Battle Born (16 page)

“Sir, before you say no, here’s what we have right now,” Hayes said quickly. “We’ve got weapons, avionics, training materials, and spares ready to equip two more planes. The gear is already bought and paid for. If Terrill Samson gets authorization and funding, he can put together two more Lancelot planes within three months, and ten more within a year. Let’s find a couple of airframes and some crews and give it a shot. If it doesn’t work, we haven’t wasted anything. If it does work and you want to proceed, we’re already in motion.”

Mortonson hesitated—another good sign, especially for a guy known to make snap decisions. “These will be Air National Guard assets?”

“We’ve already got several candidates lined up,” General Hammond said, “and we can begin the selection process immediately. All we need is a go-ahead.”

Mortonson hesitated once again, then nodded. “All right. Put it together for four airframes only. But be prepared to put it all back on the shelf if SECDEF or the White House says no.” Both Hayes and Hammond nodded. “Speaking of the Air National Guard, what’s the current status of that Nevada Guard unit?”

“They are fully operational, with five manned planes, one plane without a full crew, and one spare,” General Hammond responded. “The five crews are reserve mission capable, which means they can be called up, used as replacements, or trained to full combat-ready status within sixty days. They begin their unit requalification course in a few weeks.”

“If they pass it, they stay—if they don’t, we pull the
plug on them,” the secretary of the Air Force said flatly. “We don’t have the money to waste on ineffective units, even if the state is putting up a bunch of money to support them.”

“Sir, I think this Nevada Air National Guard unit might be exactly the guys we’re looking for with this new antiballistic missile intercept squadron,” Victor Hayes suggested. “The mission demands an experienced and hard-charging crew . . .”

“No way, Victor,” Mortonson interrupted, waving a hand in dismissal. “Frankly, I’m hoping for the sake of our budget that they
don’t
pass their requalification test. Putting seven B-1 bombers on ice will save us billions per year. It might send a message to the rest of the force too—shape up, or you’ll find yourselves unemployed.”

“I think it’ll definitely send a message, Mr. Secretary,” Hayes said. “I think the message will say, ‘Don’t be aggressive, don’t risk it, because if you screw up, you’ll be shit-canned.’ Sir.”

“My message about shaping up or you’ll find yourself unemployed applies to the commanders as well as the airmen, General Hayes,” Mortonson said acidly. “It should probably go double for you and General Samson. You take risks, you’d better be prepared to accept the consequences. That is all.”

SOUTH ROCK BOULEVARD, RENO, NEVADA
SEVERAL DAYS LATER

A
lthough the Nevada Air National Guard had a very nice all-ranks dinner club in Reno—in fact, one of the finest in the nation—few of the members of the 111th Bomb Squadron used it except for official social functions. Years earlier, back when the Air National Guard flew the RF-4 Phantom, the squadron members had “adopted” a run-down little bar and casino on South Rock Boulevard near the old Cannon Airport, now the Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

The bar’s real name was the Quarry, because it had been built near a small quarry used to provide sand and gravel for the concrete for Reno’s new airport’s runways, but no one used it. It was known to all as Target Study. It provided a convenient and convincing excuse or explanation to someone asking about a squadron member’s whereabouts, as in “He’s at target study” or “I’ll be at target study for the next couple of hours.” Because it was close to the airport, it also made for a fine place for crew members to wander up onto the roof and watch the planes come and go.

It was the first time since his accident that Rinc had been back in the place. Out front, there were six tables, a few booths, a couple of card tables, a few slot machines
and video poker machines, and the bar. The place had become decorated over the years with photos, memorabilia, books, signs, and other items from the Air National Guard flying units in Reno, and from visiting flying units from around the world. Every new guest was required to sign his or her name on the walls—most chose the bathroom of the opposite sex. Signatures and messages at the bar itself were reserved for VIPs or high-ranking officers. Anyone uninformed enough to wear a tie or bring a hat into the place had it snipped off or removed and tacked up on the rafters, and there was a huge collection of these trophies overhead.

Behind the bar, up on the shelf next to the expensive liquors, Rinc knew there was a full set of B-1B tech orders, and he had no doubt they were in inspection-ready condition. There were also tech orders of all the planes the Nevada Air Guard had ever flown since its inception in 1946: P-39, P-40, P-51, T-33, and F-86 fighters, RB-57, RF-101, and RF-4 tactical reconnaissance fighters, and C-130 Hercules cargo planes, all in equally perfect condition. In the back was a billiard room with slot machines, movies, newspapers, and computers. It was off limits to all but Aces High personnel of all ranks.

Martina—no one knew her last name—was out front behind the bar as usual. She virtually came with the place, and she was most definitely in command here. Martina weighed more than 260 pounds and could have just as easily been the bouncer. Rumor had it that pilots paid off big bar tabs by sneaking Martina onboard their planes. She supposedly had over a hundred hours in the RF-4 Phantom, although it seemed impossible she could ever have squeezed herself into the seat.

“Hey, Rodeo,” she said, greeting Seaver as if she had
just seen him the day before. She poured him a large glass of diet cola. Martina knew the flying schedule just as well as the crews did, and she always knew when a guy was within twelve hours of a sortie and would stop serving him alcohol. Woe to any flier who tried to argue with her.

Rinc was looking the place over, drinking in the welcome atmosphere. There was no air-conditioning, and it was stuffy and musty-smelling, but it still felt cozy, much like his dad’s old ham radio room in the basement of their house when he was a kid.

His eyes were drawn to the back of the bar and the “Snake Eyes” board. Fifty-three years of photos of dead members of Aces High were pinned up there—and yes, he saw they had added the pictures of his dead crewmates to the array. In fact, it was a crew photo, their Fairchild Trophy shot taken in front of their plane . . .

. . . with Rinc’s picture cut out of it.

He was frozen in place. It was logical that he be cut out of the picture—after all,
he
wasn’t dead—but they had left the pictures of the surviving crew members, and why his squadronmates had chosen that particular photo to use on the memorial wall made him uneasy. All the other pictures were individual shots, even in cases where multiple crew members had been lost. It was as if he were worse than dead—he was excluded, ousted. They had made a point of eliminating him, as if to remind him that he had survived an accident that he had no right to survive.

Rinc hadn’t yet selected a seat, but Martina made the choice for him by bringing his cola and a bowl of pretzels over to a booth. She picked the one farthest from the door to the back room. He looked at the closed door, then at Martina. Her expression answered all his questions: yes, some members of Aces High were
back there; yes, the commander, Rebecca Furness, was there—and no, he wasn’t welcome.

“Don’t worry about it none, Rodeo,” she said in her raspy, cigarette-scratched voice. “Give ’em time. They’ll take you back.”

“Time is the one thing I don’t think I have, Marty,” Rinc said.

“You don’t worry about nuthin’ ’cept your check ride tomorrow,” she told him. She had the flying schedule pinned down as well as if she were on the operations distribution list. “You jes’ show ’em what you got. You ain’t a member of Aces High ’cause they let you in the back. You a member because you got what it takes.”

She noticed Rinc glancing over toward the Snake Eyes board again. “Fergit ‘bout dat too, Rodeo.” But she didn’t offer to take it down. She couldn’t even if she’d wanted to. The Snakes Eyes wall was like a shrine. However hurtful or even vindictive a posting, no one, not even Martina, could mess with it.

“Did that asshole Long Dong put that up there?”

“Long Dong’s sho’ enough an asshole. Don’t let him git under your skin none.” He noticed she didn’t actually answer him. “You listen good, boy,” she said, pointing a sausagelike finger at him. “You hold your head up like a man and don’t never be ashamed of anything anyone ever says about you—even if it’s a damned lie. You remember that.” And then she left him alone.

Rinc got out his flight manuals, charts, and target study notes and tried looking them over, but the words and pictures blurred before his eyes. He left all of it on the table—Martina would see to it that no one touched it—grabbed his glass, went outside, and climbed up the freshly painted wood steps that led to the roof. There he put on his sunglasses and sat down on a metal
bench. The sky was ice-blue. The air was cold, but the sun felt warm. There were clouds piling up over Mount Rose to the west, and the Sierra Nevada mountaintops above eight thousand feet still wore a thin blanket of snow.

The winds were calm, so the tower was using the northbound runways. As he watched, two B-1B bombers pulled out of their parking spots and taxied to runway 34 left, a Reno Air Boeing 727 following them. It was easy to visualize the passengers straining to look out the windows as they taxied past the Air National Guard ramp and catching a glimpse of the sleek, deadly warplanes. At the end of the taxiway, the Bones turned right onto the “hammerhead,” a section of the taxiway with a high steel wall on the runway side, to make way for the commercial flight to pass. The warplanes were soon followed by the SOF, or supervisor of flying, an experienced pilot whose task was to do a “last chance inspection,” a drive around the B-1s to check that all streamers were removed and the planes were ready for takeoff.

The steel revetment wall in the hammerhead was supposedly there to protect commercial flights in case any weapons accidentally dropped on the runway and exploded. These days, almost all B-1 missions carried practice bombs, either small “beer can” bombs or concrete-filled bomb casings. But because it was only a replacement unit, Reno had no stockpiles of real weapons. All the weapons they might be called upon to use were stored at the weapons depot near Naval Air Station Fallon, and would be delivered to the base by rail. The steel wall was only window-dressing any-way—a two-thousand-pound Mark 84 would take out any aircraft and almost anything else above ground within a half mile of the blast.

A few minutes later, after the commercial flight had
departed, the first Bone taxied into position and ran its engines up to full afterburner takeoff power. Watching a B-1B Lancer on its takeoff roll was just as thrilling to him now as it had been the first time he saw one more than ten years ago. The bomber looked huge on its long, spindly legs with its wings fully extended, but when the pilot pushed those throttles up to full afterburner, it leaped down the runway like a cheetah.

The noise was not too bad—loud, like the old Boeing 727 that had taken off just before it, but not irritating. But when the afterburners were plugged in, the sound was deafening, a low, piercing harmonic rumbling that you could feel in the middle of your chest from two miles away. Surprisingly, there were few noise complaints. When they took off to the north, the Bones flew within a half mile of the Reno Hilton and right over John Ascuaga’s Nugget Hotel and Casino, and they must certainly rattle the windows in those hotel towers! But Rinc had often seen hundreds of people gather outside the casinos to watch the Bones launch, especially during the rare nighttime launches when the bombers’ afterburner plumes stretched a hundred feet across the sky. It was like a mini air show several times a week. The Bones were part of the city’s attractions, like the glittering neon lights, the brothels, and the National Bowling Center. Eerie, a little ominous, yet curiously welcome. Nonetheless, takeoffs and landings between nine P.M. and seven A.M. were allowed only on weekends and only using military power, which produced about the same amount of noise as a commercial airliner.

Rinc must have been temporarily deafened after the Bone blasted off because he never heard her approach on the rooftop.

“Hello, Rodeo.”

He turned, startled. There before him was Lieutenant Colonel Rebecca Furness.

He got to his feet, but as he stepped toward her, he sensed her body stiffening. “Rebecca, I . . . It’s good to see you,” he stammered.

Her eyes hardened, her jaw was set taut—and then she rushed into his arms. “Damn you to hell, Rinc,” she whispered, pulling him tightly to her and kissing him hard and hungrily. Tasting her lips, Rinc felt like a man on the verge of drowning who had just taken a deep gulp of sweet, fresh air.

They kissed for a few lingering moments. He sat down on the bench and tried to pull her next to him, but she remained standing. “I’ve missed you so much,” he said.

“Why didn’t you call me?” she asked him, the hurt evident in her voice. “Why didn’t you call to tell me you got back on flying status?”

“I was going to that night,” Rinc said. “But the way you acted in the sim—I thought it was too early, maybe not right . . .”

“You’re a real jerk sometimes, Rinc,” Rebecca said angrily. “I love you. I care about you. You can’t just cut me out like that. I’ve hardly heard from you at all since you got out of the hospital. You’ve never returned my calls, never called me . . .”

“I tried.”

“Trying doesn’t help. It hurts too much. And then to see you in the sim, duplicating the crash—that was worse. You were well enough to hunt for a different cause for the crash, but not well enough to want to see me. I decided the best I could do was let Long Dong chew on your butt for a while.”

Her words sliced into Rinc’s very soul. “Oh God, Beck, I am so sorry,” he cried. “If I could, I’d trade my life for all of them. You know that, don’t you?”