they may have facilities you can take over. Listen man, this country is awash with weapons producers, if you can’t meet the production targets, make some arrangements. Our boys have died out there because their rifles didn’t do the job. And you know where they go when they die. You’re a manager, so get the lead out of your pants and start managing. Don’t make us write more letters to mothers telling them their kids died because they didn’t have the tools they need. Understand?”
Alexander didn’t have a chance to answer before he heard the telephone bang down. He stared at the receiver in his hand for a long moment that was only interrupted when his fax machine started to spew pages out. “Jeanie? Get me a list of all our subcomponent suppliers, we have to jack production up soonest. And get me the heads of Bushmaster, DPMS, Olympic Arms, Colt, FN and any other rival you can think of.”
Headquarters, Boeing Military Aircraft Division, St Louis, Missouri.
The voice as impossibly British. “I say, is that Mike Graham, T-45 project manager?”
“It is. To whom am I speaking?”
“Sorry, old chap. James Kendrick here, Hawk 200 Project Manager at BAE Systems. We’ve had some calls from our respective governments asking us to put our heads together and come up with a new aircraft for our forces.”
“Excuse me, I’ve heard nothing of this.” There was a ‘ding’ on Graham’s computer indicating a top-priority email from corporate HQ in Chicago. He read it. “My apologies, I’ve just been told.”
“No problem. Everything is screwed up. Anyway, basically the RAF want a cheap, light fighter to make up numbers, the Navy want one for their carriers and your chaps want some for everybody. So, our governments have decided to combine your T-45C trainer with our Hawk 200 light fighter and produce a single-seat, radar-equipped fighter for everybody. My bosses think it’s a pretty good idea, one that should sell well. So, we need to get cracking. Can we arrange for our design team to come over there?”
“Sure, or would you prefer us to come over to you?”
“Really, we’d rather come to you if you don’t mind. Have you ever tried to get a decent steak in Britain?”
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Blasted rock, pools of mud and other less wholesome liquids, gauzy wisps of orange fumes, the odd crucified body; Hell wasn't anything pleasant to look at, even through a window. Standing in front of that window was an Army officer facing out towards a room occupied by a mix of civilian and military engineers along with a sprinkling of figures in Air Force, Army, and Marine uniforms. As the last straggler slipped through the door set in the far wall, he began to speak.
"Gentlemen, ladies, my name is Major Warhol, and welcome to Section Twelve of DIMO(N). I'm sure we'll be assigned a mouthful of an acronym soon, but for now we've just been calling it the Hell Lab." He stepped to one side and waved an arm at the window behind him.
"To get straight to the point, sooner or later we're going to have to fight in Hell, and from what limited intel we've gathered so far, it's a hell of an environment." He winced slightly at the awful pun, then shook his head with a sheepish smile before continuing, "It's going to do a number on our gear, and long-term exposure isn't going to do humans any good either. That's where we come in. We've put together a mock-up, our own personal Hell-in-a-jar based on the intelligence we've received so far, and we're going to be testing our gear in it. That's for the servicemen among you. The rest of you," he nodded towards one of the engineers closes to the window, "are here to fix whatever doesn't work, or failing that, to devise something new to fill a gap where our existing equipment doesn't cut it. We've got five other rooms like this one, with different speculative environments, and we'll be updating all of them as we learn more of the makeup of Hell. At the moment, we’ve only got actual data on one part of hell, one segment of the 5th circle. However, it looks like Dante’s Inferno was a pretty accurate description so, until we know more, we’re working on that basis. We’ve got people here digging through other old records as well so we’ll refine the picture as we go. Across the hall, there's another team that'll be doing the same with Heaven once we know something about it."
He singled out a lone man in a suit with a nod, "Agent Carson accomplished the only strike mission so far into Hell, albeit remotely. He's at your disposal for questions, and the CIA was kind enough to send the Predator he used for the strike along with him." Carson’s lips cracked in a wry, sardonic smile. He’d sat behind an operator’s terminal and sent in a drone but that made him a celebrity. "I'm told we're free to disassemble the Predator, but the Agency would like Agent Carson back in one piece. Or at least, if we do dismantle him, can we number the pieces so The Company can reassemble him. Also, please remember, he’s a star on the war-bond sales pitches."
A chuckle ran around the room, accompanied by a snort from Carson himself. Major Warhol let the room settle for a few seconds before he started back into the briefing, "Air Force types, the wind tunnel's still under construction, but once it's up, you'll have down-checked aircraft of more or less any make you need in the hangars on-base to test in a Hell-condition wind tunnel. Sorry to give you the castoffs, but we're short there as it is. Some of the birds are types we don’t have in the inventory any more but we’ve repossessed from museums. Feel free to test those to destruction. Infantry, there's a target range with variable-density cloud generators to simulate atmospheric conditions. Armor, you're going to be a bit limited for a while, we're not going to have room for a half-dozen large-scale Hell-jars for you to play with, and the one we will have won't be finished for a week or two."
Warhol signaled with his hand, ordering a guard to open another door. A group of a dozen Arabs filed into the room, dressed in loose white robes. A rustling murmur passed through the briefing room's other occupants as they turned to look at the newcomers, several frowns flashing into place. Before anything could get out of hand, Major Warhol's voice called out again, louder at first to cut through the whispered speculation,
"I’d like to welcome Abdullah Rashid, formerly one of the Iraqi insurgency leaders, and now head of the DIMO(N) S12 insurgency team. I know!" he shouted, cutting through a rising babble of voices, "That many of you will be uncomfortable working with him and his men, but the fact remains that the Iraqi insurgents have had quite a lot of experience in running insurgencies recently and their people fought alongside ours in Hit. We’re allies now." His lips quirk in a thin, humorless smile, "And there’ll be others joining us as well, including some explosives experts from the Provisional IRA. They are probably the best on the world at their particular art, they should be, they fought the British for long enough. If I hear of them being frozen out of discussion here, I'm not going to be a terribly happy man, and none of you want that. These teams will be focusing on the best ways to manufacture explosives, weapons, IEDs, anything they can think of that can be made and used in whole or in part using Hell-native resources and conditions."