Well past midnight, Horner, Schwarzkopf, and the other Camp David pilgrims boarded a C-21 Learjet, the Air Force transport normally used by VIPs, for the flight to Andrews AFB. The trip was tense and uncomfortable. The seats were small and the jet was full, so legs cramped, necks and rear ends ached. Everyone was exhausted, on edge. Horner himself was anxious; the thought of briefing the President was unsettling . . . not because it frightened him, but because he wanted to get it right, and that made it difficult to relax.

The CINC eased his great bulk into the tiny seat and tried to sleep; he was so large, he seemed to take up the entire plane. Horner slipped into a backseat next to Admiral Grant Sharp, the CENTCOM J-5 (Director of Plans), and reviewed his slides.

Sharp, a tall, gentlemanly, naval surface officer with gray hair and glasses, was a quiet man who spoke in well-constructed, thought-out phrases. Though he was old Navy and loved the service (his father, also an admiral, had been the Commander in Chief, Pacific Forces), he seemed more academic than military, which put him at a disadvantage when dealing with the fiery and mercurial Schwarzkopf. Sharp liked order and thoughtful discourse and hated the CINC’s tirades, while Schwarzkopf never warmed to scholarly types.

After a 4:00 A.M. touchdown at Andrews, they were driven across town to Wainwright Hall, the Distinguished Visitors Quarters at Fort Meyer on the Virginia side of the Potomac, and a five-minute drive from the Pentagon. At Wainwright, Horner grabbed a twenty-minute nap and a shower, which took away some of the cobwebs and grunge of the previous day and night.

Despite the antipathy of the ejection-seat technicians in the Life Support shop to storing clothes where they didn’t belong, Horner habitually kept a shaving kit and blue, short-sleeve uniform tucked up in the canopy of his F-16. Pilots normally used an underwing baggage pod for carrying personal baggage, but the pod limited maneuvering to only three Gs; and since he’d set out Friday morning to fight F-15s, there was no way he was going to stand for that.

He took advantage of the kit and the uniform now and, looking as put together as circumstances allowed, everyone regrouped and got in the cars that were to take them to the helicopter pad on the south end of the Pentagon.

By the time they reached the pad, it was about 6:00 A.M. Shortly afterward, they were joined by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (and Horner’s old National War College classmate), General Colin Powell, who radiated the warmth and humor that make everyone acquainted with him think of him as a best friend. After the greetings, Powell drew General Schwarzkopf aside for some last-minute coaching, to head off the chance that Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney or President Bush might reach conclusions at the briefing that he didn’t approve.