Then, whether they wanted them or not, they dug into their stash of MREs, heated whatever they drew over flaming Stemo cans, and chased it down with mugs of the hot coffee Formsby had brewed.
Barr, in standard form, consumed the contents of four of the MRE packages.
Sitting on the ramp of the transport, Barr said, “You know, I don’t think Yucca Two has more than five or six brake cycles left.”
“You really think you’re going to need brakes Bucky?” Jordan asked. “You want brakes, I’ll trade you airplanes.”
“No way, man. Yours flies like a Navy hog.”
“You haven’t even flown it.”
“I can tell by looking at it,” Barr insisted.
Wyatt forced down the last of his biscuit, swigged some coffee, then climbed into the Hercules to find a mirror and a paper cup of water. He discovered his razor in his duffel bag — someone had straightened out all of the personal belongings en route to Africa. The soft rubber seal of his oxygen mask chafed his face red if he had a stubble, and he quickly cut it down.
Formsby stood next to him, with his own cup of water, sharing the mirror. He probably shaved out of habit, Wyatt figured.
“Are you expecting to have to impress someone, Andy?” Formsby asked.
“Not today, unless it’s my Maker, and I’m not planning on that.”
“Amen.”
With the chores completed, many of the men were thinking about their future. Or lack of it.
He shed his jeans, dressed in his dove grey Noble Enterprises flight suit, and went back to the cargo bay to sit on the ramp.
Cavanaugh, Littlefield, Vrdla, and Potter had started a card game.
The temperature was starting to come up.
Ben Borman had collected the drag chutes from yesterday’s landings and stacked them on top of the start carts, weighting them in place with pieces of broken two-by-fours from the ruined hangars. When the start carts went up in flames, so would the parachutes.
Barr emerged from the cargo bay, also dressed in his flight suit, and sat down beside him.
“Going to miss this place,” Barr said.
“For how long?”
“Maybe twenty seconds.”
“How you doing, Bucky?”
“Good, I think.” Barr held out both hands, steady as granite. “I hope to hell they stay that way, come bomb delivery time.”
“I hope to hell the technology substitutes for practice,” Wyatt said.
None of them had dropped a bomb in years. Their flight skills were still honed by their daily work, but civilian chores didn’t always involve placing MK 84s in tender spots. Kriswell had argued that the guidance system was all they would need. He had run them through some simulations in Nebraska, connecting the HOBOS heads to the aircraft computers.
“My fear,” Barr said, “is that the technology is soon going to substitute for humans in the cockpit. Hell, it already has. Where am I going to get a job?”
“Maybe they’ll make you president of Yale?”
“They should. Look how I turned out. How many of my classmates can be found sitting in the sand of Chad, waiting for some jerk in Washington to say go?”
“I don’t know. How big was your graduating class?” “I didn’t pay attention. I think most of them are lawyers by now. Either that or cat burglars.”
Dawn was pinking the horizon now. The drab top-sides of the fighters took on a glow, their silhouettes slowly becoming defined.
“I like that airplane,” Wyatt said.
“Me, too, buddy. There’ll never be another like her, or one that acted so many roles.”
The F-4 had been used as a fighter, a bomber, a Wild Weasel — attracting SAM launches in order to strike the SAM radars, a photographic reconnaissance platform. She had taken to the air in 1958, and she was still flying combat missions in reconnaissance form during Desert Storm in 1991.
After the work they had put into them, Wyatt was almost reluctant to force them into their next roles. “Andy?”
“Yeah?”
“You mean what you said last night?”
“Probably. What’d I say?”
“You going to ask Janner?”
“She already said yes.”
“Damn. I knew I should have called earlier.”
They sat and waited for the sun to come up or for something else to happen.
There was not enough space in the subterranean hangars for the C-130 transports, and the six of them were lined up next to the runway. The first four contained Shummari’s helicopters, and the last two were now loading the First Special Forces Company. Al-Qati divided the company evenly between the two transports. If one went down, he didn’t want to lose all of his fighting capability.
He stood with Shummari near the last airplane, and listened as, one by one, they began to start their engines. The crescendo grew steadily.
“I do not feel as confident as I should about this mission,” Shummari said.
“You are in good company, Khalil.”
Al-Qati had a sudden inspiration relating to his survival. “We should have a contingency plan.”
“Such as, Ahmed?”
“Give me a codename.”
Shummari had to speak louder, as the roar of engines increased. “Moonglow.”
The colonel grinned. “I am surprised, Khalil. You are a romantic.”
“I wish that I were.”
“I will be Sundown. This is in the event that we need to change the plans made for us.”
“We do not control the transports, Ahmed, and that bothers me. I prefer having my helicopters free to roam.”
“Is your side arm loaded, Khalil?”
Shummari patted his holster. “Yes, of course.”
“That is all the command you need.”
“But, Ahmed…”
“Very likely, it will not be necessary. Still, we must think ahead. I will be in the fifth aircraft, with the first and second platoons. I think you should fly with the two Mi-8s.”
“As you wish, Ahmed.”
Al-Qati regretted that the mission did not allow for him to bring along any of the armoured personnel carriers. He would hate to be stranded in the Sudan or in Ethiopia without motorized transport.
Shrugging his shoulders in the web gear, he patted Shummari on the back, then trudged slowly across the tarmac toward the transport.
Embry yelped, “They’re moving!”
Church was reclined in Embry’s high-backed desk chair, his shoeless feet propped on the desk, and his head lolling from side to side as he drifted in and out of sleep.
He sat up abruptly, slid his feet off the desk, and stood up. He nearly fell down when he determined that his left leg had gone to sleep without him.
Rounding the desk, he reached the table and leaned on it, shaking his leg to get the circulation going again.
With a ballpoint pen, Embry pointed out a silver airplane on the screen. “That’s the first one airborne. The others are moving into take-off position.”
“Let’s keep track of them.”
Embry grabbed the blue phone, and someone on the other end answered immediately.
“We want a fix on their course, speed, and altitude,” he told the desk person on the NSA end of the line. “Don’t lose them.”
Church picked up the green phone.
“Captain Murphy, sir,” the man at the Pentagon said.
“Captain, hook me into Yucca, please.”
“Right away, sir.”
Several minutes went by before a voice with a British accent came on the air. Church figured it was Formsby, though he had never met the man.
“This is Paper Doll One. Who is this?”
“Yucca… oh, I must be about Fifteen. Give or take a digit or two.”
“The transports are taking off now, Yucca.”