“All I need is the message time, sir,” Porter replied.
“Good. Lieutenant Porter, you are the new chief of staff.” Her mouth dropped open in surprise. “And since the MG is not authorized by regulation to have a vice commander, Major Razzano, and since you’re not qualified to be either chief of staff or MG, you are out of a job. Report to General Cole’s office for reassignment.”
“What?” Razzano retorted. “Hey, you can’t do that!”
“I can and I did,” Mace said. “I just got here, Major, but I know the regs better than you do. You were made vice MG because the last two MGs were weak-dicks, but they didn’t make you the MG, so that makes you a weak-dick too. This group was in your hands for four years, and you let it go to hell, and you’ve obviously demonstrated your unwillingness to work with me, so you’re out of here.
“Oh, and one last piece of advice, for whoever the next unlucky sonofabitch is you happen to work for: impress the new boss, even if you think he’s a dickhead or you think you should have gotten his job. Shovel his staff car out of the snow, drive him to his headquarters, shovel the sidewalks leading to his headquarters, spiff the place up, and make him coffee when he arrives in his office for the first time. You can’t even suck up properly. You’re out. That is all.”
Razzano was so embarrassed, so deflated, that he stormed out of the office too shocked to say another word.
“Lieutenant, you’re a captain, effective today,” Mace said. “Field promotions are authorized in case of unusual staff requirements, are they not?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied sheepishly, “with command approval within.…”
“I’ll either get the approval immediately or get myself shit-canned. In any case, you’re authorized to wear the new rank until the orders come down. I suggest you have the clerk send your utility uniforms out to the parachute shop to get the rank changed right away — don’t ask me why. The ACC action message came down two hours ago. When can you have the report ready for me?”
“Preliminary report immediately, sir,” Porter said. “The divisions update the group status daily on the computer. Full report in about two hours.”
“Good answer, Lieutenant,” Mace said with a hint of a smile — this one knew what she was doing! “Call me on the phone as soon as the full report is ready. You’re in charge of the office and the staff, and your signature is as good as mine as of right now.”
He headed for the outer office and started putting on his jacket and gloves. “I’m heading out to the flight line,” he told Porter, “but I don’t want to see that station wagon ever again after today. Tell Transportation I want the largest vehicle they have with four-wheel drive, preferably a step-up maxi-van. I want all the FM and UHF radios and telephones on board, I want exterior floodlights front and rear, a crew bench in back with heaters, and I want it equipped just like the maintenance supervisor’s truck. No use in anyone driving out on the flight line unless they’re carrying spare parts and tools. I want to pick the truck up before lunch. Anything for me, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir,” Porter said. “I’ll need you to block out some time for inprocessing, and I’ll need your home address and phone.”
“My home address and phone are—” Mace looked at the phone number on his staff officer’s cellular phone and gave it to her. “That is where you can reach me, now and forever. Mail my paychecks right here to the office. I’ll do all the other inprocessing when the ‘war’ is over. Have a nice day, Lieutenant.” He grabbed his coat, hat, and gloves, and hurried out the door.
Alena Porter returned to her desk in a total state of shock. She picked up the phone to call Transportation — the thought of the MG driving a big, lumbering Step Van supply truck, known as a “bread truck,” around the base was a funny thought, but that’s what the man wanted — but instead went out to the hallway, put a quarter in the pay phone, and took a few moments to call her mother at home.
“Mom? It’s me. The new boss arrived today … what’s he like? He made me a captain … yes, just like that, a captain. He’s a wild man, Mom. A wild man.”
FOURTEEN
The ferry Rebecca Furness was on unceremoniously bumped and slid into the docking slip at Cumberland Head. Furness started the truck’s engine and waited her turn to pull out. The roads were much better on the New York side, so she made good time driving into Plattsburgh, arriving at the base a little before seven A.M.
The base was divided into the “old” and “new” sections, with the flight line, flying squadrons, and newer family housing areas in the “new” section (built in the 1930s) to the west, and the command, administrative, and senior housing areas in the “old” section (the original base, established in 1814 and still in use ever since) to the east, bordering Lake Champlain. Instead of heading for the base gym on the east side of the base, Furness took a right turn at the small air museum at the entrance to the “new” base, checked in with the security guard, and headed for the flight line. She had a little time to kill, and Plattsburgh’s almost round-the-clock flight line operations were exciting to watch.
The KC-135 Stratotanker aerial-refueling tankers, the largest and loneliest planes on the parking ramp right now, sat silent vigil in the cold morning air. They were going on forty years old, but they would still be in service well after the year 2000, Furness knew. A few of the planes out here, known as R-model tankers, had been re-engined with more modern turbofan airliner engines, which significantly improved their range and load-carrying capability, and a few had been equipped with integral cranes and load-handling devices to give the KC-135 some true bare-base cargo capability. But most of the tankers here at Plattsburgh were A- or E-models, old and slow and underpowered. They were nothing like the new KC-10 tankers, though, Furness thought. The KC-10 could run rings around these beasts. She sometimes missed the old days in the KC-10 Extender, the Air Force’s “supertanker”—no alert, few dispersals, comfortable seats, few cold-weather assignments, no cold-weather bases.
But she certainly wasn’t complaining.
Rebecca wanted to drive down the flight line road far enough to see “her” plane, number 70-2390, nicknamed “Miss Liberty,” but she had run out of time and she had to report in for duty. She made her way to the old side of the base, through another guard gate, drove a few blocks to the base gymnasium, parked in the closest space, grabbed her deployment bag, and headed for the entrance. She saw she was the last to sign in, even though they had fifteen minutes to their scheduled seven A.M. muster time. Anyone reporting in after the scheduled muster time would be given an “incomplete” for the day, and with greater competition for ERP slots, all performance standards, even for Reservists, were stricter than ever before. Being five seconds late for Hell Week could quite possibly get one kicked out of the program for good. The squadron was beginning to line up for inspection, so Furness went over to her place on the gym floor without stopping to exchange pleasantries with anyone.
Plattsburgh had twenty-two RF-111G bombers, matched up with twenty ready crews (eighteen in the squadron plus the squadron and wing commander’s planes, leaving one spare plane and one “hangar queen” used for spare parts or ground training). Each plane was assigned a flight crew and a ground crew, both of whom stayed with that plane as long as possible. The Reservists, even in the new ERP that received many former active-duty members, tended to be older, smarter, and, because it was “their” plane and “their” base in “their” hometown, they took a lot of pride in their Reserve duties.