Coach picked up his glasses and put them in his pocket. “That’s all I’ve got. I’m going to have them take you off the flying schedule for a couple of days. You’re going to need to see this flight again.”

She sat in the briefing room in stunned silence as Coach walked out. As the door shut behind him, she started to cry.

“Fuck this squadron,” she said softly as she wiped away the tears.

An Excerpt from SPECTRE RISING

PROLOGUE

Basra, Iraq

2009

“Thunder 42, Knife 11, standby for new tasking,” the secure radio hissed and crackled to life. It was the voice of the British Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) whom he had been working with for the last two hours.

“Knife 11, Thunder 42, go ahead,” he replied, stuffing his water bottle back in his helmet bag. He had been airborne in his F-16 for over four hours, having refueled three times. It was the standard mission in the new Iraq. Takeoff, check in with the JTAC, stare at dirt through the targeting pod for an hour, hit a tanker, check back in with the next JTAC at the next tasking, wash, rinse, and repeat, until the mission window ended six hours later and it was time to land. Not quite as glamorous as the early days of the war where everyone cleaned off their weapons racks on every sortie.

But Captain Cal “Spectre” Martin had never seen that Iraq. It was his second deployment, and despite his air medal, he had always managed to bring his bombs home. He had come close to dropping bombs many times over his thirty combat sorties, usually arriving just as the hostilities were dying down, or being called off because the locals had taken care of the problem already. The price of success, he thought.

It truly was a new Iraq. In late 2008, the United States and Iraqi governments came to terms on a Status of Forces agreement. This agreement defined the withdrawal of coalition forces from major Iraqi cities and laid the foundation for their eventual troop drawdown. It also required warrants for searches of any homes and buildings not related to combat. It was the first step of the United States government handing back the keys of Iraq to the Iraqi people.

As a result of this new agreement, however, the rules of engagement for coalition forces became more restrictive. No longer could a JTAC designate a target for destruction based on enemy activity. Search warrants had to be acquired. Iraqi police had to be notified. The remaining airpower, F-16s doing twenty four-hour patrols over predesignated areas, was relegated to searching for suspicious activity through their advanced targeting pods.

And Spectre had been doing just that. He had checked in with Knife 11 to look for suspicious activity - people placing Improvised Explosive Devices on known supply routes mostly. He was number two in a flight of two, separated by thirty miles working with two different JTACs - standard ops with fewer jets to patrol the skies these days.