Jacked Up Part 14

If commercial airlines could go this fast and this high there would only be a few very rich; or very busy people who would use it. We got high enough that I could see the curvature of the earth and above me there was a tinge of dark space.

It didn’t seem very long before the pilot spoke to me through the headset, “Make the most of the view, Ma’am, we are about to go down to Wright Patterson. I am told there will be someone there to take you on your next leg.” He then flipped the plane on its wing and we dropped like a stone. It was a good job my stomach was still back on the runway because I may have lost it again.

When we landed he taxied to a remote corner of the airfield where a tanker, an air force truck and a jeep were waiting. I was helped out of the aircraft after handing my case down. State of the art fighting machine and you get out using a stepladder; I suppose it was better than being ejected. I handed the helmet I had been wearing to a waiting serviceman and shucked out of the flight suit. There was an air force officer waiting to get into the F15 when it was ready to take off and she looked a bit like me. Ah! We are into the shadow worlds now, are we?

Once I was in the jeep we drove away with some haste, although it seemed very slow to me. I was driven to another part of the airfield where there were hangers and helipads. We pulled up next to a Chinook helicopter that was painted in US Navy colours and was being loaded. My driver gave my case to a seaman and told him it was to be stowed for immediate unloading. He then turned to me and said “This will be going to Fort Custer, Major. You should get on board now and make yourself comfortable, enjoy the trip.” With that he threw me a salute, got back in the jeep and drove away.

I got into the Chinook and said hello to the pilots who were doing their pre-flight checks. One pointed at a seat behind them that was used by a navigator on combat missions. I sat down, strapped myself in and went to put on the headset. As soon as I was strapped in the co-pilot swivelled in his seat and said “Welcome on board the ‘Dirty Gertie’ Major, I hope you enjoy the trip. I expect that you may have been in one of these before.” I smiled and said “A few times, usually they put me in first class by the big door.”

He laughed and said that this trip is a supply delivery to the Navy part of Fort Custer. He then said “We heard you come in with the air force on that F15, you had an army jeep deliver you to a navy chopper and we are taking you to a National Guard base; you certainly must have some powerful friends." I said “Be careful what you wish for, sailor, with friends like mine you have no need of enemies as they can send you somewhere you may die at the drop of a hat.” I thought a bit and then said “I suggest that the two of you should forget everything you have seen today. If my friends hear that you have been talking you may find yourselves delivering munitions to a battleship in the South China Sea. I have heard that it could get a little hairy there.”

It wasn’t long before the doors closed and the load-master came on the headphones to say everything was in and locked down. The pilots started up the engines and the two rotors spooled up then it wasn’t long before we got permission to taxi to a take-off point. With so much activity on a military airfield, you don’t just go vertical with a chopper, you have to get some distance off the ground and then follow a flight line as if you were a fixed wing aircraft. When we cleared the perimeter we headed slightly north-west, heading for Fort Custer.

It was a weird feeling being here. I had flown several times in a Chinook into a battle zone in Afghanistan but never up front with the pilots. I had not lied when I said that I had been next to the big door – the one you exit at a run in case someone wanted to shoot you. I had also been to Fort Custer before as the FBI uses the base as a site for weapons training at the range that the National Guard use to train their own members from several states. The base was pretty big and I expect that there were several buildings set away from the general areas where spook stuff was carried out. There was so many different units using the facilities a few odd ones would never be noticed.

I did not have much of a view from where I sat but it was better than the one down the other end of the chopper. Although the view back there, when the big door was dropped in flight, was usually something to behold, it lost its appeal when you could hear bullets hitting the underside of the chopper. Eventually we were over the lakes and approaching Fort Custer. The pilots got permission to put down and we landed on a pad near the navy buildings. As the rotors spooled down the pilot said “Thank you for flying Navy, I hope that you enjoyed your trip and we see you again on the ‘Dirty Gertie’.”

I shook their hands as I left the chopper to find my case already being loaded into an army staff car with tinted windows. As soon as I was in the back seat we were off again. I was now taken to an isolated building that bristled with antennas on the roof and all around it. There were even a couple of satellite dishes. I got out of the car, was given my case and the driver sped off again, no doubt doing a loop around much of the base before heading for his own quarters. I went to the main door where I was greeted by armed sentries who saluted me but made sure that my ID was good and that I had no weapons on my person or in my case.

I was given yet another lanyard with an electronic key on it which, I was told, opened any door that I was allowed to go through. They then pointed to a corridor and told me to go to the end, turn right and knock on the door marked ‘Mapping Centre’. Picking up my case I did as requested and the door was opened by yet another armed sentry. I could see screens behind him that showed the corridors I had just walked up. He properly compared my photo on the ID with me and then held a small scanner to the one on my lanyard. He then said “Sorry about the security, Major, but we are very careful in this building. While you are here you will be in room 273, which is through that door and on the right. There are no windows but we do have a big TV screen which you can tune to various outside vistas, most of them are quite soothing. When you have freshened up there are some officers who are waiting for you in Room 300, which is up the stairs to the monitor level. The stairs are a little further along from your room. I hope that you enjoy your stay with us.”

When I got close to the door of my room I heard the locks click and I was able to go in. As soon as I was a few feet from the door it relocked. I put my case on the bed and stripped off to take a shower. After I had dried I looked in the wardrobe and drawers to find army issue clothing in my size but with normal issue cotton underwear and anti-static flats. OK, I thought, we will be spending some time among a lot of electronic gear; it would be a real experience. I dressed in a light shirt and track pants, put on the flats and hung my various lanyards around my neck. At the door it unlocked and I went out into the corridor, hearing it relock as I walked away. There was a door about ten yards along marked ‘Stairs’ which clicked as I got to it. Going through I went up a flight of steps and then along another corridor until I reached Room 300. As I got to it I heard the locks click and so I went in.

The sight that greeted me was like something out of a science fiction movie. There were desks with big computer monitors, and big wall screen with lots of flags and text bars that were moving in small increments. Over to one side was a large computer unit housed in large cabinets. “Looks a bit old fashioned, doesn’t it?” said a man who had appeared beside me. “That’s a Cray but we only use it for temporary storage and running the monitors. The real computer is down in the basement in a cooled environment. I am not going to tell you my name and nor will anyone else here. You can see that my shirt says ‘Z’ as yours says ‘R’. I will show you to the desk you will be using.”

The desk was a little away from the others and the chair looked comfortable. There was a large monitor, a wireless mouse and keyboard. “There are notepads in the drawer with pens. Nothing gets brought into this room other than your ID and nothing else leaves the room. That means nothing at all. If you make notes you can store them by scanning and the physical note must be put into a burn bag. Any questions so far?” I shook my head so he carried on.

“You have access here to a data base that includes every member of every right-wing group we know about. It is in constant update as data comes in. If you have been looking at any particular person there will be an alert so you can see the new data. We also have the records of all the properties that the subjects own or lease in the country. Your job, while you are here, is to look at every property that could host a large rally and to use your particular skills to work out where a podium may be set up and where you could place yourself to get a clear shot at that podium. We will be feeding you a constant stream of social media posts that our guys in another place deem relevant. They will focus their capture should you give them names to listen to. We have already limited the search to properties of up to fifty acres so there are only about fifty that they already have access to, it would be good if you could start with those.”

He then showed me how to submit requests for further information as well as a satellite feed that was like Google Earth but in real time and live. He pulled up one of the properties and walked me through viewing it with normal light, infra-red and one that overlaid lines of height that you would see on an ordinance map. He then showed me how to access various data bases. He told me that if I needed any help to call on him. He then said “Good hunting” and left me to it.

Marianne G 2021