"I know as much as I just told you. This comes straight from the commanding general. Just do what the man says and take him wherever he wants to go. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir. By the way, sir, who's going to be the other pilot?"
"Chief Hobbes will be PIC."
Fuck, Davidson wanted to scream, not Hobbes. "Yes, sir."
"You'd better get your ass in gear and get whichever bird you're going to use preflighted."
"Yes, sir." The phone went dead and Davidson stared at it. What a bunch of bullshit.
Davidson drove up next to the ramp where the Blackhawks were parked. He scanned the line of aircraft as he grabbed his flight vest and helmet out of the trunk. He could see Chief Warrant Officer Hobbes already preflighting one of the two aircraft the colonel had specified. He smiled to himself as he wandered over. Although the colonel had said to get over to the flight line in a hurry, Davidson had deliberately taken a leisurely shower and grabbed some lunch before arriving. He knew that Hobbes would get here first and do the preflight. Davidson was damned if he would do it when a warrant officer could.
Hobbes looked up as Davidson approached. "Afternoon, sir."
"Afternoon." Davidson opened the door to the copilot's seat and collapsed into it. He waited while Hobbes completed the preflight. Besides having to work on a Sunday, the idea of flying with Hobbes really set his teeth on edge. He wondered if the battalion commander had done it to him deliberately.
Despite outranking the warrant officer, Davidson would be only the copilot. Hobbes had over seven hundred more hours in Blackhawks than Davidson and thus would be the PIC, or pilot in command, for the mission. Davidson didn't think it was right for a subordinate to ever be in charge. The killer though, as far as he was concerned, was that Hobbes was a woman.
Hobbes stuck her head in the door. "It looks good to go. I already looked at 546 and this one is in better shape and has a better maintenance record."
Davidson nodded glumly. Having to let a woman be in command of the flight irritated the hell out of him. He hated women in the army and he hated the idea of flying with one. They just didn't belong, in his opinion. Just looking at Hobbes in her uniform made him mad. At five foot four, she was just barely over the minimum height requirement to be a pilot, and she was so skinny she seemed to disappear in the flight suit. It further annoyed him that Hobbes had been here during the invasion of Panama a year and a half ago and had flown combat missions, whereas Davidson had flown back to the States on Christmas leave the day before the invasion and missed the whole thing. Every time he saw the combat patch on her right shoulder he saw red.
Hobbes had climbed into the cargo compartment in the back and was perusing flight charts. "Any idea where we're going, sir?"
"Nope."
Hobbes scratched her head. "This is the strangest thing I've ever heard. What did the colonel tell you, sir?"
"Be here. Load up on fuel. Wait for a C-130 at 1700. Take whoever gets off wherever they want to go." Davidson wasn't going to make any effort to be friendly.
"The Old Man told me to be ready to fly a thousand klicks." Hobbes shook her head. "We've got the fuel but it's going to be a long ride if we have to go that far. Over five hours in the air."
Davidson decided to ignore her. If she thought she was such hot shit as a Blackhawk PIC, he'd let her worry about things.
"Sir, are you all right?" Hobbes was looking at him strangely.
Davidson couldn't believe she had asked that. The bitch probably thought he was still drunk. He turned in his seat. "Listen. You let me worry about me, OK?" He realized he'd pushed her too far as she slowly put down the maps.
"Sir, with all due respect, I'm in charge of this aircraft and responsible for it and everyone who will be in it. That includes you. If you are under the time limit for alcohol, you need to let me know and I'll ask the colonel to get another pilot out here. It's nothing to be embarrassed about."
Davidson wanted to scream at her and put her in her place. Unfortunately, he knew she was within her rights as PIC to ground him if she thought that was best.
"I'm fine. I'm outside the twelve-hour window. There's nothing we can do until that 130 gets here, so I'm just relaxing. Is that all right with you?" Are you happy, bitch? he thought.
Hobbes nodded. "All right, sir. I'll take your word on it."
Davidson rolled his eyes. Oh, thank you so much.
Riley felt the wheels touch down. The plane did a short bounce and then rolled to the end of the runway. The pilot turned the plane as the loadmaster began to open the ramp. Looking out, Riley could see a Blackhawk sitting on the tarmac about a hundred meters away. The plane jerked to a halt and the ramp went down all the way. Powers stood up. "Let's go. Rucks first, then the boat."
Each member of Eyes Three grabbed his rucksack and jogged off the ramp toward the helicopter. Riley could see two pilots waiting by the aircraft. He threw his ruck in front of the nose of the helicopter and went up to the two figures in flight suits. He looked them over quickly. A captain and a female warrant. They were looking at him strangely. He knew his appearance wasn't exactly what they were used to. Each member of the team wore a black wet suit with a combat vest over it. There was nothing to identify who they were, which Riley hoped wouldn't cause any trouble with the pilots.
He stuck out his hand to the captain and then the warrant. "Dave Riley. You all ready to go?"
"Captain Davidson." The captain seemed pissed off about something, but Riley didn't have time to worry about it.
The tiny woman draped in a flight suit took his hand briefly. "Chief Hobbes. We're topped off. Once you all get loaded, and tell us where we're going, we'll be ready."
"What the fuck is that?"
Riley looked over his shoulder at the object of the captain's remark. The other five members of the team were carrying the Zodiac off the ramp. They had already inflated the ten-man craft at Belvoir to save time down here. The black boat measured fifteen feet five inches long and over six feet wide and weighed 265 pounds. Adding the outboard motor and fuel bladders, which were tied down inside, boosted the weight to over 400 pounds. The men were glad to drop it on the ground in front of the bird.
"That's a Zodiac, a rubber boat."
"I can see that," the captain replied snippishly. "What I want to know is where you think you're going to put it. It won't fit into the aircraft. And we're not going to fly a thousand miles with it sling-loaded. We'll lose too much speed and fuel."
"We're going to put it under your aircraft."
The female pilot seemed interested. "How're you going to do that?"
Riley pointed as Powers began directing the movement of the boat between the two front wheels of the Blackhawk. "We've got something called a Boltz rig."
"Never heard of it," the captain snapped.
Riley decided to ignore him. "The rig is a series of straps that go around the entire boat, both directions. We run the straps through the cargo bay and crank down on them. The rubber boat kind of melds along the bottom of the aircraft."
Hobbes walked over closer to watch what they were doing to her aircraft. "How do we release it if we have to, or when we get wherever it is you're going?"
Riley pointed. "Single point release inside the aircraft. Just like a sling load but the boat will almost seem like part of the airframe and won't slow you down or eat fuel. You can fly with the cargo doors closed. The engine will be inside the boat."
Davidson was shaking his head. "I've never heard of this here Boltz rig"
"It was invented by, and named after, a team sergeant in 5th Special Forces Group." Riley decided he'd better reassure the pilots. "It's already been evaluated and tested by the aviation board. It's been approved by them for use. The 5th Group pilots have flown quite a bit like this."