Chopper Ops (5 page)
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.
"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?"
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 trembling. 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 busiest 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.