When Stevens had left, Cunningham slumped back into his chair and shook his head. He may have laid it on a bit thick, but Dick would get the word out. The more he thought about it, the more Cunningham decided he’d done pretty damned good. Especially since he personally couldn’t stand that pompous son of a bitch Blevins.
The men gathered around the flight planning table in Intel’s vault looked up when Jack entered the room. He looked all business as he pulled up a chair and sat at the far end of the table, listening to C.J. Conlan and Morgan and Carroll and Gomez argue about the plan for the wing’s attack on the German base at Ahlhorn. C.J. and Morgan were hassling about whether the Wild Weasels should surge ahead of the main strike force or escort them in. Jack got up and peered over Carroll’s shoulder at the large-scale, detailed map of northern Germany. “It looks like an updated raid on Woensdrecht,” he said, his first words since entering the vault. Waters and the weapons-and-tactics officers from the 377th and 378th had just arrived. Jack picked up the planning map from the table, pinned it on the wall next to a larger map of eastern England, the North Sea, the Netherlands and northern Germany, then overlaid both maps with a large sheet of acetate and picked up a grease pencil.
“What if we run the Ahlhorn attack as an integrated exercise with Ahlhorn, TLP at Jever and the 32nd at Soesterberg…? To hit Ahlhorn, we’ve got to fight our way in and out of Germany. Our opposition will be launching from Jever and Soesterberg. So… I’m proposing we attack all three bases at once in a three-pronged raid. We make them fight for their bases while we sneak our main attack force onto Ahlhorn. We don’t tell them which is our primary target, they’ve got to figure that one out. We’ve got to concentrate our Wild Weasels on the air defenses at Ahlhorn. But I think we can con Jever and Soesterberg into thinking they’re the main target if we send one Weasel on each of those raids to act like… like a red herring, I guess you’d call it.
“Hauling bombs in an attack would cause us fuel problems. We fly a split-mission profile: high altitude-low level-high altitude and hit a tanker on our way in and out. We fly the low level part over land, into and off the target. Regardless of the base we hit it’s minimum time in bad guy land and over target. We’ve got to get them looking where we ain’t.”
He sat down, dropped the grease pencil on the table, and watched.
Waters was obviously pleased, not to mention surprised. He didn’t know Jack had it in him. Or rather wondered if he’d ever get it together. He looked around the hushed room. “Tom, Bull, C.J., what do you think?”
“Should work,” Tom said. “Wish I’d thought of it.” C.J. only nodded and walked up to the wall map, planning his tactics.
Morgan was out of his chair, swinging at his imaginary sparring partner. “I want Soesterberg,” he grunted.
“Good, then let’s do it,” Waters decided. As they walked out of Intel, Waters stopped Jack. “Where did you get the idea for this attack?”
Jack half-smiled. Actually seemed embarrassed. “Believe it or not, I read a book, by Liddell Hart, that Thunder gave me while we were sweating out the court-martial. He talked about the indirect approach to strategy. Seemed like a good idea. Still does.”
The two colonels looked at each other and left.
“What a surprise,” Gomez said as they walked down the hall.
“That Jack read a book?” Waters smiled.
“No. Well, he’s changed. Or at least seems to have… I’m worried, though. That mission, too damn many things can go wrong. Think our crews can hack it? We’ll be in deep kimshi with Sundown if we lose another bird.”
Waters only nodded, and Gomez changed the subject. “Any more feedback from the Puzzle Palace or Third Air Force about the fizzle on Jack and Thunder’s court-martial?”
“Only that they lucked out, and got a blivet from Sundown. My guess is that that’s part of Jack’s newfound religion… ” And added to himself that Blevins, a canny in-fighter, wasn’t likely to let it go at that…
Chief Pullman took a quick survey of wing headquarters that afternoon, sauntered into the command post and cornered the on-duty controller.
“What combat status we reporting today?”
“A one, Chief. No problems except for night sorties. Not enough of them. The Old Man’s got a waiver and we’re reporting that in the remarks section.”
Satisfied at last that no surprises were waiting for his colonel, Pullman left the command post and headed for the NCO club, where he found the bar nearly deserted. The place didn’t fill up at quitting time as it used to, the bartender told him. Still, fifteen minutes later Chief George Gonzaga, Maintenance’s first shirt, sat down next to Pullman at the bar and ordered a beer. “Didn’t know your stomach let you drink, Mort,” he said.
“It seems to be cooperating these days. How’s things down in the trenches, George?”
“Busy. We’re launching more sorties than ever. Don’t know how much longer the birds can take it.”
“Getting behind on scheduled maintenance then, right?” Pullman asked.
“Nah, right on schedule.”
“Then behind on meeting your scheduled flying time?”
“Nah, we’re actually ahead of the time line and might have to request additional flying time.”
“The birds are starting to break more?”
“Not a bit.”
Another chief master sergeant entered the bar that was hard to ignore. Chief Curtis Hartley stood slightly over six and a half feet tall and was built like a weight lifter. Pullman motioned for him to join them. “How’s the Security Police business?”
Hartley grunted. “Not good. The Old Man is using my sweet black ass for target practice these days.”
“Gawd, it’s big enough. Hard to miss,” Gonzaga told him.
“Colonel Waters has got us training like mad; perimeter defense, intruder exercises. You name it.”
“Your troops can’t take the strain?” Pullman asked.
“Naw, they love it. Especially when they hear about Waters getting on my case.” The three sergeants spent the next three hours complaining happily to each other about how rotten things were.
All activity in the command post stopped. The men sat behind their telephones and radios and waited. The board plotters had finished marking up the birds as they reported in on status. Seventy-one aircraft stood ready to launch on the Ahlhorn raid. Only one plane had not checked in on status: 512.
“I can’t believe that,” Leason snapped, picking up the phone and jabbing the button for Maintenance Control. “Get 512 on status or start building a scaffold.” Ten minutes later Leason’s phone rang. The DM listened and hung up, then leaned back in his chair and grinned at Waters. “The damned battery failed when they put power to the aircraft. No big deal replacing the battery but you have to pull the backseat to get at it. Normally about a two-hour job. The crew chief turned into a madman, dove into the pit head-first without removing the seat, got twisted around somehow and got the battery out and a new one in. Not by the book, but it’s done. They had to pull the chief out by his feet.”
Waters nodded. “Make sure your troops know they did a good job. I don’t recall ever hearing of a wing getting all its birds up at once.”
The digital master clock flashed 1305 and the first wail of cranking jet engines could be heard. Waters took a deep breath and tried to relax as his wing headed for the North Sea.