Butler introduced the men and women gathered in the basement workroom. “This motley crew,” he told Pontowski, “has forgotten more about putting together expeditionary forces and creating forward operating bases than I ever wanted to know.”
The working group’s leader, a trim and elegant lieutenant colonel who took pride in her ability to get things done quickly and efficiently, stood up. “Good morning, General. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Janice Clark from Installation Plans and Requirements.” She cut to the heart of the matter. “Think of your MAAG as the logistics pipeline and the AVG as your operational arm. The MAAG is already in place and functioning, so it’s not a problem. However, we have two immediate problems with the AVG. One, you need a place to form up in the States, and two, you need a base to deploy to. As for the first, we have identified Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas. The old Air Material Command hangars and offices have been vacant since the logistics center was closed, and are available.” She waited for Pontowski’s reply. Was he going to staff a decision to death, or was he capable of making a decision? The answer was critical, for it determined how they would proceed.
Pontowski didn’t disappoint her. “Kelly Field sounds good.”
She jotted down a note and said, “As for the second problem, there is no suitable base in Singapore.”
“We need to get as close to the action as possible,” he told her.
Janice Clark allowed a tight smile. This was a man she could work with. “We may have something. Major.”
A major standing by a worktable spread out a series of photos. “This is satellite imagery of Camp Alpha,” he began. “It’s a full-up base hidden in the Malaysian jungle approximately sixty miles north of Singapore and meets all the requirements for A-10 operations.” He gave a very audible sigh. “I wished it belonged to us.”
“Will the Malays let us use it?” Pontowski asked.
“Who knows?” the major replied. “It was built under the SEATO treaty, and supposedly we don’t even know about it.”
“I don’t think,” Butler said, “that access will be a problem.” He added mentally, Not if they want us to get involved.
Pontowski studied the high-resolution photos. “Okay,” he muttered, “you’ve stumped the student. Where the hell is it?”
The major handed him a magnifying glass and pointed to what looked like a straight stretch of highway carved out of the jungle. “Here’s the runway. You’ve got ten thousand feet of reinforced concrete and enough room to land a C-17. The parking ramp at the south end is a bit small and can accommodate only one cargo plane at a time. If you look closely, you can see the taxiways leading to the runway here, here, and here. This is the control tower.” His pencil circled what looked like the top of a tall tree.
“Clever,” Pontowski said. “You called it a ‘full-up base.’ What exactly does that mean?”
The major unrolled a large-scale map of the base. “This is compiled from synthetic aperture radar imagery, which can penetrate the foliage. You’ve got twenty-four hardened aircraft shelters, each capable of housing maintenance and munitions.” His pencil flicked from shelter to shelter. “Here’s a hardened command post, and we think these structures are barracks and a mess hall.” He pointed to a series of igloolike structures on the far side of the runway. “Munitions storage.”
“Water and fuel?” Hard experience had taught him that the four essential prerequisites for a forward operating location were a runway, a weapons-storage area, a fuel dump, and a secure water supply. Everything else they could bring with them.
“Civil engineers,” the major replied, “claim that the base is built over a limestone aquifer. So there’s your water. I suspect they’ve already sunk wells. If they haven’t, our civil engineers can correct that in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, we haven’t identified a fuel dump.”
Pontowski bent over the map and cross-checked it with the photos. He gave a little humph. “The Israelis built this, didn’t they?”
The major agreed. “It certainly looks like their work.”
“They like to refuel in bunkers,” Pontowski said.
Now it was the major’s turn to humph. “Which sounds like a recipe for disaster.”
“Not the way the Israelis do it,” Pontowski explained. “There’s a main dump somewhere that feeds small underground holding tanks, which in turn feed the shelters through a network of pipes, sort of like a spiderweb. The fuel lines are automatically purged after each refueling with a fire retardant, which also serves for firefighting. When they want to use a line for fuel, the jet fuel pushes the retardant back into the web.
A skinny captain hovering behind them coughed for attention. “Excuse me,” he mumbled. He paused, embarrassed by his rashness. Pontowski’s reputation was well known, and the captain, like many junior officers, stood in awe of him. “There may be a problem with fuel. The base is only serviced by a laterite road that may be impassable during heavy rains, and there is no pipeline.”
“So check it out,” Pontowski said.
The more Pontowski paced the office, the more Butler envisioned a tiger stalking its prey. But this tiger had a slight limp as he circled the computer bench. Finally the captain looked up from his computer and said, “I wish we had a pipeline, but we can work around it.”
Pontowski bent over a worktable and studied the map of the air base. “What else is out there that can come back and bite us?”
Janice Clark ticked off all the variables. “Runway: good. Aircraft shelters: state of the art. Water: may have to drill wells, not a problem. Fueclass="underline" we can do it with work-arounds. Weapons storage: I can vouch for that.” She continued to run the long list.
Pontowski made a mental note to ask her if she would be the base commander. It was a critical decision, for whoever ran the base had to be a hard taskmaster, perfectly capable of driving people until they dropped but able to work for a wing commander whose primary orientation was flying operations. He split his attention as she talked, thinking about what he needed in a wing commander. There was only one real choice: Colonel Dwight “Maggot” Stuart. That decision made, he focused on Clark. She finished, and he asked the key question: “Is Alpha doable?”
“It’s doable,” she said.
Pontowski looked around the room. “Anything else I need to know?”
“There is one thing,” Butler said. He walked to the big chart of Malaysia hanging on the wall. He used a wide-tip felt pen to trace two sweeping arrows down the peninsula, one on the west coast, one on the east coast. Then he tapped the chart. “These are the two invasion routes the Japanese used when they invaded the Malay Peninsula in World War Two.” He extended the arrows and brought them together over Camp Alpha, where he formed one big arrow pointed directly at Singapore. “They merged forces here for the final push on Singapore in 1942. My guess is that SEATO took a lesson from history in building the base where they did.”
“Well,” Pontowski said, “I did ask to get close to the action, didn’t I?” He thought for a moment. “Camp Alpha it is,” he said, bending back over the map on the worktable.
Butler’s image of a tiger changed to one of an eagle swooping down on its prey.
“We’re transferring to a permanent office in my directorate,” Janice Clark told Pontowski. “Butler will be glad to see the last of us.” She signed for a box of classified material and sent the sergeant on his way. “We should be up and operating by the time you get to Kelly Field in San Antonio.”
Pontowski looked around the now-vacant office. It had been a long day, and he desperately needed some exercise to brush away the mental cobwebs. “I’ll walk with you, if you don’t mind.” He loaded a cart with boxes and pushed it out the door. It amazed him how quickly the paperwork had piled up once the decision was made to activate the AVG at Kelly Field and deploy to Camp Alpha. He checked his watch. “Butler wants me at the NMCC.” The NMCC was the National Military Command Center and the closest thing the United States had to the command centers Hollywood and TV fantasized about.