Plank said. “Was he here?”
“He was here — and he dropped a bombshell on us,” the President said, returning to his desk. “I want a full rundown of the military situation on the Korean peninsula, including a complete accounting of all of South Korea’s forces, and I needed it an hour ago.” Then he picked up the phone, called the White House Communications Center, and ordered a call placed to President Kwon Ki-chae of South Korea.
CHAPTER THREE
Impressive as hell, Muck,” said Dave Luger. “That’s it in a nutshell. Very damned impressive.”
Patrick McLanahan took a sip of coffee and raised an eyebrow in surprise as he sat in the back of a large blue StepVan, used by his evaluation team as their mobile headquarters. It was a couple of hours before dawn, right at the twelve-hour safety-of-flight crew rest time limit prescribed by regulation for all fliers. It was damned early, much too early, but Patrick was determined not to let his team leaders — who certainly had had much longer days than he — see how tired he was.
With him inside the van were Patrick’s old friend and partner Lieutenant Colonel David Luger, acting as chief of the maintenance and weapons inspection team; Lieutenant Colonel Hal Briggs, chief of the security and administrative inspection team; and Lieutenant Colonel Nancy Cheshire, chief of the command and control and services inspection team. They were parked on the Air National Guard ramp, just outside the entry control point of the long aircraft parking ramp. The line of sleek, deadly B-1B bombers, illuminated in the harsh yellow glow of overhead “ball park” lights, filled the place with excitement. Maintenance vehicles and crews moved around purposefully. To this unit, this was no exercise — it was the real thing. Aces High was going to war, and every man and woman in the small unit, from the airman basic cook in the in-flight kitchen to the commander, knew it.
“All of the planes came up with only minor squawks,” Luger went on. Dave Luger was a tall, lanky Texan, a former B-52 navigator who now worked as chief project engineer under Patrick McLanahan at the supersecret Dreamland research facility. “Seven bombers fully configured and ready to fly. The biggest hitch was getting weapons from the Navy depot at Creashawn, but once they showed up, they uploaded them without any deficiencies.”
“None?” Patrick asked incredulously.
“None,” Dave assured him. “Seven B-1s with mixed payloads — twenty-eight Mark 82 AIRs in the forward bay, a rotary launcher with eight GBU-32 JDAMs in the mid bay, and ten CBU-87s in the aft bay — all went up on time without a major glitch. I’m going to have to nitpick to find something to ding ’em on.
“The place is amazing, Muck. You know how you can tell how a unit is going to function as soon as you walk in just by looking at the floors? I knew these guys had their shit together the minute I walked in there. The floors are so clean you can eat off them. They look like they
“Every unit spit shines their gear when an inspection team’s on base,” Patrick pointed out.
“But you can usually tell if the spit shine is cosmetic, done once a year, or if it’s done regularly — and around here, it’s obviously done a lot,” Dave said. “Besides, this was a no-notice inspection — there was no time to spit shine every tool, every shop, every workbench, every rack. It was already done. And remember, this unit thought they were on their way to Ellsworth or Dyess for their pre-D. Why clean every piece of equipment
“A big help around here is the crewdogs,” Luger went on. “The flight crews are right there with the maintainers, assisting and checking. Their attention to foreign-object damage control is the best I’ve ever seen — we can take some lessons from them. They aren’t afraid to go up to an inspector and get on his case for dropping a pencil or not checking vehicle tires for FOD.”
“Good.” Patrick knew that was true. A buck sergeant had admonished him — politely but firmly — for placing a checklist clipboard down on the ramp. The nearest running engine was at the adjacent parking spot almost three hundred feet away, but the danger of having a gust of wind or a vehicle push the checklist close enough to get sucked into a seven-million-dollar jet engine was too great to take a chance. “So we’ve got seven birds uploaded and ready to fly?”
“Seven in the green, fueled, armed, and ready,” Luger replied. “These guys pull together well. They’d be hard to distinguish from an active-duty unit. I have no doubt they can surge their birds for as long as we want.”
“Overall rating?”
“Excellent,” David replied. “In critical mission-essential areas, I rate them an ‘outstanding.’”
“Very good.” Patrick turned to Hal Briggs. “What have you seen, Hal?”
“Ditto,” Briggs replied. He was a wiry black man who always seemed in perpetual motion, always animated and excited, with dark dancing eyes and a quick smile. But Patrick had also seen him kill with equal joy. Until the death of his mentor, Brad Elliott, Hal’s favorite sidearm had been a rare.45-caliber Uzi submachine gun — now it was Elliott’s ivory-handled.45-caliber Colt M1911A1 Government autopistol.
“As you know, me and a couple of my white boys and girls arrived a couple of days ago to poke around and do some security probes,” Briggs said. “We tried everything — the janitor routine, the telephone man routine, the sneak-and-peek routine, everything but a full commando assault. For a unit located on a commercial civilian airfield, their security is pretty damned good. They practice good COMSEC procedures all the time. Airport security is typical — lousy — but security tightens quickly as you get closer to the Guard ramp. Good K-9 unit, good use of manpower, good rotation procedures, good challenge and response and use of authenticators.
“I found a few unlocked doors and open gates and was able to get close enough to hand-toss some fake grenades at a plane in a fuel dock. We found one bag of shredded classified material in a Dumpster, but it was confetti-shredded and unreadable — still a violation, but not a serious one. Never got access to a plane, never got near their command post or their classified documents vault. Couldn’t hack into their classified computer server. Bought lots of drinks, but we couldn’t get one single Guard guy in a bar to talk about anything even remotely approaching classified topics — even had one guy report his contact to Furness, who filed the report with the adjutant general, state police, and Air Force Office of Special Investigations at Beale Air Force Base. Rating: ‘above average’ overall, ‘excellent’ in critical areas.”
“Good,” Patrick said. “What do you have, Nance?”
“I sound like a broken record, Patrick, but I give them an overall ‘above average’ and an ‘excellent’ in mission-essential areas,” Lieutenant Colonel Nancy Cheshire replied. Cheshire, a petite dark-haired woman in her late thirties with large doe eyes and a little button nose, was one of the Air Force’s toughest and most talented test pilots. She was the first female pilot to fly the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber, but her real accomplishments had come as Dreamland’s first and greatest female test and combat pilot, flying three secret missions in experimental B-52 bombers over the past several years. Now she was the chief test pilot of the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center.
“It was a pleasure to watch these Guard guys go to work,” she continued. “The battle staff, operational support squadron, and command post performed flawlessly in all the scenarios. Good security procedures, good time control, good use of checklists and command doctrine. One overdue situation report and one brain-fart with a radio frequency that broadcast a coded message on an open frequency prevented them from getting an overall ‘outstanding.’
“I was primarily concerned about the mobility line, but that’s where this unit really earns an ‘outstanding’ score. It must be the unit’s recent history with C-130 transports, but these guys run a mobility line more efficiently than anyone I’ve ever seen. Excellent use of computers, with most programs custom-written for this unit. Almost no wasted time. But the key is the folks going through the line, and I’ve got to say that this unit has got the procedures down cold. Everyone had updated records, everyone had current vaccinations, everyone had their required gear. This unit was
