Chopper Ops

by Mack Maloney

  The last one had departed just thirty minutes ago. Once it had reported from its first radio checkpoint that all was OK, Howard dragged himself back to his quarters and collapsed on the bed. He hadn't slept for more than ten minutes at a time in the past two days. Now he was hoping for at least six undisturbed hours of down time, maybe even more.

  Yet no sooner had he drifted off when his phone rang.

  It was the security officer for the base.

  "Sorry to bother you, sir," he said. "But we have a Green-Zulu-Six situation. . . ."

  It took a moment for these code words to sink into Howard's sleepy brain.

  "Are you sure?" he asked the security officer. "Green-Zulu-Six?"

  "That's confirmed, sir," was the reply. "We're looking at something happening inside of fifteen minutes."

  Howard checked the time. It was 0130 hours—one- thirty in the morning. It was raining outside.

  "OK," Howard told the security officer wearily. "Call a Code Three alert. I'll meet you on the flight line in five minutes."

  *****

  Four minutes and thirty seconds later, Howard was roaring along the base's main runway. Up ahead he could see six vehicles gathered near the auxiliary taxiway. He tapped his HumVee driver on the shoulder, and the man brought them to a skidding stop right in front of the base security officer's vehicle.

  Howard got out and pulled his rain slicker up around his neck. It was a fallacy that it was always hot and dry in the desert. Many times it was cold, wet, and miserable. This was one of those times.

  The security officer approached. Even through his slicker, Howard could see his face looked rather troubled.

  "Green-Zulu-Six?" Howard asked him again. "You're certain?"

  "Yes, sir," the security officer replied. "We got the message about oh-one-thirty hours. Confirmed it two minutes ago."

  Green-Zulu-Six was code for an unauthorized flight requesting permission to land at the secret base. Usually this meant some kind of defection was about to take place, usually Iraqi pilots bugging out and taking their fighter jets or helicopters with them. Of course, the U.S. military greeted such people with open arms, especially if they brought additional valuables like code books along with them.

  "Is the translator at the ready?" Howard asked the security man.

  But the man did not reply right away. Howard looked at him closely; he could tell the officer had something further to tell him.

  "Well, spit it out," Howard told him. "What is it?"

  "This is not an Iraqi defection situation, sir," the security man finally said.

  "What do you mean? You said Green-Zulu-Six."

  "We do have an unauthorized flight coming in," the security man replied. ''But the call sign matches an aircraft that once flew from this very base. An American aircraft."

  Howard just stared at him. "What are you talking about? Why would an American airplane be requesting a Green-Zulu landing?"

  The security officer had anticipated this question. He had with him a prime operations log. It was a record of all takeoffs and landings made at the base in any given year. This book was for 1991.

  He opened the page to February 9. He pointed to an entry. It read: ArcLight 4.

  Howard scanned the page and looked at the security man.

  "Is this a joke?" he asked, not in the mood.

  "I . . . don't know, sir," the security man replied.

  He pointed to the page again.

  "This aircraft, U.S. Air Force AC-130 . . . code-named ArcLight 4 . . . has asked for permission to land here, sir."

  Howard was suddenly trembling slightly, though he didn't know why. He'd heard about ArcLight 4, of course. The special ops plane took off from Al-Khalid nearly ten years ago and simply disappeared.

  Now it was coming back?

  "That's what it says," the security man replied. "The person we talked to on the plane knows all the old security codes, as well as the current ones."

  Howard just shook his head. This didn't make sense. He didn't want it to make sense.

  "OK, call command," he told the man finally. "And get your security detail up here."

  The security officer pointed to the four troop trucks parked nearby.

  "Already on hand, sir," he said. "And no other flights are due in."

  "Damn," Howard whispered to himself. "Am I still asleep?"

  "I'm asking myself the same thing, sir," the security man replied.

  *****

  Fifteen minutes later, there were twenty-two heavily armed troops lining the end of the main runway at Al-Khalid.

  It was still raining, but some fog had moved in and now visibility was down to almost zero.

  Howard was there, leaning against his HumVee, with a video man as well as the base chaplain. Four emergency vehicles were parked nearby. The rest of Al-Khalid was on lockdown.

  Howard had no idea what to expect. He was closely watching the time. The plane was supposed to have landed ten minutes ago. Yet absolutely nothing had happened.

  He finally turned to the security man. "This is a bust," he said. "Must have been a security test or something."

  That was when they heard a deep groaning sound. It seemed very far away and oddly echoing. It startled them all.

  "Jeesuz," Howard whispered. "What the fuck was that?"

  The chaplain shifted his weight from one foot to the other, but Howard didn't care. He'd been around airplanes all his career. He was a pilot as well. He knew their different sounds. And what he heard now—eerily so—was the distinctive sound of a C-130 Hercules on final approach.

  He turned to the video man and said: "Start taping and don't miss a thing or your ass is in Thule."

  The sound got louder. Deeper.

  Then through the fog they saw a light. It was very faint at first. But slowly it grew brighter and brighter, until it was sending a thin beam piercing through the rain and mist. It seemed like a monster flying right at them.

  Suddenly it burst through the fog. It looked huge, ghostly—and it was going way too fast.

  "Damn!" Howard heard a few people cry.

  The C-130 roared by them at tremendous speed and way too high for a successful landing. It was trailing smoke and exhaust, and was moving through the fog in such a way that it looked like a blurry photo.

  As quickly as it came, it was gone, enveloped by the fog again. In all, they'd seen it for only two or three seconds, no more.

  "Dear Jesus, what the fuck was that!" the chaplain cried out.

  No one was sure. It was quiet again for a few seconds. Then they heard the deep rumbling again.

  They all looked to the right, as if the airplane had turned around and was coming in again. But then it roared by—from the opposite direction.

  This time it was a little lower, but it was still going very, very fast.

  The noise didn't go away, though. The airplane made an impossibly tight turn and came in a third time. This time it was still going fast, but it was very low.

  And its wheels were down.

  "Shit! He's going to crash!" Howard yelled.

  The plane slammed into the runway an instant later. It came down hard, bounced, came down again, scraped its right wing along the asphalt, causing a brilliant cascade of sparks, bounced again, and then finally came down for good about eight hundred feet from Howard's position.

  In seconds, the base's emergency vehicles were screaming down the runway after it, as were the trucks filled with security troops. Howard found himself running towards the near-wreck, the chaplain on one side, the video man on the other.

  When they arrived, the rescue team had already reached the aircraft and had yanked one of the rear doors open.

  And that was when they all saw a very haunting sight.

  A troop of soldiers came marching out of the airplane. They looked ghostly. Their uniforms were covered with white dust, as were their faces. Some were also covered with dried blood. Two were on stretchers. But they were in order and in step, and they marched out
like a company of spirits, right past everyone and coming to a stop in a single line beside the burning airplane.

  Howard felt a chill go right through him. The chaplain made the sign of the cross. The video man stopped taping; he was too stunned.

  Three men came crawling out of the heavily damaged cockpit. The rescue forces were on hand to help, but the trio did not want any assistance. It seemed important to them that they walk away from the demolished airplane under their own power.

  These men looked as bad as the frightful soldiers. Two of them Howard tagged as pilots. The third man looked particularly agitated. He walked right up to Howard and flashed a burned and broken ID badge. It was CIA. It identified the man as Gene Smitz.

  "My men need a hot meal and a place to sleep," he told Howard. "Then we want transport out to a commercial airport."

  "And who the hell are you?" Howard demanded.

  "You have a cell phone?" Smitz asked in reply.

  Howard didn't, but the chaplain did. Howard snapped his fingers, and Smitz was soon punching a series of numbers into the phone. Smitz waited for the phone to ring twice. Someone on the other end finally answered. Smitz threw the phone back to Howard.

  "Ask them who we are," he said.

  Howard had a brief conversation and read out the numbers on Smitz's ID card. Then he counted the number of men lined up beside the airplane.

  Then he turned back to Smitz.

  "They want to know what happened to the helicopters," he said.

  Smitz looked as if he was about to burst. The two men behind him shared this feeling.

  "Tell them," Smitz said in measured angry words, "that our mission was to return the ArcLight 4 and its crew. There's the airplane—and there are thirteen body bags inside. You can bury them as far out in the desert as you want. I suggest in unmarked graves. . . ."

  Howard repeated these words to the person at the other end of the phone.

  Then one of the pilots broke through and had another thing to say. It was Norton.

  "And tell them they can cancel their buddy Jacobs' pension payments," he said angrily. "He won't be needing them anymore."

  Howard said these words too. There was a long pause. Then he shut off the phone and called up his security officer.

  "Give all these men a hot meal and a place to sleep," he snapped. Then he looked at the ragged bunch and the burning airplane.

  "In fact, give them anything they want. . . ."

  Chapter 32

  Rye, New Hampshire

  One week later

  It was already hot this Saturday morning when Ryan Gillis arrived at the empty ballpark.

  He took his ball from his glove and rubbed dirt on it. Then he picked up his bat and rubbed dirt on it too. Next he put dirt on his hands—he wasn't sure why. He'd seen a lot of real ballplayers do this, so he thought he should do it too. After his disastrous oh-for-four, three-error debut a week earlier, he figured he needed all the help he could get.

  The park seemed bigger this early morning—big and empty. Ryan just sighed, picked up his ball, and hit it straight up. As soon as the ball left his bat, he slipped his glove on, planted himself under the ball, and caught it. At least he was getting good at this routine.

  He picked up the ball again, adjusted his glove, threw the ball in the air, and hit it again. Again, it went straight up, he pulled his glove back on, and got under the popup just in time to catch it.

  Two for two . . .

  He repeated the process again, but this time he somehow managed to hit the ball very high behind him. He quickly yanked on his glove and started backpedaling, trying to keep his balance and his eye on the ball at the same time.

  The ball seemed to hang up forever, but when it came down Ryan finally got himself right under it. He lifted his glove, closed his eyes, and . . . nothing happened.

  He stood there waiting for the ball to hit him somewhere—on the head was usually where he got plunked. But this did not happen.

  So finally he opened his eyes.

  And that was when he realized someone else had caught the ball. Someone who was standing right over him—an adult. The ball was firmly in his hand. Ryan spun around and looked up.

  And that was when he saw the hand belonged to his father.

  "Dad!" he yelled, dropping bat and glove and hugging his father for the first time in many years.

  "Hey, kid," Gillis said. "Looking good with that glove these days."

  Ryan held on tight.

  "Geesh, Dad," he said, looking up at his father's weary eyes. "Where have you been all this time?"

  Gillis laughed. "I can't tell you, son," he said. "If I did, then I'd have to . . . well, never mind."

  Ryan's eyes widened. "Wow! You mean you really were on a secret mission?"

  Gillis picked up the bat, and handed Ryan his glove.

  "I promise I'll tell you all about it someday," he said.

  He threw the ball in the air and hit a high pop-up. His back hurt from the swing, and his burned legs still twinged, but he didn't really feel the pain.

  "In the meantime," Gillis said, "let's see what you've learned since I've been away."

  Ryan ran and caught the ball and began to hand it back to Gillis—but then stopped and took a deep sniff.

  "Hey, Dad," he said. "How come you smell so much like gasoline?"

  Gillis managed another smile, and took the ball from Ryan's glove again.

  "I'll tell you all about that someday too," he said.

  *****

  The waters were unusually calm in the Straits of Florida this hazy Sunday afternoon.

  The chartered game-fishing boat was heading south, at high speed, having left Key West about a half hour before.

  The boat cost $150 an hour to rent, bait and tackle included, but the two passengers had no interest in fishing. This was a covert ride.

  Neither one had even touched the free beer provided them by the boat's owner. From this, he knew something was up with them, so he just let them be. Sitting on the rear deck, staring out at the wake of the vessel, they looked like two soldiers suffering from shell shock. The boat owner knew it was best he leave them alone.

  They had given him a strange destination—and would pay him $100 extra if he found it too. This was odd because he knew the place they wanted to go to very well. He'd brought many people there in the past two weeks. In fact, he'd been enjoying a real boom in transporting sports fishermen out there lately.

  So this was another reason why the boat owner kept his mouth shut.

  *****

  The trip took less than ninety minutes. The only thing that slowed them down really was the gaggle of surface traffic surrounding the location where the two mysterious guys wanted to go.

  So crowded was this place, it took fifteen extra minutes and many calls to the marina before the boat owner was finally able to find them an open berth at the dock.

  Only then did he pull into the south bay of Seven Ghosts Key.

  *****

  Norton and Delaney climbed off the boat in a state of shock. Actually, they were suffering from a state of shock on top of the state of shock they'd been in for the past week or so.

  Seven Ghosts was simply crawling with people. Small private planes flying in and out. Hundreds of fishing boats tied up or anchored offshore. The south beach full of sunbathers.

  The restaurant was especially packed. There had to be at least a couple thousand people—men, women, and kids—crowded onto the previously isolated island.

  The two pilots just stood and stared at it all.

  "Have I finally gone crazy?" Norton asked.

  *****

  It had been that kind of week.

  They stayed at Al-Khalid only a few hours. The thought of getting caught on the ground, exposed again, still haunted all of them.

  So somehow Smitz arranged for two buses to carry them out of the secret air base and on to Riyadh. Once there, he gave each man a credit card, the source of which was unknown. Then they all b
oarded commercial flights—seventeen different ones—and flew in different directions.

  Norton and Delaney went east, through Islamabad, to Delhi, to Sydney, Hong Kong, and finally Anchorage. They lay low there for two days before flying to San Diego and finally on to Miami.

  They moved like dead men, with ease but caution. The bad guys in the CIA probably didn't know where they were or if they were dead or alive, and they wanted to keep it that way. They were both still carrying for protection the huge pistols they had used to shoot down the AC-130 gunship. And anytime they were stopped by airport security, they simply flashed their Level Six security passes and were let through.

  They really felt like lost men, though. Like ghosts doomed to wander the earth, with nowhere to go. So they'd decided early on that the one place they could seek answers and revenge was back where it all started: Seven Ghosts Key.

  But now, the place looked as crowded as Disneyworld.

  ''Man, just when you think things can't get any nuttier," Delaney said. "They do!"

  They started walking slowly down the runway, wondering if this was like a CIA family outing or something. It didn't seem to be, though. Everyone they passed appeared very normal, very touristy. Very un-CIA.

  They finally reached the restaurant, and it was absolutely jammed. And next door, gone were the shuttered-tight buildings that had housed their simulators. The structures were now open and housing dozens of small private airplanes. And the places where the Marines had attacked and billeted were now overnight motels.

  They elbowed their way into the restaurant, and found the big briefing room filled with happy drunks and ravenous diners. Yet everything, including the wall murals, was the same.