Skull’s head throbbed at the mention of Sergeant Rosen. She was a damn good worker and smarter than hell, but she had caused Skull nothing but trouble. She had a way of pissing off half the officers who crossed her path. The rest made passes at her — not her fault certainly, but her way of dealing with them fell somewhat outside the parameters of the Military Code of Conduct.
Worse, she’d recently joined Delta Force in an unauthorized foray across the border to help the Army retrieve a battered helicopter. A good many butts were hanging in the wind because a woman had gone over enemy lines.
Not that she hadn’t done a kick-ass job and probably single-handedly saved the operation.
“Your usual channels can’t get this stuff?” Skull asked, trying to make sense of the specifications.
“My channels are military,” said Clyston. “Turns out, those are pretty rare little circuits. Rosen claims she can adapt them to regulate the voltage and then use that to feed back against the errors. Has a little card designed and everything, neat as a pin. She’s a whip, I’m telling you.”
“It’ll work?”
“She says so, if we can find the parts.” Clyston shrugged. “You know somebody at GE, right? They probably have something like that. Or they’d get us onto someone. Maybe a regular supplier of theirs or something. That G.E. guy now — Rogers, right?””
No, not Rogers. Jeff Roberts, who’d flown Phantoms with Skull out in California. Some sort of senior vice president at the company now. Probably didn’t know shit about radios, but he’d like this. Roberts had always talked about finding ways around the brass, military or otherwise.
Skull did know a Rogers, though. Had known.
Captain “Slammin’ Sammy” Rogers had gone out over Vietnam, ended up a POW. Supposedly, he’d been at Son Tay with a bunch of other guys shortly before the raid there in ’70. Knowlington had led one of the support packages, flying a Phantom.
The raid came up empty; Rogers never came home.
“Captain Roberts,” said Clyston.
“I think he went out as a lieutenant colonel,” said Skull.
Clyston’s left shoulder edged up slightly in a shrug. “Pretty much a captain’s attitude, though. It stays with you
“Oh, that’s a new theory.”
“F no,” said Clyston. He smiled. “Guy has a rank stays with him for life, whatever the stripes say. Or what have you.”
“What rank am I?”
“Oh, a colonel. Definitely. Not full of shit enough to be a general. No offense.” Clyston smiled.
The capo probably hadn’t come here to give him the parts list. He must know about Skull’s drinking. The reference to Roberts — a subtle hint that he ought to resign?
Clyston could be very subtle. But he was also pretty straight. Very straight.
Skull folded the piece of paper and put it down on his desk. “You got something you want to say, Allen?”
“Huh? Not me. You?”
A ton of things. Angry things: How dare a sergeant hint that a colonel hang it up? A stinking decorated colonel with three confirmed air kills and well over a hundred combat sorties, medals up the yahoo, friends in all the right places — what gave some sergeant who’d never had his fat butt graze an enemy’s gunsight, by the way, the right, the audacity, to hint that he was over the hill?
Calmer things: Gratitude for pulling the men together maybe a million times, for making planes whole, for moving heaven and earth to keep the Hogs flying.
Other things: Sadness over people like Rogers who hadn’t made it back, frustration over the delays and screwups and the human factors, fatigue and nerves. Rage that they were both growing so damn old, that after all these years, after all they knew, they had to keep sending kids to places where they could die.
But words were not things that came easily to Skull. There were too many, and no way of prioritizing them — no checklist to follow, no map to plod your way through. Much easier to stay silent — and so he did.
“Saddam’s taking a poundin’,” said Clyston finally.
“Hope so,” agreed the colonel.
“How much longer, you figure?”
“That’s a hard game to play,” said Knowlington. He thought of all the times before he’d played it — ‘Nam, mostly, ancient history, but he’d also had a squadron during Grenada and one that just missed a mission in Panama. Then there were the alerts, probably a thousand of them.
They were silent a moment longer.
“You sure nothing’s bothering you, Chief?”
“Gettin’ old, is all,” said Clyston. He smiled, but it wasn’t his usual smile; Allen definitely wanted to say something, his eyes hunting the office. But before they could settle on anything, there was another knock on the door.
Skull glanced at Clyston, then said, “Come.”
Captain Bristol Wong, an intel and covert ops specialist Knowlington had “borrowed” from the Pentagon, pushed open the door.
“Colonel, Captain Hawkins and Sir Peter Paddington would like a word,” announced Wong. His voice seemed more high-strung than usual, possibly because of the thick bandage wrapped around his chest beneath his uniform. A dark patch of skin on his face covered a fractured cheekbone, and there were several burns along his hairline, all souvenirs from his recent trip north to save Dixon. He’d also dislocated his shoulder, though it had been placed back in its socket by a burly Para rescuer on the ride home.
Wong shrugged off the injuries, claiming he’d been hurt worse trying to grab the last seat on the shuttle between Boston and D.C.
“Tell them to come in.”
“With all due respect, sir,” said Wong nodding at Clyston, “this would be a code-word classified discussion, strictly need-to-know.”
“I doubt you could fart on this base without The Chief catching a whiff,” said Skull.
The welt on Wong’s cheekbone turned dark purple.
Clyston got up. “I was just leaving,” he said. “Appreciate it if you can get us those doodads, Colonel. Let me know.”
Knowlington pushed his chair back against the desk, making room for the other men. Hawkins was a Delta Force captain who had worked with Devil Squadron before and helped rescue Dixon. Paddington’s exact status wasn’t clear. He apparently served with a British MI-6 agency and worked for one of the British commands. He was an expert on Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi command structure, and seemed to fill a role as a liaison with the British Special Air Service. The SAS commandos were working north of the border spotting Scuds, scouting troop locations and sabotaging enemy installations. Sir Peter had been involved in a failed plot to assassinate Saddam that the Hogs were in on, helping set the time and place. He flitted freely around Saudi Arabia, but his rank and role in the Allied war effort were far from obvious.
What was obvious was the stench of gin emanating from his breath, so strong that it threatened to turn Knowlington’s stomach.
“Captain Hawkins, good to see you again,” said Knowlington. He’d first met Hawkins two months before, planning a clandestine operation known as Fort Apache.
“Thanks.” Hawkins flexed his shoulders, a linebacker waiting to blitz. “We appreciated your help on that bug-out.”
“My men did that on their own,” Skull said. “Right place, right time.”
“Yes, sir.” Hawkins sat down in the chair.
“Paddington.” Skull frowned in the British agent’s direction, then looked at Wong. “So?”
“The British command desires our assistance,” said Wong.
“Not precisely, Bristol,” said Paddington. He twisted the cuff of his blue wool blazer, as if adjusting a watch.