“Mr. McLanahan… Colonel McLanahan,” Willis relented, “I cannot allow these planes to be towed out onto the apron without prior approval.”
“It’s very important that we tow them out, Commander,” Nancy Cheshire said. Willis turned to look at the Air Force pilot. Willis had seen Cheshire out around the planes several times before, and although she was pretty enough, he had always thought of her as a tomboy, probably a lesbian, and dismissed her.
Not this time. Her flight suit had been altered to accentuate her figure, and her flight suit’s top zipper had been unzipped to mid-chest, revealing a more than ample bosom, firm and round. Her hair had been pinned up, revealing a long, slender neck. Her eyes were shining green, round and inviting, and he saw those eyes dip down to check him out, her lips opening up slightly as if she was impressed and perhaps a little excited about the dashing figure he thought he cut in his tropical whites.
“Can’t you give us clearance, just this once?” Cheshire implored him. “We’ll be done in less than two hours, and we’ll have them back in the hangars by midnight.” She hesitated, then added, “I’ll notify you in person when we’re finished.”
Willis puffed up his chest, excited at that prospect but not ready to concede one bit. But that thought was quickly canceled by a slight girlish grin on Cheshire’s lips that spoke huge volumes to the Navy officer. Willis said, “I’m sorry, but I cannot allow the planes to leave the hangar without prior clearance.” But he paused, then added, “But you may open both sides of the hangars and run engines inside.”
“We really need to do this outside.”
“Denied,” Willis said. “Run engines inside the hangar, or not at all.” McLanahan shook his head, muttered something to himself, lowered his head in defeat, then nodded. “Very well, Commander. Inside the hangars only. It’ll have to do. Thank you.”
“Notify me in my office when you are complete and closed up,” Willis added, glancing again at Nancy Cheshire. She arched her eyebrows, silently asking the question, and he answered with an almost imperceptible nod. He stepped away, issued instructions to the federal marshal and his NCO in charge of the security detail, gave one last glance at Cheshire, who still had her eyes locked on him — on his butt, he guessed — and stepped away to his waiting Humvee.
“Thank you, Commander,” Patrick shouted after him — his thanks were not acknowledged. He turned to the others with him: “Okay, gang, we can’t do this outside, so the noise levels are going to be bad, but we’ll have to make do. Let’s run the ‘Before Starting Engines’ checklist for ground engine-running maintenance first, then climb on board. We’re all going to have to help out. Let’s go.”
It took just a few minutes for the flight and maintenance crews to clear out the hangars and open up the double-ended hangar doors, and within half an hour the deafening sound of the Megafortress’s huge jet engines could be heard. The Navy security guards put on noise protectors, but were still forced to retreat to their Humvees to escape the noise.
Fortunately, shift change was coming up soon, so the guards wouldn’t have to contend with the noise for too long. Sure enough, a radio report announced that relief crews were on the way, and the security guards packed up their equipment and got ready to depart when the oncoming crews reported in. At the same time, a long convoy of canvas-covered trailers moved from one of the hangars on the other side of the twin runways to the west, accompanied by the standard four armored vehicles, moving toward them. The guards were curious, but the relief crews were arriving, so it was their problem now.
The relief-crew Humvee for the front of Hangar No. 1 stopped directly in front of the offgoing crew’s Humvee, shining their headlights directly into the offgoing crew’s eyes. Six men stepped out, all wearing Navy-style integrated helmet-noise protectors; the oncoming detail chief carried the detail duty log and the weapon inventory sheets, as required. The Marine detail chief was going to get out and start the weapon inventory, but the oncoming detail chief was already at the door, holding the logs and inventory sheets out. His crew opened the doors in back and began to step out…
… and then all hell seemed to break loose. -
Doors flew open. Guys were yelling something. Confusion. Gas began to fill the interior of the Humvee. Doors were closed, then wedged shut. The headlights on the other Humvee snapped off. The sweet odor of the gas, a slight choking sensation… then nothing.
The doors were opened to ventilate the gas, and a guard wearing a gas mask pushed the unconscious offgoing detail crew chief over against the huge engine hump in the middle of the Humvee, jumped in behind the wheel, and drove off. Outside, Marine Gunnery Sergeant Chris Wohl raised a walkie-talkie to his lips. “Bravo check.”
“Bravo secure.”
“Copy. Break. Charlie check.” One by one, Chris Wohl checked in all the members of his fifty-man commando team. In less than a minute, Chris Wohl and the members of his Intelligence Support Agency special operations commando team, nicknamed Madcap Magician, had completely subdued the four entire Marine Corps security rifle platoons that had been guarding the five Megafortress hangars.
“Break. Leopard. All secure.”
“Copy,” Air Force Major Harold Briggs, the commander of Madcap Magician, responded. Briggs, an ex-Air Force security police commander at the HAWC, was in the lead Humvee escorting the convoy of trailers from the secure hangar that held the Megafortress’s weapons — his team had subdued the Marines guarding the weapons while Wohl’s team had taken down the guards surrounding the planes. The convoy was ushered into the hangars, while another long convoy emerged from the weapons hangar on its way to the planes.
Several Humvees converged on Hangar No. 1 as its engines were shut down. As each crew member climbed out of the planes, they did a very unmilitary-like thing — they gave each Madcap Magician commando a hug. “Damn it all, it’s good to see you, Hal,” Elliott said. Neither had seen the other since the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center had been closed.
“Same here, General,” Briggs said. “You look like a million freakin’ bucks, sir.”
“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Hal,” Elliott said. “I feel like shit. But I’m sure glad you’re here.”
“We weren’t going to miss this party for all the nukes in China, boss,” Briggs said. He motioned to Chris Wohl. “Chris, you remember General Elliott, right?”
“Of course. How are you, sir?” Wohl said, shaking hands with the retired three-star general. Wohl and Elliott first met while preparing for a secret rescue mission to Lithuania, when Wohl had been asked to train McLanahan, Briggs, and another HAWC commander, now dead, in enough commando-style tactics so they could safely accompany a Marine Force Recon team. Wohl had been against the entire plan, but had been convinced to carry on by Brad Elliott himself.
“Peachy, Gunny, peachy,” Elliott responded. “Glad to have you along. Thanks for the help.”
“Nothing to it,” Wohl said matter-of-factly. “This entire detachment needed a good ass-kicking. They were way too complacent. I was happy to give it to them.”
“I brought along a guy who said he knew a little about B-52s,” Briggs said. Out of the Humvee came a gentleman a little younger than Elliott. “You remember Paul White, don’t you, sir?”
“Damn right I do,” Elliott said happily, and they exchanged handshakes, then embraces.
“Good to see you again, General,” White said. Paul White was a retired Air Force colonel, an electronics engineering expert who’d been assigned to Patrick McLanahan’s bomber base years earlier. Upon retirement from active military duty, White had become the original commander of the Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored unit called Madcap Magician. White’s unit had been involved in the Iranian conflict earlier that year; White himself had been captured by the Iranians. Although he had been rescued unharmed by Briggs, Wohl, and the other surviving members of Madcap Magician, White had been decertified from intelligence work and forced to retire. “I hear we’re going to kick some Chinese butt. Can’t wait to fire up those turbofans.”