by Al Ruksenas
Major Lee knelt down near the exposed fuselage and brushed some sand away with his palm.
“Eastern bloc,” he said matter of factly. “The rivet work is functional, but not aesthetic.” He stood up and rubbed sand granules from his hands. “If it’s not Egyptian, it could be one of the other client states of the old Soviet Union.”
“Shall we start digging, sir?” Captain Stallworth prodded.
“Uhh, yes,” replied Major Lee. “Dig toward the front here so we could find a hatch. This could be a big sucker and your men won’t appreciate digging the whole thing out with shovels. Let’s see if we can get inside. Then we’ll know if we need to be careful or if we can just bulldoze the thing out.”
Captain Stallworth motioned his men to dig where the Major was pointing.
After some strenuous digging the soldiers uncovered an air intake for turbine engines.
“Holy shit! This thing is big,” Major Billingsly declared. “We’re still near the main rotor shaft.”
“If it’s laying on its side, a hatch ought‘a be over there somewhere,” Major Lee said.
The soldiers dug farther away from the rotor shaft where the Major was pointing. Each shovel seemed to be thrust with eager anticipation until finally one soldier hit glass. “A porthole, sir!”
“All right! Let’s concentrate over here! Right here!” Major Lee shouted enthusiastically. “The main hatch should be right here. This looks like one of the biggest choppers the Soviets ever built.”
“A Mil,” Major Billingsly offered.
“Bingo!” replied his intelligence companion.
“I’d hate to have to dig this out by hand,” Major Lee told the captain in charge. “If it’s an Mi 6 or 10, it’s more than thirty meters long and nine meters tall.”
“There were only about five hundred of these babies built,” Major Billingsly told Captain Stallworth and the men around him. “It had the biggest rotor system of its time and set world records in speed and payload.”
“NATO designation ‘Hook’,” Major Lee added. “The rotors and shafting were tremendous. Its gearbox alone weighed more than three tons, more than both its engines. It had little wings to help with lift.”
“What would it be doing out here, sir,” Captain Stallworth asked the obvious.
“Good question,” the intelligence officer replied. “It depends on how long it’s been here.”
“It first flew around Nineteen fifty‐seven,” Major Billingsly said. “So, by the time it passed into client hands like the Bulgarians, North Vietnamese, or in this case, Syrians or Iraqis, I’d say it would have to be of pretty recent vintage.”
“I’m still not convinced it can’t be Egyptian,” Major Billingsly added for good measure. “I’m not sure some of these local militaries keep such good inventory or know what’s going on in their own forces...” He quickly caught himself to see if any Egyptian officers were within earshot.
“Well!” announced Colonel Vandergaard who had come with his Egyptian counterpart upon the brightly lit circle highlighting pieces of rotor and fuselage exposed in the sand and surrounded by a tight ring of curious soldiers. “The only way we’ll know anything is if we dig. So, let’s end this speculation and find out what we have here. A little muscle exercise trumps intellectual exercise in a case like this.”
“Right on! Yo! and Yes, sir!” echoed anonymously among the soldiers in support of their commander’s retort to the intelligence officers.
Soon the digging party had uncovered the forward hatch of the helicopter. When it was completely exposed they stepped back. The soldiers look warily at the hatch, wondering what was inside this flood‐lit entrance made eerie by the darkness of the desert around it.
“Who wants to check it out?” asked Major Lee.
“Well, sir. They sent you gentlemen here especially…” Captain Stallworth began.
“You got some ‘night eyes’?” Major Billingsly cut in. “Let’s open the hatch and get to it.”
Sounds of approval erupted from the troops, while several soldiers grappled with the hatch. They opened it without too much effort.
The floodlights were enough to illuminate the pilot still strapped in his seat, hanging downward toward the co‐pilot’s seat. The co‐pilot was missing. A hint of the stench of death emanated from within. The heat and dryness of the desert were kind to those it claimed and entombed in its shifting sands. So much so, that it was difficult to say how long the helicopter had been there.
“I see the pilot, poor soul,” said Major Billingsly as he looked into the cockpit with his night vision goggles. “Can’t make out his features, but he’s pretty well preserved. Co‐pilot’s gone. If his harness broke on impact, maybe he’s farther down.”
The major looked towards the opposite hatch directly below him. He saw the crumpled form of a figure.
“The co‐pilot’s down there too. He’s lying on the starboard bulkhead.”
Major Billingsly sprawled onto the fuselage next to the open hatch, lowered his head and peered deep into the cargo area. “Looks empty back there. No troops. No equipment.” He scanned back and forth with his goggles.
“Wait a minute! I think I can make out something—one, maybe two men! We’ll need to go inside with more light. These goggles don’t give me enough detail.”
Minutes later he was gingerly stepping inside the cockpit of the huge helicopter lying on its side. Major Billingsly used the side of the pilot’s seat as a step, then carefully placed his other foot on the side of the co‐pilot’s seat as another step. As he did so, he brushed against the shoulder and head of the pilot’s remains. He heard a scurrying sound and quickly looked toward it. Two scorpions darted into openings of the shattered instrument panel.
A chill coursed through the major’s spine. What if there were snakes here too?
“Let’s get some more light down here!” he shouted. Meanwhile, he did not move. He stood on the side of the co‐pilot’s seat with the dead pilot’s head and right shoulder resting against his calf. The major tried not to think about it.
Someone from above shined a beacon into the cockpit. The Major recognized by the windowed bomber‐like nose that this was likely an Mi 6. He looked all around him to be sure there were no other living creatures nearby as he waited for more illumination and for someone to join him in this cavernous tomb to alleviate his sense of unease.
“We’ll rig up a rope ladder!” Major Lee said. “We’ll send down a party with pallets and body bags. How many do you need?”
“About three or four at this point!” his intelligence partner replied. “I don’t know what’s back in the payload area. This thing can carry about seventy troops.”
A rope ladder dropped next to him and he felt his way onto it. Alongside it was a rope with a heavy duty flashlight attached. Billingsly undid the flashlight and aimed it downward as he climbed. After several more steps he was on the starboard bulkhead of the helicopter, where he now looked for footing. He fixed his light on the crumpled figure at his feet. The co‐pilot was huddled with his face turned away from the Air Force intelligence officer, as if looking at the instrument panel. The major panned around the body, which was dressed in a khaki flight suit. It looked old fashioned.
“This craft could not have been here that long,” he thought. “Everything looks so well‐preserved.” But he knew the desert climate could force inaccurate conclusions.
Meanwhile, Major Lee and Captain Stallworth were carefully negotiating the rope ladder.
Major Billingsly played his beam around the body and focused on a navigation map lying on a porthole near the co‐pilot’s head. Landmarks were in the Cyrillic alphabet. There were some handwritten notations near Aswan to the northwest, indicating the site of the Aswan Dam—a project still in progress. Another notation in the margin indicated some geographical coordinates and the date:
30.XI.58. The major bent down to get a closer look at the map and noticed the co‐pilot’s withered, but well‐preserved face.
The features did not appear Egyptian.
“This guy’s not a local,” he said to the other two officers who alighted in the tight space on the bulkhead next to him.
“Russian?” Major Lee ventured.
“Most probably.”
Major Lee shone a flashlight upward and aimed it into the face of the pilot strapped and dangling like a rag doll in his seat several feet above him.
The beam created deep shadows in the hollows where his eyes used to be. The rest of his face was tight, dried, but clearly enough Caucasian.
“Both probably Russian,” Major Billingsly said. He shone his light back on the porthole. “Look at that map. This chopper’s been here a long time.”
“How long?” Captain Stallworth interjected with rapt attention.
“Nineteen fifty‐eight.”
“Nineteen fifty‐eight?” the captain and the other intelligence officer replied in unison.
“There’s some coordinates in the margin. We’ll see what our friends have been up to.”
“What’s in the back?” Major Lee asked.
“Let’s check and let’s get out of here,” his companion replied. “This thing is starting to give me the creeps.”
Major Billingsly worked his way carefully to the cargo area, playing his beam back and forth with slight movements of his neck. The huge payload area was empty, except for two other figures lying near one another in the dark. The beam of the flashlight could not take in the whole scene in one sweep, causing alternate light and shadow on portions of the flyers’ remains.
“It looks like two more bodies,” Major Billingsly said. He continued shining his light back and forth along the bulkhead of the helicopter. “Both in old flight suits.” He worked his way closer. “One of them is wearing a shoulder holster.”
Billingsly crept closer along the uncluttered bulkhead towards the figure with the shoulder holster, whose hand—now illuminated in the beam—was outstretched above his head, as if reaching for something. A knife lay loosely in his palm, released from a clenched grip of death. There seemed to be some words etched in Cyrillic on the bulkhead. The major leaned forward with his flashlight and stretched his hand toward the bulkhead to get a better view.
He could not have seen the sand viper coiled under the flyer’s armpit. As he focused his light it struck him on the forearm with a lightning lunge.
“I’m bit! I’m bit!” he yelled more from surprise, than pain. He dropped his flashlight. “Snake! Snake!”
Major Lee and Captain Stallworth instinctively shuffled backwards in the dark to avoid a strike, pulling Major Billingsly with them.
“Where did it hit you?” Captain Stallworth asked urgently as he hurriedly pulled his belt from his pants. Major Lee had drawn his pistol and was shining his light back and forth in front of them.
“My arm! My arm!” Major Billingsly said breathlessly.
“Stay calm! Stay calm!” Captain Stallworth urged. He tied his belt around the intelligence officer’s right arm as they groped for the rope ladder.
“Medic!” Captain Stallworth yelled up the hatch. “Snakebite! Get ready with antivenom!”
He guided Major Billingsly up the short stretch of rope ladder and followed him out of the helicopter’s cockpit. Major Lee hurried up behind them.
Below, dimly backlit by the abandoned flashlight in the cargo area, the helicopter evoked the look of a temple‐like tomb of the four mysterious flyers.
Chapter 41
“Something's come up,” General William Bradley intoned over his secure telephone to Colonel Caine. “Report to Andrews. You and Arie are going back to the Middle East.”
Caine hoped that his General was not fixated on Middle Eastern terrorists again. He had seemed reluctant to accept paranormal scenarios up to now, but he also had not categorically rejected them.
Caine had promised Laura again during his hospital visit with her uncle, that he would investigate the museum connection. His interest was no longer a favor to her, but self driven. Now in delaying it once more, he hoped her vigil at her uncle’s bedside would prevent her from delving on her own. No more coincidences, he thought. There was something dangerous going on.
He would start with his friend, Al Carruthers, the assistant curator. Caine dismissed the thought that he might be involved with something. Carruthers was too trusting, God‐fearing. He saw only the best in people. Al would more likely be oblivious to something sinister around him, than part of it, Caine thought with a private smile. Nevertheless, he would not share his suspicions.
“Our units found an old chopper in the sands,” General Bradley said. “It’s Soviet built. Looks like it’s been there for some time. This is a good change of pace for you—being our expert on everything Soviet.”
“What about Jeannie?”
“We’re all working on it. You can come back with a fresh perspective on her case. In fact, while you’re there, see if you can circle around other leads on terrorist connections. It’s Egypt this time.”
“Yes, sir,” Caine replied perfunctorily. He felt diverted.
“You’ll get your orders at Andrews.” The General ended the call.
***
Soon Colonel Caine was back at George Washington University Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit. When he walked into Jonas Mitchell’s room again, Laura knew he was leaving for somewhere.
“Always the vagabond,” she said bittersweetly from his bedside.
“Hopefully, not for long. Any change?”
“The same as when you left. It’s been touch and go from the start.”
Caine approached the other side of the bed and took Jonas Mitchell’s hand. Mitchell squeezed it in response. “You’re a spry old man,” Caine said looking at him with a reassuring smile.
“He’s been through a lot,” Laura said. “His body knows hurt. It remembers physical assaults and years of abuse. That’s why he’s strong.”
“We’ll get to the bottom of this assault,” Caine declared.
“It was no accident,” Laura asserted looking probingly at the Colonel.
“No. It was no accident.”
“How long will you be gone?”
Caine looked at her.
“I know. You don’t know.”
“As soon as I get back, I’ll look into the museum.”
“With Al?”
“With Al and whoever. Just don’t try anything yourself.”
She looked at him without responding.
“Promise me.”
“Chances are, I’ll be spending most of my time here.”
Caine walked around the bed to Laura. He patted her uncle on the shoulder, squeezed his hand, and then kissed her on the cheek.
“Promise me,” he urged as he walked to the door. He turned and looked at her somberly.
“Come back safe!” she answered.
***
Colonel Caine was driving southeast along Pennsylvania Avenue towards Andrews Air Force Base when he noticed a blue sedan half a block behind him. It seemed familiar, like the tails he occasionally had shaken before. The sedan followed him until a highway interchange near the airbase, entered a cloverleaf and turned back towards Washington.
“Must think I’m going to Andrews,” Caine thought dismissively. “What else?”
On arrival he was escorted to a C‐130 cargo plane and entered through the extended rear ramp. Colonel Garrison Jones was already inside the empty cargo area near the cockpit. As Caine joined him on the bench seat, a black limousine drove up the ramp and into the cargo area, stopping opposite the two officers.
General Bradley climbed out of the back seat with a large brown envelope in his hand.
“Just in time, gentlemen. Here are your orders,” he said extending the envelope to whichever officer would grasp it.
Colonel Jones took the envelope.
“And good luck,” the General said. “It looks like that helicopter’s been there more than fifty years. Depending on what’s inside, we may get a better idea
of their strategic thinking at the time. And if there’s some link to now.”
“Do we follow up on anything intriguing?” Colonel Caine wondered.
“That’s what I like about you, Chris,” General Bradley said with a smile.
“Always anticipating. That’s part of our intent. Your assignment is good cover. You’ll be near Ras Banas, Egypt’s air base on the Red Sea.”
Colonels Caine and Jones both recognized the drift of their general’s plan.
They nodded their heads slightly in acknowledgment as General Bradley continued. ”Our Joint Special Ops Command for tracking and killing terrorists is operating out of Yemen, just across the Red Sea. Yemeni leaders are still running scared from Al Quaida, so they’re cooperating. I’m sure any intelligence scuttlebutt will spill over among your Egyptian counterparts stationed out of Ras Banas.”