SOAR: A Black Ops Novel

0426. Wei-Liu made her way back to the C-5 and peered inside the Galaxy’s cavernous fuselage. It was virtually empty. Night-vision to her eye, she made her way up the ramp and took a dozen tentative paces inside. The interior smelled of hydraulic fluid and jet fuel. Her back to the bulkhead, she watched as the flight crew, in their overalls and long gloves, stowed cargo straps and checked hose connections. Up by the forward troop door the sergeant called Rowdy, along with two others, was stacking bulky canvas carryalls on a lonely pallet. Wei-Liu walked forward and prodded a bag with her foot. “What are these?”

He looked up at her. She almost laughed because the night-vision goggles attached to his shaved head gave him a sort of alien-creature bug-eyed appearance.

“Our parachutes, ma’am.” Rowdy put two fingers to his mouth, turned toward the port-side doorway, and gave a shrill whistle. He slipped a cargo net over the pallet and secured it.

As he bent over, his polo shirt rode up and Wei-Liu saw the butt of a pistol protruding just above the thick leather belt of his cargo trousers.

Rowdy looked toward the rear ramp, frowning, and whistled again. “Goddammit.” He jerked his thumb toward the warehouse. “Doc, get Curtis and the effing forklift back, will you? They have to close this thing up in three minutes so they can get the hell outta Dodge.”

“Yes, Sergeant Major.”

Wei-Liu blinked. It was the most dialogue she’d heard anyone speak since the C-5 arrived.

0429. Wei-Liu stood under the C-5’s massive wing looking up at the huge turbofan engines through her NV. Each one had to be almost thirty feet long. “Impressive, aren’t they?”

She turned toward the sound of the voice. A woman in a dark flight suit appeared out of the darkness. She wore a flight helmet with night-vision goggles attached, and she carried an infrared flashlight. Wei-Liu said, “Are you part of the crew?”

“I’m the pilot.” She thrust the flashlight into the thigh pocket of her flight suit and extended her right hand “Captain Jodi Wright.”

Wei-Liu took her hand and shook it. “Tracy Wei-Liu. You were on the radio with the major. ‘Cocoa Flight.’”

“Yup.”

“That was incredible, the way you brought this … thing in.”

“I didn’t believe my eyes the first time I saw somebody do it, either. But with practice …”

“A lot of practice, I’ll bet,” Wei-Liu said. “What are you doing now?”

“A walk-around,” Wright said. “Visual inspection. I gotta be out of here in eleven minutes and I don’t want anything falling off.”

Wei-Liu nodded. “I won’t keep you.” She offered her hand. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.” The pilot smiled. “Good luck to you, too.”

0440. Holding her ears against the whine of the massive turbofans, Wei-Liu walked across the dark apron and pushed through the warehouse door. The curtain of brightness made her squint. Inside, lit by half a dozen generator-powered work lights, men were stringing cables that connected secure telephones, laptops, and servers. Others had opened the weapons cases and were checking over the short, wood-stocked carbines. Still others sat on the floor, scores of curved metal magazines in front of them, loading round after round of ammunition. One man was taking grenade bodies out of a small wood crate and screwing handles with pins and rings stuck through them into the baseball-sized explosives. A length of curved metal that resembled a half-column mold leaned incongruously against the wall behind the ammo loaders.

Ritzik was on his back, under a long folding table that held three large flat computer screens. A trio of video cables trailed behind him. Wei-Liu said, “Major?”

Ritzik looked up at her. “Hey.”

“I’m feeling useless. Isn’t there any way I can help?”

“You could grab some sleep. You’re going to need it.”

“Frankly, Major, I’m too wired to sleep.”

“Too bad for you.” He pulled himself off the floor. “I should introduce you.” He put two fingers to his lips and whistled shrilly. “Hey, people.”

The men stopped what they were doing and looked up. Ritzik said, “This is Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy Wei-Liu, who’s volunteered to come with us.” He paused as Wei-Liu looked around the room self-consciously, then he started pointing people out. “You already know Sergeant Major Yates. That tall prematurely gray fella hiding behind him is Doc Masland — you can probably guess what he does by his name.”

Rowdy said, “Yeah — he gives second opinions.”

Masland tapped Yates on the shoulder. “You want a second opinion, Rowdy?”

“Sure.”

“Okay — you’re ugly.”