"Travis Tower, Flight Able."
"Copy Able."
"Able is at threshold Runway 18."
"Standby Able". "Able Flight, Travis. You are cleared onto runway 18."
Listening to the conversation, even the most adept of a military listener would be able to pick out the subtle differences in the request for takeoff. For instance the pilot never asked for his takeoff in reference to a flight clearance. The reason for this was simple, the pilot had not filed a clearance. He didn't need one.
Second, the flight was taking off downwind on a runway normally reserved for flights North, rather than South into the Suisan Bay. Huge C-5s, C-141s, and other cargo aircraft flowed in and out of Travis at an incredible rate, in fact several were held up in the pattern waiting for this particular flight "taking off the wrong way on the wrong runway". Travis is the hub of West coast transport activity, moving millions of tons of military cargo and personnel. Also, it served as the major way station for the cargo destined to or outbound from McClellan AFB, the local Air Force Depot. From complete engines to the smallest of parts, if it was destined for a military installation on the West Coast, Hawaii, Japan, or the Phillipines, it would go through Travis.
But the conversation of interest was not between a C-5 pilot and the tower. Nor was it from any other cargo aircraft. Sitting on a wide taxiway to runway 18 near the huge concrete Travis ramp designed to park the emmense C-5 Galaxy or its smaller brothers, the C-141, four HH-60D Night Hawks and one AH-64 Apache were hovering in ground effect, only five feet off the ground. They were in fact already airborne, waiting for their clearance to depart Travis' Terminal Control Area. Inside the choppers, Delta Force was poised for action.
"Able Flight, Travis. You are cleared for your departure, runway 18."
"Thank you Travis, Able rolling."
The flight of four helicopters now tilted their tails into the air, and leaning forward thus, they hammered at the air, pulling up and forward along runway 18 heading south toward Suisan Bay. Unlike fixed wing aircraft the Night Hawks did not have to climb out to a departure altitude. They could always decide to go out at treetop level. Not only were the helicopters more flexible in their standard operations, but these Night Hawks were quite unique. The pilots were already switching to night vision, the small valley at the end of runway 18 showing up clearly.
Banking left a little, the lead pilot set a course to go through the valley, at just under the altitude of the hills and switched off the navigation lights. Although quite noisy for the neighbors of Travis AFB, the helicopters remained off the plethora of commercial and military air traffic control radars in the area. Besides, they were quiet when compared to the huge C-5s which blasted off the base at all hours of the day or night.
The choppers now dropped a little as they crested the ridge of the hills to the South of Travis, then dipped down and to the left, picking out their surface radar landmark, the Navy's Reserve Fleet anchored in Suisan Bay. As they flashed over the land now only 100 feet off the ground, the lead pilot began a slow descent to his 50 foot altitude coinciding to the completion of their passing over the old Naval transport ships slowly rolling in the waters of the Suisun.
Then at that altitude, the pilot used his FLIR and the magnifying lens of a MAVERICK rocket tucked under the starboard pylon, he picked out the outline of the Benicia bridge. Banking right, and increasing throttle, he watched as the airspeed indicator moved quickly up to 185 mph. This speed they accomplished just as the flight thundered under the bridge's concrete supports. The lead pilot quickly banked a long, slow turn following the shoreline of the bay, no longer maintaining his 50 foot distance from the water. In fact, he let the Night Hawk slowly drift down on Terrain Following Radar, down to about 25 feet off the water.
Then he banked slowly left as the outlet of the Bay yielded into the inlet of San Pablo Bay. Now as he swung the flight back into a southerly direction, he picked out the geography of Richmond point as it jutted out into the water. Soon he made another adjustment to their course, and 15 minutes after leaving Travis, he was thundering along at 185 heading across San Francisco Bay toward Moffett NAS.
At Oakland Center, Senior Air Traffic Controller Jim Weston cursed.
"Damn, would you look at that, Bill. A god-damned nighttime VFR right through the ARSA."
"What's his speed, Jim."
"Clocking him, at 185."
"No shit. Not a Cessna, that one. Hope..." but the supervisor broke off as Jim held up his hand as a neat set of letters popped up on the screen.
"He just squawked 'Delta Four Niner Three Three' Bill. What the hell, I don't have a VFR cleareance for him. And what' a commercial airliner doing on a VFR at that altitude anyway."
"Log it, Jim. We'll get the guy a ticket. I just can't believe it. It's like Christmas out there. Not like we aren't busy or anything. I am so tired of this shit. What say you and I head for Tahoe tonight and not report in tomorrow?"
"Right", replied Jim, knowing full well that neither would ever do anything that ir-responsible. Being short-handed at Oakland Center was a normal every day occurrence. Two less controllers was a disaster ready to happen. Out of curiousity, he looked back through one of his old log books, and noted a similiar occurance a few years back. That time his request for trace on the pilot had come back "negative". Strange.
The young seaman 1st, looked down at his sheet, noticing a strange gap in the normal inbound P-3 traffic for this hour. Maybe one of the war-bird missions had scrubbed or diverted elsewhere on engine trouble. Normally at this time of night, the last of the Orien sub hunters would be winging in for touch down. Certainly their replacement hunters had already left the base, heading out to do their 16 hour stint at sub-chasing.
Then something even stranger occurred. At 2300 hours exactly, the base commander stepped into the tower, and spoke quietly to the duty officer, who promptly stepped out the door. Two controllers without their supervisor, and base commander. Then the Navy Captain spoke to the other controller quietly, and now only one tower operator remained.
"You are about to get a very strange approach request, Seaman."
The young man turned to the commanding officer of Moffett, NAS and gave him a very strange look. "What the hell was going on", the young fellows eyes said, but the Captain's said nothing. So the younger man, in perfect Navy tradition, turned back to his station to "carry on".
Promptly at 11:30 p.m., he heard over his headphone, "Moffett Tower, Able 5."
"Go ahead, Able 5" replied the operator as he glanced to the Captain, while placing the voice on the monitor speaker in the tower.
"Roger Moffett. Able to 14L."
"Roger" was all the operator said into his mic, repeating what the base commander had said with a nod.
Straining to see the landing lights in the downwind pattern he wondered who was foolish enough to be landing with the wind. Well at least the fellow had decided to choose the long runway. But he saw no landing lights in the pattern, in fact, he saw nothing, until suddenly a helicopter appeared running down the runway, not more than 10 feet off the ground. It was trailed by four of its brothers. The flight thundered down the runway at close to 180 miles per hour, then veered sharply off to the left, heading in a scary rush off into "Lockheed" land as several operators called it. This was an acronym for the vast Lockheed company grounds perched right next to Moffett. Then the operator realized where they were heading and reached for the security line to the shore patrol.
But the Captain shook his head and the operator now understood what the visit from the Base Commander was all about.
The flight of helicopters quickly slowed and then, still without navigational beacons flashing or landing lights, they settled in formation at the fence of the Onisuka AFB fence. The "Blue Cube" fence line was U.S. government property, so the operator was sure they were committing no offense, and with the Captain approving of their headlong rush down the Moffett runway, he had a good idea who might be "along for the ride." But again as Navy tradition required, he simply said "Aye Sir" when the Captain explained that "None of this has happened."
Then after the helos discharged their "cargo", they skimmed the ground between the Blue Cube and Moffett again, now settling into the Air National Guard area on the far side of the base. The helos all but dissapeared behind the two C-130 Hercules already parked there, and the operator knew that even after the sun rose, they would be well hidden, their camoflauge matching that of the two ANG transports.
The Delta Force Commander, Colonel Fredricks stepped out of the lead chopper, and was saluted by Lt. Colonel Jerry Reynolds and his aide, Lt. David Philbert, ANG.
Fredricks returned the salute and spoke a few quiet orders to the ANG Commander and then lead his men into a side door of the Onisuka AFB, a vital link in the Satellite Test Center network.
"They're here" said the muffled voice over the phone, and Colonel Marstoni signaled for Carlisle to follow him into the elevator. They rode it up the sixteen floors to the ground floor of the building and then hurried down the long hallway. Ahead he could see a group of armed men impatiently moving from one foot to the next, their fatigues seemingly out of place in the front lobby of the Onizuka Air Force Base.
"Damn am I glad to see you folks" the Air Force Colonel blurted out even before Jamison could introduce himself personally. The young Captain standing rigid behind the leader of the Delta Force tried in vain to suppress a grin. It was rather nice to get this kind of reception now and then.
"Glad we could be of assistance, Colonel" smiled the excellent politician Jamison. "I need a few offices and a larger area for my men to store their gear. We plan to be here as long as you will have us."
"Outstanding!" Turning to his own aide who was just exiting the glass door from the "inner sanctum", Colonel Markston ordered, "Captain, see that the Colonel is setup in the Transit Office, and work with his aide to figure out where these men can store their gear. Colonel, I'll work on getting you some ID so you and your men can move around freely on the ground floor. If you would select a high security team, by tomorrow I can have them vetted so they may move anywhere in the building."
"Thank you, Colonel, but you'll find that Group Delta has every clearance you'll need. We will not need to move anywhere except the above ground floors of the Station, so that will be all the ID we'll need for now. If we need to move downward for any reason, then we have failed in our mission here, and I doubt seriously anyone will be thinking of stopping us."
"Guess you're right there. Very Fine. If you'd like to join me in my office on the 2nd floor, we can begin to work on your disposition here."
"That will be fine, Colonel. But you'll also find that my planning team has already laid out a complete battle order, and if it meets with your approval, we'd like to implement in about 15 minutes."
Colonel Markston only just succeeded in keeping his jaw from dropping as the portent of the Delta Commander's words sunk in. But it was what he should have expected. Despite the highly classified stations status, he should have known that Delta, when given the job of defending this juicy military target, had also been given explicit information on the layout of the building. It should have been no surprise then, that the Delta Commander's staff had already laid out their plans. After all, they had the entire flight here to work on them.
"Again, I can't express my eagerness to have you started, Colonel. I'll just go back to my work then..." but he was interrupted by Jamison.
"No, I would like to let you know what we're up to, just to make sure we aren't doing anything stupid. And there will be a few minor changes in your personell's daily routine, and we'll need to make sure this is all very clear."
They then moved off to the Transit Office, where visiting officers from the Air Force Logistics Command or other members of the staff of the Western Satellite Test Range usually parked their hats.
By morning, there were some subtle changes to the area in and around the Blue Cube. For instance there were several small ports cut into the corners of the building. These were not that obvious, since they had been cut out of the blue corrugated metal already there, such that one had to look closely to see them.
Across Lockheed Boulevard, one of the small apartments was now occupied by a complete fire team, the window shades drawn. In the event of any hostile activity in the area, the shades would be pulled back to disclose two M60 machine guns on tripods, and in the bedroom window, two mounted TOW II rocket launchers.
On the Northeastern side of the building, several offices of the Lockheed building there were now occupied by identical men and equipment. On the Northwest side of the Blue Cube a large trailer now rested in the parking lot of yet another Lockheed building, it too housing some heavy weapons. Also in this trailer was a "spot magnifier" setup used to detect anyone approaching the building from the North.
On the top of the building, nestled in a few of the "harmless" areas amongst the huge radio dishes, 8 TOW launchers and their operators could be found. The men wore their "snow-whites", gear usually intended for operations in the snow, so they would be hidden somewhat amongst the stark white of the radio dishes. The TOW tubes had also been hastily painted white, as had the M60 and Stoner M63 machine guns. Behind the newly cut gun ports in each of the corners, Redeye and Light Anti-Tank Weapons - LAW - were also waiting for a chance to show off their special capabilities against an attacker. Squadron A of Delta Force was on the job.
A half a mile away, Squadron B was at Moffett's ANG area, waiting for their orders to go airborne in the Nighthawk choppers. These machines were the top of the line in the U.S. military special mission helicopters. Each carried a fixed Terrain Following Radar Pod -TFR- and optional weapons/sensors such as TOW II anti-armour missiles, a Forward Looking Infra Red - FLIR - sensor pod, a Low Light T.V. - LLTV - sensor system, the newest laser designator pod, two HARM anti-radiation missiles and finally a pair of AGM-65 Maverick Air to Ground attack missiles.
This diverse weaponry armed the Nighthawk for her battle role. By pulling off the missiles, several other high-tech sensor systems such as the Nuclear Emergency Search Team - NEST - nuclear material sensing pod, and the ALQ-223 deception jamming device used to blanket the entire radio spectrum could be added.
Down the major roads of the area, Delta teams dressed in Mountain View or Sunnyvale city worker's uniforms were rigging miniature NEST sensors. These would detect the passage of nuclear materials on the major roads in the area, transmitting alarms to the command post in the Transit Office of the Blue Cube. Silicon Valley was now ready for the top five contingincies in the think tank scenarios. Now all they had to do was wait.
He wiped his brow, the sun beating down on him as he stood on the clear spring day, fully dressed, in the midst of tanned skin and oh-so-tempting wisps of string called ultra bikinis. Baker Beach stretched for a half a mile in either direction, and it was lined in comfortable spacing with beautiful bodies. Normally he would have begun interviewing the bodies. But being on the Ft. Mason Military Reservation de-tuned his libido somewhat and he resisted his urges to mix it up. Buck Dayton wasn't here for travel. He was still looking for that West Coast link to Delta Force. He had traveled all over the San Francisco, and hadn't seen anything interesting. He had finally made it to the coast line, to the area around in and around the Golden Gate Bridge. His plans were to move further North. But right now he decided that he could stand a rest. Going back to the car, he grabbed a blanket, kicked off his shoes, stripped off his shirt, and headed back to relax on the beach with a sandwich.
Spreading out the blanket, he dug his feet in the sand, took a bite of sandwich, a swig of "the real thing", put his head back and listened the surf crashing. The air was cool, but the beating sun made him tingle with warmth, just enough warmth to keep out the cold.
And of course the surf relaxed him. Whether it was the white noise created by the water or the random rhythms he couldn't tell. Nor did he care-a- less. It was a needed break from the stress of his searching.
He had gotten off the Northwest Airlines flight, nervous as always at flying, glad to be on the ground again. But then wading through the horrible crowds in San Francisco International had about done him in. He had sat for an hour in the little clam chowder bar near United, and enjoyed two bowls of their excellent chowder. Upon leaving he had grabbed a load of French bread, and with the addition of some cold cuts and Coke from a 7-11 shop, he was prepared for his day.
Now resting on the beach, he decided to further his research, and pulled out the aging private pilot's VFR - Visual Flying Rule - navigational map, and looked again for the obvious place to land Delta Force.
He had gone by Moffett Naval Air Station first, but despite the increased security around the field, he only saw typical Air National Guard Units on the field along with the standard P-3 Oriens. Nothing exciting there.
Of course the Presidio and Ft. Mason were a wash. Open to the public. Not much to hide there, except for perhaps a really decent Officer's Club if the rumors were true.
In glancing at the map, he wondered if he might try Treasure Island or Alameda. But thinking these were too obvious, he poured over the chart looking for something out of the way for landing of a major troop force, but not too far from Silicon Valley proper.
He noticed suddenly that there was the hash marks of a VOR, a navigational beacon, running off the top of this side of the map. Turning the map over, he grinned. Not more than 15 minutes flight time in a helicopter, there stood Travis Air Force Base. He knew of Travis, and wondered at his own stupidity. He had come home from Vietnam via Travis, having spent a night there before being bused down to Oakland International for the trip to Miami.
He didn't remember that much of the base, but he knew that it was big. He turned the map over again and looked at the area surrounding Silicon Valley again. Then he spied a funny colored airport just North of the Bay.
It was marked Hamilton, Army. A piece of a memory floated by, and he grabbed at it. Sure enough. It used to be Hamilton, AFB. A friend had lived there as an Air Force Dependent years ago. So now it was Army. And well out of the hustle of San Francisco, yet close enough even to the most southern of Silicon Valley's communities. Ideal.
He folded up the map, drank in the surf for a few minutes more, then jumped back in the light blue rental car, heading across the Golden Gate in the already thickening traffic.
After trying to navigate by the pilot's map, he gave up, the trial and error of heading in compass directions driving him absolutely crazy. He tried to buy a North Bay map at several service stations but no- one seemed to have any. In fact, there weren't any on the walls of the service stations either. What ever happened to the days when...Oh well, hell.
Finally he got lucky and wound up next to the water, and then heading North he wound up lost in some nice hilly suburbs.
Just when he was about to give up, he saw an old rusty sign which proclaimed his victory. "Hamilton Army Station - No Trespassing". He drove around the neighborhoods trying to closer to the main part of the base and finally with a sigh, he drew up to a large opening in the hills guarded only by a tall cyclone fence. Stepping out of the car, he strode up to the fence, enthralled with the vision before him. On the old ramp, cracked with weeds, two C-5As and at least two dozen SH-70 Blackhawk helicopters loitered, looking almost innocent with their droopy rotors bouncing in the frisky wind.
Buck grinned to himself. This must be it.