The First Lady accepted the loud applause with a wave and a mind-blowing smile for the cameras, shook hands with the Governor and with Freeman, then made her way down the line along the red carpet, shaking hands with members of both squadrons. She spent extra time with all the female crewmembers, making sure lots of pictures were taken with them, and also spent a few moments with movie star Ted Little, who was back after his sick leave. She did a fast tour of the left wing and underside of the KC-135 tanker, then went over to Furness’ plane.
Rebecca Furness and Lieutenant Colonel Hembree led the First Lady and several Secret Service agents on a walkaround tour of the RF-111G bomber. “These aren’t bombs, are they?” the First Lady asked, her eyes wide, pointing to the objects on the wing pylons.
“No, ma’am … we’ve planned this deployment to be ready for action as soon as we reach our theater of action. So my flight, the first six planes, are loaded with a ready tactical load. The outer pods are radar reconnaissance or electronic photography pods. The middle and inner pylons on each side carries an AGM-88C supersonic antiradar missile, which seeks out and destroys enemy radars, and we also carry a self-protection AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking missile on the side of each middle pylon.”
Looking very much like a politician on the stump, the First Lady climbed up the ladder of the maintenance platform and peeked into the cockpit. About a half-dozen photographers and Secret Service agents were on that platform with her, another half-dozen were on another platform on the other side, and more were on “cherry picker” cranes overhead. It was quite a media circus.
What a fucking joke, Daren Mace thought as he glanced at his watch and frowned. It was only ten minutes to their planned engine-start time, but it would take at least fifteen minutes just to get the fucking VIPs out of here, the maintenance stands and cranes moved out of the way, and the crews back in their places. He saw a person come up beside him and said, “Lieutenant Barnes, get Lieutenant Benedict from the Security Police squadron and ask her if she can help get the guests moving toward base operations. The faster we get these rubberneckers out of here, the faster we can get this show on the road.”
“It usually doesn’t work that way, Colonel,” Mace heard a voice beside him say. Mace turned and saw none other than General Philip Freeman, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, an aide, and General Cole standing beside him. He snapped to attention and rendered a salute, which Freeman returned.
“General Freeman,” Cole said, “allow me to introduce my new MG and the architect of my wing’s readiness plan, Lieutenant Colonel. Daren Mace. Daren, General Freeman, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
They shook hands and Freeman said, “I’ve followed your career, Colonel, ever since the Persian Gulf War. I was given your wing-readiness report unaltered from General Layton, and frankly I was very worried when the best you could give your unit was marginal readiness. I was glad to see this wing came through when the President asked for you.”
“I take none of the credit for this wing’s success, sir,” Mace said. “We’ve got the best in the business hard at work here.”
“You were saying about all the rubberneckers?”
Mace looked at Cole for a brief instant, received a slight nod, then replied, “Sir, why are all these people here? We’re supposed to be conducting a tactical deployment. Normally these deployments are classified secret up to one hour before departure.”
“The simple answer is, Colonel, that the President and the First Lady wanted it,” Freeman replied with clear resignation. “The more politic answer is that our president wants to avert a major conflict and doesn’t care too much about sneaking up on an adversary — he believes that being upfront about things like troop movements and public policy is a better deterrent to aggression. Your task is to deliver combat-ready aircraft to Turkey despite any political or publicity drills imposed on you. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now there’s something else I want from you. I want to send you to Turkey — but not to Incirlik with the rest of the wing. I’m sending you to Kayseri Air Base. We have a … special aircraft-maintenance task for you. You’ve got a C-17 at your disposal, and I want you to use it.” The C-17 Globemaster, popularly called Mighty Mouse or The Mouse because it was smaller than other Air Force heavy transports but had a larger payload, was the Air Force’s newest heavy transport — there were only twenty in the entire inventory — and because of its special unimproved-field and heavy load-carrying capabilities, it was in heavy demand. It was certainly a very special mission if he had one of these behemoths at his disposal. “We’ve made up a list of the people we want you to bring with you, and you’ll need to bring along as much equipment as you can stuff into a Mouse. You’ll fly back to Cannon Air Force Base to pick up some personnel and equipment there, then head on out to Kayseri ASAP. Any questions?”
Jesus, Mace thought. Kayseri Air Base … He had been there a lot after the Persian Gulf War and during the Middle East War of 1993, mostly recovering bombers that had diverted there after accomplishing bombing raids in Syria and Jordan. He had been stationed at Incirlik Air Base, about 120 miles to the south, but Kayseri, a Turkish training base, was an old hangout …
… as was its sister base, Batman Air Base. The place where they flew the abortive Operation Desert Fire. Just four years after that horrible day, he was on his way back again.…
“Yes, sir. Just one question,” Mace finally replied. “Why me?”
“I’ll give you the usual answer, then,” Freeman replied with a smile, his first, Mace saw, on the entire junket. “You’re the best. I need multitalented troops on this mission, men and women experienced in many types of airframes, troops with both maintenance and aircrew experience, troops who get the job done and who tell the brass to go to hell if it can’t be done. You also know Turkey and Kayseri.”
“I’d just as soon forget,” Mace said with a grimace.
General Freeman nodded, then glanced around them to see where the closest reporter was — obviously too close, because he said in a low voice, “Your experience is needed there, Colonel. You’ve been through a lot — this is your opportunity to kick some ass again. Any more questions?”
“The others can wait, sir,” Mace said. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. Excuse me, but I’ve got aircraft to launch.” He crisply saluted Freeman and walked off toward the security police post himself to begin getting the ramp cleared for aircraft to taxi.
As he did, he looked at Rebecca Furness’ Vampire bomber. The First Lady had taken off her flying parka, revealing the very tightly tailored blue flight suit that showed off her magazine-model body to full advantage. She was posing with a couple of female crew chiefs and with Rebecca on the maintenance stand beside the RF-111G bomber while an army of photographers snapped away. Mace shook his head in disgust, then was furious to see reporters and photographers drifting around the bombers, opening access panels on the AGM-88C HARM missiles, looking up into wheel wells and engine intakes. Now each and every aircraft was going to have to be inspected before engine start to make sure a dumb-ass photographer didn’t leave something in an engine that would get sucked inside and FOD (Foreign Object Damage) the damn engine out.