“I’ll do it. You get in touch with the GCI site and find out what they know.”
It was a triumphant Bull Morgan, with Thunder in his pit, that led the 379th down the final thirty minutes after scrambling on the attacking boats. After coming off target he had formed his twenty planes into flights of four and brought them home together, treating the base to an impromptu air show. After landing he headed for the COIC, bursting through the door of the COIC looking for Jack. He picked the captain up in a bear hug and threw him around in a circle. “Hey, you were right-on about using air-to-air missiles against them. Worked like a charm on the hovercraft. They couldn’t beat feet back home quick enough after we hosed down the leaders. Hell, we must’ve sunk half a dozen, set four on fire and scared them shitless… ”
“Where’s Thunder?” Jack finally managed to ask after getting his breath back.
“Still out at the bird trying to appease the crew chief. We picked up a few holes and the chief is pissed. You can’t have him back, he’s the best damn wizzo in the Air Force.”
When he returned to the command post Jack found Waters and Bill Carroll in intense conversation. “Jack,” Waters said, “according to Bill we’ve got ourselves a problem. He thinks the attack wasn’t big enough or pressed the way it should have been. He figures there’ll be a second attack… ”
The new display on the center board in the Watch Center told its own story and dominated Cunningham’s attention as he sat in his chair, chomped on his cigar and listened to Don Williamson outline the developing situation. Every word the captain uttered was an unwelcome testimonial to the perseverance of the enemy. A searing pain in Cunningham’s chest momentarily made him think he might be having a heart attack. But the pain was beyond physical… it came from the general’s realizing he had underestimated the will of the PSI. “How long before the next attack?” he asked.
“The communications traffic the RC-135 is monitoring indicates they’ll sortie from behind Khark Island within a few hours, around noon their time,” Williamson said, trying to keep his voice even.
“When and where you figure they’ll come ashore?”
“Well, the crossing will take about twelve hours. And I expect them to come ashore… here,” the captain said, and pointed to a spot on the coast eleven miles north of Ras Assanya. “That’s the only place where the channel is deep enough for their ships. They’ll have to move down the coast and attack the base from the land side, forcing their way across the isthmus to capture the main runway.”
Cunningham punched the transmit button, relaying the intelligence to the War Room. He calculated how long it would take the President and his advisers to react to this latest information. He wanted to start an immediate evacuation, but that decision belonged to the President and without his permission Cunningham couldn’t even position a goddamned MAC aircraft for an emergency airlift. He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, hunched forward, scribbled out a message for John Shaw, who was responsible for managing Third Air Force’s people and supplies, and gave it to the watch commander for transmission as he left for the War Room.
Mort Pullman’s stomach knotted as he read the message Brigadier General Shaw had handed him. Outwardly the message from Cunningham seemed almost routine: a cautionary statement from a commander to a subordinate about the protection of supplies and resources. “So Sundown thinks Rats Ass is going to get plastered by a bunch of ragheads… So what does himself want us to do about it?”
“I don’t know, Mort,” Shaw said. “I hope to God he’s trying to tell us something we’ve missed.”
Pullman reread the message and handed it back to the general. “This is no way to do business, General. If he wants us to do something, then tell us. We don’t need to be playing guessing games—”
“Except Cunningham has to play politics with the big shots. The President’s probably calling the moves and the general’s hands are tied… ” Shaw read the message again. “He says we can ‘increase logistical support with the resources at our disposal to protect critical resources.’” Then it hit him… “Mort, what’s our most important resource?”
“Man, I’m slow,” Pullman said. “People.”
“Right. We’ve got over twenty-three hundred of our people there. I don’t know what it’ll take or whose ass I’m going to have to kick, but I am going to get them out. I’m going to go down there. You in, Mort?”
“Count on it, sir. Half the goddamn Air Force owes me favors and I’ll call in every one of them.”
“Mort, your markers can’t go that high. Who owes you?”
“The worker bees, General, the people that make things happen.”
The general liked Pullman’s style but wondered if he was mostly bragging. “To get down there it’s a ten-hour flight in a C-130. We’ve got one Hercules at Dhahran now for logistical support into Ras Assanya. We’ll use it. Send a message to the 45th and get it started on a shuttle into Dhahran. I’ll see if General Percival can get us airlift from MAC.”
Chief Pullman started calling in his markers the minute he sent the message to the 45th. The NCO in charge of Communications told him all circuits to the Persian Gulf were logjammed with heavy traffic and that even flash priority messages were running six hours late. “Sarge,” Pullman replied politely, “how would you like your wife to learn about your girlfriend who told the Air Force you were not providing child support for your kid — the illegitimate one, that is.”
“Chief, hey, give me a break… ” Pause. “Well, I’d have to call a buddy at Chicksands and have him dump the circuits and restart the system with your message plugged into the flow—”
“Just make sure it’s plugged in at the top. Sam, those are our people we need to get out—”
“And I’ll probably get me a court-martial—”
“That’s nothing compared to what your wife will get you. I’d appreciate that message going through in thirty minutes.”
And the sergeant did it. Pullman next headed for MAC’s Airlift Command Post to collar the NCO in charge of scheduling the movement of MAC’s aircraft.
Shaw’s problem was proving more difficult to resolve. General Percival wanted to support the 45th but Third Air Force did not have or schedule cargo aircraft. “John, you know how slow MAC works,” Percival told him. “Unless airlift is specifically requested through channels they won’t turn their aircraft loose—”
“True, very true,” Shaw said. “But you can redirect airlift once it is on the schedule, just like I did with the C-130 at Dhahran.”
“But only in my theater of operations, which happens to be northern Europe,” Percival said quickly. At which point the phone rang. Percival answered, listened intently and gave his best imitation of Cunningham’s “yes” grunt before hanging up. “Well, well, a lot of Third Air Force’s scheduled airlift missions have been suddenly canceled and MAC’s got a free C-130 ready to go and sitting on the ramp. It seems Third Air has had a long-standing request for a haul to Ras Assanya that’s now magically at the top of the heap. The request was lacking my signature… merely an oversight.” The general paused. “Good luck, John.”