computer. What they don’t know is organization, discipline, esprit de corps, teamwork, and mutual support. It’s up to us to teach them.”
“God, Rebecca, you’re making me feel pretty damned old right now,” Daren said wryly. But he shrugged and patted the top of the instrument panel’s glare shield. “I’ll make them a deal: If they teach me how to talk to B-1 bombers, I’ll teach them how to think like a team.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” she said. “Listen, there’s going to be a lot of brass hanging around in the next few days. Rumor is the president and secretary of defense are going to stop by sometime in the next couple days for the nickel tour.”
“Cool. Well, this place will certainly water their eyes.”
“The general has this big project he wants to get funded.”
“He briefed me on his project,” Daren said. “It’s awesome, but we’ve got a lot of work to do. You want me to stay out of sight, Rebecca?”
Furness looked at the deck for a moment, then back at Daren and said, “Let’s just say that we’ve used some creative accounting practices to fund a few of the general’s pet projects.”
“So you need me to play along — make like I know and approve of all the ‘creative accounting practices.’ “
“Something like that.”
Daren shrugged. “I’m a team player. You got nothing to worry about from me.” He smiled at her, then nodded knowingly. “It’s nice to be sharing a cockpit with you again, Rebecca,” he said. “Really nice. I miss it.”
She squeezed his hand. “Me, too, partner,” she said, smiling back. “Me, too.”
A few minutes before six-thirty in the morning, an Air Force full colonel strode quickly and purposefully over to Daren Mace in the squadron lounge — Daren’s de facto office most of the time — and practically snapped to attention in front of him. “Colonel Mace?” He extended a rigid hand; Daren stood and shook it, stifling an amused smile at the guy’s officiousness. “Welcome to Battle Mountain, sir. I’m Colonel John Long.”
“Good to meet you,” Daren said. He looked around the room. “Is that two-star here again?”
“General McLanahan? No, sir.”
It was meant to be a half-joking, half-sarcastic remark, but this guy Long was all business here. “Then let’s dispense with the ‘sir’ stuff, okay, John?” Long was — contrary to his name — short, wiry, and tough-looking, with dark brown hair, beady little eyes, and a pointed nose. He looked like a bantamweight prizefighter — mean and jittery, his eyes, hands, feet, and mouth all in constant, rapid-fire motion. “We’re both full birds.”
“But you
Daren finally realized with faint surprise what the bastard was doing — he was reminding Daren that, although he was senior and outranked him by time in grade, Long was the boss. Daren kept his amused smile, but inwardly he was saying, Why, you little prick. We’ve known each other for just sixty seconds, and you’ve already proven what a jerk you can be.
“As you know,” Long went on, dropping all pretext of friendliness, “there is no lead-in program for the EB-1C Vampire, so I built the training program for both pilots and mission commanders — we don’t call you ‘navigators’ anymore. It’s a pretty tough program. Normally it takes a well-qualified officer about four months to complete the course. I hope you’ve been reading the tech order, Colonel.” They took a seat. “We’ve got you on a pretty steep learning curve.”
“I’m a fast study,” Daren said.
“I hope so. McLanahan cracks the whip pretty hard around here.”
“He seems like a nice guy.”
“That’s only for the folks who don’t know him,” Long said. “Once you get to know him like I do, you’ll find he’s really the ultimate prima donna. His only saving grace is that he wears navigator’s wings. If he was a pilot, he’d be the king of the assholes.”
Daren thought about the phrase “the pot calling the kettle black” but decided not to verbalize it.
“So. Tell me a little about yourself,” Long said. It was an idle question. He immediately began fiddling with some paperwork moments after asking it, not really listening.
“Not much to tell, John,” Daren replied. “I’m just happy as hell to be here.”
“What was your last assignment?”
“Office of the secretary of defense,” Daren replied.
Long nodded, impressed. “Very good,” he said. “Which division? Plans? Operations?”
“Protocol. I was in charge of flipping slides, making coffee, and emptying wastebaskets.”
Long gave him an amused smirk and said, “Well, I guess
“Beale Air Force Base, standing up the RQ-4A Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance squadron; I did Wright-Pat with the Air Force Research Labs, on UAV projects. Before that, deputy commander of the Thirty-ninth Wing at Incirlik. Before that, Air War College.”
“Not much operational experience,” Long observed haughtily.
Daren had no doubt that if he
“Global Hawk, huh? All this talk about unmanned aircraft and weapons scares me,” Long commented. “If you listened to all the brass around here, you’d think the entire force is going to be unmanned in a few years.”
Sooner than you think, Daren thought.
“The Thirty-ninth was the support unit for units deploying to Turkey and the Middle East?”
“Yep.”
“Any operational command experience at all?”
“Not since I was the DCM at the Three-ninety-fourth Wing at Plattsburgh — until they closed the base.”
“Maintenance group commander at a
“I flew both the RF-111s and the KC-135s based there—”
“Because you had to. Your unit deployed to Turkey and got itself creamed,” Long said. “I learned that unit’s history from General Furness. What a goat-fuck that turned out to be. We’re all lucky a nuclear war didn’t break out.”
All that wasn’t exactly true, but Daren didn’t correct him.
“What was your last flying assignment?”
“Seven-fifteenth Bomb Squadron.”
“The B-2 stealth bomber squadron at Whiteman?”
“No. The FB-111A. Pease Air Force Base, New Hampshire.”
“The Aardvarks? They retired the FB-111s in… in
Daren shrugged.
“When was the last time you flew?”
“I’ve kept current.”
“In what — Piper Cubs?”
“Anything I could get my hands on at Andrews and Maxwell — everything from C-37s to T-37s and T-38s, even a couple rides in F-15Bs.”
“So you haven’t flown operationally in over eleven years, and you have no operational command experience. Not exactly what I’d call the ideal candidate for command of a bomber squadron. And you’re probably the oldest guy on the entire fucking base.”
Prick. “Makes me wonder why they didn’t give the command to you, John.”
Long narrowed his gaze at Mace but let the comment slide off him. “I was the ops-group commander of the One-eleventh Bomb Wing,” Long said. “I’ve already put my time in with the Bones. My skills are better utilized on the wing-command level.”
