Armageddon. Dale Brown
‘We need planes.’
‘Yes,’ said bin Awg. ‘We will get them. Eventually.’
‘Eventually better be pretty soon,’ said Mack.
‘Time moves more slowly in Brunei than in America, Mack. You must learn to relax.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ said Mack, picking at his lunch.
There were more problems to deal with when Mack got back to his office in the capital: the maintenance section had used its last spare part for the A-37B radios; the next one that broke would be out of action until replacement parts arrived in six to eight weeks.
‘You can’t just cannibalize them?’ Mack asked Brown, the officer in charge of the aircraft. ‘We have four that are stuck in the hangars permanently.’
‘We already have,’ said Brown.
‘What parts are you talking about?’ asked McKenna, who’d been standing near the door to Mack’s office waiting to come in to see him.
Brown explained, adding that he had been working on getting the parts ordered for weeks. McKenna waved her hand.
‘There’s a shop in Manila where you can get the radios if you want. Frankly, you can upgrade the whole avionics suite for just about the same price,’ she said.
Brown stammered something about protocols. McKenna shrugged.
‘You have anything else, Brown?’ Mack asked.
He shook his head.
‘Good. We get the jet fuel?’
‘Working on it.’
‘Well, work harder,’ said Mack.
Brown nodded, apologized, then left.
‘Why don’t we just buy off the civilian suppliers?’ asked McKenna.
‘Damned if I know,’ confessed Mack. ‘There’s a whole bureaucracy dedicated to making sure I can’t get what I need.’
‘The civilian suppliers are cheaper than the fuel Brown’s been getting.’
‘How do you know?’
She smiled. ‘It’s coming through the government, right?’
‘Yeah, we have some sort of contract or something.’
‘You’re pretty naive, Mack.’
‘What do you mean?’
McKenna explained that certain citizens have interests in certain businesses, which the old administration of the air force had been involved with.
‘Not crooked, exactly,’ she said. ‘Just a lot of back-slapping.’
‘So they want to be paid off now, is that it?’ Mack asked.
McKenna laughed. ‘What they want is for you to leave. You’re an outsider, Mack. They want you out of here. They’ll do what they can to make you look bad.’
Mack felt his face getting hot. ‘That’s a pretty dumb game. Dangerous.’
McKenna shrugged. ‘You can take care of most of them.’
‘How?’
‘Cut their balls off.’
‘Thanks.’
‘It’s easier than you think,’ she said. She pulled up a chair.
‘What do I do?’
‘Find another supplier. Then suddenly they’ll have plenty of fuel for sale.’
‘You know of one?’
‘I might be able to find some fuel, if you’re not too particular about where it comes from.’
‘All I’m particular about is if it works.’
‘It’ll work.’
‘That why you came in?’
‘Actually, no. I had an idea on how to flush those Sukhois out, if they’re there.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Requires practicing some air-to-air refueling between the Dragonflies and EB-52.’
‘Forget it, then. None of these guys are good enough to fly an A-37 Dragonfly behind the Megafortress. It kicks off some very wicked wind shears. It took a while for the computers to figure out how to do it with a Flighthawk.’
‘I could do it. If someone who knew what he was doing was flying the Megafortress.’
Mack listened as she detailed the plan. It involved a fly-around of the island by a Megafortress and two escorts two or three days in a row to establish a basic pattern. On the third or fourth day, one of the A-37Bs would pretend to have an air emergency. As it recovered, it would fly close enough to the airstrip to get a good look at it. An aerial reconnaissance pod under one of the wings would snap some pictures and they’d be set.
‘That airstrip is eighteen miles inland,’ said Mack. ‘You’re talking about overflying their territorial waters and then running in there – I don’t know. Those planes come up, you’re cooked.’
‘If you can handle them, I can.’
‘Too risky.’
‘Well, if you’re too chicken – ’
‘I’m not too chicken,’ snapped Mack. Then he smiled at her, and laughed at himself.
A little.
‘Don’t do that, McKenna,’ he told her. ‘Don’t try to out-macho me. Okay? Just be straight. No head games. You don’t need them.’
She shrugged, not particularly remorseful.
‘I’ll take it under advisement,’ said Mack. ‘That it?’
‘Breanna Stockard tells me she goes home Tuesday. What are the odds of me doing some time in the pilot’s seat before she leaves?’
‘Go for it.’
McKenna smiled, and got up.
‘There’s a tanker sailing to the Philippines with some jet fuel that’s supposed to be sold to a private investor there,’ said McKenna. ‘I may be able to find a phone number so you could put in a counter offer.’
‘That private investor wouldn’t be your ex-boss, Ivana Keptrova, would it?’
McKenna shrugged. She might not be much to look at, Mack thought, but she was one hell of an operator.
Just the sort of person he needed around here.
‘Do it,’ said Mack. ‘Buy it.’
‘How much?’
‘The whole thing. The ship if you have to. There’s this guy named Chia in the Finance Ministry – ’
‘That’s Gia,’ said McKenna. ‘Gee-uh.’
‘You know him?’
‘I’ve heard of him.’
‘Yeah. He has this line of credit for us, operating money we can spend, but getting him on the phone is next to impossible so you have to go over there and see him in his office, buttonhole him, you know what I mean? And then on our side there’s Braduski – ’
‘Bradushi. Like sushi. He’s the guy who cuts the checks for you. I had to talk to him to get paid. He has a mother who needs an operation in Manila.’
‘Oh?’
‘He was on the phone when I came into his office,’ said McKenna.