“Okay, how does this work?” Pontowski muttered to himself. He stared at the computer screen for a few moments. “Hey,” he called. “Does someone have a clue how to access an encrypted e-mail?”
One of the young pilots walking by his open office door nodded and ambled in. “Treat it as a secure phone call,” he said.
Pontowski grumbled as he unlocked the safe where he stored classified documents. He found the key and inserted it in the base of the STU-V, the secure phone sitting on his desk. He turned the key, and the LED screen blinked a message at him to press the aux message button. He did, and the scrambled e-mail message on the computer screen metamorphosed into plain text. But now the normal text was scrambled, and he grumped in frustration. He wasn’t going to have it both ways. The message was from Lieutenant Colonel Janice Clark.
1. ADVON TEAM ARRIVED CAMP ALPHA THIS MORNING. INFRASTRUCTURE BETTER THAN EXPECTED.
2. SEAC POSITIONING WEAPONS AND FUEL FOR YOUR ARRIVAL.
3. AIR BASE DEFENSE INADEQUATE, BRING OWN SECURITY TEAM WHEN DEPLOY. CONTACT CMSGT LEROY ROCKNE AT HDQTRS 37 TRW AT LACKLAND AFB FOR SUPPORT.
4. LIST OF REMAINING SHORTFALLS TO COME.
“Very good,” he said to himself. Not only had Clark quickly identified what she considered the major problem, she had proposed a solution and a person to contact for help. “Maggot’s going to like working with her,” he said. “And I’ve got to stop talking to myself.” Pontowski hit the print key to print the message. The printer whirred, but the message it spit out was gibberish. “Technology is a wonderful thing,” he groused. He rooted around in his desk drawer and found the telephone directory for Lackland Air Force Base, which was next door to Kelly Field. He called the Thirty-seventh and left a message for Chief Master Sergeant Rockne to call him.
Then he kicked back in his chair and thought for a moment. Two questions loomed large in his mind. First, what were his marching orders? Lacking an answer, he couldn’t set up a coherent training program for his pilots, much less create the ROE he wanted. Second, when could they deploy? His gut instincts told him the sooner the better, but how close were they? The answer would come in two parts: one from Maintenance, the other from Operations. It was the excuse he needed to escape the confines of his office, with its never-ending flow of paperwork. He grabbed his flight cap and headed for the hangar next to his building. Outside, ten A-10 Warthogs were lined up on the ramp, ready for the morning’s training missions. If the schedule held, eight would be turned for the afternoon’s flights and two would join the other nine in the hangar being prepared for the long flight across the Pacific to Malaysia.
Pontowski ran the numbers through his head: 19 aircraft, 29 pilots, and 310 maintenance troops. It still amazed him how quickly it had all come together. That was the wonder of modern communications and Air Force organization. The downside was that the aircraft had been scrounged from around the system, and most needed major maintenance. On the plus side they were swamped with pilots who wanted to sign on. Maggot had posted a message on the Air Force’s personnel Web page advertising for pilots with A-10 experience who wanted to travel to foreign lands, meet strange and exotic people, and drop bombs on them. The ad was deemed politically incorrect by the powers that be and pulled within three hours. But the damage had been done, and the word had gone out that the American Volunteer Group was back in business and under the command of one Brigadier General Matt Pontowski. The phone had started ringing immediately, and the pilots couldn’t get to Kelly Field fast enough. But it had been a balancing act, blending experience with youth. Fortunately, Maggot knew most of the pilots personally or by reputation, and he culled the wheat from the chaff. But he still wanted a few more.
Pontowski jammed his flight cap on his head, careful to dent it in the back in the approved fighter-pilot style. He watched as four pilots walked out to the aircraft, carrying their helmet bags and gear. He wished he were going with them, and for a moment he was back in the cockpit. Over the course of his career he had flown numerous aircraft and seen combat in two, the F-15E Strike Eagle and the A-10 Warthog. The Strike Eagle had been a beauty, sleek and graceful, and performed like a demon straight from the environs of hell as he visited death and destruction on those who would do harm to innocent people.
But the A-10 was still his favorite, slow and ungainly-looking with its blunt nose and big thirty-millimeter cannon that could destroy tanks with deadly efficiency. How many times had he challenged death in that bird? Suddenly, standing there in the bright Texas sun on a lovely September day, it didn’t matter. He had done it.
Pontowski was not an introspective man, given to self-examination or doubts. His wife, Shoshana, had told him it was the major flaw in his personality. But she forgave him for it and had given him a wonderful son before she had been killed. Was that the price extracted for his survival? He hoped it didn’t work that way. For some reason he had never remarried. But he didn’t think about it. Later on, other women had moved through his life, challenging and changing him, sometimes loving him. Some had used him and, in the case of Liz Gordon of CNC-TV, hated him with a pure and unrefined passion. And then there was Maddy Turner. He forced her image away, not knowing what the future held for them.
He watched as the pilots finished their walk-around and climbed up the boarding ladders. How many times had he done that? A sharp dagger of regret cut through him. He would never do it again — not with his bad leg and at his age. Be honest, he told himself, flying a jet is a young man’s game. Now it was his job to lead them, not from the cockpit like Maggot Stuart but from a different place in time and space. His decisions would determine who would live and who would die. What gives me the right? Shoshana’s voice was there. Because you did it and risked all, because you care and know the price.
He watched the four A-10s taxi out. Another thought came to him. It was also the challenge, the testing, the adrenaline flows. For reasons he would never understand, he was most alive, most sure of himself, when he was flying and fighting. And ego, he thought. What part does that play in this strange brew? He forced that thought away, too, not ready to deal with it. He waited until the four jets took off at twenty-second intervals. His eyes followed the lead aircraft as it turned out of the pattern, giving the following jets cut off in order to join up. “Please, Lord,” he prayed, “forgive me, for this is what I am.”
He turned and walked into the maintenance hangar. Inside, the cavernous bay was alive with activity as men swarmed around the nine Warthogs being prepped for deployment. Like any military facility, the hangar was spotless, but any similarities ended there. The men were all middle-aged or older, and dressed in civilian clothes. A few had been with the original AVG in China and later with him in South Africa on a peacekeeping mission that had been anything but peaceful. Some had come out of retirement, and more than half were Air Reserve technicians on a leave of absence from their regular jobs. He was thankful for the wealth of experience they brought with them.
Maggot stepped out of the office where Maintenance Control worked, and walked toward him. Much to Pontowski’s envy, he was wearing a flight suit and his face was still etched with the lines from his oxygen mask. He had been up on a test flight earlier. “Our last jet is inbound,” Maggot told him. “It should be on the ground in a few minutes.”
“What sort of shape is it in?” Pontowski asked.