Chopper Ops Read online

  "What the hell is this place?" Ricco asked. "A movie set?"

  Gillis just dropped his bag and groaned.

  "I don't care," he said. "If it's a place to lay my head, then its home."

  Not counting the bumpy ride down there, neither of them had slept much in the forty-eight hours since receiving their new orders. The odd surroundings were doing nothing to dispel the sleepy notions. So Gillis walked over to the first bunk and collapsed on top of it. Ricco selected the bunk next to him and did the same.

  They were both quiet for a few minutes, drifting in and out of sleep. Finally Gillis broke the silence.

  "Hell, you know, there's a chance we might be looking at something pretty good here," he sighed. "A couple weeks in the sun wouldn't hurt me any."

  "Same here," Ricco replied sleepily.

  Yet no sooner had they both drifted off again when they were awakened by a huge crash. This was followed by a flash of light so bright, it blinded them both. Then they heard shouting, and the sound of glass breaking and doors being kicked in.

  "Jessuz! What the fuck?" Gillis yelled, nearly falling off his bunk.

  Suddenly the building was full of armed men. They were coming through the doors, through the windows, falling from the ceiling. They were soldiers, in full combat gear, from shielded Fritz helmets to gas masks to ammo belts and flash grenades. They were running up and down the room, expertly "clearing it" as if they'd done it a hundred times before. In seconds, many very nasty-looking machine guns were pointing at Ricco and Gillis.

  The two pilots were terrified. Several soldiers picked them up and hurled them to the floor, their gun barrels jammed to the backs of the pilots' necks. Both pilots were certain now that they had landed somewhere other than the U.S. and that they were about to be shot to death. Ricco cried out. On his lips was one last curse for Norton and Delaney.

  "Those fuckers!"

  But then someone blew a whistle and everything froze. The soldiers all stopped in their tracks. There was suddenly no more noise. No more shouting. No more footsteps.

  Nothing, just the wind outside.

  Then one man pushed his way through the crowd of soldiers surrounding Ricco and Gillis. This man was Asian, short but rugged and sturdy-looking. He was wearing the desert camouflage uniform of a U.S. Marine Corps captain.

  He took his helmet off and glared down at Ricco and Gillis.

  "Who the hell are you two? We're in the middle of an exercise here!"

  With shaking hands, Ricco and Gillis quickly pulled out their Presidential Action Letters and showed them to the young officer. The captain hastily read them and then nodded to his men.

  "OK, let's call this a false start," he said calmly. "Reset everything and we'll do it again in ten minutes."

  At this, the soldiers all lowered their weapons and began to empty the building. Those who had burst through the windows went out the same way. Those who had come down from the ceiling, climbed back up and disappeared through the roof. Still others drifted out the front door.

  The Asian officer then looked at Gillis and Ricco's PALs again and helped them to their feet.

  "So, you're the aerial refueling team," he said. "The Air National Guard guys . . ."

  Ricco and Gillis nodded with relief.

  The officer handed the letters back to them.

  "Well, this is the combat-simulation building," he told them. "And it's off-limits to just about everyone. I believe you're bunking in next door."

  He gave them a quick once-over and added: "I think you can grab a shower and new pants over there as well."

  With that, the young captain walked briskly out of the building, barking orders to his men as he went. And just like that, Ricco and Gillis were alone again. They both looked at each other and realized they'd been so scared, they'd wet their pants.

  "Oh, man," Ricco groaned, inspecting his damp crotch. "What the fuck have we gotten ourselves into?"

  Chapter 8

  Jazz Norton was in big trouble.

  Four MiG-29 Fulcrums aligned in perfect combat formation were breaking through the low clouds right in front of him.

  Their wings seemed to sag, there were so many weapons hanging beneath them. Each MiG was bearing at least four Aphid air-to-air missiles, plus a huge cannon in its nose. All four were painted in brown-and-tan desert camouflage. To Norton's tired eyes, the color scheme looked particularly sinister against the background of dreadful lemon sky.

  The MiGs were projected just five miles off the nose of his attack helicopter. His threat-warning screen began blinking furiously when the four dots representing the dangerous MiGs showed up. A loud screech went through his headphones. The MiGs had spotted him! Their radars were now keying in on his chopper, arming their air-to-air missiles as a prelude to firing at him.

  Other panels on Norton's control board began blinking. A TV readout of his ground-threat-warning status was buzzing madly. It was displaying no less than six SA-6 SAM sites going hot on the ground below, as well as a dozen separate radar-guided antiaircraft batteries hidden in the hills all around him. Their gunners had spotted his copter, too. Like the Fulcrums, they were preparing to fire at him.

  His target-acquisition screen was also blinking. It was displaying an odd collection of buildings in a hidden valley surrounded by high desert cliffs just ahead. Many helicopters were whirring above this place, which, to Norton's eyes, looked like a rambling ranch of some sort. There were six buildings in all. Soldiers were running through the streets between them. There was a T-72 tank sitting at one end of the compound. A large red circle on his acquisition screen was completely covering it.

  The display warning was blinking: Time to Fire: 8 seconds . . . 7 seconds . . . 6 seconds . . .

  Norton grabbed his control stick and started squeezing it very tightly.

  Damn . . . what now?

  He hastily scanned the copter's control systems. What the hell was he supposed to do again? Was it add power and dive? Or cut back and flip over? The T-72 was his main target—it seemed to constitute the greatest threat at the moment. But should he postpone firing at the tank and take out the nearest AA battery first? Or should he continue on to his main target and hope the AA gunners were not accurate with their first shots? And what about the Fulcrums? Could they shoot him before he could shoot the tank?

  Norton didn't know the answers to these questions or the few million others racing through his brain. So he just jammed the stick forward and increased throttle, not waiting for the copter's computer to reply. He was going in on the tank.

  But suddenly a SAM warning buzzer went off in his ear. One of the SA-6 surface-to-air missiles had been fired at him. Damn! He'd forgotten all about them! More out of self-preservation than anything else, Norton leaned even further on the controls, plunging two hundred feet in three seconds and miraculously dodging the SAM streaking up towards him.

  He somehow recovered flight at 250 feet and realigned himself with the tank. But was he now too low to fire his antitank missiles? Should he pull up and go around again? Should he fire at that AA gun sitting on the eastern edge of the town first, then try for the tank?

  While all this was bouncing around Norton's skull, yet another cockpit buzzer went off. It was his fuel warning light—he was past his bingo point. He now did not have enough fuel to get back to base. Another buzzer went off. A stream of AA was heading right for him. Then another buzzer began screaming.

  Norton looked up just in time to see the Aphid AA missile coming right at him. The Fulcrum that had fired it at him was already pulling up and away.

  The missile hit the copter a second later. Norton saw yellow flame first. Then orange. Then deep red.

  Then everything just went black. . . .

  *****

  "OK . . . end simulation!"

  The lights came back on, and Norton took a long, deep troubled breath. He was bathed in sweat and the insides of the helicopter simulator were beginning to smell rank again. He looked at his hands. They were tr
embling. His lips were cut and bleeding, sliced by his own teeth. His knees felt made of water. He'd been through 127 simulations in three days, and at last it was taking a toll on him. Like a recurring nightmare, he always faced the same scenario. He had to ice a tank before either AA or SAMs or Fulcrums iced him—and always, he failed to deliver and survive. Either the Fulcrums got him or the ground fire did. It seemed impossible to beat both threats at the same time.

  Such was the fate of a fighter jock being made to fly a chopper.

  The past dozen days had been the strangest in his life. From Fallon to here, to St. Louis, to Thule, and back here again. The cruelest joke was, he wasn't even sure where "here" was. Not exactly anyway. He knew he was on an island, and the island was somewhere off the southern tip of Florida. And he knew this island was run by the CIA as a secret training site for operations to be undertaken elsewhere. But other than his trip to St. Louis to pick up Delaney, and their quick hop to the top of the world to recruit Gillis and Ricco, he'd spent just about all of his waking hours locked inside this smelly Tin Can, drowning in his own sweat, trying to learn how to fly an attack helicopter without ever leaving the ground—and losing every time.

  It was called UIT—ultra-intensive training. So far, for him, it had been a bust.

  The Tin Can was the nickname for the HSM—or Helicopter Simulator Module. It was in the subbasement of Hangar 2, the huge barn located right next door to the smaller warehouse building that housed his quarters. A short tunnel connected both structures, thus negating the need for him to actually go outside and see the sun or breathe the air, unless he was going to chow, which was usually at night and which he always ate alone. Indeed, much of the island's training facility was located under-ground. Built inside old bomb shelters, he had been told.

  The helicopter simulator was aptly nicknamed. It was a huge white barrel set up on six monstrous spider legs. It had 360-degree three-dimensional TV screens inside, and with loads of surround-sound effects and laser-light manipulation, it didn't take long for the mind to accept that you were actually flying something and that people were actually throwing bad stuff up at you.

  When he wasn't being blasted out of virtual reality, Norton was usually asleep in his quarters. There really was little else to do. The security on the island was so tight at the moment, he was prohibited from speaking to anyone other than the Tin Can techs. He hadn't seen or talked to Delaney since getting back from Thule. And the CIA operations officer in charge of the mission—a pup of a guy named Gene Smitz—had spoken to him on just two occasions, both times to remind him about the importance of security and to see if his living arrangements were up to snuff.

  On that last score at least, Norton could not complain. His billet was comfortable enough. It had a bed, a chair, a small fridge, a microwave, plenty of coffee and fruit. There was a separate shower and a toilet. There were boxes of magazines for him to read, a TV, and a VCR with plenty of videos for him to watch. Still, he hated being cooped up inside the small windowless room. It was in essence a luxurious prison cell.

  The only thing he hated more was being strapped inside the Tin Can.

  No surprise that more than once in the past twelve days he'd asked himself one question: What the hell have I gotten myself into?

  Still, he didn't know the answer.

  *****

  He finally unstrapped himself and squeezed out of the simulator. He was stressed to the point of being woozy. How could his brain be so fooled? He was here, in one piece, safe and sound. Yet every time he crawled out of the Can, he felt like he'd flown a combat mission—for real. And had been blown out of the sky—for real. A crude sign above the door said it all: Everything but the pain, someone had written. That was the truth. . . .

  The worst part was, if history was any judge, once he was out of the Can, he would be permitted a quick bathroom break, a chance to grab a Coke or a cup of coffee, and then be thrown right back into the simulator to do it all over again. For the 128th time.

  But as it turned out, this recess would be different.

  Usually he found a technician waiting for him outside the simulator door; the small, glass-enclosed control room from which the Can's activities were monitored was down a staircase ten feet away. This time, though, the first face he saw belonged to Delaney. The slightly ragged-looking pilot was inside the control room, speaking with the six CIA geeks who ran the Tin Can.

  Norton hadn't seen Delaney since returning from Greenland. Though they lived in billets in the same building, their schedules ran exactly opposite. Whenever Norton wasn't doing his time inside the Tin Can, Delaney was, and vice versa.

  But now here Delaney was, dressed in a flight- simulator suit just like Norton, and looking quite stern and official. Yet he was carrying what appeared to be a small Styrofoam beer cooler.

  "I have orders to bring Major Norton up to the Big Room," Norton heard Delaney telling the simulator techs. "Smitz told me to tell you that you can dispense with the major's post-simulation briefing as well. He's through for the day. And so am I."

  Like every bullshit artist, it wasn't what Delaney was saying, it was how he was saying it. The pointy-head techs listened in silence, then did a group shrug and went about the business of shutting down the Tin Can. Delaney finally turned towards Norton, pointed to the cooler, and pantomimed drinking a beer. Norton gave him a thumbs-up, signed the Tin Can log book, and bade the techs good-bye.

  Then he joined Delaney, ran up three sets of stairs, and left Hangar 2 a free man.

  "I owe you one, buddy," he told Delaney, walking out into the sunshine for the first time in days.

  "Only if we don't get caught," Delaney replied. "I can think of about a dozen regulations we're breaking here."

  Norton was sure of that. In his indoctrination—which took place in the days after he was recruited at Fallon and before he went up to St. Louis to collect Delaney— he'd been told everything that was about to happen to him was top secret and that he should not discuss it with anyone, not even other members of the project team. This was peculiar. Norton had been involved in secret ops before, and never had there been a ban on the individual members discussing the situation. But apparently none of those ops had been as secret as this. It was strange, though. This weird place. The way they were drawn together. The way they were recruited. Was the CIA just getting better? Or was there another reason the clamp was so tight?

  He didn't know.

  Since Delaney had been brought in, there had not been the opportunity for them to have a conversation. So did that mean they couldn't discuss their shared experience now? Would it be against the rules? Would anyone be listening in if they did?

  They began walking down the long camouflaged run-way. They were quiet at first. The afternoon was upon them. The base seemed deserted—as usual. Yet voices were on the wind.

  In just a few moments, Norton was sweating again. The sun was that hot.

  "If I didn't get a break from that Tin Can soon, I was going to flip," he finally told Delaney.

  "Join the club," his colleague replied. "I've been spending so much time inside that thing, I'm having nightmares. It's like people are whispering to me when I'm trying to go to sleep. Think the Spooks might be programming that in? You know, filtering suggestive stuff to us subconsciously?"

  "If these people can build all this and get away with it," Norton told him. "I'd say they are capable of anything."

  Delaney gave out a long moan. "Just what I need, something to make me even more paranoid. This place really gives me the creeps."

  Norton couldn't disagree with him. Seven Ghosts Key was a very odd place. There were at least a couple hundred people on site. Yet the island always managed to looked deserted due to its surfeit of subterranean facilities. As a result, the feeling of isolation was almost overwhelming. There were no other islands to been seen in any direction. No airplanes ever seemed to fly overhead. No boats ever seemed to be sailing on the horizon. Yet the island was located close to one of the bu
siest maritime areas in the world.

  Even the origin of its name was weird. When he first arrived here, Norton had been told by one of the CIA officers that the island's facilities had been built in the late 1950's to launch raids on Cuba, which was just over the horizon. At that time, the island was known simply as Green Rock Key. Then, sometime in the mid-sixties, something very strange happened. One dark and stormy night, as the story went, seven CIA employees assigned here simply disappeared. They went to sleep one night, but in the morning their bunks were empty and unmade. The island was searched thoroughly, as were the waters surrounding it. No boats were missing, no aircraft had landed or taken off during the night. Yet no trace of the seven individuals was ever found.

  Hence the name change.

  Under the circumstances, it was a little bit of history that Norton could have done without.

  *****

  After five minutes of walking in the brutal sun, he and Delaney finally reached their destination: the fake yacht club at the southern tip of the island. Here sat a dozen aging yachts and fishing boats, vessels on hand to help maintain the illusion that this place was little more than a private rich man's fishing club.

  Some of the yachts were so old, though, they were probably antiques. It was obvious none of them had been out to sea in decades. They had no engines, no sails. They were simply props.

  He and Delaney climbed aboard one called Free Time. It was an elderly charter boat, a forty-four-footer with a huge open deck and sixteen fishing chairs set up on its stern. Norton and Delaney settled into the two seats closest to the shade, and Delaney dipped into his cooler. A six-pack of tall Budweiser’s was buried under a small mountain of ice inside.

  "Where did you manage to get that?" Norton asked him.