“Colonel, is there anything else?” she demanded.
“The next time…”
She waited for him to finish the sentence. Instead, he signed off.
Jennifer looked at one of the Marines standing nearby, a young private barely out of high school.
“Officers,” she said, shaking her head.
“Know what you mean,” said the man, nodding.
The Pakistani was so excited, and so distraught, that Danny decided his story
According to the man, his house had been without electricity, telephone, or running water for several days. His wife had gone into labor and he’d left her to get her mother, who lived in the nearby village.
The man practically hopped up and down, pleading that he be let go so he could get his mother-in-law. He interspersed his English with long sentences in Punjabi, convinced that Danny would understand if he spoke slowly and distinctly. He seemed to take the appearance of the Americans in stride, as if they belonged there; Danny thought it better not to press the issue.
But what should he do with him? Releasing him was too dangerous. On the other hand, it seemed that if they did nothing, the baby and its mother might die.
“Ya don’t even know if this woman he’s going to get can help her,” said Gunny.
Danny nodded.
“We can deliver the baby,” said Liu. “We’ve done it before. The woman could die without medical attention.”
“We’re not exactly a maternity ward,” said Danny. “We have other things going on here.”
He turned around and walked down the hill toward the rutted area where the missile had come to rest. A set of tarps had been erected to shield the work lights from the roadway. Jennifer Gleason was hunched over a mangled part of the body and the engine in the first third of the debris field.
“How’s it going, Doc?” Danny asked.
“Slow, Captain. I’m not an expert on these systems.”
“I thought you knew everything, Jen.”
“Ha ha.”
“How much longer do you need?”
“Two or three hours at least,” she said. “Are we in a hurry?”
“I want to be out of here before daylight.”
“Then let me alone.”
Danny went back to the Pakistani and Liu. Gunny was standing with them, trying to engage the Pakistani in a conversation about what was going on in the country. The man wasn’t interested in anything but his wife.
“Sergeant Liu, grab Blow and Jonesy and take this guy back to his house. Assess the situation and report back.”
“You got it, Cap.”
“Excuse me, Captain,” said Gunny.
“What’s up, Sergeant?” asked Danny, already suspecting the problem.
“Hey, no offense here, but, uh, sending those guys out there — you really think it’s a good idea?”
“It’s the best alternative.”
“I don’t know about that. For one thing, he may be lying.”
“I don’t think he is.”
“For another thing, Captain, what are you going to do if she is in labor? We going to deliver the baby?”
Danny shrugged. “Those guys have done it before.”
The Marine sergeant shook his head.
“Look, we’re not at war with these people,” Danny told him. “On the contrary, they’re our allies.”
“I don’t think I’d trust them much.”
“You don’t have to,” said Danny, turning to go check on the Osprey crews.
Samson flattened the paper on the desk, spreading his large hand across its surface. For all its high-tech gizmos, the Dreamland commander’s office still relied on a fax machine that used thermal imaging paper.
The letters were a little faint and the image crinkled, but he didn’t care. He could see what it said: The Whiplash order had been reissued, directed to Major General Terrill Samson, rather than Colonel Bastian.
Just in case.
He’d keep Rubeo through the deployment — being too vindictive would only hurt the mission. But once it was over, the egghead was history.
Samson got up from the desk. Bastian — or his predecessor, if the chief master sergeant was to be believed — had good taste in furniture, he decided. But the place was a little cluttered with chairs and files. The first thing he had to do was have them cleared out. He’d put them in the conference room next door, which he would now use as an office annex — a library.
He didn’t need a conference room. He wasn’t planning on doing much conferring.
“Begging the general’s pardon,” said Ax, still standing near the doorway, “but was there anything else this morning?”
“Yes, Chief, there is. I need a memo telling all department and section heads, all heads of testing programs, everyone from the head scientist to the janitor, that Dreamland’s entire agenda is now open for review.
Samson drifted off, unsure exactly how he wanted it to sound.
“Like if they don’t do a good job you’ll sack them?” asked Ax.
“That’s it, Chief. Exactly.” Ax would definitely stay, Samson decided. “Have it on my desk before lunch.”
Technically speaking, chief master sergeant Terence “Ax” Gibbs was a bachelor. But in a very real sense, Gibbs was as married as any man in America. It’s just that his wife — his children, his relatives, his home, his family, his friends, his pets, his entire existence — was the U.S. Air Force.
But now it was time for a divorce. So as soon as he finished writing Samson’s memo — it took all of three minutes, and had a much more balanced tone than the general wanted — he went online and obtained the appropriate paperwork to initiate a transfer back to his home state of Florida, in anticipation of a separation from the service in a few months. And just in case Samson objected — Ax sensed he would, if only on general principles — the chief sent out a handful of private messages lining up support. Among the recipients were two lieutenant generals and the Air Force’s commanding general, giving him a full house to deal with any bluff Samson might mount.
He had worked for people like Samson at numerous points during his career. But he’d been young then. Age mellowed some people; for others, it removed their ability to stand still for bullshit. He fell into the latter category.
Lieutenant Colonel Bastian wasn’t the perfect boss. He was occasionally given to fits of anger; however well justified, fits of pique in the long run could be counterproductive. The colonel also insisted on keeping things at Dreamland streamlined, which for Ax meant that he had to make do with about a tenth of the staff he would have at a “normal” command. But Dog respected, trusted, and related to his people in a way that Ax knew Samson never would.
But this wasn’t about Samson. It was about Terence “Ax” Gibbs. If he worked things out properly, he would arrive in the civilian world just after Florida’s high tourist season. Prices on charter boats would be reduced, and he would be able to use a small portion of his tidy Air Force nest egg to set himself up as a boat operator.
Tough getting used to all that sun after decades of working indoors, but everyone needed a challenge, especially in retirement.
