"I'd forgotten how much he looks like a fireplug." Lieutenant General John J. (Jumpin' Jack) Horner murmured to himself, standing at a comfortable parade rest as the Volkswagen puttered into a parking place. Over six feet tall and almost painfully handsome, the general's appearance was the epitome of a senior military officer.

Slim and hard looking, stern of mien, the only time he smiled was just before he pulled the rug out from under an incompetent junior officer. Erect of carriage, his Battle Dress Uniform fit as if, contrary to regulation, it was tailored. With closely cropped, silver hair and glacial blue eyes he appeared to be exactly what he was: an iron-clad modern scion of the Prussian warrior class. Were he wearing a greatcoat and jackboots he would slip unnoticed into the WWII Wehrmacht Oberkommando.

His twenty-seven-year career had been spent exclusively in airborne infantry and special operations. Despite having never attained a keystone desire, command of the Ranger regiment, he was undoubtedly the world class expert in infantry tactics and doctrine. Furthermore, besides being an excellent theoretician and staff officer, he was considered a superlative commander, a leader of men in the old mold. In his career he had come across many characters, but few matched the squat juggernaut rolling across the emerald grass towards him. Horner laughed internally, remembering the first time he met the former NCO.

* * *

December 1989. The weather conformed to official standards for a North Carolina winter and Fort Bragg, Home of the Airborne, had been under sullen rain and sleet-swollen clouds for a week. With the exception of the weather, and it had its good points, Lieutenant Colonel Horner was pleased with his first ARTEP as a battalion commander. The units he and his sergeant major had grilled mercilessly for three long months had just performed flawlessly despite the environment, whereas the year before, under the previous commander, they brutally flunked the same Armed Readiness Testing and Evaluation Program test. Even with the rain it appeared that God was in his heaven and all was right with the world right up until his jeep suffered a sudden and spectacular blowout.

Even this was no obstacle. Jeeps come with a spare tire; the driver's rucksack was hanging from it, containing tools to handle just such an eventuality. But when his driver confessed that he had neglected to pack those self-same tools, Lieutenant Colonel Horner instantly smiled. It was a very Russian smile; it did not reach the eyes.

"No tools?" asked the colonel tightly.

"No, sir." The specialist swallowed, his prominent Adam's-apple bobbing up and down.

"No jack."

"No, sir."

"Sarn't Major?" snapped the colonel.

The sergeant major, not having anywhere he was supposed to be and snug in his camouflage Gortex rain-suit, was deriving some humor from the situation. "Shall I draw and quarter him, sir?" he asked, tucking his hands into his armpits and preparing for a long wait in the sleet. He hoped like hell it would start to snow; there would be less of a chance of hypothermia.

"Actually, I'm prepared to entertain suggestions," said the colonel, holding on to his temper by a thread.

"Other than the obvious, sir, call the CONTAC team?" A grin split his ebony face at the commander's discomfiture. Jack was the best battalion commander he had ever met, but it was always fun to watch him handle minor problems. The colonel hated dealing with little shit like this. It was like he was born a general and was just waiting until he had an aide-de-camp to handle drivers and their failings.

"Other than getting on the net and admitting that my driver is an idiot by calling a recovery team for a simple flat. Reynolds," he said, turning to the specialist fourth class, standing at attention in the drizzling sleet, "I would love to know what the hell you were thinking."

"Sir, we have the operational readiness survey coming up," said the specialist, desperately wishing his internal processes would just stop or a hole would open up and swallow him.

"Uh huh, go on. Feel free to use more than one sentence," said the colonel.

"I think I know where this is going," chuckled the sergeant major.

Taking a deep breath the quivering specialist continued. "Well, the PLL kit is only good for minor shit like changing a tire . . ."

"Like now!" the colonel snapped.

"Yes, sir," the specialist continued, doggedly, "and when the vehicle is good the tires rarely go bad. And this is a good jeep, that's a new damn tire! But at ORS the inspectors know that the commanders' vehicles get first dibs so they really go over 'em with a fine comb. And if they can't find something major they look for little shit like chipped paint on your jack and stuff. So, I got the maintenance chief to swap me for a new set of PLL and since I didn't want it to get fucked up . . ."

"Knew it!" laughed the NCO. "God, I hate that trick. Next time, Reynolds, get two sets of PLL and keep one in your locker!"

"Reynolds." The colonel forced himself to pause. Ripping the head off the idiot would solve nothing. One of the reasons he was so angry was his own sense of failure for not replacing this particular weak link before ARTEP.

"Yes, sir?"

"You are almost remarkably lacking in sense." Horner looked at the heavens, as if seeking guidance.

"Yes, sir."

"I ought to send you to the Post Protocol office as a permanent driver," said the colonel, returning to the situation.

"Yes, sir."

"It is not a compliment," said the officer, smiling like a tiger.

"No, sir. Airborne, sir." Reynolds knew that when the colonel smiled like that you were totally screwed. Scouts, he thought, here I come.

"Sergeant Major Eady?"

"Alpha weapons." While the discussion had gone on, the sergeant major had pulled out and consulted a tactical dispositions map. The sleet turning to rain pooled and dripped on the acetate cover, occasionally requiring a shake to clear the view. By evening it was sure to snow. The sergeant major decided he wanted to be back at the Tactical Operations Center by then; all his comfort gear was there.

"Where?" snapped the colonel, stalking over to his own seat.

"South to the next firebreak, which should be on the left about two hundred meters, around the bend, then about a hundred fifty, two hundred. Clearing on the right. If I remember correctly, there's a lightning-struck pine at the edge of the clearing along the road." The NCO had been driving these roads before the specialist was a gleam in his daddy's eye.

"Reynolds," growled the colonel, throwing himself into the seat of the open jeep and propping his foot on the mud-splashed shovel lashed to the side.

"Sir."

"I assume you can run four hundred meters in your field gear." The colonel assumed the same position as the sergeant major in the back, gloved hands thrust into armpits, body slightly crouched to reduce surface area. The position of an experienced and heartily pissed infantry officer preparing for a long wait in the cold rain and sleet.

"Airborne, sir!" The specialist snapped to attention, happy to have somewhere to go out of the glacial gaze of his commander.

"Go."

The embarrassed spec-four took off like a gazelle. The icy red mud splashed for yards in every direction with each stride.

"Sergeant Major," said the colonel, conversationally, as the figure disappeared around the first bend.

"Yes, sir!" snapped the sergeant major, coming to attention in his seat, but not removing his hands from his armpits.

"Sarcasm?" asked the colonel, tightly.

"Sarcasm? Me, sir? Never," he said, leaning back in his seat. Then he held up his right hand with forefinger and thumb slightly separated. A pea might have fit between the two. "Maybe, maybe, just a bit. A bit." As he said it, his fingers separated until they were at maximum extension. "A bit."