Exactly six hours later, the second X-38 space shuttle from Area 8 was launched off the back of a high-flying 747.
Its mission: the destruction of a rogue Air Force reconnaissance satellite hovering in a geosynchronous orbit above southern Utah.
So far as the shuttle's pilots could tell, it appeared that the satellite in question had been sending and receiving a peculiar microwave signal down into the Utah desert.
In the end, the pilots didn't care what it was doing. They had orders, which they followed to the letter.
And so they blasted the satellite out of the sky.
With the controlling satellite destroyed, the Type 240 plasma explosives in the airports were rendered useless, apart from their proximity sensors, which would take a little more time to disable.
Over the next few hours, all fourteen bombs would be disarmed and dismantled, and then taken away for analysis.
In addition to the disarming of the plasma bombs, the destruction of the satellite also allowed for the removal of the radio transmitter attached to the President's heart.
The procedure was conducted by a renowned civilian heart surgeon from Johns Hopkins University Hospital under the watchful eye of three other cardiac surgeons and armed supervision by the United States Secret Service and the United States Marine Corps.
Never was a surgeon more careful - or more nervous - during an operation.
Limited anaesthesia was used. Although the public was never notified of it, for twenty-eight minutes, the Vice President was in charge of the United States of America.
An investigatory committee would later be formed to conduct an inquiry into the Air Force's role in the Area 7 incident.
As a result of that inquiry, no less than eighteen high ranking Air Force officers in charge of a dozen bases across the southwestern United States and ninety-nine junior officers and enlisted men stationed at those bases were tried for treason in closed session.
It appeared that all of the men linked to the day's events were either currently serving, or had once served, at either the Air Force Special Operations Command, based at Hurlbut Field, Florida, or with the 14th and 20th Air Forces at Warren and Falcon Air Force Bases in Wyoming and Colorado. All, at one time or another, had been under the direct command of Charles "Caesar" Russell.
Overall, in a service of nearly 400,000 men and women, one hundred and seventeen traitors was not a very large group, barely a dozen to each tainted base. But considering the aircraft and ordnance at those bases, it was more than enough to carry out Caesar's plan.
It further emerged at the trials that five of the USAF personnel involved in the plot were Air Force surgeons who at various times had performed procedures on congressional members, including the United States senator and onetime presidential hopeful, Jeremiah K. Woolf.
Circumstantial evidence presented at all the trials also suggested that every Air Force man involved in the incident was a member of an informal racist society within the United States Air Force known as the Brotherhood.
All were sentenced to life imprisonment at an undisclosed military prison, with no hope of parole. Unfortunately, the plane delivering them to the secret prison inexplicably crashed during flight. There were no survivors.
In the investigatory committee's final report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the subject of "informal antisocial interest groups" within the armed forces was raised. While it was acknowledged in the report that most such societies had been removed from the military during a purge in the 1980's, the report recommended that a new investigation be initiated into their continued presence.
The Joint Chiefs, however, did not accept that such societies existed, and therefore rejected the recommendations of the investigatory committee on this point.
Over the next six month, there would be a number of unconfirmed reports from tourists in the Lake Powell area concerning the sighting of a family of Kodiak bears around the northeastern portion of the lake.
Officers of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigated the reports, but no bears were ever found.
A couple of weeks later, a quiet ceremony was held in a dark underground meeting room
beneath the White House. Inside the room were nine people.
The President of the United States.
Captain Shane Schofield - with his arm in a sling.
Staff Sergeant Elizabeth Gant - with crutches on account of her broken ankle.
Gunnery Sergeant Gena "Mother" Newman - with her small bald-headed trucker husband, Ralph.
Sergeant Buck Riley Junior - with sling.
United States Secret Service Agent Juliet Janson – with sling.
David Fairfax, of the Defense Intelligence Agency - wearing his good sneakers.
And a small boy named Kevin.
The President bestowed upon Schofield and his team of Marines the Congressional Medal of Honor (Classified), for acts of valor in the field of battle despite the endangerment of their own lives.
It was, however, an award they could tell no one about.
But then again, they all agreed it was probably better that way.
While the others stayed to eat in the white house dining room - during which dinner the President had a particularly lively conversation with Mother and Ralph about the Teamsters - Schofield and Gant took their leave, and went out, alone, on their second date.
When they got to the venue, they found that they had the place to themselves.
A single candle-lit table stood in the center of the wide wood-paneled room.
And so they took their places and dined.
Alone.
In the President's private dining room, on the upper floor of the White House, overlooking the Washington Monument.
"Give them whatever they want," the President had instructed his personal chef. "Just put it on my tab."
By flickering candlelight, they talked and talked till late in the evening.
As dessert arrived, Schofield reached into his pocket.
"You know," he said, "I meant to give you this on your birthday, but the day kind of got away from me."
He pulled a crumpled piece of cardboard from his pocket. It was small, about the size of a Christmas card.
"What is it?" Gant asked.
"It was your birthday present," Schofield said sadly. "It was in my trouser pocket all day - I had to take it with me every time I changed uniforms - so I'm afraid it got a little, well, beat up."
He handed it to Gant.
She looked at it, and she smiled.
It was a photograph.
A photograph of a group of people standing on a beautiful Hawaiian beach. Everyone was wearing board shorts and loud Hawaiian shirts.
And standing next to each other at the very edge of the group, smiling for the camera, were Gant and Schofield. Gant's smile was a little uncomfortable, and Schofield's kind of sad, behind his reflective silver sunglasses.
Gant remembered the day as if it were yesterday.
It had been that barbecue held on a beach near Pearl Harbor, celebrating her promotion to Schofield's Recon Unit.
"It was the first time we met," Schofield said.
"Yes," Gant said. "Yes, it was."
"I've never forgotten it," he said.
Gant beamed. "You know, this is the nicest birthday present I've received this year."
Then she lifted herself up out of her seat, leaned over the table and kissed him on the lips.
After their dinner, they arrived downstairs, where they were met by a presidential limousine. It was flanked however, from in front and behind, by four Marine Corps Humvees, six police cruisers and four motorcycle outriders.
Gant raised her eyebrows at the elaborate motorcade.
"Oh, yeah," Schofield said sheepishly, "there was something else I had to tell you about."
"Yes?" Gant said.
Schofield opened the limousine's rear door wide - to reveal the small sleeping figure of Kevin lying in the backseat.
"He neede
d a place to stay, at least until they find him a new home," Schofield shrugged. "So I said I'd take him as long as they needed. The government, however, insisted on providing a little extra security."
Gant just shook her head and smiled.
"Come on," she said. "Let's go home."
Table of Contents
Area 7
Area 7 Page 38
