Leadership Material

joining the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, Patrick thought about being its commander-now, for the first time, someone else had verbalized it. 'I don't think I'm leadership material, Wendy,' Patrick said after a short chuckle.

His little laugh barely succeeded in hiding the rising volts of pleasure he felt as her fingers aimlessly caressed his shoulder. 'Sure you are,' she said. 'I think you'd be a great commanding officer.'

'I don't think so,' Patrick said. 'They made me a major after the Kavaznya mission only because we survived it, not because I'm better than all the other captains in the Air Force…'

'They made you a major because you deserve to get promoted.'

Patrick ignored her remark. 'I think I might be meeting a lieutenant-colonel promotion board sometime this month-a two-year below-the-primary-zone board-but I have no desire to become a commander,' he went on. 'All I want to do is fly and be the best at whatever mission or weapon system they give me. But they don't promote flyboys to O-5 if they want to just stay flyboys.'

'They don't?'

'Why should they? If a captain or a major can do the job, why do they need a lieutenant colonel doing it? L– Cs are supposed to be leaders, commanding squadrons. I don't want a squadron.' Wendy looked at the sand for a long moment, then drummed her fingers on his shoulder. He glanced at her and smiled when she looked up at him with a mischievous smile. 'What?'

'I think that's bull, Major-soon-to-be-Lieutenant-Colonel McLa-nahan.' Wendy laughed. 'I think you'd make an ideal commanding officer. You're the best at what you do, Patrick-it's perfectly understandable that you wouldn't want to spoil things by moving on to something else. But I see the qualities in you that other high-ranking guys lack. John Ormack is a great guy and a fine engineer, but he doesn't have what it takes to lead. Brad Elliott is a determined, gutsy leader, but he doesn't have the long-range vision and the interpersonal skills that a good commander needs.

'So stop selling yourself short. Those of us who know you can see it's total bull. The Strategic Air Command has got you so brainwashed into believing the mission comes first and the person comes last that you're starting to believe it yourself.' She lay on the warm sand, facing him. 'Let's talk about something else-like why you were watching me last night.'

Her frankness and playfulness, combined with the warm sand, idyllic tropical scenery, fresh ocean breezes- not to mention her semiundressed attire-finally combined to make Patrick relax, even smile. He lay down on the sand, facing her, intentionally shifting himself closer to her. 'I was fantasizing about you,' he said finally. 'I was thinking about the night at the Bomb Comp symposium at Barksdale that we spent together, how you looked, how you felt.'

'Mmm. Very nice. I knew you were thinking that. I thought it was cute, you trying to stammer your way out of it. I've been thinking about you too.'

'Oh yeah?'

Her eyes grew cloudy, tumultuous. 'I had been thinking for the longest time if we'd ever get back together again,' Wendy said. 'After the Kavaznya mission, we were so compartmentalized, isolated-I thought I'd never touch you ever again. Then you joined Brad in the Border Security Force assignment, and that went bust, and it seemed like they drove you even deeper underground. And then the Philippines conflict… we lost so many planes out there, I was sure you weren't coming back. I knew you'd be leading the force, and I thought you'd be the first to die, even in the B-2 stealth bomber.'

Wendy rolled over on her back and stared up into the sky. The clouds were thickening-it looked like a storm coming in, more than just the usual daily late-afternoon five-minute downpour. 'But then Brad brought us back to refit the new planes to the Megafortress standard, and you were back at work like nothing ever happened. We started working together, side by side, sometimes on the same workstation or jammed into the same dinky compartment, sometimes so close I could feel the heat from your temples. But it seemed as if we had never been together-it was as if we had always been working together, but that night in Barksdale never happened. You were working away like crazy and I was just another one of your subcontractors.'

'I didn't mean to hurt you, Wendy…'

'But it did hurt,' she interjected. 'The way you looked at me at Barksdale, the way you treated me at Dreamland, the way you touched me on the Megafortress just before we landed in Anadyr… I felt something between us, much more than just a one-night stand in Shreveport. That felt like an eternity ago. I felt as if I waited for you, and you were never coming back. Then I caught you looking at me, and all I could think of to do was come up with subtle ways to hurt you. Now, I don't know what I feel. I don't know whether I should punch your damned lights out or…'

He moved pretty quick for a big guy. His lips were on hers before she knew it, but she welcomed his kiss like a pearl diver welcomes that first deep, sweet breath of air after a long time underwater.

The beach was beautiful, soothing and relaxing, but they did not spend much time there. They knew that the world was going to come crashing down on them very, very soon, and they didn't have much time to get reacquainted. The Visiting Officers' Quarters were only a short walk away

'Damn shit-hot group we got, that's what I think,' Colonel Harry Ponce exclaimed. He was 'holding court' in the Randolph Officers Club after breakfast, sitting at the head of a long table filled with fellow promotion board members and a few senior officers from the base. Ponce jabbed at the sky with his unlit cigar. 'It's going to be damn hard to choose.'

Heads nodded in agreement-all but Norman Weir's. Ponce jabbed the cigar in his direction. 'What's the matter, Norm? Got a burr up your butt about somethin'?'

Norman shrugged. 'No, Colonel, not necessarily,' he said. Most of the others turned to Norman with surprised expressions, as if they were amazed that someone would dare contradict the supercolonel. 'Overall, they're fine candidates. I wish I'd seen a few more sharper guys, especially the in-the-primary-zone guys. The above-the- primary-zone candidates looked to me like they'd already thrown in the towel.'

'Hell, Norman, ease up a little,' Ponce said. 'You look at a guy that's the ops officer of his squadron, he's got umpteen million additional duties, he flies six sorties a week or volunteers for deployment or TDYs-who the hell cares if he's got a loose thread on his blues? I want to know if the guy's been busting his hump for his unit.'

'Well, Colonel, if he can't put his Class A's together according to the regs or he can't be bothered getting a proper haircut, I wonder what else he can't do properly? And if he can't do the routine stuff, how is he supposed to motivate young officers and enlisted troops to do the same?'

'Norm, I'm talkin' about the real Air Force,' Ponce said. 'It's all fine and dandy that the headquarters staff and support agencies cross all the damned t's and dot the i's. But what I'm looking for is the Joe that cranks out one hundred and twenty percent each and every damned day. He's not puttin' on a show for the promotion board-he's helping his unit be the best. Who the hell cares what he looks like, as long as he flies and fights like a bitch bulldog in heat?'

That kind of language was typical in the supercolonel's verbal repertoire, and he used it to great effect to shock and humor anyone he confronted. It just made Norman more defensive. Anyone who resorted to using vulgarity as a normal part of polite conversation needed an education in how to think and speak, and Ponce was long overdue for a lesson. 'Colonel, a guy that does both-does a good job in every aspect of the job, presenting a proper, professional, by-the-book appearance as well as performing his primary job-is a better choice for promotion than just the guy who flies well but has no desire or understanding of all the other aspects of being a professional airman. A guy that presents a poor appearance may be a good person and a good operator, but obviously isn't a complete, well-balanced, professional officer.'

'Norm, buddy, have you been lost in your spreadsheets for the past nine months? Look around you-we're at war here!' Ponce responded, practically shouting. Norman had to clench his jaw to keep from admonishing Ponce to stop calling him by the disgusting nickname 'Norm.' 'The force is at war, a real war, for the first time since Vietnam-I'm not talkin' about Libya or Grenada, those were just finger-wrestling matches compared to the Sandbox-and we're kicking ass! I see my guys taxiing out ready to launch, and I see them practically jumpin' out of their cockpits, they're so anxious to beat the crap outta Saddam. Their crew chiefs are so excited they're pissin' their pants. I see those guys as heroes, and now I have a chance to promote them, and by God I'm gonna do it!

'The best part is, none of our officers are over there in the 'Sandbox' ordering someone to paint the rocks or having six-course meals while their men are dying all around them. We're going over there, kicking ass and taking