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 someone’s got to do that stuff. Where before that?”
“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 hadn’t gone to any schools, Long would’ve criticized him for that, and it made him wonder what Long’s background was.
“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 Reserve unit?” Long exclaimed. “Did you do any flying?”
“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 1992?” Long said, wide-eyed. “That’s the last operational assignment you’ve had? Over eleven years ago?”
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.”
“The One-eleventh? Sorry to hear about your last predeployment. You’ve obviously bounced back from being the only Air National Guard wing ever to go non-mission-effective in peacetime.”
Long’s nostrils flared angrily. “Where’d you hear that nonsense?”
“You’re denying it, John? You’re saying it didn’t happen?” Long wisely decided not to say anything. “I worked at the secretary of defense’s office, remember, John? I prepared weekly briefings for SECDEF on each unit’s mission effectiveness. I know everything that happened out in Reno.”
“What happened to my wing in that pre-D had nothing to do with my fliers and everything to do with General McLanahan,” Long retorted. “The fix was in — we were programmed to fail from day one so he could act like he was going to save us, be the big hero, and then snatch us up and drag us off to Tonopah for his big, crazy ideas. We were doing fine before he showed up.”
“Of course. I should know better than to listen to all the things I heard at SECDEF’s office about you guys,” Daren said with an evil smile. “What with all the hotdogging, the accidents, the procedure violations — you guys were in fine shape the whole time. What a relief to know that.”
Long blanched. He didn’t like the idea of his name’s coming up in conversations at the secretary of defense’s office.
“Good thing they had you, John.”
Long’s jaw tightened at that remark, but he didn’t respond. “This wing will be fully mission-ready, Colonel — I’ll see to that,” he said. “I have my doubts about exactly what your contribution is going to be toward that effort, but I wasn’t consulted on the choice of squadron COs.”
“I’m sure you had other wing-command-level decisions to make.”
Long quickly decided to stop the verbal sparring. He wasn’t scoring any points at all. “All right. Well, let’s get you started.
“The mission of the Fifty-first Bomb Squadron is to equip and deploy the EB-1C Vampire bomber for intercontinental strike, anti-ballistic-missile defense, antisatellite operations, and long-range-reconnaissance missions,” Long began. “Your squadron has twelve EB-1C Vampire bombers in the Pit.” Most everyone called the underground hangar complex the “Lair,” which Daren thought sounded much cooler than the “Pit”—it was no surprise to Daren that Long called it something less flattering. “Normally we’re able to keep nine to ten operational and one in training status, but frankly, our maintenance guys need a swift kick in the ass sometimes to keep them up to speed.”
“I used to be a maintenance-group commander,” Daren reminded him. “And I know that no one responds well to ‘a swift kick in the ass,’ especially maintenance techs.”
“You motivate your troops the way you see fit, Colonel,” Long said. “You do whatever it takes to get the job done.”
“Yes, sir,” Daren said. “I see no reason we can’t keep the training birds mission-ready at the same time. We’ll figure out a way.”