Mack Maloney - Chopper Ops

“If these people can build all this and get away with it,” Norton told him. “I’d say they are capable of anything.”

Delaney gave out a long moan. “Just what I need, something to make me even more paranoid. This place really gives me the creeps.”

Norton couldn’t disagree with him. Seven Ghosts Key was a very odd place. There were at least a couple hundred people on site. Yet the island always managed to looked deserted due to its surfeit of subterranean facilities. As a result, the feeling of isolation was almost overwhelming. There were no other islands to been seen in any direction. No airplanes ever seemed to fly overhead. No boats ever seemed to be sailing on the horizon. Yet the island was located close to one of the busiest maritime areas in the world.

Even the origin of its name was weird. When he first arrived here, Norton had been told by one of the CIA officers that the island’s facilities had been built in the late 1950’s to launch raids on Cuba, which was just over the horizon. At that time, the island was known simply as Green Rock Key. Then, sometime in the mid-sixties, something very strange happened. One dark and stormy night, as the story went, seven CIA employees assigned here simply disappeared. They went to sleep one night, but in the morning their bunks were empty and unmade. The island was searched thoroughly, as were the waters surrounding it. No boats were missing, no aircraft had landed or taken off during the night. Yet no trace of the seven individuals was ever found.

Hence the name change.

Under the circumstances, it was a little bit of history that Norton could have done without.

After five minutes of walking in the brutal sun, he and Delaney finally reached their destination: the fake yacht club at the southern tip of the island. Here sat a dozen aging yachts and fishing boats, vessels on hand to help maintain the illusion that this place was little more than a private rich man’s fishing club.

Some of the yachts were so old, though, they were probably antiques. It was obvious none of them had been out to sea in decades. They had no engines, no sails. They were simply props.

He and Delaney climbed aboard one called Free Time . It was an elderly charter boat, a forty-four-footer with a huge open deck and sixteen fishing chairs set up on its stern. Norton and Delaney settled into the two seats closest to the shade, and Delaney dipped into his cooler. A six-pack of tall Budweiser’s was buried under a small mountain of ice inside.

“Where did you manage to get that?” Norton asked him.

“The mess hall guys have a private stash in the meat freezer,” Delaney said, passing Norton a brew. “I told one of them I’d take him for a ride in the Tin Can some night. He’s nuts about flying in that thing. Says he’ll get us as much booze as we want, just as long as we give him a spin around the block every once and a while.”

Norton just shook his head. He had not seen a beer or any alcohol since being on the island, nor did it ever dawn on him to look for any. Delaney, on the other hand, had been here less time than he had, and yet he’d managed to secure a six-pack and a future supply.

That was Slick….

“Skoll!” Delaney said, tapping cans with Norton. Both took a long deep slurp of the cold beer. It felt like gold running down Norton’s throat. For the first time since coming to this place, he actually felt his muscles start to relax.

“So,” Delaney said with a burp. “Have you figured it out yet?”

“Figured out what?” Norton asked in reply.

“What the hell are we doing here?”

Norton swigged his beer again, then wiped the cool can across his hot forehead.

“You’re asking the wrong person,” he replied. “They keep telling me we’ll all be briefed soon. But all I’ve been doing is playing in the Can. …”

Norton let his words drift away. This was true. Though he’d been on the island for nearly two weeks, he still had no idea exactly why the CIA had brought him and the others here. Again, the security surrounding the project was that tight.

“Well, I guess we’ll know soon enough.” Delaney sighed. “Then we’ll probably be complaining that we know too much.”

They sat and drank for a few moments in silence. A light breeze blew in on them, reducing the temperature a few degrees to about a hundred or so.

Delaney broke the silence again.

“So, what kind of a chopper have you been flying in the Tin Can?”

Norton bit his lip for a moment. Was he really supposed to be talking about this?

He sipped his beer. What the hell. .. why not?

“Well, because the simulator is rigged for an attack chopper, I just assumed it was an Apache,” he answered finally.

Delaney nodded. The AH-1 Apache was the U.S. military’s premier attack copter, and hands down the best aircraft of its kind in the world. It was a frightening aerial weapon, small, quick, heavily armed, survivable.

“But those simulators ain’t no Apaches,” Delaney said. “They handle too big. Fly too big. And the control panel is ass-backwards. It’s like I’m reading right to left, instead of the other way around.”

Once again, Norton had to agree. The setup as presented in the Tin Can was cockeyed. In any aircraft he’d ever flown, the layout of the instruments had a rationale behind it. Fuel gauges were all grouped in one spot, environmental controls in another, electrical supply in another, and so on. The controls were allocated in such a way that the pilot could review them quickly and the eye was naturally drawn to their location after just a few hours of experience. But the controls in the simulator seemed to be for a helicopter whose cockpit panel had been thrown together slapdash, with logical placement no more than an afterthought. Fuel gauge here, auxiliary fuel gauge way over there. Ammo supply here, firing sequence button way up here. Many things about the control layout seemed foreign and didn’t make sense to him. Plus many of the controls weren’t even marked.

“And how about the weapons regimen?” Norton asked Delaney. “My ship is set up as a two-man tandem. Is yours?”

Delaney replied, “Absolutely…”

“But the way I’m set up, it looks like I’m flying the pig and shooting the guns.”

Delaney took a huge gulp of beer.

“Same here,” he said. “I’m doing the driving and the shooting and the gunner is doing diddly.”

“Weird…”

“Very weird…”

They finished their first beer in silence.

“You won’t believe how fast they have my ship going,” Delaney said finally. “That thing flies so freaking fast, it almost makes sense they have a fighter jock at the wheel. I guess that’s why we’re here.”

“Yeah, well, I get scared when something starts to make sense around here,” Norton said.

Delaney coaxed the last few drops of beer from his can. Norton wiped his sweaty forehead once more.

The slightly cooling breeze blew off the water again. The beer was having its first effects on Norton. For a moment it actually seemed like they were just two guys, enjoying a hot afternoon, drinking beer, and fishing off the end of a huge boat.

If only … he mused.

Delaney reached into his cooler, took out two more beers, and handed one to Norton.

“Did you know Mutt and Jeff arrived yesterday?” he asked Norton.

“No kidding?”

“I heard they’ve been crybabying to Smitz ever since,” Delaney said.

“They really don’t want to be heroes, do they?”

“Can’t blame them, I guess,” Delaney answered. “I mean look where it got us .”

Norton bit his lip again. That was another thing troubling him. His decision to turn the CIA on to Gillis and Ricco had been preying on his mind.