Scorpion Strike by John J. Nance

Author:John J. Nance
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Thriller
ISBN: 9781504027922
Publisher: Crown
Published: 1992-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

11

Mildenhall Air Base, England

Thursday, March 7, 1991—12:00 noon (1200 GMT)

The sight of a uniformed major striding resolutely into the tranquil beauty of the Mildenhall woods on the west end of the base told Colonel Richard Kerr volumes. He recognized the major. He had spent most of the night in the man’s airlift command post, monitoring the progress of the Balair DC-10 and Operation Scorpion Strike.

After catching a flight to Mildenhall from Keflavik the previous day, and spending most of the night in the command post, he had been exhausted. The minute the message had arrived that the C-141 had lifted off again from the Iraqi desert, he had headed for bed, still shaking his head over the call from Will Westerman that had set the whole thing in motion a few days before. They hadn’t seen each other for a year, and suddenly his old pilot-training roomie had called from somewhere over the Atlantic in a presidential jet, trying to piece together a sneaky-pete mission by secure satellite phone. He had needed help with the logistics and clearances, and Kerr had responded immediately.

Kerr looked at the last of the ice cream cone in his hand, an indulgence from the nearby BX. He finished it in one bite and decided to let the major find him as he stayed put on the bench, enjoying the warmth of the sun.

The sun was straight overhead now, the temperature in the mid-sixties, with small, puffy cumulus clouds shooting by above in the teeth of a strong breeze that whispered at the surface through the pine needles like a gentle zephyr. He loved the UK in the springtime.

“Colonel Kerr!” Major Ben Campbell waved his hand and called out as he spotted Kerr and moved in his direction, then sat on the adjacent bench.

“Sir, apparently everything went to hell with the mission after you and I left last night.” He filled Kerr in, holding back the one piece of information that had caused him to search out the colonel in person.

As the two of them had waited through the night, Kerr had regaled him with war stories of Colonel Will Westerman and the friendship that had begun in undergraduate pilot training. They were the type of stories senior officers love to tell to junior officers, and that junior officers have to pretend they enjoy. After that, the name Westerman was easy to spot.

“Sir, the names we had for the pilots were wrong. There was a crew change before the mission departed and two other pilots got on. One of them was a full colonel from McChord, a reservist named Harris, Douglas Harris, and—”

Campbell saw Kerr’s face go sallow. He hadn’t expected that reaction from the name of the first pilot.

“You know—uh, knew—him, sir?”

Kerr just nodded, Doug Harris’s face swimming into his mind’s eye.

Major Campbell continued, watching Kerr’s face carefully.

“Sir, your friend, Colonel Westerman?”

“Yes?” The answer was impatient.

“He was the other pilot. He was killed, too. I’m sorry, sir.”

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