Jan's entry into the newsroom was always like an event. She liked it that way. Returning from a late lunch, she strutted into the newsroom with a determined, businesslike pace. Those who were so privileged to be able to greet her as "Jan" received a smile or a nod of the head as she went by. The lesser lights of the staff addressed her as Miss Fields and received nothing in acknowledgment.
Jan stood a full-figured five foot six: while not heavy, she was slightly heavier than she cared to be. Fortunately, she was well proportioned and carried herself well; her size 10 outfits complimented her figure. Her oval face, framed by long brunet hair, was pretty in a girl-next-door sort of way. What made a difference between Jan Fields and many other bright young female news reporters was that she had the knack of being at the right place at the right time and knew what to do. She was always able to gauge the people she interviewed and to get what she wanted from them, using charm, wit, and a disarmingly casual manner. Her admirers called her intelligent and brilliant; her detractors jealously referred to her as lucky.
Walking over to Fay's desk, Jan flashed her award-winning smile as she greeted Fay, then let it fade into a worried frown. "Fay, we have a beast of a problem. I have an interview with the U.S. ambassador in less than an hour and then a Colonel Wilford immediately after that. I really don't think we'll be able to put together a piece in time for the late news in the States."
Fay glanced at her watch and thought for a moment, then answered very matter-of-factly. Turning a yellow legal pad around so that Jan could see, Fay showed her a draft schedule and explained each event, using a pencil to point to each as she discussed it. When she had gone down the entire schedule point by point, Fay looked up to Jan and stated, in her simple, efficient manner, "So long as I can have the material in hand by three o'clock, no problem. We have a bird at four o'clock with thirty minutes feed time."
Sitting on the edge of Fay's desk, Jan leaned over, smiling again. "Great! You don't know how good it is to have you back where you really belong. We're a great team."
Fay smiled. "I wish Scott understood that. I know he doesn't like this, but so far he hasn't said a thing."
Jan and Scott Dixon never did see eye to eye, except when they were fighting. She never forgave the last of the Neanderthals, as she referred to Scott, for taking the best field producer she ever had. Besides, despite the fact that she associated with military types frequently in pursuit of all the news worth making into news, she had no use for them. They were hard to interview, seldom provided information of any value, and often restricted themselves to a simple "yes" or "no" or "I'm not at liberty to say." She talked to them — or, more correctly, used them — only when absolutely necessary. Politicians, always anxious to get their faces in the news, were far better sources of information, even if they seldom fully understood what they were talking about. The interview with the ambassador, therefore, would be followed by the military interview. The ambassador would tell the story, and the segments with Colonel Wilford would add credibility.
"Doesn't your husband work for this Colonel Wilford, Fay?"
"Jan, you can forget about that angle. Scotty doesn't even tell me what he's up to, let alone telling you." Fay leaned forward and whispered, "Although he did tell me that he will be working with an Egyptian unit during this exercise and has to present a briefing with an Egyptian tank battalion commander. As a matter of fact, you may run into him at the embassy. He'll be there this afternoon for a briefing on the visit." As an afterthought, Fay added, "And Jan, if you do see him, though he's been a real shit lately and deserves it, try not to gouge out his eyes in public. He always sulks so whenever you two get into it."
Jan Fields, with a wicked smile across her face, replied, "Fay, would I do that to poor Scotty?"
Without batting an eye, Fay replied, "You know damn well you will." With that, they laughed and went about their harried pursuit of news and truth.
Despite the best efforts of the air conditioner, the briefing room was fast becoming hot and stuffy. At the front of the room, a young captain was going over the plan for the upcoming maneuvers and the President's visit with the aid of hastily made viewgraphs and an overhead projector that could not be focused properly. Dixon, who had developed the overall plan for the exercise and had initiated the coordination, had lost control of the project once the exercise had been announced and the bulk of the Corps staff began to deploy to Cairo. The captain doing the briefing was the protocol officer from 3rd Army, responsible for coordinating visits to military units and briefings, answering questions concerning the VIPs, arranging their transportation, and all the nitty-gritty chores that go with the care and feeding of VIPs. A lack of details and the captain's inability to answer even the simplest questions convinced Dixon that many of the people involved in running the exercise had been told of it only after the units had been alerted that morning. That opinion was reinforced as he watched briefer after briefer come forward and develop their portion of the plan right then and there.
The captain's briefing, sketchy though it was, at least provided him with a warning order that he was to present a briefing during a live fire demonstration. On a draft agenda for the VIPs, marked "Secret" at the top and bottom, that had been handed out to everyone entering the briefing room, Dixon stumbled across a one-hour slot labeled "Combined Arms Live Fire Exercise: Relief of air assault forces by Egyptian armored units." Under the column that named the briefers, LTC Hafez and LTC Dixon were listed. Hafez's battalion was listed as the force that would relieve B Company, 1st of the 506th Airborne. This exercise was at the end of the visit to the maneuvers on 7 December. It was to be the grand finale. Because Dixon had been working with Hafez, it had been decided to attach him to the Republican Brigade temporarily as a liaison officer for the duration of the presidential visit. Dixon, wanting to watch the procedures used by the incoming units to draw equipment from the combat equipment site, and work in the corps headquarters as he should, had protested; but his protest had been overridden. What made sense in the long run was not important at that moment. Putting on a good show overrode all appeals to common sense and sanity. Dixon therefore spent all morning handing off his notes and plans to another lieutenant colonel, who had just arrived from McDill Air Force Base.
When the captain reached the portion of the briefing that addressed the live fire exercise, Dixon asked several questions but got few answers. In Dixon's initial proposal for the exercise, there had been no joint live fire; he had considered that type of training too hard to put together on such short notice. Not that it couldn't be done. The training benefit that would be derived from doing so would be minimal, he pointed out, versus the expenditure of resources. But his protests were in vain, and the decision was made to put on a really grand live fire show-and-tell for the VIPs.
Once the decision was made, however, no one pushed that part of the exercise much beyond the concept phase. When all was said and done, no one had a firm grasp on what was going to happen or how the exercise was going to go down. Instead, responsibility for that exercise, as well as the briefings to go along with it, was passed to Dixon and Hafez — Dixon was reminded of the old adage that people who ask questions usually get asked to find the answer.
Tuning out the rest of the briefing, Dixon began to consider the problem and formulate a plan and several options. With a little luck he could catch Hafez and discuss the options with him as soon as the briefing was over. Dixon had met Hafez twice and had done some training with his unit. He was impressed with both the unit and its commander. As Hafez had a good command of the English language and was a graduate of the Command and General Staff College at Leavenworth, Dixon saw no major problems with putting the briefing together. The exercise was a different story. Piecing together a combined-arms live fire exercise requires a great deal of planning, coordination, and preparation, not to mention resources. The use of forces from two different armies and an air assault company that wasn't even in country yet complicated the matter. They had eight days in which to pull it together. The sooner they came to an agreement on the concept of operation, the faster they could concentrate on pulling in all the resources and units needed in order to put on, as Colonel Wilford said, "a good show."
Dixon's calculations and gloomy thoughts were interrupted by a tap on his shoulder. He turned, his eyes meeting the impassioned eyes of the Marine corporal who had tapped him. Without saying a word, the Marine extended his right hand, which held a brown shotgun envelope. Dixon took the envelope, whispered a short "Thank you" to the Marine, and then turned back to the current briefer. Half-listening, he absentmindedly opened the envelope. There was a single-page message attached to a yellow routing slip signed by his intelligence officer. Turning to the message without reading the slip, Dixon looked to see who its originator was, then read the body of the message.
The message had been given a FLASH precedence and sent from the Office of Military Cooperation in Sudan. Its first paragraph blandly announced that Soviet forces, with the permission of the Sudanese government, would begin using the airfield at Al Fasher for deployment of a force of unknown size from Ethiopia to Libya commencing 1 December. The second paragraph stated that U.S. military personnel, at the request of the Sudanese government, would be restricted from operating within three hundred miles of Al Fasher for the duration of the Soviet deployment exercise. For several seconds Dixon wasn't aware that his reaction to the message, sprinkled with four-letter expletives, had halted the briefing in its tracks.