In his five years in Army aviation, Cole had served on his fair share of
shit details, but this one, he figured, ought to satisfy his quota for
at least the next seventy years or so. This whole operation was one big
cluster fuck from start to finish, a monster conceived in good
intentions, born in politics, and nurtured in the hellish clash of
committees, boards, and panels that dominated every policy-level
Pentagon decision made these days. The cross-service problems alone were
staggering; Sustain Hope had started as a joint Navy-Marine operation,
but the Army, unwilling to let itself be cut out of the potential
treasure trove of political largesse, name recognition, and program
funding that the UN mission represented, had wormed its way in through
the back door. While CH-53 Sea Stallions had been ferrying Marines
ashore yesterday, Cole and Dombrowski and their aircraft’s crew chief,
Warrant Officer Palmer, had flown one of two Army UH-60 Black Hawks into
Poti’s airfield.
They’d come to Georgia loaded for bear. Their Black Hawk had been
equipped with ESSS–an acronym meaning External Stores Support System. A
deliberate copy of the external weapons mounts employed by Russian Hind
helicopter gunships, the ESSS would let the Black Hawk ride shotgun for
the UN Crisis Assessment Team’s Hip. There’d been a lot of sniping at UN
air traffic over western Georgia lately, chiefly from Russian mobile
antiaircraft units under the control of one or another of the militia or
Russian army forces in the area; one UN helo had been shot down the week
before, and two others damaged. The Army Black Hawk’s ESSS, loaded with
sixteen Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, would be one hell of an
incentive for those units to stay under cover and leave UN aircraft
alone.
Dombrowski touched the side of his helmet, listening closely. “Uh-oh.
Here it goes.”
“What?”
“Two-seven finally checked in over the radio.” The code group referred
to the Assessment Team, and their helicopter. “They’re saddling up.”
Cole glanced at his watch. “Only about two hours late. That must be a
new speed record for a Crisis Team.”
The tall Pole’s frown turned into a grin. “All we have to do now is pray
that nobody goes and insults the local honcho’s sister before we get out
of here. They’ve got our flight plan so screwed up now I’m beginning to
wonder if we’ll get back home before our enlistments expire.”
The Crisis Assessment Team had been on the move for over a week now,
since long before the Americans had arrived. They were traveling from
town to town throughout western Georgia, trying to determine from
interviews with the locals–and by whether or not anybody took a shot at
them as they passed–whether this wretched country had indeed been
abandoned by the more organized Russian units, or whether Reds or Blues
were still here in force. From what Cole had seen over the past couple
of days, there wasn’t anything organized about Georgia. .. except
possibly for the misery of its inhabitants. The towns were
war-shattered, with little left but rubble and vast, sprawling,
disease-ridden refugee camps and tent cities. The team they were
escorting was a varied lot–two U.S. Army officers who’d arrived with
Dombrowski and Cole, two Marine officers out of MEU-25, three British
army officers, a French air force man, two Turks, and an Ethiopian UN
Special Envoy with the tongue-twisting name Mengistu Tzadua–not to
mention the ragged, heavily armed Georgian freedom fighter who’d
insisted on accompanying the team as it made the rounds of the
countryside, plus two people from the American Cable News network, a
reporter and a cameraman. The whole operation was a bizarre melting pot.
They could barely share ideas among themselves, much less quiz the
locals on how the UN could better deliver humanitarian aid. Cole didn’t
know how much more of this assignment he’d be able to put up with before
he did something most undiplomatic. He was all for helping the victims
of war by delivering humanitarian aid, but so far he’d seen more
bureaucrats than relief workers, and it seemed like there was no end in
sight.
Cole grimaced. You usually knew why you were on an op, and who your