Chapter 1- Activated

Book 1

Airframe

Chapter 1        

Activated

Fairfax, Virginia, USA

A knock at the door, the dead of night.  Somewhere in his apartment a pager has been rattling away with a series of messages to phone command HQ.  A double bed lies empty, the covers scattered to one side and an air force uniform is hanging from a hanger over the back of the door.

            Somewhere else in this spacious apartment there is a shower that is drying, water already condensing on the mirrors.  Towels are neatly hung up on the racks, each one looking identical to the last one.  On the wash basin there is a razor back in its casing and the tell tale signs that a man has given himself a close shave already.

            Another knock at the door and then the silhouette of a man walks across the room.  He’s already half dressed in his uniform and is putting on a dress shirt over the top of a vest top that he had been wearing.  Fifty five minutes sleep had done him no favors at all.  On his way to the door he runs a hand through a smart haircut, his hair is thinning but still dark.

            The door opens and he puts a hand to his eyes to shield them against the glare, there are two air force issue hummers idling outside.  Their headlights illuminate him for the two air force non commissioned officers at his door.  Both had side-arms in holsters at their side and one of them has a sealed blue portfolio package.

“Major Dalton?” asks one of them.

“Yes” he replies.

“I’m sorry Major but we have orders to take you to the airstrip at Collville.  You need to leave right away.”

“Do I look ready to you Sergeant?” asks Dalton.

“No sir but…”
“Then give me a minute or two to grab my OD’s and we can all head off together.  You got written orders son?” asks the Major.

“Yes sir.  Countersigned right here sir.” Said the younger of the two NCO’s.

“Ok.” Major Dalton walks back into his apartment.  He leaves a note on his dresser, grabs his jacket and a shirt and walks out the door, locking the door behind him.  He gets into the first hummer and looks over at the driver, a senior NCO with two ten year badges on his uniform.  Career NCO’s, so this was something bad then.

            Of course it was, thought the Major.  You don’t get dragged out of your bed at two am if it’s good news.

            A short and quiet journey ended at a small airfield where an air force twin rotor helicopter was waiting, rotors already spinning.  Major Dalton looked around and saw that the copter was being loaded up.  Dalton saw men rushing around loading boxes of equipment.  A senior non-com was giving out orders but there was a barely restrained note of panic in the air.

            Dalton drew in a breath and let it out.  Almost unconsciously he straightened his uniform and put his air force cross pin back in place on his chest.  He looked around the air strip and saw there were other helicopters under their covers and a few other crew members standing around but it seemed like currently, his was the only game in town.

“Do you know what the op is Sergeant?” he asked.

“My end of it is just to get you here and then onto the bird sir.” Said one of the sergeants.

“Whose in command here?” asked Major Dalton.

“You are sir.” Said the youngest of the three NCO’s.

“I mean who gave this order.  I need some answers before I get aboard a bird to who knows where.” Asked Major Dalton.  He’d meant those words but was already walking towards the helicopter.  Of course he would go; he’d always go wherever they sent him.  But this mission was a total secret at the moment and he would feel better to know that someone was officially taking care of it.

“That’s a reasonable request.” Said a gruff voice.  Stood in the shadows was an air-force general.  “I’m Brigadier general Michael Kaufman. Whilst you’re in command of this operation, I gave authorization for it.”

“Yes general” said Dalton, snapping to attention.  “Anything you can tell me before we get underway?”

“Only that it’s a top secret mission, only your crew will be briefed on it.  We chose you Major, out of all available personnel we chose you.”
Peter Dalton smiled. Available; technically he wasn’t available at the moment.  He’d been put on a seventy two hour stand-down.  But the air force needed him so here he was none the less.

“In which case sir I’ll get the job done, whatever it is.  I’d like to request Captain Roman Dietz and Captain Michael Fryer are put onto this mission staff if available.”

“I figured you’d say that and we got Captain Dietz for you.  Captain Fryer is unavailable at this point so we got you a decent man to cover him.  I know you like to work with a regular crew but this isn’t a regular op.  Just get it done Major.”

“Yes sir.” Said Dalton.  He turned, grabbing a mission portfolio off a crew chief on his way.  The general watched them tensely from the ground and only began to relax after the chopper took off.

           

Peter Dalton sat down inside the helicopter and opened up the folder.  He ignored the other officers aboard the chopper, what could he tell them right now?  He didn’t know what they’d been called together for, he didn’t know where they were going.  No it was better to familiarize himself with the mission and then from there he could better brief them.

“Major?” said a plaintive voice.  Dalton dismissed the speaker with a wave of his hand from behind his briefing papers.

To Major P Dalton

An army air transport bringing an important cargo back from the Antarctic has crashed in the Andes, near Venezuela.  Your team are to investigate the crash, recover any survivors and material and return to the Marine base in Las Navas.  Any materials that cannot be recovered should be destroyed.

This mission is highly sensitive and all of its details are code-word cleared.

Yours

Brigadier General M Kaufman

Dalton took a moment to think about the mission, to think about what it might entail.  He re-read the technical read outs of the army transport that had gone down, a crew of nine missing or dead.  The cargo was in two large wooden crates and apparently posed no radioactive threat.  What was implied by the orders was that the cargo was of vital importance.

            Dalton finally looked up from the orders and saw the team, illuminated in the strange glow of the helicopter’s blood red internal light.  He recognized one face for sure, he’d worked with Roman Dietz a number of times before.  The others looked like there were almost all officers.  One of them, the one who had spoken to him before, looked and sounded very young indeed.  “Twenty two.” thought Dalton

“We’ve met haven’t we?” asked Major Dalton to the younger officer.  The lieutenant nodded and smiled back.

“Yes sir.  I’m Lieutenant Chung.  We worked together about two months ago.  You were the principal investigator, I was just another Louey in the background.”

“I’m terrible with names” said Dalton “so forgive me.  Well it’s good to have you aboard.”  He passed the mission profile over to the younger officer.  “Read that and tell me what you think.”

The young man’s brow furroughed as he read, as if he was trying to make sense of some ancient document or a complex code.  But it wasn’t the tell tale sign of stupidty, this was a better sign.  This was the sign of somebody who considered things carefully. 

“Permission to speak candidly sir.”  Asked the Lieutenant.  Dalton looked at him with a wry look on his face.

“Permission granted.”

“There isn’t much there.  We aren’t being given the whole story.  Not even a dust jacket.”
“No” said Dalton with a smile “We’re not being told nearly enough.”
“I wonder why” asked the Lieutenant.

“No sense in asking.” Replied the voice of experience.