“Liaison to the House Armed Services Committee...” said the man with a mere sliver of confidence remaining.
A smirk passed over the Director's face. Briefly. It was more a sign of contempt than amusement. “I suggest you remain silent while the adults are talking...”
“I just meant...”
With a silencing motion of his hand, the Director's eyes shifted to the faces around the table. “Bureaucrats,” he sighed in disgust. He locked the man with the blue suit in a steely gaze, “Get out.”
“Sir, I have clearance to be here, I am an official Liaison to the...”
Slamming his hand down on the table brought the man in the blue suit to startled silence. “You,” growled the Director, “are interrupting my meeting. A National Security Meeting. Would you like to find out, first hand, how long you could be in a cell before someone notices you're missing..?”
■ ■ ■
Dr. Michelle Fabry was both surprised and pleased to see Katie walk through Green Bank's front door about an hour after everyone else got there, her normally bouncy strawberry blond locks pulled back into a ponytail. She looked stressed but softened after some coffee, a doughnut and a little warm praise from her fellow employees. By her own admission she hadn't planned on returning, ever. But she decided she loved both her job and the people she worked with, and recent events had not changed that.
What had changed, overall, was the fact that the folks at Green Bank suspected they were being watched, although to what extent they were uncertain. With groups of school children touring the facility, they used the background noise of their voices for quiet conversations.
Katie trotted into the control room, her eyes wide... “They're baaAack!”
Standing next to David, looking over his shoulder, Michelle Fabry looked up from the data screen, “Who's back?”
Hands on her hips, Katie's head tilted at an angle, “Who do you think?” she replied a little sarcastically. “The assholes are back...”
“Oh, maaan...” Michelle headed across the control room floor, following Katie towards the lobby door, “What the hell do they want now...”
Two men in black suits waited patiently in the lobby amidst the children, indifferent to their presence. “Dr. Fabry...”
“What do you want?” she crossed her arms defiantly, her gaze sweeping the room. “Where's the rest of your storm troopers? Scaring little children today?”
The two agents ignored her obvious stab of sarcasm. “We'd like to speak with you in your office...”
■ ■ ■
“Mitch? Mitch..!”
“I'm fine, Dennis,” called Michelle Fabry, waving over the railing. She entered her office and closed the door behind her, moving to her desk, passing the two men in black sitting on the sofa against the windows. “So what do you guys want now?” She turned to them, pointing an accusatory finger, “You know, you assho...,” she bit her tongue. “You and your people, and I swear to God I'm using that term loosely, deleted two weeks' worth of work? We were mapping Harding-Konos 452 when you...” she recognized the blank looks. “Yeah, no idea how much work you destroyed or how important it was. Typical,” she waved dismissively.
Doctor, we apologize for the inconvenience. We really do...”
Michelle's face flushed red, “Inconvenience? Inconvenience..?! You destroyed over four-hundred man-hours of research!” she interrupted, talking over him.
“We are dealing with,” he continued, “a matter of national security and we need your assistance...”
“Now you want my help...?!” she laughed out loud. “Are you freaking kidding me? You people are really unbelievable...” she shook her head in disbelief. “And what if I say no? What then?”
“It's not really a request per Se...”
Dr. Fabry's eyebrows lifted in astonishment, “Excuse me?”
“We have been directed to seek your cooperation in this matter of national security. You and your staff will be treated with the utmost respect, as two of our monitors tasked with tracking your progress, share your findings live via a direct link with NORAD and USSPACECOM at Cheyenne Mountain. Your facility may remain open to the public as it is today. You and your staff will be fully acknowledged for any discoveries or findings and rewarded for your full cooperation at this crucial time in our nation's history...”
Michelle's eyes narrowed, “That's if I say yes. What if I say no.”
“The outcome will be much less favorable for you and your staff.”
It was a flat, open-ended, frightening response, void of emotion and it chilled her to the bone. Whether driven by morbid curiosity or blind courage she felt compelled to ask what he meant by that statement. “Really,” she said flatly, “you want to elaborate on that?”
“If you insist... The facility will be closed. To the public. To you and your staff. The government will seize control of the facility...” he added, adjusting his tie for emphasis. “A team of our own will be deployed to run the facility,” he lied, “until which time the situation comes to a conclusion.”
“Oh, you can kiss my ass,” she shot back. “No one touches my equipment but my team...” She waved her hand, “And yeah, I just heard that in my head, but you know what I mean...”
“Then it appears your decision is an easy one, doctor...”
■ ■ ■
Chase Holt let the dirt bike roll to a stop, his feet dragging in the sand on either side, a cloud of dust and grit passing him, carried by the heated desert breeze. The sun had dropped below the far ridge line and the purple of the cloudless sky deepened, flecks of stars appearing all around them. He hooked the heel of his boot and dropped the kickstand, swinging his leg over the back of the bike. Jesse was already off his bike, pulling the two fuel cans and water from his saddle racks. “You might want to top off your tanks before you go, there will still be plenty left in these to get you back to our rendezvous.”
Chase pulled his helmet off and scanned all around him, “I thought this was supposed to be Cutler Reservoir. I don't see any water...”
Jesse opened his visor, “Dude, it's a desert. Did you see those deep depressions on either side of the trail when we came up out of the wash?”
“Yeah...”
“When it rains, that wash turns into a raging flood zone and the reservoir fills. There's also a pump that adds water to it from the wash.” He pointed north, “There's a set of solar panels out there about a hundred yards that charge the pump batteries. If the reservoir is full, it'll hold for about a month or so.”
“My tank took about a gallon,” commented Dan as he recapped the gas can.
Jesse took it from him, tucking it up under the pumping station's water pipe, “That'll give you another gallon and a half to refill with on the way back, you should be good to go.”
Chase topped off his bike's tank and handed the other can back to Jesse. “What do we do with the cans after they're empty?”
“Don't worry about it, just leave, em.”
The three riders huddled around the GPS unit with the fabric map laid out on one of the dirt bike's seats. “South on Road 41,” began Jesse, “West on Basin Road. If you get to a gate on 41 that says anything about area 61 Bombing Range, you passed Basin Road...”
Dan entered the fuel into the GPS. “OK, fuel's logged in. I think we're going to have to slow our roll since we're going dark with night vision.”
Chase nodded, “Open visor means we need a dust buster...” he pulled the military Shemagh he wore in Afghanistan out of his backpack, handing another to Dan that he'd requisitioned from Karen's pack. “Here, I'll show you how to wrap it.”
■ ■ ■
Darkness fell fast, a deep, dark black with only a sliver of a moon and a sky full of stars. Chase had a minor flashback to a war torn desert a half a planet away, making the hair stand up on the back of his neck. He found himself eying the edges of the road looking for signs of planted IEDs, improvised explosive devices. He had to force himself to shake it off, keep
his eyes moving. Riding side-by-side on the gravel road, puttering along between ten and twenty miles an hour, allowed them to see details and hazards in the road, see the terrain and minimize the dust off the road. If you could call it a road. Dan motioned to a vehicle trail that intersected, breaking off to the west. Dan checked the GPS and nodded, they were going in the right direction. So far, so good. Heading west on Basin Road, they caught a glimpse of a headlight glow that appeared to be heading east back toward the main highway. It disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared leaving Chase to second-guess if they'd actually seen it. He wondered if Jesse had made it back to the truck yet. The road, such as it was, swung northwest. They crossed several dry washes that would be treacherous to cross in a rainstorm, a flash flood filling them to capacity in a matter of minutes.
They slid to a stop at a crossroad that looked measurably more traveled and well maintained. “Do we turn left here?” asked Chase looking up and down the road.
Dan shook his head inside his helmet, “No, straight across and up into the mountains... now it gets rough.”
Chase adjusted his Shemagh, shaking out the dust. “OK,” he breathed, “let's go...” he held out his hand, “Wait!” He shut off his bike. “Turn it off,” he waved, pulling off his helmet, listening intently. “Look!” He pointed north over the top of the mountains, two large aircraft heading toward Area 51 trailed by several smaller aircraft. They quickly dropped out of view. He wiggled his helmet back on, “Let's go.”
■ ■ ■
The GPS no longer receiving, it was sheer luck they'd found the opening in the fence. Nellis Bombing and Gunnery Range – Restricted. No Trespassing. The heavily weathered sign looked ancient. It was a simple barbed wire ranch fence, nothing special, and several of the rotted fence posts were broken off at the base, the rusty barbed wire laying half-buried in the sand. Looking at the sign, Dan shrugged, “I like the photography is prohibited part at the bottom...” He kicked the dirt bike in gear and motored through the gap in the fence, “We'll only take video then.”
His mind buzzing, Chase felt pins and needles all over his body, his eyes searching for even the faintest of visual clues. Unaccustomed to being unarmed, he felt seriously vulnerable without a firearm. The Ka-Bar knife webbed to his backpack, while useful, was not much of a consolation.
They wound their way up between the ridges and peaks. When Dan finally angled off the trail he pointed at a stand of twin Joshua trees at the top of the ridge line just above them. “We're here...”
“You're going by a tree?” lamented Chase. “Those things are all over the place.”
“No, this is it. It matches the photo Jesse showed me. See the crooked branches?”
Chase Holt was just glad to be off the bike, his ass was sore. “Whatever dude, they all look like they have crooked branches to me.”
Hiding the dirt bikes between boulders, they covered them with a small camo net before climbing up to the ridge line. Standing at the top near the Joshua trees, Area 51 lay spread out below them on the valley floor. Chase suddenly felt visible and dropped to a crouch. “Wow...”
Dan grinned. “It sure is something. Worth it, huh?”
“I'll let you know tomorrow,” breathed Chase, looking through binoculars. “Let's get our gear set up.”
■ ■ ■
Considering it was midnight, the base in the valley below was a hub of activity. Two flights of fighters sat on concrete aprons at the north end of the base; four F-16s and four new F-35s.
“Ugh,” grumbled Chase.
Dan peered through his viewfinder, “What?”
“F-35s.”
He glanced over at Chase. “Isn't that the new stealth fighter that can take off vertically?”
“Don't. Don't be that guy...”
“Which guy?”
“The one who believes all the crap about that brick. It can't turn, it can't climb, and it can't run. It's a decade overdue and about a half a trillion dollars over budget. The F-16 is over thirty years old and is still a better plane.”
“I thought the F-35 was supposed to be the answer for air superiority...”
“Pssh,” hissed Chase. “The F-35 weighs 10,000 pounds more, costs literally ten times more per plane, is slower, can't turn with other modern fighters, and it was recently revealed, isn't all that stealthy.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, the Aussies and Brits have been smart enough to back out of the orders they placed.” Chase went back to the viewfinder. “The idea was to build a fighter that could do it all. Turns out that's not possible... so they built a fighter that can't do anything. Except take off vertically. Because, well, that's really important in a dogfight.”
Dan shook his head, “Sorry, didn't mean to touch a nerve...”
Chase sighed, “No, sorry, it's on me. I'm just sick of the military pandering to whomever is handing out the biggest kickbacks. It's always the guys dodging the bullets that have to deal with the garbage equipment they commit to.”
“I feel ya brother,” admitted Dan. “Police Departments are guilty of the same crap... Like buying ballistic vests from the cheapest bidder. Seriously? Fuck that, I bought and paid for my own.”
“Left hangar,” announced Chase, “The big one, what the hell are they rolling out onto the apron?”
“I see it. That's an X-37B Spaceplane... Hmmm, except it looks a little different. That one's shaped a little fatter... must be a new variant or something.”
“There's another one in the hangar behind it...” Chase pulled away from the viewfinder shooting Dan a glance. “It looks like they're going to mount it on top of that first 747...”
“That doesn't look like a standard 747 though, look at the engines, they're huge...”
Chase adjusted the focus on the lens, “I know they used to transport the shuttles on a 747, maybe that's what they're doing...”
Dan pulled away from the eyepiece of his camera, “Is it possible they've come up with a 747 that can fly high enough to launch the X-37B off its back?”
Chase pulled away and stared back at him, “I don't know. That would require a completely different kind of engine...”
“Ramjets? Because they have been experimenting with them out here...”
Chase rubbed his face, “Well above my pool of knowledge, that's for sure.” He held his hand out, his voice suddenly hushed, “Helicopter...”
“Where?”
Chase watched for movement and pointed it out, appearing as a dark silhouette above the base, heading on a circuitous route to patrol the periphery of the area. “He's blacked out.” Sliding slowly, quietly, backwards off the ridge, he pulled the camouflaged foil blanket over his head. “Cover up and stay quiet,” he whispered.
“How come we don't hear anything?”
“It's classified equipment. Special rotor blades and engine mufflers. The SEAL teams use them too. Look, they'll have FLIR and listening equipment, so stay covered, stay quiet and keep still...”
■ ■ ■
Absent the traditional thump, thump, thump that you could physically feel as well as hear, the whooshing of the rotor blades faded after passing almost directly overhead, it's shadowy form disappearing in the darkness unseen by the two hiding in the desert below it.
“I think they're gone,” whispered Dan.
“Not yet, stay put.” Chase lifted the corner of his cover high enough to be able to see out from under it with his camera lens, watching the camera's articulated digital screen. The sensitive night setting picked up a moving shadow in the distance blocking out the stars, continuing its patrol without deviation. He watched the form continue to shrink. “I think we're clear,” he whispered, sliding out from underneath the blanket. “I guess these things really work...” He looked over at Dan's form that was still hidden underneath his camo blanket, “Dan?”
“I don't think I'm alone under here...” came a faint whisper.
“Oh crap,” growled Chase, digging into his backpack. “What side is it on?
”
“Left side...”
Locking the folding shovel into an open and extended position, Chase cautiously moved over to Dan's position and stepped on the left edge of the blanket with the toe of his boot, gingerly at first then with his full weight. “I'm holding the left edge of the blanket. On the count of three, roll out to your right. Fast. One... two... three...” Dan appeared at about the same time Chase heard a very distinctive rattle before his overhand swing landed the shovel on the left half of the blanket with a resounding whump. Several more whacks and the blanket stopped moving and making noise.
Having rolled down the ridge a good fifteen feet, the veteran Sheriff''s deputy knelt in the sand and shook himself violently, Yeaaach! Dammit, I hate snakes...”
“He seemed to like you...”
“Bite me...”
“You would have loved the Camel Spiders we had in Afghanistan...” offered Chase as he crawled back to the edge of the ridge.
“Fuck you, I hate spiders too...”
Chase scanned the base below with the camera, “Oh, these were not ordinary spiders...” he paused, “Damn, they have one mounted already, looks like they're rolling out the second one.”
Dan was watching though his own camera, zooming in. “Same wider body X-37B as the first one.”
They watched as a tow tractor moved the first 747 with its piggyback payload out of the way to make room for the second. Dan pointed at the fighters, “Looks like one flight is getting ready to leave.”
“The F-35s.”
Within minutes the fighters were on the move, taxiing down the field for takeoff, the loaded 747 starting it's engines. Using their adjustable thrust nozzle and mid-body vertical thrust turbofan, the F-35s executed a short runway takeoff in pairs. Climbing to a thousand feet, they circled the valley, while the 747 they were to escort, taxied to the end of the runway.
The streak of light that crossed the sky looked to be thousands of feet up but just before it disappeared over the horizon it arced back, and came screaming silently back.
Wings of Steele: Revenge and Retribution Page 40
