1
ERO Operations
4 July 1986
0238 Hours Mountain Time
Communications terminated.
Cherko hit F10 just as he heard the Fishbowl door behind him open. He’d been nervous the entire time he’d been transcribing his Program information this shift, and kept looking over his shoulder—more so than normal. When he’d first started all this Program work he’d felt special... like he’d been doing some neat covert work, but any more it was taking its toll. In a job that was paranoid to begin with, he’d added another whopping layer of it. But today’s shift was worse.
He kept feeling like he was being watched.
Right over his shoulder. He’d see something out the corner of an eye, or feel a definite presence, but when he’d turn to look... nothing.
Of course.
And now, terminating his Program communications, he’d had an even worse feeling.
The door behind him had closed. He spun around.
There they were. Spooks Uno and Dos. Again. And his buddy Turnbull.
For the past month or two he was getting more visits than the other crew members, and he knew something about today was gonna be different. He could feel it. Something about today was really gonna change his life.
Turnbull and the spooks remained in the background as Cherko performed his passplan, but as operations wound down at the two other consoles he heard Turnbull make his way over to them and say, “I need both of you to depart the ops floor after signing off.”
Michelson and Fender looked to each other, then glanced to Cherko, who was already looking to them.
Not again.
Cherko continued working his console. Casting occasional glances every now and then toward the spooks. Turnbull watched Michelson and Fender leave before approaching Cherko. The spooks remained back by the Fish Bowl.
In a lowered voice, Turnbull said, “You are to follow each and every directive they give without question. Do I make myself clear?”
Cherko nodded.
Turnbull turned to the two men, and nodded.
“All yours, gentlemen,” he said, passing the two as they crossed the control room directly for Cherko.
The two spooks watched Turnbull exit. It was always Spook One that did all the talking, and Cherko well knew by now that he was never to ever ask any questions, so after talking with Turnbull, he returned to his support without a word. These guys just didn’t do “hello.”
Last month they had him do that kooky mind-game thing where he had closed his eyes and simply thought. Focused on an action. Obviously, he felt, it had been related to his special Program training, but since then, it had just been about watching supports like the others. But the only time they cleared out the ops floor was when they had done that little mind game.
Then today.
Cherko continued with his passplan, examining a Soviet satellite in its Molniya orbit, a satellite suspected to be more than just a communications bird. To Cherko at least, for one thing, it didn’t look like a comm bird. Not enough antenna-like hardware.
Cherko scanned the satellite, logging video to tape, when the input came on a small piece of unusual-looking paper. It was handed to him by Spook One.
You will not turn to look at us, nor question. You will instantly do as directed, at the directed time.
Cherko began to turn around, but caught himself.
You will not turn to look at us, nor question....
Spook One’s hand calmly, carefully—and creepily—retrieved the paper.
Cherko cleared his throat and continued with the support. There was nothing of obvious interest here, visually, so he initiated what they called “The Punch.” The Punch was a powerful electromagnetic scan of the internal components and workings of a satellite. It was line-of-sight and limited in range, so it was only used on satellites that their birds were close enough to. Entering a series of keyboard commands, Cherko initiated scanning, and what he found was anything but a comm bird. In fact, the system characterization portion of The Punch clearly showed signatures of a laser and EMP-equipped killer satellite.
In a Molniya orbit?
Cherko hated it when he found stuff like this. He was an optimist, and as much as this job was as Lt Colonel Masterson had promised, there were times like these that scared the shit out of him. Here was a weapon against the space treaty currently in orbit and aimed Earthward. Yes, ERO had its own capabilities, but they were not the aggressors. The orbit of this satellite had it passing directly over the poles, and through his intel briefings, Cherko also knew there were U.S. submarine exercises going on down there.
And now he had a visit from Humpty and Dumpty.
On a cleared ops floor.
He didn’t have to wait long for additional input, as another slip of weird paper was carefully set down on the console before him.
Disable SGX1109. 02:43:33.
That’s all it said. He had sixty seconds.
Spook One retrieved the paper.
Cherko obediently enabled the high-powered microwave pulse package on their satellite, when a hand came to his shoulder and sent a chill through him. Actually caused him to jerk upright in his seat.
“With your mind,” came the menacing whisper.
Cherko opened his mouth and turned just a speck toward the voice when he remembered—
Nor question.
Instantly do as directed.
Remembered their close-his-eyes-and-think-of-“Stop” visit.
It had been Spook Two who backed away from him this time, and was giving him the look of death. Spook Two had just spoken to him—the man who never said a word, never even so much as cleared his throat in his presence—had just touched him. Whispered into his ear like a crazed lover.
And behind him he saw that Spook King was again back by the Fish Bowl. Black Fedora tipped forward.
He had less than 40 seconds.
This was the second time they’d asked him to do something through the use of his mind.
Maybe this was where he was headed. His next level of operation?
No longer just a transcriptionist—but how did he have any kind of mental powers? That bizarre training of his notwithstanding, how had he developed any such ability when he apparently couldn’t even control his own life? If he could stop things with his mind, why couldn’t he control what job he got? Become that astronaut...
Sweat began to leak out his armpits.
If he could mentally communicate with aliens, was the next step to mentally communicate with satellites?
Destroy them?
Twenty seconds.
Okay, do as directed. Might as well give it a go. He had, after all, been able to manipulate electronic displays during his training—but would these guys know about that?
If anyone had a need to know about anything, he was sure it were these guys.
Ten seconds.
SGX1109.
Cherko focused on it. He didn’t know where “it” was, so he just focused on the designator.
Disable it how?
Five... four... three...
Cherko focused on destroying the component. Like changing the sine waves in his training months ago, he just pictured the component blasted and fried. Blackened. Obliterated. History.
... one.
02:43:33 hours.
Cherko willed it so.
Cherko looked to his real-time display of the target.
It was still in orbit. Still looked operational.
Looked to The Punch.
Nothing had changed.
Another slip of the weird-looking paper was presented to him.
We were never here.
Then the slip of paper was crumpled up into a ball and held momentarily in-hand before him. Spook Two then opened his hand, dropping it toward the console before him—where it decomposed before his eyes into a smokeless and fine powder before it hit the console.
There was absolutely nothing left of it.
Cherko cast a nervous glance up to the oxygen-stealing Halon fire suppression system above, but obviously nothing was set off.
Cherko sat dumbfounded.
It was time to hand over this mission.
Kicking back into gear he began setting up for handover to Mongoose. He looked behind him, but the spooks were already leaving the ops room (but he—curiously—saw no Spook King). As he got on the phone to initiate handover, Turnbull, Michelson, and Fender returned to the ops floor, Turnbull staring at him from the length of the control room. Cherko looked down to where the strange paper had vaporized, rubbed his hand over the console’s surface, but there was nothing left. Not even grains of ash—or whatever should have been left over from whatever had happened to that “paper.”
It was like no one had ever been there, and nothing had ever happened.
Cherko headed home on Highway 94.
The rest of the shift had had Cherko in a virtual haze. He couldn’t really show this state to those on shift, so had to be careful how he’d acted. Had to fake it. Act out “normal.”
Spies and covert operatives had to be the best actors ever, and would never get an Academy Award, and he had to be just like them, to learn to compartmentalize. To leave whatever was done at work, at work, and quit gaming it, trying to figure it out, because it would drive him nuts. And because to not do so would have shown that something had, indeed, transpired back there, and that would have gone against Program protocol.
Something weird.
We were never here.
Fiz.
People die, Turnbull had said. And those words had stuck with him.
What if... there was a spy within their ranks? Or not so much even a spy, but a crew member with loose lips, spouting off to some girl- or boyfriend in an effort to impress—or maybe not even impress, just offload? To confess, come clean to a civilian that hey, I do crazy shit with advanced technology orbiting the Earth, and with people and organizations that don’t have names, and I don’t feel right about it?
Or say someone talks in their sleep?
Someone in this line of work had to be extremely careful about what they said, and where. Anyone could be listening. Lives, could, indeed, be lost based upon a slip of the tongue. Granted these were supposed to be topnotch individuals, but people were people, and in an effort to keep national security secrets both national and secret, compartmentalization and being tight-lipped was of vital importance.
Had stuff like this happened to other crew members, or was he the only one?
At least on his crew he seemed to be the chosen one. The New Guy. That must most certainly have endeared him to his fellow crew members.
But he’d never know.
You just didn’t ask questions in this world. You did as you were told and kept your mouth shut. Period.
People die....
And who’s to say he had really affected anything with his mind? There had been no feedback, no confirmation of outcome. They had simply said use your mind to affect some component, at a specific time, then walked away.
They could have just as easily been totally fucking with him.
Is that something they would do? Did a large government agency expend valuable government resources on flights of fancy?
But he had changed those sine waves back at his other training.
Or had he?
Or had he also been fucked with then, too?
How could he ever tell? And just think of the possibilities... the ramifications.
He’d read Erica’s mind on their road trip, hadn’t he?
Well, come on, everyone thought about sex. He’d read surveys that said people thought about it some unreal number, like once a second or something.
No; he’d have to try to figure this out another way.
But, really, think about this: would the U.S. Government spend good money to fly two—three—goons out from wherever they’d been to this location, to whisper over-the-shoulder bullshit into some lieutenant’s ear if there wasn’t a reason?
No friggin way.
This was turning into quite the job.
And how did they know? How did they know about... his abilities? Abilities he himself knew nothing of?
Well, apparently, just like they knew about everything else.
Cherko pulled up to the gate guard at his apartment complex. He smiled and waved at the guard as he was admitted, and drove around the buildings to his unit.
Why fight it, he thought as he found an open slot directly in front of his apartment, which was easy to do when everyone else was leaving for work. Just keep your nose clean, do your job, and always, always assume that someone was watching you. That someone knew everything about you....
The day had been a beautiful, high summer day. He’d worked out, gotten together with Erica after her classes, and made love with her on the floor of her apartment.
Love.
He really felt like he was getting in deep with her. About her. Thought about her all the time. It was so cool to know that someone else—a gorgeous woman somewhere on this planet, in this town—also thought about him. He always wanted to be around her. With her. He found his heart skipped a beat when he saw her for the first time of the day, and seemed to remain elevated when he was around her. Being within any kind of a proximity to her, he couldn’t keep his hands off her. Always had to be touching her, whether it was holding her hand, stroking her hair, or kissing various parts of her anatomy. And she never resisted, always responded in kind. They fit perfectly together.
And their passion.
Having sex with Erica was not like the superficial two people just banging away at each other. It was more like becoming one with each other. Like one newly created organism in a passionate throe with itself.
God, that sounded stupid.
But that’s how he felt. Of course, that took away the separation of her from him that made part of the sex act passionate and erotic, but on another level... it didn’t. Added to it.
So, he walked through his apartment with a shit-eating grin on his face as he prepared to leave for work—when the phone rang. He looked to it—considered not answering it—but as he passed by, his hand shot out to it and he put it to his ear.
“Cherko?”
Turnbull.
“Yes, sir?”
“You will not report to work tonight, but will await me outside the ECP. Before entering the ECP. Understand?”
“Sir?”
The phone went dead.
* * *
Cherko stood before the Entry Control Point looking up into the night sky. The stars were crisp and bright. The nice thing about working outside a town was the lack of lights to interfere with stargazing. It wasn’t long before a jeep pulled up. Cherko looked in. Turnbull’s always serious face peered back out at him. He got in.
“Evening,” he said.
“Lieutenant,” Turnbull said as he pulled away, shifting, “this is Mr. Shroot.”
Cherko whipped around, almost pulling a neck muscle.
Another man sat in the back of the Jeep.
“Shroot, Lieutenant Cherko.” Turnbull shifted into third.
“Pleased to meet you,” Cherko said, extending a hand.
“Pleasure,” Shroot responded, shaking Cherko’s hand.
Apparently, this guy talked and shook hands. Could be a good sign.
“Mr. Shroot will be borrowing you tonight. Your plane leaves at—”
“Plane?”
“Here are your orders,” Shroot said, handing Cherko his TDY travel papers.
“You’ve got to be—”
“I assure you,” Shroot said, “We do not ‘kid.’ Our transport awaits at Peterson.”
* * *
MC-130P, 33,000 feet, Heading 255
6 July 1986
0025 Hours Mountain Time
“So,” Cherko shouted out over the drone of the special ops C-130, “you can’t tell me anything?”
Shroot, arms crossed, chuckled before opening his eyes. “Get used to it. As outgoing as you might be, the less asked, the better. The crew of this aircraft were specifically instructed not to talk to us. You will find that whatever security you’ve experienced at Falcon... was child’s play, compared to where we’re going.”
Cherko adjusted his headphones and stared to the opposite bulkhead; to the Loadmaster at the far end of the cargo bay, by the aft ramp area.
“So...”
“So, you will be told what to say and when, what to think and when. When to piss and how much. And if into the wind, with pleasure and for how long.”
“Wonderful.”
“Lieutenant... what we are doing... is for the country, its national security. So that people like your Erica, Renée, and Everett can enjoy the lives they do. We all have our parts, however seemingly insignificant. We’re not doing this because we want to... but because we need to. Certain activities require the likes of us. We’re a necessary evil.
“Now, my advice... don’t ask any more questions and enjoy the ride.” Shroot repositioned his crossed arms and again closed his eyes.
* * *
Undisclosed location, Desert Southwest
6 July 1986
0220 Hours Pacific Time
“Jesus, it’s hot,” Cherko said, as he and Shroot exited the 130, its props still running. Cherko inhaled the smell of JP-4. God, he loved that smell. Shroot said nothing, but directed Cherko toward an awaiting bus to their left. As they cleared the 130’s prop wash, Cherko heard a pitch change and turned to see the aircraft spinning around like it couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
“Drop and roll,” Cherko said to himself.
The awaiting black bus opened its doors as they approached. Shroot and Cherko entered it. The air-conditioning felt great, but Cherko noticed all the windows were blackened out.
Trés familiar.
“Give me your watch,” Shroot said, taking a seat.
“What?”
“Your watch. Give it to me.”
Cherko handed it over.
“You’ll get it back.”
* * *
After a short ride over a rather unpaved road, the bus took a sharp right and stopped.
“Here we are. Remember what I said. No talking unless asked,” Shroot said getting to his feet.
Cherko and Shroot exited the bus and strode the handful of steps to a steel door that Shroot opened. They entered a small, low-lit chamber with cameras aimed directly at them from above. Cameras that tracked their movements. A table was before him, whereupon sat one large, unfriendly looking security guard. Behind him stood another security guard, also large and menacing. Shroot talked with the one at the table and was verified against an access list.
“Please empty the entire contents of your pockets,” the guard said. Cherko complied. He dumped his keys, change, wallet, chapstick, contact rewetting solution, handkerchief, and comb into a basket. The basket was then promptly locked away in a compartment in a set of lockers.
“This way, sir,” the standing guard said, and directed him toward biometric equipment to his left. The guard wanded him.
Cherko had his picture taken, then stood on a plate in the floor where his weight was measured. He saw a retina and hand scanner, but wasn’t directed to use either.
“You have all my other stuff?” he asked the guard, who just burned him a look without a response. Cherko was handed his new restricted-area badge. His picture was in the upper right-hand corner. Along the same edge of the badge, he saw “Temp” printed in large open-block red letters down the side of it. Along the bottom edge he saw “S4.”
“Let’s go,” Shroot said, and they headed to the door behind the two security personnel. “Swipe your badge... you know the drill.” Shroot stepped on a metal plate, swiped his badge and bent over the retina scanner, then disappeared behind the door. Cherko did the same. Behind the door was a much smaller foyer-like area, a hand reader beside the next entrance. Shroot placed his right palm at the hand reader then also disappeared behind that door. Cherko followed. There were no green or red lights, and no clicking of a lock releasing or setting. He pulled at the door latch and it simply opened. When he passed through this door, he found himself and Shroot standing inside a huge, narrow corridor that seemed to extend a half a mile or more. There was also the slight hush of what sounded like white noise above them.
Another guard stood before them, armed with some form of a mutant M-16.
“You will now be escorted into another room,” Shroot said, “where you will be presented with a blue folder. This folder and its contents never leave that room. You will not leave the room until you have performed the actions described in that folder at the time hack given in the folder. A time display unit is provided in the room. If you need to use a restroom, do it now. You will not leave that room until you have completed the actions detailed in that folder. You have four minutes.”
“But, how am I supposed to—”
“Remember our talk.”
Cherko clammed up.
“When all actions have been completed, you will exit the room and a guard will escort you to me.
“Do you understand all I have instructed?”
Cherko nodded.
“Verbalize, please.”
“Yes, sir—I understand your instructions.”
“Good.”