The sergeant monitoring the entry control point into the battle cab had been watching Blevins since he stepped onto the main floor. Master Sergeant John Nesbit had worked many shifts with Blevins and knew what the colonel was thinking. He shuddered at the thought of spending a twelve-hour shift with a man full of self-pity.
Colonel Tom Gomez read the sergeant’s mind. “Hey, Sarge, he won’t hurt you. Might frighten the staff a bit if his coffee is cold, but he knows this business. He’s not a twenty-watter, that’s for damn sure.”
Blevins arrived at the door, awaiting entry. Nesbit pushed a button, unlocking the door. The sergeant gave an audible sigh, looking at the two colonels. Blevins resembled a field grade officer, slightly over six feet tall, carefully styled dark hair, with an immaculately tailored uniform. Tom Gomez was two inches shorter, stocky, cut his graying hair in a brush cut, and shambled about unconcerned with his uniform.
The Watch Center in the Pentagon was a pivotal fusion point between Intelligence, Communications, and Command and Control. During a crisis involving the military, it was the primary intelligence center for the War Room. When a crisis started to form, the colonel on duty recalled the three Air Force generals that made up the Watch Center’s battle staff. The generals gathered in the battle cab overlooking the main boards and decided what information should be upchanneled to the War Room. Their function was critical in preventing the higher echelons of command from being inundated with irrelevant information.
Also, the generals or the watch commander could initiate orders to certain Air Force operational units should a fast-breaking situation require an immediate response. Each colonel was aware of the visibility that went with the position; provided the right incident happened, a good performance could result in promotion. However, there was a risk. If the colonel produced an interpretation of events that ran counter to the preconceived notions of the generals on the battle staff, the watch commander was in for some rough handling.
Over the course of a year, Nesbit had seen both Blevins and Gomez in action during a number of crises, or “flaps.” Blevins had proven himself to be very adept at avoiding any controversy or producing his own estimate for the generals to scrutinize or criticize. He always had an intelligence analyst from the main floor available to analyze the situation and take any heat from the generals. Gomez was totally different and the junior officers still talked about the way he had handled the latest in a long series of incidents in the Persian Gulf.
General Lawrence Cunningham, the Air Force chief of staff, had put in an unexpected appearance in the battle cab shortly after an unidentified fighter had bombed a Kuwaiti oil refinery. He had permanently relieved the on-duty watch commander before Gomez reported in for not giving him the answers he wanted. As soon as the colonel had cleared the door, Cunningham had hit him with a barrage of questions, a few well-chosen expletives, and a very pointed comment about Gomez’s career expectations if some sense wasn’t made out of the situation.
Gomez had only said, “Excuse me for a moment, sir. I have to get my ducks lined up.” He had left the general to stew for three minutes while he reviewed the message traffic. After a brief scan of the situation boards, he was sure of the situation and had turned to Cunningham. “This was a hit-and-run raid by the Iranians. There won’t be any follow-up. Right now the only fires being lit are here, not in the Gulf.”
Cunningham’s reaction amazed everyone in the cab, most of whom had just put Gomez down as a candidate for castration. He nodded in agreement and left the battle cab. The Watch Center reverted to its normal routine, monitoring the military disposition, Order of Battle (OB), of potential enemies. The analysts liked to think of their job as guarding against the “Pearl Harbor option.”
Most information received by the Watch Center was already processed and evaluated. However, something happened to common sense when raw data moved through the system. Tom Gomez had learned a valuable lesson when one of the analysts correctly interpreted a series of events that had almost increased the nation’s DEFCON status. A large portion of the Soviets’ civil air fleet, Aeroflot, had been suddenly grounded after landing at the Red Army’s collection bases for deployment. The analyst, a female captain, had called it correctly when she pointed out that the aircraft had gone into the bases to pick up the annual replacements for the Red Army in Eastern Europe. They had not launched because the weather at their drop-off points in East Germany was below landing minimums. Further, she observed that the number of aircraft grounded in Russia was the same as that used every year for the redeployment of troops to Eastern Europe.
Gomez learned something else from that incident. He had concentrated on the analyst’s legs and not on what she was saying. He later realized that he had brought too many preconceived ideas about women over from his operational experiences in tactical fighter aircraft. It came as a shock to him that a woman could think and be pretty at the same time.
He never made that mistake again.
Master Sergeant Nesbit resigned himself to the next twelve hours as Blevins adjusted his controlled area badge, insuring its straight alignment. The sergeant groaned as Blevins marched up to Gomez who was sitting in the center captain’s chair at the main console. Blevins snapped a smart salute and reported in. “Morning, Colonel Gomez. Colonel Blevins reporting for duty.”
Nesbit groaned louder.
Tom Gomez waved a salute back to Blevins. “It’s all yours, Gene.” An intriguing thought tickled the back of Gomez’s mind. With a little effort, he could arrange to have a series of perfectly valid, yet totally insignificant facts funneled to the pompous colonel. If he did it right, the man would screw himself into the floor before he decided what to do. There were plenty of willing conspirators down on the main floor.
Erasing the thought, Gomez gave Blevins a quick rundown of the current situation. “Europe’s quiet. The Fourth Air Regiment in Romania has stopped its conversion to Flogger Gs. Not sure why yet. Captain Marshall thinks the aircraft are being diverted to Ashkhabad, near the Iranian border.”
Gomez began to type a series of commands into the computer, calling up different display maps on the situation boards. He paused over North Africa. “The Grain King food and relief flights for the UN are still going full bore in the southern Sahara. The buildup at Kano in Nigeria as a central staging base is working well. There are six C-130s operational down there today. But Sara is worried. She believes the Libyans are starting to get antsy again.
“Well, she’s wrong,” Blevins said. “The Libyans have bought into the UN food relief missions as a way to create some good will. That should be perfectly obvious to everyone in the Watch Center. They’ve even given the UN permission to use their airfields and airspace.”
What a shame, Gomez thought, that he doesn’t have the courage to argue with the generals this way when he knows he’s right. “Nothing has changed in the Mideast,” Gomez continued. “Iran is its usual mess, quiet for the moment. Most of the analysts think the fighting will start up again. They don’t have anything definite.”
Blevins interrupted him, nodding in agreement. “Like I’ve said many times, the analysts don’t have the big picture, but they are right this time. Iran and Iraq have worn themselves out but Iran is still spoiling for a fight.”