Joey nodded. “I’ll give them a couple of hundred to spread around amongst themselves. Money has a way of telling the back of the house crew they did good work.”
“Lee,” called Tara. She was fixated on the television. The camera covering the fire was now zooming in on tiny forms hanging from broken windows halfway up 4WTC. Every now and again one would jump and the camera would pan down and follow them all the way to the ground.
Steve-O was paying attention too. He said, “Damn terrorists. Not again.” He grabbed his Stetson, put it over his heart, and closed his eyes.
“Motherfuckers,” blurted Joey. “I was nine when the towers fell. I remember the jumpers.” He shook his head. “Lost an uncle that day, too. He was FDNY. A lifer. His house lost the most men that day.”
“I’m sorry,” said Riker. “I lost a part of me that day as well. Lost another part later as a result. We’ll bounce back.”
Joey’s mom came into the bar and stood staring at the television.
No sooner had she left her post than the helicopter pilot bypassed the podium, cupped his hands around his mouth and, with a Texas twang seasoning the words, bellowed, “Is there a Lee Riker in the house?”
“Right here, Clark,” said Riker, waving the pilot over.
Fielding a confused look from Steve-O, Tara, Joey, and Joey’s mom, Riker picked the bag off his lap and slid off the bar stool.
Joey made eye contact with the aviator. “Clark, how you been?”
“Season’s hitting the dead spot it always does before the holidays.”
“Tell me about it,” replied Joey’s mom. “If it wasn’t for a couple of tour busses full of hungry seniors stopping by unannounced, this place would be half-empty.”
Clark smiled at the owner, then entered the bar and approached Riker. Even in combat boots, he only came up to Riker’s chin. Maybe he was five-foot-eight, max. Pulled down tight on his head was a faded orange Texas Longhorns ball cap, its bill frayed but perfectly shaped and matching his brow line. Aviator-style sunglasses fronted a wide face bestowed with well-defined features. Instead of the ubiquitous full-body flight suit Riker was used to seeing on Army aviators, Clark wore desert-tan 5.11 tactical pants, the cuffs spilling over black combat boots. A black Arc’teryx vest zipped to the neck rode over a Crye Precision top, the sleeves of which were bunched up mid-forearm on the man. On Clark’s left wrist was some kind of a multifunction watch, black in color with a metal case thick enough to stop a bullet.
As Clark drew near to the bar top, the half-smile he wore faded and his lips pressed into a thin line. The quick change in expression Riker chalked up to the tragedy playing out on the television above the bar.
The business card given to Riker by Chaos back in Atlanta listed the pilot’s full name as Wade Clark.
Clark stopped a yard from Riker and peeled off the aviator glasses. With a tilt of his chin, he said, “Chaos wasn’t lyin’ when he said you’s a biggun.”
All business, Riker said, “I take it the transaction went through okay.”
“I’m here, ain’t I,” drawled Clark. “Funds were in my account an hour after we talked.”
Tara said, “When did you two talk?”
“This morning after the inheritance showed up in our accounts. I stayed outside the room and placed the call.”
“Sneaky,” said Steve-O.
Tara addressed Steve-O. “He’s been known to push the envelope on sneaky.” She regarded the man in question. “Was this”—she pointed to the sleek black and white helicopter crouched on the lawn—“all part of Mom’s plan?”
“The helicopter ride, no. Where we’re taking her, yes.”
For the umpteenth time over the last couple of days, Tara asked, “Where are we going, Lee?”
Sensing the rising tide of emotion, Joey and his mom moved to the side of the bar and turned their attention to the television.
Already briefed on the secretive nature of the charter destination, Clark answered for Riker. “We’re going to take your mom on a leisurely tour of the Lake Erie shoreline. Your brother here will have to fill you in on the rest.”
“I hate Mom for this,” fumed Tara. She made a fist and pounded on the bar.
Enjoying his part in all this not one bit, Riker paid attention to the television and let Tara get it out of her system.
On the screen, orange and red lights strobed all around the building while ant-sized figures in turnout coats and carrying axes and pulling hoses dodged the falling bodies. Streams of water caused puffs of steam to rise intermittently from within the charred facade of the building that the day before was a gleaming testament to New York’s ability to rebound after taking a hit.
“We better go before we can’t,” urged Clark. “By the way … name’s Wade Clark. I prefer Clark.”
Servers and cooks and customers from the main dining area had crowded into the bar and were staring expectantly at the television.
Riker urged Clark to lead the way, then let Tara and Steve-O fall in behind. He thanked Joey and his mom one last time, then threaded through the mass of bodies and hustled to catch up with the others.
Chapter 64
During the short walk through the lot and around the restaurant’s east side, Clark told them he was ex-Army—“A real hush-hush group”—and had logged a couple of thousand hours of stick time flying everything from Hughes 500 Little Birds to CH-47 Chinooks. He then explained that the Airbus AS365 Dauphin they’d chartered was a civilian version of the helicopter currently in use by the United States Coast Guard. He rattled off the specs, most important of which to Riker was the helo’s top speed in knots and their equivalent in kilometers per hour. Once Clark was finished, Riker said, “I know we’re close to Canada and all, but what the heck is a hundred and sixty-five knots slash three hundred kilometers when converted to miles?”
Clark opened the door and held it while Tara and Steve-O climbed into the passenger compartment. “It means we’ll be pushing two hundred miles per hour,” he said. “And that’ll get us to where we’re going in two shakes.”
Riker took hold of a handle inside the door, planted his bionic on the step, and hesitated in that position for a tick. “What kind of range does she have?”
Clark was caught examining the prosthesis revealed when Riker’s pant leg rode up. Looking up at Riker, the forty-something aviator said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Riker. We’ll only have to stop once to refuel. It’ll be on the return flight. Take twenty or thirty minutes, max. And to spare us any hassles, I already charged your card for a full tank of JP at the going rate as per oh nine hundred this morning.” He smiled and his face showed off a lifetime’s worth of wrinkles likely earned during deployments in deserts and jungles the world over. “I’ll have y’all back here before dinner.”
Riker said, “Chaos wasn’t lying when he said you’d be accommodating.” He ducked his head and climbed into the spacious cabin.
He sat in the row to his left where he could see into the cockpit through a small windowless opening. Because his back was against the rear bulkhead and near the turbines and machinery, he was able to stretch his legs out along the helo’s center axis.
As Clark closed the door, Riker walked his gaze around the cabin. To his fore, in an aft-facing captain’s chair, Steve-O was already buckled in, hat on lap and smiling wide.
After having helped Steve-O with the complicated safety belt, Tara had claimed an identical chair across the narrow aisle from him. Like nearly every surface in the helicopter’s passenger compartment, the chairs were wrapped in supple cream-colored leather and trimmed with polished walnut.
“Fancy shmancy,” remarked Tara. “Feels like I’m in a limousine.”
“I’ve never been in a limo,” admitted Steve-O.
“This is pretty much the same,” said Riker. “Except we’ll be hundreds of feet in the air and this limo is costing me an arm and both legs.”
Voice filtering through the pass-through, Clark said, “You’ll find headsets in
the compartments on the sides of the aft-facing chairs. Mr. Riker, yours is in the starboard-side armrest. Adjust the boom microphones so that the foam piece sits a couple of inches from your mouths.” As he flipped switches and the turbine engines whined to life in the background, he explained that the headsets were Bluetooth and interconnected so that everyone could communicate with him so long as they didn’t all attempt to talk at once.
Clark finished by reminding them a little bit of volume in the voice went a long way when speaking over the shared connection.
Riker adjusted his hat, then donned his headset and powered it on under Steve-O’s watchful eye.
After collapsing her headset to the smallest possible position, Tara snugged it on. “Like this?”
“Perfect fit,” said Riker. He leaned forward and adjusted her boom microphone. “Now you’re good to go.” He regarded Steve-O, saw his headset was squared away, and flashed the man an enthusiastic thumbs up.
“Comms check,” said Clark.
One at a time, beginning with Riker and ending with Steve-O, the passengers confirmed verbally that they could hear the pilot.
“Hot damn,” said Clark. “First time’s the charm.” He held a gloved hand up in the pass-through for all to see. “Wheels up in five.”
He began the countdown and a sensation Riker could only describe as pure power caressed the Airbus’s airframe.
At “Four,” Riker heard the turbines spool up exponentially; however, thanks to the noise-cancelling properties of the Bose headset, he wasn’t being subjected to the full range of their high-pitched whine.
At “Three” the helicopter went light on its tricycle-style landing gear.
Getting to “Two,” Clark was proven to be a man who liked to jump the gun, because Riker’s stomach and the pound of prime ribeye inside were instantly ambushed by positive Gs when the helicopter rocketed from the vineyard lawn.
As the helicopter pitched nose down and the gazebo and flowers flashed by the starboard side in a technicolor blur, Riker detected the sound of the landing gear seating home. He exchanged a quick glance with Tara, whose face had gone pale. Seeing the death grip she was putting on the leather armrests, he met her gaze and mouthed, “It’ll be okay. Just relax and enjoy the ride.”
Across the aisle from Tara, as the Airbus leveled out over open water and accelerated briskly, Steve-O let out a war whoop and pumped his fist.
All at once, the deep waters of Lake Erie, dark and foreboding, dominated the ship’s port-side windows.
Five hundred feet below the Airbus on the starboard-side, the lake’s shoreline snaked by. At speed, the strip of clay and sand presented as a tan ripple sandwiched between lapping water and shocks of brown and green grass. Now and then lakefront homes and piers with watercraft tied to them flitted by.
Seconds after going airborne, a golf course with its narrow fairways, white-sand hazards, and vibrantly hued undulating greens dominated the shoreline. A beat later the Airbus slowed considerably and Clark directed all eyes to the Pennsylvania/New York state line where an inordinate amount of tan military vehicles were parked in two large clusters on both sides of Interstate 90.
The fields of grass on either side of the four-lane as well as the grass-covered center median bore dark brown gashes from the passage of tons of machinery. By Riker’s estimation, two dozen Humvees and half as many MRAPs were divided equally between the two massive motor pools. Interspersed among what had to be a good chunk of the New York National Guard’s northern contingent were dozens of white SUVs.
“This multi-state joint exercise seems to be expanding,” proffered Clark.
“I concur,” said Riker. A part of him wanted to tell Clark all that he’d seen and been through the last couple of days. Instead, hoping to get the aviator’s unbiased take on the events here and in Manhattan, he merely mentioned watching the live television feed beamed from the RV lot and then stressed how he was skeptical anyone had actually named the operation Romeo Victor.
“More likely,” suggested Riker, “is that reporter who’d admitted on the air to overhearing the op called Romeo Victor was making one hell of an assumption about what the soldiers had been talking about.”
“No way anyone who’s been through basic training would bestow an operation of this scale and scope with a name containing one, let alone two of the most commonly used monikers in the NATO phonetic alphabet,” said Clark. “Communicating on any net at any level would be nothing less than a monumental goat rope if in fact they did.”
“I concur,” said Riker. “My money says the reporter merely overheard a couple of weekend warriors discussing the focus of the exercise in code.”
This time, Clark was the one who said, “I concur.” But he took it a step further, adding, “Something big is afoot. I think the moment the reporter assumed Romeo Victor as the op’s name and reported on it, whoever is heading it up, Joint Chiefs or someone at the battalion level, decided to let it grow legs and run.”
Riker said nothing.
***
Ten minutes after wheels up, Clark directed their attention to the starboard windows. “Dunkirk, New York. Population eleven thousand and change as of the last time I visited. Know that the drive was not worth it. Judge didn’t see fit to lower the bail on my speeding ticket.”
Riker laughed.
“How fast were you going?” asked Steve-O.
“Hundred or so in a fifty-five,” answered Clark.
“Any relation to Sammy Hagar?” asked Riker.
“Likely Tom Cruise,” said Clark. “Because I always feel the need for speed.”
“Is that why you’re not flying for the ‘hush hush’ unit any longer?”
“No, Mr. Riker,” replied Clark. “I pranged a bird during a very important op.”
“Call me Lee. Did you prang said chopper anywhere near Islamabad?”
“If I tell you, I would have to kill you,” said Clark. “Since we’re taking a stroll down memory lane … wanna tell me about that leg of yours?”
A tensing of the muscles began the inevitable slow crawl up Riker’s back. “Left it in Iraq,” he admitted. “Somehow a sweep missed an IED penetrator set up beside Route Irish.”
“Everyone get out alive?”
“Nobody got out alive.”
Riker felt something land on his stump and a tremor shot through his body. Looking down, he saw Tara’s hand. Meeting her gaze, he saw empathy.
Clark said, “I’m sorry to hear that, Lee.” Then, all business, he announced they were “Feet wet” and would be over open water until entering Buffalo’s airspace.
***
Eighteen minutes into the flight, Clark was talking to a tower controller at Buffalo International. In less than a minute the controller was back with a new heading for Clark and granted him permission to enter Buffalo airspace.
“Sure, Mom used to like to stop at the Anchor Bar for authentic buffalo wings,” said Tara, peering down on the city’s southwest suburbs. “Doesn’t mean she’d want to be crop-dusted over top of it.”
Riker remained stoic, staring at the ceiling as the helicopter banked hard to port.
“You know the ‘secret’”— she made air quotes—“ingredient in their wings is Frank’s Red Hot?”
Beating Riker to the punchline, Steve-O said, “I put that shit on everything.”
Stifling a laugh, Riker closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands.
Tara said, “Swear jar, buddy.”
“For what it’s worth. It’s what I make my wings with on Super Bowl Sunday,” Clark drawled over the shared comms. Then, without missing a beat, he added, “We’ll be eyes on our destination in twenty mikes.”
“The suspense is killing me,” said Tara.
“Sit back and close your eyes.”
She did.
“Keep them closed,” said Riker as he unzipped the bag and removed the urn. “No peeking until I say so.” He placed the urn gently in Tara’s lap.
Instinctively
, Tara wrapped the vessel containing her mom in a loving embrace.
Listening in to the exchange, Clark held up a thumb to indicate he knew Riker was calling the ball from here on out.
Still enamored by his first “limo” ride, Steve-O craned toward the window, taking it all in as they thundered north.
Eyes still closed, Tara’s jaw took a granite set.
Chapter 65
As the Airbus slowed and leveled off, Riker said, “Okay, Tara, you may look now.”
Tara remained in the same repose as she’d been for the better part of twenty minutes: legs crossed underneath her on the plush chair, arms wrapped around the urn. She stayed unmoving until the helicopter was still, finally opening her eyes when Steve-O said, “That’s beautiful.”
Upon opening her eyes, Tara looked out the window to her right. At first all she saw was a voluminous white cloud. It was roiling and rising and dancing as if alive. Sunlight played at the base of the mist plume, refracting violet and blue and red as the aerated water whirled about in the disturbed air.
Still not saying anything, she leaned forward to see through the larger window inset into the cabin door.
She let out a pained groan and shook her head back and forth, a frown forming where once there had been bliss.
She looked at the urn, then regarded Riker. “You kidding me? Here?”
“Yep.”
Her grip tightened on the urn. “Bullshit, Lee! No effin way Mom would want her ashes churning around Niagara Falls for all of eternity. She always said how much she loathed this tourist trap. The boat rides that made her seasick. And she hated wearing one of those stupid plastic coats she put on all of us even more than she hated getting wet by that drifting mist. ‘Drowning by eyedropper’ is how she described it once.”
The helicopter drifted left and rotated to give them a view of a small island below.
“Did you like coming here as a kid?”
Tara nodded. “I loved it. I always looked forward to coming here. Winter … spring, summer, didn’t matter.” She smiled and tears welled in her eyes. “The caramel apples. I can smell them now.” She locked her gaze on the raging river.
Riker's Apocalypse (Book 1): The Promise Page 33