Screw ‘em, Patrick told himself. If they want to take my stars or court-martial me, let them try. I’ll fight them every last step of the way. The military is worth a fight … at least, the old military, the one Patrick thought he knew, was worth it.
He showered, then dressed in his Class A uniform. For the first time in many years, he studied himself in a full-length mirror. It wasn’t often he wore Class A’s, and the blue cotton-polyester outfit was shiny and oddly creased from disuse and improper storage. The single silver stars, given to him by the former president of the United States Kevin Martindale, and the shiny command navigator wings given to him by Brad Elliott, looked awfully good, but everything else seemed extraordinarily plain. Only two rows of ribbons, the same as he’d had as a junior captain — Brad Elliott didn’t believe in awards and decorations and prohibited the release of any information whatsoever from Dreamland that might reveal something about its activities.
A rather plain uniform, he thought. Like his uniform, maybe his career in the Air Force really didn’t amount to anything after all. Even though he had done a lot of very cool, very exciting things, in the end maybe it didn’t matter, any more than he did among all the superstar military men and women in the Pentagon.
As he put the uniform on and prepared for his meetings, Patrick realized with surprise that it would possibly be the last time he would ever wear this uniform — except perhaps at his court-martial.
After dressing, Patrick went right to the H. H. “Hap” Arnold Executive Corridor and the Secretary of the Air Force’s and Air Staff offices. Although HAWC was “overtly” run by Headquarters Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Materiel Command, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio (the actual chain of command was classified, but if anyone did any checking that’s what they would find), the work at HAWC was so classified that the Secretary of the Air Force himself, Steven C. Bryant, oversaw most matters dealing with HAWC.
Patrick’s appointments stemmed from his court-martial — as Terrill Samson promised, formal charges against him and David Luger had been preferred at the close of business the day of their meeting — so his first stop was the offices of the Air Staff. At first the chief Area Defense Counsel from Air Force Materiel Command headquarters, a full colonel, had been assigned to his case, and he had been given all the preliminary briefings and paperwork. That was all window dressing, of course, because none of this would ever go through the normal legal channels. The matter stayed at Wright-Pat for less than twenty-four hours before being referred directly to the two-star Air Force Judge Advocate General (TJAG) at the Pentagon.
His 0730 appointment with TJAG lasted five minutes. The two-star’s recommendation: request early retirement at current rank and time in service and end this thing with an honorable discharge and an unblemished record. All the paperwork was ready, the chief Air Force Area Defense Counsel, a one-star general, standing by to answer any questions. The Area Defense Counsels were the Air Force’s “defense attorneys,” answerable to no one but the chief of staff of the Air Force, General Victor Hayes. He, too, recommended he request early retirement; he had reviewed the memoranda from the Secretary of Defense and found the offer of a clear record, full time in grade and service, and an honorable discharge complete and acceptable, even generous considering the seriousness of the charges.
Patrick’s simple answer: “No, sir.”
Patrick’s next stop was the office of the three-star Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel. Again behind closed doors, he was notified that his security clearance had been taken away, he no longer had a nuclear weapons security or surety authorization, was no longer authorized to fly as a crew member in military aircraft, and could not handle or employ any kinds of weapons, from an airborne laser all the way down to a handgun. Patrick was also notified that his Air Force Specialty Code had been changed from an XO, Commander and Director, to OX, or “Other”—“other” in this case meaning a defendant in a court-martial case, an officer with no specialty, no responsibilities, no unit, no team. The change in AFSC would be entered into his official personnel records for everyone to see, virtually guaranteeing that he would never be selected for another assignment, never selected for promotion, and never be given any awards or decorations. That record could also be made public, so any future employers would see it, too, guaranteeing that he would never be chosen to sit on a board of directors or be hired for any position, either home or abroad, that required a security clearance.
Each time Patrick was told of some new surprise, he was required to sign a form notifying him that he understood everything that had been said and all of the possible consequences of what was happening. At the same time, each time he was warned of some dire consequence or advised about some new potentially embarrassing or stressful step in the court-martial process, he was offered another chance to voluntarily retire with full rank, time in service, his records expunged, and a completely honorable discharge — definitely “carrot and stick” tactics. Each time, his answer was the same: “No, sir.”
By the time he’d finished, Patrick felt like a gang of thugs had beaten him. His briefcase was stuffed with dozens of copies of all of the forms, letters, memos, and directives outlining the beginning of the end of his seventeen-year Air Force career.
When Patrick emerged from the meeting with the DCS/ Personnel office, a lieutenant colonel with gold piping on his shoulder was waiting just outside the door: “Sir, General Hayes would like to have a word with you,” he said simply, and led the way out. Well, Patrick thought, he couldn’t get it any worse from the Chief of Staff than from all the other Air Staff officers he had already encountered. Might as well get it over with.
General Victor “Jester” Hayes’s office was large, with a twelve-person triangular videoconference table setup and a comfortable casual conversation pit in front of his desk, but it was simply decorated, with pictures and items celebrating the history and advancements of the U.S. Air Force rather than celebrating his own career. Although Jester’s undergraduate degree had been in engineering from the Air Force Academy, his first love was twentieth-century American history, especially as it related to aviation. His office was like a small aviation museum: a copy of the Wright brothers’ patent for the first powered airplane; a machine gun from a Curtis-Jenny biplane flown during World War 1; a Norden bomb sight; a control stick from his beloved F-15 Eagle; and photographs galore of aviation pioneers, aces, and Air Force Medal of Honor recipients.
The history buff was right now seated at the base of the triangular conference table, facing the triangle’s apex and a bank of large video monitors along the wall. Seated beside him, Patrick recognized, was the deputy chief of staff, General Tom “Turbo” Muskoka, and the deputy chief of staff for operations, Lieutenant-General Wayne “Wombat” Falke. They were all three seated before computer terminals, making notes and reading e-mail messages and computer reports. Muskoka and Falke looked angrily at McLanahan as he was led over to them; Hayes did not look at him, but was studying the monitors and talking on the telephone.
As were most televisions in every military installation Patrick had ever visited in the last ten years, one of the large monitors on the wall was tuned to CNN. The “Breaking News” logo was all over the screen. It looked like a videotape archive of wreckage from a plane crash; then he gulped as he saw the caption “Near Moscow, Russian Federation.” Patrick McLanahan had to struggle not to look at the big screen as he stood at attention before the conference table and the three Air Staff generals.