Though that prospect was daunting and distasteful to him, Felden and the others were not privy to the real reason behind Scott’s obsession with getting to Boise as quickly as possible. Just how long he could keep the fact that the Army still had a platoon of paratroopers running about loose somewhere in Idaho a secret worried him. Military spouses, used to seeing their partners disappear off the face of the earth for long periods of time without a word had, to date, said nothing. This was aided by the fact that the balance of Company A of the 517th Parachute Infantry had been collected up and packed off to an isolated stretch of the Idaho border. The 17th Airborne Division’s chain of command assisted by creating a deception plan. According to that story, Nathan’s platoon had been detached to perform security duties elsewhere after being extracted. Given the wild and unprecedented nature of the current operations, no one questioned this lie. Like the men and women in Scott Dixon’s division, the soldiers of the 17th Airborne had more than enough to keep their minds occupied.

Had circumstances been otherwise, Scott would have been able to push aside his personal concerns by throwing himself into dealing with the enormous pressures and responsibilities he was confronted with. But the more he tried, the more he found that he could not set his son’s plight aside. As the commander of the main effort to restore Federal authority in Idaho, he and the men and women under his command controlled his son’s chances of survival. If Scott’s staff had known this even the dullest of them would have understood why a man known for his calmness under pressure was coming down on them so hard. His intolerance of the slightest hint of a delay would have been excused. Even his verbal abuse of officers whom he deemed to be slovenly in the execution of their assigned duties would have been tolerated. But no one knew.

From the commanding general’s Humvee, Scott’s driver shouted to Atwater that there was a call for the CG from the Chief of Staff. Looking over to a cluster of other officers that included Colonel Felden, Atwater made a face. Puzzled, the aide pointed at the division chief of staff. “Colonel Felden’s over there.”

The driver managed to restrain his urge to shout out, “Duh!” Instead the tactful enlisted soldier explained that it was the other Chief of Staff, “the one with all the stars.”

This animated Atwater. Without delay he made his way to where Scott was pacing. Coming up to his superior Atwater snapped to attention, saluted, and waited for Scott to notice him. When his commanding general stopped his pacing and looked at the young captain, Atwater chirped, “Sir, General Poulengy is on the horn for you.”