For the first time that day, Hayes seemed concerned. “I don’t know if that kind of flier exists nowadays,” he said, “especially in the bomber force. Their entire career field has been raped so badly over the past six years that if we’ve got any heavy-iron aerial assassins anymore, it’ll be a miracle.”
“Oh, they’re out there, sir,” Terrill Samson said confidently. “Let my deputy loose and he’ll find exactly who we’re looking for. They might seem ugly and unruly and not poster-child material, but they’ll happily drive a two-hundred-ton Bone down a bad guy’s throat and all the way out his asshole any day of the week. We’ll see to that.”
The feelings of strength and urgency that had begun coursing through Victor Hayes when he stepped into the chase plane’s cockpit that morning now turned overwhelming. They came from the sense of direction, purpose, and urgency created by Terrill Samson and the men and women in this isolated, secret desert airfield. These people weren’t afraid of getting into trouble, rocking the boat, or busting the budget. All they cared about was doing the job. They identified a problem, devised a solution, and built the right weapon for the task. They never gave a thought to how what they did would look on an effectiveness report, evaluation, news article, or budget analysis.
“Do it, Earthmover,” Hayes said excitedly. “Get started ASAP. I don’t know how I’ll find the money, but I’ll find it. Get your guy to find the hardware and the crewdogs, and I’ll back your play. I think we’re about to set the ballistic missile weenies of the world back on their asses big-time.”
Tall, athletic, with dark brown eyes and brown hair, Lieutenant Colonel Rebecca “Go-Fast” Furness, commander of the 111th Bomb Squadron, Nevada Air National Guard, had the intelligence of a physician, the spirit and determination of a police officer, and the looks of a model. But her life had always revolved around flying. Men, career, a decent living, and excitement were all good things to have — but flying was her one and only true love.
She had graduated from the University of Vermont with an Air Force ROTC commission and attended Air Force flight school at Williams Air Force Base, Arizona, graduating in 1979 at the top of her class. All top pilot graduates, including women, had their pick of assignments — just as long as the women didn’t choose any combat flying assignments. As a subtle sign of protest, Furness requested the FB-111A Aardvark supersonic bomber, but accepted the KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refueling tanker with the Strategic Air Command — she knew the bomber was never an option. She set out to show she was worthy of the best assignment and quickly proved her exceptional flying skills and dedication. She cross-trained to the coveted KC-10A Extender tanker-transport, the military version of the DC-10 airliner, and tore up the program there too, quickly becoming a flight commander and instructor pilot.
It was Desert Storm that changed her life. Rebecca Catherine Furness was in command of a KC-10 tanker flight over Saudi Arabia when a call came in about an F-111 bomber suffering massive battle damage. The bomber had numerous fuel leaks, and its crew was only minutes away from having to eject over Iraq. Furness took her KC-10 more than a hundred miles inside Iraq, dodging fighters and surface-to-air missile sites to refuel the bomber, and gave its crew the chance it needed to fly into friendly airspace.
As a reward, Furness achieved her lifelong dream — she became the Air Force’s first female combat pilot. She accepted a Reserve assignment with the 394th Air Battle Wing, Plattsburgh, New York, flying the RF-111G Vampire reconnaissance/attack fighter-bomber. Her unit was the first to see action in the Russia-Ukraine conflict when the Vampires were deployed to Turkey to help defend Ukraine from Russian imperialists seeking to reunite the old Soviet Union by force. She earned her nickname, “Go-Fast,” as a result of her tenacious, fearless flying over Turkey, the Black Sea, Ukraine, and Russia, including an attack on Moscow itself.
The Air Force grounded the RF-111 bombers shortly thereafter, but they didn’t dare try to ground Rebecca Furness. She sat still long enough to complete Air Command and Staff College and the Army War College, then went after her next career dream — a flying command of her own. She commanded a B-1B Lancer flying training squadron in Texas, then was offered command of a T-38 Talon flying training wing in Arizona. That didn’t suit her one bit. She had had enough of training units and wanted a combat command.
She found one in the Nevada Air National Guard. When the unit traded in its C-130 Hercules transports and became the third Air National Guard B-1 bomber unit in the United States, she applied for a job. She was by far the best-qualified applicant, and the state of Nevada made her ambition reality. In a very short time, her unit had won the Proud Shield Bomb Competition and was recognized as the best bomber unit in the United States military. Until now.
“Well, well,” Lieutenant Colonel John Long exclaimed as he and Furness entered the B-1B Part-Task Training Facility with six crew members — two new ones, one DSO and one OSO, and two simulator operators. “Look who’s here, boss. Ejection boy.”
“What?” Furness took a look at the man in the pilot seat of the simulator cab and felt her heart pounding.
“We should welcome his ass back from the hospital,” Long said sarcastically. The air-conditioned room grew frostier still.
Furness hesitated, happiness, concern, and fear tearing at her all at once. Here she was, her dreams of becoming the Air Force’s first female combat pilot and achieving a combat command not only realized but at the very finest level — and it had all begun to crumble. In the weeks since the B-1B bomber crash that took the lives of three good men, the 111th Bomb Squadron of the Nevada Air National Guard was tearing apart — and sitting in the simulator cab before her was the man they blamed for it.
Major Rinc “Rodeo” Seaver was dressed in full flying gear, flight suit and boots, his short-clipped hair the only visible indication of his four weeks in the hospital after his ejection from the B-1B in April.
“Hi, boss,” Seaver said. He did not stop what he was doing. “Okay, Neil,” he said on the intercom, “reset me back to the third target and get ready to plug in faults G-seventeen and E-twenty again.”
“What the hell are you doing in here, Seaver?” Fur-ness demanded. “You’re not due back from sick leave for another two weeks. And what are you doing in the sim? You weren’t on the schedule.”
“I feel pretty good, boss,” Seaver said. He flexed his right shoulder experimentally, trying hard not to grimace from the pain. His right shoulder had hit the edge of the upper escape hatch during the ejection sequence, causing him to tumble wildly as he left the stricken aircraft. The tumble had made him lose precious altitude during ejection. The rocket motor blasted him down instead of up, and he had hit the B-1’s right elevator at the attach point to the vertical stabilizer. Luckily, his steel ejection seat took most of the force of the collision, and his chute still opened properly. He underwent reconstructive surgery, three weeks of rest, and one week of in-hospital physical therapy; he was still undergoing daily physical therapy and doing as much swimming as his body could stand. But he was ready and anxious to get back on flying status.
“I got tired sitting on my butt,” Seaver explained. “I couldn’t stand being cooped up in the house one more day. I called Neil and he said the box was free for a couple hours, so I thought I’d play around. We’ve been experimenting with various malfunctions that I think occurred on my last flight, and I think I got it.”
John “Long Dong” Long, Furness’s squadron operations officer and second-in-command, looked daggers at Seaver. Arrogant as always, he thought.