"I won't be wearing my stars, Charlie. You're in command, and I'll do whatever job needs to be done. You and your little laptop will have twelve hours to bring me up to speed."

"So this jaunt is just your idea of a good way to start the week. A chance to get out from behind the desk."

"Something like that," Rodgers said as they reached the huge, black transport plane. "You know how it is, Charlie. If you don't use the equipment, it gets rusty."

Squires laughed. "You, sir? Rusty? I don't think so. This kind of action is in the Rodgers's genes way back to-- was it the Spanish-American War?"

"That's the one," Rodgers said. "Great-great-granddad Captain Malachai T. Rodgers."

The officers stopped on either side of the hatch, and as Squires shouted, "Go! Go! Go!" the men climbed through without breaking stride.

Rodgers's heart swelled as the men went aboard, beat as proudly as it always did when he saw American soldiers running to do their duty. Young, afraid, and varying shades of green they went anyway, it was a sight that never failed to stir him. He was one of them during his first tour in Viet Nam and, after getting his Ph.D. in history from Temple University while he was stationed at Ft. Dix, he went back and led battalions of them in the Persian Gulf War.

Tennyson once wrote that Lady Godiva was a sight to make an old man young, and women did do that to him. But so did this. Twenty-six years slipped away in less than a minute, and he felt nineteen again as he followed the last enlisted man into the plane, allowing Squires to bring up the rear.

Despite his own somewhat glib assessment, Rodgers knew that the Lieutenant Colonel was right. Hood definitely would not be happy that he was going. For all his smarts and his often astounding skills as a mediator, Hood hated letting anything out of his control. And by going into the field, half a world away, Rodgers would effectively be out of his control. But above all, Hood was a team player: if it was necessary for the Striker team to go in and perform any covert actions, the Director wouldn't let ego stop him from letting the team-- and Rodgers-- do the job and grab the glory or play the goat.

As soon as they were aboard, the men took their seats along the sides of the bare cabin while the ground crew finished prepping the massive plane. First introduced in 1982, the Lockheed C-141B Starlifter, with its 159-foot 11-inch top-mounted wings, was heir to the laurels of the earlier C-141A, introduced in 1964. That plane distinguished itself with year after year of daily nonstops to Viet Nam-- its performance record one of the many unheralded benefits to come from the war. No other army had a troop transport that reliable, and that gave the U.S. an edge.

At 168 feet 4 inches in length, the C-141B-- longer than its predecessor by 23 feet 4 inches-- could accommodate 154 troops, 123 paratroops, 80 stretchers, and 16 sitting casualties or cargo. Flight refueling equipment located in the back added 50 percent to its normal range of 4,080 miles-- longer if, like now, it was carrying less than its 70,847-pound payload. The jet would make it to Hawaii without any trouble, where it would be met and refueled in flight by a KC-135 tanker. From there, it was an easy run to Japan, and then a rapid half-hour chopper ride to North Korea.