Брюс Бетке - Expendables

28 August 1998

I wrote this one in 1986 and sold it in 1988, for publication in early 1990. This certainly isn't the most polished thing I've ever done, but for some reason it's been much on my mind, these last few days.

— BRB

The troops bounced in on lorries a week before the demonstration. Two hundred and forty select Afrikaner guardsmen secured the area and established a perimeter; only when Upington was certified safe did the C-130s leave Johannesburg.

Ryan came on the first plane, cursing the noisy, jarring ride. As soon as he had both feet securely on the ground again he switched to cursing the heat and the dust, and grimly predicting their effects on hand-wired circuitry. Vittorio stayed silent, trying to fan himself with a floppy straw hat too scratchy to wear. The rest of the passengers — engineers and observers, mostly — filed slowly off the plane, blinking nervously at the machine guns and concertina wire.

The second C-130 carried hardware, as did the third. Airborne Command was too large to land at Upington so it stayed on at Johannesburg. Still, Ryan and Vittorio had trained their crews well and by week's end 15 small, shark-like aircraft, their stubby wings bristling with weapons pods, sat assembled in the launch cradles. In deference to Ryan, the noses stayed shrouded. Vittorio called Joburg and announced they were ready on schedule.

The 747 flew serenely through the clouds, miles above the South African veldt. A small cadre of technicians moved through her aft sections, testing and tweaking computer systems and microwave datalinks. The nose cabin, a walnut-panelled lounge with plush carpet the color of ripe avocadoes, contained a party of perhaps 30 people. Lieutenant Colonel Neal Meredith, U.S.M.C., Retired — a strong, stocky man of about 60 years with a lot of gray at the temples and too many memories — straightened his tie, put on his professional lobbyist smile and his native West Texas accent, and eased down the spiral staircase from the flight deck.

An old Cole Porter song was drifting up from the piano bar, and Meredith relaxed a notch. He made a mental note to tip the piano player later. The hostess, recently hired away from a Las Vegas casino, handed him a Manhattan as he came off the stairs. He politely took it, but did not drink.

A wave here, a nod and a smile there; with long-practiced skill he discreetly established his presence. It was a good crowd to be discreet with: two vice-presidents of the firm he was currently consulting for, a senator who was officially vacationing in Madagascar; five pseudonyms who, judging by the poor way they wore civvies, had to be active military; the usual bunch of aides and sycophants. Meredith moved fluidly through the group, shaking hands, exchanging chat, all the while thinking of how the guerillas could turn this into a truly memorable international incident, if only they had a SAM-6 missile.

But of course, they didn't. That's why the firm had picked this venue for the test.

Meredith worked his way to the edge of the group. Luckily the South Africans had stayed in a tight little clique again so he was able to deal with them quickly and collectively. For all his years in the lobbying trade, brown-nosing all manner of public and private power brokers, he could barely stand the Afrikaners. Each time he looked in their smug white faces he saw images of Otis Washington, the best damned man white or black to ever sit in the aft cockpit of an F-4 Phantom: Otis, whose good luck and quick wits had gotten them through 36 missions together. Otis, tangled in the shroud lines of his half-open parachute, dropping into the dark green Vietnamese jungle arms and legs flailing all the way down down down….

Too many memories. Meredith blinked them away, pasted his professional smile back onto his face, and looked around. One man was conspicuous by his absence: Dr. David Klein, the project director. Part of Meredith's job was to keep track of Klein, so he finished covering the group and slipped through the door to the aft section of the plane. As he expected, he found Klein sitting in a window seat in the technician's cabin, leaning against the glass and staring down at the mottled, tawny earth.

"Doctor Klein?"

Klein nervously twitched around, then remembered he was holding a lit cigarette and took a deep drag on it. At last he said, "I suppose they're waiting."

Meredith nodded. "Target zone in five minutes."

Klein stubbed out his cigarette and stood up. "Let's get this over with."

He sidled out to the aisle and started making his way forward. At the lounge door he stopped, muttered, "God, I hate dog-and-pony shows," then stepped through and started shaking hands. Meredith stayed at his elbow, guiding him through the group. Klein very nearly got mired in a young senate aide's declamation on the legitimate geopolitical uses of force, but Meredith gently detached the woman and got Klein to the podium at the front of the cabin.

Klein checked the six-foot video screen to make sure it was on, tapped on the podium microphone a few times, then cleared his throat. As the conversation circles broke up and the observers found their seats, Meredith took up station back by the piano bar.

"Good afternoon Sen — uh, distinguished guests," Klein began nervously, "and welcome to the final operational test of the Valkyrie Tactical Weapons Deployment System." Klein tried a smile on the group. The open bar had done its job; most of them smiled back. Klein relaxed visibly. "I'm David Klein, the project director, and the Valkyrie is my baby, so if you have any questions before we start the test I… yes, General?"

Someone in the front row rumbled a question that Meredith didn't catch.

"THAT'S—," Klein jumped back, startled by the loudness of his own voice. Apparently he hadn't realized he was leaning so close to the microphone.

"That's right sir," Klein resumed. "The test is fully automated. Once we give the go code, we don't need to do anything except sit back and enjoy the show." He looked to the rest of the group. "So don't be afraid to interrupt me if you have questions. That's why I'm here: to answer questions."

The young senate aide who'd buttonholed Klein earlier stood up and loudly said, "Can you give us a brief overview of the TWDS project, Mister Klein?"

"Uh, Doctor Klein, if you please. CalTech was too expensive to forget." He tried another smile; it worked again. "As for — well, that was covered in the briefing before we left the States. Didn't you…?" The aide sat down, trying to be inconspicuous and shaking her head. Meredith smiled: he found it somehow reassuring that politicians were still skipping backgrounders.

Klein was looking at the rest of the group, seeking support and not finding it. From the back, Meredith could see that most of the heads were shaking. After a few seconds, Klein shrugged, took a deep breath, and began, "The marketing people will tell you that the A-43 Valkyrie is a high-survivability, remotely-piloted, tactical assault aircraft. Configurable for a wide variety of close-support fire missions, the vehicle can dispense payloads ranging from the M77 Antimaterial/Antipersonnel Munition to the TGAS Terminally Guided Antitank…." Klein stopped, and looked at his audience again. Aside from the active militaries, most of them were still shaking their heads.

"Okay, it's like this," Klein said. "The most expensive part of a combat aircraft is the crew, right? You expend the crew on a minor mission, your cost/benefit ratio goes right down the toilet. Agreed?"

The head-shaking switched to nodding.

"Now, you can get around this by going to a guided missile," Klein continued. "If you assume that the vehicle is going to be expended, and if the target is important enough, a missile gives you your best return on investment. But if you scale down the importance of the target, and factor in the probability of getting your crew back, then your cost/benefit curves start intersecting and you end up with one conclusion: close-support fire missions are expensive.