I wanted to spend today as him, but it would be hard to explain to the FBI why Perez was suddenly home alone. We spend the day on the beach, at a little cafe near the beach, and on my balcony looking over the beach before I sneak off again after dark and have more equatorial escapades.
Sunday it's mom and dad's, restful except when dad explains that the insurance company is claiming terrorist attack and so far refuses to pay for anything involving my little accident. I should probably go visit them and demolish one of their buildings too.
Monday I should be headed to paradise, but I'm still technically grounded, so I play some golf (following my morning run) and wait for Perez to get home and talk to me about passport photos. I get takeout from the local steakhouse, ready to eat when she walks through the door. She has a pretty good sized smile on when she does.
"Air Force, you are not going to believe what happened." I actually bet I will, but I am smart enough not to say that.
"The passport photos from Russia came in, no surprises, all guys we recognize, but can't name."
"I actually believe that."
She hits me. The arm must be feeling better.
"Abdul Hassan and Mohammed Naziri. The Afghani's have them listed as US military obtaining second passports. The military claims they don't exist, but we found all kinds of civilian records for them, schools, doctors, relatives -- based on the addresses listed on the documents."
I know what's coming. "I sense more dumbass on stakeout coming."
"No. This was enough to get a warrant, and the Bureau has teams at four houses, watching. East coast, not here."
"They are here, not there."
"OK, got me there. You might still keep an eye on Ali's for me."
I reach over and kiss her. "This is a pretty big mistake for them to have made."
"Yeah, but remember they wouldn't have used such obviously fake names if they thought we'd catch on at all. It was to show us up after the fact."
I nod and we eat, then we get naked, followed by Perez taking coffee to the FBI (after getting her clothes back on), and me flying off to continue the anti-drug campaign, after spending a little useless time over Ali's seemingly uninhibited former abode.
Tuesday's basically a repeat, I run and then go hang at the mall, bored, Perez works all day. I am not quite Mr. Mom, but getting there. Fortunately, my grounding ends on Friday. In bed later, Perez informs me that she is flying off to North Carolina with Flaherty in the morning.
"The Marine Special Operations Command is at Lejeune, and some of the administration is at Quantico in Virginia where there FBI academy is located. Apparently she's tired of getting the run around on the phone, we're going to go see them face to face."
I'm fine with it, except they are not flying my airline. I spend the night wrapped around her, and don't go out. She takes off so she can take off about five in the morning, I, always the great boyfriend, decide to stay in bed. Then I run with my tail, go play golf with some random threesome who was looking for a fourth, and then sneak out without an assist to visit the drug lords.
Chapter 27
Thursday I'm Officer Packer during the day, then more South America overnight. Friday it's off to Kona, my first chance to fly since the accident.
Captain Amos is flying with me, apparently my original captain got wind of the fact that someone might have been shooting at me last week. Maybe we should have told the passengers too, but most of them are already afraid enough about flying.
I spend a little extra time in the walk around, trying to use the fog enhanced senses to make sure all is well. We get our clearance, taxi out uneventfully, and get lined up on the runway.
"Mountain 4-6-1, wind 230 at 12, cleared for takeoff runway 24 right."
"Cleared to takeoff, Mountain 4-6-1." I respond, working the radios today.
"Ready?" The captain has never said that before.
"Let's go."
He pushes the throttles forward. Normally, we use a reduced thrust setting to save the engines since we have a nice long runway, but today we decided to use full power. We're up less than half way down the asphalt strip, and climb quickly.
The tower hands us to coast control and we both give a quiet sigh, which we would never admit to making, as we cross to the open ocean out of range of any sniper.
Flight is calm, landing is perfect, and we celebrate by taking a couple flight attendants up to Waikaloa to play golf. I celebrate later by destroying the last South American poppy field on my list. If I keep to the plan a trip to Afghanistan is next.
I make a perfect flight back to LA on Saturday, landing on the proper runway, not on fire, and parking at the gate, not on the grass. Perez is waiting for us as we exit, recently landing herself from locales east.
We talk flying with Captain Amos, he tries to get Perez to go up with him, I get a little nervous that he's hitting on my girlfriend. The FBI drives us to my place, both Perez and I more than a little tired of them.
Halloween spends a half hour nuzzling Perez, then grudgingly acknowledges my presence long enough to ask for a treat. Kiana follows by asking for some salami to go, and I wrap up my best for her, followed in the morning with an experimental salami for breakfast, no omelette included. She's not recovered until lunch time when we bail for mom and dad's where we have to explain her extreme relaxedness on jet lag.
The FBI guys have adjusted their schedule with the senior agents now working Sundays. I suspect it's because mom feeds them while they wait down the street for us.
Back at my place later, Kiana fills me in on her trip. Seems it was breakfast then lunch then dinner each day with one high ranking officer after another who did the Sergeant Schultz and claimed to know nothing. Finally, Friday night they had dinner with the Commandant of the Marine Corps, made possible solely by the personal intervention of the Director of the FBI, though I bet the possibility of nuclear attack helped.
He, off the record, let them know that if the people we wanted to find out about were officially dead there would not be a single computer record of them in existence anywhere, and that what records there were would be paper locked away in filing cabinets in the basement of the SOC administrative building. In other words, no way to get to them.
"What's worse," Perez thinks there's something worse, "he claimed that if the SOC had them listed as dead, they were dead. We asked him about the folks using their passports, and he thinks its bad guys pretending to be dead good guys."
"They're alive." I am so insightful.
"Yes, Air Force, yes they are alive. I think the point was that we are not only not getting any help, they are going to continue to road block us. Whatever these guys did in Afghanistan, it must have been plenty interesting."
I have another stupid idea.
"The best way around a road block, in my limited experience, is to fly over it."
I don't think she was expecting me to be that stupid.
"Are you suggesting what I think you are suggesting?"
"Hey, I picked the stupidest thing I could think of, assuming of course that he wasn't lying about the records being in the basement."
"Do you still have your Army clothes?"
"I do." I give her my best conspiratorial smile.
"Let's sleep on it."
And with that, I spend a quiet week dodging FBI bodyguards, destroying poppy fields and Taliban arms depots in Afghanistan, and plotting to sneak into a high security military installation and steal top secret records. Nothing out of the ordinary.
The biggest problem is dealing with the FBI. I've been using a tried and true trick: sneak out as me, pretend to go for an evening dip in the ocean well out of their visual range, change in the water, get clear of the coast then hit the jets and head south. Works fine, both forward and reverse, except that now I need to take my Army clothes with me, and bring something back, which doesn't fit the scenario.
I also am time constrained. Subsonic it will take me four hours there and four hours back, which leaves pr
ecious little time to work when I don't really know what I am doing.
Perez solves all my problems. By midweek she's got a map of Camp Lejeune and alleged information on the building, which has two basements. No intel about access routes, alarms, etc., but I do have to do something to hold up my end.
Then she tells Flaherty that we are taking a date night without tail, and just like that we are parked Saturday night in Upland.
"Remember the plan." I am apparently a five year old superhero. She packed my lunch in a brand new camo backpack, along with my camera and Colonel clothes.
"Yes, mom."
She'd hit me, but it would hurt (her that is). I'm sure I'll get it later.
"Don't do anything stupid."
I push her hair back, give her a quick kiss, and exit stage vertical.
Just under four hours later I am cruising the woods of North Carolina, what should be cool night air lost on me, as is what is probably beautiful scenery in a pitch black night. I manage to get my camera out of my backpack without dropping anything, and take a set of pictures of a Marine base.
Lots of woods in and around the base itself, I find a secluded spot, drop quickly to the earth, freeze until I am certain no one saw or is around. Takes about 10 minutes of wandering to find a solid looking tree that I think I can find again, and hide the back pack high up in the branches. Clothes and camera inside, memory card cradled carefully in my hand.
A little before sunrise I am waking a sleeping beauty in her Mustang, hopefully her Prince Charming, and drive back home, the only damage a long not too pleasant phone call from Rona Flaherty berating Kiana for staying out all night and not calling. I guess we both have a second mom now. Sunday we stay home except for the usual mom and dad visit and check out my photos of the base.
Monday I land in Kona about noon (that's in the airplane), already five p.m. east coast time. Everybody is going to Honolulu for the day, so it's easy for me to beg off. I have lunch, check into my room, get my swim trunks on, head to the beach, take my trunks off once I'm safely in the water, leave them on the ocean floor, then head toward open water. Once I am well away from shore, I punch some molecules in their asses, and rocket into the air. More detail than you probably wanted, but I am the one writing this tale so live with it.
Perez pointed out plan B to me, which I would never have thought of – I can go hypersonic from Hawai'i to Panama, cross the 50 miles of land more slowly, then go hypersonic again across the Atlantic to North Carolina. In other words, dumbass superhero takes four hours from California, smart superhero can be there in an hour from 2,500 miles further away.
It's eight local time or thereabouts when I reach the camp, the sun settling down in the west, but no visibility. A squall line of thunderstorms is in the area, and it's raining pretty hard. I am soaked, though I'm betting my hair is completely dry.
It takes a while to find the tree where I hid my back pack, given the darkness, rain, wind, and general pain in the air stuff going on. I have no idea how waterproof it is, but it's supposed to be real military issue according to one Kiana Perez. It seems ok when I heft it on my back and fly slowly toward my target.
Headquarters building is two buildings in from the tree line, five stories, red brick, a few vines to give it character. Nobody around outside, not surprising given the weather even for Marines. I find the top of the stairwell on the roof and, to my amusement, discover that Marines are smarter than everybody else. The door is actually locked.
I spend as much time as I can trying to figure out if it is also alarmed. I don't think it is, but I can't be sure. The lock does not appear to be anything stronger than normal, commercial grade, with a normal looking round doorknob, normal deadbolt above it. I grab it and rip it off.
Dumbass confirmed. I get my half of the deadbolt in my hand just fine, but the other half drops off and hits the concrete on the inside of stairwell, bounces a couple times, and comes to rest after a series of what I think are deafeningly loud clanks. I freeze and do my best to listen, but can't hear a thing given the rain and the normal person ears.
My little finger fits just fine into the lock mechanism, I push it to the left and the deadbolt slides back. Doorknob turns easily, and I am standing in the landing area. I manage to close the door and get the deadbolt back in place from this side, though there is no way for me to really fix it. Idiot.
My Colonel outfit goes on and I am quietly walking down the stairs until they unceremoniously stop at the first floor. Now I have a choice to make. I need the basement or basements, but I have to find another way there. If there are people around the first floor is the most likely spot for them to be, and if there are guards around, the first floor is most definitely the most likely spot.
The Perez plan is look around for something obvious, then try to find an elevator on a higher floor that goes down if I can't be sure, so I wander back up to the third floor, and open the door into the building.
It's quiet, quiet and dark, everyone gone home. No idea what they do here, not really interested. There is one long main corridor, and I walk quickly down it past a 1950ish array of wooden doors with white frosted windows, gold numbers stenciled on them, until I find the elevator. It appears to be older than me, my dad, and my dead grandparents. One shaft, tiny door, round metal buttons that were shiny once, probably before the Civil War. I push the down one anyway.
The noise is horrific. Anyone who is there to keep people out surely now knows that someone is in. The motor sounds like the death throes a half dozen elephants, though that assumes I actually know what an elephant death throe would sound like, but if they don't sound like that it would at least scare the bageebees out of them. Finally, an equally loud bell, the door slides mercifully quietly open, and I enter.
There is indeed a button for the basement. With a nice key slot next to it. Curse those Marines and their actual attention to security. Off the elevator, I wander down the length and breadth of the corridor looking for another stairwell. No luck.
Must be a stair on the first floor going down to the basements. Tiptoe back to the stairwell, then down to floor one. Gently, as if all of my prior noise was quiet, I push down on the door handle and peek out one-eyed into the corridor. Two men, armed, standing guard at the far end of the hall by the front door, fortunately facing the wrong way, staring out the window at the rain and wind at the second I pushed the door. Even more gently than I pushed it open, I help it close as noiselessly as possible. No way those gentlemen will let a guy with Air Force ID from Nevada wander around alone, regardless of his alleged rank.
Time for plan D, we all know what that stands for.
So it's stairwell, roof, head shake at my stupidity with the deadbolt, air, and off toward the forest. There was a manhole cover in the pictures I took behind the headquarters building, which is also behind another building facing the opposite direction. Kind of like an alley, but 50 feet wide and with dirt not pavement.
I wait until I am sure it's clear, zip over, lift the cover and try no to notice what I end up standing in. There are cameras at the doors to each building, but actually little in the way of actual video coverage of the roads. Not sure why that is, but I will assume the USMC knows its business in these matters.
We packed a flashlight in my stuff, and when I turn it on, I feel like the happiest man alive. The sewer tunnel is as old as everything else. The walls are bricks, not concrete. I remove a sizeable number of them easily, no noise, no muss, no fuss, and start digging into the soft black North Carolina soil behind. Before I jump in, my brain reminds me to get out of my clothes which I put away into my pack.
Takes me 10 minutes to dig the 25 feet to the wall of the headquarters building, another five to turn a two foot circle (not really round, but you try it and see how you do) into concrete dust and I am standing in a pitch black room. My flashlight comes back out and I do a careful survey looking for security or cameras. I don't find any, and the light is giving me crap the whole time because it knows we're safe.
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There's a light switch next to the elevator and I turn it on. Bare florescent bulbs wiggle their way to work, and the room is awash in light. I was unintentionally brilliant. The walls of the room are covered with file cabinets, except for about 20 feet which is luckily where I came through. There are two additional rows of cabinets, back to back, down the center.
The only thing we know is that Ali's kids were in the 1st Marine Special Operations Battalion, we're praying that Ali's colleagues came from there. They've only been around for less than a decade making me hopeful that there aren't too many files, but it is a government operation so this entire room could be just the index.
Each drawer is carefully labeled, and it doesn't take too long to find the 1st MSOB section. I also find an open staircase to the second basement and do a survey there, but that appears to be base records from before the dawn of computers.
Fog Bastards 2 Destination Page 24