Chapter 5-Command and Control

Chapter 5

Command and Control

Crash Site Designate “Clemens”, Venezuela

He had to give them credit, they worked hard and they worked fast.  Within an hour and a half they had done the grim job of cataloguing all the anonymous body fragments that had been found.  Within three hours all of the machine parts had been rounded up too.

            They worked quietly, their morale wasn’t as high as he’d hoped it would remain.  He knew that they needed a kind word, a bit of encouragement but right now he needed results.  He also worried about the rebel in his ranks.  Captain Barrow would only put up with being on the leash for so long and eventually Dalton knew that he’d have to let the young Captain figure out where his missing man had gotten to.

            It had been a simple logical decision to make.  Men on foot could never hope to round down another fleeing man in this countryside.  Without a helicopter, they could just as easily trip over him as find him.  Of course now that daylight was up, that would help him too.  The maps showed they were nearly twelve miles from the nearest civilization; they were on their own with this issue.

            Captain Dietz walked away from the others, largely working in twos and stood at Dalton’s side.
“You ok boss?” he asked.  Dalton raised an eyebrow.

“I’m fine Roman.  How’s it going out there?”

“Slow but steady.  We’ll have everything in place by about oh-seven-hundred hours.  Give or take.” Said Roman.  He let out a long sigh afterwards.

“I hope you’re not working too hard here.” Said Dalton, concern in his voice.

“Luckily my rank saves me from the really heavy lifting.”  Said Dietz.  “Speaking of which, Jones is barely doing anything at all.  He’s even more sulky than usual.”

“Try to give him things to do, keep him task orientated.” Suggested Dalton.

“Good call.”   Dietz looked around the crash site.

“What’s on your mind Roman?”

“Nothing much.   You sure you’re ok boss?”

“Of course.” Replied Dalton.  “Let’s get a move on shall we?”

“Sounds like a plan”. Replied Dietz.

            The two of them got back to work.  Dalton looked over at Sergeant Jones, sat down, a sour look on his face.  Dietz knelt next to him and spoke.  Jones nodded briskly and began to sort out a pile of rubble.  Dietz walked away to let him work.

A radio call came through from Newman, back on the helicopter.

“I got a call from the net for you Major.  They asked for you.”

“Put it through.”  A voice began speaking in Dalton’s ear.

“Major, are you receiving me?” asked a thin voice.

“Yes sir, though the transmission is weak.”

“Can anyone overhear what you’re saying?” asked the other voice.  Dalton felt surprise surface on his face briefly and then dismissed it.

“I’ll move away for a bit.”  He walked about a hundred meters away from the others.

“Ok you can talk now sir.”

“What’s the sit rep?”

“We’ve secured the crash site.  No sign of a ground to air or air to air attack.  It looks like pilot error at the moment.” Said Dalton, sticking to what he saw as the facts.

“We have reason to believe that the crash may have been caused from the inside.” Replied the thin, whispery voice.

“Yes sir.” Replied Dalton.

“Have you seen anything that would help to corroborate that theory?” asked the voice.

“A few things sir.  Is there information that might be useful to me or my team sir?”

“No.” Came the reply.

“Yes sir.” Dalton felt the familiar burn of being sold a lie.  Another bright shining lie.  It was obvious to Dalton; he hoped he could disguise it to his men.

“Did you recover the cargo?”

“No sir.  There are broken crates but we couldn’t locate any cargo, beyond the normal contents of this sort of plane.” Replied Dalton.

“The cargo was biological I’m told.  Shipped up from a base to the South.  You need to find it.  The op that was called to extract it did not have clearance to do so. An officer has exceeded his brief on this.”

Dalton did not reply this time.

“Major Dalton, Pete.  This is a chance for you to redeem yourself with the brass.  If you can locate this cargo, we can make this illegal op go away.  You can be sure that you’ll get your eagle.” Said the general.

“Yes sir.” Replied Dalton.  He remembered the voice of General Pays and his cliché.

“Don’t rock the boat Peter.”

“Yes sir, I’ll locate the cargo.  I need to know what it is if I’m to find it.” Said Dalton.

“We’re not sure what it is I’m afraid. Only that it’s valuable and possibly some kind of biological find.  It is US property.  Recovering it should be your highest priority.”

“Yes sir.” Said Dalton.

“Good man.  I knew you could get this done.”

“Yes sir.” Said Dalton, gritting his teeth.

“Signing off here.  If asked, you’ll tell them that this was just a sit rep with the brass.”

“Yes I will sir.” Said Dalton.

            He walked around alone for a few minutes thinking it through.  The mission had never sat right with him, he’d never felt comfortable with it.  Now he knew he was right.  Someone had gone off the reservation and he was being asked to clean it up.  There was some sort of lost or even stolen cargo.

            But who in his team could he trust to ask about it?  He wasn’t sure.  Beyond Dietz, his old faithful lieutenant, he wasn’t sure of the others.  Lt Ching was a bright boy and looked up to him but he also had a whole career ahead of him.  No, Dalton supposed that he was on his own on this one.

            He walked back over to the men but he heard raised voices.  He picked up the pace.  By the time he reached his men, he saw that the co-pilot, Wharton, had been shoved roughly by Roburn.  Dalton shouted out.

“Roburn, stand down!”  Roburn turned to look at him.

“Sir, this fucker aint what he says he is.”

Wharton looked around at the rest of the team but was greeted by silence from them.  It was Chung that looked the most intently at him.

“Explain yourself Roburn.”

“I better do this Sir” Said Chung.  “I was talking to Wharton about the op, the air force base and the air force in general.  Simply put, he isn’t an air force man.  He isn’t who he says he is.”

Dalton looked at Wharton. 

“Care to explain Lieutenant?”

“I think Lt Chung’s just gotten a little over excited here and gotten the wrong end of the stick. Then your man here has gotten out of hand.”

“Everyone else get back to work.  Dietz, Chung, stay here.” Said Dalton.  The others moved away, Roburn and Storm keeping an eye on Wharton as they walked away.

“Who are you Lt Wharton?” asked Dalton.

“I’m Lieutenant Chris Wharton, Raleigh North Carolina.” Said Wharton.

“When was your birthday?” asked Dietz.  “You look a little long in the tooth to be a co pilot and a lieutenant.”

“I could say the same about you Captain.” Said Wharton.

“Enough out of you.  You’ll answer the questions you’re given to answer.” Snapped Dalton.  Wharton did not look nervous, he did not look worried.  He was not a service man.

“Who are you really?” asked Dalton.

“If I tell you, you can’t dismiss me from this crash site.” He said back.  Dalton felt his heart sink a little.

“Who are you?”

“Special agent Chris Wharton, homeland security.” Said Wharton.  He drew a badge out of his uniform.

“Son of a bitch.” Said Chung.

“He’s a Fed.” Said Dietz with a rueful smile.

“We’ve got reason to believe that there may be a dangerous element to this cargo and we need to make sure it doesn’t fall into the hands of extremists.” Said Wharton.

“You should have asked to be part of the mission.” Said Dietz.  “We’ve always been willing to accommodate the agency.”

“We couldn’t risk that.  We think that there may have been an inside man on this operation.”
Yes, thought Dalton, so do I.

“Wharton, you’ve compromised my mission and if you do anything to risk the safety of my team, I’ll make sure you get buried in Washington.”

“I understand but we’re on the same side out here Major.” Said Wharton, putting the emphasis on the word Major.

“You need to tell me what you know.” Said Dalton.

“Ok, but first of all they need to walk away.” Said Wharton.

“I don’t keep secrets from Dietz.  Lt Chung, supervise the men.” Chung looked very disappointed but snapped to.

“Ok, tell me what I want to know.” Said Dalton.

“We intercepted some radio chatter about a possible illegal army operation.  Some sort of experimental cargo was to be moved, without clearance back to the US.  What for, we’re not sure but we did detect several code-words that we’re not too keen on.”
“Like what?” asked Dietz.

The answer didn’t come.  Chung ran back over to the three of them.

“What is it Lieutenant?” snapped Dalton.

“Sir, Captain Barrow.”
“What about him?” asked Dalton.

“He’s gone.  He’s taken off.  He’s looking for his missing man.”