Leviathan

The Black Hawk luckily slammed into the false dilapidated roof of the hangar building of gate 1. It careened back into the air and actually slid through the air, finally landing on its belly, minus its rotors. The Black Hawk slid about a hundred feet through the Nevada scrub, and then the airframe hit a large rise of sand and flew back into the air and onto her left side, tearing free the landing gear assembly. She finally came to rest, her right-side engine burning.

"Get the hell out!" Everett yelled as they all unfastened their seat belts, holding on to each other because of the awkward position with the Black Hawk lying on its side.

As Everett first reached the doorway, a hand shot through and pulled him up. He saw that it was one of the gate 1 security men dressed in his desert camouflage. As Everett turned to assist the others, several loud thumps slammed into the bottom of the chopper.

"Hey, someone's taking potshots at us!" Mendenhall called from the interior.

Everett turned to the lone security man.

"Where in the hell is the rest of the security element?"

"Out. We were hit twenty minutes ago; all hell is breaking loose down in the complex."

Finally, Ryan was the last man lifted from the downed Black Hawk. Everett, Rodriguez, and Mendenhall had already drawn their nine-millimeters and were firing into the hangar.

"In case you didn't know it, Captain, we're outgunned here," Jack said as he took cover next to Carl.

"You haven't missed a beat--same old song and dance, outnumbered and outgunned," Carl said as he fired two rounds into the dark, then risked a look back at the colonel. "Welcome home, Jack," he said with a smirk.

The air suddenly filled with a loud buzzing. The sound was almost recognizable as a V-22 Osprey, but the engine noise was different; it had more of a whine to it.

"Are the marines landing here at Nellis?" Mendenhall asked as he fired, emptying his weapon.

"I hope it's them," Ryan said just as his gun jammed.

Without warning, the hangar's interior lights were turned on and alarms started sounding. They could see close to fifty men inside as they suddenly tossed off goggles and held their hands to their eyes in the brightness of the floodlights.

"Well, someone back in the complex finally woke the hell up," Will said, pushing in another clip of ammunition.

Collins reached out, took a set of binoculars from the case of the camouflaged security man, brought them to his eyes, and rose up above the protection of the helicopter.

"Damn, I count over forty, no, fifty-plus bad guys ... and ... no, wait ... cease-fire.... cease-fire, damn it!" Jack called out. "They have hostages! What in the hell is happening here? Damn, they have the director."

Everett pulled the glasses from Jack and looked inside.

"Alice, the senator, Niles, Virginia--" he called out, and then he became silent, turned, and slid down the fuselage to a sitting position after seeing one other person who was being carried by two men in dark Nomex.

The sky above them screamed as a large aircraft, a kind they had never seen before, shot overhead and then flared at the last moment before flying headlong into the facade of the old hangar. It was an unrecognizable tilt-rotor craft. Then another and another, until the fourth set down outside the hangar. Large and fierce looking, the aircraft had two loud and piercing jet engines in the place of the turbofan propellers of the American V-22 Osprey. As they landed, the engines pivoted, and were positioned to pull the aircraft instead of providing it with lift.

As the security men of the Event Group watched helplessly, the hostile element was seen running with their captives to a lowering rear ramp. The tilt-engine craft was large enough to accommodate all of them easily. In two minutes, the black-painted aircraft revved its engines, pushed out of the hangar, and was airborne in five seconds. It shot low over the desert and was soon climbing. The other men ran to their assigned craft and loaded. Everett was impressed with the time it took to load their assault element. The egress from the landing zone was all done in less than thirty seconds.

Mendenhall tugged at Everett's sleeve and pointed into the dark sky. Two F-22 Raptors, America's newest top-of-the-line fighters, shot through the air in pursuit of the attacking craft.

"Inform Nellis combat ops to observe only, not to engage. American hostages are onboard," Carl said to Ryan as he commenced broadcasting with the handheld radio.

The sound of more fighters were heard as they went to afterburner to get airborne from the airstrip at the main base. Mendenhall counted ten in all, including the two already in pursuit of the attackers.

Finally, Collins sat hard into the sand and looked at Everett. "How in the hell could they have gotten in and kidnapped the four highest ranking people we have?"

Carl didn't answer right away. Instead he looked at his friend and hoped Jack was going to accept what he had to say.