The Peacemakers (2 page)

The copilot placed his left hand over the pilot’s right hand that controlled the throttles. It was a technique they had developed to prevent the pilot’s hand from bouncing off the throttles on a hard landing. She planted the C-130 hard in a controlled crash. The large tandem main wheels absorbed the shock, sinking a foot into the hard earth. The pilot slammed the nose onto the dirt road and jerked the throttles aft. The four propellers went into reverse as she stomped on the brakes, dragging the Hercules to a stop in less than 2000 feet.

BermaNur’s eyes followed the landing C-130 as it hurtled down the road, blasting dust out in front, and coming directly at him. His jaw went rigid when he thought the left outboard propeller would hit him. He closed his eyes and refused to move. But his perspective was wrong and the plane passed by with over twenty feet to spare. He breathed a sigh of relief as his communicator vibrated. He pressed the receive button. “Did you think it would hit you?” Jahel asked. His laughter filled BermaNur’s ear.

The teenage Baggara knew he was being watched, part of the test. “
Insh’ Allah
,” as God wills, he replied. It was one of the few Arabic phrases he knew. He turned towards the airplane as it backed up, its powerful props in reverse. The cargo door under the tail was raised and the loading ramp lowered to the horizontal position. A crewman wearing a headset stood on the ramp and directed the pilot. Inside, the teenager saw pallets piled with food. Again, he refused to move as the plane backed down the road and the wing passed over him. For a brief moment, he looked directly into the face of the pilot – a woman! Her blonde ponytail bounced as she turned and waved at him.

He could only stare at the nose of the big aircraft when it finally stopped far down the road and the starving villagers swarmed around it. The anger that threatened to consume him burned with a white-hot intensity. Because of a woman pilot Jahel was laughing at him! It was too much for any Fursan. He keyed the communicator. “It is a woman who pilots the airplane,” he told Jahel.

“Why do you speak of this?” Jahel asked.

“Do the Rizeigat beg from women?”

“Never,” Jahel said. There was no laughter in his voice now.

“It cannot be tolerated,” BermaNur said.

“Tell me when the airplane takes off,” Jahel said. The boy sat down to wait.

Exactly twenty-four minutes later, one of the propellers started to turn as the villagers who had swarmed near to get the food shipment, moved away from the airplane. Soon, all four engines were turning as the pilot called for the before takeoff checklist. She set the brakes as the engines spun up and the propellers bit into the air. The nose lowered as the roar of the turboprop engines beat at him. The nose came up when she released the brakes and the Hercules surged forward. The teenager didn’t move as the plane lifted off well before it reached him. The landing gear came up as it passed overhead. He made the radio call. “The infidels have taken off.” The Hercules climbed into the sky and turned to the east. “The infidels will fly directly over you,” he radioed.

BermaNur watched as the distinctive smoke trails of two shoulder-held surface-to-air missiles streaked from the ground, chasing down the lumbering aircraft. But someone on the Hercules saw the missiles and decoy flares popped in the aircraft’s wake. The aircraft took evasive action and jerked wildly, surprising him by its agility. He held his breath, afraid the aircraft would escape the fate Allah had willed. The two missiles missed and went ballistic. His eyes opened wide when the Hercules’s right wing folded up on its own and the plane rolled to the right.

The plane spun into the ground as a feeling of pure vindication flooded through the starving teenager. He shouted “
Allahu akbar!
” God is most great, at the top of his lungs as a pillar of smoke and flames mushroomed into the sky and a thundering roar momentarily shook the ground. He stood up and headed for the mob of villagers now running for the compound. He ran to find his mother and sister to ensure they had all the food they could carry. If not, he would have to beat them. His family’s honor demanded no less. It was the will of God.

E-Ring, The Pentagon

Every head turned when Fitzgerald entered the conference room. Since there were six lower-ranking generals present, the room was not called to attention, per Fitzgerald’s instructions. But everyone stood anyway. General John “Merlin” Fitzgerald, the Air Force Chief of Staff, commanded that level of respect. Fitzgerald was tall and solidly built, his face care-worn, and his salt and pepper hair cut short in a military haircut. The Chief of Staff’s bright blue eyes often danced with amusement – but not this morning.

Brigadier General Yvonne Richards stood on the opposite side of the table and studied his body language as he sat down, trying to read his mood. Fitzgerald was a much-studied commodity in her world, and she considered the way he used briefings to keep his staff on the same page, not to mention on edge, hopelessly old-fashioned.

“Seats, please,” Fitzgerald said. He turned to the large computer-driven display screen at the front of the room and the officer standing beside it. “Good morning, Colonel. Let’s have it.” Everyone knew what was on Fitzgerald’s mind.

“Good morning, sir,” the colonel said, starting the Power Point presentation. “I’m Colonel Robert Banks, chief of the Policy Division of the Office of Military-Political Affairs. As you know, the Air Force lost a C-130 yesterday morning in the Sudan.” A stylistic photo of a C-130 flashed on the screen. “The Hercules was part of the 4440th” – he pronounced it ‘forty-four fortieth’ – “Special Airlift Detachment providing support and flying relief missions for the United Nations peacekeeping force to the Sudan out of Malakal.” He had just told Fitzgerald what he already knew, not the best of beginnings, and missed the narrowing of Fitzgerald’s eyes. But not Richards. The general’s body language told her that he was not hearing what he wanted. Colonel Banks was a key member of her staff she was grooming for command, but he was in danger of suffering a professional death by Power Point. She gave him the high sign to move on.

“There were no survivors,” the colonel continued, “and an investigation team is en route to the crash site.” Again, it was something Fitzgerald knew. “Moreover, the Administration has determined that no change in our peacekeeping operations is warranted because of the crash.” That also was not news.

Fitzgerald’s fingers beat a tattoo on the table. A colonel’s job was to think, evaluate, and react accordingly. This one was wasting his time, and the general firmly believed in three strikes and you are out. “Clear your desk and pack your bag, Banks.” The colonel gulped and stifled a reply. He had been relieved and any chance of command had just gone up in smoke. He walked out with as much dignity as he could muster.

Fitzgerald turned to his staff. “Next.” His chief of staff hit a button to summon the next briefer.

The door opened and a woman entered. Her blue eyes were still wide from learning the fate of Colonel Banks. Her auburn hair was cut short and framed a lovely face. She was short and stocky, big busted and big hipped with an hourglass figure. She would never be fashionably thin, but Renoir would have painted her with admiring gusto. She stepped to the podium and picked up the remote control. “Good morning, sir. I’m Major Gillian Sharp. I work for the African Desk at the DIA as an intelligence analyst, and will be briefing you today on the current situation in the Sudan.”

She cycled to the first display and started to talk. A slight flicker of light caught her attention when the image on the screen behind her changed for no reason. At the same time, she noticed that Fitzgerald was holding a remote control. He pressed the button again, and the display again changed. She waited quietly while he ran through her entire briefing in less than twenty seconds. Satisfied, he nodded, willing to cut a junior staff officer more slack than a colonel. “Go ahead, Major.”

“Sir, as you know, the detachment commander, Lieutenant Colonel Anne McKenzie, was among those lost in the crash.” She announced the names of the other four crewmembers in a way that made Fitzgerald think of an honor roll. “The exact cause of the crash is not known at this time, but satellite photography down-linked two hours ago indicates it might be structural failure.” The general was impressed and he bombarded her with questions. He grunted in satisfaction when she gave him the exact latitude and longitude of the crash site. “Both Abyei and the crash site,” she added, “are in the disputed border area between Sudan and the new Republic of South Sudan.”

Then he hit her with the heavy stuff. “How unstable is the situation on the ground?”

“The recent increase in attacks indicates the Sudanese government in Khartoum has unleashed the Janjaweed in a new, but still low-intensity round of genocide in the area. We are expecting a repeat of the violence in Darfur. Khartoum is fighting desperately to hold on to the area, and the external violence seems to be quieting their internal dissidents, insulating them from the ‘Arab Spring’.”

“Who are the major players? I’m looking for names and faces, Major.” For Fitzgerald, conflict was a personal thing and leadership made the difference between victory and defeat.

She typed a command on the podium’s keyboard, and a photo of an overweight officer wearing a medal-bedecked uniform that stretched over his potbelly materialized on the screen. “This is Major Hamid Waleed, the commander of the Sudanese Army garrison at Malakal. While Malakal is nominally part of South Sudan, the Sudanese have not withdrawn their army, adding to regional instability.” She didn’t remind Fitzgerald that the 4440th was based at the airfield at Malakal. “Waleed was a key player in Darfur.” She quickly recapped how the Government of Sudan had armed Baggara horsemen, the Janjaweed, in Darfur and implemented a program of genocide, murdering African tribesmen. When the task proved too big for the Janjaweed, the government sent in the army with armed helicopters to complete the killing in that part of western Sudan.

The image on the screen changed to a tall, bearded man in a ceremonial robe and riding a magnificent horse. He clutched a gold-plated AK-47 in his right hand. “This is Sheikh Amal Jahel of the Rizeigat, a tribe of the nomadic Bedouin Baggara people. He leads the Fursan, the cavaliers or horsemen of the Baggara, who form the core of the Janjaweed. Unlike Waleed, Jahel is reported to be fearless and commands the absolute loyalty of the Fursan and the Janjaweed. The AK-47 was presented to him by a Chinese peace delegation.”

“How does all this affect our mission in the area?”

“Sir, that is beyond my pay grade, but I can offer an opinion.”

“Offer.”

“First, we are in the process of re-evaluating the threat. If the crash was caused by hostile action, we may have to pull back from the forward relief area and confine our operations to more secure areas. Second, the accident aircraft was delivered to the Air Force in 1976 and was the low-time airframe of the six Hercules deployed to the Sudan. If the crash was caused by structural failure, we may have to ground the remaining five pending an inspection, or replace them with more modern aircraft.”

“And if we can’t do any of the above?”

Her eyes softened. “Then expect more losses, sir.”

“Thank you, Major Sharp. Stay on top of the situation. A daily briefing.” Notes were made all around and she was placed on the schedule. The major set the remote control on the podium as Richards caught her eye and signaled for her to wait in the corridor. She hurried out.

Fitzgerald looked down the table. “The 4440th needs a commander. Any names?” Normally, the selection of a detachment commander would have been made at the wing and numbered Air Force level, far below the Pentagon. But the 4440th was in a unique position and outside the normal hierarchy and chain of command. His staff had been expecting that question and a list with five names was passed to him. He quickly read it and the short description after each name. They were all dedicated, highly educated, competent, and superbly trained professionals who were deathly afraid to say or do anything that anyone might find objectionable. He wasn’t impressed. A name came to him from the time he commanded Air Combat Command. “Lieutenant Colonel David Orde Allston.”

Around the table, fingers danced on BlackBerries to research the name. The lieutenant general who served as Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower and Personnel studied the readout in front of him. “He made the news last week and certainly had an interesting career. Over two thousand hours flying F-15s, and a top gun at William Tell.” William Tell was the Air Force’s live-fire fighter gunnery competition held every other year. The general quickly scrolled down, scanning Allston’s career. “He was later reprimanded as a squadron commander when a sexual discrimination complaint was filed against him. The charges were dismissed, but he was relieved of command and put out to pasture flying C-130s.” As an afterthought, he added, “He was married and divorced three times, and has a daughter and stepson who live with him.”

“And he shot down a MiG,” Fitzgerald replied.

Richards sensed Fitzgerald knew more about Allston than he was letting on and tested the waters. “He has an interesting nickname.”

“Mad Dawg,” Fitzgerald replied.

“There is another problem,” the director of personnel said. “He retired two months ago.”

“Un retire him.”

“Sir,” Richards said, “may I ask why you selected this Mad Dawg?” She deliberately stressed Allston’s nickname to make her point. “I would have thought an officer with experience interfacing with our allies would be more suitable.”

Fitzgerald gave her high marks but it was time for the shock treatment. “If you mean more politically correct, you thought wrong, Brigadier.” He studied Richards for a moment. She was among the best the Air Force had, yet he doubted she understood. Allston was a fighter pilot and could lead men and women in combat, a personality type that had long been driven out of the Pentagon and an increasing rarity in the Air Force. And there was no doubt in Fitzgerald’s mind that his five C-130s in the Sudan were in combat and harm’s way. He relented and gave her a reason that was true, as far as it went. “He’ll do what it takes to get the job done.” The meeting was over.