The Initiative: In Harm's Way (Book One)

by Bruce Fottler

  Sam nodded.

  “This is important. When I tell you to fire at something, you shoot to put it down. No hesitation. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Good. We have to assume they'll be coming after us, probably from the direction we just came. We're going to hunker down in this cover. Let's look this over so I can come up with some good hiding spots.”

  Hank spent the next fifteen minutes choosing cover and walking Sam through basic tactics. Darkness had fallen by the time they settled into their positions.

  “All right, no talking until I tell you something,” Hank softly whispered. They were both laying on their stomachs and covered by brush. “Rescue has to be pretty close now. Set your rifle to burst mode and keep scanning your fields of fire. Look for movement and listen for noise. Don't shoot until I tell you to.”

  Each minute seemed like ten as Sam scanned around for any sign of motion. His breathing was fast and he desperately tried to control it in order to stay quiet. The crickets chirped loudly but then started to wane. A breeze brought a chill on them as Hank heard a distant rustle.

  “Shit, how did they get that close?” Hank muttered to himself as he carefully watched for movement. There was nothing, which left him wondering if he'd heard an animal. Another minute passed and yet another rustle was heard. It was closer and it sounded like something large. Hank held his aim on the location as another rustle suddenly came from Sam's field of fire. Hank held his breath as he looked over to the latest source of noise before all the crickets suddenly went quiet.

  A ball of bright bluish light streaked towards Hank and whooshed just over his head.

  “Contact left!” Hank yelled.

  Sam immediately pointed his gun and saw movement. It was a shadow of something large and clearly out of place. As his finger pulled the trigger, another bright ball of bluish light jumped out at him from exactly where he was shooting at. Sam's rifle fired a burst as the light struck him, which sent a jolt rolling through his body. He let go of his gun and lay twitching, unable to move as Hank fired away in his field of fire. Sam's muscles wouldn't respond as he lay helplessly listening to the cracking of Hank's rifle.

  Suddenly, the plain in front of them lit up in a series of intense white flashes followed by sharp claps of thunderous booms. This was followed by streaks of bright yellow tracer rounds that blazed over them from behind. In the commotion, Sam felt a pair of hands grab at his shoulders and pull him deeper into the brush.

  “Kid?” Hank yelled as the sound of whooping rotors replaced the crackles of gunfire and explosions. Sam could hear footsteps and other voices yelling. Hank started laughing and calling out. Several figures soon rushed in to join them in the brush.

  “What happened to him?”

  “Something electrical hit him,” Hank replied. “It's like he was tased.”

  “Medic!”

  Another figure rushed in, shining a flashlight on Sam. It took a minute of careful examination before the new presence declared: “He's okay to move.”

  “Get him out!”

  Sam mustered all his concentration to stretch out his right arm and point at a small patch of earth and brush nearby.

  “What are you trying to tell us, kid?” Hank asked as he checked around the grass. He soon found the data tape hidden underneath a pile of sticks. “Jesus, nice thinking!”

  Two soldiers picked Sam up between them and carried him out of the brush. The noise from the whooping rotors combined with a high pitched whine rung in their ears. Sam was placed on a stretcher near the rear of a V22 Osprey. A second V22 tilt-rotor aircraft was on the ground nearby. It's enormous duel rotors spun on either side of it's large tilted wing, kicking up blades of grass and tossing them everywhere.

  “Exposure to an electrical shock of some sort,” one soldier yelled to another over the noise.

  “Get him in, we're airborne in one minute.”

  As Sam was walked into the back of the aircraft's cargo-hold, another soldier came running out of the darkness.

  “We need another stretcher!”

  “I thought there were only two of you,” the rescue team leader asked Hank.

  “Correct, only two of us.”

  “Then one of you guys bagged a bad guy. He's shot but still breathing.”

  “Jesus Christ! Get the medic and hold the perimeter!”

  Tuesday, May 23, 1995

  Fargo, North Dakota

  “Hey, how you doing?” Hank asked Sam as he sat in a chair at the edge of his bed. Sam had been asleep since they arrived in the early morning hours.

  “A little groggy. What happened to me?”

  “Not sure. They think you were hit with an electrical charge of some sort. Probably a new type of taser gun. I told you we didn't want to meet those bastards. Everything looks cool, though.” Hank paused as he waved in a pair of men. “Sam, this is Dr. Kyle Huston. He's someone that's been called in to help out. You also know Walt Thompson.”

  “Sam, it's nice to meet you,” Kyle greeted with a welcoming smile. “I hear you two went through a lot last night.”

  “Am I going to be okay?” Sam immediately asked.

  “You're going to be fine, Sam, but I'm not the attending physician. I'm a psychiatrist. The hospital trauma team checked you out and you're in the clear.”

  “Sam, good to see you,” Walt said with a smile. “I'm really glad you made it.”

  “Good to see you, too.”

  “Dr. Huston is going to sit and have a little talk with you,” Walt explained. “You know, to make sure you're really okay.”

  “Nothing to be embarrassed about, kid,” Hank added with a big grin. “You and I went through some pretty tense shit. I'm used to it, but you're the rookie.”

  “Okay,” Sam said uncertainly.

  “Sam, I agree, you went through a lot,” Kyle started as he sat in another chair near the bed. “I'm hired by Blanchard with full security clearance to talk about anything related to what happened. I'm not here to interrogate you or anything like that. It's just to give you the freedom to share whatever you want without concern over security issues. There are no barriers with me other than the ones you want to put up.”

  “I'm going to find some coffee and get to my debriefing,” Hank announced as he rose. “Sam, I probably won't see you for a while, but I wanted to say that you were outstanding out there. You surprised the hell out of me. That idea of hiding the data tape was fucking brilliant. If you had kept it on you, that taser hit probably would've fucked up the data. Very well done. I'll be catching up with you someday.”

  “Thanks for everything, Hank.”

  “Not a problem. Give that girl of yours a big sloppy kiss from me for keeping you focused.” Hank softly closed the door behind him.

  Kyle turned to Sam. “I don't expect this to be a full-blown counseling session, so I'll just give you a heads up on some things we need to watch for. We can schedule a visit at my office in Lowell once you get back. We have to be on the watch for signs of PTSD. From what I understand, you went through a full-blown plane crash, went on the run, and had a brief gun battle before you were hit. That's on the same level of stress that front-line soldiers go through.”

  Sam grimaced. “Do they have any idea who attacked us?”

  “We're still looking into it,” Walt replied. “But as far as I can say, there are certain organizations that would go to great extremes to steal our LIDAR technology. We're investigating which one was behind this, but it'll probably take a while.”

  “But how can aircraft attack us like that in U.S. airspace?”

  “Sam, it's very important that you don't repeat this to anyone. I'll just say that there are people motivated enough to try something this bold. If the public knew how easy it is for an attack like this to be launched over the U.S., then a lot of people would freak out. That's part of why our LIDAR project is so important.”

  “But one of the operators said something about them coming out of the echo-sphere. Doesn’t that me
an the exosphere?”

  “We're looking over the data on the tape you salvaged. It's very likely a glitch in the software. It probably misinterpreted the plots and made them look like they originated from impossible locations. Ground radar systems didn't corroborate, so it looks like there are still a fair number of bugs to work out of our system. At least it picked up the attacking aircraft.”

  “This might sound strange, but that freaked me out more than anything.”

  “It's funny the things that stand out in our mind after going through a traumatic experience,” Kyle interjected. “Don't feel uncomfortable about it. We'll be talking a lot more about those details after you get back. Right now you need to rest and relax. Recovery is your priority. Everyone is impressed with the way you handled yourself in the situation.”

  “I just did what Hank told me to do. What about the others on the plane?”

  “I'm sorry,” Walt replied in a solemn tone. “We confirmed that they didn't survive the crash.”

  “Did you know any of them?” Kyle asked.

  “Just a couple of acquaintances.”

  “Survivor's guilt is a serious issue, Sam. Please don't take it lightly. It was pure chance that you and Hank survived. There's absolutely nothing you could have done to save them.”

  “So, what do we do from here?”

  “A press release has been issued about the crash,” Walt replied. “You're unfortunately going to be news fodder for a little while, but it should die down pretty quickly. Just don't take any interviews and they'll stop bothering you when the headlines cycle to something new. We need to be clear that everything about this flight must be kept secret. This is an issue of national security. The attack and everything you went through is considered top secret and can't be discussed with anyone. The reason behind the crash will remain unknown, but after a lengthy NTSB investigation, equipment failure will eventually be blamed.”

  “I understand.”

  “That includes anything related to what happened, particularly that strange fighter-jet you saw.”

  Sam nodded. “Hank already instructed me to forget about it.”

  “That's very good advice, Sam,” Walt concluded. “After you get back and get rested, we'll schedule another meeting. Hopefully we'll be in a position to share more details with you.”

  “Your girlfriend, Angela, has already been notified,” Kyle added. “I have an associate meeting with her to help her over any emotional issues she might be going through.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “It's the very least we can do, Sam.”

  Blanchard Corporation – Chelmsford, Massachusetts

  “I've got Walt on a secure line,” a voice over the phone reported.

  “Patch him in,” Merrill snapped as he turned to two others sitting in his office. One of them was Colin Ross.

  “Can you hear me?” Walt's voice called out over the speakerphone. “Am I on?”

  “Yeah, Walt,” Merrill answered. “Okay, we're all here. I need someone to walk me through what just happened.”

  “We're still putting a lot of details together,” Colin started carefully. “We're going to need a couple of more days to get an accurate picture. The good news is that no one but us is aware of the attack. I've formed a legal team to handle NTSB. We'll also need to keep Tiller and Maxwell from being questioned.”

  “How in the hell did those bastards find our airplane?” Merrill impatiently asked. “We went through an enormous effort to make sure that it didn't stand out. Its electronic footprint was supposed to be indistinguishable from the hundreds of other flights in the air, and yet they picked ours right out of the crowd.”

  “Initial review of our data confirms that there wasn't anything being transmitted from the plane other than the transponder code,” Walt reported over the phone. “We'll have to look more carefully at any electronic noise the LIDAR system might have been leaking, but we went over that several times before the flight took off.”

  “FAA radar records don't show any unusual signature from our airplane,” Colin added. “That points to a strong possibility that our transponder signal was used to direct their attack. If that's the case, our problems just got a lot worse. Our internal security would have to be compromised for them to get the right transponder code.”

  “Compromised?” Merrill angrily asked. “How in the hell could they do that?”

  Colin shook his head. “We're supposed to be non-existent.”

  “Apparently not,” Merrill quipped. “Well, we certainly got their attention. They've never initiated an attack before. Maybe we're finally doing something right?”

  “I'd rather have them ignoring us like they always have,” Colin retorted. “Six lives and a billion dollars down the drain. We're obviously not ready.”

  “We did recover the test data,” Walt interjected. “So it wasn't a completely wasted effort. It looks like Dignosco worked better than expected.”

  “And our X99B?” Merrill anxiously asked.

  “It's our first close-in air-to-air engagement. The good news is that the stealth systems work. They couldn't achieve a weapons lock. The bad news is the ordnance was ineffective. The missile guidance upgrades failed.”

  “We're still firing goddamn blanks,” Merrill resigned with a sigh.

  “There's one other thing,” Walt continued with a low voice, “and it's very big.”

  “Oh?”

  “We recovered an enemy combatant.”

  “What?” Merrill exclaimed and shared a shocked look with Colin. “An actual EC? Why am I just hearing about this?”

  “We needed some time to confirm it. Apparently, Hank and Sam had a brief skirmish just before being rescued. A reconstruction team is still on site, but it appears Sam took one down with a lucky shot. The EC was wearing body armor, but a bullet ricocheted in through a small seam under the shoulder. The EC was still alive when they extracted him but died in transit due to blood loss. We're performing an extensive autopsy now.”

  “Holy shit,” Colin muttered with a big smile, pumping his fist in the air.

  “We just hit the fucking lottery!” Merrill added with equal enthusiasm. “We didn't anticipate this happening for a while. Well worth the cost of an airplane.”

  “There's one other thing,” Walt paused as he struggled to form his next sentence. “I got a good look at him. Our EC appears to be an ordinary-looking Caucasian male. No distinctive features. This guy could walk past you on the street and you wouldn’t know it.”

  Colin's eyes widened. “Oh, Christ.”

  “That changes things,” Merrill resigned as he sat.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Wednesday, May 24, 1995

  Hanscom Field – Bedford, Massachusetts

  The Blanchard Gulfstream private-jet taxied to a stop in front of the civilian air terminal on a warm, cloudy afternoon. The stairwell door dropped and Sam slowly stepped off the plane. He carried nothing with him, as his bag had been lost in the crash. His forehead still had a couple of small bandages, and a bruise made his left shoulder a bit tender. As he walked to the terminal, he saw two people waiting. Angela walked out to him and locked him in a firm embrace. She started crying as Sam held her. Susan soon walked over with tears streaming down her cheeks. Sam gave Angela a long kiss, and after a time, she let go so that Susan could get a hug too. Sam almost lifted her petite body off the ground before letting go.

  “Your head,” Angela mumbled over her weeping.

  “It's fine.”

  Angela again embraced him. Sam made sure he gave her an extra long kiss. “That's from Hank. He wanted me to thank you for being my inspiration to survive.”

  Sam motioned for Susan to share their hug.

  “Apparently, you have a rather dangerous job, mister,” Susan jovially remarked as they started walking to the terminal. “I'm glad you never got me an interview.”

  “Is there anyone else here with you?” Sam asked.

  “No, I didn't think you'd want a
crowd,” Angela replied.

  “Thanks, I appreciate it. I have the two most important people with me.”

  “Are you hungry?” Angela asked.

  “Starving.”

  Blanchard Corporation – San Diego, California

  The elevator chimed twice and the doors slid open. Hank stepped out, eager to escape a contemptible rendition of a U2 song that played over the speakers. He was met by a tense looking site manager dressed in casual attire.

  “She's waiting for you in the small conference room.”

  “Pissed?” Hank asked as they walked down the hallway together.

  “Are you serious?”

  Hank laughed. “Wish I was there to see it.”

  “I'm sure she'll tell you all about it. Try not to press too many buttons.”

  “Afraid of damage?”

  “Why in the hell do you think I put her in the small conference room?”

  Hank replied with a grin as they continued down the hallway. After reaching a closed door, the site manager gave him a nod. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks, Ralph.”

  Hank paused and took in a deep breath before opening the door. He found Eva Castilo sitting, impatiently waiting. She confronted him with an edgy glare that he'd seen too many times before. It confirmed everything that he needed to know about her situation. He stood in the doorway for a couple of seconds, trading knowing smirks with her. Once a marginal grin surfaced on Eva's face, he entered, closed the door, and sat in a chair across the table from her.

  “Welcome to the ground team,” Hank said in deadpan.

  “You don't have to fucking rub it in,” Eva snapped.

  “Did you really have to knock his teeth out?”