ERO

by F. P. Dorchak

  He was in uniform and combat boots. Lay atop the sheets and blankets on his bed.

  He swung his legs to the side of the

  (table...)

  bed and sat there. Shook his head. Good Lord, he was out of it. Where the hell was he?

  Apartments. He was at his apartment.

  Immediately nervous, he began blinking to see if he still had his contacts in

  Out. They were out.

  Getting to his feet he looked to his boots. There was nothing on them whatsoever—no dirt, mud, nothing. In fact they almost looked as if they’d been polished.

  He entered the bathroom and leaned over the sink, when a hand fell upon his contact lens case. Opening it he found both contacts inside.

  Well, apparently, he’d at least had enough presence of mind to take out his lenses before collapsing into bed.

  Cherko continued on into the kitchen, where he grabbed a swig of orange juice from the refrigerator, then sat at the table and ran his hands over his short hair. Tried to recall what the hell had happened after work. Driving home.

  Nothing. He remembered not one damned thing.

  * * *

  Colorado Springs, CO

  19 June 1986

  2325 Hours Mountain Time

  A large green plastic bottle of Mountain Dew in hand, Cherko had entered the ERO ops floor, received his changeover, and now sat at a console. The smell of coffee was strong. Though he felt fine, he knew something was in the air. He set the Dew on the floor by his feet; looked to the support schedule and signed on to his consoles. The glass door behind him opened and closed; he glanced behind him.

  Turnbull.

  And he had two shady looking characters under escort by a sergeant he didn’t really know on the other side of the Fishbowl’s glass.

  “Cherko,” Turnbull said, as he casually approached, “you have guests tonight.”

  “How long?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  “Great.”

  “Got a problem with that, Lieutenant?” he said, looking to the other crew members and nodding his curt “Hello.”

  Cherko meant to say something, when Turnbull cast him a look that said don’t you dare.

  Turnbull turned to Michelson and Fender. “I need both of you to sign off and depart the floor.”

  Michelson and Fender exchanged looks.

  Cherko checked out the two spooks as Michelson and Fender made their support-transfer calls, shut down their workstations, and quietly departed. Turnbull watched them leave, then nodded toward the spooks and their escort. The sergeant escort led them onto the floor. They were not the same spooks from before, but looked just as intimidating.

  “I’ve got them, Sergeant,” Turnbull said to Staff Sergeant Bell. Without a word Bell did an about face and left the floor.

  “Gentlemen,” Turnbull said, leading the two darkly suited individuals to Cherko’s console, “this is Lieutenant Cherko.”

  Cherko got to his feet, all smiles, and extended a hand to the first gentleman.

  “Pleased to meet you, sir.”

  Spook One nodded, but never took his hand. Spook Two didn’t even acknowledge him. Cherko lowered his hand.

  “These gentlemen will be observing tonight.”

  Turnbull left the ops floor.

  “Would either of you like a chair?” Cherko asked.

  Ramrod straight, and hands tucked behind his back, Spook One barely shook his head “No,” as both he and Spook Two took up positions directly behind him.

  Cherko turned away, raising an eyebrow; he sat back down and proceeded to set up his support. When he was done, he over-the-shoulder informed his guests he was ready to come up on the bird. He heard the two men step up closer behind him.

  Great. Now what would he do if “they” contacted him?

  These spooks could clearly see his every frigging keystroke, which was no doubt entirely part-and-parcel to why they came on down here in the first place. Not only did they want to see firsthand data, but they also wanted to make damned sure they knew exactly what was going on, exactly what the operator was doing, and exactly who was seeing what no-one-was-ever-supposed-to-see.

  His ethereal trainer had never thought of that, had she?

  But, more than that, they reminded him of his little incident back at his apartment.

  So... if there was a God, please, keep whom or whatever contacted him during his supports away tonight....

  As Cherko continued support configuration, the spooks shuffled in closer still.

  And it was like they didn’t breathe.

  He should have heard something, some sounds of life coming from these two guys, but instead they were both like zombies, hovering behind, just waiting for him to turn around so they could rip off his face, pry open his skull, and devour his gray matter.

  Something moved at Cherko’s peripheral vision.

  Cherko turned to find yet another spook... one standing just at the inside of the ops floor, directly in front of the Fish Bowl.

  Now, where the hell had he come from?

  No one was allowed control room entrance without crew members knowing about it. He looked to the figure, whose face he couldn’t see. It was hidden by what looked like a 1940s black Fedora, tilted down over his face.

  Like his apartment visitors.

  Something wasn’t right about this.

  There was an unsettling feeling that crawled up his spine about this new one. Spooks in general were scary, but this new one was tall and lanky. In a not-normal way. Extremely skinny. Scarecrowish.

  And there was an incredible aura of stay away about him.

  Cherko shivered and returned to his console. It was just a little too creepy being in the control room with nothing but... them. No Air Force. No crew members.

  The target satellite on tonight’s mission was an optical bird. He was ready for handover from the current mission control in support with the satellite and picked up the blue multi-line phone, or MLP.

  “Badger, Falcon, I’m ready for handover.”

  Cherko activated his resources and passively tracked the satellite without radiating it from the ground station he was now controlling. He awaited end-of-support time from the other controller.

  “Passive sent,” Badger said.

  After mentally ticking off a couple seconds for the network link delay, Cherko banged out his active directive. This caused his ground station’s tracking antenna to radiate up to the satellite.

  “Active sent,” Cherko replied.

  “Roger,” Badger said.

  Cherko watched his telem. His directive had gotten in. He now controlled the satellite.

  “We’re active on the bird,” Cherko said, making a quick scan of telemetry to make sure all was good with the satellite before taking official control and performing his pass.

  “We show you active, Falcon.”

  “Looks good, Badger.”

  “Have a good one.”

  “Ditto.”

  Please, don’t contact me, he mentally sent...

  Cherko sweat. Not a good thing to be doing with two spooks peering over your soul. So, as he ran his state of health, he thought about movies, broccoli, playing in the woods up back at the Lake Clear house, and Erica.

  What was she doing right now?

  Most likely either watching TV, reading, or sleeping. Or maybe taking a long, luxurious shower or bath, in her dark, candlelit bathroom... thinking about him, as she ran her hands over her—

  Okay, that wouldn’t do either.

  Shifting in his seat, he thought about broccoli.

  Broccoli with cheese sauce.

  Picking the stuff out of their Lake Clear garden up back....

  Completing his state of health, Cherko flipped those passplan pages face down on console, and proceeded on with the mission.

  A UK bird.

  According to Capt Morrow and all his training, officially the U.S. and Britain were best buds in the Global Community. But as everyone k
new in the Intel world—and he was finding out—best buds or not, no one trusted anyone.

  Case-in-point, Mr. Spook One, Two, und Three.

  The argument was that spying kept friends honest. Well, the fact that an illicit activity was to keep anything honest was quite ironic to Cherko, but he also wasn’t naïve. Spying was a necessary evil in the way the world appeared to run, especially in the dark dirty corners of human affairs. Though everyone did it, no one was gonna own up to it, and if caught, there were damned-serious consequences. In other words... sure, go ahead, cheat, we’re all cheating... but if you’re caught, we’re gonna nail ya to the cross. Upside down.

  Now, when it came to friendly countries like the U.S., Britain, or Australia, there were extreme efforts in keeping even activities like this friendly, so even if caught among the Best Friends Society, each country’s best efforts would be made to keep their activities, even if directed against one of themselves, out of the press. The worst that could be expected, if caught, was some hard wrist-slapping and sternly worded “get the hell out of our goddamned knickers” language. It would all be kept hush-hush.

  So, why do it?

  It wasn’t all about subterfuge. Sometimes it was good to know your neighbors were keeping an eye on your back. Kinda of like a Neighborhood Watch. You watch our back, we’ll watch yours.

  And everyone knew, in the spacefaring world, that absolutely no one could touch the U.S.’s technological supremacy. No one.

  The Soviets were close, but not because of technology. They were good at building robust systems—basic systems—anything that could be easily produced using metal. It wasn’t that they were backward, it was just that they were structured differently. It was like building a tougher truck using carbureted engines versus more technologically advanced, electronically-fuel-injected ones. The Russians were masters of the carbureted engine.

  And, all altruistic motives aside, everyone also wanted to know what the other really had, and just what they were really doing when they weren’t shaking hands. The long and the short of it was, just like with Blackbird overflights of Russia, everyone knew it was happening, but no one could stop it. All they could do was protest and yack loudly, because, frankly, there was no one else on the planet with the technology to touch what the U.S. had and did. End of story.

  So Cherko entered the coordinates of his target satellite into the system and watched as his bird swung in on it with its powerful, folded-mirror, telescope. In no time, a small speck appeared on his right-most display screen, to which, Cherko noticed, his two spooks were intently focused. He was about to zoom in, when one of the spooks halted him.

  “Swing your visual to the extremes of coverage.”

  Had one of the Spooks actually just spoken to him?

  “Yes, sir,” Cherko answered, and did so. He swung the telescope back and forth. One direction cast it across the Earth’s face, while the other pointed it out into space. He didn’t hear anything else out of them, and performed the maneuver again, panning across the satellite.

  “Up and down,” Spook One added.

  Cherko did as instructed. Nothing but a lot of space. What the hell were they looking for?

  “Terminate scan,” Spook One directed.

  Cherko performed a swift combination of keyboard and trackball strokes and brought the unsuspecting target satellite back into brilliant resolution. It always amazed him at the optics involved and what he was looking at. Real time. Maybe he hadn’t been here long enough to have the affect yet be deadened to him, but it was something to know he was here, on the eastern plains of Colorado, sneaking peeks at orbiting hardware over other parts of the world. It was like filming a passing car, only this car was a hundred miles up over another continent. In this case... Russia.

  His ERO satellite had already been moved—delta-V’d—into better position to view this bird, and the bird they were observing was also tracking across the globe, so they had a limited amount of time. He had to get in and out quickly, and see what the spooks wanted to see. He cast a quick glance behind him, and caught the two pointing and nodding between each other. They both gave him a hard look. Beyond them was the Spook King way in the back, overseeing everything. But he suddenly had the most intense feeling to not look, and returned his attention back to his displays.

  Well, that had been the most animation he’d seen from any of them so far. So maybe they really were human. Or part thereof. Cherko began to zoom in further.

  “No—keep it out. Stay where you’re at,” came the voice from behind.

  Cherko pulled back the resolution. The target UK bird was another spy sat, known as 56900, or at least that’s what was listed on his passplan. In his training he’d been told that just because there was a number on his passplan for a satellite didn’t necessarily mean that was the actual satellite’s vehicle number, especially for friendlies. The less operators knew, the better, and the less to implicate later. Plausible deniability. For enemies, there was no effort to attempt to hide their satellite numbers, so if this was a Soviet vehicle, chances were that the listed number would actually be the listed number from the NORAD spacetrack catalog.

  Cherko stared at the satellite. This was boring. What did they expect to—

  “Lieutenant,” came a whisper from behind. Cherko turned his head just a hair toward the voice. “We are going to ask you to do something without question nor comment from you. Nod if you understand.”

  Cherko nodded, images of two unwanted apartment visitors and a smashed phone filling his head.

  “We are going to ask you to close your eyes for a period of time. Do you understand?”

  Cherko paused, then again nodded, as he eyed his screens and telemetry.

  Close his eyes?

  Not only What the hell?, but they only had a couple of minutes left in support, and this was one helluvan expensive game they’d be playing...

  “When we place a hand to your shoulder—like this,” Spook One said, placing a hand to Cherko’s shoulder, “you are to think—as hard as you can—of one thing and one thing only: stop. We will tell you when to terminate. Nod if you understand.”

  “You want me to what?” Cherko said, turning around to protest, but the Spook forcibly and physically repositioned his shoulders forward.

  “Nod ‘yes’... or ‘no,’” Spook One said. “Time, Lieutenant.”

  Cherko nodded, swallowing hard.

  Images of his midnight training sessions with that wonderfully disembodied voice rushed back. Okay, now this was getting weird. Maybe it was related to all that mind training? As much as he may have believed in the power of the mind, this was getting just a bit too freaky.

  “Close your eyes,” Spook One whispered up against an ear. He then placed a hand to his shoulder.

  Okay; they wanted to pay him to fly satellites with his eyes closed. They were the customer, so fine.

  Cherko closed his eyes.

  The image on his screen stayed in his head, and he did as asked. Focused all his thoughts on “Stop.” As hard as he could. To whatever was going on on that screen.

  Stop.

  Stop.

  STOP.

  Cherko felt something (STOP) was happening on his screen, but kept his eyes (STOP) closed. If something (STOP) important enough was happening, the two sets of eyes (STOP) from Spook Central, behind him, would definitely let him know.

  STOP.

  Cherko had the image (STOP) of something flying through space (STOP). Something small and dark, yet shiny (STOP)?

  STOP.

  STOP.

  Wondered how he might look (STOP) to the other crew members, if any (STOP) happened to look in on him right now...

  STOP.

  STOP.

  His mind created the image (STOP) of this object heading for 56900. Cherko forcibly thought STOP.

  STOP!

  Come on, what the hell could they possibly want out of him doing this—

  “Open your eyes,” Spook One whispered. Coming closer to
his ear he then added, “This never happened and we were never here.”

  Cherko turned around to say something, when he noticed the time.

  Late!

  He was late!

  Where had the time gone? He swore it hadn’t been more than a minute or two—at most.

  Cherko grabbed the MLP; punched in the selection for the next site that was to acquire control.

  “Mongoose, Falcon, copy?”

  “Ready for handover,” Mongoose said, flatly.

  He knew he was late, knew they had mere seconds, yet Mongoose played it cool and remained professional. There was no time to chew him out, because, as Mongoose and anyone else knew, if you were late, everyone knew, and no one ever escaped the wrath of their chain of command.

  And rookies were only late once.

  “This is vehicle 56900; stand by for passive.” As Cherko spoke over the phone, he rapidly broke down his support. “I’m off the bird. Good support, no problems.”

  His remaining responses and support breakdown actions were lost in a veritable mental fog.

  What the hell had those spooks just had him do?

  Cherko closed out the passplan, and wiped his forehead.

  What the hell had just happened?

  He turned around to address his guests... but—

  They’d left. All three of them.

  Vanished.

  They weren’t called spooks for nothin.

  Chapter Sixteen

  1

  ERO Operations

  4 July 1986

  0238 Hours Mountain Time

  Communications terminated.

  Cherko hit F10 just as he heard the Fishbowl door behind him open. He’d been nervous the entire time he’d been transcribing his Program information this shift, and kept looking over his shoulder—more so than normal. When he’d first started all this Program work he’d felt special... like he’d been doing some neat covert work, but any more it was taking its toll. In a job that was paranoid to begin with, he’d added another whopping layer of it. But today’s shift was worse.

  He kept feeling like he was being watched.

  Right over his shoulder. He’d see something out the corner of an eye, or feel a definite presence, but when he’d turn to look... nothing.