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Kandahar Air Force Base, Afghanistan

Thursday, 11 April, 11:53 hours GMT (16:23 Local)

Colonel Paul Sullivan, USAF, pre-flighted the Boeing AWACS. He wanted to get off the ground now. Today was his first day as Commander of the several Airborne Warning And Control Systems aircraft stationed in Afghanistan and he was making changes.

For months the flights had conformed to a specific timetable laid out by a his predecessor. The three AWACS aircraft based in Kandahar had orbited the same locations at the same times for way too long in Sullivan’s opinion.

That was going to change.

Sullivan finished his pre-flight and boarded the modified Boeing 707 aircraft. Reaching the cockpit, he sat down and strapped in and commenced running the take-off checklist with his copilot. Behind in the main cabin operators of the various radar and signals intelligence systems settled in, strapped in, warmed up their systems and got to work.

On assuming command he had instituted a new schedule – a random one. If terrorists, excuse me, he thought, freedom fighters, wanted to be able to plan on when he was looking and when he was not, he was not going to help them. They’d learn soon, very soon, that times had changed and that they no longer could count on regular flights from which to hide, coming out later with 90 minutes before the next flight over them to prepare and execute their next attack on American forces.

He looked at his watch again. Right on-time. Good. They’d offset the old time by exactly the 25 minutes he’d planned.

Sullivan reached out to start the first of the four big jet engines.