The Command and Coordination Facility itself was a squat steel and concrete building, two stories above-ground but four belowground. A long concrete tunnel controlled access to the entrances, so a frontal assault was next to impossible. The guard tower on the roof and the two guard towers around the building were dark, but the commandos could not assume they were unmanned — in fact, they had to assume that a response team was already on the way, so speed was imperative. A short chain-link dog fence protected a twelve-foot-high electrified fence. There was no doubt that the fence was on — the deadly current flowing through it could be heard and felt from ten feet away, like waves of heat from a nearby furnace.
They were hamstrung — they could not go forward unless they blew the electric fence apart, nor could they retreat. The leader hunched down with his second-in-command, set to discuss their dilemma…
… when suddenly they heard a noise ahead of them. In a matter of moments, several dozen heavily armed soldiers rushed out of an access tunnel on the north side of the squat concrete structure before them, headed right for the South Korean commandos.
And the mission had barely begun…
Even in his earliest days as a B-52 navigator and bombardier, Patrick McLanahan never remembered moving this fast. Was it because these young guys just liked to hustle, or because the schedule was that compressed? It couldn’t be a function of age — or could it?
Precisely at the prebriefed time, the crews loaded up the old bumpy two-gear blue school bus (at least that hadn’t changed — it seemed like the same old noisy school bus he had ridden in on the way to the B-52 flight line almost twenty years ago) and headed off. First stop was the life support shop, where they grabbed their flight and survival gear and checked oxygen masks and night-vision goggles. Rinc Seaver helped Patrick find his stuff and showed him how to operate the NVG tester, but they couldn’t dawdle because Rebecca Furness, her copilot, Heels Dewey, and the other crew were out the door and loading up. The next stop was base operations, where the crews received a weather briefing, filed their flight plans, checked Notices to Airmen, verified the maintenance status of the planes, got their box lunches from the in-flight kitchen, and took one last nervous pee.
This was the first opportunity Patrick had to take a breather and check out the other crewdogs as they made last-minute preparations before heading out to the flight line. The differences in the modern-day military kept surprising him. They made him feel a little — check that, a lot—out of place and, well, pretty goddamn old.
Because the first thing he noticed was how young these guys were. Even though the Air National Guard usually employed veteran aviators, and this unit was definitely top-heavy with field-grade officers, these guys still looked damned young. Their slang and references — mimicking characters like Bart Simpson, Austin Powers, and Beavis and Butt-head seemed to be the big thing — made them seem younger still. They all had very short haircuts, wore perfectly clean flight suits and spit-shined boots, none of them smoked cigarettes (cigars, yes — even the women), and none of them used vulgarity routinely in conversation. They ate like ravenous wolves — all but Heels ordered two box lunches, one to eat in base ops and the other to take along on the flight — but they all seemed trim and fit, so lean, most of them, that they bordered on the anorexic.
Rinc Seaver was not typical of the new breed. While the others were chatty, chummy, and casual, Seaver was quiet, businesslike, and not very sociable. While the others had Playboy pictures downloaded off the Internet stuck under plastic page protectors in their checklists, Seaver did not.
What was it with this guy? Patrick wondered. He didn’t need to give Seaver a full-blown check ride to know he was more than competent — he was an expert in every aspect of the Bone. The other crew members in the squadron certainly didn’t resent him or resent his expertise, and it was plain that despite the crash, the feeling of detachment, of ostracism, even outright anger toward Seaver was pretty much in Seaver’s own mind. The other crewdogs didn’t resent anyone as long as he pulled his weight and supported the unit.
Furness motioned to Patrick, and they walked out into the hallway to talk without being overheard. “With all due respect, sir — this really sucks,” Furness said. Her voice was low but angry. Well, at least the crews didn’t use vulgarity as a part of normal conversation; the commanders were different. “My guys worked damn hard to gin their birds up on time without a glitch, and then you reward them by forcing everybody to replan. It’s unfair to my troops.”
“Relax, Colonel,” Patrick said. “We take all this into account when we tally the score. But you know as well as I do that flexibility and replanning are standard operating procedure. ‘Flexibility is the key to air power.’”
Furness nodded, though her face was still rigid. “My boys will do fine, General, no matter what you toss at us.”
“That’s what I want to hear, Colonel…”
“But if I or any of my troops feel that any of this violates crew safety, I’m calling it off, and then I’ll gladly go nose-to-nose with you on who’s right,” Furness said. “Rank or no rank, no one endangers my crews.”
“My first concern is always crew safety, Colonel — but I’m also authorized to run this exercise any way I choose in order to fully evaluate your unit’s performance. That means I set the limits here, not you. I’m risking my own career by doing what I’m doing. If you squawk, you’d better be prepared to risk your career over it too. Clear?”
“No, sir, it’s not clear. Not one bit.”
“Things will become clearer to you as we go on, Colonel,” Patrick said.
Rebecca Furness squinted at the one-star general, trying to piece together what she had just heard. “General, what in hell is going on here? This isn’t about a pre-D or a check ride for Seaver, is it?”
“Don’t try to second-guess me, Colonel,” Patrick snapped. “This is my exercise. You do it my way, or you prepare to give up your command over your protest. Do you understand?” Furness had no choice but to agree. “Good. I suggest you let the game proceed, even though it might weird you out. Don’t turn your back on anything until you’re sure you have nothing to learn from it.” Furness did not argue, did not agree — she only looked more confused, although a tiny hint of intrigue and curiosity began to creep over her face. “Carry on.”
“Yes, sir,” Furness said. “We penetrate, decimate, and dominate. We never give up.”
“Ho-rah,” Patrick said, not smiling. They went back into the room, and he said, loudly enough for everyone to hear, “The unit is looking real good so far, Colonel. I’m looking forward to shacking some targets today. Anything else for me?”
“No, sir,” Furness said, spitting out the “sir” from deep in her belly. Patrick noticed a lot of straight backs and serious expressions when she started the formation briefing. “Okay, hogs, listen up.” She opened up her checklist and said, “Someone get a time hack. Formation brief…”