Chopper Ops

by Mack Maloney

  The President's plane arrived on schedule, exactly five minutes later.

  Air Force One landed smoothly, its wheels hitting the rain-swept runway with hardly any skidding. The pilots immediately threw the engines into reverse, and the huge airplane began slowing down. It was met at the far end of the runway by a caravan of security trucks. One had its four-way flashes blinking; it began moving towards the main terminal. The giant Presidential 747 slowly followed.

  The heavy rain had forced a small greeting ceremony indoors. Some five hundred people—political types and their families mostly—were now crammed into one corner of the terminal, separated from the unloading ramp by a phalanx of Secret Service agents. Relegated to the far corner of the terminal building was a tight knot of media types. TV and newspaper people, they'd spent the afternoon grumbling about the poor position so hastily assigned to them.

  Air Force One finally jolted to a stop in front of the terminal platform. Outside, the rain came harder and the wind more fierce. A small army of aides burst from the airplane's main door and trooped down the ramp-way. Finally the President himself emerged. He walked into the terminal building, waved to the assembled locals, posed for a picture with an elderly supporter, and then was whisked away. Down the causeway and out to the rainy street, where he was put into a pre-positioned limousine, which roared off behind a huge motorcycle escort. A fund-raising speech in downtown St. Louis awaited him.

  Two minutes after the Presidential plane touched down, a similar-looking 747 landed. This plane was painted in standard Air Force gray. Its radio call sign was "Phone Booth." It was crammed with sophisticated communications and emergency medical equipment, including a fully equipped mobile surgical room. This plane's passenger hold was also carrying two Presidential security doubles, a gaggle of mid-level Presidential aides, and a handful of reporters.

  Five minutes after that, an Air Force C-141 Starlifter landed. Painted white and converted into a passenger carrier, this plane was hauling, among other things, a backup team of Secret Service agents and a dozen low-level White House staff members. It joined "Phone Booth" at the end of the runway, and together they taxied to a spot about one hundred yards away from where Air Force One was parked.

  Twenty minutes after this, another airplane entered the St. Louis landing pattern. This aircraft was a noisy, smoky, thirty-five-year-old C-130 Hercules cargo plane. It was painted in faded green camouflage, and the plane's propeller engines were extremely loud in comparison to the relatively quiet jets that had landed before it. In the airborne Presidential entourage, this C-130 was the runt, the caboose. The Number 4. Its cargo hold held nothing more exotic than a pair of backup Presidential limousines, some Presidential suitcases, and the various pets of the Presidential entourage.

  No surprise its radio call sign was "Doghouse."

  *****

  The pilot of this aircraft was Major Bobby Delaney. Mid-thirties, narrow but solidly built, with a shock of rusty hair, he'd been in the Air Force fifteen years, the last eighteen months of which he'd spent flying the Doghouse.

  Earlier in his career, he'd drawn some good duty, including a DFC for his performance flying F-15's during the Gulf War. But since that time, he'd watched many of his colleagues leave the military to take jobs with the airlines or driving private business jets. Many were now making over six figures in salary.

  Delaney hated his present job, and not just because of the shitty service pay he was drawing. This duty was long days and long nights, with many hours of boredom in between. Not two months into his assignment, he'd made an informal request to be re-designated. But his superiors had informed him that resigning Presidential duty so early would be considered extremely imprudent.

  So Delaney was stuck, for at least another eighteen months anyway, hauling around two bulletproof cars and a half-dozen poodles and cats. He was serving his country by flying what was essentially a cross between an airborne tow truck and a kennel.

  Next to his divorce eight years before, nothing had been quite so miserable.

  *****

  The flight to St. Louis had been a routine if bumpy affair.

  A storm system over southern Ohio had forced a fifty-mile diversion over Kentucky. By the time Delaney's plane entered St. Louis ATC coverage, the three previous airplanes in the Presidential entourage had already been unloaded.

  It was dark and raining even harder when Delaney finally landed the four-prop beast on an auxiliary airstrip at the airport. The unloading of the backup limos—always a laborious process—began soon afterwards. A team of Secret Service agents had to inspect each limo before it was unstrapped from its tethers in the back of the airplane. After this, each limo was rolled down the plane's cargo ramp, then inspected yet again. During all this inspection, Delaney and his four-man crew were required to stay in the C-130's cramped cockpit, thumbs- in-asses, until the all-clear was given. With the rain and the gathering darkness, this time-intensive drill stretched into two hours, nearly as long as the flight from Andrews Air Force Base had taken in the first place.

  By the time the crew was finally released, Delaney was hungry, thirsty, and feeling like he'd just dug ditches for fifteen hours. It was all he could do to drag himself up to the airport's messy food shop and order a massive cup of black coffee.

  "Hey, Slick," he heard a voice behind him say. "Brazil called. They're running out of beans."

  Delaney spun around to see a face he hadn't set eyes on since the last days of the Gulf War.

  "Jazz? Jazz Norton?" he whispered. "You've got to be shitting me. . . ."

  It was Jazz. He'd been waiting at the other end of the coffee shop for the last six hours.

  They shook hands heartily. Delaney had flown with Norton during Desert Storm.

  Norton signaled for a cup of coffee. "How you been, Slick?" he asked.

  Delaney didn't reply. He just kept staring at Norton. His old friend was wearing a black nylon jacket, white Western-style shirt, brand-new jeans and boots, and a baseball cap. He couldn't recall seeing Norton dressed quite that way before.

  "Jessuzz, man," Delaney asked him. "Are you still in the service?"

  "Yeah, still am," Norton mumbled.

  The coffee arrived and they found an isolated table in the corner of the shop.

  Delaney was still a bit in shock.

  "What are you doing here, Jazz?" he asked. "Is this just a happy accident?"

  Norton chose to ignore the question. "You're still flying around with the President, I see," he said instead.

  Delaney took a gulp of his coffee. "Almost a year and a half," he answered. "With another year and a half to go."

  "Must be nice duty," Norton said, dumping five teaspoons of sugar into his own coffee.

  "Best I've ever, done," Delaney said. "Warm bed every night. Lots of travel. See a lot of interesting shit. Meet a lot of interesting people. I've become fascinated with the Presidents. Reading a lot about them. You know—who they were, what they did . . ."

  "You hate it that much?" Norton interrupted him.

  "Do I ever," Delaney replied without missing a beat. "I'd rather go to downtown Baghdad every night than be someone's chauffeur's chauffeur."

  Norton stopped in mid-sip.

  "Be careful what you wish for, old buddy," he said.

  Delaney studied his old friend again. It was as if he hadn't aged a day in the last nine years.

  "So, Jazz, what's up?" he pressed Norton. "My gut tells me this isn't just a co-inky-dinky that you're here."

  "Well, I can tell you," Norton replied. "But then I'll have to kill you."

  Delaney just shook his head. The clothes were giving Norton away.

  "Man, I can't believe this," he said finally. "You've gone Spook? Really ?"

  Norton just shrugged and sipped his coffee again.

  "But you always hated those guys, Jazz," Delaney said. "I've seen you sleep through intelligence briefings."

  "Things change," Norton replied.

  Delaney could only
shake his head. "Jazz Norton— philosopher and Spook. This is too much. . . ."

  Norton leaned a bit closer over the table and lowered his voice a bit.

  "OK, here's the straight jack," he said. "I got privy to your desire to drop out of this Presidential car caravan stuff. I passed that information on to some new acquaintances of mine."

  "Other Spooks?"

  "Yep."

  "What kind? From where?"

  Norton just shook his head. "You've never heard of them."

  "Hmmm, CIA, huh?" Delaney said. "OK, go on."

  "Well, when I first met them they wanted to know if I was into changing my surroundings," Norton said. "Like immediately, and in a very radical manner."

  "Cool . . ."

  "Don't be too hasty," Norton cautioned him. "I heard them out, and they gave me an hour to think about it. I did, and then went back and told them no. Then they said too bad, and sprung a letter from your boss himself."

  Delaney had to think a moment.

  "My boss? You mean the President?" Delaney asked.

  "Yep," Norton replied. "It was a Presidential Action Letter and it had my name all over it."

  "What did it say?"

  "It said my commander in chief was ordering me to join this . . . well, little enterprise that's been cooked up. And that I really had no choice in the matter."

  "Christ, Jazz," Delaney said. "This sounds deep."

  Norton grinned a moment. "Let's just say that some people in the Agency are never at a loss for dreaming up wacky stuff."

  He paused a moment.

  "But truth is, something's come up and for whatever reason they picked me to be involved."

  Delaney took just his second sip of his coffee since they'd sat down. It was already cold.

  "So, Jazz, you've had a big career change," he said. "What's that have to do with me?"

  "Well," Norton said. "When I climbed on board I got to pick who I wanted to go down the yellow brick road with. . . ."

  "And you picked me?" Delaney asked with a kind of half-gasp. "Why?"

  Norton sat back and relaxed a bit.

  "During Desert Storm, you were the best in our outfit," he told Delaney matter-of-factly.

  "That's bullshit," Delaney shot back. "You were the top man. You were the squadron gunslinger, for Christ's sake. We followed you in—not the other way around."

  "OK," Norton replied. "I was good at getting to the target and getting the weapons onto it. But you were better at getting us the hell home."

  Delaney started to protest—but stopped. It was true, he couldn't argue. Whenever the unit went out and things got hairy—be it bad weather, nighttime, Gomer flak, or all three—they all turned to him and he always led the way home. Truth was, he didn't know how he did it most of the time. He'd just pointed his jet south, followed his nose, and brought the pack home, which, despite all their navigation and homing equipment, was still a difficult thing to do at times.

  "OK," Delaney said at last. "I'm a hound dog. So what?"

  Norton leaned in closer again.

  "So my new friends say we might need someone who's good at getting home again."

  "You are using that as the royal 'we,' I hope?"

  "Not necessarily," Norton replied.

  Delaney sat back and thought a moment. "Man, you're giving me the creeps. Are you saying you want me to get mixed up in whatever bad spy novel you've found yourself in?"

  "Yep," was Norton's succinct reply.

  Delaney finally drained his cup.

  "Well, as much as I hate doping around some White House asshole's cat, I'm also smart enough not to volunteer for anything," he said.

  Norton just shook his head. "This isn't a volunteering situation."

  "What do you mean?" Delaney asked.

  "Well, like I said, when I jumped on board, they asked me who I wanted with me and I told them you," Norton replied.

  "So?"

  "So you know that letter I got from your boss, the President himself?"

  Delaney nodded.

  Norton reached into his jacket pocket, took out an envelope, and placed it on the table in front of Delaney. It was red and was sealed with red tape.

  "Well," Norton said, "he wrote one for you too."

  Chapter 5

  Thule, Greenland

  Next day

  At noon on what was the warmest day of the year so far in Thule, Greenland, it was thirty-four degrees below zero and the wind was howling at forty-five knots.

  This was typical weather for the isolated U.S. Air Force base this time of year. It was located just a few hundred miles from the North Pole, and anything above fifty below and below fifty knots windspeed was considered downright balmy.

  That didn't mean the weather was enjoyable, though. Just about everyone who wasn't on duty at the frigid base was either asleep or at the Exchange Club, a combination PX, restaurant, barbershop, and bar.

  In the past, at any given time as many as two thousand Air Force personnel could have been found at Thule. But a lessening of Cold War jitters had reduced the base's profile to little more than a pinprick in the snow. It was once a stopping-off point for massive B-52 bombers on nuclear-alert exercises, interceptors keeping an eye on Soviet recon planes, or perhaps something more exotic like the occasional U-2 spy plane dropping in for some gas. Now Thule was a place only the unluckiest of pilots found themselves diverted to.

  Among the reduced number of inhabitants these days, the talk always concerned the weather, the snow, the cold. By far the most exciting thing that had happened at the base in years was a recent rash of UFO reports. Bright lights had been seen zipping back and forth across the horizon. Some red, some bright blue, they were said to be doing some fantastic things in the sky, especially over the mountains to the north.

  The base commander finally had to issue a directive informing all base personnel that officially nothing unusual was flying anywhere near the base and that it was best that the UFO talk dry up and everyone go back to concentrating on their mission—which was staying warm. The UFO reports faded after that, which was too bad.

  At this point in its long service life, an alien invasion of Thule would have livened things up considerably.

  *****

  The unofficial name of the Base Exchange saloon was the Ice Cube, usually written as Iceᵌ. Sitting at the end of its crowded bar at the moment were two men who'd been in town for only a week. They were the commanders of a massive KC-10 aerial tanker attached to the 157th Air National Guard refueling wing out of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

  Their airplane had wound up in Thule after making a routine training flight eight days before. A bad engine had forced them to stay grounded. Then the weather got worse and the orders came down that no unnecessary flight operations would be permitted until the weather broke. Between getting the bum engine fixed and the snow, seven interminable days had passed by.

  So here the crew had sat, cold, drunk, and bored, waiting for a receiver valve for their engine and a break in the "summer weather."

  The nickname of their KC-10 was "The Pegasus." It had a reputation of sorts around the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Its crew was known as the best in the aerial refueling game. They were held in high esteem by fighter pilots who on occasion found themselves flying on dark nights over the North Atlantic with the weather getting bad and their fuel tanks getting low. Many times the Pegasus would take off from Portsmouth, find the lonely fighter, fill its tanks, and get it home safely.

  The commander of the KC-10 was Major Jimmy Gillis. He was a tall, lanky, handsome man of fifty-three. His copilot was Captain Marty Ricco, stout, muscular, two years younger than Gillis. Both men were married and lived in New Hampshire; both had two kids. They'd been piloting the Pegasus for nearly twelve years together. Their crew of seven had been with them for almost as long. They were a tight group. Besides seeing service during the Gulf War, they'd participated in countless exercises over the North Atlantic, plus three European TDYs in support of N
ATO Bosnia air patrols. Together the crew had experienced many high points.

  Being stuck in frozen Thule was not one of them.

  *****

  By 1930 hours, Gillis and Ricco had finished their third beer of the evening. Their enlisted guys were playing video games nearby. Country music was blasting from the PA system. The TV above the bar was showing some Alpine games—a cruel joke—but Gillis and Ricco found their eyes glued to the screen. So bored were they that even an hours-long program about skiing, skating, and bobsledding could capture their attention.

  So neither they nor anyone else at the bar noticed the plane that landed on the base's main runway at precisely 1935 hours. It was the first aircraft to come into the base in three days, and it was, in a sense, an unusual one.

  The airplane was a C-14 Jetstar, a bird usually reserved for flying big brass around. It was the military equivalent of a Learjet. Small, powerful, two jet engines, a rather luxurious interior.

  The Jetstar set down quietly and discharged two passengers. Its pilots were told to do a "hot" gas-up—that is, take on fuel while their engines were still turning. If all went as the two passengers hoped, neither they nor the Jetstar would be staying in Thule very long.

  Dressed in heavy parkas, the passengers made their way over to the Ice Cube, and after a battle with the wind and blowing snow, managed to open its inner door. Finally waddling inside, they quickly closed the door behind them and headed towards the bar.

  No one in the place paid them any attention, least of all Gillis and Ricco. It was only after the two men reached the end of the bar that Ricco bothered to look up. Both men pulled back their hoods and wiped the ice and snow from their faces. Ricco stared up at them and then nudged Gillis.