Leadership Material

'Jammers!' Brad shouted. 'Lock on and shoot!'

'No! Withhold!' Patrick shouted. He keyed the UHF radio mike button again: 'One-Four-One, don't come any closer!'

'I said shoot… !'

'Wait! He's turning and climbing!' Wendy reported with relief. 'He's climbing and turning, heading northeast.'

'Prick,' John Ormack said with a loud sigh of relief. 'Just a macho stunt.'

'Scope's clear,' Wendy said. 'Bandit at twenty miles and extending. No other signals.'

'Pilot's clearing off,' Brad said. He didn't wait for John's acknowledgment, but safetied his ejection seat, whipped off his straps, and stormed out of his seat and back to the systems officer's compartment.

'He doesn't look happy, guys,' John warned Patrick and Wendy on interphone.

The instrument console was right behind the hatch leading to the lower deck, so Brad couldn't go all the way back. He plugged into a free interphone cord, so everyone on board could hear his tirade, stood over the console with eyes blazing, pointed a gloved finger at Patrick, and thundered, 'Don't you ever countermand my orders again, Major! He could've blown us away-twice! You're not the aircraft commander, I am!' He turned to Wendy Tork and shouted, 'If I say 'shoot,' Tork, you obey my orders instantly or I will kick your ass, then kick your ass into prison for twenty years! And don't you dare cease jamming an enemy aircraft unless I give the order to stop! You copy me?'

'I hear you, General,' Wendy shot back, 'but you can go straight to hell.' Elliott's eyes bulged in rage. Wendy hurried on: 'Who gave us the order to shoot? Who even gave us permission to jam a foreign power's radar and radios?' Elliott remained silent.

'Brad?' John Ormack asked. 'This mission is supposed to be a contingency mission, in case Iran opens a second front against the Coalition. We're not supposed to be flying so close to disputed territory-I don't think we were supposed to engage anyone.'

'In fact, I don't ever recall being given an order to fly at all, sir,' Patrick said. 'I read the warning order, and it says we were supposed to stand by for possible action against Iran or any other nation that declares neutrality that might be a threat to the U.S. I never saw the execution order or the rules of engagement. We never received any satellite photos or tactical printouts. Nothing to help us in mission planning.'

'What about that, General?' Wendy asked. 'I never saw the execution order for our mission either. I never got the order of battle or any intelligence reports. Is this an authorized mission or not?'

'Of course it is,' Brad said indignantly. His angry grimace was melting away fast, and Patrick knew that Wendy had guessed right. 'We were ordered to stand by for action. We're… standing by. This is tactically the best place to be standing by anyway.'

'So if we fired on an Iranian fighter, it would be unauthorized.'

'We're authorized to defend ourselves…'

'If we were on an authorized mission, we'd be authorized to defend ourselves-but this isn't authorized, is it?' Patrick asked. When Brad did not answer right away, Patrick added, 'You mean, none of the Me-gafortresses we have in-theater is specifically authorized to be up here? We've got three experimental stealth warplanes loaded with weapons flying ten thousand miles from home and just a few miles from a war zone, and no one knows we're up here? Jesus, General…'

'That will be all, Major,' Elliott interjected. 'The sorties were authorized-by me. Our orders were to stand by and prepare for combat operations in support of Desert Storm. That is what we're doing.'

Patrick unstrapped, unplugged his interphone cord, got to his feet, leaned close to Brad Elliott, and said cross-cockpit, so no one else could hear, 'Sir, we can't be doing this. You're risking our lives… for what? If we got intercepted by Iranians or Iraqis or whoever, we'd have to fight our way out-but we'd be doing it without sanction, without orders. If we got shot down, no one would even know we were missing. Why? What the hell is all this for?'

Brad and Patrick looked into each other's eyes for a very long moment. Brad's eyes were still blazing with indignation and anger, but now they were shadowed by a touch of… what? Patrick hoped it would be understanding or maybe contrition, but that's not what he saw. Instead, he saw disappointment. Patrick had called his mentor and commanding officer on a glaring moral and leadership error, and all he could communicate in return was that he was disappointed that his protege didn't back him up.

'Is it because you didn't participate in Desert Storm?' Patrick asked. The Persian Gulf War-some called it 'World War III'-had just ended, and the majority of troops had already gone home. They were enjoying celebrations and congratulations from a proud and appreciative nation, something unseen in the United States since World War II. 'Is it because you know you had something that could help the war effort, but you weren't allowed to use it?'

'Go to hell, McLanahan,' Elliott said bitterly. 'Don't try any of that amateur psychoanalyst crap with me. I'm given discretion on how to employ my forces, and I'm doing it as I see fit.'

Patrick looked at his commanding officer, the man he thought of as a friend and even as a surrogate father. His father had died before Patrick went off to college, and he and his younger brother had been raised in a household with a strong-willed, domineering mother and two older sisters. Brad was the first real father figure in Patrick's life in many years, and he did all he could to be a strong, supportive friend to Elliott, who was without a doubt a lone-wolf character, both in his personal and professional life.

Although Bradley James Elliott was a three-star general and was once the number four man in charge of Strategic Air Command, the major command in charge of America's long-range bombers and land-based ballistic nuclear missiles, he was far too outspoken and too 'gung ho' for politically sensitive headquarters duty. To Brad, bombers were the key to American military power projection, and he felt it was his job, his duty, to push for increased funding, research, and development of new long-range attack technologies. That didn't sit well with the Pentagon. The services had been howling mad for years about the apparent favoritism toward the Air Force. The Pentagon was pushing 'joint operations,' but Brad Elliott wasn't buying it. When he continued to squawk about reduced funding and priority for new Air Force bomber Programs, Brad lost his fourth star. When he still wouldn't shut up, he was banished to the high Nevada desert either to retire or simply disappear into obscurity.

Brad did neither. Even though he was an aging three-star general occupying a billet designated for a colonel or one-star general, he used 'is remaining stars and HAWC's shroud of ultrasecrecy and security to develop an experimental twenty-first-century long-range attack force, comprised of highly modified B-52 and B-l bombers, 'superbrilliant' stealth cruise missiles, unmanned attack vehicles, and precision-guided weapons. He procured funding that most commanders could only wish for, money borrowed-many said 'stolen'-from other weapons programs or buried under multiple layers of security classification.

While the rest of the Air Force thought Brad Elliott was merely sitting around waiting to retire, he was building a secret attack force- and he was using it. He had launched his first mission in a modified B-52 bomber three years earlier, dodging almost the entire Soviet Far East Air Army and attacking a Soviet ground-based laser installation that was being used to blind American reconnaissance satellites. That mission had cost the lives of three men, and had cost Brad his right leg. But it proved that the 'flying battleship' concept worked and that a properly modified B-52 bomber could be used against highly defended targets in a nonnuclear attack mission. Brad Elliott and his team of scientists, engineers, test pilots, and technogeeks became America's newest secret strike force.

'It's not your job or place to second-guess or criticize me,' Elliott went on, 'and it sure as hell isn't your place to countermand my orders or give orders contrary to mine. You do it again, and I'll see to it that you're military career is terminated. Understand?'

Patrick thought he had noted just a touch of sadness in Brad's eyes, but that was long gone now. He straightened his back and caged his eyes, not daring to look his friend in the eye. 'Yes, sir,' he replied tonelessly.

'General?' John Ormack radioed back on interphone. 'Patrick? What's going on?'

Brad scowled one last time at Patrick. Patrick just sat down without meeting Brad's eyes and strapped into his ejection seat again. Elliott said, 'Patrick's going to contact Diego Garcia and get our bombers some secure hangar space. We're going to put down until we get clarification on our mission. Plot a course back to the refueling track, get in contact with our tankers and our wingmen, and let's head back to the barn.'