She grabbed the night vision binoculars from the seat and stared at him in close-up. He wasn’t looking at her after all. Or anything else. Just casting a blank stare across the street. His eye-line gazed absently over the house behind her. Then suddenly — he moved. Like a switch turning on — taking off down the concrete path leading from his front door to the sidewalk. Once reaching the sidewalk, he turned a sharp left. Jennifer thought it was an unnatural way of running, squaring the corner on a dime — like a jogging robot would — turning perfectly programmed right angles.
Hal’s posture was stiff and awkward for a jogger. He’s Doctor Detroit! Jennifer thought, his running style reminding her of the power-walking oddball portrayed on the silver screen by Dan Akroyd. Hal took off in a brisk jog and his words echoed in Jennifer’s mind… Watch all my mannerisms. Everything I do. The way I walk. The way I run. He was well out of earshot of her car engine, so she set the binoculars down and fired it up. Pondering how she would be able to drive with the lights off while looking through the night vision binoculars at the same time. She tugged the earbuds out and put them and the Kindle back in the glove box. Jennifer secured her coffee in its cup-holder, grabbed the binoculars with her right hand while steering with the left. Maintaining a gap of a full block between she and Doctor Detroit.
Jennifer knew the layout of the base well. She had been to Hangar 302 many times, but was typically limited to the clinic room where she monitored subjects. The bearing Hal jogged was the quickest path to the Holloman runways and Stealth Canyon.
Jennifer saw headlights approaching and panicked, pulling into the driveway of a random house on the right. She turned her lights off and kept the engine running, pretending to exit her car until the vehicle passed. She spied the road for Hal with the binoculars, locating and bringing him into focus. She pulled out of the driveway and was back on his trail. Jennifer gave him a padding of about two blocks, which lowered her stress level, making her feel more comfortable.
Hal turned up another street, approaching the hangars at Stealth Canyon. Jennifer remembered what he said — to not let any guards see her, so she maintained her distance, eyeing parking spaces ahead that would give her a view of the hangar’s side entrance and the runway in front of the hangar. Hal turned his jog toward Hangar 302, running out of her view as he greeted the guards and was promptly escorted in. Jennifer parked and turned the car off. Sitting quietly in the dark.
Jennifer eyed her clock. 11:29 p.m. She figured it wouldn’t be a long wait until some kind of aircraft with Hal aboard took off, then the real waiting would begin. A few minutes had passed and she considered digging her book out. About the time she stared longingly at the glove box with her Kindle inside, a metal CLANG startled her. It was the sound of a hangar door opening. She hoisted the sleek black night vision binoculars up, watching the edge of the hangar. The taxi-way lights of the runway blooming like green spotlights through the hi-tech binoculars.
After the door opened, the hangar went quiet. Jennifer struggled to see or hear anything, panning from one side of the hangar to the other. She turned the key of her ignition a notch. Enough to roll her window down. She could hear the soft purr of an engine far away that was eerily quiet. Jennifer looked up the street to see if it was a vehicle approaching. The Aurora’s impressive profile emerged from the hangar. Taxiing toward the runway. The engine sound intensifying once it cleared the hangar and was out in the open. Jennifer spied the majestic aircraft through the night vision binoculars. Not believing her eyes. The Aurora looked more like a spaceship than any kind of airplane she had ever seen. She noticed a jet-black, angular protrusion under the belly of the Aurora. Realizing it was another aircraft. Hal… Her gut told her he was inside the winged capsule with flat, black panels.
“Do we have a link?” Weng asked Charlie, who studied a laptop screen on the long folding-table in the bunkhouse.
“Yes, sir.”
Weng peered down the runway through the night vision scope. The zoom feature giving him a better view than the other two. “There’s a bird on the runway. It’s not a fighter or B-21. I think it’s our guy. Encrypt and send the following message: Experimental stealth aircraft code-named Aurora preparing for take-off at 23:39. No escort or trailing aircraft in sight.” Charlie rattled on the laptop keys, typing Weng’s message in Mandarin.
Matt rose from the bed, gingerly gripping his chest as he watched the Aurora stalk toward the runway. Weng glanced at the side panel on the night vision scope, making sure it was recording. Then panned with the Aurora as she rose above the runway in takeoff. “Also note that a drone appears to be attached to the bottom of the Aurora. Model unknown. Stealth design. Possibly Reaper class. Charlie and Matt both watched in awe. Having never seen anything like it.
Charlie’s screen beeped with a message. He relayed it. “Both messages confirmed, sir. Incoming response: Tracking wingtip and nose-cone heat signatures in IR from YG-30. Sending imagery now.” Charlie opened the secure transmission link to the electro-optical sensor feeds from the YG-30. A red box outline appeared around the Aurora, picking up the minuscule heat signatures. “We got her! Locked on.”
Matt leaned to the bunkhouse window. Eyes locked on the Aurora until the last instant when it disappeared into the night. “How fast is she?” he asked.
“We’ll find out,” Weng said. “Data says Mach four plus. When we picked her up over Afghanistan she was going Mach two — slowing down. At that speed, she can be anywhere in the world in five hours.”
Jennifer watched the last glimmer of light from the Aurora’s engines until it vanished from her night vision binoculars. She set them back on the seat, knowing it would be several hours before the Aurora returned. She thought about making another Starbucks run, but didn’t want to risk being seen on base this late. Jennifer felt confident she could tough it out. She was actually alert and excited. Seeing the Aurora energized her. She dragged the Kindle and earbuds out, picking up where she left off.
Weng’s eyes had grown red and swollen. Tired. He was in the bunkhouse kitchenette downstairs, pouring a cup of coffee. Wondering where on the planet the Aurora could be. Trying to calculate it in his mind. He looked at the clock on the coffee maker. 2:37 a.m. Well, if it hasn’t already landed and it’s traveling at Mach four that would put it in the middle of—
A yell from the loft interrupted his thought… “She’s turning!” Charlie said. Weng abandoned the coffee, leaping up the stair case in three strides.
Matt watched the laptop screen from bed, using the wall as back support. Charlie leaned forward in the metal chair facing the laptop. “She seems to be slowing,” he said.
A coded message appeared on the laptop screen beneath the satellite image— the Aurora’s airspeed. “She’s slowed to subsonic,” Charlie said. “Something’s about to happen.”
Weng moved closer to the laptop, pulling a chair up without taking his eyes off the screen. Matt leaned forward as far as his pain threshold would allow.
On screen, the Aurora passed a flat land mass that appeared dark gray in infrared, leaving a slightly brighter glowing dot in its wake.