The episode still stung, whenever he thought about it. Despite his outward demeanour, Barr was not careless with money. He was not materially acquisitive. Back in Albuquerque, he owned a small two-bedroom condominium, an eight-year-old Ferrari 308GT, and an antique Bell Model 47 helicopter that dated from the Korean War. He and Wyatt shared ownership of a restored P-40 Warhawk.
Since his twenty-fifth birthday, when he started receiving $250,000 a year from the trust set up by his father, he had learned that he could get along pretty well on his Air Force pay. He had set up a budget then that he still followed today. A large chunk of the trust payment was set aside to meet taxes, five or six thousand dollars was dumped into his checking account for play purposes, and the balance was invested. Barr’s stock, bond, money market, and Certificate of Deposit portfolio was currently valued at close to seven million. He owned fifteen per cent of Aeroconsultants, Inc., and was listed on the private corporation’s paperwork as vice president and secretary. The position paid him $100,000 a year, plus an occasional bonus. Sometimes the bonuses matched the salary, but every time he received one, he doled out chunks of it to the Red Cross, the American Heart Association, AIDS research, and/or his favourite educational foundation.
Mostly, what he did for his salary was fly, which was his first and true love.
He also talked about flying a lot when he and his friends gathered around a table.
The Rancher’s Cafe and Lounge was going to be their kitchen for the next few weeks, and the whole group arrived there at eight o’clock in the evening, parking the three Jeep Wagoneers rented in Lincoln at the curb. It was a nice small-town establishment. Formica-topped tables and new linoleum on the floor. Big glass windows gave them a view of the main drag and the half-dozen cars and pickups cruising it. Barr had high hopes for the food.
There were ten diners in the place when they arrived, and the seventeen-year-old waitress behind the counter straightened up to her maximum of five-five when the thirteen men trooped through the door.
Wyatt crossed the room directly to her. “Is the manager around?”
“Yes, sir. The owner. I’ll get him.”
She turned and went to the doorway behind her, calling, “Dad!”
The man came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. He was in his forties, dressed in an apron.
“Mr. Jorgenson?”
“Yes. What can I do for you?”
“My name’s Cowan. I’m with Noble Enterprises.”
Which was obvious, Barr thought. All of them wore either shirts or jackets with the company name tastefully displayed. It was part of the act. Class act, he thought, since he had designed the logos and the clothing.
“I understand you prepare the best food in town, Mr. Jorgenson.”
“We are proud of our reputation,” the man agreed.
“I tell you what,” Wyatt said, digging a roll of bills out of his pocket and beginning to peel them off. “We’re going to be hanging around for a few weeks. We’ll need breakfast every morning and dinner every night. I’d like to have you make up lunch boxes daily. If I give you five thousand dollars now, would you just run a tab for me?”
The economy of Ainsworth just took a giant leap, and it showed in Jorgenson’s face. “I’d be happy to do that, Mr. Cowan.”
“You just let me know when the tab catches up with the deposit. Let’s start off with a case of Budweiser.”
“I’ll get the beer, Julie, while you put four tables together.”
Barr went over and helped Julie shift tables and chairs around in a back corner, then plopped himself down. Julie was a quiet girl, but developing quite nicely. She seemed uncomfortable with Barr’s innocuous questions. When Barr looked up at Wyatt, the boss gave him a stem look.
The others gathered around the tables, many of them wiping away the sweat of the day, preparing for the air-conditioning of the cafe. Dennis Maal sat next to Barr. He was a company pilot, too, the one who had flown the C-130 in the day before. Next to him was Winfield Potter, the company’s best technician. He was also a rated pilot and had flown the Citation. The other specialists in ordnance, electronics, and jet engines were Ben Borman, Sam Vrdla, and Henry Cavanaugh.
“Where’s Lucas?” Barr asked, realizing they were missing Littlefield, their airframe technician.
Potter responded. “I expect him late tonight. I sent him to Lincoln to rent a ten thousand-gallon tanker and buy a few buckets of JP-4.”
Jorgenson started placing bottles of Bud around the table. Barr downed his in three gulps. “Mr. Jorgenson, I’m ready for another.”
The man smiled happily. “Be right back. And call me Max, please.”
Hackley asked, “Hey, Andy, were there enough motel rooms in this burg for us?”
“Winnie took care of it,” Wyatt said.
“Got us fourteen rooms at the Sandy Inn,” Potter said. “Nothing but the best. And I was damned lucky. We’re at the height of the tourist season.”
“You’re shittin’ us,” Demion said. “What tourists?”
Potter whipped his thumb toward the east. “Hey, if you’re over thataway, and you want to go thisaway, you got to go through Ainsworth.”
“What’s over thisaway?” Barr pointed toward the west.
“Black Hills. Mount Rushmore. You wanta see where the cavalry cut down Chief Crazy Horse, you got to go to Fort Robinson. That’s over west of Chadron.”
“Chadron.”
“Bucky, there’s a bunch of history in this part of the country.”
“I think I’d rather read about it, or fly over it,” Barr told him.
Julie got their orders in sequence, her eyes going wide at the quantity in some cases. Barr gave her his best, most polite smile and ordered two chicken-fried steaks.
They lived up to his expectations.
Major Ahmed al-Qati had a fetish about cleanliness, perhaps because he recalled his Bedouin youth as one of dirt and sand. He bathed daily or more often, and he dressed himself in a fresh khaki uniform each morning. Though his closet contained traditional Arabic garb, he was most comfortable in a short-sleeved uniform shirt and knife-edge creased slacks bloused into combat boots in the paratrooper fashion.
In his mid-fifties, al-Qati was lean and as hard as the desert from which he had emerged. His forearms below his shirt sleeves and his face were burned into bronze from the sun. He was meticulous about the trim of his dark hair — which was tightly curled and contained a bald spot at the back of his head — and the smoothness of his cheeks. His eyes were almost black, peering through a permanent squint. The lines of his face deepened with each passing year, spreading outward from his eyes and vertically down his cheeks from the base of his wide and proudly humped nose.
Al-Qati commanded a motorized infantry battalion — including a company of special forces soldiers, and he commanded it well. He had learned the finer points of his trade as a foreign officer visiting the Ranger training centre at Fort Benning, Georgia, thirty years before. The foundation of that education as a professional soldier had instilled in him a discipline that he was certain could be found nowhere else in the Libyan military.
He was aware that most of the men in his command did not like him. They respected him, however, and that was far better. His men worked harder, drilled more frequently, and engaged in realistic training exercises on an accelerated schedule. They did not like him, no, but they took pride in themselves, and al-Qati was certain that many would die for him if called upon to do so. The men in his companies and platoons were qualified as parachutists, as airborne assault infantry, and as members of a rapid deployment force. The majority were cross-trained in at least two combat specialties.