Outlaw

The watch commander slammed the phone down in frustration, then brought his hands up to knead the tension from his temples. Connor leaned against the wall in the back of the room, watching the organized chaos of a dozen men and women working tirelessly to get the helicopter back to safety. He couldn’t understand the stress they were under, and he admired them even more for it.

“Listen up!” the watch commander bellowed.

Heads whipped in his direction, and Connor shoved off the cold steel. He was on pins and needles waiting to learn the fate of the aging Russian helicopter. But something about the watch commander’s demeanor told him it wasn’t good news.

“The Ronald Reagan is no longer a suitable option for recovering Dusty One.”

Connor took two quick steps forward as the room erupted in a chorus of nervous whispers.

“Quiet down!” the watch commander yelled, then paused and waited for the cavernous room to slip once more into silence. “We don’t have time to lose our minds. We need to bring them back here.”

“What’s happened on the Reagan?” Connor asked.

The watch commander turned and appraised him, obviously frustrated by the interruption. But he answered the question anyway, likely to avoid distraction so his team could focus on the solution instead of the problem. “There has been some kind of outbreak, and the commanding officer has declared the entire ship in quarantine.”

Connor opened his mouth to press for more details, but the commander held up a hand and silenced him with a surprisingly patient gesture. “I know there are lots of questions, but we can address those after we get them back here.” He turned and faced a Navy lieutenant commander with gold wings on his chest. “Air, does Dusty have the range to make it here?”

The baby-faced pilot plotted the straight-line distance between the FARP on Passu Keah and their location aboard Clark Air Base, then hastily scratched numbers down on a notepad. Connor watched him scribbling furiously while every head in the room was turned in his direction, waiting for his answer. At last, he looked up and said, “Maybe.”

“Maybe? What does that mean?”

If the pilot was nervous, he didn’t show it. He simply recited the facts as he saw them. “The standard range for the Mi-17 is three hundred and eight miles, but we’ll call it an even three hundred to make the math easy. This particular bird has two two-hundred-and-thirty-gallon auxiliary fuel tanks installed. Each tank has approximately two hundred and twenty-seven gallons of usable fuel for an increased range of just under two hundred miles. Again — easy math — we’ll call it two hundred and twenty-five gallons usable with a range increase of one hundred and ninety miles.”

“Get to the point,” the watch commander urged.

“It depends on how bad they’re leaking and how much fuel they made it to the atoll with,” he said. “With a full internal tank and two full auxiliary tanks, they should have a range of just under seven hundred miles.”

“How far are we from Passu Keah?”

“Six hundred miles.”

“So, what’s the problem?” the watch commander asked.

“The fuel blivet at FARP Alpha is only five hundred gallons. If they were on fumes when they landed on Passu Keah, that’s only enough gas to get them four hundred miles.”

The watch commander snatched his phone off its cradle.

Dusty One

Air Branch Mi-17 Hip

Passu Keah Atoll

Charlie looked over his shoulder at the gaggle of men scrambling back aboard the helicopter. It was a slow process transferring fuel from the five-hundred-gallon fuel bladder on the atoll into the Russian-made helicopter, but he felt the tension in his upper back dissolve as he watched the needles creep upward on the fuel quantity gauges for his two auxiliary fuel tanks.

“We drained her dry,” Dave said, poking his head into the cockpit.

“Is it enough?” Charlie asked.

Roger measured their distance on the atoll to the Reagan’s Position of Intended Movement and nodded. “More than enough. Even with the leak, we should be able—”

The satellite radio squawked and interrupted his answer. “Dusty One, Scar Nine Nine.”

Charlie pressed the transmit button. “Go ahead.”

“What’s your fuel state in gallons?”

Charlie shared a concerned look with Roger before answering. Normally, they spoke in units of time instead of quantity. “Just under six hundred gallons. More than enough to make it back to mom.”

He released the push-to-talk switch and looked back at Roger. “What the hell is going on?”

The other pilot shook his head. “I have no idea, but I have a feeling we’re not going to like it.”

As if on cue, the radio squawked again. “Change in plans, Dusty. Mom is no longer a suitable destination. You are to proceed to Clark Air Base. How copy?”

“We can’t make that,” Roger said. “We’ve got maybe four hundred miles left.”

Charlie took a deep breath before replying. “That’s a negative. We don’t have the range.”

“Good copy, Dusty. Start heading that way while we work something out.”

Charlie exhaled slowly and turned to Roger. “What do you think?”