Rogue Forces

The Tank actually resembled the Battle Management Center at Elliott Air Force Base in Nevada. It was a large auditorium-like room with twelve large high-definition flat-panel screens surrounding an even larger screen in the back of the room, with a narrow stage for human briefers. On either side of the stage were rows of consoles for the various departments that fed data to the display screens and the commanders. Above them was an enclosed observation area for VIPs and specialists. In the middle of the room was a semicircular row of consoles for the department chiefs, and in the center of the semicircle were the seats and displays for the Iraqi brigade commander, which was empty, and his deputy, Colonel Jack Wilhelm.

Wilhelm was a large bearlike man resembling a much younger, dark-haired version of retired Army general Norman Schwarzkopf. He appeared to be chomping on a cigar, but it was actually the boom microphone from his headset set very close to his lips. Wilhelm was leaning forward on his console, snapping out orders and directions for what he wanted displayed on the screens.

Thompson maneuvered himself to get within Wilhelm’s field of vision, and when Wilhelm noticed the security contractor, he gave him a querying scowl and slid a headset ear cup away from his ear. “What?”

“The guys from Scion Aviation are here, Colonel,” Thompson said.

“Bunk ’em down in CHUville and tell them I’ll see them in the morning,” Wilhelm said, rolling his eyes and setting the earcup back in place.

“They want to start tonight, sir.”

Wilhelm moved the earcup again in exasperation. “What?”

“They want to start tonight, sir,” Thompson repeated.

“Start what?”

“Start doing surveillance. They say they’re ready to go right now and want to brief you on their proposed flight plan.”

“They do, do they?” Wilhelm spat. “Tell them we’re scheduled to brief at oh-seven-hundred tomorrow morning, Thompson. Bunk ’em down and—”

“If you have a few minutes to spare, Colonel,” Patrick said, stepping up beside Thompson, “we’d like to brief you now and get under way.”

Wilhelm turned in his seat and scowled at the newcomers and their interruption…and then blanched slightly when he recognized Patrick McLanahan. He got to his feet slowly, his eyes locked on Patrick’s as if sizing him up for a fight. He turned slightly to the technician seated beside him, but his eyes never left Patrick’s. “Get Weatherly in here,” he said, “and have him supervise the log air departures and take the scout patrol briefing. I’ll be back in a few.” He slipped the headset off, then extended his hand. “General McLanahan, Jack Wilhelm. Pleasure to meet you.”

Patrick shook his hand. “Same, Colonel.”

“I didn’t know you’d be on board that flight, General, or I never would have allowed a VFR pattern.”

“It was important we did it, Colonel—it told us a lot. Can we brief you and your staff on our first mission?”

“I assumed you’d want the rest of the afternoon and evening to rest up and get organized,” Wilhelm said. “I wanted to show you around the base, show you the Triple-C and the ops center here, meet the staff, get a good meal—”

“We’ll have plenty of time for that while we’re here, Colonel,” Patrick said, “but we ran into some hostile fire on the way in, and I think the sooner we get started, the better.”

“Hostile fire?” Wilhelm looked at Thompson. “What’s he talking about, Thompson? I wasn’t briefed.”

“We’re ready to brief you on it right now, Colonel,” Patrick said. “And then I’d like to plan an orientation and calibration flight for tonight to get started on finding the origins of that ground fire.”

“Excuse me, General,” Wilhelm said, “but your operations have to be carefully studied by the staff and then deconflicted with every department here in the Triple-C. That’s going to take a lot longer than a few hours.”

“We sent you our ops plan and a copy of the contract from the Air Force Civil Augmentation Agency a week ago, Colonel. Your staff should have had plenty of time to study it.”

“I’m confident they have, General, but my briefing with the staff is scheduled for oh-five-thirty hours tomorrow morning,” Wilhelm said. “You and I were supposed to meet at oh-seven-hundred to discuss it. I thought that was the plan.”

“It was the plan, Colonel, but now I’d like to launch our first mission tonight, before our other planes arrive.”

“Other planes? I thought we were just getting the one.”

“As soon as we took hostile fire coming in here, I requested and received authorization from my company to bring in a second operations aircraft with a few more specialized payloads and equipment,” Patrick said. “It’ll be another Loser-size aircraft—”

“‘Loser’?”

“Sorry. Nickname for our plane. I’ll need a hangar for it and bunks for twenty-five additional personnel. They’ll be here in about twenty hours. When it arrives I’ll need—”