Chapter 2: The Rhino in the Room

Chapter 2: The Rhino in the Room

Six months of grinding had transformed Kade. The foreign language of logistics had become his native tongue. He’d devoured the regulations, memorized the arcane procedural manuals, and reverse-engineered the disastrously outdated software until he could make it sing. The digital Mount Everest of backlogged requests was now a series of manageable hills. He was a savant, a lone operator running a mission critical to thousands of soldiers, all from the beige confines of his bureaucratic prison.

His boss, Mike, remained blissfully ignorant of this transformation. He saw only that his inbox was quieter and his phone rang less. He took this as evidence of his own superb management style and rewarded himself with longer lunches and more time spent watching golf tutorials on his government computer. This suited Kade perfectly. The less he had to interact with his warden, the better.

The request that would change everything arrived on a Tuesday morning. It was buried among dozens of others, but it stood out to Kade’s trained eye like a flare in the dark. It came from a logistics unit in the California National Guard.

Item Requested: Rhino Runner Bus. Quantity: 3.

Kade stared at the line of text, a slow, cynical smile spreading across his face. This was a joke. It had to be. A Rhino Runner wasn’t just a bus; it was a 25-ton, heavily armored beast designed for one purpose: surviving IEDs on the most dangerous roads in the world. They were rarer than competent leaders in his new command, and every single one was either in-theater or designated as a critical war reserve. Requesting three of them for a National Guard unit’s weekend training was like asking for an F-22 Raptor to go grocery shopping.

He flagged the request as ‘Denied – Asset Unavailable/Mission Incompatible’ and prepared to move on. That was when the phone rang.

“G4 Equipment, Sergeant Sullivan speaking.”

“Sergeant, this is Captain Miller with the 49th Sustainment Brigade,” the voice was young, earnest. “I’m calling about our request for three Rhino Runners, request number 7-4-Bravo-Dash-9-2.”

“I’m looking at it right now, sir,” Kade said, his tone patient, the one he reserved for explaining simple concepts to children and officers. “I’ve just denied it.”

There was a pause. “Denied it? On what grounds?”

“On the grounds that there are only a handful of those vehicles in the entire Army inventory, and every last one is currently deployed or on a 24-hour tether for deployment to CENTCOM,” Kade explained calmly. “They’re a theater-specific asset. You can’t get one stateside, let alone three for a training exercise.”

“But we have a VIP transport mission during our Annual Training,” the Captain insisted. “We need the protection.”

Kade almost laughed. “Sir, with all due respect, unless your VIP is traveling down the road to the Baghdad airport, the Rhino is not the right tool for the job. And even if it were, I couldn’t get you one if you had a direct order from God himself. The system won’t allow it.”

“I see,” the Captain said, his voice now tight with frustration. “Well, you’ll be hearing from my boss.”

The line went dead. Kade sighed and took a sip of his burnt coffee. He had fought insurgents in mud-walled compounds who were more reasonable. An hour later, as predicted, the phone rang again.

“Sergeant Sullivan.”

“This is Lieutenant Colonel Wallace,” the voice was deeper, sterner, oozing with the unearned confidence of a mid-level staff officer. “I’m the Brigade S4. My Captain tells me you’ve denied our request for critical force protection assets.”

“Sir, I denied a request for three Rhino buses for a stateside training event, yes,” Kade corrected.

“Don’t get cute with me, Sergeant. We have a validated requirement.”

“A requirement for an asset that doesn’t exist outside of a combat zone,” Kade countered, his patience beginning to fray. He pulled up the master inventory list on his second monitor, the data glowing in the dim office. “Sir, I can tell you the bumper number and current operational status of every Rhino in the US Army. Thirty-two of them are in the CENTCOM AOR. The other six are at Fort Johnson, being prepped for the next rotation. There are none to give. It is a mathematical and logistical impossibility.”

“Are you telling me, a Lieutenant Colonel, what is and is not possible, Sergeant?” The threat was clear.

“No, sir,” Kade said, his voice becoming dangerously calm. “I’m telling you what the Army’s own equipment readiness database is telling me. Facts. If you wish to argue with the facts, you’ll have a long day.”

The silence on the other end crackled with indignation. Kade knew he was playing with fire. An NCO telling a Lieutenant Colonel he was wrong was a cardinal sin in the officer’s religion. But Kade’s faith was in competence and reality, two gods this command rarely worshipped.

“This is unacceptable,” the LTC finally ground out. “I’m elevating this.”

“That is your prerogative, sir,” Kade said, and hung up.

He leaned back, the squeak of his cheap chair echoing in the quiet section. This was absurd. In the 82nd, a conversation like that would have ended with the officer either understanding the logic or being corrected by a superior who did. Here, it seemed logic was just a speedbump on the highway of entitlement.

The final call of the trilogy came just after lunch. Mike was still out, presumably digesting a cheeseburger the size of a hubcap.

“Is this Sergeant Sullivan?” The voice was sharp, clipped, and held the unmistakable weight of a man used to being obeyed without question. A full Colonel.

“It is.”

“Colonel Davies, Brigade Commander, 49th. What in the hell is going on over there, Sergeant? I have a mission from the state that requires me to move dignitaries in a high-threat environment, and some E-7 in a cubicle is single-handedly trying to get my mission cancelled.”

“Sir, the threat environment in Southern California does not warrant a combat-zone armored vehicle,” Kade stated flatly. He was done being polite. “There is no justification, and more importantly, no availability. End of story.”

“Son, I am a Colonel. You are a Sergeant First Class. In what universe do you think you get to say ‘end of story’ to me?”

“In the universe where I am the guy who manages this specific commodity for the entire Army,” Kade shot back, his temper finally starting to glow hot. “The one where I am accountable for every single one of those assets. The universe where facts outweigh rank. If you can get FORSCOM to sign off on pulling three Rhinos out of the CENTCOM deployment cycle so you can drive some local politician to a ribbon-cutting, then I will personally push them to California myself. But that’s not going to happen.”

He could practically hear the Colonel’s teeth grinding a thousand miles away. “You have a serious attitude problem, Sergeant.”

“I have a serious job, sir. And I take it seriously.”

The line clicked dead for a third time. Kade took a deep, steadying breath. He knew he had just made a powerful enemy. But he was right. That had to count for something.

For two hours, there was silence. He dove back into his work, the familiar rhythm of codes and numbers calming his nerves. Maybe it was over. Maybe, for once, logic had prevailed.

Then the phone rang. The number was from the Pentagon.

Kade’s gut tightened. He let it ring twice before answering, his voice a mask of professionalism. “G4 Equipment, Sergeant Sullivan.”

A crisp, professional voice answered. “Please hold for Major General Thompson.”

Kade’s blood ran cold. Major General. A two-star. The absurdity had officially reached orbit. He sat bolt upright in his chair, his infantryman’s posture returning instinctively.

After a moment, a new voice came on the line, a voice that sounded like it could strip paint from a tank. It was the sound of pure, distilled command authority.

“Sergeant First Class Sullivan?” the voice boomed, so loud Kade had to pull the receiver away from his ear.

“Yes, General,” Kade managed, his own voice sounding small in comparison.

“This is Major General Thompson. I am the Deputy Commanding General for the National Guard. And I want you to tell me, in very simple terms, Sergeant, who in the hell you think you are?”