As the helicopter banked out over water and began to head south, the copilot turned from his seat and shouted to the rear, "Agent Taft, we have your office on a secure communications link."
The commando nearest Taft reached for a receiver on the bulkhead wall. Punching a button on the phone, he handed the unit to Taft.
"John, what have you got?" boomed the voice of Benson.
"I think I've found the missing link," Taft answered. "At least that's what it appears to be. A series of equations notched into the Windforce's nameplate."
"Don't try to read them over the phone," Benson said. "We can't be positive our transmissions won't be intercepted."
"Okay, boss," Taft noted, "but we may have a problem then."
"What's that?" Benson asked.
"The wood's been underwater for years. As soon as it reached surface air it began to deteriorate."
Martinez, who was seated next to Taft, gripped his arm. "I have an idea," he shouted over the din of the rotor blades.
"Hold on, sir," Taft said to Benson.
"Do you have a notebook or some paper on board?" Martinez shouted to the copilot. Reaching into a stowage area between the seats, the copilot removed a clipboard containing a flight log and handed it back. Clipped to the top was a mechanical pencil.
"If we lay several sheets across the board we can do a tracing," Martinez said to Taft. Taft nodded at Martinez, then spoke into the phone. "I think Larry's figured out a way to copy the equations onto paper."
"Good," Benson said, "also figure out a way to keep the wood wet."
"That I can do," said Taft.
"I'll round up something to keep it wet on the trip to Colorado and meet you when you land at Andrews," Benson said.
"Right," Taft said as he handed the phone back to the commando. Carefully unwrapping the quickly drying towel from the board Taft carefully positioned it on his knees. Taking the paper from Martinez he placed it over the equations and began to scratch the surface with the mechanical pencil. It required three sheets to cover the entire formula.
"How do they look to you?" he said to Martinez once he was finished.
"Not bad," Martinez commented.
Taft turned toward the copilot. "Does anyone have any water on board?" The copilot motioned to the pilot, who shook his head no. "We left as soon as we received the call," the copilot said apologetically.
Taft glanced to the commandos, who also shook their heads in the negative. The helicopter was still seventy miles from Andrews Air Force Base when Taft unbuckled his seat belt, raised himself up, unzipped his pants, and urinated on the towel.
"Damn," Martinez said when he had finished, "I can't take you anywhere." From the time the Air Force received Benson's call until the ESR-99, code-named Dark Star, landed at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, D.C., less than an hour had passed. Much of that hour had been used in preparing Dark Star for takeoff. The trip from Edwards Air Force Base in California across the country went smoothly for its pilot and copilot. The pulse engines that powered Dark Star operated without a hitch, and the view of the curvature of the earth from 100,000 feet was spectacular. The pilots' space suits were functioning properly, regulating their body temperature; still, the copilot felt warm as he glanced out the tiny side window at the leading edge of the delta wing. The edge was glowing white-hot as the temperature on the edge of the wing reached nearly 1,000 degrees.
Dark Star was a unique design, borrowing the successful parts of the Stealth programs of the 1970s and eighties and combining them with the latest in artificial-intelligence and computer-aided design. The craft itself resembled a triangle when viewed from above. If viewed from the side a person could make out the flare of the fuselage which grew as you followed the lines to the rear.
Strangely enough, unlike most of the spy reconnaissance aircraft that went before her, which were a black color, the Dark Star was an odd metallic blue. The blue color was not a paint or coating, since nothing would stick to the skin of Dark Star, but rather the actual color of the metal, which was a weird alloy whose molecules were arranged in a man-made weightless environment. Stubby, retractable stabilizer fins extended from the fuselage for low-speed maneuvering, which for Dark Star was anything under Mach 1. Passing 100,000 feet above Cincinnati, Ohio, the pilot radioed the tower at Andrews that they would be landing soon and to please alert security. Five minutes later, right at dusk, just north of Baltimore, a thin trail of white vapor threaded inside what appeared to be smoke rings from a giant's cigar but was in fact the exhaust trail from the Dark Star. The contrail quickly dissipated and the few people on the ground who witnessed it assumed it was some odd weather phenomenon.
" Dark Star on final approach. Is the sweeping complete?" the pilot radioed the tower.
"Affirmative, Dark Star. Once you're on the ground please follow the pair of air police Humvees. They will lead you to your hangar."
"Acknowledge," Dark Star's pilot noted.
The pilot's inquiry about sweeping was important. The pulse engines of Dark Star used tremendous volumes of air, which they sucked into rounded intakes like a vacuum. Any small parts, loose screws, rocks, or cans left on or near the runway had a good chance of being sucked up as Dark Star passed. The intakes were screened, but if something got past the screen it could be catastrophic for the engines, each of which cost $14 million to build.
When Dark Star touched down on the runway night was falling. The air police Humvees were already rolling down the asphalt at nearly sixty miles per hour. Flanking Dark Star, they matched her speed while the pilot engaged the braking system, a series of air jets that burst from the front of the fuselage. The bursts of air scrubbed off speed while also cleaning the runway of any debris.
It was critical that Dark Star get inside a hangar as soon as possible after landing. Although rumors of the plane's existence had circulated, as yet no pictures of the craft had reached the press. Taxiing faster than most planes would attempt, Dark Star followed the Humvees to an open hangar. Leaving the Humvees outside, the Dark Star pilot rolled inside at nearly thirty miles an hour. The pilot engaged the air-stop brakes once the plane was near the center of the hangar. A heavy-steel fifty-five-gallon trash drum was tossed against the side wall and partially flattened. It hung there, pressed against the wall, until Dark Star came to a stop and the pilot released the air brake. Then it crashed to the floor.
The pilot and copilot slid from a small hatch at the bottom of the fuselage just as the head of security, a captain with the air police, raced over.
"I'm sure Edwards gave you orders to have everything removed from the hangar, Captain," the pilot said.
Nearly twenty special air policemen in red berets took up position around Dark Star. Circling the aircraft, they pointed their M-16 rifles outward.
"Yes, Colonel, those were the orders. However, we weren't alerted to your arrival until fifteen minutes ago and it was impossible to get a forklift to move that barrel in time." The colonel nodded.
"Any idea how long we'll be on the ground?" the copilot asked.
"The last I heard, the package is due to arrive" the captain stared at his watch"…in fifteen minutes."
"Good," the pilot said, "that gives me time for a cup of coffee." A large Igloo cooler half-filled with liquid sloshed about on the floor of General Benson's GMC Suburban as he turned the last corner and came to a stop outside the hangar where Dark Star was parked. Turning off the headlights, he switched off the ignition and left the keys in place. Once he had been cleared by the air policemen, Benson removed the cooler from the Suburban and placed it on the ground. Sitting atop the cooler he waited for the helicopter carrying Taft and Martinez to land. With the night pitch black and no moon to light the sky, the pilot of the Sikorsky carrying Taft and Martinez followed a three-ton truck with an airman in the rear bed directing the helicopter with flashlights. The truck stopped next to the hangar containing Dark Star, and the pilot of the Sikorsky touched down there. Taft jumped from the helicopter and raced toward Benson, who was opening the cooler. "Set the board in here," Benson shouted over the noise of the helicopter.