Dulce Base (The Dulce Files Book 1) (4 page)

Major Richards chewed his gums and stared from the file folder on his desk to the Second Lieutenant and then back again.  Finally he waved his hand in the air and spoke.

“Get the hell out of my sight – and get this mess figured out by Friday!”

The ‘yes, sir’ had a bit more pep behind it this time, and hung in the air longer than it took the Second Lieutenant to get up out of his chair and out the small base office too.  Major Richards shook his head, grabbed the half-smoked cigar from the ashtray, and leaned back in his chair as ht lit it once again to life.

The Dutchman leaned back and enjoyed a puff, the Taos, New Mexico, mountain scenery showing out the window to his back, as well as the deep, blue lake that gave the base its name. His once-brown hair was now mostly grey, but his eyes still had that youthful twinkle and that smile still bedded women half his age, even the ones that knew better. He’d been doing so for more than two decades now, ever since his wife died of breast cancer when she was just 39 and he 42.  He looked at her portrait sitting on his bookshelf across the office and gave a self-satisfied smile. Carol would be proud of him,
and
their son Mark, who was now a pilot himself…and a lot more.

Ellis shook his head and scoffed, but smiled despite himself.
Following in the old man’s footsteps,
he thought with a laugh as he pictured his son test-flying some of the Air Force’s more ‘challenging’ designs.
Hell, I was the same when I was 32!

The intercom buzzer rang and a frown quickly replaced the self-satisfied smile that’d taken hold of Major Richards’ face, a rare sight indeed.

“Sir,” his secretary, Betty, said over the line and from the desk in the outer-office, “there’s a…General Herres here to see you and–”

“General!” Major Richards said as he threw open his office door, something he’d rushed out of his chair and around his desk to do, all while Betty was still speaking.

“Major Richards,” General Robert Herres replied.  He nodded from the other side of the desk with that same confident look that Ellis remembered from their few earlier meetings after the pullout from Saigon. His dark, brown hair was close-cropped yet wavy, and his face sported a perpetual five o’clock shadow. But there were still those creases to the edge of the mouth, giving the hard-faced visage a welcoming look of calm.

“Sir, it’s been…”

“Since ’75 and Saigon,” Anderholt said, finishing the thought for Ellis, and nodding with him, “too long, yet…”

“Not long enough,” Ellis finished.

The two men stared at one another, across the miles and across the years and experiences of lifetimes, and didn’t need to say a word. They’d had their differences, come to blows once or twice over them in fact, but they did their jobs, still did…always would.

“Betty, can you get us some coffee and also fetch Carl, will you?” Ellis said, still not taking his eyes from Anderholt.

His secretary had seen that look just once before, the one that was reserved for someone she thought of as ‘in-the-know,’ something she hoped she would never have to be – she knew too much already as far as she was concerned.

She was gone and a moment later Ellis broke off his gaze, pulled up one of the spare chairs in the room, and motioned for General Anderholt to take the other.

“We’re going to take it back,” Anderholt said as he sat down, smoothing his pants after placing his small, leather travel bag by his side.

“It’s been four years, sir…why now?”

“Why not every six months for those past four years?” Anderholt said with a gruff laugh. “That’s how often we’ve tried, on average.”

Ellis frowned and bit his cheek. He knew full-well how many missions had been tried and how many had failed – he’d planned and overseen several of the first, and had been ‘reassigned,’ although that was just a fancy way to say ‘saved’ from quitting when the frustration of losing team after team proved too much.

“We feel that now’s a good time,” Anderholt said, leaning forward to put his hand on Ellis’ knee, something no other man alive would dare do, but Brigadier General Harry Anderholt wasn’t an ordinary man, “and we want you to lead the men, not just from the command station, but from the cockpit.”

“Cockpit – hell!” Ellis said, sitting back and laughing. “I haven’t flown a crop duster in years, let alone a high-powered test vehicle of some sort.”

“Ellis, we want you–”

Anderholt broke-off as Betty came back into view down the hallway, another man close on her heels. Within moments they were in the office, and Ellis rose.

“Carl,” he said, grasping onto the man’s shoulder and turning him to face Anderholt, “Carl Heinze here chairs the NASA Working Group for the Spacelab Wide-Angle Telescope and also serves as the chairman of the International Astronomical Union Working Group for Space Schmidt Surveys, which as you might well remember, put up the all-reflecting Schmidt telescope earlier this year.”

“The one that carries out the deep full-sky surveys using far-ultraviolet wavelengths?” Anderholt said while taking out a pen to chew on thoughtfully.

“Just the one,” Carl answered with a smile and a nod. He was a tall man, his brown hair beginning to go gray, but after fifty years, what could you expect? He more than made up for it with that confident look coming from brown eyes that’d seen it all, and then some, eyes that’d most likely be going into space soon aboard NASA’s early shuttle test flights.

“That gave us some good information on that mothership that’s been around Mercury since 1789,” Anderholt pointed out.

Carl nodded again. “Just wait until we get the specs up and running properly and direct them past Proxima Centauri – that’s when we’ll really get something to talk about.”

“Betty, that coffee,” Ellis said, and his fazed-secretary scampered off down the hallway once again, this time with the aim of being gone a mighty-long time.

“Carl’s the man to put a team together,” Ellis said when she was gone, “a flight team, that is.”

“That’s all I’m asking for,” Anderholt said, “a team that knows what we’re up against…
and
that can explain it to the men I gather together for you.”

“How many this time?”

Anderholt gave Ellis a firm look. “Thirty, including me.”

Ellis looked to Carl, and both men swallowed. They’d been on failed missions before, but never been
on
one. Now it seemed even their superior was.

“We’re serious this time, boys,” Anderholt said as he rose from his chair, “and so am I.” He gave them each a firm look. “I’ll be back on Monday morning with my men – you better have yours here too.”

“Yes, Sir,” Ellis said as Anderholt brushed past them and headed down the hall.

The two aged-Air Force commanders stared at one another, all frowns. This was
not
how they envisioned spending their last years before retirement.

6 – Commanders

Blue Lake

Monday, May 21, 1979

“Right this way,” the Dutchman said as he held his arm up for Brigadier General Harry Anderholt.

The general nodded and headed into the large room, and Ellis hit the light as he came in after, illuminating the conference room with the large mahogany table and the men seated around it.  He walked forward, Carl Heinze close on his heels, though General Anderholt held back.

“Ahem,” Carl coughed into his hand, and Ellis turned about, halfway to the table. Seeing the general holding back like that, and the look of doubt on his face, quickly made Ellis reconsider his strategy.

“Let’s just skip the pleasantries and get right into it, alright, sir?”

Anderholt nodded and Ellis began.

“Yes, well…” Ellis said, trailing-off a bit before coming back around with a shake of his head. He pointed at the first person at the table, Eddie Okamata.

“Eddie Shoji Okamata,” Eddie himself said, taking up some of the slack for Ellis.  He smiled and waved at the others gathered, and immediately everyone was set at ease by his presence.

“Japanese?” General Anderholt asked, but Eddie shook his head.

“Hawaiian, born and bred.”

“Eddie came up through the University of Colorado at Boulder before getting into the Air Force in ’70 and then into the NASA astronaut flight program just last year,” Ellis said, and it was apparent looking at the man’s thin, black hair, narrow eyes, and smiling face that Eddie had spoken true.

“Air Force, huh?” the general said, giving the younger pilot a gruff once-over, “doin’ what…spit-shinin’ windows?”

“No,” Eddie said with a straight face as he looked off in thought, “just the F-84, F-100, F-105, F-111, EC-121T, T-33, T-39, T-28, and the A-1.”

“And the A-7, A-37, T-38, F-4, T-33, and NKC-135,” Ellis added before quickly raising his hand to block Eddie’s protests.  “It’s alright – classified has a whole new meaning here, Eddie.”  He smiled and then looked at the others. “With more than 1,700 test flight hours under his belt, I think he’ll do just fine.”

General Anderholt harrumphed.

Ellis turned and threw his arm up, showcasing the next man up.  “And this is Ronnie McNair, yet another of the just thirty-five men out of 10,000 that NASA chose for their astronaut flight program last year.”

“Damn young, ain’t he?” General Anderholt said from the corner of the room.

“Just twenty-eight,” Ronnie said with a smile that showed off his bright white teeth, a stark contrast to his dark, black skin. He had long mutton-chop sideburns down his face and a mustache that likely killed the ladies, when and
if
he was ever out of the lab.

“A couple of engineering degrees and one for physics and another for lasers thrown in for good measure,” Ellis said, “I think we’re in good hands.”

“And feet,” Ronald added with that bright smile once again, “I’ve got a black belt in karate.”

“That’ll come in real handy when the Grays are mind-fucking you to death,” the general said, something Ronnie could only frown to.

“Next up is Stan Griggs,” Ellis continued quickly before Ronnie could get a word in edgewise, “and he’s–”

“You don’t have to tell me anything about Stan Griggs,” General Anderholt said with a smile and a laugh, “test piloted the A-4 Skyhawk, the A-7 Corsair II, and the F-8 Crusader. Turboprops, jets, helicopters, gliders, hot air balloons…hell, I bet Stan there could fly a bathtub if you put wings on ‘er.”

“Over 9,500 flight hours so far,” Stan said modestly from his spot at the table, his lips barely seeming to move from under his large, brown handlebar mustache, “7,800 of ‘em in a jet.”

The others stared at the quiet NASA astronaut from Oregon, the one many had heard of before. Since ’74 he’d been piloting the new space shuttle prototypes and then actual models.  Few in the room had as much flying time as he, and that included the many WWII-era craft he collected in his free time.

“Next up is Charlie Beckwith,” Ellis said with a ‘go-figure’ shrug at the general’s words, “a man I’ve known for some time and who single-handedly started Delta Force.”

“Chargin’ Charlie,” Anderholt said with a laugh, “we’ve all heard his story.”

“Well you’re about to hear it again,” Charlie scoffed, “for I’ve had to sit through all yours.”

Everyone in the room had a laugh at that, and then Ellis continued, regaling them with Charlie’s Korean War exploits and then the Rangers School and Special Forces assignments in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s.  From there it was Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, not to mention the classified operations in Thailand and into China.

“It wasn’t until ’77 that we got Delta Force up and running though,” Charlie said at that point, “and that was mainly with the help of the Brits and their Special Air Service forces that were working with hostage rescue at the time.”

“It’s the best damn force on the face of the planet, bar-none,” Ellis said, and everyone nodded to that, even General Anderholt.

“Next is Roger Donlon, and he’ll be leading up our final Combat Assault Team, CAT-4,” Ellis went on.

Roger nodded at the others, and seemed a bit timid doing so.  His blond hair was but about as close as you could get in a butch-cut and he looked just like the all-American boy next door. How anyone could feel threatened by him was beyond them all.

“Call me Donlon,” Roger said, “makes it easier for the radio chatter.”

“Some of you might remember why Roger here was awarded the Medal of Honor in ‘65,” Ellis continued after smiling. “In ’64 he was commanding an outpost at Nam Dong, right on the border with Laos. Two battalions of around 900 men assaulted the small base for five hours, nearly overrunning the 373 soldiers stationed there.  Roger was wounded four times but did more than any other that day to hold those forces off. He’ll be a fine addition to our team.”

Ellis looked over to the general, who only yawned and nodded for him to continue.

“Next up is Aaron Haney, another veteran of Delta Force.”

“Don’t look it,” Charlie said.

“I might only be in my mid-twenties,” Aaron said with a smile, “but I can beat your ass into the dirt any day of the week.”