“Thank you, Major.” Cole sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose to relieve a bit of the tension he was feeling. “I think that clearly explains the gravity of the warning order issued by Strategic Command at Offutt this morning.” It was only about six A.M., but they had all been up for the past two hours when a warning order message from United States Strategic Command, Offutt Air Force Base, Omaha, Nebraska, came in. Strategic Command, formerly the Strategic Air Command, was a joint services command that managed America’s nuclear arsenal. Unlike the early days, when SAC controlled all the land-based intercontinental nuclear-armed bombers and missiles, Strategic Command, or STRATCOM, had no aircraft or weapons, only plans and target lists — until war was imminent. Then Strategic Command could “gain,” or take control of, any weapon system it required to carry out the plans and missions as directed by the President of the United States.
That time was coming.
“Strategic Command headquarters has advised me that the possibility exists that within the next seventy-two hours all aircraft of the Fifth Air Battle Force, including our units, may be placed on DEFCON Level Four, or higher, for the first time since 1991,” Cole said solemnly. “Within three days, we could be back to pulling nuclear alert once again.” DEFCONs were Defense Configurations, with DEFCON Five being peacetime and DEFCON One being all-out nuclear war.
There was a murmur of voices through the room, and eyes all around the semicircular table showed both surprise and grave concern. All throughout the Cold War, in order to prove to America’s enemies that the country could not be defeated in a surprise attack, American strategic nuclear forces stood on round-the-clock alert. The level of those alert duties changed with world tensions, from peacetime to all-out war.
In 1991, when President George Bush removed all but some nuclear-powered sea-launched ballistic-missile submarines from strategic nuclear alert, the forces stood at DEFCON Five for the first time in over thirty years. They remained that way ever since — until now.
“The warning order,” Cole continued, “directs no specific DEFCON or posture for any of the forces, according to STRATCOM regulations. However, it does direct the commanders to evaluate the readiness of his forces and to report his overall readiness state to the Commander in Chief when so directed. Air Combat Command regulations spell out the nature of that readiness review, and that is the regulation we’ll follow. I need every group commander to go over those ACC regulations. You’ll find they direct a preliminary readiness review report within twelve hours, and a full report with all squadron commanders within twenty-four hours. I make my report to Air Battle Force headquarters six hours later, and the full report goes to Strategic Command, the Pentagon, and the White House within forty-eight hours.”
Colonel Greg McGwire, the Operations Group commander, in charge of all the aircraft and aircrews at Plattsburgh, shook his head and leaned back in his seat. “General, with all due respect, how in the hell am I supposed to do that?” he asked in total exasperation. “I’m just starting Hell Week. Everyone is scheduled to fly, including you and me and most of the staff. I’ve already asked my squadron commanders and some of the flight commanders to work six extra unpaid days a month just to keep up with the paperwork — they don’t have the time to do anything else but train during Hell Week.”
“Greg, the request from STRATCOM was not optional or negotiable,” Cole said.
“STRATCOM puts us through this just to know if we’re ready to fight?” McGwire asked irritably. “General, we demonstrate our mobility capability, our operational flexibility, and our warfighting skills every day. Send the bean-counters out here and we’ll show them!”
“Enough, Colonel,” Cole interrupted, lighting up an expensive cigar. “You’ll have your opportunity to show General Layton how good your folks are. After all, he’s arriving to inspect the Bravo exercise in about an hour.” McGwire rolled his eyes wearily, wearing a pained expression as if his back had just broken under the last straw. Cole continued. “I want to see those preliminary reports on my desk by eighteen hundred hours — that’ll give us time to clean them up before we transmit them. Get your staffs and your squadron commanders together and get those reports in.
“And just to make matters worse,” Cole concluded, taking a big puff of the cigar, “the Reserve training week will continue as planned, and the warning order is not to be discussed outside this office. If necessary, you can tell your staffs that the preliminary readiness report was ordered by Fifth Air Battle Force, period — further explanation is not necessary and not permitted. Questions?”
No response — everyone was eager to get out of there so they could open the regs and start cranking out the paperwork.
“That is all.”
The group commanders bolted for the door. Only two men remained: Colonel James Lafferty, the vice commander of the Air Battle Wing, and the Wing’s newest group commander, Daren Mace. “Have a seat, Colonel Mace — it’ll probably be the last bit of rest you get in quite a while,” Lafferty said. Lieutenant Colonel Daren Mace took his seat at the battle staff conference table. Lafferty went over to ask the clerk for coffee, and General Cole used that distraction to get a first look at his newest Wing staff officer. He studied him, in between drags on his cigar.
Frankly, Cole thought, he certainly looked like he could cut the mustard. Well-built, obviously in shape, perfect grooming, alert green eyes. Somewhere in the back of Cole’s mind, the image of Daren Mace seemed familiar … like one of those faces on television, or that blond guy in the movies his wife always swooned over. The Condor guy. Redfern, or something like that. Cole nodded to himself, savoring the cigar. Yeah, that was it. He looked like that guy in the movies.
He also, Cole thought, looked a helluva lot more like some hot-shit pilot than an Aircraft Maintenance Group commander. Sure, Maintenance was the toughest job on the base, bar none — in charge of three friggin’ squadrons and over two thousand men and women, working round-the-clock every day of the year. Tough as hell. No wonder they had the largest percentage of disciplinary actions, AWOLS, personnel turnover, and job dissatisfaction of any group on base. But as Cole himself knew, it was also the most vital position on base, save for that of the wing commander himself, though it was usually occupied by a full colonel. Mace would have to really hump to stay on top of this job.
“Welcome to the 394th Air Battle Wing, Colonel Mace,” Cole finally said as Lafferty closed the door to the battle staff conference room. “We seem to have brought you on board right in the middle of a hornet’s nest, I’m afraid.”
Mace shrugged casually and said, “Bravo exercises are important, sir. It’ll give me a good opportunity to see the unit at work. And I’m accustomed to working in the midst of an alert as well. Old home week for me.”
Mace’s last assignment before this one had been as the senior weapons and tactics training officer of the Thirty-seventh Tactical Group at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, training NATO crewdogs how to fight together as teams. That was back in ’93 and ’94. The group commander, Colonel Wes Hardin, had said Mace had done a helluva job, running circles around others Hardin had had in that position. The fact that he probably knew more than anyone else in the country of the F-111 weapon system didn’t hurt either.
“I’m uh, sorry that Colonel Lambford couldn’t be here to help you with the transition, but he, uh … well…” Cole was nervously rolling his cigar, clearly uncomfortable taking about it. Lafferty and McGwire were doing all they could to suppress smiles, knowing the reason for Cole’s discomfort: everyone, including Mace, was aware that Lambford, the old MG (Maintenance Group Commander), had been kicked out of the unit and discharged for calling his squadron commanders’ wives while their husbands were on duty, trying to engage them in phone sex. When the commanders found out, they kicked him out so fast he landed right in a psychiatric hospital somewhere. Lafferty and McGwire joked that he was probably playing with himself in some rubber room, trying to figure out what went wrong.