Inside, it was better equipped than a Pentagon suite, and a hell of a lot more comfy.
Some noncoms, having reached the exalted heights that Chief Clyston had, let it get to their heads, thinking that just because they really ran the show, they had to make sure everyone, officers especially, knew it. Some sergeants, having extended their careers into the rarefied air of chiefdom, not only lorded it over their airmen and lower NCOs, but let their commanders know who was really in charge at every turn. But a major part of the sergeant’s success was his subtlety as well as his efficiency. Just as he was approachable by the lowliest of airmen (assuming, of course, the capo di capo had already had his first cup of morning coffee), so the ostensible commander of Devil Squadron, Colonel Knowlington, felt he was entering the tent of an old friend, albeit an extremely important one, as he knocked at the door. And, in truth, he was. The two men had been a pair since Clyston helped get Knowlington’s Thud ready for a flight over the Ho Chi Ming Trail in the Dark Ages: a flight that earned the then-lieutenant his first air-to-air kill.
“Disturbing you, Alan?” he asked Clyston, who was sitting in a recliner, eyes closed, stereo headphones on.
“Colonel. You surprised me.” Clyston took off the headphones and pushed the recliner closed.
Knowlington plopped himself into one of the over-stuffed chairs nearby. How Clyston had managed to get such decidedly non-military furnishings into the middle of Saudi Arabia hardly ranked among the panoply of Clyston-esque achievements.
“I was just listening to Chopin,” he said. “London Symphony bootleg.”
Knowlington nodded.
“Root beer?” Clyston asked. “I have some from Schmmy’s.”
Schmmy’s was a small, old-fashioned soda-fountain in a small upstate town where a friend of the sergeant’s lived; it was, in the opinion not merely of the capo but of half the squadron, the creator of the world’s best root beer. Knowlington found himself agreeing, despite his intention to go grab some sleep as quickly as possible. The sergeant reached into one of his refrigerators — he had several of various sizes and purposes — and retrieved a small hose and spigot. He then took a frosted mug from an ice chest and pumped the colonel a glass.
“You just wanted to talk?” asked the sergeant as he handed him the glass.
“I wish. We need to send a few people over to Al Jouf.”
“How many?”
“Enough to keep two Hogs in the air indefinitely.”
“Geez, I don’t know if I can spare anybody.”
“It’s important.”
In theory, Clyston wasn’t on the very short list of people with a need to know about Fort Apache, and so the colonel had not told him about it. But Clyston was a five — star member of the Pipeline, and the look and slight nod that he gave the colonel confirmed that he knew all about it, quite possibly in greater detail than the men who had planned it.
It was also obvious that he had already given the matter some thought.
“Going to have to send Tinman,” said the sergeant. “I hate to, but there’s no one who knows metal better than him. He’ll take three places.”
Knowlington nodded, as he did at the other names— until the last.
“Rosen? Again?”
Clyston shrugged. “Colonel, she’s the best on the base at all the avionics crap. And not just on Hogs.”
“She’s a pain in the ass.”
“True. But the thing is, she knows what she’s doing. I’ve seen her make radios work that had half their parts. Besides that, she can strip and reassemble three-quarters of the engines we got in half an hour, and that’s not even her specialty. She’s also a certified parachute packer. Hell, I saw her take an f-ing OV-10 Bronco completely apart and put it back together last year. You know, when she first joined the Air Force…”
“It’s not her ability I’m worried about,” Knowlington interrupted. “She’s an Einstein. But she’s got the personality of the Wicked Witch of the West.”
“That’s not precisely fair,” said Clyston. He nodded to himself, as if considering his words, though Knowlington had heard most of this speech before.
Several times.
“She just gets involved in difficult situations,” said Clyston. “People try to hit on her.”
Knowlington rolled his eyes. In fairness to Rosen, some officers did make unwanted advances toward her; it was a problem for all women in the military. But Rosen wasn’t particularly discriminating about what exactly constituted an “unwanted advance.” And her way of dealing with them wasn’t exactly by the book. A few days before a captain had shown up in Knowlington’s office sporting a badly bruised kneecap and ribs.
Rosen’s defense? She was wearing new shoes or she would have broken them.
As a general rule, Knowlington didn’t interfere with Clyston’s “suggestions” on assignments. No one in the Air Force knew their personnel better than the capo.
Still…
“You sure, Alan?”
“I’ll kick her butt around a bit and make sure she keeps her f-in’ nose in line,” said Clyston. He crossed his heart with his finger.
“It’s not her nose I’m worried about. She slugs the wrong person and even I won’t be able to get her out of it.” Knowlington drained his glass and set it down, then got up to leave. “Somebody ought to stick a gun in her hands and send her after Saddam.”
“Hey, you never know,” said Clyston, putting his earphones back on.
Aside from one of his sisters, about the last person Skull expected to be waiting for him as he walked back to Hog Heaven was Major James “Mongoose” Johnson.
“You’re supposed to be back in Buffalo by now, aren’t you, ‘Goose?” he asked.
“I missed the plane,” said the major. “Mind if I talk to you a second? It’s kinda… I’d really appreciate it.”
Even though Mongoose was the squadron’s director of operations and Knowlington’s second in command, the two men hadn’t known each other very long and had never gotten along particularly well. Knowlington couldn’t imagine why he was suddenly being called on as a confidante, even though he had risked his neck, and A-Bomb’s, to snatch the major out of an Iraqi troop truck only a few days before. But he led the major into his spartan quarters anyway, waving him toward the only seat in the small room, a trunk at the foot of the cot. Knowlington sat on the cot.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“I don’t want to go home,” Mongoose said.
Knowlington laughed, thinking there was a punch line.
There wasn’t.
“I’m serious,” said the major.
“Why don’t you want to go home?”
“I belong here. There’s a lot to be done.”
Nearly thirty years in the Air Force, including a shitload of time in Vietnam, and this was a first. Major Johnson had his arm in a cast, to say nothing of a few less visible injuries. He was in line for umpteen medals and due some major R&R. Knowlington shifted uncomfortably on his cot. “Major… listen, Goose, you deserve to go home. You earned it.”
“I didn’t earn anything. I got shot down.”
“Bullshit. You did a kickass job in that airplane. Hell, you took on those bastards who captured you.”
“No, you guys took them on. I got lucky.”
Knowlington shook his head. Mongoose wasn’t a particularly good person to argue with— as he knew from experience.