The “X” was an unusual aircraft. Formerly a fighter-bomber/ground attack plane, it had been converted into an armed reconnaissance platform about a year before. Its already-ugly nose had been extended by fifteen feet, providing room for a twelve-lens detachable SLAR/TEREC camera pod. Beneath its wings was a clutter of FLIR pods. TACAN and LANTIRN modules—and four Sidewinder missiles. The airplane was painted in a sheer black; the gold scrolling running back from the cockpit to the tail read: ACE WRECKING COMPANY. Behind the controls of the unusual airplane was Captain John C. “Crunch” O’Malley. A gifted pilot and tactician, at thirty-six, O’Malley was the old man of the United American gang. Though originally hired on as a freelancer, he’d been flying exclusively for the UAAF for three years now: He’d been flying solo for just about that long, too. The Ace Wrecking Company was at one time a two-man operation, but he’d lost his partner twenty-eight months ago, on an operation over the mid-Pacific.
