CAIRO
Between them, Terry Keegan and Eddie Marsh possessed nearly all the professional airman ratings available to Americans. As Keegan liked to joke, “Everything but multi-engine jet seaplane.” But in truth, their forte was not flying: it was improvisation.
It was time to improvise.
Keegan hung up the phone and turned to his partner. “Okay, things are rolling. We’re going to N’Djamena on a commercial flight and meet the air attaché, or whatever they call him. He’ll give us the info on whatever choppers are available. After that, we’re pretty much on our own.”
“Sounds like a real purple operation,” Marsh enthused. Keegan, a former naval aviator, smiled in appreciation of the joint ops sentiment. Marsh was an ex-Army warrant officer and they would be dealing with the Air Force.
Keegan sat down on his bed while Marsh lazed in his. “The big thing is going to be comm. We’re supposed to get hi-freq radios from the embassy and presumably everybody will be able to talk to everybody else: us, the Herc crews, and our guys on the ground.”
Marsh stretched his lanky frame and stifled a yawn. “You know it won’t work, Terry. It never does.”
Keegan, who shared the sentiment, wanted to appear more optimistic. “No reason it shouldn’t. I mean, it’s a pretty straightforward situation. We need standardized comm and can’t rely on the radios in the helos because everybody in Chad has those freqs. As long as the HF radios work, it should be no sweat. And we’ll test them before we launch.”
The Army veteran shrugged. “We’ll see. Hey, not that it matters, but what’re we going after?”
“There’s some sort of mining operation up along the Libyan border. Our instructors have orders to secure the place with some of the counterinsurgency people they’re training. Steve Lee says it has to be done fast with minimal warning. He’s not even telling his Chadians about it until they board the 130s.”
“Well, how much info will we have for route planning and timing?”
“Oh, we’ll have enough. But not much more. It’s a State and DoD operation so…”
Marsh chuckled. “So like I said. It’s not gonna work like it’s planned.”
“Never does, pal. Never does.”