Rogue Forces

“Boxer is commander of the Seventh Air Expeditionary Squadron,” Kris Thompson explained. “They’re based in various places—Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Diego Garcia—and stand by for missions as coalition forces in theater need them. She’s here because of the Iraqi operation tonight—we’ll have her B-1s standing by just in case.”

Patrick nodded, then smiled. “‘Boxer’? Your call sign?”

“My great-grandfather came into the U.S. at Ellis Island,” Gia explained. “Cazzotto was not his real last name—it was Inturrigardia—what’s so hard about that?—but the immigration people couldn’t pronounce it. But they heard the other kids calling him cazzotto—which means ‘a hard punch’—and they gave him that name. We don’t know if he was getting beat up all the time or if he was the one doing the punching.”

“I’ve seen her on the punching bag at the gym; she deserves that call sign,” Kris said.

“I see,” Patrick said, smiling at Gia. She smiled back, their eyes locking…

…which gave the others around them an opening. “When can we see this plane of yours, sir?” Harrison asked.

“Can it really do everything you said…?”

“Are you taking over for all the military units in Iraq…?”

“All right, boys and girls, all right, we have work to do,” Kris Thompson interjected, holding up his hands to stop the fast-moving questions being fired at Patrick. “You’ll have time to pester the general later.” They all jostled to shake Patrick’s hand again, then gathered up their thumb drives and papers and exited the briefing room.

Gia was the last to depart. She shook Patrick’s hand, keeping it an extra moment in her own. “Very nice to meet you, sir,” she said.

“Same here, Colonel.”

“I prefer Gia.”

“Okay, Gia.” He was still clasping her hand when she said that, and he felt an instantaneous rush of warmth in it—or was his own hand suddenly sweating? “Not Boxer?”

“You don’t get to pick your own call signs, do you, sir?”

“Call me Patrick. And bomber guys didn’t have call signs when I was in.”

“I remember my old ops officer at the One-Eleventh had some choice names for you,” she said, and then smiled and headed off.

Kris Thompson was grinning at Patrick. “She’s cute, in a Murphy Brown kind of way, eh?”

“Yes. And wipe that grin off your face.”

“If it makes you uncomfortable, sure.” He kept on grinning. “We don’t know that much about her. We hear her on the radios once in a while, so she still flies. She comes in to run missions occasionally, like tonight, and then she’s off again to another command center. She rarely stays for longer than a day.”

Patrick felt an unexpected pang of disappointment, then quickly shook the uncomfortable feeling aside. Where did that come from…? “The B-1s are great planes,” he said. “I hope they resurrect more of them from AMARC.”

“The grunts love the Bones. They can get to the fight as fast as a fighter; loiter for long periods of time like a Predator or Global Hawk, even without air refueling; they have improved sensors and optics and can pass a lot of data to us and other planes; and they have as much precision-guided payload as a flight of F/A-18s.” Thompson noted the quiet, slightly wistful expression on Patrick’s face and decided to change the subject. “You’re a real inspiration to those kids, General,” he said. “That’s the most excited I’ve ever seen them since I’ve been here.”

“Thanks. It’s infectious—I feel energized, too. And call me Patrick, okay?”

“Can’t guarantee I will all the time, Patrick, but I’ll try. And I’m Kris. Let’s get you settled.”

“Can’t. Jon and I have a lot of work to do before tomorrow afternoon’s test flight. The staff will set up quarters for us, but I’ll probably take naps in the plane.”

“Same here,” Jon added. “Certainly wouldn’t be the first time.”

“We’ll have support services bring meals out to the plane, then.”

“Good. Kris, I’d like clearance to be in the Tank when the operation at Zahuk begins.”

“The colonel doesn’t usually allow off-duty personnel to be in the Tank during an operation, especially one this big,” Kris said, “but I’m sure he’ll let you listen in from up here.”

“That’ll be fine.”

“I’m not sure if I want to get any closer than that to Wilhelm anyway,” Jon said. “I thought for sure he was going to punch your lights out, Muck…twice.”

“But he didn’t, which means he does have some common sense,” Patrick said. “Maybe I can work with him. We’ll see.”

CHAPTER THREE

In the one hand he is carrying a stone, while he shows the bread in the other.

—TITUS MACCIUS PLAUTUS, 254–184 B.C.

ALLIED AIR BASE NAHLA, IRAQ

Thompson took Patrick and Jon back out to the hangar, where the crew chiefs and support crew were unloading bags and servicing the Loser. This gave Thompson a chance to look the plane over carefully. “This thing is beautiful,” he remarked. “Looks like a stealth bomber. I thought you were just going to do reconnaissance.”

“That’s what we were hired to do,” Patrick said.