Chapter 4: The Perfect Weapon

Chapter 4: The Perfect Weapon

The fury Kade felt wasn't a wildfire; it was the cold, focused burn of a cutting torch. He returned to his desk not as a defeated subordinate, but as a predator who had just been handed a map to his prey's favorite feeding ground. The echo of Mike's words was a drumbeat in his mind, a new set of rules for a game he now intended to win.

It’s not your job to validate equipment. It’s your job to source it.

It was a beautiful, stupid, perfect order. An order that unshackled him from the chains of reason and responsibility that had made this job so unbearable. An order that Mike, in his petty, arrogant rage, had given him as a weapon. And Kade Sullivan, a master of weapons, was going to make this one sing.

He turned to his monitor, his eyes scanning the endless queue of requests with a new, predatory focus. For months, he had been a firefighter, triaging crises and putting out the most critical blazes. Now, he was an arsonist, searching for the perfect place to strike a match.

He sifted through the digital chaff, the thousands of requests that flowed through the G4’s veins every day. A request from a finance unit for three hundred ergonomic chairs. Too mundane. A request from a Signal company for a specialized satellite dish they didn't need. Too technical, the cost easily buried. He needed something big. Something loud. Something that couldn't be ignored or swept under a rug. Something with wings.

Days turned into a week. He performed his normal duties with a chilling efficiency, clearing the backlog, solving problems, keeping the great, grinding machine of Army logistics moving. But in the quiet moments, between phone calls and data entry, the hunt continued. He built queries, cross-referenced unit locations with their assigned equipment lists, searching for a single, glorious absurdity.

And then he found it.

The request was from an infantry platoon at Fort Hood, Texas. It was designated as a priority for ‘Readiness Training.’ The request was simple: Aviation Support, Rotary Wing. Qty: 4. The comments section specified the requirement: two UH-60 Blackhawks and two CH-47 Chinooks for a week of Fast Rope Insertion and Extraction (FRIES) training.

Kade’s cynical smirk returned, wider and sharper than ever before. This was it. This was the one.

Fort Hood wasn't just any Army post; it was the home of the 1st Cavalry Division. It was a sprawling metropolis of military might with its own Combat Aviation Brigade. Fort Hood had so many helicopters they probably used them as ceiling fans in the officers' club. For an infantry platoon there to submit a request for helicopter support to a three-star command halfway across the country was the bureaucratic equivalent of a man dying of thirst next to a freshwater lake because he was too lazy to bend over and drink.

It was perfect. A request so lazy, so redundant, so colossally stupid that it should have been deleted on sight by the first NCO who saw it. But it hadn't been. It had slipped through the cracks, a testament to the system's own incompetence. And now it was here. On his screen. A gift from the gods of idiocy.

He saved the request to his personal drive, labeling the folder ‘Project Retribution.’ The validation phase was over. Now, it was time to source.

Kade bypassed the automated systems. This required a personal touch. He put on his headset, cracked his knuckles, and began to dial. He was no longer Sergeant Sullivan, the frustrated paper-pusher. He was ‘Sloppy’ Sullivan of the Regiment and the 82nd, and he was calling in his markers.

His first call was to a grizzled Master Sergeant he knew in the Washington National Guard’s aviation maintenance unit.

“Dave, it’s Sloppy.”

“Sloppy? Jesus, man, I thought you fell off the face of the earth,” the voice on the other end crackled. “Heard they put you behind a desk.”

“They did,” Kade said. “Which is why I need a favor. I see you’ve got two Chinooks sitting in long-term maintenance. I need them flight-ready in two weeks.”

“You’re nuts. We’re waiting on actuator assemblies. They’re on backorder for six months.”

“They’ll be on a truck to you by Friday,” Kade countered smoothly. “I just happen to be looking at a set sitting in a warehouse in Pennsylvania that someone forgot to log correctly. Funny how these things happen. Can you get my birds in the air, or do I need to find those parts a different home?”

There was a moment of stunned silence, followed by a low whistle. “You son of a bitch. Yeah. For those parts, I can work a miracle. Where do you need them?”

“Fort Hood, Texas. Stand by for tasking.”

One down. Two to go.

His next call was to a Chief Warrant Officer 4, a legendary Blackhawk pilot he’d flown with on a dozen hairy missions in Afghanistan. He was now stationed with the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, New York.

“Chief, it’s Kade Sullivan.”

“Sloppy! Good to hear your voice, brother. Don’t tell me you need a ride out of another hot LZ.”

“Something like that,” Kade chuckled. “I need a different kind of extraction. I need two of your Blackhawks for a week. A little cross-country trip to Texas for a training mission.”

“Texas? We’re spinning up for a rotation, man. The flight schedule is locked solid.”

“Remember that night in Zabul province?” Kade asked, his voice low. “When your bird took that RPG and we stayed to pull your crew out of the wreckage?”

The line went quiet. It was a card Kade had never played, a debt he had never intended to call in. But this was war.

“I remember,” the pilot said, his voice now sober. “What do you need?”

“Two birds. Fully crewed. Ready to fly to Fort Hood. I’ll make sure your command gets a request that looks like it came down from the heavens. Top priority. It’ll be the easiest week of your year.”

“If you can square it with my chain of command… I’ll have the birds ready, Sloppy. You know that.”

“That’s all I needed to hear.”

With the assets unofficially secured, Kade went to work building the official package. He became a maestro of malicious compliance. He wasn't just filling an order; he was crafting a masterpiece of waste.

He meticulously compiled the flight plans. The two Chinooks from Washington State. The two Blackhawks from upstate New York. He calculated the fuel costs for a cross-country flight for four heavy-lift and medium-lift helicopters. He factored in the required maintenance checks, the landing fees on civilian airfields for refueling stops. He added the per diem costs for four full flight crews—pilots, crew chiefs, medics—for seven days, plus travel days. He attached the expedited shipping manifests for the Chinook parts he’d diverted.

He compiled everything into a thick, intimidating folder. The cover sheet was the simple, one-page request form. But behind it was a mountain of supporting documents, a paper trail of catastrophic spending, every dollar justified, every line item sourced according to regulation. The total cost was well over one hundred thousand dollars, a fact buried on page seventeen of a cost-analysis attachment. It was a ticking time bomb disguised as a routine administrative action.

Late on a Friday afternoon, when the office was quiet and Mike was likely already thinking about his weekend, Kade stood up. He walked to his boss’s office and placed the folder squarely in the center of the ‘IN’ box. It sat there, thick and innocuous, waiting.

Mike wouldn't read it. Kade knew that with absolute certainty. He would see a completed packet, a problem solved. He would see that Sergeant Sullivan had, as ordered, sourced the equipment. He would scrawl his illegible signature on the bottom line without a second glance, eager to push the work off his desk and take the credit.

And with that one simple flick of a pen, he would arm the bomb.

Kade walked back to his desk, sat down, and stared at his blank monitor. He had done it. He had followed the order. He had sourced it. Now, all he had to do was wait for the explosion.