Mack Maloney - Chopper Ops

“But this thing has wings,” Norton said, stopping to study one of the not-so-stubby appendages.

Smitz turned on his NoteBook. “Says here they are nearly the size of the wings on an F-104 Starflghter.”

“But why?” Norton wanted to know. He patted one of the huge weapon-dispensers attached to the long downward-slanting wings. “Just to carry these things?”

Smitz consulted his computer again.

“Says here the wings provide approximately one fourth the lift required to get the aircraft up and flying. I guess that means the damn thing is one-quarter jet fighter, three-quarters helicopter.”

Norton just shook his head. “Only the Russians could think of that.”

“They are known for their helicopters,” Smitz said, a bit sly.

And that was when Norton stopped in his tracks. He felt like an anvil had just landed smack on the head. All those hours in the Tin Can. The screwy cockpit setup. The ass-backwards flight regimes.

He looked Smitz straight in the eye. “Damn, you’re going to ask me to fly this thing, aren’t you?”

The young CIA officer could only shrug. “That’s the plan,” he admitted. “We can’t go into Iraq in American-built choppers. Our cover would be blown in a minute. So we have to use the kind of copters the Iraqis fly. And they fly Russian-built jobs. All those hours in UIT were intended to get you up to speed on this baby. The simulator software was reverse-engineered from this thing to give you a feel for flying a Hind. End of mystery.”

Norton just shook his head, not able to take his eyes off the sinister Hind. “Man, what am I doing here?” he mumbled.

Smitz let the moment pass, then said to him: “Look, why not just get up there and try it on for size?”

Reluctantly, Norton climbed the ladder and eased himself into the rear seat of the cockpit. And of course there was a problem right away. There were switches and buttons and dials and levers and lights and handles going from his left elbow to his right. Indeed they seemed to surround him, and there seemed to be twice as many as needed. The interior did resemble what he’d been “flying” in the Tin Can, but with double the number of doodads. For someone so used to driving clean aircraft like F-15’s and the F-17 Cobra, the Hind cockpit looked like a madhouse.

“Christ, what is all this extra crap for?” he cried out.

Smitz climbed the ladder and peered into the electronics-laden tub himself. It did look like it had been built back in the fifties.

“I’ve been assured all the crucial flight systems match your simulator training,” Smitz said. “The unimportant stuff is just redundant backup readouts they felt compelled to jam in there, I guess.”

But the cruel joke continued. Norton took a closer look at the control panel and discovered that in the multitude of lights, switches, and buttons, not one of them was labeled in English. Instead they all had nameplates with Cyrillic lettering on them.

“Jesus, even a Russian would have a hard time reading all this,” Norton said. “How am I supposed to?”

“Well, that’s a temporary problem,” Smitz replied. “When we get a chance, we’ll label all the crucial stuff for you. But a lot of it should be somewhat familiar to you already.”

Norton tried to make some sense of the alphabet soup of Russian words swimming before his eyes. He felt as if all the air was leaking out of him.

“How long do I have to figure this out?” he asked Smitz. “A year or so?”

Smitz took a deep breath.

“The specs say the maximum flight-training time is thirty days,” he said. “That’s to be considered combat- ready in this thing.”

Norton just stared back at him.

“ Thirty days? To be combat-ready? Better check your little computer there. You must be reading it wrong.”

But Smitz didn’t move a muscle. “Nope,” he said. “Thirty days. That’s the spec.”

Norton reached up and pulled the CIA man closer to him.

“Are you crazy?” he hissed. “It probably took a Russian five times that long to get combat-ready in this shit-box—and they built the goddamn thing.”

Smitz tactfully disengaged his collar from Norton’s fist.

“Look, Major, our timetable is already behind schedule. Way behind. So, we’ve really got no choice in this matter. Thirty days worth of flight orientation is all that can be allotted. That includes group-flying exercises. Then—”

“Wait a moment,” Norton interrupted him. “Did you say ‘group flying’?”

Smitz just put his thumb over his shoulder. For the first time Norton realized there was another Hind, just as big, just as fierce, parked at the rear of the hangar.

“And there are three more, even bigger Russian copters, in the other two hangars,” Smitz told him.

Norton just shook his head as it all fell into place.

“You’re sending us all into Iraq, riding in Iraqi choppers?” he blurted out. “The Marines? Me? Delaney? The whole crew?”

Smitz nodded. “More accurately, in aircraft that look Iraqi. From the little I know, the plan requires being on the ground for a long period of time. Remaining mobile and remaining secure will be essential. Flying back and forth to an aircraft carrier or a friendly base is not an option. So the unit has to become autonomous and stay in-country, until the mission is done. To do that, a cover is needed. These helicopters will provide that cover—and the mobility.”

Norton just couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Man, you guys have been watching too many bad movies,” he said, starting to get out of the cockpit. “But you can do this one without me.”

Smitz decided it was time to get tough. He reached over and firmly sat Norton back down into the cockpit.

“Major Norton, you’re a military pilot, correct?” he began sternly.

Norton felt his jawbone tighten. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“And you’ve seen combat? And you are on the short list for shuttle flight training. And you wanted to fly black missions out of Dreamland? Right?”

Norton could only shrug. “Yeah, so?”

“So then flying is not the concern here, is it?”

Norton shook his head. “No, it isn’t the flying,” he mumbled. “I can fly anything. But—”

Smitz cut him off. “And to tell you the truth, Major, I’m not even sure why you were selected for this mission. But one reason, I believe, was your high rating on the adaptability section of the PS2. So—we know you can fly anything and we know you can adapt to just about any situation. What is the problem here then?”

“The problem is that there are about a million things that can go wrong with this plan,” Norton shot back. “Whatever the plan is!”

“But if you don’t know what the mission spec is,” Smitz argued, “how could you possibly know what could go wrong?”

Norton took a moment and tried to compose himself. He was losing this debate and he knew it.

“Look, you’re putting us in Iraqi copters, in Iraqi uniforms, I assume,” he said slowly, rolling each syllable off his tongue with contempt. “If just the slightest thing gets fucked up, and we get caught, they can shoot us all as spies. That’s just one reason.”

Smitz just shook his head. He was the exact opposite of Norton. He preferred to hash things out, compromise, with level heads and calm voices. It was the Harvard way of doing things.

“Then, Major, I suggest you and the others should do everything in your power not to get caught,” he said calmly. “I’m sure everyone from the President on down would prefer it that way.”

Norton could feel his face go red. His hands went into fists again. He was stuck and he knew it.