GHOST TRAIL

by Brian Tyree

  McCreary, Baldo and Douglas sat in the padded RPA chairs inside as Trest paced behind them. All eyes fixed on the flat screen before Baldo. The fireball from the Paveway bomb slowly dissipated. Still whiting-out the monitor that was a direct feed from MISTY’s camera.

  “Show me target confirmation,” Trest ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” McCreary replied, then turned to Baldo. “Prepare helmet cam feed for d-base interlace.”

  “Yes, sir,” Baldo said. He rattled away at the keyboard and a database of ISIS member profiles appeared on screen. Baldo scrolled through helmet cam footage on another monitor. Stopping on a clear frame of Ali Abbas. The database ran a profile scan, returning a ninety-nine percent match. A black and white file photo appeared on screen with the jihadi’s name below. Ali Abbas Nasser – Senior ISIS operative. “Target confirmed,” Baldo said.

  Trest leaned forward out of curiosity. “Go back to the woman.”

  “Yes, sir,” Baldo replied. Scrolling the video backward. The woman from the dwelling appeared to look directly at Ghost One.

  “She saw him,” Trest observed.

  “How?” McCreary asked.

  “You tell me,” Trest said. Then gave a final instruction before retreating to his office. “Let me know when he arrives.”

  “Yes, sir,” McCreary acknowledged. No officer had to give the “At ease” order, but the effect on the three men was the same with Trest gone from their presence. Their shoulders relaxed, they stretched, yawned, and spoke free and informal among themselves.

  “What I want to know is why he stopped when she looked at him,” McCreary pondered aloud.

  Airman Douglas, finally free to see for himself, leaned around McCreary to look at the woman on screen. “Maybe he wasn’t looking at her,” Douglas said.

  “Maybe he was,” McCreary countered.

  “Consciously?” Douglas asked. Nobody had the answer. The three men watched the video play. Douglas broke the silence. “What would happen if he became conscious?”

  “It won’t happen,” McCreary answered. Agitated. Driving the notion from their minds. “It’s never happened. The doc says he can’t wake up, can’t become aware. And if the doc says it, he can’t.” Baldo couldn’t restrain his curiosity.

  “But, what would happen?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  SOARING HEIGHTS

  Hal Sheridan’s eyes flicked open at 5:45 a.m. with a singular thought—Something’s not right. Lying in bed, staring straight at the ceiling, his entire body was one big ache. Clearing the early-morning cobwebs from his mind, he recounted the events from the previous night. Left work. Worked out. Ate dinner. Watched TV. Went to bed. What did I do in my workout? Nothing out of the ordinary. Did I catch a cold?

  The sore, rippling muscles of his forearms thrust his body up from bed in a push-up. Every move he made shot tinges of pain throughout his forty-four-year old body. His joints felt like rusty hinges of an old iron gate.

  Hal shot a glance to the nightstand, expecting to see a bottle of Jameson that would explain everything. It was bare, save for a brass lamp and an alarm clock. Hal opened the blinds in his room. Taking in the stillness of the morning sun as it spread like a golden blanket over the tract homes around him.

  The community of Soaring Heights resembled any other modern southwestern suburb—stucco-walls, Spanish tiled roofs and architecture designed from a handful of cookie-cutter templates. The only difference—Soaring Heights was on base, available only to the employees and families of the Air Force and Department of Defense.

  Hal’s home was a two-bedroom tract house on Mesquite Road. He stumbled his way to the laundry room. Bundling up sheets and blankets, along with a few other articles of clothing and feeding them into an upright washer and dryer. He opened a cabinet nearby, revealing neat stacks of linens. Each one folded with factory-quality creases.

  Hal snapped a sheet open and made his bed with boot-camp regimen. Shaping hospital corners that veteran nurses would envy. He fluffed the pillows, setting them in their proper place, swiping away a trace of lint from one.

  Hal ironed his uniform in the spare bedroom. Carefully tracing the edges of his First Lieutenant’s badge with the tip of the iron as a small flat screen TV blared the national news in the background. An embedded war correspondent stole Hal’s attention from the creases of his slacks. “I’m standing here live in Bagrami, Afghanistan, a suburb of Kabul, where last night a precision guided bomb from the US Air Force demolished the building behind me.”

  Hal looked up at the reporter standing in front of a pile of urban, desert rubble. A muted green vision flashed through Hal’s mind. It was the same exact landscape, but in night vision. The image blossomed white. Blown-out from the explosion. The daydream sparked a cacophony of random images, piling up and snowballing through his mind—a glimpse of the woman in a burka, preparing a meal on the floor. An attractive woman in a lab coat, leaning in with a syringe. Her appearance and words hazy and distorted. A man in a turban, also in night vision green. He disappeared in a bright muzzle-flash. Another muzzle flash lit up the face of a different man—screaming in agony.

  Hal wondered if he was the one holding the rifle that cut these men down. Before the answer came, another vision interrupted—this one surreal.

  Hal jogged in the dark. The static of radio-noise and commands from a superior officer echoed in his mind. An explosion erupted nearby. So close he could smell the sulfur and toxic chemicals. Hal’s mind jumped back to reality, smelling the actual smoke from his pants, burning under the hot iron. The damage was beyond repair. Hal tossed them in the trash and grabbed a fresh pair, running the iron over it. The news show had moved on to a business segment. Hal watched and waited, hoping the newscast would return to the scene in Afghanistan.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Inside the box in Hangar 302, a bleary-eyed Baldo watched a grid of live surveillance videos on a flat screen. The feed was from cameras hidden throughout Hal’s tract home. One was high in the corner of his bedroom. Another showed a wide view of his dining room. There was one up high in the kitchen and one from behind a two-way mirror in his bathroom. Hal’s face filled that one, half-covered in shaving cream. “Sleeping Beauty is shaving. Everything’s A-okay.”

  A tired McCreary glanced at the multi-windowed surveillance feed. “Alright. Get some rest. We’ll brief and run sims tonight.”

  “Yes, sir,” Baldo replied. Pushing his chair away from the console. He slumbered out of the box toward hangar doors opened a crack, catching rays of the desert sunrise.

  McCreary hit a button, putting the image of Hal shaving on the large monitor.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Hal shaved like he ironed—with purpose. Slow and meticulous. His face didn’t need the shave. It could have gone another day without notice, but it was his morning regimen. As he angled his neck to glide the razor across, he noticed something... A rash. Running along his jaw bone and beneath his chin. It was symmetrical, about a half-inch wide. He rubbed it. Baffled. Immediately recognizing it—a chin-strap mark. He thought about the last time he had a chin-strap mark that deep—over twenty years ago in Jump Week of Airborne School. When he learned the hard way not to cinch down his Mich helmet too tight.

  Two tablets plopped in a glass of water. Hal reached into the medicine cabinet, grabbed some aspirin and chased it with the fizzing water. He closed the cabinet door and stared at himself in the mirror. Puzzled by the rash, the flashes of images in his mind, and the overwhelming feeling of hangover and fatigue. But these, he feared, were only the symptoms. Symptoms of a larger feeling weighing down on him. Pressing hard, heavy and inescapable. A feeling that his life, and all the decisions he made since arriving at Holloman, were not his own.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Hal went to work with the anxiety that someone was watching him. He glanced up at the surveillance camera in the corner of the ceiling, relieved that it wasn’t trained on him. He then felt Yarbo’s eyes on him. Is this in my head? Am I being paranoid
?

  Hal continued his work, analyzing the Yemeni drone footage. Zooming into the image and marking anything that appeared to be a weapon or explosive. He took screenshots of suspicious gatherings of men and any vehicles nearby. All the while, blocking out the images from his dreams and the soreness in his arms, legs and shoulders.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The fluorescents were off in Hangar 302. The box was completely dark and the long back doors latched shut. The aircraft in the hangar—still and silent. The Aurora was especially sleek and lethal in the low light, most of which seeped through the crack in the bottom of the hangar doors. Giving the stealth aircraft an up-angle light. The kind of lighting killers in horror movies receive to make them appear more ominous. The black aircraft blended seamlessly into the dark hangar. Only the light glinting off the swept wings, angled windows and flat fuselage were visible.

  A make-shift conference room of folding tables and a dozen chairs was set up under a wing of the Aurora. Beyond the tables was the MQ-10S drone, looking like the stealth off-spring of an Aurora and an F-117A. The drone had flat, black panels with sharp edges and corners to deflect radar, much like the Nighthawk design. Its fuselage was wider than other drones. The swept-back wings held no external munitions, storing them inside to reduce the radar signature.

  Trest took a seat at the head of the table. Clad in his informal dress uniform. Beads of sweat formed on his temple. He appeared anxious, and leaned over to Baldo, who was on his left like the secretary of a CEO. “The hangar with the most advanced aircraft on the planet and the AC doesn’t work? Go see what’s wrong with it.”

  “Yes, sir.” Baldo hurried off with nary a soul at the table noticing. They were too mesmerized by the magnificent stealth creatures behind them. The men and women surrounding Trest were a mix of corporate suits and high ranking military. Trest’s gravelly voice broke the stillness of the hangar.

  “Thank you all for being here. Pardon the un-office-like atmosphere. And the high temperature. Some of you already know each other. For those who haven’t met, why don’t we go around the room? Introduce your name and whatever you’d like to say about your company or division.”

  Baldo returned to his seat. Shaking his head to Trest. Nothing could be done about the AC. Baldo listened to the introductions that went around the room. He sized people up by the rank on their uniform or the type of suit they wore. He spotted a fifteen-hundred-dollar tailored suit—concluding that the individual’s company knew how to grease the DoD.

  Some department heads and executive used aliases in their introductions. Most were vague about their role and the reason for their presence. At these tables sat division heads for every aspect of Project Cloudcroft. There were corporate executives from Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and Boeing. Parent companies of Skunk Works, Advanced Concepts Laboratory and Future Combat Systems. Representatives from top intelligence communities were present—CIA, PsyOps (psychological warfare), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Air Force Intelligence, Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and the Department of Defense’s own RD lab known as DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

  Too many people, Trest thought, pondering the risk for leaks. Second guessing his own decision to invite them all. He addressed the group, “As you all know, I’m meeting the President this week to present a full report on Project Cloudcroft. It has been a long tradition that the President need not know all the details of black ops, for obvious plausible deniability reasons and to limit the potential for security breaches.” Trest took a breath, glancing around the room and continued. “So, what I need from each of you—is a report in non-classified terms defining what your company, department or division does. Keep it simple. A page or less. And by defining, I mean defining in such a way as to not…” He searched for the words... “Let the cat outta’ the bag. So to speak.”

  Some around the room nodded, understanding. Others had confused looks. An Air Force Intelligence officer asked, “What do I say about exfil? How do we justify the stealth helos?”

  “Write that your team provides recon and on-the-ground assessment,” Trest said. “Talk about how it improves the effectiveness of missions”

  Arthur Lewis, a heavy-set man from Skunk Works had an astonished expression. He spoke up. “Are you telling me the President doesn’t know anything about this?!”

  “He knows the basics, Art,” Trest replied. “He knows we’re tasked with more precise ordinance delivery in the RPA program. And that’s all he needs to know. The lawsuits from drone strikes are piling up and he’s taking the heat. Believe me, he doesn’t want to know more. We just need to assure him that we’re drastically reducing collateral damage. And so far, we are. What are those numbers, Ted?”

  A member from Air Force Intelligence thumbed through his notes and spoke up. “We’ve gone from a collateral damage casualty rate of fifteen percent per mission to point five percent per mission.”

  Trest jumped in. “Use that in your notes. From fifteen innocents killed per one-hundred drone strikes down to one per one-hundred strikes.”

  “Is the President aware of the targets?” Art asked.

  “Indeed.” Trest boldly replied. “He often provides us with the kill-list.”

  “How about congressional oversight?”

  Empty stares around the table. People looked at each other, waiting for a response.

  Trest was losing patience. “This is a clandestine op. You all knew this. It has a low enough budget to fly under the radar. That’s the whole plan. That’s why the President AND Congress approved it. Both through the CIA black ops budget and discretionary funds from the DIA and AF Intel.” Art grimaced. The whole thing left a bad taste in his mouth.

  “Our enemy doesn’t exactly carry the Geneva Convention handbook,” Trest continued. “Some might see that as a distinct military advantage for them. Don’t forget, the purpose of this program is to reduce the loss of innocent life.” Trest paused. “I know this is more involved than a typical black op. There are a lot of moving parts. We can easily keep the lid on smaller operations, but something of this magnitude... Well, we have to find ways to hide things in plain sight.”

  Trest paused. Waiting for comments from the group. Wiping a swath of sweat running from his temple to his cheek. “If there are no further questions, I’d like to move on.” Trest glared directly at Art, who shook his head no. “Good,” Trest replied, looking over in the direction of Baldo. “Somebody get me a Dr. Pepper!”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Trest had never been to the White House. He felt underwhelmed as he patiently sat alone in the antechamber to the Oval Office. Waiting for the President to grant him entrance. The two-hundred-year old Victorian home had a musty smell that the housekeeping staff failed to conceal with an even more obnoxious “aroma.” The floorboard under Trest’s chair creaked when he shifted his weight. Making him wonder how sound the flooring was and how long the old boards could withstand any kind of a fire. The voice of a Secret Service agent snapped Trest out of his daydream. “Air Force?”

  “Yes, sir. Major William Trest.”

  Trest stood and gave him a strong handshake. Trest wore his formal officer uniform. Light blue shirt, dark blue blazer and dark tie. His silver metallic name tag was on the right side of his jacket, and he was highly decorated with eight rows of colorful ribbons on the left. His shoulder flap featured a gold oak leaf badge—the insignia for the rank of Major. The lone secret service agent guarding the door was wearing a standard dark suit and tie, with a poorly concealed earpiece. Trest wondered what the agent did to get this inglorious assignment.

  There was an awkward moment as Trest didn’t know if protocol allowed for casual conversation. Just as he was about to strike one up, the door opened and the Secret Service agent ushered him into the Oval Office. Trest nodded to military leaders from other branches on their way out. Followed by what he believed were DoD and CIA officials in suits. He presumed their meeting was higher priority, otherwise they would be t
he ones waiting for him to leave the Oval.

  The President was direct and efficient, keeping the meeting brief. He asked Trest for an update on the stealth drone project—what he assumed was Project Cloudcroft. Trest opened a folder and read off dates and locations of attacks. Giving the President specifics on the targets, along with collateral damage—which was little to none.

  “How many of these stealth drones do you have?”

  “Four,” Trest lied. Inflating the number to rationalize the high cost of the operation. There were only two MQ-10S drones built.

  “You’re doing great work,” the President said, “but why is this thing so damn expensive?”

  “Two reasons, sir. The advanced technology, and the number of assets required… Air and ground, satellite imagery, reconnaissance and communications. The technology itself is unbelievable. You’re familiar with Red Flag, sir? The international War Games exercises?” The President nodded. “The F-35 had a kill ratio of fifteen to zero in Red Flag, and in our own internal exercises against the F-15, it was eighty to zero. The kill ratio for Project Cloudcroft is even higher. More precise than any previous drone strike, and with less collateral damage.”

  Trest handed the President a thick, bound document. “I took the liberty of providing you with a breakdown of expenditures and their purposes, sir.” The President flipped through the pages, giving it a quick glance.

  “I’ll go over this later and let you know if I have any questions.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Trest shook his hand and was about to leave—

  “—One more thing, Major,” the President said. He nodded to an aide who handed Trest a document that read CONFIDENTIAL and TOP SECRET. A three letter code in the upper right corner marked it as the highest level of secrecy from the Office of the President.