Chopper Ops Page 4

  "You believe in ghosts, Jimmy?"

  Gillis looked up at the two men staring down at them.

  "You got to be kidding me," he breathed.

  He recognized the visitors right away. It was Norton and Delaney.

  "Well, if it isn't the Mutt and Jeff of refueling business," Delaney cracked.

  Ricco quickly stood up and was immediately brow-to-chin with Norton.

  "Let's see, when was the last time we met?" Ricco hissed, glaring up at the fighter pilot. "Oh, yeah. It was, like, twenty miles from Saddamville. And we were getting our asses shot off. . . ."

  Norton didn't blink. Instead he just smiled.

  "Good to see you again too, Marty," he said.

  Gillis was on his feet now. He towered over both Norton and Delaney.

  "Weren't they going to court-martial you guys?" Gillis asked the two pilots bitterly. "If not, they should have."

  Norton never lost his smile—but he knew Gillis was right.

  It was the sixteenth day of the air war over Iraq. An F-15 from Norton and Delaney's sister squadron had been shot down by ground fire and Iraqi troops were closing in on the pilot. Norton and Delaney were the only Allied airplanes in the area. They were needed to keep the Iraqi soldiers at bay until an Army rescue team could reach the scene and extract the pilot.

  The problem was, both of their fighters were running very low on gas. There was no way they could loiter over the area where the pilot was hiding and still have enough fuel to reach a friendly base. But there was no way they were going to let a fellow American fall into the hands of the Iraqis either, especially since at that time, Saddam had been urging his troops to cook and eat any downed American pilot they found. Both Norton and Delaney simply refused to leave the scene.

  So there was only one other option. Norton radioed upstairs for the nearest aerial tanker—and it was the Pegasus who answered the call.

  In doing so, Norton broke a slew of regulations, most notably calling for a refueler to enter a hot zone with more than twenty thousand gallons of JP-8 jet fuel in its belly.

  But the Pegasus responded—and fueled both him and Delaney at an altitude so perilously low, both fighter pilots should have been court-martialed, and given the express train to Leavenworth.

  As it turned out, the refueling went well. Norton and Delaney held off the Gomers long enough for the Army SAR chopper to arrive and pull out the downed pilot in one piece. A confrontation back at Riyadh came to blows—it was the seven guys from the Pegasus against Norton and Delaney. But the two sides were separated, and eventually flew off in opposite directions, never to cross paths again.

  Until now.

  "Let me guess," Ricco asked the fighter pilots.

  "They got you two shoveling snow off the runways, is that it?"

  "Nope," Norton replied. "Actually, we're delivery boys these days. We have a message for you two."

  Gillis and Ricco were totally confused now. This meant Norton had them right where he wanted them.

  "And all the bullshit aside," Norton added, "you guys should have been given a medal that night. It took guts what you did. Not many people would have done it."

  "So what . . ."

  "So, we have new orders for you," Delaney told them.

  Gillis and Ricco just looked at each other. Was this a joke? Why would these two random a-holes they'd encountered briefly many years before track them down to Thule?

  Norton handed them both a letter. Each was wrapped in red tape. Each was marked with the Presidential seal.

  "See you soon, guys," Norton told them. "And don't forget to bring your suntan lotion."

  With that, he and Delaney went out the door and disappeared back into the snowy gale.

  Chapter 6

  Central Iraq

  Next day

  The village of El Quas-ri was no more.

  The place had stood on the same spot in Qaarta region of Iraq for more than four thousand years, existing more than two millennia before Christ walked the earth. The fountain in the main square had drawn water since the reign of Ebbenazzar III. The fields nearby had produced onions and rice since 2300 B.C.

  It was strange then how quickly the end came. For centuries, the elders in the village had passed down stories of Qel, the mythical flying beast. This winged monster would periodically visit the other villages in the Qaarta region and destroy them with great spits of fire from its mouth and great gusts of wind from its wings. But it had never descended on El Quas-ri because its people had always remained faithful to God and had lived honest lives.

  But on its last day, neither faith nor honesty could save the people of this ancient place.

  *****

  It was late afternoon when their world came to an end.

  Most of the village's 250 people were gathered in the town square, a tragically ironic twist as it turned out. The occasion for the crowd was the appearance of a new Toyota truck recently purchased by Amhed Amhed, the son of the village police chief. The truck—a two-door, sixteen-cubic-foot beauty—was the most modern vehicle ever to be driven in the village. It was painted white with silver lines across its hood and doors and very shiny hubcaps. To the people of El Quas-ri, it looked incredibly stylish.

  Ahmed Ahmed was very proud of it. He'd ordered the truck seven months before, and had kept his fellow villagers updated with each passing day on the status of its delivery. They'd staged a celebration a week before when Ahmed finally left for Basra to claim the vehicle. When word got around that Ahmed had returned with the truck, many of the villagers dropped what they were doing and immediately rushed to the town square. That was why the crowd had formed.

  There they had found Ahmed telling all who would listen everything about the vehicle. Its engine, its chassis, its transmission, its spiffy interior. Ahmed related his journey to the port city of Basra, what he was doing when he first saw the truck, and his brush with an Iraqi Army major who had taken an immediate liking to the vehicle as well. The major—a brutish man with a huge scar running down his right cheek—had held him up for two hours, questioning him about the truck, how he had ordered it, how he had raised the money to buy it. In the end, Ahmed had been forced to pay the Army officer the equivalent of twenty American dollars in order to let him leave with the truck.

  But Ahmed had anticipated this. He'd taken an extra fifty dollars to Basra with him to be used as the bribe money he knew he would need if he hoped to bring the truck back to El Quas-ri. From his point of view, the twenty dollars he'd paid to the Army major had been a bargain. In reality, he was actually thirty dollars ahead of the game.

  The villagers especially liked this aspect of Ahmed's adventure to Basra. They were very proud of him. He was the clever son of a clever man.

  Only good things could befall someone so smart.

  *****

  Ahmed was telling his story for the fifth time when the late dusk suddenly turned back to bright sunshine.

  It came at first as a flash of light hitting the middle of the village square, stunning the villagers. The fire came next—scorching, searing, deadly. A rain of metal, razor-sharp and white-hot, came down on them, seemingly from every direction.

  The children were consumed first, which was strange as they were the smallest targets. But the fire—which was actually the combined fusillade from three miniguns and a 105-mm howitzer—tore into them with sickening ferocity. Then the stream of shells ripped through the elders and the women who had gathered a short distance away from the Toyota. Finally, the fire reached the younger men of the village clustered around the rear bumper of Ahmed's new truck. Many of them were literally cut in half.

  The flying monster then flew off to the east, banked, and reappeared over the village. This time it spat fire into the houses, the huts, and workshops, killing anyone who had not been present in the square. Forty-three more people, plus seventy-one homes, were decimated in this manner. The bodies were quickly reduced to bone fragments, blood, and sinew. The homes were reduced to dust, some
smaller than the finest grains of sand.

  It was over in a matter of seconds—thirty-three to be exact. In that short time, 228 people lay dead or dying, and nothing over the height of twelve inches was left standing in the village.

  Only a few of those two dozen who were wounded but still alive saw the huge helicopter appear over the village ten minutes later. It landed, and a man in a green Iraqi Army uniform was the first to step off. He was a major. He had a huge scar running down his right cheek.

  As he supervised the killing of the wounded, the helicopter crew hooked the Toyota truck onto a thick cable hanging beneath their heavy-lift aircraft, preparing to fly it away. In the brutally quick, massive attack, the Toyota was the only thing that had not been harmed. Indeed, it wasn't even scratched, so accurate had been the fire from the sky.

  This was a good thing for the Army major with the scarred face.

  He had admired the white truck with the silver stripes from the second he saw it on the dock at Basra.

  And now, it was his.

  Chapter 7

  It was a place that did not show up on any tourist maps—yet it looked like somewhere just about any tourist in south Florida would want to visit.

  It was called Seven Ghosts Key by some. It was an island located about forty-five miles south of Key West, deep in the Florida Straits.

  Five miles long and a half mile wide, it was covered with palm trees—some real, some not—and various other kinds of tropical fauna. It was surrounded by very light blue water. A huge coral reef dominated its northern side. A white sandy beach stretched along its southern end.

  The center of the island boasted what appeared to be a small airfield, one capable of handling civilian aircraft like Piper Cubs, Cherokees, and so on. Close to this was a dock with facilities for a few dozen sport-fishing boats and yachts, with gasoline pumps, a repair shack, and bait barrels also on hand.

  The main part of the resort was a cluster of six buildings located next to the airport. Three were obviously hangars—though to the trained eye they might have appeared a bit too large to handle only private airplanes. Two more buildings looked like motels—brightly colored one-story framed structures with lots of windows. The fifth building looked like a warehouse. The sixth was a restaurant. It was of vintage 1950's design, its roof and gutters adorned with ancient-looking patio lights that were turned on both night and day. Its expansive deck looked out over the calm waters to the north of the key.

  The only vehicles ever seen on the island were powder-pink jeeps. Their sole purpose seemed to be for transporting fishermen from the docks to the restaurant and back, yet rarely did any of these vehicles move from their parking lot behind the boat slips. The pristine beach on the south side also appeared very inviting, with its pearl sand, its field of beach umbrellas, and the waves gently lapping against its straight-as-a-razor shoreline. Yet rarely could any visitors be spotted there, or anywhere on the island for that matter.

  This was because Seven Ghosts Key was not what it seemed. First of all, its runway was actually two miles long—four fifths of it invisible, hidden by cleverly painted camouflage and intricately placed fauna. The restaurant, while serving as a mess hall as well, was crammed with millions of dollars of military communications equipment. What appeared to be an air- conditioner vent-house on its roof actually contained a Hawk antiaircraft missile battery. One of the large hangars boasted facilities big enough to house more than a hundred people. A second held enough weaponry to outfit a small army. The third actually served to store aircraft, many of which had never been seen by a civilian eye. The pink jeeps all carried Uzi machine guns or M- 16CGS NightVision-equipped rifles. And the "motels" held even more mysterious things inside.

  No, Seven Ghosts Key was not what it seemed.

  It was, in fact, another very secret place.

  *****

  When Marty Ricco woke up, the sun was shining in his face. He hadn't felt such warmth in months.

  Where the hell was he? Certainly not in Thule anymore . . .

  He sat bolt upright, wiped the sleep from his eyes, and it slowly came back to him. He was still on the airliner. The same one he'd climbed aboard in Bangor, Maine, the night before, per his new orders. It was an old, battered, noisy turboprop of a type he didn't think existed anymore. They'd been hopscotching in it since midnight, setting down at least four times for refueling or bad weather or both. Somewhere along the way, Ricco had fallen into a fitful sleep. Now he was awake and the very hot sun was shining in his face.

  He looked about the cabin. Gillis was sprawled over three seats across the aisle from him, sleeping restlessly. The ancient airliner had room for about fifty people. Yet from what Ricco could see, he and Gillis were still the only passengers on board.

  He sat all the way up now. Where the hell had they been flying to this whole time? He looked out the window and found himself staring down at a lot of bright blue water. And at this, a smile began to spread across his face. It was a strange sensation; he was by habit a dour man. But now, though it seemed his facial muscles had to break through six months of ice to accomplish the feat, it finally happened. His first real smile in half a year.

  But it would not last very long because a moment later the old airplane began shuddering madly. Its engines screaming in protest, it began to fall out of the sky. Panic ripped through Ricco. That clear blue water was coming up at him very fast. He looked over at Gillis, who was still sleeping. Then he looked back out the window and saw the water getting closer . . . closer . . . closer.

  Ricco lunged across the aisle to shake Gillis awake. There was no way he was going to die alone like this. But just as he began jostling his partner, there was a sudden thump and guttural screech. Ricco put his nose back up to the window and saw they were down and rolling along a runway.

  Awakened by Ricco's panic and the landing, Gillis did a long stretch and yawned.

  "We here finally?" he asked sleepily.

  "Yeah," Ricco replied, trying to sound calm as he caught his breath. "You missed a great flight. . . ."

  *****

  It took a while, but the airliner finally rolled to a stop next to a stairway that had been placed out on the runway. Ricco looked out the window again. They were at a small air base of some sort. One runway, a few buildings. Lots of palm trees. A nice place.

  He and Gillis gathered their duffel bags and made their way forward. The plane's access door opened and they stepped out into the morning sunshine. It was already blistering hot even though the sun was just barely above the horizon.

  "We in the Caribbean?" Ricco asked Gillis.

  Gillis yawned. "Good guess, I'd say."

  They walked down the stairway and dropped their bags on the tarmac. That was when the airplane started pulling away. This surprised them; they'd just assumed the pilots were getting off too. But this was not the case. The pilots had never even slowed down their engines. Ricco tried yelling up to them, but the airplane had already backed up and was taxiing away. It turned back onto the runway and quickly took off again. In all, it had spent no more than a minute on the ground.

  "What the fuck is this?" Gillis roared. "They're just leaving us here?"

  "Where are those a-holes Delaney and Norton, that's what I want to know?" Ricco asked, looking around desperately.

  But they could see no one. The base looked absolutely deserted. Had they been dropped at the right place? Were they supposed to wait here for someone? Or was this part of some elaborate hoax?

  "If those two assholes are scamming us, I'll kill them," Gillis declared.

  They stood there, next to the stairway, for five minutes, trying to fathom their strange situation. The sun got higher and the wind blew hotter, but still they could not see a living soul anywhere. They were both wearing their heavy thermo-wear arctic flight suits and they were beginning to broil in them.

  "Let's get out of the sun at least," Ricco finally said.

  They began walking. The first building they reached was the
restaurant. They stopped at the front door and listened. Voices . . . They could hear a group of people talking inside. Or at least they thought they could. Gillis tried the door, but it was it locked. They both pounded on it for almost a minute, but no one answered. Then they listened again, but the voices had gone away.

  Next, they walked to the boat slips, but no one was there either. Then they walked back to the section of the base where the three hangars were located. The stink of aviation fuel was thick there. But all three buildings were locked up tight as well.

  "OK, I give up. Where the hell is everybody?" Ricco cursed.

  "Still asleep?" Gillis replied wearily. "Like I want to be?"

  They finally reached the pair of motel-type buildings. With their long sloping roofs and logwood ranch construction, the buildings looked like they'd be more at home out West somewhere, maybe in Arizona or Montana. They seemed very out-of-place here in the Caribbean.

  Both pilots were drenched in sweat by this time. They were tired, hungry, more than a little confused by their long flight to nowhere. Ricco took a deep breath and tried the front door of the first building.

  It was unlocked.

  "Hallelujah," he grumbled. "At least we can get out of this heat."

  They walked into the one-story building and were surprised to find it was dark inside—and very spare. It appeared to be a barracks of some kind, or more accurately, a cross between a boot camp and a prison. There were two dozen bunks lined up perfectly along one wall; that was the extent of the building's contents. There were many windows, but just one door at each end of the building. Everything looked old, yet smelled of freshly cut wood. In many ways, the outside of the building didn't match up at all with the inside.