“I’ll never get used to this,” he muttered. “It’s not Navy, just PFM. That’s what it is.”
“PFM?” I asked expecting another black world reference.
He looked at me frowning.
“You haven’t heard of PFM before?”
“No sir. Can’t say that I have. I’m guessing it’s a highly classified acronym. True?”
Guffawing he answered.
“No it’s not, Mr. Cross, although you may run across it in your new Black Ops mission with us. An important term for your vocabulary it’s ‘Pure Fricking Magic’ and that’s the R rated version. It’s when some effect, action, or process is seemingly inexplicable.”
I felt like an idiot not knowing that.
“Oh yeah. That PFM. Thought there might be another one.”
His obvious eye roll and smirk told me that he didn’t buy it.
Soon clouds of dust and debris rushed over us as we touched down and Harper killed the engines.
“Harper, let’s wait inside until the dust settles,” he called to the front.
“Yes sir,” the voice from the cockpit answered barely audible over the rotors’ spin-down.
Outside on the tarmac a dark blue sedan with a U.S. Navy insignia on the door awaited our arrival. Nearby a uniformed driver standing in the bright noonday sun waited, holding his cap with one hand and inspecting his cell phone with the other.
Moments later Harper unlatched and opened the door then dropped the steps to the tarmac.
“Ready for some fun, Mr. Cross?” Greenfield asked.
He unbuckled his harness, grabbed his briefcase, and started for the door. I was right behind him feeling like a stranger in a strange land but since it had been my home for four years, I thought I might still recognize a few landmarks.
As I exited the plane stepping down onto the top step, I felt Harper’s hand on my shoulder and stopped.
“I don’t know where you’re going,” he said, “or what you’ll be doing, Marker, but knock ‘em dead. I’ll be heading out now back to the Tine. Take care.”
I hadn’t been called that nickname since March when I had the pleasure of working with him and my old Navy diving instructor Chief Briscoe. The Chief always called me that. Must have rubbed off on Harper but since we had risked our lives together and we became brothers in arms doing so he had a right to call me that.
“Thanks for the ride, Bill,” I said saluting him. Even though I wasn’t in uniform or the Navy for that matter I had such great respect for him that I thought it appropriate. He must have thought the same: he returned my salute.
Greenfield waiting at the bottom of the stairs yelled back to me.
“Come on, Cross, we’ve got work to do. Important work.” Then I saw him glance at his watch and head toward the waiting staff car.
His orders were sharp and compelling. Not sure if it was the tone of his voice or his way with words that intimidated me but I quick-stepped down the stairs and joined him just as the driver opened the doors for our entry.
He fell into the seat beside me, looked at the driver, and then barked:
“Hangar 405. Drop us in back.”
I glanced over at him curious about our new destination. It was not the ‘building’ because I knew where 405 was: across the main drag from the ‘building.’ Wanting to comment on his mistake my filter finally kicked in. Instead, I sat quietly waiting to see what would happen next remembering his words: “Nothing is as it seems.”
Now during my tour on the Navy Hangar 405 was a semi-active hangar, used for sheltering and maintaining the few aircraft that still used the active runways. It was a type II hangar roughly a football field wide and a hundred feet deep. Two main rail-mounted doors each eighty feet across opened in the middle yielding a gaping one-hundred-sixty-foot entryway large enough for a C-130. An average Navy hangar; there was nothing spooky going on inside to my knowledge.
The trip from our landing pad to the rear of Hangar 405 took only a few minutes but in that time I saw many familiar buildings mostly boarded up or barricaded. Exactly what I expected but depressing as hell. So was the rear of Hangar 405.
Chapter 6. Hangar 405
I found it strange that we had stopped at a small man-sized door at the rear of the hangar. A red sign on the door read: DANGER: ELECTRICAL ROOM — KEEP OUT!. As we stepped from the car, Greenfield motioned the driver to drive away leaving us standing alone in the dingy littered alleyway behind the hangar. He led me to the door and stopped.
Behind it was a room slightly larger than a telephone booth extending out from the hangar’s rear wall. It had never caught my attention in my four years on station but then I never used the alleys for travel. Off to the side of the door at shoulder level was a gray Cutler-Hammer breaker box looking weathered by years of salt sea air exposure. My eyes went wide when Greenfield quickly surveyed our surroundings and pulled open the cover revealing a sleek black numerical keypad. Then quickly he punched in a few numbers and closed the cover. After a soft buzz from the box, he hefted open the door.
“After you,” he said.
Inside, gray electrical panels surrounded us from floor to ceiling crowding us together. The warm air smelled of ozone and sintered metal. In the silence, I could hear buzzes and clicks behind the banks of breaker and relay boxes.
The Admiral carefully surveyed the panels as I watched then began counting from the rightmost panel three boxes to the left and up three from the floor. His finger landed on a panel shoulder high that mimicked the others even to the finger-hole opening latch. He pushed his finger through and pulled it open.
Rather than breaker switches inside, it had a single gray metal panel with a small speaker a numerical keypad and an optical sensor resembling a large bloodshot eyeball with a glowing red center. Suddenly I wanted to say, “Open the pod bay door, Hal” but resisted not knowing the Admiral’s familiarity with that movie.
“Look into the red scanner with your right eye,” he commanded reaching for the key panel.
I bent down and looked into the device expecting a bright flash or something more mysterious. Nothing happened until I felt his wrist graze my face punching numbers into the keypad.
“There,” he said, “Now back off and let me get there.”
He nudged me aside and stared into the sensor eye.
“Ivy, this is Admiral Sam Greenfield, ID number SSUSJG22Z. Register previous scan as authorized entry for Umbra.”
A sexy and slightly robotic female voice responded from the small speaker:
“As you wish, Admiral Greenfield. Please log voice recognition entry for the previous scan.”
During her response, I noticed the red eye began to dim and brighten with a slow rhythmic almost hypnotic motion. Then I noticed it was synchronized with my breathing. When I drew in air, it brightened then dimmed as I exhaled. Ivy was tracking my respiration activity.
I continued to stare in curious almost frightened amazement as the intricate login process continued not knowing what was yet to come.
“Stand here and say ‘Hello Ivy’ in your normal voice,” he said then moved me to the center of the panel and pressed a few more keys.
“Hello Ivy,” I said.
“Hello. Please state your full name with rank or civilian status,” she requested.
I looked questioningly at the Admiral and he nodded for me to continue.