"I woulda said… I shoulda said… that I fucked up, Hal."
"When I was thinking about it… lying on my fuckin' back in the hospital, I went back and forth between thinking you were an asshole and thinking that I was a wimp."
"What did you decide?" Troy asked.
"I still haven't."
The awkward moment of unresolved tension seemed to last an hour.
This time, the ice was broken by Captain Jenna Munrough.
"Loensch," she said loudly as she entered the hallway. "What are you doing here?"
"I was just asked that," he explained, nodding at the 95th Squadron patch on her shoulder. "I guess I'm doing the same thing as you are."
As she glared at him across folded arms, Troy could sense that the anger in her eyes had not diminished, even after nearly two years.
"Guess that means that we all have the same briefing… about now," Hal said, walking away.
Inside the briefing room, Major Smith had his laptop plugged into a slim projector. The first image cast on the wall was a map of Sudan. Troy noticed that among the several people in the room, the only three in flight suits were Hal, Jenna, and himself
"As you know, the United States has had combat forces in Sudan since the beginning of the year in support of government forces fighting the Al-Qinamah rebels backed by Eritrea," Smith droned in a description that sounded as though it had been lifted straight from a briefing paper. This was, after all, a briefing. Troy shrugged.
"Joint Task Force Sudan has been operating out of Atbara, about three hundred clicks northeast of Khartoum," the major said, pointing to a spot on the map next to a squiggly blue line that Troy guessed was probably the Nile River. "The air component of the JTF is the 334th Air Expeditionary Wing… commander is General Raymond Harris….. Falcon Force… the three of you… will be attached to the 334th under his direct command."
"Doesn't he have any other recon?" Troy asked. It was unusual for a wing not to have tactical reconnaissance assets.
"Your job is to get the recon that the strategic planners need to plan beyond tomorrow," Smith replied. "Harris can use the recon he has now for strike assessment and so forth."
The image on the screen changed to a Google Earth aerial view of a city with a river snaking through it. In one corner, the pilots could easily make out the runways of an airport.
"The Atbara Airport here has a 5,905-foot runway," Smith continued. "Harris has got F-16s operating out of here, flying strike missions in Sudan, and C-130s hauling personnel from Khartoum to fields closer to where the action is along the Eritrea border. Technically, the UN mandate won't allow combat ops inside Eritrea, but that apparently doesn't apply to recon flights. Your job is to fly into Eritrean airspace to gather intel."
"Does that mean we can't shoot back if they shoot at us?" Jenna asked. Because she had grown up in rural Arkansas, shooting was second nature for her.
"Fire only when fired upon." Smith nodded. "That's the basic rule of engagement here. Fire only to defend yourself."
"We have to let them shoot first?" Jenna pressed. "That's what's in the rules of engagement here," Smith confirmed.
"But—" Jenna started to say.
"You are flying recon missions, not combat missions. Our rules of engagement preclude offensive operations in Eritrean airspace."
"What if somebody gets shot down while playing this game?" Jenna asked.
"If you get shot down, we can prove from your reconnaissance gear that you were not on an offensive mission," Smith said in an ominous tone.
Chapter 6
"Fuckin' dust is everywhere," said a disembodied, half-asleep voice in the darkness.
Coughing sounds came from various corners of the darkness, and another voice angrily admonished the first voice to "Shut the fuck up and go back to sleep!"
Troy had awakened coughing the grit and phlegm out of his throat. He rolled over on the cot and took a breath. Again, the dust flooded into his mouth and nostrils, again causing him to gag. He opened his eyes to the stinging crud and wiped his forehead. Instead of sweat, it felt like mud.
The three F-16Cs of Falcon Force had arrived at dusk. The pilots had reported to General Harris's command post, but he was in the field, so they went to base operations to scrounge temporary quarters. Having flown all the way from Lakenheath to Souda, and from Souda to Atbara yesterday, Troy had been exhausted, so he took the cot in the tent to which he had been assigned, and just crashed.
Now it was nearly 0500, and he was awake. He couldn't possibly nod off again without hosing the dust off his face. He had two hours before Harris's operational daily briefing, so he decided to try to find a shower and get something to eat.
Finding a shower turned out to be a joke. The base was so new that such amenities didn't exist here yet. However, Troy was able to find water to wash the dust from his hands and face. The "officers' mess," with its lukewarm powdered eggs and cold hash from a can, was a bit like a Boy Scout camp gone terribly wrong, but Troy did manage to get fed.
Atbara Expeditionary Air Base was a sprawling, hastily assembled tent city across the runway from the main buildings of the Atbara Airport. Two C-17s were landing as Troy finished his plate of reconstituted eggs. It was always amazing to see such high-tech equipment in such a primitive context, but outsiders more technologically savvy than the locals had been waging war in Sudan since Lord Kitchener beat the Mandist Army out here in 1898—or since the pharaohs battled the Nubians in these shifting gravel hills thousands of years before that.
When he had flown in yesterday, Troy had seen no paved roads until he was well into final approach, and out beyond the perimeter wire, a few guys in turbans riding along on donkeys could have been a blast from centuries past.
The briefing, in a large room in the general's command post, was another incongruous display of the latest gadgetry in the primeval landscape. Live, subtly changing satellite photos were displayed on two large screens, and between them was a screen with an animated situation map of Sudan and Eritrea. It was similar to the map that Major Smith had shown them the day before in Souda, but much more detailed. The word Classified appeared at the bottom of the screen.
There were about fifty people in the room, and seating for just the first three dozen early arrivals. There were officers, including pilots and navigators, and enlisted personnel, mainly loadmasters from the transport aircraft. Troy stood in a place near the back of the room and noticed Hal Coughlin standing in the opposite corner. He thought he saw Jenna Munrough seated in the second row. A young captain stood on a raised platform before the group and explained the daily situation, told of the strike package that had gone out at 0400, reported the results, and pointed out enemy positions on the animated map. Finally, it was time for the star of the show to take the stage.
General Harris was a bear of a man, with close-cropped hair and a ruddy complexion.
"Bastards are on the move," he began, wasting no time getting to the subject. "They hit the UN troops here, there, and there yesterday. We hit 'em at 1800 yesterday and at 0400 this morning. Initial reports of the strike pack that came back from this morning's hit-and-run shows a concentration here, with supply lines running up here. Those of you who I briefed for the 0900 package will hit them here."
The general used his laser pointer like a light saber to stab the here to which he referred.
"The distance is short," he explained, looking at the pilots who had been assigned the 0900 sortie. "You won't need extra fuel, so double up on JDAMs and blow the shit out of those bastards."
He sucked a mouthful of tepid water from a plastic bottle and looked out into the crowd.