I was greeted at the bottom of the stairs by the fowl odor of stale cigar smoke and cheap booze. The floor of the O Club was littered with empty bottles of Wild Turkey, Jack Daniels, and the occasional handle of some vodka I couldn’t pronounce. “Hey SR ole pal!” a drunken, stubby faced older gentleman had called out. As I looked up to make eye contact with the voice, a man we call GooseCH, I noticed quite a gathering compared to the “usual suspects” of the Knights clandestine information service. Slicing my way through the clouds of smoke I began to inspect this motley and utterly exhausted posse that gathered before me.
The congregation was gathered around a long make-shift table badly stained from years of operating as the chiefs bar/brainstorming platform. Around the edges, from left to right, sat the heart of our operating network: GooseCH- our DD/O (Deputy Director Operations), WMLute- DC/O (Director Chief Operations), Spade- DC/I (Director Chief Intelligence). The three were accompanied by several other important Generals of the Knight high command. FBDread could be seen milling about in the back corners searching the bottom of a bottle for the last hints of yesterday’s nightcap. A couple of MAWs were propping themselves up against one another staring at a winkled and torn map of BALTIC. The last two on the far wall of the O Club were talking advanced wing and ACM techniques over cups of coffee spiked with the last of the Yukon Jack. Both of the dark figures turned to acknowledge my presence. I winked back. It was JB42, a middle-aged man that appeared of some German or western European decent, a defector of the Rook persuasion. Next to him stood the short, spastic young character Jamusta that heads up our CAP (combat air patrol) division. Deciding that the room had been sized up and enough time had been wasted scanning the walls of the small dingy room, I sat down next to GooseCH to begin my days work.
