Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 06 (69 page)

 
          
“Peachy,
Willis, just peachy,” Elliott said, with his maddening grin. Willis gave him a
sneer along with a slight bow.

           
In the meantime, the guards
finished their inspections. “Tech orders and checklists, Commander,” the marshal
reported. “No flying gear.”

           
The Navy security officer nodded,
disappointed that they hadn’t found anything a little more incriminating. “I
hope you weren’t planning on running engines tonight,” Willis said.

 
          
“That’s
precisely what we had in mind,” Patrick said. “We’re going to tow all the
planes over to the north apron, then run ’em one by one.”

           
“The DC-10 tanker too,” Jon Masters
said. “We’ll do the final checkout on it tonight, then start loading up
tomorrow.”

           
“I wasn’t advised about any of the planes
being towed outside,” Willis said pointedly. “My orders are to not allow any
activities that were not approved in advance.”

 
          
“What
do you think we’re going to do out here, Commander—steal our own planes?”
McLanahan asked with a boyish disarming smile. “Look, Commander, either we
depart on schedule tomorrow night or my company loses millions when you guys
chop up these planes. We’re running a little behind with maintenance glitches.
All we need is to run engines for a few minutes. It’s too much of a hassle to
clear out the hangars to run engines inside, so it would be better if we
could—”

           
“Denied, Mr. McLanahan,” Willis said
sternly. “No clearance, no activity.”

 
          
McLanahan
stepped a bit closer to Willis and said in a low, somewhat emotional voice,
“Hey, Commander, would it kill you to extend a little professional courtesy to
me? I am officially retired from the service, despite what you might have heard
about me. How long have you been in the Navy?”

 
          
“That
is hardly the topic of conversation here.”

 
          
“I
was in for sixteen years,” McLanahan said. “Yes, I took the early out—actually,
I was strongly induced to accept it, or else I would have stayed in. I was on
the 0-6 list, and I was just a couple months from pinning on. I understand
you’ve been selected for 0-6, and you pin on next week?” No reaction from
Willis. “That’s great. I wish the Air Force had that frocking policy, pinning
on your new rank as soon as you’re selected for promotion. You Navy guys get
the best of everything.”

 
          
“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.”

 
          
The
real reunion came when Patrick and Wendy McLanahan emerged and greeted Hal
Briggs. These three had first been together years earlier in the original
Megafortress project started by Brad Elliott, when Patrick and Wendy had been
selected by Elliott to help design and test- fly the first Megafortress, a
modified B-52 nicknamed “Old Dog.” That test program started ten years earlier
had suddenly become an operational mission when Elliott and his crew of
engineers and flyers had flown the Old Dog over the
Soviet Union
to destroy a groand-based laser site that
had been shooting down American satellites, and threatening an intercontinental
nuclear war between the superpowers. The bastardized mission had been a
success, and the ragtag test crew had become the centerpiece of the Air Forces
most highly classified installation, the High Technology Aerospace Weapons
Center, nicknamed Dreamland.