On Distant Shores (Exiles Triology Book 1) (9 page)

The plane climbed steadily after it took off, and leveled into its cruising altitude.  There were no others on the flight, so the team had plenty of room to stretch out.  The lights cut from white light to green, inducing Mickey and Tom to nod into deep sleep.  Rob was listening to music and reading a book.  The drone of the turbines and the whine of hydraulics, made the flight a noisy one.  C-12s were nice to fly on, because there weren’t that many people that got to ride on them, but they were not known for comfort.  They were designed to get soldiers to combat as quickly and efficiently as possible.  This airplane was more comfortable than the C-130 that Mike cut his teeth on in the 82
nd
Airborne.  Sixty-four airborne soldiers with gear could fit on a C-130.  Jump seats were not comfortable, and when Mike was in the 82
nd
, there were a few times when his leg went to sleep while waiting to jump from the aircraft.  With sixty-four jumpers on board, it was very crowded. Soldier’shad each knee between the knees of two other jumper’s legs sitting across from him.  If they had not been wearing ballistic vests, parachutes, backpacks and weapons, they would look like a big, camouflaged zipper from above.

Mike relaxed, reading Ian Flemings ‘James Bond’ novels.  Those, plus the ‘Sharpe’s Rifles’, ‘Master and Commander’, and the ‘Horatio Hornblower’ series of books were his favorite novels.  He was keenly aware that all of them were about British military, but he liked the flavor of the novels, where men faced with great conflicts mastered the day and had gone on to beat and excel against their adversaries.  He worked with British and Australian SAS, and had nothing but great respect for their training, experience, and capabilities.  They were a great bunch of ‘lads’ and fun to work with.

He worked with many of his sister services, to include SEALs, Marine Force Recon, Air Force Combat Air Control, and Para-Jumpers.  Looking back on his experience, he had a great career and had done many great things with his time in service.  He had six more years, and then he could retire.  Then he would be spending all of his time with Jo and their kids, and Jo wouldn’t have to worry about whether or not he would come back to her.

Jo was a great woman.  Had he met her when he was younger, he probably wouldn’t have chosen the life that he was in.  He was enjoying it now, though he missed her constantly.  He was comforted by the thought that Jo would be taken care of if anything did happen to him.  There was plenty of money in the bank with his salary and hers.  Plus there was life insurance, just in case.  He sank enough money into the house so that the land and house were about half paid off.  He knew Jo would be taken care of, but he would always worry, no matter what.  His goal was to always come back.  That was his promise to her when he asked her to marry him.  He told her that he would never leave her, and that no matter where he was in the world, he would always come back to her.

He pulled out the biscuits and passed some to Everett and Rob.  It was chilly on the aircraft, so he pulled a light jacket out of his backpack and put it on. The drone of the plane started to wear on him and he stretched out, then fell asleep.

The plane droned for an hour, and then finally, they felt the plane turn.  Hydraulics sounded as the aircraft banked.  They were experienced enough to know the indicators that the plane was about to hit the target area.  They roused, and the sleepers rubbed their faces to ensure that there was no drool or sleep lines.  The situation wasn’t helped as Rob gestured to Mickey, and kept pointing at his own face, indicating that there was something on Mickey’s face.  Mickey kept trying to rub whatever it was off of his face, but Rob kept motioning that he missed it.  The fact that there was nothing there didn’t dawn on Mickey until he saw the grins on Mike’s and Everett’s faces.

“Asshole,” he grumbled.

Rob nodded.

Everybody checked around themselves and made sure that trash was picked up and no personal items had been left.  They felt the angle of the plane change and knew that the plane was losing altitude.  This pilot was good.  He did such a soft landing that they were surprised when they felt the brakes of the aircraft take hold.  Then, as is usual with a C-12, the aircraft slowed down quickly, and changed direction as it moved off of the main runway towards the area they would disembark.

--------------------------------------

As the C-12 taxied, the loadmaster of the plane went to the back, prepped, and lowered the tail gate of the plane until it was parallel with the ground.  The air was cooler here, and the team could smell the freshness of the air as it entered the aircraft.  In the distance, behind the aircraft, they could see the buildings of Malmstrom AFB.  The plane slowed, parked, and the team could hear the aircraft systems spool down.

The team popped the buckles on the seat belts and stood to stretch muscles that were stiff from sitting.  One of the crew members, the assistant Loadmaster, talked to Mike and told him that they were waiting for an escort.  As soon as the escort was available, the team would be allowed off of the plane.  The assistant load master went to the passenger hatch right below the flight deck, opened up the door, and let down the stairs.  A fork lift appeared outside the plane.  An Air Force captain appeared at the front hatch, and walked up the stairs into the plane.  As the fork lift maneuvered to get into place to receive the pallet, the Air Force captain walked over and introduced himself to the team.  He was taken aback that they were all dressed in civilian clothes.

“Gentlemen, my name is Captain Bob Dickenson.  I’ll be your escort to our operation.  There seems to be some mistake.  We asked for people with infantry experience.  We didn’t ask for civilians.”

Mike stepped up to the Captain, “And infantrymen you got.  My name is Chief Warrant Officer Three Mike Duggins.”He continued with the rest of the team, “This is Master Sergeant Everett Calhoun, Sergeant First Class Mickey D’Inazio, Staff Sergeant Roberto Torres Y Torres, and Staff Sergeant Thomas Milkin.”

Captain Dickenson shook hands with each of the team members as they were introduced.  He winced as he shook hands with Mickey, “Ah, excuse me, you don’t look like the typical infantryman that I’m used to.  I was a combat engineer before I switched to the Air Force and became an officer.”

Rob nodded, “Yes sir, we’re too pretty to be your average infantryman, but they finished with the recruiting posters and TV spots so they decided to send us here.”

Mike smiled at the Captain’s confused look, “You can ignore him. I always do.”  Mike continued, “We can discuss this later.  One of my men needs to go with the pallet.  We have weapons and munitions on it.”

“Don’t worry, Chief, We’ll be escorting it the entire way to Area 19.  If you don’t mind, let’s go ahead and get in the van, and we’ll get off of the airfield.

“That’ll work,” Mike replied.

The team grabbed their backpacks and followed the Captain out of the plane.  They climbed into the van and took seats.

“All right, the short bus,” Mickey observed.

“And so appropriate for this group,” Mike stated.

The driver was a Staff Sergeant, skinny, losing what little red hair he had. He had a face full of freckles, and an easy smile.His name was Staff Sergeant Drapier.  The Captain gave him directions to follow the forklift, which was starting to pull away from the aircraft towards a gate that led off of the airfield.  The fork lift and passenger van pulled through the gate and the fork lift approached a flatbed truck.  As Mike watched, the fork lift pulled alongside the flat bed and started loading the pallet onto the truck.  Two other Air Force personnel gave hand signals to the person on the fork lift so that the pallet was placed square onto the flatbed, the fork lift tines moving between the four by fours on the truck bed.  As soon as the two Air Force personnel had the pallet loaded on the truck bed correctly, they waved off the fork lift, and strapped down the pallet to the truck bed for movement.  They hopped into the cab of the truck.

Mike asked, “Are we going far from here?”

“What?”

“Are we moving far from here?  You just strapped the pallet to a flat bed, so I’m assuming that we’retraveling.”

Captain Dickenson shook his head, “No, We’ll be leaving the base though.  We’ll travel down highway 89. We have to travel to get to Area 19.  It’s not too far.  We’llfollow the flatbed, and they have orders not to lose sight of us.  Not too much of a problem.”

Mike had to trust the captain.  The team settled in, the flatbed pulled away from the loading zone, and the van fell in behind it.

“Where are you guys from?” the Captain Dickensonasked.

“We’re from Fort Carson.”

“I was station at Fort Bragg.  I was with the 307
th
Engineer Battalion before they were deactivated in 2006.”

Everett told him, “Well, you’ll be glad to know that the unit has been reactivated and is now part of the 20
th
Engineer Brigade.”

“Yeah, I still have some friends in the Engineers at Bragg.  My buddies from Operation Iraqi Freedom emailed me and told me that it had been reactivated.”

“So, who are you guys with?” Dickenson asked.

Mike replied, carefully, “Well, the requirements that you sent meant that a more specialized unit had to be called in for this mission.”

Captain Dickensonwaited, “What unit is that?”

Mike looked at him, “Maybe we can talk when we get to a secure area.”

Captain Dickenson looked at him a moment, and then suddenly the light went off.  He grinned, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he said.

Mike grinned back at him, “Don’t you love special access programs?”

They exited Malmstrom Air Force Base and headed southon a road that swung to the southeast.  Mike assumed it was highway 89.  They were surrounded by farm land.  They passed farm houses widely spaced from each other.  The farms were covered in wheat fields, with the occasional soy bean farm.  To the south and west they could see mountains rising off of the flat lands.  To the east there was a small group of mountain peaks that sat by themselves away from any other mountains.  They kept moving east on highway 87.  The mountains to the east kept getting larger.  The flatbed pulled off on a side road going north, and the shuttle bus followed.

As the shuttle bus traveled, Captain Dickenson talked about accommodations, “Gentlemen, we have two rental cars reserved for you at Enterprise on base, and rooms reserved for you at the base BOQ.  Once we’re done here today, we’ll move you back to Malmstrom, and you can pick up your rental cars.  Tomorrow, you can drive directly out here to Area 19.  We greatly appreciate that you’re able to come out and help us with our project.”

Tom put his hand up.

Captain Dickenson smiled, “And if you could hold your questions until we get to a secure area, I would greatly appreciate it.”

Tom’s hand slowly went down.

Mickey looked at him, “Dude, you should have gone before we got on the bus.”

Rob spoke, “Are we there yet?”

Finally, they rolled up to their destination.  The flatbed turned onto a small access road barely large enough for the truck.  The access road led to a large metal building that sat out in a field.  The area around the building had a chain link fence topped by razor wire.  There were large cement security barriers around the perimeter that butted up to the fence to prevent any vehicle from driving through the chain link.  Alarge parking lot on the side of the building had a vehicles parked in it.From where he was, Mike could see a security checkpoint at the front doors of the building.  The flatbed truck pulled up to a gate, and an Air Force security guard walked over to the flatbed.  He checked the Air Force ID cards and security badges of the driver and his assistant. He pulled a handset and started speaking into it.  The gate rolled back to admit the flatbed.

Mike and the team were doing what they were trained to do.  They were checking out the security of the site.  Mike saw a CCTV system, with a CCTV camera that was capable of infrared and starlight.  There were eight inch metal stanchions in the ground at the gate.  If there was a problem, the guard in the guard house would hit a button, and hydraulics would send the metal stanchions up so that no vehicle would be able to breech the gate.  Mike saw security lights with sensors to trigger the lights if movement was detected.  The place was well defended.

The shuttle bus parked.  Captain Dickenson spoke, “Gentlemen, we’ll have to give you guest passes until we get you processed, and the rules are such that you’re not allowed to bring electronics into Area 19.  You can check your pistols at Security.”

“Uh, we have some expensive electronics here,” Everett said.

“You can leave your bags in my office, if that’s good enough for you.  Otherwise, you’ll have to leave them in the van.”

Mike looked around at his team.  Nobody seemed to be upset about leaving their packs in the captain’s office, “Sure, no problem, lead on.”

The security building had two sides, one for people going in, and one for people coming out.  Captain Dickenson walked into Security and everybody walked in behind him.  The Captain started talking to the Tech Sergeant behind the desk. The Tech Sergeant was an Asian named Yee, with an athletic build. Captain Dickenson turned to Mike and his team and asked for their military ID cards.  He handed their IDs to Tech Sergeant Yee.  He sat down at a computer and started typing.  The Tech Sergeant ran a check to verify that they were who they said they were, secured the IDs, and replaced them with security badges.  There were two other security guards present, a female Senior Airman, named Trevino, athletic, brown hair, and a gangly, pasty white Staff Sergeant named O’Neill that looked like he spent too much time playing games online.  There was a clearing barrel outside, so they went out and cleared the weapons, then brought them back and handed them to O’Neill.  The gangly Staff Sergeant gave them chits for their weapons, and secured them behind the desk.  After this, Captain Dickenson walked them through security to the building behind.