Having been notified by the graveyard shift of the arrival the previous evening, no one during the transfer to day shift gave it much thought. As the men and women within the control tower at the Centennial Airport were either preparing to depart, or pouring a cup of coffee to begin their six o’clock Saturday morning shift, a helicopter parked at the extreme southern end of the facility requested clearance for departure. According to the log books, the helicopter had been parked overnight at the request of the local FBI section chief, as it was to be part of the planned celebration at the Air Force Academy in the coming hours. Also noted within the log was that two women wearing black suits had shown proper identification as federal agents, and had requested that a fuel truck top off the helicopter that night as opposed to waiting until morning.

As Travis Connor, the morning shift supervisor, read the log entry, he asked no one in particular, “Federal agents. Alright, but what agency were they from?”

The graveyard supervisor who was just about to exit heard the generalized question and said, “Well his entry said by the request of the local FBI section chief, so I assume the agents were FBI.”

“Well that would make sense, but he made no mention of that or the agents names. For that matter, there’s no information about an arrival time of the helicopter or a flight plan. I just wish he would leave more detailed log entries, so I wouldn’t have to ask him those questions the next time that I see him.”

“I agree that he should provide more detailed reports, but I’m afraid that’s just wishful thinking by the both of us. The helicopter probably came in not long before I started my shift, but when I tried to get some information, he seemed upset that I wanted to keep him a few minutes for questions after his shift had already ended. If he intended to stick with his regular pattern, then I was standing in the way of him going out to begin his weekend with some late night debauchery. Besides, he outranks both of us with his seniority and rarely lets us forget it. If he cleared the helicopter to be here overnight then who are we to argue, especially since we already cleared it for departure?”

What Travis Connor and his counterpart had overlooked, in spite of actually mentioning it during their conversation, was that the timing of both the arrival and the departure had been intentional. It was a well-known fact that the best time to pull something over on someone with regard to security measures was either at the very beginning, or at the completion of, their work shift. That was when most employees and supervisors, including those such as their high and mighty evening counterpart, were likely to suffer from their worst loss of focus.

After being granted clearance for departure moments before the discussion in the control tower had concluded, the MIL MI-8 HIP-C helicopter lifted off and was well on its way to being clear of the greater Denver area. According to the planned intent, it followed a southerly course set to the west of interstate-25 and hugged the foothills while flying low for added camouflage. From the crews perspective the easiest aspect of their mission had just been accomplished, and they were aware that things would get increasingly difficult before the day was through. When reaching the first of the intended rendezvous locations, the two pilots would need to top off the fuel tanks of their bird once again and take on some extra containers for when they were needed as accelerators. Then there was the human cargo element, and the need for all of them to gear up properly for the pending attack. Of course the vital and most challenging aspect of that first landing would be to remain undetected in that location for several hours.