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THEY WERE LED OUT OF the hangar and back out onto the ramp. The Gulfstream that had flown them to the remote site in the Nevada desert was gone. There were no other signs of life or human activity.
“I guess our ride is gone,” Woody commented, pointing to the empty ramp as he and Sparky followed Spectre and the others.
“I’m sure they’ll be back,” Sparky replied.
“Hey, what if we had said no?” Woody asked loudly enough for Spectre to hear.
Spectre looked back at Woody without stopping and grinned. “We would have sent you home.”
“When?” Woody asked.
“Eventually,” Spectre replied.
“C’mon, man!”
Spectre shrugged it off with a laugh as he and Kruger led the way toward the massive hangar a hundred yards from the much smaller hangar they had just come from. It was at least three times bigger and appeared to be all new construction.
Spectre swiped his badge and entered his pin on the keypad next to the door. He then opened it and gestured for everyone to enter. The entry had a short hallway known as a “mantrap” which required the outer door to be closed before the inner door could be unlocked. This time Spectre had to enter a six-digit code and place his hand on a biometric scanner.
Once the lock clicked open and the light above the scanner turned green, Spectre opened the door. The team followed him into another short hallway which opened to a room with several desks and computers.
“This is our daily working area,” Spectre explained as he started the tour. “Classified at Top Secret or lower. The other hangar we were in is also cleared up to Secret.”
Spectre led them through the cubicles to another door. He stopped and opened a panel, revealing another keypad. This time, the authentication required a retinal scan, fingerprints, and voice analysis.
“Calvin Martin,” he said before the system granted him access.
When the lock clicked open, Spectre opened the door and turned back to the group. “Typically, you’ll each have to go through the authentication process each time you go in – no tailgating. But for the sake of time and this tour, we’ll skip it for now.”
“What about her?” Sparky asked, nodding to Sierra Carter. “NOFORN?”
NOFORN or “no foreign nationals” referred to the classification sublevel in which classified information could not be released to non-United States citizens.
“Sierra has been given special access,” Kruger answered. “She and her team are cleared to the highest levels of this program.”
“I’ll explain once we get into the inner vault,” Spectre said as he gestured for them to enter.
The inner vault was much smaller. In the center of the room was a conference table with eight chairs. There were two computer stations on each wall and a projector screen on the wall. Once everyone was safely inside and the door was closed, Spectre approached the screen and picked up a remote.
“Have a seat,” Spectre said as he turned on the projector.
As he waited for the projector lamp to warm up, Spectre grabbed a bottle of water from the nearby mini-fridge. “Water in here if you guys need one.”
“What about beer?” Sparky asked.
“In the hangar,” Tuna replied.
Kruger joined Spectre at the head of the conference table, while Sierra and Tuna joined Woody and Sparky at the table.
“This vault is cleared for Top Secret – Sensitive Compartmented Information,” Spectre continued. “This is the only place you may discuss OPERATION BLUE CAMARO.”
“Blue Camaro?” Woody scoffed. “What kind of name is that?”
“The one the CIA gave it,” Spectre shrugged. “Regardless, this place and the vault at Langley are the only two places cleared to discuss it for now. Any questions?”
As Spectre looked around the room, the projector finally came up. He logged into the computer and opened the presentation. The screen showed a classified banner that read TS/SCI-BLUE CAMARO across the top and bottom as the presentation title page opened.
“Alright, so before we begin, I’ll explain the ins and outs of what everyone is doing here. Officially, this is an intelligence operation only – nothing more. Sierra is here as an attaché for MI-6 and their counterterrorism division. Unofficially, this is a Project Archangel operation.”
“Project Archangel is a covert, unacknowledged task force that partners with Brits to do bad things to worse people while giving the President and his cabinet plausible deniability in the event that things go sideways. Tuna is in charge, along with Sierra Carter, who is the British MI-6 representative. Anything they do is authorized by the DCI and British Secretary of State for Defence, and either briefed or back-briefed to the President directly. No one else knows about it,” Spectre explained.
“It has evolved a bit in the last five years,” Kruger added. “It used to have a dedicated air wing with close air support capabilities, but we’ve scaled it back in recent years.”
“Sick!” Woody said.
“There’s a lot of history there,” Spectre said. “But we don’t have time to get into that. For now, we have a very tight timeline and you guys need to get up to speed.”
Spectre clicked to the next slide. It was a picture of a Russian twin engine fighter jet.
“This is the SU-30MK3NK, a variant of the Chinese SU-30MK2 Flanker-C made specifically for the North Koreans,” Spectre said.
“Twin engines, twin tails, twin seats,” Woody said. “I like it!”
“One too many seats,” Sparky said jokingly.
Spectre switched to the next slide. “The North Korean SU-30 is just finishing its test and evaluation phase but is expected to be the most advanced export version of the SU-30, featuring the upgraded Zhuk-AESA2 active electronically scanned array radar, a passive detection suite, upgraded EO/IR pod, and active jamming capability.”
“Why? Why would we let the North Koreans have that?” Sparky asked.
“We’re not,” Spectre said. “We’ve already bought out the order and half will be sold to the Malaysians and the other half to the Indians. They will be sold as upgraded versions of the Malaysian SU-30MKM and Indian SU-30MKI respectively. No one will ever know.”
“Except the North Koreans?” Woody asked.
“Not yet,” Spectre replied. “For now, they must think that they’re getting the order and that they will be getting a performance demo in eight weeks as scheduled.”
Spectre advanced the slide once more, showing a map of Belarus and pictures of an air base in Minsk.
“Tomorrow, we will fly to Minsk. The Russians are doing on-site training of the initial cadre of the Belarussian Air Force on the first aircraft of their order of SU-30SMs, which are similar enough to the North Korean N3NK variant to work out. We will each get a five-sortie checkout in three days before heading back here, at which point you’ll start training for the mission.”
“Training for what mission?” Woody asked. “Now can you tell us what we’re going to be doing?”
“Sure,” Spectre said with a knowing grin. “You two are going to become demo pilots.”