Stephen Coonts - Combat

Brad and Patrick looked into each other’s eyes for a very long moment. Brad’s eyes were still blazing with indignation and anger, but now they were shadowed by a touch of … what? Patrick hoped it would be understanding or maybe contrition, but that’s not what he saw. Instead, he saw disappointment. Patrick had called his mentor and commanding officer on a glaring moral and leadership error, and all he could communicate in return was that he was disappointed that his protégé didn’t back him up.

“Is it because you didn’t participate in Desert Storm?” Patrick asked. The Persian Gulf War — some called it “World War III”—had just ended, and the majority of troops had already gone home. They were enjoying celebrations and congratulations from a proud and appreciative nation, something unseen in the United States since World War II. “Is it because you know you had something that could help the war effort, but you weren’t allowed to use it?”

“Go to hell, McLanahan,” Elliott said bitterly. “Don’t try any of that amateur psychoanalyst crap with me. I’m given discretion on how to employ my forces, and I’m doing it as I see fit.”

Patrick looked at his commanding officer, the man he thought of as a friend and even as a surrogate father. His father had died before Patrick went off to college, and he and his younger brother had been raised in a household with a strong-willed, domineering mother and two older sisters. Brad was the first real father figure in Patrick’s life in many years, and he did all he could to be a strong, supportive friend to Elliott, who was without a doubt a lone-wolf character, both in his personal and professional life.

Although Bradley James Elliott was a three-star general and was once the number four man in charge of Strategic Air Command, the major command in charge of America’s long-range bombers and land-based ballistic nuclear missiles, he was far too outspoken and too “gung ho” for politically sensitive headquarters duty. To Brad, bombers were the key to American military power projection, and he felt it was his job, his duty, to push for increased funding, research, and development of new long-range attack technologies. That didn’t sit well with the Pentagon. The services had been howling mad for years about the apparent favoritism toward the Air Force. The Pentagon was pushing “joint operations,” but Brad Elliott wasn’t buying it. When he continued to squawk about reduced funding and priority for new Air Force bomber programs, Brad lost his fourth star. When he still wouldn’t shut up, he was banished to the high Nevada desert either to retire or simply disappear into obscurity.

Brad did neither. Even though he was an aging three-star general occupying a billet designated for a colonel or one-star general, he used his remaining stars and HAWC’s shroud of ultrasecrecy and security to develop an experimental twenty-first-century long-range attack force, comprised of highly modified B-52 and B-1 bombers, “superbrilliant” stealth cruise missiles, unmanned attack vehicles, and precision-guided weapons. He procured funding that most commanders could only wish for, money borrowed — many said “stolen”—from other weapons programs or buried under multiple layers of security classification.

While the rest of the Air Force thought Brad Elliott was merely sitting around waiting to retire, he was building a secret attack force — and he was using it. He had launched his first mission in a modified B-52 bomber three years earlier, dodging almost the entire Soviet Far East Air Army and attacking a Soviet ground-based laser installation that was being used to blind American reconnaissance satellites. That mission had cost the lives of three men, and had cost Brad his right leg. But it proved that the “flying battleship” concept worked and that a properly modified B-52 bomber could be used against highly defended targets in a nonnuclear attack mission. Brad Elliott and his team of scientists, engineers, test pilots, and technogeeks became America’s newest secret strike force.

“It’s not your job or place to second-guess or criticize me,” Elliott went on, “and it sure as hell isn’t your place to countermand my orders or give orders contrary to mine. You do it again, and I’ll see to it that you’re military career is terminated. Understand?”

Patrick thought he had noted just a touch of sadness in Brad’s eyes, but that was long gone now. He straightened his back and caged his eyes, not daring to look his friend in the eye. “Yes, sir,” he replied tonelessly.

“General?” John Ormack radioed back on interphone. “Patrick? What’s going on?”

Brad scowled one last time at Patrick. Patrick just sat down without meeting Brad’s eyes and strapped into his ejection seat again. Elliott said, “Patrick’s going to contact Diego Garcia and get our bombers some secure hangar space. We’re going to put down until we get clarification on our mission. Plot a course back to the refueling track, get in contact with our tankers and our wingmen, and let’s head back to the barn.”

When Brad turned and headed back to the cockpit, Wendy reached across the cabin and touched Patrick’s arm in a quiet show of gratitude. But Patrick didn’t feel much like accepting any congratulations.

“I want to go over the highlights of the Secretary’s MOI with you before we get started,” Major General Larry Ingemanson, the president of the promotion board, said. He was addressing the entire group of board members just before they started their first day of deliberations. “The MOI defines the quotas set for each promotion category, but you as voting members aren’t required to meet those quotas. We’re looking for quality, not quantity. Keep that in mind. The only quotas we must fill for this board are for joint-service assignments, which are set by law, and the Secretariat will take care of that. The law also states that extra consideration be given to women and minorities. Bear in mind that your scores are not adjusted by the Secretariat if the candidate happens to be female or a member of a minority — no one can adjust your score but you. You are simply asked to be aware that these two groups have been unfairly treated in the past.

“You are also asked to keep in mind that since the start of hostilities in the southwest Asian theater, some candidates may not have had the opportunity to complete advanced degrees or professional military education courses. Eventually I believe this will become more and more of a concern as deployment tempos pick up, but so far the law has not been changed. You’re just asked to keep this fact in mind: If a candidate hasn’t completed PME or advanced degrees, check to see if he or she is serving in some specialty that requires frequent or short-notice deployments, and take that into consideration.”

General Ingemanson paused for a moment, closed his notes, and went on: “Now, this isn’t in the MOI — it’s from your nonvoting board president. This is my first time presiding over a board but my fourth time here in the box, and I have some thoughts about what you are about to undertake:

“As you slug through all the three thousand-plus files over the next several days, you may get a little cross-eyed and slack-jawed. I will endeavor to remind you of this as the days go on, but I’ll remind you now, of the extreme importance of what you’re doing here: If you have ever thought about what it would be like to shape the future, this, my friends, is it.

“We find ourselves in a very special and unique position of responsibility,” Ingemanson went on solemnly. “We are serving on the Air Force’s first field grade officers’ promotion board just days after the end of Operation Desert Storm, which many are calling the reawakening of America and the reunification of American society with its armed forces. We are seeing the beginning of a new era for the American military, especially for the U.S. Air Force. We are tasked with the awesome responsibility of choosing the men and women who will lead that new military into the future.”