James Rawles - Survivors - A Novel of the Coming Collapse

Junior officers at La Casa Blanca were expected to share rooms. Ian Doyle’s roommate was Bryson Pitcher, an Air Force intelligence first lieutenant, who was permanent party with the intel cell at the American embassy.

Shortly after meeting Pitcher, Ian Doyle summed up the Expedition to him: “It’s an intense assignment, but a good one. I’ll fly three, maybe four missions a week, all in daylight hours, and they are just six hours each. Other than some intel briefing dog and pony shows once every ten or twelve days either here or down at Soto Cano, I get all the rest of my days off to hike, swim, and see the sights. My only regret is that this is only a five-month TDY. I wish it were a couple of years, to really soak up the local culture.”

Bryson’s curiosity was piqued. “Well, what are you doing, exactly? This is the first time I’ve seen F-16s in Hondo. We haven’t heard squat about it, even in the intel shop.”

“I could tell you, but then I’d have to shoot you.”

Bryson snorted.

Ian grinned and said, “Just kidding. What’s your clearance?”

“TS-SBI, with a bunch of funny little letters after that, for SCI compartments that I can’t tell you about.”

“Well, what do you do here, Bryson, in a nutshell?”

“I task and receive reports from a bunch of overeducated NCOs, and we analyze them for liaison with the Honduran government and for an unspecified strategic mission.”

“Stuff from aircraft?” Doyle asked.

“Nope. Stuff from, ah… non-air-breathing platforms.”

“Ahhh, gotcha.” Hearing the euphemism for spy satellites made it clear to Doyle that he could ask no further questions.

“Okay, well, then, I guess I can certainly talk about the basics, even though you’re in the strategic world, while my bailiwick is mostly tactical. A little crossover, I suppose. You’ll probably get briefed in a week or two, anyway.”

Bryson nodded.

Ian looked up at the slowly rotating ceiling fan and asked, “Are you familiar with a system called TARPS?”

“Sure, it’s the Navy’s pod-mounted photo recon system. It’s pretty idiotproof, as long as they remember to hook up the external power and use a squirt of Windex before they take off.”

“That’s the one. Were going to be using F-16s with TARPS pods flying recon over Colombia, keeping track of the, ahem, ‘opposition’s’ troop movements. Meanwhile there are some Army intelligence guys, using a system called Guardrail, out of Panama, to monitor the FARC’s radio transmissions. You piece all that intel together, along with what you guys up in ‘Echelons Above Reality’ provide, and that gives a pretty complete picture for the theater command, most of which-after it’s properly sanitized-can get shared with the host country.”

Doyle sat up and turned to look at Pitcher, and continued: “It’s pretty straightforward stick-and-rudder stuff. I just follow the preprogrammed flight profiles: Fly to these coordinates, spiral down to this altitude and assume this heading and fly straight and level for x minutes until you’re at these coordinates, then turn to this heading and fly x minutes, then climb out, suck some gas at a tanker, and return to base.”

Pitcher chided, “Ha! One of the new UAVs could probably handle that-from a lot closer in than Hondo.”

“No kidding. I’ve been told that it was more political than anything else, to show support for the Colombian and Honduran governments-you know, show the flag. So they didn’t want just a ‘man in the loop’ but an actual ‘man on the stick.’ For reasons of physical security on the ground, they couldn’t base our planes in-country in Colombia, so they decided to base us at Tegucigalpa.”

“Wouldn’t it be safer for the planes to be at Soto Cano?”

“Yes, but El Presidente likes F-16s, so he insisted, since this is just a five-month gig, that we be here in the capital, rather than at Soto Cano. I think he’s hoping to get a ‘dollar ride’ in a D-model.”

“Do you have any two-seaters down here?”

“No, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see that magically get added to the scope of the mission.”

“So basing at Colombia was out, and the political fix was in for Tegucigalpa. Better for you, anyway. At Soto Cano, you’d be living in some corrugated steel hooch with no running water,” Bryson summarized.

“Yeah, it would be muy jodido to have some FARC dude blow up a couple of F-16s on the ramp. As I recall, Vipers were nineteen million dollars per copy, back when the last ones rolled off the assembly line. Now that production has shut down, the airframes are basically irreplaceable. It would be very bad PR if we lost one.”

“So you poor baby! You have three or four days a week on your hands for the next five months to chase skirts and to sip Port Royal beer. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you all the best places to go, and I have friends with cars that can take you there.”

“I’m not much of a skirt chaser. You see, I believe in courting ladies, not dating them. But I have been known to enjoy a good beer.”

“In moderation, no doubt.”

Doyle echoed, “Yes, exactly: in moderation.”

Bryson punched his shoulder. “I think you’re gonna have a blast here.”

Doyle’s plans for the next five months changed radically the next day when he heard what he later called the voice of an angel, as he came in for a landing approach after a forty-minute operational test flight with the newly fitted TARPS pod. The voice on the radio from the control tower sounded enchanting, obviously that of a young woman. Soon after hitting the tarmac, he asked the liaison crew chief about the voice. The master sergeant replied, “Oh, that’s Blanca Araneta. But I’ve gotta warn you: She’s single, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two, and she’s an absolute doll. But she’s made of pure unobtanium. Many before you have tried and failed, young Jedi.”

Doyle immediately took that as a challenge. He got his first glimpse of the young woman as he loitered outside the control tower during the evening shift change. He spotted her just as she stepped into her car, a battered old Mercedes station wagon. Ian was surprised to see that, having heard she was from a wealthy family. She drove away before he had the chance to approach her and introduce himself. She was indeed a beautiful woman, with large, expressive eyes, a perfectly symmetrical face, and full lips. Her shoulder-length black hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Ian Doyle was smitten.

He immediately started gathering intelligence and planning a strategy. He first learned that Blanca was indeed from a wealthy family that lived about an hour’s drive north of the air base. After much prying with other members of the control tower staff, Doyle found out that Blanca Araneta was a recent graduate of Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras and was a licensed private pilot. To Ian this meant bonus points: finding a woman with whom he could talk aviation and not have her eyes glaze over. She still lived in an apartment near the university.

Further inquiries garnered the married name of her college roommate: Consuelo Dalgon, a linguistics major who now taught public school and lived near the airport. Blanca still had a close friendship with Dalgon. After buying a few more beers, he was given Dalgon’s phone number. That same evening, Ian phoned her, explaining that he was TDY and was looking for a Spanish tutor. Dalgon immediately answered affirmatively, explaining that she had married another recent graduate who was just getting started as a management trainee, so she could use the extra money.

Ian’s lessons began the next Saturday at the Dalgons’ apartment. Not only did he get a thorough immersion course in Spanish, but he also began to pick up tidbits about the mysterious Senorita Blanca Araneta.