“I’m being called to DC,” Trest said to McCreary in a cool and rigid tone, as McCreary stood before his desk. “Something has pissed POTUS off. I have a feeling it’s about Cloudcroft.” Trest handed McCreary a smartphone in a rugged shell. DoD secured. The kind you can’t buy in stores. “Get Baldo and Douglas to help you with RemoteConfig. Wrap it all up. VR simulator, training gear, MedLab, everything. Put it in the box and await my instructions. Do it tonight. I’ll text you on this tomorrow after my meeting if Remote is a go. Follow our contingency plans. Destroy this after you receive my text.”
“Roger that, sir. Heading over there now.”
Trest eyed his elegant brushed-titanium watch. It reminded him of his wife, her gift for his promotion to Major. 6:50 a.m. He adjusted his notebook and pen on the desk of the presidential conference room. Noticing high ranking officers around him, along with the Vice President and Secretary of State. The others were milling about, finding their seats and catching up with colleagues. The room was round with polished dark mahogany wood panels. Trest had never seen it this early in the morning with the low sunlight cutting in through the blinds. A flush door in the mahogany paneling suddenly opened and President Clarke stepped in. Agitated. His eyes scanning the room, skipping over dignitaries like they were wallflowers at a high school dance. Landing on the object of his obsession— Major William Trest.
“What the Hell is going on at Holloman?!”
Cold silence fell over the room. The President noticed the pall he created and re-calibrated himself, addressing the others. “I apologize. Please, take your seats.” He sat at the head of the conference table and poured himself a glass of water. Then looked up in a stony glare with Trest in his crosshairs. Waiting for his answer.
“Sir?”
“Cloudcroft!” The President said. “Or whatever the Hell you’re calling it now. It’s got us on the verge of war with China and half of Asia!”
Trest furrowed his eyebrows in a perplexed expression.
“The Railway building explosion.” The President said. His eyes flicking to the UN Ambassador seated beside the Secretary of State. “The Chinese delegation ambushed Ambassador Reilly at the UN yesterday.” His glare cooled, turning to Reilly. “Fill him in!”
Ambassador Reilly cleared her throat, addressed the group and recounting everything the Chinese Ambassador told her. She came prepared with a presentation projected on the wall above. Images of Fuzhou maps, satellite photos of the roof of the Railway Bureau Building before and after the explosion.
Trest took it all in, exchanging glances with the same DIA agent present at Holloman during the Cloudcroft briefings.
The Ambassador wrapped up the report nearly twenty minutes later. Providing ample time for Trest and the DIA to fabricate CYA answers, which they both expertly did. Trest admitted to the use of Aurora over the Railway Bureau Building, citing authority from the DoD, which had approved recon and surveillance missions over China by high-altitude stealth aircraft like the Aurora. Trest adamantly denied any knowledge of a stealth suit. “A complete and utter face-saving concoction by the Chinese,” he said. “They refuse to admit we could have a mole on the inside of their preeminent cyberwar facility, which by the way, we still do. The agent’s cover remains intact.”
Trest’s eyes caught the reaction of the DIA official. Relieved and reassured by Trest’s answer. His ass was off the hook. When pressed on the explosion and incendiary device, Trest claimed he believed it was human error. The same DIA agent spoke up. It was his turn to provide cover for Trest, claiming this part of the mission wasn’t under Major Trest’s purview, and he accepted responsibility. Agreeing it was human error, and that the asset should have placed the incendiary on an insulated circuit board on the roof. The incendiary had enough combustible material to burn through one insulated wall, but not two. The combustion should have burned out before reaching the roof. Improper placement of the incendiary caused it to burn through the roof. The DIA official said, “The upside is we took out all the computers and mainframes on the top two floors, where we believe they are all stored for better air conditioning and ventilation purposes.”
The President dismissed the group. Trest and the DIA official left the room with restrained relief. Trest knew they would look into all of his answers using available means, including satellite footage and other surveillance footage. Trest departed the White House and spotted his driver and black Cadillac Escalade in the driveway, waiting to shuttle him back to the airport. A burner phone like the one he gave McCreary vibrated with a text that read, “Nice cover. Fast on your feet. I’ll scrub SAT IMCON. You take care of the suit.”
Trest texted the DIA official an affirmative reply and then found McCreary in his contacts, texting: “RemoteConfig is a GO.”
The Aurora, and everything else in Hangar 302 was lit in a soft green glow from the overhead fluorescence. The banks of light overhead were typically turned off to provide better viewing of the monitors in the box. McCreary, Baldo and Douglas bustled back and forth between OmniTrainer and the box. Lifting anything and everything they could carry, packing it into the tan metal crate. Sweat stains soaked the pits of Baldo and Douglas’s white T’s. They had shed their Air Force over-shirts, getting down to business.
McCreary was behind the box, detaching power and communication cables. He got a call on his service cell phone, speaking a few words to the caller and hanging up. McCreary yelled to Douglas, “Hey, RPA, can you pilot a big rig?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s out back. Bring it around to the door and I’ll let you in.”
Baldo closed the wide doors on the box, latching and locking it shut with military grade padlocks. The hangar door opened and Douglas backed the flatbed tractor trailer up to the box. McCreary hopped up on the flatbed and grabbed the heavy winch hook behind the cab. He pulled the slack out, fighting the heavy cable, tugging it down the length of the flatbed before hopping off and giving Douglas the signal to raise it. The flatbed angled up and McCreary looped the cable through the hitching posts on the box. Baldo stood behind the cab, controlling the wench. On McCreary’s signal he pulled the lever and towed the heavy rectangular shipping container up on the truck.
Low Level Route Survey documents were fanned out beside a map on a table in Hangar 302. The Air Force survey was a spreadsheet of all the dwellings and their coordinates surrounding Holloman AFB. McCreary pointed to an area on the map. “Holloman… Alamogordo. A zoning map of all structures in the area. We need line of sight within five miles of the Holloman radar tower here for SAT COMMS. Doesn’t give us much breathing room. We’ve gotta’ find cover somewhere within this radius. Help me find a new home, boys.”
Baldo and Douglas joined him in searching the desert around Holloman on the survey and map. “Can we use camo nets?” Douglas asked.
“Negative,” McCreary said. “IR can see right through them.”