Chopper Ops by Mack Maloney Page B

good-bye.
    Then he joined Delaney, ran up three sets of stairs, and left Hangar 2 a free man.
    "I owe you one, buddy," he told Delaney, walking out into the sunshine for the first time in days.
    "Only if we don't get caught," Delaney replied. "I can think of about a dozen regulations we're breaking here."
    Norton was sure of that. In his indoctrination—which took place in the days after he was recruited at Fallon and before he went up to St. Louis to collect Delaney— he'd been told everything that was about to happen to him was top secret and that he should not discuss it with anyone, not even other members of the project team. This was peculiar. Norton had been involved in secret ops before, and never had there been a ban on the individual members discussing the situation. But apparently none of those ops had been as secret as this. It was strange, though. This weird place. The way they were drawn together. The way they were recruited. Was the CIA just getting better? Or was there another reason the clamp was so tight?
    He didn't know.
    Since Delaney had been brought in, there had not been the opportunity for them to have a conversation. So did that mean they couldn't discuss their shared experience now? Would it be against the rules? Would anyone be listening in if they did?
    They began walking down the long camouflaged run-way. They were quiet at first. The afternoon was upon them. The base seemed deserted—as usual. Yet voices were on the wind.
    In just a few moments, Norton was sweating again. The sun was that hot.
    "If I didn't get a break from that Tin Can soon, I was going to flip," he finally told Delaney.
    "Join the club," his colleague replied. "I've been spending so much time inside that thing, I'm having nightmares. It's like people are whispering to me when I'm trying to go to sleep. Think the Spooks might be programming that in? You know, filtering suggestive stuff to us subconsciously?"
    "If these people can build all this and get away with it," Norton told him. "I'd say they are capable of anything."
    Delaney gave out a long moan. "Just what I need, something to make me even more paranoid. This place really gives me the creeps."
    Norton couldn't disagree with him. Seven Ghosts Key was a very odd place. There were at least a couple hundred people on site. Yet the island always managed to looked deserted due to its surfeit of subterranean facilities. As a result, the feeling of isolation was almost overwhelming. There were no other islands to been seen in any direction. No airplanes ever seemed to fly overhead. No boats ever seemed to be sailing on the horizon. Yet the island was located close to one of the busiest maritime areas in the world.
    Even the origin of its name was weird. When he first arrived here, Norton had been told by one of the CIA officers that the island's facilities had been built in the late 1950's to launch raids on Cuba, which was just over the horizon. At that time, the island was known simply as Green Rock Key. Then, sometime in the mid-sixties, something very strange happened. One dark and stormy night, as the story went, seven CIA employees assigned here simply disappeared. They went to sleep one night, but in the morning their bunks were empty and unmade. The island was searched thoroughly, as were the waters surrounding it. No boats were missing, no aircraft had landed or taken off during the night. Yet no trace of the seven individuals was ever found.
    Hence the name change.
    Under the circumstances, it was a little bit of history that Norton could have done without.

     
    *****

     
    After five minutes of walking in the brutal sun, he and Delaney finally reached their destination: the fake yacht club at the southern tip of the island. Here sat a dozen aging yachts and fishing boats, vessels on hand to help maintain the illusion that this place was little more than a private rich man's fishing club.
    Some of the yachts were so old, though, they were probably antiques. It was