Strike Force Charlie s-3

by Mack Maloney

  He arrived at CAG 3 a minute later, stopping with a screech. The three young airmen who were serving as gatekeepers were in a tizzy. They were attempting to lift the stuck gate manually, this after trying to disconnect the wiring system that made it go up and down. Nothing was working. Behind the jammed barrier, as promised, Audette saw the long line of RVs, motor homes, and buses; they were backed up for almost a half-mile. These vehicles should have been on-site more than an hour ago.

  Audette jumped from the car and immediately took action.

  “We’re going to break it down,” he told the three sentries.

  They stared back at him, confused. “Break what down exactly, sir?” one asked.

  “The gate,” Audette replied forcefully. “We’re going to break it in two and let these vehicles in.”

  The sentries looked at each other in puzzlement. Destroying Air Force property of any kind was just not in their vocabulary. The military made you pay for things you broke. But orders were orders. So, at Audette’s urging, all four of them took hold of the wooden yellow-striped gate and began pulling on it. It took longer than it would have seemed, but finally the wooden barrier cracked, then broke, nearly sending all four of them on their asses. Audette regained his footing and then looked up at the driver of the first vehicle waiting in line, a huge Winnebago Deluxe. The guy behind the wheel looked about eighty years old. He was displaying both handicapped license plates and HANDICAPPED-DRIVER placard on his windshield.

  “Welcome to Nellis!” Audette yelled to him. “You may now proceed ….”

  The old guy got the message. He hit his accelerator and lurched forward, riding over the remains of the broken gate. The drivers behind him saw what was happening and commenced blowing their horns in triumph. Soon they were pouring through the gate, one every few seconds, urged on by Audette’s emphatic arm waving. He would have put an ordinary traffic cop to shame.

  It took nearly 15 minutes for them all to go through. Some of the RVs looked the size of battleships. Others were barely bigger than pickup trucks. There were several old converted school buses, even an old moving van that had been converted to a house on wheels. Mixed in were many private luxury coaches, leased buses, and a Trailways coach carrying orphans from LA, as well as a couple Greyhound buses.

  Audette waited at the gate until they were all in. Then he instructed the sentries to string some yellow CAUTION tape across the CAG 3 opening.

  He would have a repair crew come out and fix the wooden gate later.

  * * *

  John Cahoon was driving the last RV in line.

  He’d been waiting outside the Nellis access gate since ten o’clock the night before, queuing up, as many others did, expecting to be let in at the crack of dawn. He was a big air show enthusiast. But this being a military affair, he knew it might not run as smoothly as most. By the time he actually drove onto the base, it was nearly 10:00 A.M., 12 hours after he’d arrived.

  That was OK, though, because as it turned out, when he reached the designated parking area for RVs and other large vehicles displaying handicapped or special needs signs, he discovered that in practice the first were being made to go last and the last were going first. Translated: the military personnel in charge of parking the large vehicles made the first to arrive park at the rear of the holding area and then filled in the area from back to front. This resulted in Cahoon getting a front row space, practically right on the flight line itself. From his point of view, it couldn’t have worked out better.

  Cahoon’s wife had asthma; this was how they were able to get a handicap placard, their ticket to this piece of asphalt heaven his motor home now rested on. He was driving a Ford Super Chief, also known as the Godzilla of motor homes. It was 57 feet long and, with its side extension pulled out, 18 wide. It had a living room, a den, a kitchen, two bathrooms, a shower, a washing machine — dryer combo, plus a smoking room where Cahoon stored his scotch and beer. Both he and his wife were retired Boeing workers, out from Chicago to see this show before going on to visit their son’s family up in Reno, a few hundred miles to the north. Cahoon’s wife liked to sleep late; he, by contrast, was a morning person. So by 10:15, just minutes after reaching this primo parking spot, Cahoon was already outside, with his grill fired up, cooking some midmorning brats and pounding down a beer.

  A Winnebago Gold Arrow was parked on one side of him; it was a rowboat compared to Cahoon’s rig. He could see the owners still inside, sound asleep in the driving chairs, tuckered out, no doubt, from the long wait in line. Too bad. It was Cahoon’s way to make friends no matter where he set down. But the two people in the Gold Winny looked dead to the world. He wasn’t going to disturb them. At least not yet.

  On the other side, to his left as he was looking at the flight line, was a Greyhound bus. It looked almost brand-new and incredibly shiny, as if it had been sitting in a garage somewhere until today. The tires looked like they had about a hundred miles on them, tops. Even the exhaust system appeared unused. Cahoon’s brother once drove for Trailways, the Dog’s biggest competitor, so Cahoon had never heard many good words about Greyhound. But he had to admit, this bus was gleaming more than any Trailways rig he’d ever seen, even if its side windows were tinted to the point you could hardly see inside it. Things must be good at Greyhound, he would remember thinking.

  As Cahoon watched, turning his brats and now working on his second can of Bud, the door opened on the big silver bus and four men stepped out. Three were dressed like soccer players; the fourth was wearing a San Diego Chargers T-shirt with the words I AM CHARGER MAN stenciled across it.

  The men set up four chaise lounges, having difficulty getting them to unfold properly. Once they had their seats in place, they retrieved a cooler from the bus. From Cahoon’s perspective, just 15 feet away, it looked to contain nothing but water, no beer, no bug juice. Out next came two small video cameras and a box that Cahoon guessed was filled with tortilla chips or Doritos or something.

  Mexicans, he thought.

  He finished his second beer and started on a third. The air grew warmer and the base tarmac more crowded. Thousands of people were pouring onto the base, many walking past the handicap area. Some gazed at Cahoon’s smoking grill with envy, staring at his beer. He was wearing a garish T-shirt of his own, one that said on the front: BOEING … BOEING … GONE! Those people who got the joke laughed and waved. His neighbors next vehicle over just sat in the chaise lounges and talked among themselves. Cahoon could hear parts of their conversation, just bits and pieces, but to him, it didn’t sound like Spanish.

  After finishing his beer and his first brat sandwich, Cahoon was feeling very neighborly. His wife was still asleep; the PA announcer had just informed everyone they were still an hour away from the beginning of the show. What else did he have to do?

  He opened up a fourth beer, even though it was not yet 11:00 A.M., and strolled over to where the four men lay on the chaise lounges.

  They were surprised to see him but seemed friendly enough. All four were very dark-skinned, and their hands were rough and oily. Cahoon’s eyes were drawn to the box they’d brought out with them. It wasn’t filled with snacks as he’d suspected — but cell phones. At least a couple dozen of them.

  “Nice set of wheels,” Cahoon said, talking to none of them in particular. “Looks brand-new ….”

  The four men just nodded.

  “New … new,” one said. He was the one wearing the Chargers T-shirt. Charger Man ….

  “You rent it?” Cahoon asked.

  “Long-term deal,” was the reply.

  “Sweet,” Cahoon said, giving the huge vehicle the once-over. He wasn’t aware that Greyhound actually leased its buses out to ordinary citizens, and these guys sure didn’t look like Greyhound employees. Yet here it was.

  “You folks from around here?” Cahoon asked.

  “Reno,” was Charger Man’s reply.

  Cahoon brightened considerably. “Hey, that’s where my kid lives,” he told them. “We’
re going up to see him after the show. He’s a dealer at the Horseshoe Casino.”

  Charger Man laughed, though the three soccer players didn’t seem to be understanding the conversation.

  “Yes, we dealers too,” Charger Man told Cahoon. “We big-time time wheeler-dealers.”

  Cahoon laughed. These guys were funny.

  “What casino are you at?” he asked them.

  Suddenly all four looked frozen. “Horseshoe,” one of the soccer players blurted out.

  “The Horseshoe?” Cahoon repeated. “Are you saying you work where my kid works? What are the chances?”

  They all laughed — it was a helluva coincidence.

  “Wheeler-dealers,” Charger Man said. “Big-time in Reno.”

  But now Cahoon was getting confused. Maybe it was the beer, his third — or was it his fourth? — in about thirty minutes.

  “You know my kid, then,” he said to them. “Larry … Larry Cahoon.”

  The men all laughed. “He’s a wheeler-dealer,” Charger Man said again.

  At that point, Cahoon thought the Mexicans, or whatever they were, might be having a bit of fun at his expense. He drained his beer and threw the can into a nearby trash barrel. The barrel was empty, so the can made a loud crash when it hit the bottom. All four men nearly jumped out of their skins.

  “Enjoy the show,” Cahoon told them.

  Then he walked away.

  * * *

  Cahoon checked on his other neighbors, but they were still asleep. He grabbed another beer and went inside his rig, to find his wife awake, sucking on her oxygen mask, watching The Price Is Right. He told her about the people from the Greyhound and how he now disliked them. She was a Christian, a gentle soul who had reined him in, in a positive way, in the 40 years they’d been married.

  “They’re just friends you haven’t met yet,” she told him.

  Cahoon drained his beer, thought a bit, then boozily agreed with her. She was always right.

  He pulled another pack of meat from the fridge and went back outside. The four men were still in position, sprawled on their lounges, but none of them seemed to be too comfortable.

  Cahoon threw the meat pack on the grill and started yet another beer while turning the barbecue. Once he had four pieces done, he smothered them in Texas hot sauce, put them on a warming platter, grabbed some paper plates and some plastic knives and forks. Then once more he walked over to the four guys in front of the Greyhound.

  “Peace,” he said. “Peace … and barbecue.”

  And there were smiles all round. Cahoon decided these guys probably weren’t of Mexican extraction. Indians, maybe — from India, that is. But they all looked a bit undernourished.

  Cahoon passed them the extra paper plates and utensils, then gave each man a serving. They looked at their plates, the pieces of barbecue drenched in sauce. This seemed new to them.

  “Dig in,” Cahoon told them.

  And dig in they did. At least the three soccer players did. They went full bore, obviously very hungry.

  Charger Man approached his meal a little more cautiously. He carved out a large piece of charred meat, looked at it, sniffed it, then put it in his mouth. He gave it a couple chews — but then suddenly, violently, spit it out.

  The next thing Cahoon knew, Charger Man had grabbed him and had a knife up against his throat. And it wasn’t a plastic knife, either.

  Cahoon screamed, “Jesuzzz … man, what are you doing!”

  “What kind of meat was that?” Charger Man roared at him in near-perfect English.

  Cahoon was both frightened and confused. “It’s … it’s barbecue!” he screamed back.

  He would have thought this was a huge practical joke if the man’s knife weren’t beginning to slice into his throat. The three soccer players were suddenly frozen again, unable to move.

  “What kind of meat?” the man screamed at Cahoon again.

  “It’s ribs, man!” Cahoon shouted back as the man started dragging him toward the door of the bus. “Pork ribs! That’s all!”

  It was only because Charger Man vomited on the spot that Cahoon was able to pull away from him. At that moment two more men came off the bus. They, too, were dark-skinned and wearing Charger Man T-shirts. They grabbed their comrade’s knife and literally threw him up the bus stairs, one delivering a mighty kick in his rear end for good measure. Then they turned to Cahoon. They were nervous but trying to smile.

  “We’re sorry,” one said in a thick accent, fighting to stay calm. “He’s sick. Sick in the head. Been too far from home. Please forgive him and please keep this between us.”

  Cahoon felt the slight cut on his neck. He was shaking. It had all happened so fast.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said to the two Charger men, quickly walking back to his rig. “But get him some help. That guy’s dangerous ….”

  * * *

  Captain Audette was finally able to catch a cup of coffee.

  It was 10:45—with about an hour to go before the start of the big show. He had his walkie-talkie with him now, but it didn’t want to shut up. A battalion of enlisted men, assigned to assist him today, were scattered throughout the huge base. They were calling him nonstop, one every few seconds, updating him on what was going on with the crowd inflows. At the moment, everything was looking good, a troubling note for Audette as he knew when everything appeared to be going good in life that just meant something bad was right down the road. But he’d decided to give himself a moment of relief with a cup of joe. It might be the last chance he’d have for some caffeine in a while.

  He was in the Volunteers Tent, right up on the flight line. This was a place where spectators could come should they need information or directions or if they got too much sun or needed any medical assistance. It was a big white shelter with a huge American flag on top, very hard to miss in the sprawl. Audette was also carrying his black briefcase with him, and at the moment he was guarding it with much fervor. Inside was a document he liked to think was almost as secret as the U.S. launch codes of the day. It was the detailed plan for the great rendezvous of escort aircraft for the veterans’ plane. Times, locations, altitudes — it was all in there.

  Audette sat at an empty table at the back of the tent and dumped his usual five packs of sugar into his extra-black coffee. He’d already handled a dozen minor problems since the incident at CAG 3, but at that moment he was proud of himself because of the big picture. He’d been able to keep this Thunderbirds — Blue Angels surprise hookup thing quiet in the three months it had been percolating, this while it seemed that America and the world were falling apart. The hopes of springing it on the huge crowd would have been dashed if word had leaked out. But so far so good.

  Audette had even had a hand in planning exactly how the great flyby would go off, how it would approach the field and how the crowd would first see it. It was all timed to unfold in such a way that the spectators would immediately realize what was going on. Usually air show aerobatics were done parallel to the main runway, starting left to right as the crowd faced the action. On Audette’s suggestion, the flyby would actually approach the field from the east, meaning it would pass over the crowd first. This way the throng would see the Thunderbirds and the Blue Angels flying together right away. That would certainly get a rise out of the crowd! Then would come the Harriers, the F-15s and the S-2s, followed by the Stealth planes, the Raptor, and the F-35 JSF. Next would be the C-5; the monstrous airplane was due to go over the crowd at a heart-stoppingly low altitude of 1,000 feet. Following close behind would be the trio of strategic bombers, the B-52s, the B-1s, and the B-2s.

  It would take about forty-five seconds for all these planes to fly by. Then as one they would go into a wide 180-degree turn and literally escort the big C-5 down to the main runway, where it would land and taxi and the veterans would come out to the cheers of thousands. Separate routines by the Thunderbirds and the Blue Angles would follow. Then they, too, would land and take their places with the other escort aircraft in
static displays set up along the flight line.

  It was quite a plan.

  Audette drained his coffee and, only because his walkie-talkie had suddenly fallen silent, got up to refill his cup. After 90 days of hustling, day and night, and with the knowledge that today itself would be a series of little hells, it was reassuring that he could still manage to sit himself down and enjoy a second cup of sugar-overloaded café. For once, things were under control.

  That’s when John Cahoon walked into the tent.

  He was bleeding from the neck, but just slightly. There was a medical aid station at the back of the tent, but after Audette watched the injured man talk to one of the volunteers he was surprised to see the woman direct him over to Audette’s table.

  “What the fuck is this?” the young captain groaned.

  Cahoon arrived with a thump. “I want to talk to a cop,” he told Audette.

  Audette put down his coffee and pulled the briefcase back to his lap.

  “Why? What’s the problem, sir?”

  “Some guy just tried to stab me,” Cahoon said. “Back where the RVs and things are parked. He’s in a big Greyhound bus. He freaked out just because I offered him and his friends some barbecue.”

  At that moment, Audette’s walkie-talkie burst to life. The lull in the communications with his underlings was over. Once again, they were all reporting in, fast and furious. A small fender bender near an auxiliary gate was disrupting flow into the base. There was a power failure in one of the hangars where the Blue Angels’ support plane would be housed during the show. The base commander had just been spotted arriving on the scene. Plus there was a small fire in a concession stand by another main gate. Audette gulped the rest of his coffee — then he looked up at Cahoon again. He noted Cahoon smelled of beer, this early in the morning.