The answer came from a young major running the Airlift Command Element at Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. Corruption had been responsible for diverting the food supplies into the hands of local merchants once the grain had been transloaded onto trucks for final delivery. The kickbacks had been enormous. Over eighty percent of the food had been shipped south into prosperous areas that could afford to buy it.
Cunningham was ordered to restart Grain King and he gave a decisive order: airlift it all down to the local level, to the people who were starving. That directive became the single-minded marching order for Grain King and had not changed after Cunningham left MAC for command of the Air Force. The basic tenet of Grain King had been established and chiseled in stone: airlift it and get it to the people. All of it…
Belfort broke the silence on the flight deck, “Time to dogleg north.”
“Rog’,” the copilot responded as she turned the C-130 onto a northerly heading — right into the heart of eastern Libya. She contacted Tripoli Center…
Colonel Eugene Blevins’ shirt was damp with sweat. General Cunningham had been sitting in the Watch Center’s battle cab for over five minutes and hadn’t said a word. He was staring directly at Blevins, rolling an unlit cigar in his mouth.
“Sir,” Blevins said, “we have just received a second Apple Wave message. Grain King’s route has been changed. It is flying north into Libyan GCI radar coverage and the Libyans have placed two fighters on runway alert.” He handed the message to the Air Force’s legendary gorilla.
Sundown Cunningham continued to stare at Blevins, not bothering to read the message. “Who the hell is sending these? Get me a name.” He dropped the Top Secret message to the floor.
Blevins hurried the short distance to the waiting Nesbit. “Get on the line to the reconnaissance unit that flies these missions. You heard what the general wants—move.”
“I haven’t got a clue what unit that is, Colonel.” The sergeant knew Cunningham was listening.
“Well, find out, Sergeant.”
Suppressing his smile, Nesbit assumed a worried look and placed an unnecessary call. He knew what unit to contact and whom to talk to. He enjoyed the thought of what he was doing to Blevins by stalling.
Cunningham continued to wait, chewing on his cigar. After a long pause, he barked at Blevins, “What do you recommend that I do about this Apple Wave?” Cunningham believed the hardest thing for any man to learn was how to think under pressure. The general already knew what his decision was but wanted to gauge the mental agility of his Watch Center commander.
Blevins admitted to himself that he didn’t know what do do, and worse, he didn’t know how to escape the general’s undivided scrutiny. The best he could do was stall for time. “I’m waiting for my analysts to correlate this information with an area situation report. I’m confident, sir, that they will give us a level of assurance on which to make the proper decision.” The general continued to glare at Blevins, who turned to one of the repeater consoles in an attempt to appear busy while frantically devising a way to shift the general’s attention away from himself.
Tom Gomez joined Blevins at the repeater console. “Jesus H. Christ,” he said sotto voce. “Cunningham wants you to make a decision. You’re in charge of the battle cab. Get some people in action before he rips us apart.”
There was desperation in Blevins’ voice. “My job is intelligence, damn it, not, not… ”
In a low voice Gomez quickly outlined what Blevins should say. Blevins listened, then steeled himself for what he had to do.
He walked over to Cunningham and met the general’s direct stare. He paused and looked at the four other generals and six colonels who had crowded into the battle cab. “General, I have placed two F-4E fighters on cockpit alert at Alexandria South Air Base. I recommend you scramble them into an orbit close as possible to the C-130. Keep them in friendly airspace. Sergeant Nesbit has the details worked out.”
The cigar rolled in Cunningham’s mouth for a moment. “Not bad, Blevins. Do it. Relay everything we’ve got to Outpost. And tell them to get Grain King the hell out of Libya.” The general did not bother to tell the colonels what or where Outpost was; he simply expected them to get the message through and damn quick. Gomez and Nesbit knew that Outpost was an intelligence-gathering unit in northwestern Egypt near the Libyan border that operated under the guise of a radar ground control intercept site. Outpost would be able to find the C-130 on its radar and establish radio contact to relay Cunningham’s order.
“Excuse me, General,” Nesbit called from his console. “The module commander in the RC-135 sending the Apple Waves is Colonel Anthony J. Waters.” The sergeant knew Blevins had wanted to give Cunningham the name and take credit for himself.
The general remembered the name. From the depths of his memory, everything became clear. So, that’s where you’ve been hiding. I wondered what had happened to you after that F-15 fiasco. I was sure the Air Force had lost one of its better tactics men. Cunningham had participated in one of Waters’ Red Flag exercises and had been trounced by the complex scenario Waters had thrown at him.
The general had thoroughly enjoyed it.
“Stinger One-One, scramble. Stinger One-Two, scramble.”
Lieutenant Colonel Mike Fairly and Lieutenant Jack Locke hit their start buttons simultaneously when they heard the first “scramble” from control.
Fairly acknowledged, “Roger, control. Scrambling now. Standing by for words.”
Bryant’s low voice came over the cockpit intercom. “The boss would rather die than sound bad on the radio.”
“You’ve got to look good and sound good to be a squadron commander, me lad. I want to make them eat their hearts out at the bar tonight, so let’s try to be as good,” Locke said.
“Goddamn Air Farce!” Bryant exploded. “Here come the missile trailers now. Too damn late. We get to go to war with only a gun? Well now, look at that. There’s a crew headed for one of the tankers. I didn’t know them SAC fellows could run.”
Control came over the radio. “Stinger One-One and One-Two, you are scrambled to Point Hotel. Contact Outpost on primary frequency two six-five point eight, backup frequency two eight-three point five.”
And Fairly again answered the controller, “Roger, control. Copied all.”
“Thunder, where in all the United Arab Republic is Point Hotel and who is Outpost?” Jack asked.
“I’ll dig it out while the inertial nav system aligns,” the WSO answered. Got to keep the boy cool, he thought.
“A wonderful thing, the inertial navigation system,” Jack said. “All ready to go and here we sit while that damn little black box tries to make up its mind where it is.”
“Patience, patience,” Bryant urged, pulling his aircrew aid out of a pocket on the leg of his anti-G suit. He thumbed through the small book until he found what he wanted. “Point Hotel is over two hundred nautical miles to the west. Glad for that tanker. Outpost is a radar control post. OK, the inertial nav system is aligned. Cleared primary-sync.”