One of the benefits of being a higher-ranking PBE employee is that we get to do recruiting missions.
This isn't to assume that "rank" as such exists in PBE, leadership has always been a question of skill and initiative first, seniority second. The FNGs (Fuckin' New Guys) start at the bottom, but a particularly intelligent employee can get promoted very quickly, and unlike military commanders, HM doesn't have patience for political games. Being seen to be a kiss-ass is a quick way to get sent on a less-survivable mission, where one's actions will either prove one's talk, or not. Most often not.
But anyways, as the senior pilot in PBE's employ, I frequently get sent out to recruit new pilots, raise awareness among the aviation community that PBE needs pilots, and look for new ways to use airplanes to slay bodies. The other specialists do the same thing, dropping by law school graduations, military bases, and medical schools on a frequent basis. We have a permanent booth at SHOT show.
This particular day, my cross-country tour brought me to the Dayton Air Show, one of the US's biggest annual air shows. Now, any pilot or organization that can bring a WWII-era C-47 will get some attention. The fact that it was painted like a WWII-era 101st Airborne jump bird, with the exception of our rifle/syringe/hourglass logo, raised some extra eyebrows.
Oh, and HM had instructed the mechanics to leave it armed. Nothing says "subtle" like real miniguns in an aircraft owned by a PMC at an air show attended by large numbers of mil/LEO personnel, with the Air Force Thunderbirds scheduled to show up. I was going to spend all day being watched by armed AF security personnel, but occasionally, we actually want attention from the officials, since we're always looking to hire the best and brightest of them.
I was told to especially look for helicopter pilots. Odd, since PBE doesn't have much in the way of helo assets, but HM thinks pretty far in advance. I'll give the man credit, he's often way ahead of us strategically. The man has plans for PBE that are so detailed I often wonder if the madness is just an act.
A few Little Bird pilots could really give us some new options for moving our troopers that we just don't have at the moment. Even two would give us the ability to lift a fire team off a rooftop instead of road exfiltration.
I spent most of the day wearing the polo and handing out business cards, telling mildly-interested folks that yes, PBE is hiring, and yes, we pay excellent wages. No, I'm not going to tell war stories, and no, I'm sure as hell not going to talk about selection and initial training. Yes, we're a good company to work for, no, I'm not going to tell anyone what countries we're currently working in.
I would have loved to put on a demonstration, but there was just no way to get *that* approved with the locals. I could just imagine the conversation:
"Yeah, we'd like to blow several large holes in the field opposite the hangars, and we'd also like to pour several thousand tracer rounds into some vehicles from 2,000 feet off the deck, preferably at night."
"Aren't you a little old to be making prank calls? Who did you say you were with?"
I hit pay dirt right after the Thunderbirds did their thing. By this time, temperatures were well over 90F, and it was a bright sunny day, so every who could find it was in the shade. For me and my temporary copilot, that meant a bright pink parasol and some insulated blankets on top of the plane. We stuck out, but we also had a better view than anyone except the airmen who were doing the same thing on top of a C-17.
How old is this guy?
That was all I could think of as this scrappy young kid was yelling up at me. I didn't know if he was old enough to shave, and I felt quite certain that he wasn't old enough to drink stateside.
"WHAT! Stop yelling at me!"
"Hey, I need to join you guys!"
"What the fuck for, kid?"
Start with the asshole card.
"I can fly a helicopter!"
"Great. Talk to the local hospital, go flying dying folks around."
C'mon, kid, tell me why you really want in PBE.
"Uhh, yeah, I don't think the cops will hire me anytime soon. I've kinda got a record with the cops."
"For what, exactly?"
"It was just one bad day, I swear."
We may have a winner.
"OK, come on inside."
I climbed down off the top of the bird, knowing I'd miss the blind-side knife edge pass that I'd been waiting all day for. Those Air Force guys can *fly*.
"What's your name?"
"Billy Dickerson."
Amazing. I can't wait to hear him tell the cadre his last name.
"Well, young William, tell me the entire story. It will be checked, and we will know if you're keeping secrets from us."
"I got out of highschool six years ago, went to helicopter flight school on Dad's money. He was a chopper pilot in the Army, but I didn't have the grades for Army flight school. Got out, got a job working for a lumber company. You know how they skyline logs up the hill and load them onto trucks? Well, they run those lines with a helicopter. I was the copilot on one of those choppers, working in the company until they'd promote me to my own chopper."
Kid's got balls, at least. Is he a total fuckup, or is there potential here?
"Ok..."
"Well, it was my day off, and me and some of the lumberjacks were blowing off some steam with some long-range shooting. You know how it gets almost zen when you really focus on the target?"
I nodded.
"Yeah, well, we'd spent a day at the range, and we were driving back to the job site when we got pulled over by some State trooper. This asshole saw us, saw the guns, and some old beer cans in the back, and pulled us all out of the truck. That was bad enough, but someone cracked a gay joke during the frisking, we all started laughing and adding to it, and he had us all arrested for disorderly conduct.
"We spent the night in jail, got a fine, and would have been sent on our way, but they weren't gonna give us our rifles back. Called it collecting evidence."
"...And?"
"Well, I...uh...I mean we, well, a fight got started. In the sheriff's office, the four of us guys tried to run out the door with our guns, and we made it out the door, into the truck and 20 miles down the road before we ran into a roadblock."
He made it out without getting shot? Doesn't look like he's that good of a brawler, but that still took good initiative.
"OK, so Assaulting a police officer, theft of police property, evading arrest...why are you not in prison?"
"We pleaded guilty to the assault and evading charges, and the lawyers got the theft charges thrown out on account of the cops having no right to confiscate the rifles in the first place. I did three years for that shit, and now I can't get a job with any respectable company. Fuckin' McDonald's won't even hire me."
"So you came to PBE? You think we're going to give you a new start, without caring about all the stupid shit you did when you were younger, and we'll give you another helicopter to fly once you prove yourself to be something other than the useless faggot you definitely appear to be."
The kid paled. I nearly busted up laughing, it was just too much fun.
"Well, I mean you guys have a reputation...I just thought..."
He trailed off. This kid was serious, and would probably work his ass off for another chance.
"Yes, yes we do. You'll have to work harder and endure more than ever before, you know that, right?"
"Yessir."
"Do not call me "Sir" again. Payback is NOT your father's Army. If you've got a cell phone, call whoever you've been staying with, you're going on vacation for a while."
"Yes... uhh, what do I call you?"
"Everyone calls me Soren."
I had fun for the rest of the day, I told the kid to wash the plane, twice, claiming that I could still see dirt spots on it, then I had him run around to various concessions stands, bringing me cold and unspilled sodas. I think he knew that I was testing him, and while his smile lasted for about 5 minutes into the first wash, he remained polite for the rest of the day.
I've got a good feeling about this kid. I think he knows it's just a game he has to play in order to win his fresh start, and that puts him a ways ahead of the people who think they can actually impress the selection cadre and get it easy.
We locked up the plane at nightfall, I showed him how to manually retract and stow the guns, then we went to a hotel. I've slept in that plane, but with four-star hotels in the area, and military personnel guarding the airfield, I didn't need to do it that night.
I paid for a two-bed, four-star room on the company card, something which the kid had obviously never seen the inside of before. He asked why we were staying in such luxury, and said he'd be fine in a smaller room. I smiled and told him that PBE lives in a different world than lumberjacks do, and crashed out.
I woke up at 0600, and checked my messages for the first time in a week. I'd gotten one from my elder sister, she and her husband had been approved for their second adoption, which I was glad to hear about. One from my mother, who was still tending to a neighborhood's worth of cats back home, and still swearing that she only owned three. Or was it four now?
Several work-related emails were waiting for me to respond to them, mostly progress reports and logistics concerns. Accounting was pissed about the hotel room, but they're good at what they do because they get pissy about hotel expenses. PBE rakes in piles of cash, but we burn through it pretty fast, and we're not nearly as profitable as it appears to outsiders. The vast majority of what we make goes to operating expenses, and a small army of bean-counters is required to make sure that we're not wasting funds.
The final email from the Bossman regarded the girl. She was apparently doing fairly well in our support-staff training program, and was in high spirits most of the time. She'd made it through the PT phase in good form, was doing her survival course currently, and was becoming a fairly competent shot. I thanked HM for letting me know, and sent a token message to let her know I was proud of her, and praying for her.
Of course, she'd never get such a message, and I knew that.
PBE had at the beginning only run a single training course, the brutal experience known as "Selection" to outsiders, "Lovecraftian horror" to people currently in it, and "beginner's training" to insiders. Everyone who had a combat job went through that, but as PBE had grown, it had needed specialists who simply didn't have what it took to get through that kind of training. When the course was explained, no college-trained folks had even applied for the accounting job.
In the end, PBE had created a shorter training course, at first marketed to outsiders as "Tactical Training for Law Enforcement and Security Personnel." The four-week course consisted of two weeks of PT, weapons training, and a third-week "survival experience" that was one part training and three parts low-level suck, mostly being wet, marching, and camping, but without a lot of sleep. Week four was more weapons training, but geared towards teamwork.
Then we added that to the employment contract, and anyone in a non-combat job had to go through it. It turned out to be a huge success, the support staff suddenly had a new respect for the shooters, and the shooters had more respect for the bean-counters and cooks. The company ran smoother, and morale actually went up. We'd hire folks just out of college, and they'd get letters from home, watching their friends' waistlines increase, while our support staff did regular PT, spent time on the range, and got paid more.
They had also had fun, got to travel on a regular basis, carried pistols, and got to blow stuff up on occasion. Most of them, if they could work through the morality issues of working with mercs, would retire from us after 20 years. It was, simply put, one of the best legal jobs in the world for our support staff. I suppose Colombian drug lords would pay more, but no one really wants to work for those guys. Not after PBE took down one of the Mexican cartels a few years back.
We left for the Chateau a few hours later. "Chateau" brings to mind a palatial cabin in the alps, but it's actually a compound in Florida. We own enough land to do live-fire exercises, survival training, have our own runway, and enough buildings to house everyone and everything we own. I mean everyone, too. We could house and feed every shooter, support operative, paper-pusher, and cook in the company, for several months, if the situation required it.
"Hey, Billy, what kind of music do you listen to?"
"Gangsta rap."
White kids these days.
"That's nice."
Strains of Creedence Clearwater Revival's Run Through the Jungle soon started fighting the engines for volume, and my copilot and I enjoyed the first round of preparing the kid for selection.
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