"Our first indication of trouble came at 0126…"
Riley tuned out the major and mentally reviewed his own presentation. The man was doing his best to make his organization look good, which was to be expected. Riley tuned back in as the major wrapped up his presentation.
"Sir, overall I feel our men did a good job. We do have some areas we need to work on. First, we are going to revise our reaction SOP to cover the possibility of multiple attacks. However, I must point out, sir, in all fairness to the lieutenant in charge of the reaction platoon, that it is extremely unlikely that a terrorist organization would be able to mount two attacks on the scale we experienced last night.
"Additionally, the attackers used army ID cards and a military vehicle to gain admission onto post. Again, this would be very difficult for a terrorist organization to accomplish.
"As a further recommendation, we are going to increase the number of surveillance checks we do on both the post perimeter road and the storage facility perimeter road. Sir, pending your questions that concludes my briefing."
Colonel Albright looked at his air police commander in surprise. "That's all you have, Major?"
Major Baley shifted his feet nervously. "Yes, sir."
"All right, Major. You can sit down. Mister Riley, let's hear what you have to say."
Riley walked over to the podium. Typical briefing for the air force, he thought to himself. Try to make things look as good as possible. It didn't look as though the post commander had bought off on it, though. But the colonel would have to decide for himself.
Riley sorted out his notes while Partusi pulled out a schematic of the air base mounted on cardboard and placed it on an easel. Partusi extended a collapsible pointer and stood at parade rest next to the easel, prepared to point during Riley's presentation.
"Sir, I will first brief you on our perspective of the operation as it was conducted. Then I will highlight some areas, with our recommendations, that we believe your people ought to focus on to help improve weapons security.
"To conduct this mission we recruited eighteen members of the local army National Guard to act as guerrillas for us. We recognize we used a larger force than expected but our instructions from the Department of Defense were to create a worst-case scenario. Due to your post's proximity to the Canadian border, we feel it is quite possible that a terrorist organization may be able to infiltrate by vehicle across the border and attack here, so the number of personnel that participated last night is not improbable.
"We trained our guerrillas for two days in the Adirondack State Forest near Meacham Lake. We received intelligence regarding the physical layout of the post and guard activities from a civilian worker who has access to all areas of the post. She provided us with detailed descriptions of everything we asked for. We drew up our plan based on this intelligence and on building information we found in the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce."
Riley looked up. "I don't know why they're there, but a complete layout of the nuclear weapons storage facility is on record in the Plattsburgh County clerk's office. Although it doesn't detail the security setup, it does greatly facilitate planning a mission. Anyway, to continue. We recruited the civilian who owns the Harley-Davidson dealership that is adjacent to your south fence to assist us. Utilizing his van, the diversion force arrived at the…"
Riley proceeded to factually relate the events of the target hit. He'd done many briefings like this before. He could see that his audience was listening carefully. They usually did. Commanders' ears tended to perk up when anything regarding nuclear weapons was discussed. In all truthfulness Riley had to admit that the Plattsburgh Air Police had done a pretty decent job and had a good setup. Unfortunately, they had to realize that decent and good didn't cut it when you could get a nuke stolen. Riley finished his narration of events with both raiding parties being stopped.
"You may have noticed some difference in our account of events and the air police's account. Most of that is due to the excitement and the darkness. However, it is important to note that your guards were not aware we were inside the storage facility until we were departing. We were not driven off. Rather, we were leaving of our own volition, having completed what we set out to do. That team's mission was to draw in your reaction force. It succeeded in doing that.
"We did have some trouble with a couple of the National Guardsmen playing the game with the MILES equipment. Two of them were hit and their indicators went off as we departed the storage facility. Both failed to 'play dead or wounded' until I forced them to. I apologize for that. However, we were fortunate to have these men give up their free time to participate in the exercise.
"None of the attacking personnel at the flight line were hit. Those people stayed long enough at the aircraft to simulate the amount of time they would have needed to remove one of the nuclear warheads there. We—"
"Excuse me." An air force lieutenant colonel in a flight suit raised his hand. "I hate to burst your bubble, mister, but I believe that would have been much more difficult than you think. I'm the squadron commander for those aircraft that were on the flight line. I had my head crew chief brief me this morning on how long it would take to safely remove one of those bombs. It was quite a bit longer than the amount of time you spent there. Almost twice as long."
Riley nodded. "Sir, the key word there is safely. I believe your crew chief was giving you data regarding how his crews remove the warheads without damaging the aircraft. The method we would have used, had we done so, would have involved some damage to the aircraft."
The squadron commander wasn't going to give up so easily. "I know you probably don't understand all the technicalities, but you just can't mess around with one of those warheads. You go indiscriminately cutting some of the umbilicals to the aircraft and you could damage the warhead also. There are certain safety devices installed to prevent such a removal."
God, how I love pilots, Riley thought. Able to fly above it all and never get their hands dirty. Know everything there is to know, too. This guy probably watches Top Gun every night, he thought sourly. He patiently replied, "Yes, sir. I understand that. However—"
"Mister Riley does understand the technicalities." Colonel Pike's soft voice interrupted the proceedings. Pike swiveled in his seat to look at the lower ranking air force officer. "You didn't receive the briefing on his background, and the team's. Every member of this team has gone through the navy's nuclear weapon surety program — the same program from which all of your pilots received their knowledge about nuclear weapons.
"This team has been doing this for over a year now, traveling around the world testing security at installations that have nuclear weapons. I don't believe the Department of Defense would choose incompetents to do such a sensitive mission, do you? So I believe we can assume that they are qualified and do know what they're talking about. Wouldn't you agree?"
The squadron commander fidgeted uncomfortably. "Yes, sir."
Pike turned to the base commander, who had remained aloof from the conversation. "Sorry to have interrupted. It's just that I wanted the record to be straight. If Mister Riley said Master Sergeant Powers could take a bomb off your plane in the time he said, I for one believe him."
The post commander nodded weakly. "Yes. I imagine so." He turned back to the front of the room. "You may continue, Mister Riley."
Riley figured it was time to quit while the quitting was good. The briefing was only a formality anyway; the important thing was the stuff in black and white. "Sir, we'll be leaving a written report with our recommendations. In all we have thirty-one recommendations on how to improve security."