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From: nostrumo@nienor.IN-Berlin.DE (Nostrumo)
Subject: Repost TG: Assault Bitches From Hell by Stephanie M. Belser (1/1)
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Hi.
Hm, now I know where all these rumors about secret activity in the
military is founded.
As usual I DIDN'T write this story and haven't any claim on it. If
you have some usefull hints or some good coments, your mail is then
welcome. Flames, you know, they will be piped to /dev/null.
If you are an author and wish to remain anonymouns or just try to
avoid the replies to your work. I offer you the chance of posting your
stories and collecting the response for you. This offer only stands for
story postings and for nothing else.
Enjoy the story.
Ciao
Nostrumo
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> cut here with a sharp knife <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Assault Bitches From Hell
by Stephanie M. Belser
1.
Lieutenant Anderson waited outside of the office of the Chief of Staff for
Destroyer Squadron Two. He had no idea what the COS wanted, but he really
didn't care very much. In ten days, very much against his will, he was
going to be a civilian. He planned to burn his uniforms as soon as he
could.
Captain Williams opened the door and said: "Come on in, Mr. Anderson."
Anderson did so, he found an Army Colonel sitting in a chair next to a
table. A file folder lay on the table. "Anderson, this is Col. Hampton.
He wants to discuss some matters with you."
Col. Hampton stood up and shook hands. "Nice to meet you, Lieutenant." He
turned his head and said: "Thanks, Pete" to Capt. Williams, who left the
office. "Have a seat, son."
Anderson sat down. He wanted to ask what this was all about, but he kept
quiet. Hampton looked at him and nodded.
"All right. I've got something I'd like to discuss with you, Sam, if you
don't mind."
Anderson shrugged. "Talk all you want, Colonel, but why should I listen?"
Hampton pulled a sheet of paper from the file. "You're due to be discharged
on an `Other than Honourable' basis late next week. Your service record is
an exemplary one. After your first year, your fitness reports have been
straight `A's, consistent recommendations for early promotion. You went to
Department Head School early, did well. You've been the Engineer of a
frigate for the last sixteen months, your captain thought very highly of
you.
"Then a security officer at the bank was matching up ATM transactions with
photographs. He saw that a woman was using your card. Upon further
investigation, it was learned that you were the woman. You're a
transvestite, so now you're being discharged. Is that about it?"
Anderson had sat quietly throughout the entire recitation. "Correct, sir.
So what?"
"So this." He handed the sheet of paper to Anderson.
Anderson read it. It was a standard Bureau of Naval Personnel set of
message orders, addressed to him, discharging him on honourable conditions.
Without a word, Anderson stood up, went over to the desk and dialled the
AUTOVON number the officers' order section of BuPers in Washington. (It was
a number all naval officers know by heart.) In a few minutes, Anderson
learned that the orders were genuine, but not yet active. They would be
released when verified by an army colonel named Hampton.
Anderson hung up the phone and returned to his seat. he handed the orders
back to Hampton and said: "Okay, Colonel, I'm all ears."
"First, I want you to read and sign this." Hampton handed a another piece of
paper to Anderson. It was a disclosure agreement; by signing it he agreed
to keep whatever was discussed to himself for the next 75 years. The US
Government was authorized to use any method they deemed fit, not limited to
legal methods, to make him keep quiet.
Anderson looked up. "This could be interpreted to mean you could have me
shot if I talked."
"That's right. You won't be able to discuss whatever we talk about. Is it
worth an honourable discharge to listen?"
Anderson signed it. "You're on, sir."
Col. Hampton settled back in his seat. "I'm sure you're aware of the
restrictions we have on assigning women to combat duty. Most of the time,
that's not a problem. We have assigned women to combat areas, even areas so
hot that they have to carry full combat gear. We can assign them there
because their weapons would be used for defence. But we cannot assign them
to any job where they would have to use their weapons offensively. There
are some times when we need that capability. Then we run smack up against
the law.
"Now, I'm not talking about full-blown battlefield missions. I'm referring
to unconventional mission, `covert action' if you will, where a woman would
have a distinct advantage. But we can't use them."
"So why not turn the job over to the CIA? Surely they aren't constrained by
the same law," Anderson pointed out.
"No, they're not. But we like to have our own capability to mount such
operations. The law doesn't prohibit us from using men, though."
"Which is where I come in?"
"Exactly. We screen everyone being discharged for being a transvestite or a
transsexual. Those who have some abilities suitable to our needs are
approached for further consideration. In other words, we still have a place
for you in the military if you want it."
Anderson looked directly at Hampton. "I was outed six weeks ago. They
couldn't get me off the ship fast enough. Now you say you want me. Fine.
What's in it for me?"
"A lot. You'll be transferred to an army unit. While there, you'll receive
your base pay plus a number of special pays. If you stay in, you'll be
promoted at the same rate you would have been before. If you decide to
leave before completion of the training program or are found to be not what
we need, you'll get the honourable. If you complete the training, then
should you leave, you will be treated like a reservist who did the full 20
years of drilling: At 62, you become a retiree with full benefits."
Anderson thought it over. "What's the first step?"
"Go home right now. Do not return to this office, ever. Pack an overnight
bag with one change of clothing, your pilot's logbook, and a pair of
sunglasses. You won't need anything else. Be at the general aviation
terminal at the Norfolk airport at 0700. A man will meet you and put you on
a flight. He'll also take care of your car."
"Sounds interesting. But why me?"
Hampton shrugged. "You have some abilities we need, especially your flying
experience."
"Don't you get pilots, too?"
"Not really. The Government has so much invested in their training that
they are quietly told to keep it cool until their EAOS. Besides, they're not
into the low, slow stuff." Hampton stood up. "Thanks for listening,
Lieutenant."
Anderson shook his hand and said nothing.
He was at the general aviation terminal at 6:45 the next morning. Right
on time, a man came up and asked if he was Sam Anderson. When Anderson
nodded, he motioned him to follow. The man led him out to the ramp and
pointed to a Piper Navajo. "Get in that plane. Don't talk to the pilot.
Let me have your keys."
Anderson separated the keys for his car from his key ring and handed them to
him, then he walked to the airplane. He climbed into the Piper and sat down
in the right-hand seat. The twin was configured to carry cargo, there were
only two seats. The pilot went back, shut the door, took his seat, and
started the engines. After a few minutes to warm up the oil, they were soon
climbing into the sky over Tidewater Virginia.
The pilot levelled off at 8,500 feet, heading southwest. Without a chart,
Anderson had no way to know where they were going. He did know they had
flown for almost four hours when the pilot started a descent into a small
airport. The field was located in a pine forest; it had one runway that
looked narrow and short. When they landed, the pilot shut down both engines
and pointed at a car parked by a small line shack.
The inference was obvious, Anderson got out of the seat. picked up his bag,
and went over to the line shack. He found a rest room, drained his bladder,
then went out to the car. A nice-looking woman was sitting behind the
wheel. She looked at him with mild interest and nodded towards the
passenger's side door. Anderson opened the back door, put his bag in, and
got into the front. He buckled up and they drove off.
She said nothing, and Anderson was damned if he was going to say anything.
He could figure out that they were somewhere in Arkansas from the license
plates on the cars, but he didn't recognize anything. He had never been
there before.
They pulled up in the parking lot of a small professional building forty
minutes later. The woman pointed to the front door. Anderson got out.
They want to play it cool, he thought, so would I. He grabbed his bag and
went in without a word or a backwards glance.
There was another woman sitting at the reception desk in the building. "Are
you Sam Anderson," she asked.
Finally, a voice. "Yes."
"May I see your ID, please?" She held out her hand. Anderson dug out his
wallet and handed her his military ID card. She glanced at it and handed it
back. "Please have a seat, the Doctor will be with you shortly." She turned
away from him in dismissal.
Anderson went to the waiting area and soon found a "Newsweek" that was
current according to the AMA guidelines-- it was only seven months old. He
leafed through the magazine and some others for about a half-hour, then the
receptionist told him to go to Room Five. He did so, then waited for
another ten minutes.
A man in a white coat who appeared to be in his mid-40s came into the room.
"Sam Anderson? I'm Dr. McHenry. I'll be giving you your inprocess
physical this afternoon."
"WHAT physical?"
"Oh, they didn't tell you," Dr. McHenry remarked. "The first thing we do
is give you a complete physical. Some of it involves blood work, which is
why we haven't fed you lunch. That and a few other tests are first up, then
you'll get something to eat, followed by a lot of other tests, then a dental
exam. "
"How long will this last?" Clearly Anderson was not at all pleased about
going through a physical. "I had one two weeks ago."
"That was, correct me if I'm wrong, a pre-separation exam. That just makes
sure all your major body parts are attached. This one's a little more
intensive. We should be done by nine or so."
Nine tonight? Goddamn it, cursed Anderson to himself. "Well, let's get on
with it."
"All right. Strip to the waist and then come with me." Anderson did that.
The doctor led him to a room where he turned him over to a nurse.
"Lie down here, please," the nurse said. Anderson did so. The nurse drew
blood, filling several vials. Then she smeared some clear goo on his chest
ant attached the sensor cups for an electrocardiogram. "Not bad," she
pronounced as the strip unrolled from the machine. Looks like you try to
stay in shape."
The rest of the exam was a forgettable ordeal of tests; urine, stool,
hand-eye coordination, a stress test, and even a proctological exam. They
took a break around four and gave Anderson a bag of McJunk food from the
Golden Arches. Afterwards, he had to fill out an extremely detailed medical
and psychological history. That was hard; the questionnaire mainly
concerned transvestism and transsexualism. It asked a lot of questions that
he hadn't even thought of before.
The last ordeal was a dental exam. It was given by a dentist who made the
dentist Steve Martin played in "The Little Shop of Horrors" seem like a
compassionate soul.
The day ended at ten that night. A different nurse drove him to a small
motel. "There's a restaurant across the street. Tell them to put your meal
on Peterboro, inc. Don't worry about the motel bill. Be ready to leave
with your gear at six-thirty."
Anderson nodded and got out of the car. The clerk gave him a key without
asking any questions or giving him a registration form. The room was a
standard cheapie motel room; two double beds, a telephone without a dial,
towels one could see through, a shower, and a TV set bolted to the floor.
The restaurant wasn't bad, but Anderson was too tired to care much. He had
a salad and soup, then went back to the room. He called the desk and asked
them to wake him at 5:45.
It seemed as if the telephone rang fifteen minutes later, but when
Anderson looked at his watch, it was quarter till six. Goddamn, this is
like standing he evening watch and then getting up at reveille, he thought.
He shaved, showered, and got dressed, then went across to the restaurant for
breakfast. The service was quick, he was able to eat and get back to the
motel parking lot three minutes early. The same nurse who had driven him to
the motel drove him back to the clinic.
This time the receptionist directed him to another room. It was brightly
lit with a large mirror on one side. Anderson had read enough mystery and
espionage novels to guess that the mirror was of the one-way kind. A fairly
comfortable chair faced the mirror. Next to the chair was a stand with a
speakerphone on top. He sat down in the chair and waited.
He didn't have to wait long. "Good morning, Lieutenant Anderson," said an
electronically-disguised voice. "We are going to ask you a series of
questions this morning. Please answer them as honestly as you can. Ready?"
"No. Who are you, and why this set-up?"
"There are four of us. We are going to talk with you about a number of
subjects. The reason for this setting is so that you cannot tailor your
responses to our reactions. You can't see us and the computer interface
will make all our voices sound the same with no inflection. Ready?"
"Shoot."
"When did you first crossdress?"
"When I was four or five." And it went on from there. What he had worn,
what was his reactions, where did he obtain feminine attire, reactions of
family, girlfriends. What was his feeling towards women. Each response
generated more questions. Anderson felt like a limp rag by the time they
took a break at nine. They started up after twenty minutes and went to
eleven-thirty, punctuated by one head call. It was tough as hell. He had
to talk to a group of strangers about a part of his life he had never shown
anyone.
The session ended when another nurse came in and told him to follow her.
They left the building and got into a car. The nurse swung through a
fast-food's drive-in lane, she told Anderson to order his lunch. When they
drove off, she instructed him to eat it as they drove. He just went with
the flow.
They arrived at another airport twenty minutes later. The nurse told him to
go inside and ask for Carol. Anderson got out and did that. Carol appeared
to be in her late 20s with brunette hair. She had on jeans, Reeboks, and a
t-shirt.
"You're Sam Anderson, eh. Let me see your logbook." Anderson handed it
over. She leafed through it, then handed him a key on a keyring. "Go out
and preflight the blue Citabria, 64 echo."
Anderson smiled at that, he went out and checked the airplane over. It had
been a while since he had flown a 7ECA, but he was current in Super Cubs, so
he felt confident. Carol came out when he finished and got into the back
seat, Anderson climbed into the front. They put on headsets. "Can you hear
me," Carol asked.
"Yes."
"Good. Start her up and let's go. Unicom's 122.7, head out on 240 and
climb to four thousand."
Anderson pumped the throttle twice, cleared the prop, and engaged the
starter. The four-banger caught and started, he held about 1,000 rpms while
the oil warmed up. When it was warm, he added power and taxied to the
runway. The taxiway was grass, he didn't go very fast. The runup was
normal.
Time to go. Nobody was coming, so he swung onto the runway, lined the nose
up, and added power, feeding in right rudder to counteract the engine's
torque. He held a little forward stick to lift the tailwheel, then held the
tail low and let the airplane fly when she was ready to.
The day was warm, the Citabria didn't climb very rapidly, but they soon were
at 4,000 feet. "Do some dutch rolls," Carol said. Anderson banked the
plane left-right-left-right, using the rudder to keep it on a straight
course.
"Slow flight." Anderson took the power off, slowed down, then added power
while holding the nose up. He was mushing around on the edge of a stall.
"Turn 90 degrees to the left." Anderson slowly turned. "Now the right." He
was back on his original course.
"Power-off stall." Anderson turned to ensure the area was clear, then
chopped the power and held the nose up. He used rudder to keep the wings
level, the airplane shuddered and stalled. He lowered the nose, added full
power, and established a climb.
"Power-on stall." He cleared the area, ensuring nobody else was around. He
cut the engine, slowed to 65, then raised the nose and added full power. He
brought the nose up more and more until the airplane stalled, dropping the
nose. Anderson brought the nose down below the horizon, built up airspeed,
then established a climb.
"Take us back." Anderson turned around and flew back the way he came,
establishing a shallow descent. He found the airport and entered the
pattern. "Do some full-stall touch and goes." He flew the airplane around
the pattern, doing about four full-stall landings.
"Show me some wheel landings." Those are harder, Anderson had to flare out
just above the runway and touch the main wheels to the pavement, adding in
forward stick when the wheels touched. He bounced a couple, a couple were
greasers. After the fourth one, Carol told him to taxi back in and shut
down. They went into the building, the nurse who had driven him there was
waiting. Carol wrote in his logbook that he had been satisfactorily checked
out in a 7ECA in 1.5 hours of flying time. She handed him the logbook back
without comment, then Anderson followed the nurse back to the car.
She drove him to the clinic again. This time, Col. Hampton was in the
office, dressed in civilian clothes. He stood up and shook hands with
Anderson. "Congratulations, son. You passed the screening process. Do you
want in?"
"Sure."
Hampton handed him a book of names for girl babies. "First, you pick a name
for yourself. It'd be easier if you choose one that starts with an `S'."
Anderson looked at the selection, sounding them in his head. "How about
`Sherry?'"
Hampton nodded. "Fine. Welcome aboard, Sherry."
Anderson asked the logical question: "Now what?"
"We'll handle this just like a standard set of permanent orders," the
Colonel replied. He pulled the desk drawer open and handed Anderson a piece
of paper, it was another set of BuPers message orders. When the standard
wording was translated, it read that Lt Anderson was to be detached from his
current duty station, take 30 days' leave (known as "delrep" for "delay in
reporting") and report to the military air terminal at McGuire Air Force
Base in civilian clothes; he was not to use his own vehicle to get there.
His personal effects (known as "household goods" or "HHG") were to be put in
storage at government expense for the duration of the orders. "You won't be
stationed at McGuire," Col. Hampton explained, "That's where we'll be
picking you up. Bring three days' worth of clothes. The Commodore of
DesRon 2 has already written a detaching fitness report, you'll sign it when
you get to where you're going after your leave.
"So go home and get your personal life in order. Make sure you're parents
know that you're going to be out of touch for a long time, it may be a few
years before they get to see you." He handed Anderson a card. "They can
call this number in case of an emergency, but make damn sure they understand
that doesn't include anything less than imminent death. And make sure they
know that you may not be able to come back for any kind of emergency. You
can use the address on the card as a forwarding address for your mail."
"Where am I going?"
"You'll know when you get there, Sherry. The same lady who drove you here
will take you back to your transportation. See you in a month."
Anderson left the room. Hampton watched him go and sighed. He was getting
to have too much time in this assignment, he told himself. At first, he
thought of the program as a way to gain some use from worthless deviates.
But now, he knew that the men he recruited were fine people, they simply had
a different orientation. Hampton now though that tossing them out was a
waste; now at least he could do something with some of them.
The woman drove Anderson to a third airport, this one was considerably
larger than the other two and had a control tower. This time, he was shown
to a Sabrejet bizjet that was painted in USAF colours. The jet took him to
Langely AFB. The same man who had taken his car keys at the Norfolk airport
handed them back to him. Anderson found his car and went home.
It took four days to arrange for the movers to come and take everything he
couldn't fit into his car. Then he went home. The leave was less than
satisfying; neither one of his parents were supportive of his desire to stay
on active duty. Anderson visited his brother and left him the car and his
personal gear (including a fair number of firearms). He did a little bit of
travelling, and presented himself to the military air terminal at McGuire
with two weeks' worth of leave remaining.
The Air Force sergeant who was at the receiving desk read Anderson's orders
and then checked a file. She told Anderson to go check into the transient
BOQ and stay there; he'd be notified when his flight was called. Anderson
had taken MAC flights before, one normally has to wait at the terminal for
one's name to move up the waiting list. This treatment mystified him, but
he just did as she told him to.
The phone in his room rang a day and a half later. Anderson switched on a
light, picked it up and muttered his name into the handset.
"Lieutenant Anderson? Master Sergeant Wilkes at the MAC desk. Your flight
leaves at 0430. A car will be at the Q at 0410 to pick you up."
"What time is it now?"
"A little after three, sir."
"All right, thanks." Anderson set the handset back into the cradle. Fucking
zoomies, scheduling a flight on the rev watch. Oh, well. He rolled out of
bed, shaved and showered. The desk was open 24 hours, he was checked out by
four and waiting for his ride.
An airman came over to him. "Are you LT Anderson?"
"Yes."
"May I see your ID, sir?" Anderson handed it to him. The airman looked it
over and handed it back. "Come with me, sir." He led the way to a "blue
steelie," Air Force lingo for an issue sedan. Anderson got into the
right-side seat. He was a little surprised when the airman passed by the
MAC terminal and drove to a hangar after passing a security check from the
APs, who were wearing woodland camo uniforms and carrying M-16A2s. The
airman drove out onto the ramp and up to an Air Force C-12, their version of
the Beech King Air. This one had seen better days, it was set up as a cargo
carrier (or "trash hauler"), complete with a load of cargo. The pilot, a
woman in a USAF pilot's jumpsuit with captain's bars waved him on board.
Anderson stowed his bag between two crates and settled into the right seat.
"You might want to put on that headset," she said. "This old beast can get
pretty loud."
Anderson did so, adjusting the headset to fit and the boom mike to almost
touch his mouth. "Can you hear me?"
"Sure can." The pilot ran through the starting procedure with the economy of
motion born of great amounts of practice. She soon had both PT-6 engines
turning. She received her IFR and taxi clearances, then taxied out to the
runway. They had to wait for the wake of a departing C-5 to dissipate, then
they were on their way.
The flight went to Wisconsin, Anderson guessed. He could recognize Lake
Michigan and he did his best to follow along with the air traffic
controllers working the airplane. Dawn was breaking when the pilot started
her descent. There was nothing but woods, then he saw a small town next to
an airport. When they landed, he looked with surprise at the collection of
airplanes on the ramp. He hadn't seen so many tailwheel airplanes in one
place outside of an EAA fly-in; everything from a few J-3s up to three Twin
Beeches, a C-46 and two DC-3s. There were a few tricycle- geared airplanes,
but damn few-- a couple Cessna 172s, a Mooney, three Bonanzas and a King
Air. Everything was painted in civilian schemes, complete with N-numbers.
It looked like a civil airport in Alaska, except the man coming out to greet
them had an assault rifle slung over his shoulder. He told Anderson to go
to the line shack, then he started talking to the pilot about refuelling the
C-12 and unloading the cargo. Anderson trudged over to the shack. A woman
with a no- nonsense demeanour asked for his ID. She compared the card to a
list, then handed it over. She stuck out her hand and said: "Welcome to
school, Sherry. I'm Doris Stackpole. I'll be your training coordinator
while you're here at the school. Let's get you situated. Come with me."
Doris led the way out of the other end of the building.
"What is this place?"
"It's a training facility for all sorts of students. Some of the students
are training for covert ops, some are here above board. First rule is:
Don't talk to anybody about who or what you are or what you are here for.
Everything around here runs on a `need-to-know' basis. Understand?"
"Sure do." They had walked across the road to a small area of townhouses.
Doris led the way to one of them and opened the door with a key, which she
gave Anderson.
"This is yours for the duration of your stay." She showed Anderson around.
The townhouse was on two levels; upstairs were two bedrooms and a bathroom,
downstairs was a kitchen, dining area, living room, a study (complete with a
computer with a 19" screen) and a half-bath. "You're getting this place
because it's so close to the field, most of your training is going to be in
flying."
"Which of those planes will I be flying?"
Doris shrugged. "If you complete the course, all of them."
"Even the DC-3?"
"Yes, but you'll have a few other things to worry about." Anderson didn't
like her grin, but he'd do a lot to get a DC-3 type rating. Doris went to
the door. "You have an appointment. Bring your stuff, they'll take it and
issue you what you need."
Anderson followed along. They walked to a building almost a half-mile away.
There they went into a room where Doris told him to strip to his underwear.
Anderson did, two women came in and started measuring his body; one
measured, the other recorded. They traced the outlines of his hands and
feet. The real surprise was when they measured penis size, both flaccid and
erect. Anderson was embarrassed at that, but the two were just doing their
job and did it. Afterwards, Doris gave him a pink terry-cloth robe and told
him to take his underwear off. She collected all of his things and marched
out of the room.
For the first time, Anderson was scared. He had no idea where he was, had
no money, no ID, and all he had was a pink bathrobe.
Doris returned about forty minutes later with some clothes. She handed him
a pair of white cotton panties, "I think you know how to wear them," she
said. Next was a yellow and black t-shirt, a pair of white socks, women's
blue jeans and a pair of Reebocks that were white with pink trim. "Other
clothes will be sent to your apartment. Now, let's go to medical."
"Another physical?"
"Not like one you've ever had before." This time, they drove. Doris had the
keys to a jeep-like vehicle that ran on batteries. She drove to a hospital
that was a couple of miles away by road, although it was right across the
airfield.
Doris was somewhat right. It was a thorough physical; but the difference
came when they had Anderson lie down for a whole-body CAT-scan. He almost
freaked out; he had to lie on a very small white tunnel while the machine
hammered and whirred. He could have sworn the thing was going to grind him
up. After the scan, Doris took him to the cafeteria for lunch. The food
was about the same as any other hospital, barely edible.
The PA system paged Doris when they had almost finished. She left the table
to answer it, then returned. "C'mon, Dr. Trotti will see you now. We'll
find out what he can do for you."
They finished quickly and left the cafeteria. Anderson wanted to ask what
was going to happen, but there were other people around.
Dr. Trotti was in his late 40s. He shook hands and led them into a
darkened room. There was a screen on the wall and an overhead projector
that could project computer images. "Sherry, my field is reconstructive
surgery, though maybe we should say constructive surgery. Take a look at
this." He turned the screen on.
Anderson looked closely. The image was of a woman wearing a tank top and a
skirt that came to just above the knee. Her breasts swelled the top and
showed a little cleavage. The skirt clung to nice hips. Her face was not
that of a raving beauty, but she had nice cheekbones and didn't look bad at
all. "Who is she?"
"That's you."
"What?"
"Yes." Dr. Trotti shifted to another screen. "This is your skeletal
structure.." He went into a lengthy discussion of how they could modify
Anderson's skeletal structure to make him look like a woman, followed by a
discourse of what plastic surgery techniques they could use. Anderson felt
the MEGO (for "Mine Eyes Glaze Over") factor kicking in. Adding pieces
here, taking pieces out there. It wasn't his body, it was a biological
erector set.
After Trotti said his piece, Anderson asked the key question: "How much of
this is reversible?"
Dr. Trotti considered that. "Most of it is. We can change everything back
that required surgical techniques. You are going to need a fair amount of
electrolysis for us to be able to accomplish what we need to do. That isn't
reversible." The doctor just smiled. Almost everyone he had worked on asked
that question. He had done the reversal surgery on about five percent of
those he had worked on. But he didn't say anything.
"All right. When does the electrolysis start?"
"Right now," Doris said. They said goodbye to the doctor and went to
another part of the hospital. There a nurse injected a painkiller similar
to novocaine inside his mouth. She had him lie on a table, then after
several minutes, she started to work. Another nurse came in and started on
the other side of his face. Anderson could hear the humming of the machines
and the occasional `zap' as a needle vaporised an oil pocket. The nurses
would wipe his face with an antiseptic every so often. He was very tired
and since he was feeling no pain, he fell asleep.
They woke him up four hours later. His lower face was wrapped in a cold
mask, it had tubing through which a chilled solution was circulating. When
they took the mask off, one of the nurses closely inspected his face. "Not
bad." She gave him a tube of antiseptic ointment and a small bottle of pain
pills. "See you tomorrow," she said.
Anderson wanted to say something, but his face was numb. Doris took him
back to his townhouse. She showed him the clothes hanging in the closet,
mostly variations of what he was wearing: jeans, different tops, several
pairs of running and aerobics shoes. There was an assortment of
unisex-athletic gear.
"You can get food by placing an order through your computer, though you'll
have to cook it yourself unless you order the microwavable dinners; I
recommend them as you won't have a lot of time. The instructions are next
to it, it's fairly self-evident. You can order any books, tapes, CDs or
videos the same way. The computer also ties into the training database for
unclassified material; you'll be taught how that works starting tomorrow.
Anything you order will be placed on the living-room table, except for
perishables which will be put into your refrigerator or freezer. There are
some tapes by the VCR to start you off. I'll be by tomorrow at 0730. Any
questions?"
Anderson made writing motions. Doris found a tablet and a pen.
"Toothbrush? Razor," he wrote.
"Toothbrush is upstairs in the bathroom. No razor, it's easier to work with
longish hair. See you in the morning."
Anderson half-heartedly watched a video, then found a chicken dinner in the
freezer after his face denumbed enough to eat it. He took a shower and
rubbed the ointment over the areas where the eletrolygists had worked. He
soon fell asleep wondering what tomorrow would bring.
Tomorrow brought a lot of swelling. His upper lip was so swollen that he
had trouble drinking. The side of his face where one of the electrolygists
had worked was swollen, too. This time they had him strip to his underwear
and four people were working on him; two on the face and one on his legs.
The worst part of the procedure was when a doctor would come in and inject
lidocaine so the electrologists could proceed. Most of the time he could
see a TV, so they let him watch VCR movies or cable.
This went on for almost two weeks, but by the time they were done, he had no
body hair other than that that a woman had. They told him that they'd have
to do it all again in six weeks, but it would take less time then. Well, he
thought, maybe by six weeks the swelling would go down.
They gave him a day off, then they started flight training. Doris took
him to a classroom next to the airport. She turned him over to an
instructor named Craig, who proceeded to start teaching him how to fly by
instruments. Classroom work was in the morning, simulator work in the
afternoon.
This routine went on for three weeks. As Doris had promised, all the course
work was on a computer database, so Anderson was able to work on the ratings
in the evening. The simulator gave way to an IFR-capable Cessna 180;
Anderson became able to fly an approach to minimums and follow up with a
good landing. "It's a lot harder in a taildragger," Craig explained.
By the end of the month, Anderson had an instrument airplane rating and
had passed the written exam for a commercial pilot.
Things began to change a little in the second month. Doris took Anderson
to a hairdresser. Terri clucked with disapproval at the military haircut.
Anderson thought his hair was long; it was longer than the uniform regs
allowed, but still short. Terri recut it into a hairstyle that was short
but fairly feminine. He looked in the mirror, he thought he looked like a
big dyke. She looked at his nails. "Your nails are a mess. You need to
stop chewing them." She painted them with a clear liquid, then waited for
the coating to dry. "Now chew on them," she said.
Anderson tried, the stuff tasted horrible. He spit out a fragment of nail
and said as much.
"That's just the point. Take the bottle with you and put a coat on your
nails each morning. After a while, you won't even think of biting them."
Terri then pierced his ears. "You're about what, 26," she asked.
Anderson nodded.
She pierced them twice more, so he had three gold studs in each ear.
"You're young enough so that looks about right," she concluded. After a
lecture on how to care for the piercings, she took him over to a vanity
table and began showing him how to apply cosmetics, indoctrinating him in
the mysteries of foundations, bases, power, lipstick, gloss, mascara,
eyeshadow, and cold cream. After she was done, she scrubbed it all off and
had him apply it, correcting him as he made mistakes.
"That's sort of the `full formal' look," she explained. "It's good for an
evening out. But for daytime, it's a bit much..." She then showed him how
to lightly apply makeup for a look that was both enhanced and natural. "You
don't want to wind up looking like the daughter of Bozo the Clown and Tammy
Faye Bakker." Anderson left the salon with that coating still applied.
That took the entire morning and then some. Anderson was getting very
hungry, so Doris dropped him back at the townhouse. "See you in an hour,"
she said. Anderson made a couple of sandwiches and leafed through two
aviation magazines that had been dropped off. He also noticed that
"Cosmopolitan," "Redbook," and "YM" had been added to the selection. He
repaired the damage to his lipstick by the time Doris returned.
Doris showed up carrying two purses, one of them was for Anderson. She
showed him what cosmetics to carry, enough for field repairs. He looked at
the wallet, it had a Wisconsin driver's license in the name of Sherry
Anderson, complete with photograph and signature. There was also a VISA and
American Express credit cards, a pilot's license (private, instrument
airplane), medical certificate and a radiotelephone permit in Sherry's name.
There was also $52.47 in cash.
"All those are legal," Doris said. "Anyone who checks with the DMV or the
FAA will find Sherry Anderson listed. Give me your logbooks."
Anderson went to find them and handed them over.
"You'll get these back in a while. Now we have an appointment with a voice
coach. You really need help there, Sherry."
"I know I sound like a man, but why do you say that?"
They left the townhouse as Doris explained: "Appearances are very important
for a man who is passing himself off as a woman. What someone first
perceives is the way they are going to think of you, 99% of the time. If
they see a woman, then they are going to think `woman' even if your voice is
a tad low. But in your case, the first contact a lot of people are going to
have with you is over an air plane's radio. So your voice has to convey
that you are a woman.
"You might say we are going into phase two of your training here."
"Which is?"
"Female training. You're going to take deportment lessons. We aren't going
to teach you how to act like a woman. An act can fail under stress. So we
are going to teach you to BE a woman. There will be sessions with image
consultants, the voice coach, and some time out in the real world. You're
going to start spending some time with a therapist to ensure that we aren't
overloading you. She'll also help you sort out your feelings about who you
are and what we are training you. Feel free to talk with her about
anything, ok?"
"Sure. Will I still be flying?"
"Oh, yes. You have a LOT more training to go through."
The voice coaching was simple. The first session took just fifteen minutes.
The coach showed Anderson how to raise his voice slightly through humming
and gave him a tape-recorder to practice with.
The therapist was next. Her name was Janet, she explained that the process
was to talk things out. She would have him explain his life to her. The
process was like peeling an onion, one removes one layer at a time.
Anderson digested that. "But there's nothing distinct about the center of
an onion," he remarked. "How do you know when you get there?"
"When there's nothing else left. You'll know it, and so will I. We'll start
on your next visit."
Doris was waiting in the therapist's outer office. "What's next on the
schedule," Anderson asked.
"We're going to get you some new clothes." They rode the electric jeep to a
clothing store. There the saleslady first fitted Anderson with a bra and a
set of breast prothesis. She had him try on a number of different bras,
then camisoles and slips. After that, she brought in a navy houndstooth
suit with a white blouse which she had him try on. Then she fitted him with
a pair of black leather pumps with 3" heels. Finally, she led him over to a
three-sided mirror.
Anderson's jaw dropped. Gazing back at him in the mirror was an attractive
young businesswoman. He ran his hands down the side of the skirt, feeling
the smooth material. He smiled and the woman in the mirror smiled back.
What he didn't see was the satisfied grins Doris and the saleslady gave each
other. He wasn't sure how long he stood there, entranced at his image in
the mirror. He felt something click inside himself, and from then on knew
that the female pronouns were the right ones. It just felt right. It was a
moment that Sherry would remember as long as she lived. She would later say
it felt like she had been reborn.
They spent a lot of time assembling a wardrobe; dresses, skirts, tops,
casual wear, coats, shoes, and a couple of pairs of boots. Doris picked out
a few things to take back with them, the saleslady promised the rest would
be delivered.
Doris helped Sherry put her clothes away when they returned to the
townhouse. "Tomorrow you start on your commercial pilot's license," she
said. "Just be at the flight school by 0730. You'll do your training in
the Bonanza, since you'll need to use a complex airplane for the exam. Wear
the jeans and the sneaks for your flight training. I'll let you know each
afternoon what is planned for the next day so you can choose the proper
attire. If I don't see you, I'll leave a note in your email.
"The other thing is, you need to start on a physical training program. Some
of that will come later, but I want you to start running each afternoon.
That is to be the only activity where you aren't to wear the artificial
breasts. Start today."
"Okay." Sherry changed into a t-shirt and shorts, then went out for a run.
It was a brief run, she hadn't been running for a few months. But she knew
from past experience that the wind would come back quickly.
Sherry was at the flight school on time. If Craig had any thoughts about
her changed appearance, he kept them to himself.
The instructor thought she was a little weak on slow flight and stalls. "I
think you're afraid of them, so let's change the syllabus a bit," he said.
Sherry found herself in the front seat of a Bellanca Decathlon; they went
through stalls, spins, and some basic aerobatics. She had to use a Sic-Sack
on a couple of occasions, but soon she was doing loops, rolls, and inverted
flight. Craig had her do inverted stalls and spins, then he let her take
the Decathlon up when she had some free time.
Sherry had the time of her life in the Decathlon. Craig chewed her ass out
for making a low inverted pass down the runway one afternoon, but she didn't
mind.
For most of the non-flying days, Doris had her wear more lady-like attire.
She got used to moving around in dresses, skirts, and high heels. She lost
her purse a few times the first week, but soon carrying one became
automatic.
The therapy was easier than she thought it would be. Sherry trusted Janet
and opened up to her completely. They met three times a week, then scaled
back to twice a week. Janet wanted to make sure that the training wasn't
taking Sherry down a road she didn't want to go. But what she saw was a
young woman who was full of life. Sherry was finally doing everything she
had wanted to do.
The deportment classes (to use Doris's term) were more like aerobics. The
instructor's name was Sharon, she worked to teach Sherry to loosen up and
move more fluidly, not to shamble along like a male. They were tiring at
first, but also fun. Sherry was keeping up her running, she was now doing
over four miles a day. The town (she thought of it as that) has several
running courses laid out along the roads, complete with mileage markers.
Sherry's goal was to run three laps around the airport, a distance of over
eight miles.
The coursework was changing constantly. After a series of lessons on
clothing and accessories, Sherry started a basic cooking course. Doris
pointed out that most women knew how to do more than fry hamburgers and
eggs, which about the extent of Sherry's kitchen skills. So she learned how
to cook and how to select items from the supermarket. Sherry privately
didn't think much of this phase of her training. It seemed like a lot of
effort to spend so much time preparing a meal that normally didn't take
anywhere near as long to eat. Lord Sandwich knew what he was doing, she
concluded.
The big treat came after Sherry passed her commercial pilot's check ride.
Doris and Janet treated her to a trip to Chicago for three days of R&R. They
took the Bonanza, Sherry flew them to Meig's Field right downtown. They
went shopping on Michigan Avenue and in Watertower Place. The highpoint was
a theatre night, including a fantastic dinner afterwards. Sherry was sorry
to leave Chicago, even though she logged some good instrument time,
including a NDB approach to their home base.
Sherry started working with Craig on her multi-engine rating in the Twin
Beech the next day, including a session on the care and feeding of radial
engines. "You can't overprime a radial," Craig admonished. She learned
about engines that measured their oil levens in gallons, not quarts.
Learning to taxi a multi-engined taildragger was a little bit of a
challenge.
While Sherry was being introduced to the fun of engine-out drills, a
conference was underway concerning her progress. Col. Hampton had flown
in, he met with Janet, Doris, and Dr. Trotti. "How's our boy doing," was
his first question.
Janet smiled. "She's a woman, Colonel, and she's doing fine."
"Explain."
"Frankly, I don't think Sherry's a transvestite. I think she's a
transsexual, although she really hasn't admitted it to herself. The
majority of TVs we get here aren't content to go full-time dressed up. They
find some way of visibly asserting their masculinity. The TSs assimilate
completely. Sherry has shown no signs of not wanting to be a woman. No
covert strength exercises, or anything like that.
"Her adjustment to female living has been remarkable, although I don't think
she should consider making a living as a chef." That comment earned a laugh
from Doris.
Col. Hampton mulled that over. "How's the flying coming?"
Doris fielded that. "Craig says she's doing well. She may not be a natural
at it, but she is working very hard at it."
"So what's the next step in her training?"
"She's started multi-engine work. Once she gets her multi ticket, then we
are going to get her rated in DC-3s and C-46s, along with turboprops so she
has some turbine time. After that, then it may be time to send her out
living full-time as a pilot to build up her flight time."
"What about tradecraft?"
"We'll start weapons training next week, along with escape and evasion,
surveillance and counter-surveillance techniques, and the usual stuff,"
Doris said.
"What about her femininity?"
"I think it's time to see if she wants to start hormones," Janet replied.
If she agrees and sticks with it for the next few months, then it may be
advisable to consider some non-genital reassignment surgery."
"Face and voice," he asked
"Yes. I'd say if she is to go that route, we do the surgery before she goes
out for learning how to live on her own as a woman."
"All right," Col Hampton concluded. "Call the airport and have Sherry
brought here for a discussion about hormones with you and you alone. We'll
wait up in Trotti's office."
Sherry came to Janet's office looking an absolute mess. She was sweating
from the effort of conducting the dead engine exercises. "This is a little
out of the ordinary," Sherry said. "What's up?"
"I've been reviewing your progress here, Sherry. You are turning out to be
a fine young woman. When I or anyone else looks at you, we'd be
hard-pressed to believe that you are really a man. How do you feel about
it?"
Sherry was taken a little aback. "I guess I feel good about it. When I get
dressed and look in the mirror, I see me. It's hard for me to realize that
I am a man, too."
"Do you want to go back to being Sam?"
"What? But Colonel Hampton said-"
I know what he said," Janet interrupted. "What has been done is easily
changeable. Even if you have no facial hair, all you'd need to do is get a
crewcut, change clothes, take out your earrings, and everyone would assume
you are a man. But now you're at a decision point.
"For what I am going to say now, I do not want an answer. Promise me you
won't say a word to me until tomorrow morning or later if you need the time.
All right?"
Sherry nodded.
"This is the choice: You can go down the impersonation road with facial
surgery and breast implants. It'll fool most of the people. When you're
done, Dr. Trotti can make you look almost the way you look now. Not quite,
but almost.
"The other option is more permanent. Instead of implants, you'd start
hormones. We'll schedule you for voice surgery, your voice will be higher
forever. The facial surgery will be more extensive. And finally, if you
make it that far, you'd go through sexual reassignment surgery. At that
point, you'd be as female as chemistry, training, and surgery can make you.
"It's your choice. Go home and think it over."
Sherry nodded solemnly and left. She thought about it quite a lot. She
thought about how she had never quite fit in as a man and how everything
felt so right now. She had a few drinks in thinking it over, too.
Sherry was wearing a pink suit and was waiting in Janet's outer office
when Janet came to work the next day. "Come on in, Sherry," Janet said.
They sat down and Janet didn't say anything.
Sherry took a deep breath and smiled. "I want it to be permanent. When can
we start?"
Janet looked solemn. Inside she felt joyous, but kept a professional
demeanour. She opened a drawer and handed her a piece of paper. "Take this
to the pharmacy, they'll fill the order. Follow the instructions exactly,
Sherry. Ok?"
"Sure, Janet."
Janet stood up and hugged Sherry. "Welcome to the other side, Sherry."
Sherry went to the pharmacy and had the prescription filled. The
prescription called for taking Premarin and Aldactone. The pills had to be
taken with food and had to be taken at approximately the same time each day.
The pharmacist gave her a lengthy brochure about what to expect while taking
hormones.
She read that once she got back to the townhouse. Mood swings, weepiness,
long-term risks of cancer; it was heartening to realize that no women in her
family had ever developed breast cancer. No time like the present, so she
fixed a sandwich and took her first pills. It was almost a disappointment
that nothing happened right away. She logged onto a commercial database and
read the information files about the drugs. Aldactone, an anti- androgen,
was widely used in the rest of the world but was not approved for use by the
FDA. Must be one of the benefits of the Feds, they can get away with
ignoring their own rules.
The ringing of the telephone startled her. In over two months, she hadn't
had one incoming phone call. She picked up the handset and said hello.
"Sherry, it's Doris. Change into jeans, a sweatshirt, and sneakers. I'll
be over in twenty minutes to pick you up." The line went dead as Doris hung
up without awaiting a reply.
`Christ, what a bitch!' Sherry thought as she went upstairs to change. It
can't be a flying day, there's no need to drive to the field. Well, going
with the flow has worked so far. She was ready at the appointed time.
Doris drove up in a Jeep, a real gasoline-powered one. Sherry hopped in and
asked what's up.
"Another phase of your training," she replied. "You start gun class today."
Doris drove to a site several miles away, it was a rectangular building with
a large earthen berm behind it. Doris handed Sherry the keys to the Jeep.
"I'll catch a ride back, drive back when you're done. Go to the office and
tell them your name, they'll take it from there."
Sherry did as Doris told her to. The office had three men lounging around
who looked like midwestern "good-ole boys," complete with flannel shirts and
yellow work boots. When she said her name, a tall man in his late 40s stood
up and said: "Yeah, I've been waiting for you. My name's Keith. Let's
go." Sherry followed him out of the office. He led the way down the
corridor to a set of stairs, then down a flight to the basement. They went
to a heavy door, he opened it and threw a set of wall switches. The front
of the room lit up and the whine of a powerful ventilation fan started.
They were in an indoor pistol range. It had three firing points and
appeared to be a 25-yard range. Each firing point had a target holder that
moved back and forth by an electric motor.
"You ever do any handgun shooting," Keith asked.
"Some."
"What do you shoot?"
".45 Colt auto."
Keith grunted, then went to a wall cabinet. He pulled out some targets,
tape, shooting glasses, and two pairs of large ear protectors. Then he
unlocked another cabinet and handed Sherry a Colt Gold Cup .45. Sherry
immediately pulled the slide back and locked it. "Ok, so you may know what
you're doing," Keith admitted. He hung a 25-yard rapid-fire target on the
frame and ran it down to the far end of the range. Then he handed Sherry a
box of cartridges, two empty magazines, and waved her to the firing point.
Sherry stepped up to the position. She dry-fired the pistol several times
to get a feel for the trigger; it was a lot lighter and crisper than an
issue service weapon. She locked the slide back, set the pistol on the
counter, and loaded five rounds into a magazine.
Sherry said: "Put on your hearing protection, please." She then put the
glasses on and the earmuffs over them. She shifted her body as she picked
up the pistol and magazine so her left foot was ahead of her right one. She
inserted the magazine into the well of the pistol and slipped off the slide
release, which allowed the slide to run forward and chamber a round.
She held the pistol in her right hand with her left hand forming a cup in
which the right hand rested as if she was catching it. Her left elbow was
bent almost 90 degrees, the right elbow was straight. Breath deep, let a
little out, squeeeeezeee...BLAM! Sherry fired four more times, then Keith
stepped up and brought the target up.
"Not bad," he said. Sherry had hit the x-ring once, the ten ring twice, the
nine once, and the seven ring. 46x1. She felt pretty good about it.
Keith poured cold water all over her joy. "But that means nothing.
Nobody's going to allow you to settle into a Weaver stance and calmly snap
off five rounds at them. And for damn sure you won't find a Gold Cup lying
around. But at least you know which end of a pistol does what."
So Sherry started practical pistol training. That was a nice euphemism for
learning how to kill someone with a pistol. "First thing is this," Keith
said: "A pistol's a defensive weapon. It's what you use to stop someone
from doing harm to you or someone else. If you're going to set out to kill
someone, then use a better weapon with more killing power and range."
Over the next few weeks, Sherry learned how to shoot competently with almost
every conceivable handgun. The training took place on a firing range that
was a mock-town with pop-up or swinging targets. She had to learn to shoot
with one hand, the wrong hand, and both hands. Keith taught her how to draw
from waist, shoulder, and leg holsters. For one phase of the schooling, she
had to wear a suit, heels, and draw from a purse. It sure felt strange to
Sherry to walk though the training range in a navy pinstripe "dress for
success" suit, career pumps, and whip out a .380 automatic to drill a
imitation scumbag.
Combat training was held using guns firing paintballs. These were often
painful as the paint pellets were fired from regular firearms (rather than
the paintball guns), but the training impact of being shot was of value.
The flying continues as before. Sherry passed her multi-engine flight test.
She was put on the roster for the air-charter outfit based at the airport;
soon she was flying the Twin Beech and the Navajo on cargo runs. To her
amusement, she even flew some men to the same southern airport where she had
been taken for her medical examination. When the schedule called for her to
make a night run, her other training was adjusted to accommodate the flight.
She was building time in the classic method used by aspiring commercial
pilots.
The therapy continued, too. Janet acted more like a close confidant than a
distant professional, which resulted in Sherry's opening up completely.
Janet also reviewed the surveillance reports on Sherry for any
discrepancies, including the tapes made by the microcameras in Sherry's
townhouse. She was coming along fine.
Sherry had continuing appointments with the electrolysis team, normally
every six weeks. They went after follicles that were dormant during the
initial process along with the ones that had survived. The first repeat
session took four days, then the time dwindled after that. They were
nothing that she regarded as fun.
The ground training shifted focus somewhat. The curriculum moved from
handguns to shoulder weapons: rifles and shotguns. Sherry found she had a
talent with a rifle, she could "dope" the wind and normally hit a target at
six hundred yards. The shotgun was easy for her, it was a reactive weapon
where the rifle was normally a deliberate one. Sherry really didn't like
the high- powered rifles too much, they kicked fiercely. But anything
smaller than a .30-06 was almost fun.
As firearms training tapered off, they started her on unarmed training.
This had little in common with the theology of martial arts, it was raw
street survival training. A few sessions were held with Sherry wearing
"street clothes," dresses, skirts, heels. Those sessions often resulted in
the clothes being totalled, but they were replaceable.
One session was nighttime training. Sherry had to walk down the street.
Most of the people would pass her by, but one was supposed to attack. When
the attack came, Sherry spun out of the attacker's grip and pulled a
snub-nosed .38 from under her jacket. She levelled the pistol at the
attacker and fired three times, the instructor staggered back in shock as
three paint pellets smashed into his chest. The lights came on as the two
looked at each other, the other people on the street had all dived for cover
when the shots rang out. The trainer rubbed the impact sites and said:
"Very good. If you have a weapon, the hand-to-hand moves are for fools.
But that's not the goal of this training, so don't bring it again." His
voice sounded harsh, but he was trying hard not to smile.
Sherry had a medical appointment the next day. Dr Trotti and one of his
parters, Dr. Pamela Levinson, gave her another complete physical. It
lasted most of the day, Sherry just put up with the routine. She hated
being poked and prodded, but that was the way the medical profession worked,
especially if one was in the service of Uncle Sam.
The two doctors saw her after the exam. "How are you doing, my dear,"
Trotti asked.
"Fine."
"Any complaints?"
"No."
"Are you noticing any soreness around your nipples," asked Levinson.
"Some," admitted Sherry. "The literature the pharmacy gave me said to
expect that."
Both doctors nodded, then Trotti shifted gears. "I want you to go to the
blood bank and have them extract a pint of blood, then another one in four
weeks. That will provide a ready source in case we need it."
"For what?"
"Surgery," he said. "In two months, we're going to take you in and reshape
your face to a more feminine appearance. At the same time, the day before
actually, Dr. Levinson will do the vocal surgery. You'll be out of action
for a while after that, but we'll make sure you're still learning
something."
Sherry nodded, not wanting to speak. Her mind was filled with a conflict;
she wanted to have the facial surgery, but she also didn't want anybody
cutting her with a sharp object. The doctors asked some other questions,
but Sherry answered them rather abruptly. When the interview ended, she
went to the blood bank and they drew a pint for deposit on her account.
They told her to drink plenty of fluids and not to fly for 24 hours. She
called the field and had them take her off the schedule.
Janet had noticed Sherry's hesitancy at the pre-surgery meeting, she dropped
by after work with a bottle of white wine and some munchies. Sherry was a
little amazed and a little peeved that Janet hadn't called; the townhouse
looked like an exercise in "Living With Chaos." But she found a couple of
semi-clean glasses and a plate for the food. After the bottle was opened,
Sherry opened the discussion: "I assume you didn't stop by just for a
visit."
"Why do you say that?"
"Oh, I don't know," Sherry said with sarcasm dripping like molten steel.
"You've never said anything like `let's do lunch,' but two hours after a
discussion about surgery, here you are, booze in hand."
"In some way's you're still a man," Janet said with a wry smile. "Most
women wouldn't go that quickly to the heart of the matter. They'd have
opened with some pleasantries and eventually worked around to the point."
"Or they might try altering the subject. Answer the damn question."
"All right," Janet sighed. "You seemed uncomfortable with the idea of
surgery. What bothers you, the idea of changing your appearance?"
"No," Sherry said emphatically. "Nothing like that. It's more like I don't
like the idea of being operated on."
"Have you ever had an operation?"
"Nope, nothing more serious than removing wisdom teeth. I've never been
knocked out, not even accidentally."
"And the idea bothers you," Janet probed.
"People sometimes don't wake up afterwards."
Janet smiled. At least it wasn't a matter of Sherry not being convinced
that the operation wasn't necessary. She spent a lot of time trying to calm
Sherry's jitters.
Sherry wasn't too convinced, but she was reassured that there were other
things in life more risky that she had done. Then Sherry asked a question
Janet wasn't prepared for: "When are you going to remove my testicles?"
"Why?"
"I did some reading on hormones in the database. The writers all seem to
believe that female hormones work better if they're not fighting male
hormones. You could also lower the dosage level of both drugs and reduce
the risks from side effects."
Janet looked very serious. "But if that's done, you'd never be able to
father a child. And there is no way to reverse that operation, even
superglue wouldn't work."
Sherry stood up and stripped to the waist. "Do I look like a man? I am a
woman-" she said that with considerable emphasis "-but I still have some
extra parts. I want that taken care of as soon as I can."
Janet motioned to Sherry to put her clothes back on; Sherry complied.
Sherry's breasts were starting to bud, her body looked like one that might
belong to a six-foot tall twelve year old. "We can't do all that, not right
away."
"Why not?"
"You know about the Harry Benjamin Standards of Care?" Sherry nodded.
"Well," Janet continued, "we are really violating them somewhat in your
case. There is an overriding interest that classifies as `national
security,' we've compressed a lot of the time factors. But we still won't
do the final reassignment surgery without some form of Real Life Test.
"You are going to have to live and work as a woman for a while before we
consider you for final surgery. When it comes time, we will have you
operated on by the best there is."
"You mean-" Sherry held her tongue when Janet held her finger to her lips.
"I think we know who that is. There are people who help out the Government
on a volunteer basis, but under the strictest security. You won't meet the
surgeon, at least not when you're conscious. But we have to satisfy a
minimum of the Standards before you can undergo SRS."
"Hmm. And I don't suppose you have any specifics in mind for a Real Life
Test?"
"As a matter of fact, yes. You'll get a job with an air cargo service,
flying night runs for a check-delivery service. That'll also build your
logbook up. It's really a double-barrelled test: we'll see if you can
survive on your own as a woman and if you can be a competent professional
pilot."
Sherry nodded. By this time the wine was gone and they both were feeling
tired. Janet made her exit, Sherry washed up and went to bed.
Doris called Sherry at 5am and told her to be ready for flying at six and to
bring changes of clothing for three days. Sherry grunted something
unintelligible into the phone and got up. She went over to the field at
six; to her surprise she was handed a completed flight plan to Mojave,
California and the keys to the Twin Beech. Go with the flow, she figured,
she was airborne by 6:30.
The plan had her overnighting in Cheyenne, then on to California. The FBO
at the Cheyenne airport gave her a ride to a local Holiday Inn. Sherry had
dinner in the restaurant and went to bed. She grabbed a cab to the airport
the next morning and completed the trip to Mojave.
Of all the possibilities that she anticipated, what happened didn't occur to
her. She was met at the airport and immediately loaded onto a Marine C-12
en route to the Twenty-Nine Palms Marine base. Four instructors met her for
a course in desert survival. Over the next seven days, they showed her how
to survive in the desert with the materials and equipment she'd likely have
if she had to crash-land in one. Water was the key, they emphasised.
without water, you die. With water, then one might survive.
The detail that convinced her that someone was really planning her training
ahead was that the instructors had a week's supply of her hormone pills.
Sherry really enjoyed the hot shower she took after the week was over. But
they didn't keep her at 29 Palms; she was flown to San Diego and put onto a
C-141 to Panama. Once there, she got to repeat the whole process in a
jungle. The struggle there was almost the opposite; too much water and
trying to keep dry. There were more poisonous snakes in the jungle than she
ever dreamed of, and bugs galore. Sherry wasn't too sure which she hated
more, bugs or snakes.
Week three found her in Colorado, this time the focus was on mountain
survival. By this time Sherry was wondering if she'd survive survival
training. The survival training was followed up by a cram course in land
navigation; the final exam was a three-day trek to a pickup point. They
made it clear to her that they would only look for her at the pickup point,
she had to get there or reach civilization on her own. She made it to the
pickup point with three hours to spare.
After she showered and changed into a fresh set of clothes, one of the
instructors took her to a restaurant for a graduation dinner. Sherry had no
trouble finishing a 16-oz prime rib, the largest steak she had eaten in
years. It was about the best she ever remembered, too. The night was
memorable if only for the fact that it was the first time since she passed
through Cheyenne that she slept indoors in a bed with clean sheets.
Sherry caught a commercial flight to Madison, Wisconsin the next day. Craig
met her at the airport, the two flew back to the home base in the Bonanza.
The Twin Beech was on the field when they arrived. She had no idea who
retrieved it, but she knew better than to ask.
Doris had left a note on her door; Sherry was glad to learn she had the next
two days off. She slept for most of it. When she stepped on the bathroom
scale, she was shocked to learn that she had lost 25 pounds during the
rigourous training. None of her new wardrobe fit, she wore sweats and
pulled the drawstring tight. It would probably be a temporary loss.
Doris had left a note in Sherry's mailbox that told her to report to the
airport after her two days' off. When Sherry did, she found herself sitting
through a ground school for a DC-3 type rating. The school took three days
(a DC-3's not very complicated). After that, it was time to fly. Sherry
had to adjust to the height of the -3's flight deck, everything else she had
flown before would have crashed if flared at the height of the old Douglas
airliner. Flying the plane took some work, powered controls hadn't been in
use when Charles Lindberg wrote the requirements that the airplane was
designed to meet.
It took about ten hours of flight time for Sherry to feel comfortable in
both the left and right seats of the DC-3. The flight test was routine, she
soon had a new license with a DC-3 type rating.
Then they did it all over again, but this time for a DC-3T; a DC-3 that has
had the piston radial engines removed and modified for PT6 turboprops. That
training went fairly rapidly since Sherry was already familiar with PT6
engines.
After three weeks, Sherry had regained ten pounds. She had obtained some
new clothes that fit her smaller body, but not many as she figured she'd
eventually regain the weight. They scheduled a few brush-up training
sessions in unarmed and armed defence to break up the routine of flying.
Then Doris told her to pack a few bags, she was moving away for awhile.
Sherry wondered what had happened to the planned surgery, but she didn't
ask.
The two of them drove a late model Honda Civic to Chicago. Doris explained
on the way down that they had to reschedule the operations for three or four
weeks later, so they were taking the extra time to put Sherry to work. Some
of her stuff was already in an apartment not very far from Midway Airport.
Sherry was about to fly as a "freight dog" for the next month. Doris handed
over her logs. Sherry looked at them, all her logbooks had been rewritten
so that every entry was for Sherry Anderson. The signatures of all the
flight instructors looked genuine, the older logbooks looked as worn as the
originals had.
They drove right to Midway, where they found the offices of BryanAir. Doris
gave her the keys to the Honda, kissed her goodbye, and caught a cab for
O'Hare. Out of curiosity, Sherry opened the glove box and looked at the
car's registration. She wasn't surprised to see it was registered in her
name.
Sherry went into the offices and asked for the chief pilot. The chief
pilot, Sheila Mueller, looked over Sherry's logs and asked her some
technical questions about various aircraft, mostly twins. After the
interview, she said: "Let's go. There's a Beech out there, 7DR, preflight
it."
Sherry went out and checked the airplane over. 7DR was a working cargo
airplane, but she noticed that the engines appeared to be in fine shape.
All the fluid levels were right, As she finished, Sheila came out with two
headsets and a portable intercom. She waved Sherry into the left seat and
Sheila took the right. After they wired the intercom, push-to-talk
switches, and the headsets, Sherry asked: "Where to?"
"Get her started, then tell Clearance Delivery that we are going VFR to the
lake practice area."
Sherry started the engines, then obtained departure instructions and a
transponder squawk from Clearance Delivery. When the oil was warm enough
for taxiing, she called Ground Control and was cleared to taxi to the active
runway. At takeoff, the tower had her fly the runway heading to 2,000 feet
before turning towards Lake Michigan. Once there, Sheila ran her through
some engine-out drills, including an engine-out ILS approach to Midway. It
took almost an hour before Sheila was satisfied and they landed.
They removed the headphones with a contented sigh, accompanied by the
whining of the gyros spinning down. "Be here at nine tomorrow night,"
Sheila said. "You'll be flying a load of checks between here and
Minneapolis. The flight planning's already done, we've been on this route
for years. So just show up then, you'll check the weather and go."
"Ok," Sherry said. Inwardly she was thrilled. It was what she had wanted
ever since she was a boy, to work as a pilot.
After a few weeks of constant night flying, the thrill wore off. A couple
of men in some of the airports she had stopped at had made passes at her.
One rough jerk had even grabbed her by the shoulder. He had taken his hand
away when Sherry coldly advised him to do so "if you want to retain the use
of it." Most of the flying was in Twin Beeches, the rest of the time was
spent in Piper Navajos. None of them had weather radar or flight directors,
but all had enough avionics so that the flights could be made if something
broke. The only reason the airplanes had autopilots was because it saved
fuel to use them.
Sherry noticed that a fair number of the freight pilots for the different
carriers were women. All of them (male and female) wore fairly grubby
clothes, normally blue jeans and heavy shirts to keep the chill out when the
heaters failed to operate. Only a few of the women wore any hint of
cosmetics. Their favourite scent was 100LL aviation fuel, seasoned with
Phillips 20W-50 oil and a dash of hydraulic fluid. Flying was the favourite
topic, though the women often moaned about how hard it was to have a
relationship with a man when the women worked nights. They confined such
complaints to times when no men were present. Sherry was logging over 30
hours of flying each week, all night cross-country multi time.
She didn't learn much about the area around her apartment, for all she
wanted to do when she was there was sleep. Some of it she saw when she went
out for a run, it didn't impress her any. The skirts, dresses, and heels in
the closet stayed there.
It was supposed to be for a few weeks, but Doris called and told Sherry to
stay put. Sherry flew night freight for three months. Her pay from the
freight line was deposited into her savings account, she was also still
receiving her pay as a Lieutenant (O-3) with eight years' seniority. The
apartment was paid for by her government living allowance, Sherry figured
she was socking away a mint. As it stood with the hours she was working,
she didn't come close to spending her flying pay, much less her military
pay. If this kept up for awhile, she could pay for SRS herself.
Sherry consoled herself that when the time came to leave, she had just as
much notice as she'd been getting all along. Doris showed up and had her
pack two suitcases. The rest, Doris said, would be taken care of. They
drove the little Honda to a major hospital in Chicago, where Doris checked
Sherry in. After dropping the bags in a room, they went to an office.
Sherry wasn't the least bit surprised to find Dr. Trotti there. "You
ready," he asked.
"For what?"
"We're going to do a makeover on you. But instead of cosmetics, we'll do it
beneath your skin. I've scheduled you for tomorrow. We have some tests to
run."
Sherry put her foot down. "I've had it." She turned and glared at Doris.
"I'm tired of being treated as a piece of meat who just does as she's told.
It stops now, damn it. I want to know what is going to happen now, and what
is going to happen next. Or the deal is off."
Doris started to say "You can't mean--" when Trotti waved her to silence.
Trotti and Sherry stared at each other. "I think she means that, Doris."
Sherry nodded her head.
"All right. All right," Dr Trotti sighed. He pulled a group of photographs
from an envelope on the desk. "This is what we're going to do--" he
outlined a procedure that focused mainly on the face. They wanted to
reshape her jaw, trim her nose, pare down her adam's apple, and tighten her
vocal chords. "We'll do the vocal chord work first, because we need you
alert. You have to speak while it's going on so we can tune your voice.
Then after that, we'll give you a general anaesthesia and do the rest of the
procedure."
Sherry frowned. "I've been on hormones all this time. Isn't it good
practice to stop taking them prior to surgery?"
Trotti smiled with a little embarrassment. "Actually, you've been off them
for the last three weeks--"
"`Three weeks'?!" Sherry yelled the question. "You bastards have known this
all along and haven't bothered to tell me?" Her hands raised slightly and
she clenched her fists as if she wanted to rip Trotti's throat out. Trotti
saw her rage and took a half- step backwards without even realizing he had
done so. Sherry pivoted, seeing some movement from the corner of her eye.
Doris had opened her purse and had her hand inside. Sherry stared at her.
The stare said `go ahead, make a move,' but Doris, her face white, slowly
pulled her empty hand out of the bag.
Doris slowly unslung the purse and placed it on a table, then took two steps
away from it. Doris was good, she thought she'd be able to take Sherry, but
that wasn't the object of the exercise. They had a lot of time and money
invested in Sherry Anderson. Doris wasn't willing to toss that away, nor
did she want to have to explain to her superiors why she had killed Sherry.
The thought that Sherry just might have taken her didn't even enter her
mind.
Sherry breathed deeply and relaxed. She knew how close she had been to
going over the edge. "So, what happens afterwards?"
Doris also let out a sigh. "After the operations, you'll recuperate here
for a week. Then we'll take you back to the base. You won't be ready for
flying or anything else for at least six weeks, maybe twice that. So we'll
teach you other things, classroom work."
"Such as?"
"Languages. You have to learn the language of the area you'll be operating
in."
"What language?"
Doris smiled and shook her head. "Not everyone you'll come in contact with
here is cleared to know. We don't need you babbling about it under
an-esthesia."
Sherry nodded. "I can live with that. So let's get started."
Trotti called an orderly who showed Sherry to a hospital room. Sherry
dumped her gear and then followed the orderly for an examination. Blood
tests, X-rays, dental exams, EKG; it all was a familiar bore. The voice
surgeon peered down her throat, but his manner was abstract. She knew a lot
of doctors acted this way, so she didn't take it personally.
That evening they gave her an enema and restricted her diet. The orderlies
woke her at five the next morning for a shower, then gave her breakfast and
a sedative. Sherry was awake but foggy when they wheeled her up for the
voice surgery. She vaguely remembered being given a lot of local anesthetic
before the surgery. It was not as comfortable as a dental exam, what with
the doctor sticking a bunch of hardware down her throat. But it didn't
hurt.
After that little ordeal, a nurse gave her another shot and Sherry went into
dreamland. When she woke up, her throat and face hurt. A big sign in front
of her ordered her not to talk, but to push the button if she felt in pain.
A nurse came in and showed her how to use the self-medication machine to
obtain painkillers. Sherry did that and fell back asleep.
The next time she woke up, she noticed the IV drip and felt the catheter.
Oh, well, she thought. The sign was still there. She pushed the button. A
floor nurse came by with a menu and a pencil; Sherry circled her choices.
`Oh boy, hospital food,' she thought.
A doctor came in to check vital signs; Sherry knew she was a doctor because
the doctors all wore business clothing under their white coats. The doctor
explained that Sherry had to be silent as much as possible for the next two
weeks. Then she told her how that the operations appeared to be successful.
The doctor held up a mirror. Sherry thought she looked as if she had just
gone ten rounds with Evander Holyfield, but the doctor explained the
swelling was normal.
The IV was removed that afternoon, the catheter the next morning. Three
days later, Doris, Janet and a third woman showed up to take Sherry back
home. They had a small RV so Sherry could lie down for the trip if she
wanted to. She wanted to.
Sherry got two weeks' off. She felt she didn't need that much time, but
Doris explained that she would need her voice for the language training.
Sherry spent the time catching up on her pleasure reading, watching movies
she had missed and playing with the computer. She tried running after a
week and could barely go two blocks. The surgery and the long hours of
flying had taken a lot out of her, she realized. She also tried out her new
voice. It was still a little low, but it was a feminine lowness. Twice she
relaxed by taking a Jeep to the firing range and shooting a few weapons.
One of the instructors gave her a treat and let her fire a M2 .50 caliber
heavy machine gun, the good old "Ma Deuce." 65 years old and still the best
HMG in the world, he said.
Dr. Trotti and a throat specialist (who pointedly was not introduced)
gave her a medical exam before permitting her to start classes. The verdict
was good, so Sherry started language courses the next week (and also resumed
taking the hormones). The course work was a twelve hour immersion, with
little homework at first. Sherry was learning two languages at once,
Spanish and Portuguese. She didn't think she was being prepped for a
mission in the Iberian Peninsula, so that meant she was going to go to South
America. They told her that they weren't concerned about making her appear
to be a native, that she was going as an American. But it always helps to
know the language. Sherry concluded that the mission wasn't set so deep in
the bush that she needed to know any of the local Indian dialects.
The language training lasted for three months. Sherry might not have been
able to discuss quarks and other sub-atomic particles in the two languages,
but she knew enough to get around and survive. They taught her a lot of
aircraft-nomenclature in both languages (which made sense).
She resumed flying six weeks after the surgery. It felt good to fling the
Decathlon around the sky, then she settled down and became current again in
the cargo aircraft. The self-defence and weapons training started up again
as the language instruction petered out. Some of the sessions were taught
in the two languages, so Sherry learned how to discuss weapons in the
tongues.
Doris dropped by one afternoon. She told Sherry that after the training
had ended, that she'd be going to another freight line to build up more
flight time, but this time she'd be flying a DC-3. Sherry looked forward to
that.
But what Sherry loved best was what she saw when she looked in the mirror
and what she heard when she spoke. What she saw and what she heard was a
woman. She told Janet that more and more, she wanted to finish the course
and get rid of the last vestiges of maleness hanging between her legs.
Janet just smiled and counselled patience. Sherry was patient, but she
wanted to finish the course and resume the rest of her life.
She overlooked that "Payback Time" was coming, too.
Sherry found herself in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The routine was simplicity
itself: She would fly as co-pilot for a DC-3 to Madison, Janesville,
Rockford, IL and into Midway, . At each point, part of the cargo would be
loaded on so that when they arrived in Chicago they normally had a full
load. The cargo (which was in containers) would be transferred to a cargo
jet and taken to the national sorting center. Christa Welles (the DC-3's
Captain) and Sherry would try to catch a few winks in the female bunkroom
until the outbound cargo was delivered. Then they would fly the DC-3 back
to La Crosse.
Sherry, who had grown up reading the stories of Ernest Gann, was in high
heaven. Ok, so they were using VORs and loran, not low-freqency ranges, but
it didn't take much imagination on her part to believe they were flying
AM-21. She could see why the old airline pilots loved the DC-3; easy to
fly, easy to land, and about as forgiving a taildragger as was ever made.
Christa didn't see it that way, but she was a short-timer. In three weeks
she would be going to United's new pilot school. In baseball terms, she had
made it to "the show." United had sent her some advance course material and
she was spending every bit of free time studying it.
Sherry's other studies weren't neglected. She had a subscription to two
weekly newsmagazines in Portuguese and Spanish. The school called her twice
a week for progress reports and to gently quiz her on current events. The
calls were made in one or the other languages. A case officer dropped by
every three weeks; again the discussions weren't in English.
When Christa left, Sherry was promoted to the left seat of the DC-3.
Another woman took over the co-pilot slot. Sherry flew as a DC-3 captain
for six months. It seemed to her as if things were going very slowly, but
there was a reason to it. The program that was training her incurred no
major costs while Sherry was flying the cargo planes. While her military
pay was continuing, the money for that came from the Navy. As far as they
were concerned, Sherry was an asset that was in safe-keeping. Sherry was
living on her flying pay. Her military pay kept accumulating in a
combination money market and mutual fund account.
Doris called her one morning and told her to stop taking the hormones, that
there would be more surgery in three weeks. Sherry asked what surgery, but
Doris wouldn't tell her. Sherry sighed at all the "need to know" bullshit,
but that's the way they did things.
Right on time, Doris showed up three weeks later at the La Crosse airport as
Sherry came back from a cargo run. There was a new pilot for the -3, Doris
led Sherry to a Gulfstream III that had its cabin windows covered over.
"Where are we going," Sherry asked.
Doris led the way onto the jet and closed the door. She knocked on the
cockpit door (also shut) and then sat down. Janet was there, too. "We are
going for the final surgery," Doris said. She nodded to Janet.
Janet pulled out a briefcase as the jet taxied to the active runway. "We
have a lot of material to go over, first. Read these, and sign at the
bottom where the `x' is if you agree. We'll countersign."
Sherry started to read. Most of it was legalese about the risks of sexual
reassignment surgery. There was a lengthy consent form and a very stark
explanation that the surgery was not reversible with any current or foreseen
technique. She barely noticed the takeoff roll and climbout as she waded
through the forms. There were a few she had to reread to make sure she
understood them. But there was no question in her mind that this was what
she wanted. Each time she signed a document, Doris and Janet would
countersign it and Doris would notarise it.
Finally, she finished the last form. She handed it to Janet, who signed it.
Doris used the embossing stamp and signed it. "Now what," Sherry asked.
"Any last minute qualms," inquired Janet.
"About being operated on? Yes. About why? No."
"All right," Janet sighed. "Just sit back and enjoy the ride. You'll find
some books in the bin next to your right knee." Janet was relieved. She had
to ask Sherry that question out of professional duty, but nobody wanted her
to back out. A likely mission was on the planning table and there was no
one better qualified than Sherry for it.
Sherry found a Portuguese version of Louis L'amour's "The Sacketts." It was
easy reading.
The jet landed and taxied into a hangar. Sherry wasn't allowed to leave
the airplane until the hangar doors were shut. The three women then got
into a limousine with blackened windows that was in the hangar. Even the
license plate was covered up. The limo went to a hospital; they got out in
an empty parking garage. Two orderlies waited with a gurney. They had
Sherry lie on it, then they strapped her in. One orderly covered her to the
neck with a blanket, the other wrapped a bandage around her eyes.
They wheeled her up to a private room. As she expected, the windows were
opaque. Doris showed her that the TV set worked, although it only had
generic cable stations on it, nothing that would identify the city or state
they were in. Sherry unpacked and settled in.
What Sherry wanted to do now was sleep, but that was not to be. Two
different doctors came by to do a physical examination, followed by another
doctor who identified himself as the anesthesiologist. All three wore
surgical greens and masks, presumably to minimize any chances of Sherry
identifying them.
The dinner was light, it was followed by one nurse who gave Sherry an enema
(which was no fun as Sherry wasn't into water sports), and another who
shaved her pubic area. Finally a third nurse came by, woke her up, and gave
her a sleeping pill.
An orderly woke her up early the next morning and gave her a shot to make
her drowsy. "Great, just what I needed," Sherry thought and she went to
sleep again. She thought she remembered somebody talking to her in the OR,
but she wasn't sure.
The next thing she knew is that she woke up with a burning sensation in her
groin. Sherry groped for the call button, a nurse came in and gave her a
shot. She went back to sleep.
Sherry was confined to bed for five days, although she felt strong enough
to get up after three. One of the doctors told her it was "because you're
in great shape, young lady" and ordered her to stay in bed anyway. Sherry
whiled away the time watching CNN and HBO. Doris and Janet visited every
day, they brought her copies of the NY Times. That meant nothing, as Sherry
knew the paper was distributed nationally.
When they let her out of bed, Sherry started to get some exercise walking up
and down the hall. She was surprised to see that most of the rooms were
empty. The others had closed doors, they only let her go out when the other
patients were out of sight.
She was in the hospital for ten days. The return trip was made the same
way, except this time the airplane was a Lear 31 and the flight ended at the
training base. There Sherry recuperated for a few weeks and did whatever
she felt like. To her joy, one of the airplanes on the flight line was a
Stearman; she arranged for a checkout and flew the big biplane as much as
she could. There was a T-28 on the line; Sherry checked out in it but
didn't fly it very much. To her, it wasn't as much fun as the biplane.
They ran her through a series of refresher courses-- language, defence, and
flying. The emphasis in the flying was in terrain following and rough-field
operations. Sherry was also given extensive training in loran, omega, and
GPS navigation systems. Loran was familiar, but they ran her through it
anyway. Omega sets in aircraft were rare to start with and hardly anyone
still used them, but on the off-chance that one would be there, she had to
learn it. GPS (Global Positioning Satellites) was the latest system,
supposedly accurate to less than 50 meters in three dimensions.
After Sherry was checked by a team of doctors and judged to have
recovered, she went back to La Crosse and resumed flying the DC-3 on the
cargo runs. Doris told her that "completely recovered" didn't mean that all
the scars had healed. They wanted time for the scars from the surgery to
fade before making a final evaluation of Sherry's fitness for a mission.
Her co-pilot was an average-sized woman named Julia Waldowski. Julia and
Sherry became pretty good friends, hard to avoid when one spends five days a
week flying together. After verifying that Julia knew what she was about,
Sherry let her fly the alternate legs of the runs. There wasn't much to it.
If the weather was good enough, they'd fly VFR to avoid the delays caused by
the ATC system.
Julia was a bit of an exercise nut. While most of the other pilots were
trying to catch a little sleep between the inbound and outbound legs, she
would go for a run around the cargo area. One night she forgot to pack any
deodorant, so she asked Sherry if there was any in her bag (almost all the
pilots had a small bag with a change of clothing and toiletries in case they
were weathered in). Sherry was asleep and mumbled something like "sure" and
went back to sleep.
The return flight was in good weather; they cancelled IFR and flew out of
Midway VFR. Sherry flew the leg and noticed that Julia was being really
quiet.
"Did you hurt yourself running tonight," she asked.
"No, it was a good five miles."
"Then what's wrong?" Sherry glanced over, although it wasn't necessary to
look with the headsets and the intercom.
Julia was silent for a minute, then said: "When I borrowed your deodorant,
I found a dilator in your bag."
That rang a few bells in Sherry's mind. Most people would have called it a
`dildo,' but she called it a `dilator.' "Okay. So?"
"`So?' We've been flying together for a few months now. I mean," Julia
stopped, at a loss for words. She reached for her purse and took her wallet
out. She drew a photo from one of the plastic pockets and handed it to
Sherry. She then put her hand on the control wheel. "I have the airplane."
"Your airplane," Sherry replied. She pulled a small flashlight out and
shielded the light, then she looked at the photo. The picture showed Julia
standing next to a taller woman, one who was almost half a foot taller. She
was pretty good looking, though, and appeared to be about the same age as
Julia. There was some slight resemblance between the two women, especially
in the way a slight smile was on their lips. Sherry put away the
flashlight, handed the photo back, and said: "I have the airplane."
"Your airplane."
"Who is she?"
Julia was putting the photo back into her wallet. "That's Michelle, my big
sister."
In more ways than one, Sherry thought. "How much older is she?"
"Depends on how you look at it. She's either three years older than I am or
she's 23 years younger."
Sherry did some quick figuring; she knew Julia was 25, so Michelle was
28..uh, oh. "Spell it out."
"She was born as Michael. She had a sexual reassignment operation two years
ago. Most people wouldn't know it to look at her. But when she travels,
she had a dilator in her suitcase; she uses it to make sure her vagina stays
open. Her dilator looks just like yours."
Sherry made a note of that; she'd better replace the damn thing with a
regular dildo. It'd be better to have someone assume she was just weird.
"How do you feel about having a sister who's a transsexual?"
Julia made a noncommittal gesture in the dim red light of the Doug's
cockpit. She looked out to the right, where the headlights of the cars on
I-90 were visible. "Michael never fit in as a boy. I think I knew he
wanted to be a girl a long time ago. She's a big woman, now, but she's very
happy. Michelle has a sort of inner peace that most people don't. I think
it comes from knowing that she has done what she needed to do.
"I don't know, it's strange sometimes. But when I'm around her, I forget
sometimes that she used to be a he. My parents aren't very happy, but
they've realized that it was the best thing."
Sherry tuned the number 1 navcom to the Rockford tower frequency, 118.3 mHz.
The tower was closed, so she listened to see if anyone else was in the area.
Nobody was there, so she tried calling Hartzog on their frequency to find
which way the windsock was pointing. The lineman looked out the door and
let her know. She pulled back on the throttles slightly and started a
shallow descent, then switched back to the tower frequency.
Julia didn't let it drop. "When did you have your surgery?"
"You're making a pretty big assumption, aren't you?"
"No, I don't think so. Even for a tall woman, you have large hands and
feet. Whoever worked on you did an excellent job; there's no scarring from
the tracheal shave. I can see a few pockmarks that probably came from
electrolysis, but everyone else is going to assume they're acne scars."
Sherry sighed. "A few months ago. I came back from recovery when we
started flying together."
"Does the line know?" Julia was referring to the cargo airline.
"No. How would they? They don't do physicals, my paperwork all says
`female.'"
"How did you get the time off?"
"I put in for a leave of absence without pay."
"Does the FAA know? How did you get a medical?"
Sherry smiled slightly. She announced her position over the radio, then
answered Julia. "There are ways. The FAA knows all about me. It's not
exactly an unknown thing for them to see. Karen Ulane did us a big favour."
"I guess so. That was too bad, though," Julia commented, referring to the
crash that killed Ulane.
"Yeah. Gear down."
Julia pushed the lever down. "Coming down...down and locked."
"Tailwheel locked."
"Tailwheel locked."
Sherry pulled the throttles back. "Flaps ten."
"Flaps ten. Mixture to full rich."
"Full rich." She pushed the prop controls forward, ensuring they'd be set if
she had to go-around. Nobody else was in the pattern, Sherry flew a tight
approach with minimal power. When she knew she had the field made, she
called for full flaps. She landed the DC-3 a little tail low, then let the
tail settle. One the tail was down, Sherry moved the control column all the
way back to hold it. She unlocked the tailwheel once they had slowed to
taxi speed.
Julia commented. "Michelle'll be so thrilled to know."
"Julia, don't tell her. Please."
Julia looked over. "You're on of the ones who want to disappear afterwards,
then."
"Yes. Please don't tell anyone."
"Okay, Sherry."
They didn't talk much for the rest of the flight.
Julia did ask Sherry a couple days later if she wanted to get together for
dinner and some drinks on Saturday night. Sherry didn't have any plans, so
she agreed. "You have any ideas," she asked.
Julia shrugged. "There's a decent Chinese place not too far away from the
field. We can go there."
"Sounds good. What should we wear?"
"I'm tired of wearing pants all the time," Julia declared. "I'm going to
dress up a little."
"Ok by me. Where should we meet?"
"We both live near the field, so let's meet in the line parking lot at
seven."
"Sure. See you then."
They were both there at seven. That may have been a little surprising to
a casual observer, but both women were pilots and were used to showing up on
time. Julia was wearing a dark floral print dress that was flowing and came
to just below the knee. The dress apparently was made of rayon, tan hose,
and black pumps with 3" heels. Sherry had a black knee-length dress with a
polo shirt type of collar. She also had on black pumps but with a little
lower heel. They decided to take Sherry's Honda; that way Julia didn't have
to clean off the passenger seat of her Tercel.
There was a wait for the restaurant, but not much of one. They shared food,
like most people do when they're eating Chinese, and giggled over the
fortune cookies. Sherry's said "You are about to take a long journey."
Julia knew a nice lounge not very far away. Over a couple drinks, the two
women talked; mainly about flying. Like most pilots, they used their hands
a lot. The bartender listened in as much as he could, he seemed fascinated
by two women discussing aviation in a way that only pilots could. They did
switch to diet soda after the second drink; neither one wanted to risk a
drunken- driving beef. (The FAA's been going after pilots who drink and
drive.)
The crowd had lessed out, it was getting late, so they left the bar. Two
men followed them out, ambling behind them as their heels clicked faster
across the parking lot. Sherry fished her keys out and had them in her hand
when the two men caught up to them.
One of them grabbed Sherry by the right wrist from behind. "What's your
hurry, little lady," he asked in a tone that chilled Sherry to the core.
The other one had grabbed Julia. "We only want to party a little. Come
with us, you won't get hurt and we'll show you a real good time." Both men
laughed.
Sherry exploded into motion. She pivoted and drove her left fist into the
man's midsection with all the power she could muster. The breath whooshed
out of his lungs, he let go of her wrist and started to double over. Sherry
pulled back, then swung the edge of her right fist into his nose, smashing
it to a bloody ruin. She wasn't finished, but he was when she kicked his
left kneecap out of alignment. He fell to the pavement a bleeding groaning
ruin.
The goon holding Julia was frozen in shock as he gaped at his devastated
friend. He came alert when he heard a metallic clicking; he looked up and
saw Sherry pointing a small black automatic pistol at his head. From her
stance and her expression, he knew he was very close to dying.
"Let her go," Sherry commanded. The man did so instantly. "Put your hands
on top of your head. You move without me telling you to and you're a dead
man. Julia, get the phone from my car." Julia did. "Dial this number-"
Sherry told her what number "- come around on my left side and hand it to
me."
Julia did as she was told; she was almost as stunned as the man who Sherry
had the gun on. Sherry took the phone and when it was answered, explained
the situation. She was told to stay where she was. She handed the phone
back to Julia, who took it and stood there uncertainly.
A police car with no lights drove up three minutes later. It stopped so
that the headlights illuminated the scene. The cop got out and came over.
His pistol was drawn, but wasn't aimed at anyone. "You Anderson," he asked.
"Yes."
"Ok." He holstered the gun, grabbed the guy standing up and tossed him
against the Honda. "Assume the position, asshole." The man did. The cop
frisked and cuffed him, then he marched him over to the cruiser and threw
him in the back seat. Sherry put her pistol away, the cop came back and
frisked and cuffed the guy on the ground with a heavy-duty cable tie.
Sherry helped him drag the man to the cruiser and stuffed him in next to his
buddy. The cop said: "We'll be in touch" to Sherry and drove away with the
two would-be rapists.
Julia was still a little dazed. Sherry walked her over to the passenger's
side of the car and helped her get in. Sherry walked back around and got
in. She looked over at Julia. "Are you all right?"
"I've never seen anything like that. It was so quick. All of a sudden he
was on the ground and you had a gun."
Sherry nodded, but didn't say anything.
"Where did you learn do do that?"
"I was taught. Where and why, I can't tell you."
"Were you in the service before-"
"Yes." Sherry let Julia draw her own conclusions, even though she knew
they'd be the wrong ones.
"And the gun. I grew up in Chicago. The only guns I've ever seen belonged
to the cops. Is it yours?"
"Yes."
"Do you have a permit for it?"
Sherry nodded.
"Do you carry it with you all the time?"
"I can't answer that. I will say I carry it when I need to."
Julia looked over at her. "Why did you have it tonight?"
"I needed to, evidently."
Julia sighed. "I think I want to go home." Sherry drove her back to the
airport and parked next to Julia's car. Julia got out without saying a
word; Sherry stayed there until Julia had started to drive away.
Sherry sighed. She didn't know what would happen now, but there wasn't much
she could do about it.
Sherry was not very surprised when she reported for work on Monday
afternoon and found a new copilot assigned to her run. She went over to the
desk and asked where Julia was.
The dispatcher shrugged. "She called in sick, said she wasn't feeling very
well."
"Any idea when she'll be back," Sherry asked.
No, but I wouldn't worry about it if I was you," he replied. "She also
asked to be assigned to another run."
"She say why?"
"`Personal reasons' she said. Your new guy is Jeff McCreary. His last job
was working as a CFI."
"Has he had much taildragger time?"
Pete rummaged through his desk and found a folder. "Let's see here.. he
instructed in Citabrias and did some banner towing with them. He has a
fresh type rating in the -3. 800 hours total, 75 multi. This is his second
flying job."
Sherry didn't complain. She didn't have a lot more hours than that,
although she did have considerably more multi-engine time. The thought of
looking up Julia came to her, but she discarded it. If that's what she
wanted, then Sherry would honour it.
Jeff wasn't the best looking guy Sherry had ever seen; his nose looked as if
he had used it to stop a few fast-moving objects. He didn't talk much,
either. But he knew how to fly and Sherry was soon swapping legs with him.
This went on for a few weeks. Jeff was nothing if not correct with Sherry;
no conversation beyond the business at hand, not even an invitation to eat
together on the turn-around. Sherry wondered what was wrong, but she
suspected that Julia had talked and the word had spread.
In a way, she was relieved when an envelope came from Doris. Inside was a
clipping from "Flight Careers Digest" for an airline and charter outfit that
operated in Central and northern South America. They were looking for
pilots with experience in heavy piston-engined cargo airplanes; the smallest
airplane type listed was the DC-3. Pilots with time in C-46s, DC-4s, -6s,
-7s and C-97s were highly desirable, as were ones with competency in Spanish
and/or Portuguese. Since the line operated aircraft with U.S. registration,
only pilots with FAA issued licenses would be considered.
There was no note included with the clipping, but one didn't need to be a
rocket scientist to figure out what had to be done. Sherry sent her resume
off the next day.
The airline sent a letter back asking her to come to Miami for an interview.
She got some time off, then set up an appointment. Getting there was
tiring, but it didn't cost anything. She rode the jumpseat of the DC-3 to
Chicago, then she rode a 727 to Memphis. They offered her a tour of the
sorting facility, Sherry asked for a raincheck for her return trip.
The final leg was a DC-10 direct to Miami. The crew was a mixed one in that
the pilot and flight engineer were from the cargo carrier, while the
co-pilot came from Flying Lion; an international air-cargo company that had
been swallowed up. They had some idea why Sherry would be nutty enough to
go to Miami in July, but they didn't ask.
The interview was scheduled for 4pm at AirSouth's offices at Miami
International. Sherry had learned from the cargo crew of a motel that
offered day rates for flight crews. She checked into the Motel at six and
left a two o'clock wakeup call.
It was hot when the call came. Sherry took a shower and got dressed, with
the sound of the TV set for background noise. At one point she heard the
sound of a large radial-engined aircraft taking off and went to the wind;
she saw a Boeing C-97 climbing out. She had never seen one before. Oh,
well.
She got dressed in a pink suit with a white short-sleeved top, white hose
and white pumps. Since she was leaving the room, she took her luggage with
her. Sherry had lunch in the motel restaurant before calling a cab to the
interview. She was at the offices fifteen minutes early.
AirSouth didn't look like it spent much money on office furnishings. The
place had linoleum floors that were probably old when C-97s were being made.
The lighting was industrial-strength fluorescent bulbs. The offices were in
a very large room, privacy was obtained by green metal partitions with wavy
glass translucent panels. The receptionist was a girl in her late teens who
was wearing a sundress and had reddish heavily-permed hair set off by large
gold hoop earrings. She told Sherry to take a seat. Sherry found one that
didn't look to be too filthy and waited.
The girl sent her on back twenty minutes later to meet Phil, the Chief
Pilot. Phil appeared to be in his late fifties. He had an office that was
in the open area, though he had more space than the other areas she saw. On
the way back, Sherry didn't see any enclosed offices. The place was exactly
what it looked like, a converted aircraft hangar. Noise coming from the
back showed that not all of the hangar had been converted, she could hear
air tools and a clang as something metallic hit the concrete floor. Phil's
office (not too surprisingly) was decorated with photos of Phil and
airplanes. In one photo, he was standing in front of a C-119 that had Air
America lettering.
Sherry saw that Phil had seen her looking at the photos. "I've never heard
anybody say anything good about the -119."
Phil gestured her to a seat by the desk. "You won't from me, either. So
you think you want to fly for us."
"Yes."
He shook his head. "It's not a job for a nice lady."
"Hardly anybody calls me a `lady,' let alone `nice.' I can take care of
myself."
Phil seemed to be amused at that. He rummaged in his top right desk drawer,
pulled out a pistol and tossed it on the desk. "Recognize that?"
Sherry glanced at it, then looked back at Phil. "Taurus 9mm."
"Know how to strip it?"
"Yep."
Phil waved his hand at it. Sherry picked it up, dropped the magazine out,
and cleared the chamber. "Silvertips," she muttered. In a matter of
seconds she had the pistol stripped. She held the barrel up to the light.
"You could clean it once in a while." she then reassembled the weapon.
"Think you put it back together right," Phil asked.
Sherry glared at him. She picked up the magazine, slammed it home, racked
the slide and aimed the pistol towards the roof.
"No, I believe you," he yelled. Sherry lowered the hammer, then she dropped
the magazine out and slid the round that had been in the chamber into the
magazine. "Let me see your logbooks."
Sherry handed him the logs and the interview went fairly normally after
that. Phil would occasionally switch into Spanish, continue the
conversation for a few minutes, then abruptly shift back to English. After
about fifteen minutes he said: "Contingent on a flight test, you're hired.
Starting pay is 35K, including full medical with furnished housing provided
and meal allowances. You'll be working out of Rio, so your pay is exempt
from Federal taxes. We'll set up a bank account for you in Grand Cayman so
the Brazilians won't tax you, either. How does that sound?"
"Sounds good to me. When's the test?"
"I'd do it now, but I don't think you'd want to do it in that nice suit."
"I've got other clothes in my bag out front."
Phil stood up. "In that case, let's do it." He pointed back towards a door
in the rear. "Just go out that door after you've changed. Paula will show
you where the ladies' room is." Phil turned and headed out towards the rear
door.
Sherry retrieved her stuff and changed into jeans, Reeboks, and a black
t-shirt. Phil was standing next to an AirSouth DC-3. He told her to start
a pre-flight, then stopped her after five minutes when he saw she knew what
she was doing. They climbed into the airplane, shut the door, and went to
the cockpit. Phil waved Sherry to the left seat, he sat in the right. The
two soon had the engines warming up. Sherry was glad to see that AirSouth
had an intercom system and headsets.
"Okay, what we'll do is go to Taimiami and shoot some landings," Phil said.
He left it up to Sherry to talk to Clearance Delivery, Ground Control and
the tower, though he did help her navigate around the taxiways. Taimiami
(also known as Kendall to avoid confusion with Miami International) is about
ten miles from Miami, so it was a quick hop.
The flight test was more fun than work. Phil did pull the power back at one
point and had Sherry do a power-off landing from the downwind. She touched
the mains down just beyond the numbers and tried not to show her pleasure.
They then went out over the Everglades for some engine-out work. Phil then
told her to contact approach and they went back to Miami International.
After the engines were shut down, they removed their headsets. Phil rubbed
the top of his scalp and remarked: "You can fly her, all right. Be back
here at nine four weeks from Friday. I'd suggest you put most of your stuff
in storage. Paula will give you a list of what we recommend you bring with
you. Most everything else you'll need you can get there. All right?" He
stuck out his hand.
Sherry shook it. "Sure." She followed Phil out of the airplane and back
into the offices. He led the way back to the front.
Phil rapped on Paula's desk to attract her attention from the magazine she
was engrossed in. "Sherry's hired. Have her fill out the personnel forms
and give her the orientation package." He turned to Sherry. "See you in a
month."
"I'll be here. Thanks for the job."
Phil smiled. "Hold off on the thanks until you've been here awhile. Have a
good flight back."
Paula pulled out a file drawer and handed Sherry some papers. One was a
fairly standard employment application, there was an I-9 form, and a
designation for a life insurance beneficiary. Sherry took a pen from her
bag and started filling out the forms. Paula was a little surprised when
Sherry produced her passport to satisfy the I-9 form. The life insurance
policy was for one hundred thousand. Sherry split the designation between
her parents and IFGE. Paula didn't ask who IFGE was. Sherry had never been
a member of IFGE, but she had heard of them and she almost grinned when she
thought of the reaction they would have. The last thing Paula handed her
was the orientation package.
Sherry read though some of it while waiting to hop the cargo flight to
Memphis. The listing of what to bring was fairly comprehensive: six pairs
of lightweight long-sleeved trousers (khaki preferred), four pairs of
tropical/jungle boots (broken in), two pairs of heavy insulated trousers
that would fit over the khaki ones, two pairs of winter hiking boots, six
short-sleeved shirts, three heavy long-sleeved shirts (flannel recommended),
a dark- coloured sweatshirt, utility knife (sheath-type), three pairs of
sunglasses, lightweight and winter gloves suitable for flying. They would
furnish winter parkas.
They also recommended three pairs of jeans, six light blouses, a few
lightweight skirts, two dresses (knee-length or lower), and two pairs of
black pumps. That was followed by a recommendation to bring a "suitable
sidearm," one capable of stopping an adversary. They strongly recommended
automatic pistols that were corrosion resistant. She had some ideas, but
planned to bounce them off Keith before she chose a weapon to bring.
It was after seven when Sherry got out of the AirSouth hangar. Phil was
leaving and he gave her a ride to the ramp area for the overnight package
lines. Sherry's luck held, the flight to Memphis was still loading, or more
accurately, the Caravan from Key West was still unloading. There was room
on the DC-10, too.
This time she took them up on the tour of the sorting facility. It was an
amazing sight, packages being transported at high speed along a vast network
of conveyor belts. Laser barcode readers scanned each package, which was
shifted from conveyor to conveyor as the code and flight routing demanded.
There was a full-time PR staffer whose job it was to show VIPs around.
Since there weren't any such august visitors that night, she was showing
Sherry and a few new freight dogs the operation. Sherry asked her if the
routing computer could handle flight delays and equipment breakdowns.
"Absolutely," the lady said. "The schedule is uploaded into the computers
each day and updated as need be. We also have scanners that compute the
cube of each package and record its weight, that feeds into the flight
planning for each plane. We have weight-and-balance data for every plane we
regularly use, along with sample data for any planes we may lease or rent."
"So if somebody shows up with a Martin 404 for the Christmas rush," asked
a female pilot.
"Then we pull the data file for the 404s. Watch," the tour guide said. She
used a terminal to call up the sample sheet for a Martin 404. "We have a
data form that all our subcontractors have to fill out so we get the
specific information on their aircraft. Once that's in, then we only update
it if needed. As you can see here, we've had 16 Martin 404s on file besides
the generic one.
Sherry took another look at the pilot who asked the question. She was about
6'3" and had a fairly heavy build. Her features and voice were feminine,
but her hands were large enough to easily wrap around a heavy pistol's
stock. Her feet were at a minimum 12WW. She caught Sherry looking, her
slight smile said "I know what I am and I know what you are." Neither one of
them exchanged a word the entire time.
The guide continued her spiel from the point where she was interrupted:
"Now the computer data from the packages is used to compute each aircraft's
loading. If we either go over wight or `cube out' in that we have more
packages than will fit in the aircraft, the computer makes any alternate
routes that it can or alerts the dispatchers. Depending on the time of the
year and volume, we have backup aircraft available at various points in the
system."
There was enough time to grab a quick snack after the tour before the
airplane to Chicago was ready to leave. The departure itself was something
to watch, dozens of airplanes leaving just minutes apart. The controllers
had it down to a science, the lighter aircraft left before the heaviest ones
so that nobody had to wait for a wake turbulence hold. A handful of
Caravans and Twin Beeches left first, followed by Falcon 20s, DC-9s, 727s, a
DC-8, the DC-10s, and finally the 747s working the international routes.
Rush hour at two am.
Sherry was back at her home airport at the time she was accustomed to
arriving. Pete greeted her as she walked though the door from the flight
line: "Did you get the job?"
Sherry tried not to show her surprise. "And what makes you think I went
looking for a job?"
Pete smiled and spread his hands wide. "There are some pilots who like the
life of a small charter outfit, but not many. Most want the big bucks and
prestige of airline flying. Besides, you went to Miami for one day. That's
a long trip for a day trip. So, did you get the job and with whom?"
"Yep, with AirSouth."
"AirSouth?" Pete's eyebrows rose at that.
"You know them?"
"Rumours, only rumours. They do a lot of Central and South American charter
work for the Feds, especially DoD and some other lesser known outfits." He
paused for a second. "You might consider them a successor to Air America.
You'll do some hard flying with them. You can use my typewriter over there
if you want to type up a resignation letter. Two weeks is standard, we can
get someone in here by then."
Sherry just laughed and went behind the desk. The letter didn't take very
long to write. She gave it to Pete, who slotted it in the Chief Pilot's
box. Then she went home to take a long shower and get some sleep. When she
woke in the afternoon, she called Doris to report on her new job. Doris
asked her to stop by on her way to Miami if she had the time. The
conversation could have been that of two women who've known each other for
years.
Pete handed her a note when she checked in for work. The note was from the
Chief Pilot and all it said was "See me when you report in." That was now,
so she tossed the note and went to his office. Sherry knocked on the door
and opened it.
John Schiff was the Chief Pilot, and he was a good one. The company had
hired him away from American. He, like Sherry, loved the DC-3. His salary
wasn't as high as American had paid him, but it wasn't shabby, either. He
got to fly as much as he wanted to (40-60hrs a month) and when he went to
sleep each day, it was in his own bed. He looked up at the knock. "Come on
in, Sherry. Have a seat."
"You wanted to see me, boss?"
He held up her resignation letter. "Kind of bare-bones. I haven't lost
another good pilot to the majors?"
Sherry shook her head. "Not hardly. AirSouth."
John sat back in surprise. "You're going to work for Phil MacDonough? That
old bastard." He shook his head and almost laughed.
"You know him?"
"Yeah. He and I flew for Air America in the early `60s. I got out of that
sort of flying, he never did. It can get into your blood if you let it.
"Sherry, the hardest and most satisfying flying I ever did was for them.
We used to fly instrument approaches to villages just by time and distance.
What we would do is fly alongside a mountain and set the altimeter, then
we'd drop into the clouds and break out over a village in a valley. We'd
drop the cargo, then climb back out though the cloud layer. No beacons, let
alone an ILS. No rules, either. All that counted was if you got the job
done safely. If you didn't," he shrugged a shrug that any pilot would have
understood.
He looked out the window and watched a Cessna 421 taxi by. "It was a
different kind of flying. If Mac's involved with it now, then it still is.
There's a certain high from adrenaline, of sticking your head in a dangerous
place and coming out alive. It's almost a macho thing. A lot of men go
through it, I suppose, which is why a lot of us get killed doing stupid
things like BASE jumping. I don't know if I'm making sense to you, or even
to myself.
"Few women get caught up in that sort of thing, but some do. Maybe you're
one, Sherry. Damn few women go around armed, either, for that matter."
Sherry froze when he said that. "What do you know about that?"
John shrugged. "Julia told me about your dinner together when she requested
another captain. We've done a lot of work over the years for the cops at
all levels. I was able to verify that the incident happened and that you
have a legal right to carry that pistol anywhere except maybe the Oval
Office."
"And now," Sherry asked.
John shrugged. "Now, nothing. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to get
that permit for you. Someone with that much pull might also be able to make
some trouble for me, which is why I didn't ask you not to carry the piece."
He sighed, and looked out the window again. He must have made a decision,
because he swung back and looked squarely at Sherry. "Do you know why I
hired you?"
"No."
"I was sort of asked to by the FAA. Your resume was in a pile on my desk one
day when a Flight Standards inspector came by for a chat about a problem
with the maintenance paperwork. While we were talking and I was trying to
figure out how much the penalty was going to cost me, he asked if I had any
interesting resumes; he gave me some line about they were looking for a
couple of check pilots and had a hard time finding ones who were interested
in applying to work for the government.
"So I said sure and handed him the stack. He read through them and then
handed me yours. He said `You shouldn't let this one get away from you.'
You were qualified for the job, Sherry, but so were a lot of other pilots.
I told him I'd call you in for an interview. He said good, and then told me
he didn't see a problem with the paperwork that couldn't be fixed and he'd
let me know if any action would be taken. After I offered you the job, I
called him up and told him I had hired you. He said fine and in an `oh, by
the way' tone of voice told me no enforcement action was going to be taken
against us."
"I don't expect you to confirm any of this, but like I said, I've been
around the covert action game. I suspect they're grooming you for something
down in Central or South America. Just take one piece of advice from me and
watch your back. I saw them spend a lot of resources to train people for
missions that while successful, got almost everyone killed. As long as the
mission is a success, they don't care about the people involved. I'm sure
they've spent a lot of time and money training you, but don't be surprised
if they try to sacrifice you for something you don't want to die for."
John stood up and stuck his hand out. "You're a good pilot, Sherry. When
whatever you're doing down there ends, if you want to, you can come back
here with no questions asked."
Sherry almost broke down over that unexpected bit of kindness. She managed
to choke out a "thank you," shook hands, and made it to her car before she
started to cry. After she had her cry, she went back into the freight
terminal and washed her face in the ladies' room. Then she went back to the
dispatchers office and started reviewing the weather and flight plan for the
evening's run.
John's caution stuck with her. She visited a lawyer and updated her will.
She also purchased a small back-up pistol in a private sale (so it couldn't
be traced to her easily) and practised with it at a range in a forest
preserve until she felt somewhat comfortable with it.
She bought a Glock .45 though a regular dealer after she found one who was
willing to let her test-fire different weapons. Sherry was a fan of the old
GI .45, but she was willing to recognize a better weapon when one came
along. The dealer first tried to persuade her to buy a 9mm, but he stopped
when he realized that she knew what she was about. Sherry purchased five
spare magazines. She intended to take her Government Model Colt along as a
backup weapon in case something happened to the Glock.
After some thought, Sherry sat down and wrote out everything that had
happened to her since the day she was called into the Chief of Staff's
office at Destroyer Squadron Two. She had a photographer take some pictures
of her, both portrait and full length. She then used a Polaroid camera with
a self-timer to take some nude shots, those went into a special envelope.
Sherry found some old photographs of her before all this started; photos of
her on a deployment to the Mediterranean and some that were taken at Suffolk
Airport when she had taken a few skydiving lessons. She laughed at the
thought of using a female pronoun for the male photos, but the English
language was never set up to deal with changing one's gender. When she
looked at the photos, she knew they were of her, but it was also like
looking at the photos of a relative. It was getting harder to realize that
she was once a man, even harder to understand how she could have survived
for so long as one. Sherry knew she'd rather die than have to go back to
living as a man.
Sherry then went to a private investigative service. She had them
fingerprint her and draw up a notarized statement that said that the
fingerprints belonged to one Sherry Anderson and listed her passport number,
Wisconsin driver's license number, Social Security card and pilot's license
as supporting documents.
All the mysteries and espionage novels she had read now came to good use.
Sherry knew that sometimes bodies can be identified by dental remains only.
She went to a dentist for a checkup, which included a full set of bitewing
X-rays. Sherry put the name and address of the dentist into the package she
was drawing up.
Once the package was done, she went to the lawyer and made arrangements for
the package to be sent to her parents by a bonded courier if she didn't make
contact with the lawyer for a period of two years. Sherry knew she was
violating every rule in the book, but she also wanted somebody to know she
had existed. The lawyer scrupulously avoided asking any questions
concerning the contents of the package.
Putting everything down on paper had made her think. She had obeyed her
orders not to have any contact with her relatives. Her parents must still
be under the impression that their son Sam was on a special mission for the
government. That was true, but how would they react when the mission was
over and they found out that their son was now their daughter? Her father
was very well- connected politically, would he raise a big stink? Sherry
couldn't believe that this line of reasoning hadn't occurred to someone.
She didn't want to back out of the mission, but she wanted to be reasonably
sure that if someone tried to cross her that they wouldn't get away with it.
Sherry also got her affairs in order; she made sure her shots were up to
date and arranged to put what she didn't need to take with her into storage.
Since the car was titled to her, she sold it with the new owner taking
delivery at the airport the day she left. Doris was pissed at first, they
had paid for the car, but she realised that the more Sherry did that was
above-board, the better it was. Doris didn't ask for the money from the
sale and Sherry didn't offer to give it to her.
She also had a lot of reading to do, AirSouth had sent her their operations
manual, along with their flight manuals for the DC-3 and DC-4. The DC-3 was
was familiar. The DC-4 wasn't too bad, it was more complex than the -3,
especially the hydraulic systems. Unlike the airlines in the US and Europe,
AirSouth used mechanics as flight engineers rather than junior pilots.
Sherry guessed they did that because their cargo planes often flew into
fields where mechanics qualified to work on them were unavailable. Partial
confirmation came from the list of required tools and spare parts; the -3
had two complete cylinder assemblies, the -4 carried three.
There were a few airports that the line required armed guards to be part of
the crew, that idea filled Sherry with some qualms. There were procedures
for carrying dangerous cargo, including explosives. Much of the area wasn't
well served (if at all) by roads or railroads; the choices were mules, boats
(if near a navigable river) or air. If one needed a shipment in less than a
few weeks, air was the only choice.
Many of the airports had little or no equipment for instrument approaches.
Control towers were nonexistent, except in the airports that served major
cities. Most of the communication was carried out on the company
high-frequency bands. Navigation was by dead reckoning, although Loran and
GPS sets were being installed on most of the line's airplanes.
There were even procedures for carrying large amounts of currency if bribes
were foreseen, and for obtaining reimbursement for any emergency bribes.
There was a list of highly placed civilian, police, and military officials
at each airport (or the local town) to contact in case of any problems, the
implication was that they were on some sort of retainer. There was a list
of bank officials in each city that would advance cash to the crew captains
who were on their authorization list. There were listings of doctors,
pharmacists, hospitals, and lawyers who were known to be competent.
The overall picture was that AirSouth was a professional operation that
operated in far less than ideal situations. It was comforting for Sherry to
know that they seemed to have their act together.
Sherry flew for the cargo line for three more weeks. Most of that time was
spent with a new-hire copilot who would soon fly with Sherry's replacement.
Sherry didn't talk very much with him, she spent most of her free time
studying the Airsouth manuals. At one point she remembered her first days
with the carrier and the captain she first flew with, Christa Welles, spent
her free time reading United Airlines manuals.
Her last day was uneventful. She flew her run, then turned in her charts
and approach plates, flight planning stuff, security pass and the keys to
her locker and the terminal door. Then she just went home.
Two days later, the movers showed up and packed her furnishings and extra
clothes for storage. Sherry forestalled any raiding of her stuff by giving
the movers her liquor. She took the four pistols and their accoutrements.
The telephone company had showed some unusual efficiency and shut her phone
off that morning, she called the man who had agreed to buy her car. Then
she went by his house, picked him up, and drove to the airport. At the
passenger terminal she signed the title over to him and he gave her the
money in cash. They both made sure she hadn't left anything in the car,
then she handed over the keys and carried her bags into the terminal.
She had to check her luggage because of the pistols. The agent shrugged
when she told her of the weapons, apparently armed people going to Miami
wasn't an unusual occurrence. The routing was a slow one: a Short 360 to
O'Hare, a 727 to Atlanta and a MD-80 to Miami International.
There was nothing special about the flights. Sherry did discover that the
flight attendants ignored her (and the other female passengers). The female
FAs gave most of their attention to the businessmen, as did the male FAs.
It didn't bother her, she wanted to be fairly anonymous. She bought the
latest "November Man" paperback in O'Hare and read that. After so many
hours in the left seat of a DC-3, Sherry found that flying as a passenger
was a little unsettling.
She checked into the same motel at Miami that she had used when she came
down for the interview. AirSouth had some permanent rooms at another motel
that they would put her up in when she reported in the next day, they used
them for flight crews that were laying over. The major maintenance checks
were done at Miami, the lesser ones were done in the bases in Central and
South America. Sometimes the crews had to wait awhile for a plane to be
ready to take back. They did fly cargo to Miami, so the run wasn't a non-
revenue one. And, as Sherry was soon to find out, some of the flights that
were planned into and out of Miami diverted to Homestead AFB to pick up and
discharge cargo that the government didn't want inspected by Customs.
All Sherry did that night was watch a forgettable movie on the in-room cable
channel and get some sleep. In the morning, she went for a brief run (it
was still fairly cool) and get dressed in a pair of the khaki trousers, a
white long-sleeved shirt and jungle boots that AirSouth used as a
quasi-uniform. A taxi dropped her off at the offices ten minutes before her
scheduled show time.
Paula gave her a set of keys for a motel room that was a five- minute walk
from the offices and told her she could leave her luggage behind the desk
for the day. Phil welcomed her and a male pilot to the line, then sat them
down for some written exams covering the operations manual and the flight
manuals for the aircraft they were going to fly. He explained that the
tests were pre-school tests to see how much they knew and what they would
need to brush up on. Sherry had the most trouble with the weather sections
(as usual).
Phil graded the tests, then called Sherry in for an oral exam on the DC-3.
He and another pilot quizzed her for an hour until they were satisfied that
she knew the airplane. Phil told her she had passed the -3 section, but she
had to go to school for the -4 since she had no time in the airplane. The
school took a week, she was the only student. The course skipped over the
areas that the testing showed she knew and concentrated on the areas she was
weak on.
Unlike jets, there are no -4 simulators, so Sherry did her flight training
in the air. Engine-out drills required a lot of rudder at first, she
quickly learned to be aggressive with the trim knobs if she wanted to avoid
becoming exhausted. The DC-4 showed its parentage, it was a ponderous beast
that was actually easy to fly. Sherry learned quickly and had an oral exam
and a checkride with a designated examiner, she passed and became the proud
owner of a DC-4 type rating.
That was followed by a brush-up session on AirSouth's flight procedures,
paperwork procedures, and security. Phil had a pistol instructor take her
over to range to check her skills with a handgun. It didn't take too long
for the instructor ("call me Sam") to see she knew how to punch holes in
paper, then they went next door to a combat simulation range. It was a
standard pop-up target range, followed by a house-clearing drill.
Afterwards, the instructor came over to Sherry, who had stripped the Glock
and was cleaning it. "You're pretty good with a handgun."
"Thanks."
"How are you with long guns?"
Sherry glanced at him. "As good as I need to be."
"Ever shoot in competition?"
"No, never had time for those games."
Sam saw that Sherry had no intention of giving him any information, so he
just said: "If you ever have the time, you ought to consider it" and left
her alone to finish cleaning the Glock.
That, as it turned out, was the last step in the training program. Two days
later, Sherry was in the right seat of a DC-4 on a cargo run to El Salvador.
They dropped off a load of something that was picked up by army trucks,
refuelled the airplane and caught some sleep.
"Always refuel as soon as you can," advised Captain O'Keene. "That lessens
the chance of somebody doing something to your fuel system. I like to leave
with full tanks from places like this."
The next morning the DC-4 was loaded with cargo manifested to San Paulo,
Brazil. The manifest read "miscellaneous machine parts." Sherry figured
that it was in her best interest to accept the manifest on face value and
not to ask too many questions. The Captain let her shoot the landing into
San Paulo. She didn't botch it, but it wasn't as good as she knew she'd be
able to do with more time in the type. Nobody was surprised when they were
directed to taxi to a remote corner of the airport. An armed platoon of
soldiers surrounded the cargo plane, they had two jeeps with .50cal machine
guns for fire support. Thirty minutes later, a convoy of Brazilian Army
trucks showed up to unload the cargo, the convoy also had an armed escort.
They insisted that the crew stay on the flight deck until the convoy had
departed. Only then did O'Keene tell the flight engineer to start the two
inboard engines. He taxied over to the AirSouth base. The engineer shut
the engines down, O'Keene and Sherry sat there for a minute as the gyros
spun down.
O'Keene turned in his seat and smiled at Sherry. "Welcome to the line," he
said.
They went into the terminal where O'Keene introduced Sherry to everyone.
Bill Trudeau was the local agent, he told Sherry that she would continue to
fly with O'Keene for the present time. "That way you'll learn both our
procedures and the DC-4," he explained. "Now grab your gear, a van is
outside waiting to take you and the others to the compound."
Sherry got her stuff and went outside. There were five flight crewmen
sitting in a van along with a driver. Sherry humped her luggage into the
back, then climbed in. Her butt was barely in the seat next to O'Keene when
the driver threw the van into gear and roared off. "When did Emerson
Fittipaldi start driving vans," she muttered.
O'Keene laughed. "Get used to it. You're in `macho land' now. They all
drive like that."
Sherry snorted. Terrific. Life among the macho. She remembered reading
somewhere that Brazilian husbands who killed unfaithful wives weren't
prosecuted for the killing. The traffic was heavy, people seemed to drive
based on a mixture of bravery and the Law of the Bigger Vehicle. The van
driver efficiently pushed his way into a lane thronged with small cars, only
giving way to a large truck.
The compound was three miles or so from the field. It was a series of
two-story buildings surrounded by a high wall that was apparently sheathed
in stucco. The top of the wall was rounded, Sherry could see light glinting
from it. They had set glass fragments into the top to deter intruders. The
gate was a heavy iron one, protected by concrete barriers that forced any
vehicle to slow down. Just before the gate was a large metal plate, it
could either be a rising barricade or a dropping one. Two men were on guard
duty, both were toting Uzi submachine guns. Sherry looked at the men
critically, they appeared to be somewhat sloppy-looking. She didn't take
that to be a good sign.
When the van stopped, O'Keene told her to grab her stuff and follow him. He
didn't offer to help, he had his own gear to lug. A woman in her early 20s
was at a desk in the entry hall. She gave Sherry a key without comment.
Sherry looked at the key and O'Keene. "What is this place?"
"It used to be a resort, it went under some years back. There're four
airlines that use this for their crews. The other three use it as a
transient base. We're the only ones who live here full-time. C'mon."
Sherry followed O'Keene to a corridor that branched from the main hall. He
showed her where her room was and told her he'd meet her in the entry hall
in ten minutes for a tour. Sherry dumped her bags next to the bed and found
the john. It was clean, at least. The place gave an air of genteel
shabbiness, something like old money which had run out. A loud rumble of a
jet taking off showed why the place didn't make it as a commercial
establishment. It was too noisy.
O'Keene was waiting in the hall. "Ok, let's show you around." The tour
didn't take too long. The dining hall was a 24-hour operation. Meals were
served at scheduled times, but there was a cook on duty continuously for
late arrivals and early departures. "You might have to wake her up at 3am,"
O'Keene said, "And don't be surprised if she's got one of the guards in the
sack with her." There was an entertainment room that had a large TV and a
VCR with a lot of tapes. "You can borrow the tapes to run in your room, if
you want, but please try to bring them back." Sherry noted that there was a
selection of porno tapes in the lot. Great, stuck in a guarded hotel with a
bunch of horny pilots. O'Keene showed her a workout room that had two
Universal machines, three stationary bikes, and a large selection of free
weights. The last thing he showed her was the bar, also open 24hrs.
"Sometimes when you get back from a flight you need a drink. And it doesn't
matter if it's 7:30am." They ended up back in the entry hall. O'Keene
showed her a small store that sold toiletries, candy bars, tobacco products,
music tapes and books. Something like a ship's store, Sherry thought.
The final stop was a garage with a dozen cars. "We use them more than the
other lines," O'Keene explained. He showed her the procedures for signing
out and returning the cars. The cost of running the cars was shared by the
airlines. They paid for any gas pumped at the complex, the user paid for
any bought on the road. The trick was to bring it back with just enough gas
to make it into the garage, O'Keene told her. The cars were elderly Opels
and VWs, cars least likely to be stolen. There were two armoured and
polished BMWs that were used to go to places where arriving in style was
important. These cars used men from the guard force as drivers.
O'Keene invited Sherry to join him for dinner. While she felt a little
funny about that, she saw no graceful way to decline. They went to the
dining hall. The food was served cafeteria-style. Sherry realized that
elegance and cargo flying were oxymoron. This wasn't United Airlines or
even UPS. From what she could see, the pilots were a mixture of men who
liked this kind of flying and would do it as long as they good, adventurers
looking for some excitement, and those who wanted to fly for a major airline
and were trying to get some significant experience.
Sherry had a salad, O'Keene had a steak. He ate with decent manners, some
others in the room could have made a living doing animal impersonations.
O'Keene had a funny sense of humour, though she realized that he was trying
to impart some wisdom to her. He was at home in a DC-4 and, like most
conversations when pilots are talking, the discussion shifted to flying.
O'Keene had a lot of time in Douglas piston-engined airplanes, as well as
the Curtiss Commando.
They went to the bar after dinner. Neither one had anything alcoholic to
drink, they had a flight scheduled for the next day. The bar was a little
rowdy, some of the men were well on the way to being fully liquored up.
O'Keene shook his head ruefully. "Some of these guys fly for lines that
don't fall under FAA jurisdiction. They don't follow the `no drinking 8
hours before a flight' rule."
"More like `no drinking within 8 feet of an airplane?"
"That's about it," he nodded. "It doesn't happen too often, but there has
been some trouble in here. There was a shooting a few years ago. When it
starts to get loud, I'll leave."
Some yelling made Sherry wince. "Like now?"
"Like now." They got up and started going towards the door. A group of four
men near the bar turned around. They eyed Sherry and one of the men moved
to block their path.
"You're new here, ain'tcha," he asked.
Great opening line. "Mister, you're in my way," Sherry said. She sensed
that O'Keene was going to say something, she turned her head slightly and
shot him a glance-- stay clear.
"Aw, I just want to have a drink with you. Maybe we can go somewhere." His
buddies snickered at that.
"Please move," Sherry said emphatically. She noticed the bartender had slid
down along the bar so he was behind the other three. His hands were out of
sight.
She moved forward to go by the drunk. He grabbed her by the arm. "What's
your hurry?"
Sherry looked at him coldly. "Let go of my arm or I'll break yours."
He laughed. She broke his arm. He slid to the floor and cradled his broken
forearm. One of his buddies tried to pull a weapon, the bartender smashed a
black truncheon into his upper arm. The pistol dropped to the floor from
his nerveless fingers.
Sherry picked the gun up and handed it to the bartender. "Nice move," she
said in Portuguese.
He smiled. "You did that nicely. Always a pleasure to watch a pro at
work," he replied. The two other men saw to their injured friend.
O'Keene was silent until he and Sherry had left the bar. Then he laughed a
little. "And to think I was worried about having to watch out for you."
Sherry was a little worried. "Is there going to be any problems from this?"
O'Keene considered that, then shook his head. "I don't think so. There
were plenty of witnesses. But it wouldn't hurt to watch your back for the
next few days."
Sherry nodded. She planned to do that anyway. They said good night and
went to their rooms. Sherry took a close look at the door of her room.
There was no safety chain to prevent anyone with a key from entering, but
she was able to prop a chair under the doorknob. Even if that didn't stop
somebody from entering, the noise of the chair sliding or falling would wake
her up. That and having a loaded .45 made her first night's sleep in Brazil
restful.
The morning wakeup call was at 5:15. She showered and made her way down
to the cafeteria with a bag containing three days' worth of clothes, the
Glock, and her backup gun. O'Keene introduced her to the flight engineer,
an wiry mechanic named Peter Schiff. Schiff didn't say much, he seemed to
be more interested in his plate of scrambled eggs and hash browns. Sherry
found some warm oatmeal, toast and fruit. O'Keene was devouring a breakfast
similar to Schiff's. She though it would be a minor miracle if neither one
died of a heart attack on the ride to the base.
The ride to the cargo base was uneventful. Apparently hardly anyone was
awake at 6:30. Once there, Schiff went to the DC-4 assigned to the trip and
started a pre-flight. Sherry and O'Keene went into the office and began
their preparations; checking the weather, reading any new Notices to Airmen,
and checking the route. One part of the trip skirted a military operational
area, O'Keene told her to watch for funny stuff from the Air Force jets.
They liked to run intercepts on the cargo planes. A C-46 had crashed a few
years ago when it collided with a F-5, only the fighter pilot survived.
Bill Trudeau sent word that he wanted to see Sherry. He welcomed her to the
line, and asked some questions about her prior experience. Sherry answered
them, figuring he wanted to get to know a new pilot assigned to his base.
When he picked up a pen from his desk and started fiddling with it, she knew
there was another reason for the discussion.
Trudeau finally looked up. "What happened at the Q bar last night? I heard
you had a little trouble."
Sherry looked back at him. "No trouble."
"That's not what I heard. I heard you broke some guy's arm."
Sherry felt a surge of anger. "He grabbed me and wouldn't let go. I told
him to let go or I'd break his arm."
Trudeau sighed. Why do I always get the nut cases here, he mused. Aloud he
said: "There wasn't another way to handle it, a less-" he cast about for
words.
"-masculine way?" Sherry finished the question.
"If you like."
"No, there wasn't. I'm here to fly, not to be a sex toy for a bunch of
horny freight dogs. I don't want to spend my off-duty time fending off
pilots looking for some stray pussy." Sherry saw Trudeau was discomfited by
her choice of words, she thought so much the better. "I saw it as an
opportunity to send a very strong message that they'd better not fuck around
with me."
"I see. And suppose somebody tries to be a little more persistent?"
"You mean if someone tries to rape me?"
Trudeau nodded. He did seem to prefer to put things in an oblique manner.
Sherry shrugged. "Then somebody's going to die, and I'll do my damnedest to
make sure it's him. Or them."
Trudeau didn't bat an eye, but inside he recoiled. She was very serious, he
realized. The way she said it, so matter-of-factly, made him wonder who she
had killed before. She didn't say it as speculation, she said it as an
established fact. He thought he'd better get the word out for everyone to
stay away from this broad. "Well, I don't think you have much to worry
about," he said with a smile on his face. "Welcome to Brazil." He stood up
and stuck his hand out.
Sherry took it. "Thank you for the nice welcome," she said. She left and
found O'Keene looking over some weather reports.
"What did Trudeau want?"
"He just wanted to say hello."
He grunted in contempt. "Don't worry about him. He's the idiot cousin of
one of the principal stockholders. Phil's the guy you work for. If he's
happy with your flying, that's all that counts around here.
"Now today's run is a shipment of drilling parts to Caracas. You've ever
been there?"
"No."
"Okay.." O'Keene then filled her in on the procedures they followed for a
flight to Caracas. It was fairly straight- forward, with much of the flight
being flown according to GPS waypoints. There wasn't much in the way of
instrument navaids outside of the approach into the airport. After they
double- checked the manifest, weight-and-balance figures, and the fuel load,
they went outside for a walk-around the DC-4. O'Keene showed her things to
look for, mostly to keep the FE honest. "Schiff expects you to check his
work, and he'll be mortified if you find something amiss, but we'll all be
dead if you miss something he did."
They went to the flight deck and settled in. "Ok, Pete, start them up,"
O'Keene said.
"Starting one." Schiff primed number one engine (the one furthest out on the
left wing), hit the starter, and turned the magnetos on after the fourth
blade had swung past. Blue smoke poured out of the exhaust and the engine
coughed into life, then settled down into a dull roar. He went though the
same procedure until all four engines were running. Sherry then turned on
the radios and warmed them up. She took a sheet with the GPS waypoints and
punched them into the GPS set. The GPS readout checked with the sign posted
on the cargo terminal's wall. There was a slight difference that was due to
the airplane being a hundred feet away from the building.
O'Keene contacted Clearance Delivery and received their flight clearance and
permission to contact Ground Control. He didn't do that until Schiff
indicated that the engines were warm enough for taxiing. The DC-4 taxied to
the active runway, following well behind a 747. A DC-4 isn't a small
airplane, but it's dwarfed by a jumbo. Schiff checked the magnetos of each
engine during the trip to the runway. He was soon satisfied with the
engines and so informed O'Keene.
They had to wait for the wake turbulence of the departing 747 to dissipate
before they were allowed to roll onto the runway. O'Keene made sure the
propeller controls were all the way forward, then he smoothly brought the
throttles up. Schiff watched the engine gauges for any sign of problems,
Sherry called out the airspeed numbers. When she called "V1," they were
committed to the takeoff even if an engine failed. "VR," O'Keene eased the
wheel back and rotated the nose of the airplane. Sherry called "V2," the
airplane left the ground.
"Gear up," O'Keene ordered.
"Gear up," repeated Sherry as she moved the selector lever up. "Coming
up...three green, gear is up." O'Keene then ordered the flaps up, Sherry
complied as she switched from the tower frequency to departure control.
Schiff set the engines for climb power, he would work the engine controls
until the airplane was on approach to Caracas when the pilot flying the
approach would take over. He had to keep the engine logs and manage the
fuel system, tasks performed by computer on the latest jetliners.
O'Keene satisfied himself that everything was operating normally, then he
set the autopilot and linked it to the navigation system. He wouldn't touch
the wheel again until they were approaching Caracas.
The DC-4 had a minimum crew of three; pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer.
That was down from the five man crew in the `40s, when they also carried a
radio operator who had to be proficient at Morse code and a navigator who
had to shoot sun or star fixes to navigate across the oceans. The
navigator's position was made obsolete by advances in both aircraft and
ground-based navigation systems, let alone the satellites used by the GPS
and GLONASS systems. The radio operator's job was made redundant when
tunable radios were replaced by crystal-controlled sets, now the radios are
digital readout and microchip-controlled. Morse code is only used to
identify navigation aids, the only people who transmit Morse code from
aircraft are ham radio operators and some special military uses.
The latest airliners have only two pilots and the second one is there for
safety and relief for food and head calls. Many of them have an
"autothrottles" and "autoland," all the pilot has to do after takeoff is
taxi the airplane after it lands, which is why the "terror in the sky"
novels have virtually disappeared.
The trip itself was nothing special. Sherry kept track of their position on
her charts to guard against a failure of the navigation systems. She
couldn't see any reliable features to use for part of the trip, but O'Keene
pointed out landmarks he was familiar with. Sherry would learn them as well
in time.
As things would have it, the two-day out-and-back trip to Caracas developed
into a ten-day multi-leg flight covering a good deal of Central and South
America. That was a little unusual, but not unknown in the freight
business. Sherry washed out her underwear each night in the sink of
whatever hotel they were staying at (often one that was one step above a
fleabag in status). The standard drill was to wash clothes in the hotel and
take the damp stuff (since it rarely dried overnight) aboard the airplane
and hang it from a line in the back of the cockpit or the front of the cargo
cabin. O'Keene did most of the flying, but he did let Sherry have a couple
legs into airports he felt comfortable letting someone who had never seen
them land the airplane.
They had three days off upon their return. All Sherry wanted to do for the
first two days was sleep in the same bed for two nights in a row and wear
clothes that hadn't been washed in a sink. But her logbook was getting
filled. She tried not to wonder when she would really have to earn her pay.
Sherry spent the next few months flying cargo runs all over the region.
She normally flew as co-pilot on DC-4s, most of the time O'Keene was the
pilot. There were times she flew with other captains and there were some
memorable trips in DC-3s into airfields that at first glance were too short.
The runs, as far as she could tell, were always legitimate, or at least had
the backing of the local authorities. Sometimes she saw smaller
twin-engined airplanes that had obviously had new registration numbers
applied. It was rare to see the same airplane more than twice. It didn't
take a rocket scientist to figure out that those airplanes were being used
to support the drug trade.
The weather changes were atrocious. One day they would be flying into a
jungle strip; the heat and humidity were so bad that takeoffs and landings
were done at dawn before the temperature robbed much of the lift from the
wings. Another day they would be at an airport in the high mountains were
the crews used oxygen before takeoff and the nights were bitterly cold.
Many of the pilots took massive doses of vitamin C, along with the
anti-malarial pills.
The living in some of the villages alongside the airports and landing strips
was hard. Life was cheap. Sherry saw two men in a bar draw their pistols
and shoot at each other, it was a lot like a movie western except for the
facts that the guns were automatics and the ammunition was real. The winner
resumed his drinking while the loser was dragged outside, leaving a smear of
blood on the rough wood floor from his wounds and the gunsmoke drifted out
of the windows. Nobody seemed to know why the fight occurred or care very
much. No police ever showed up.
Sherry tried to see what sights she could in the little time she could get
away. Often all she saw of famous tourist attractions were the views from
the windows of the cargo planes. And there was little of that to see as she
was busy during departures and arrivals. O'Keene did swing by the famous
statue of Jesus overlooking Rio de Janeiro so Sherry could see it. She was
a little more successful in getting to know a little about San Paulo when
there was time after resting from a cargo run.
Sherry lived that way until one evening when a stranger sat down next to her
in the BOQ bar. He seemed pleasant enough and Sherry and he were soon
talking about flying. Then he said: "Can you tell me about flying into
VT41?"
Inwardly Sherry stiffened up. "Yeah, you make your downwind over the river
and watch the hill and the powerlines if you're landing to the north."
The stranger nodded, then resumed the small talk. After a few minutes he
paid for his drinks and left. Sherry gave him five minutes and then left.
He was hanging around in the lobby, Sherry followed him at a distance to the
garage. It was a little dark, her right hand was resting on her waist close
to her .380. He had lit a cigarette, Sherry could see the glow of the coal
as he drew on it. There didn't seem to be anyone else around, but Sherry
kept her eyes open.
"I always thought the `sign and countersign' stuff was a crock," Sherry
commented.
"You mean like `the raven croaks at dawn,'" he replied with a touch of
amusement.
"Yeah."
"It has its uses. You have a flight in two days that's supposed to RON in
San Salvador."
Sherry nodded.
"There's a bar not too far from the airport called `The Busted Prop.' Your
run should arrive at 1900. Be at the bar by 0630 the next morning with your
passport and in clothing suitable for flying a bush plane."
Sherry repeated it back. "And then what?"
"Order a ginger ale. A white man in his early `40s will sit down two seats
away. He'll ask you if you're a pilot and where you're from. You'll know
it's your man when he comments about the steep hills around Montpelier's
airport."
Sherry shook her head. "They aren't that bad."
"That's how you'll know. He'll take you to a small strip outside of the
city. Your passenger will be there. You're flying a Maule with long-range
tanks to the east coast of Honduras. The Maule has a programmable GPS that
can run an autopilot. Your contact will have a cassette for the GPS with
the nav program and the charts you'll need in case the GPS or the autopilot
goes down. But if they don't, all you do is fly to the first waypoint and
engage the autopilot. It's a three-axis job, so this'll be a piece of cake.
"The weather should be lots of low clouds. The GPS course is a low one,
below radar coverage and in the clouds. Neither the Salvadorans nor the
Hondurans have the stuff to track you assuming you don't turn your
transponder on. You have a gun?"
"Yes."
The man shook his head. "You won't need one, so don't bring it."
Sherry absorbed that instruction without comment. "Anything else?"
"No."
Sherry said nothing else, she just drifted out of the garage. Her thoughts
were in a whirl. She wanted to know why she had to fly this man, but she
figured she might be able to find out later. The no-gun instruction
bothered her. She might be a greenhorn at this, but she thought that if
someone insisted that she should go unarmed, that was a damn good reason to
pack one along.
Two days later, she was in the bar at the appointed time, drinking a
ginger ale. She had on a light khaki jacket that went down to the wide part
of her hips, khaki trousers and jungle boots. Like a lot of people there,
she had a wide-brimmed hat. No purse, her effects were in the jacket
pockets. She figured they knew about her Glock .45, it was back in her room
in San Paulo. The little .380 was in a holster on her lower leg and the
Government .45 rested in a shoulder holster under her left arm, two spare
magazines were under her right arm. She also carried her passport, a small
folding knife, a waterproof match case that also had a small compass, some
loose cartridges for both pistols, a bottle of DEET bug repellent, and a
supply of her hormone pills.
The contact man did his job and soon they were in an old Ford sedan heading
out of town. The Maule was resting as promised on a grass strip hacked out
of the jungle. The contact man gave her a folder containing a cassette of
the type used to update GPS and Loran sets and a bunch of VFR charts. The
folder also held three flashlights with red lenses, one of them had a cord
so the flashlight could be strung around the neck. he dropped her off at
the airplane and took off back for town.
Sherry, not knowing what else to do, pre-flighted the Maule. With the
long-range tanks, Sherry estimated they had 700 miles of range. She turned
the master switch on, turned on the GPS set, and loaded the cassette. The
program was there, just as he had said. She shut the GPS down and killed
the master.
The back of the Maule had a survival kit containing a lot of water, very
useful for these climes. There was food, a first-aid kit, and some medical
supplies. What she was most worried about was whether or not somebody would
show up. It must have been at least ten miles back to town.
Two hours later a woman showed up. She was Latino looking, about 5'6" and
dressed very much like Sherry. They went through the sign-countersign
stuff, then the woman looked up and down Sherry. "They didn't tell me
you're a woman," she said.
Sherry shrugged. "They didn't tell me anything about you. Shall we go?"
The woman's reply was interrupted by a Jeep driving onto the airstrip at
high speed. There were two men in the jeep, the one in the passenger's side
was standing up and waving a rifle around. The woman glanced at Sherry.
Sherry shook her head: "We'd never get it started in time."
The jeep pulled up in front of the Maule. The passenger covered the two
women with his M-16, the driver got out, looking very angry. He came over
to the smaller woman. "Ah, Angel, you left without saying goodbye. I
wanted so much to say goodbye."
She didn't say anything, he slapped her and grabbed her by the wrist and
started to drag her back towards the jeep. Sherry remained motionless. As
they neared the jeep, Angel fell sobbing to the ground. The man let go of
her wrist and stood over her, laughing. "One last time, eh?" he sneered and
started to unbelt his trousers.
He got his pants down and Angel kicked him in the groin as if the Superbowl
depended on it. The guard, who was watching anyway, swung his rifle around.
He dropped the weapon as a .45 slug tore into his chest and exited next to
his spine, Sherry had moved very quickly when she saw the chance. The
would-be rapist was trying to get up, Angel moved behind him and efficiently
slit his throat, she then did the same to the guard who was dying anyway.
Sherry stood there in shock, holding the pistol. Angel looked up. "First
time?"
Sherry nodded.
"Ok, start the jeep and move it out of the way." Sherry still stood there.
"NOW, BITCH," she yelled.
Sherry unfroze, applied the safety, holstered the pistol, and moved the
jeep. Angel dragged the dead man away, took a gunbelt from him that held a
9mm and magazines, then the two of them got into the Maule. Sherry moved
the mixture control to "rich," pumped the throttle, turned on the master
switch, magnetos, and engaged the starter. The engine caught, Sherry
switched on the GPS set and the autopilot. Within a minute, the set had a
fix and Sherry taxied to the end of the strip.
Sherry flew to the first waypoint and engaged the autopilot. Now all she
had to do was manage the fuel and work the throttle and prop controls for
climbs and descents. They were soon in the clouds. The charts didn't have
a course line on them, so she gave up trying to keep track of their
position.
Angel leaned over and said loudly: "You moved very well for a newbie."
Sherry passed on the comment. "What was that all about?"
Angel shrugged. "You ever heard of the Arena Party?" When she saw Sherry
nod, she continued. "I was the mistress of one of the top lieutenants. I
was passing information about the party to the CIA."
"I thought the CIA was cooperating with Arena."
"So did a lot of people, and they did to some extent. But Arena never
trusted the CIA, or vice versa. Arena had some plans to derail the peace
talks and the accord, but the Salvadoran government always foiled them. Or
the guerrillas did."
"And they isolated it to you?"
Angel nodded. "They watched a number of people, I fucked up and they caught
me. The only thing that kept me alive was that my boyfriend refused to
believe it."
"Does he believe it now?"
"He did, that was him back at the airport."
Sherry nodded. Maules are loud without an intercom and headsets, neither of
which this one had. The autopilot made some turns and a couple altitude
changes. They were still in the clouds.
The clouds started to lift, Sherry could see a mountain range ahead. The
autopilot flew the Maule towards the hills. It didn't command a climb.
"Oh, shit," yelled Sherry.
"What's wrong?"
"They're trying to kill us. Hang on." Sherry let the autopilot fly as close
as she dared, then she hit the kill switch for the autopilot, switched the
master off, and wrenched the Maule around in a high-G turn.
Angel's eyes were wide as she stared at the rocks. "What the fuck is going
on?"
Sherry got the airplane level ed out. "The autopilot was programmed to fly
into the mountains. I shut the electrical system off in case they have a
transponder beacon wired in." She paused for a few seconds. "I was told not
to bring a gun with me."
Angel nodded. "So if they didn't get me before I got to the strip or at the
airplane, then the crash would kill me. Real cute."
Cute wasn't the word for it. Twenty miles away a King Air with a modified
collision avoidance system was flying circles at 11,000 feet. The TCAS
worked by interrogating transponder beacons. Two men behind the pilot
watched the display intently. When the contact warning light went out, one
of them picked up a microphone and said: "Angels fly in heaven." The two
men looked at each other and smiled. The one on the left told the pilot to
take the airplane back to San Salvador.
"What do we do now," Angel asked.
"Let me figure out where we are," replied Sherry. She trimmed the Maule so
it would hold altitude in a turn, then banked it about 15 degrees. Every so
often she brought the bank back as the airplane tried to level itself.
Behind their route of flight she could see just flatlands, so they were at
the first significant range of hills. It was a work of a couple minutes to
draw a rough course line on the chart. "We're about here," Sherry said,
showing Angel the chart. "You have any ideas where we should go?"
Angel studied the chart, then pointed at a river. "Can you take us there?
There's an airstrip that was used by the Contras and the smugglers."
Sherry looked at it. "It'd be easy with the GPS, harder without it. What
the hell." She turned the airplane south to follow along the ridge line. It
took a couple of missteps, but Sherry found the strip. Sherry made a low
pass to check the conditions, the strip was rough but appeared to be all
right. The length seemed good, she climbed up and executed a standard
approach. The landing wasn't very smooth, but neither was the strip. Angel
directed her to taxi over to one side. There some small openings were
carved out of the surrounding jungle, but the interlocking limbs of the
trees created some hangars that made the spot almost invisible from the air.
A Cessna 170 was there, apparently unattended. Sherry taxied as close as
she could to the brush hangars, then pulled the mixture out and shut the
magnetos off.
The two women got out and managed to push the Maule into one of the
openings. Sherry sat down on one of the mainwheel tires and looked at
Angel. "Now what?"
"Now we wait. Some people should be along soon."
Sherry nodded. She fished out the .45 and removed the magazine. She took a
loose round from her pocket and slid it into the magazine to replace the one
she had fired in San Salvador, then she put the magazine back into the
pistol and the pistol back into the holster. "These people who are going to
come, are they friends of yours?"
Angel smiled. "Let's hope so."
"Sure," Sherry said sourly. She got up and went over to the trees. Peeing
in the woods was the only time Sherry wished she had the plumbing she had
been born with. When she came back, she asked: "You know if there's any
water or food around here?"
Angel shrugged. "I'm not sure. Anyway, we won't be here long."
Sherry tried relaxing, but she couldn't sit still. There were some bugs
around, she shared the repellent with Angel. she kept replaying the scene
at San Salvador in her mind. Of one thing she was sure, she had been used
as a way to kill Angel. They didn't want her to bring a gun, she was sure
that if she hadn't the two of them would have been killed by Angel's
ex-lover. "Kill or be killed" was more than a phrase to Sherry now.
If the clouds hadn't lifted enough, they'd have hit the mountainside. Even
if someone had found the wreckage, it would have been classified as an
accident: "Pilot continued VFR flight into adverse weather conditions."
Somebody went to a lot of trouble to do this. If she got out of this alive,
she was going to do her damnedest to make sure somebody paid for it.
They waited about two hours. Sherry at one point went over and inspected
the Cessna 170. It was an old airplane (they went out of production in
1955), and the paint and interior were both ratty. The engine appeared to
be sound and the tires were good. What grease points she could see showed
evidence of lubrication. She almost suggested that they steal the 170 and
go somewhere, but this was Angel's turf. Besides, she had no idea where to
go.
Six men came out of the jungle on the far side of the airstrip. They were
dressed in green fatigues and carrying Eastern Bloc variants of AK rifles,
Sherry wasn't familiar enough with the different AK producers to tell which
nation had made them. Their rifles were slung in "patrol style," across the
body at waist level. Sherry drew her pistol and held it down along her leg.
She knew her chances with a handgun against half a dozen men with automatic
rifles were poor, but that's better than no chance at all. Angel had
shortened the pistol belt she had taken from her dead lover and was wearing
it. She didn't draw her weapon.
The leading man stopped about twenty feet away. He smiled slightly and
spoke in Spanish. "Hello, Angel. It appears that the reports of your death
have been greatly exaggerated." He grinned like someone who had been waiting
years to use that phrase.
"Hello, Marco. News travels fast," Angel observed.
He nodded. "The Arena pigs are upset that you killed Julio, but not too
much. I think they might have executed him anyway for poor judgement. Your
North American friends are saying you died in a plane crash in the
mountains."
Angel grinned. "That's the airplane and this is the pilot."
Marco looked at Sherry and then at the Maule. "They set it up to destroy a
beautiful airplane like that and even one of their own women. Such a waste.
How did they intend for it to kill you?"
Angel raised her hands slightly, palms up. "I don't really understand it.
You'd have to ask her."
Marco looked at Sherry and spoke in English. "I understand they set you up
to die with Angel in a crash. How did they intend for this to work?"
"Do you fly?"
"Yes. I fly the Cessna."
"They installed a GPS set in the Maule that fed inputs to a three-axis
autopilot. What they intended to happen was that we would fly in the clouds
and right into a mountain. The clouds lifted and I saw the mountains
coming. I killed the autopilot and the master switch."
"How did you know to land here?"
"Angel did."
"I see." He switched back to Spanish. "Luck rides with you still. What is
it you want from me?"
"Transportation out of here, and some supplies."
"I see." He thought about it. "What do you have to offer in return?"
Angel gestured towards the Maule. "An airplane that's a lot newer than
yours. I understand they can carry more cargo and even use shorter runways
than that Cessna."
One of the other men spat. "That's no bargain," he objected.
Marco glanced over at him. "You have something to say, Jesus?"
"I say we have them and their airplane already. That gringa may have a
pistol, but she can't shoot all six of us."
Sherry whipped up the .45 and fired, shooting Jesus in the sternum. He was
on his way to see his namesake before his body stopped twitching. "Anybody
want to say `she can't shoot all five of us?'" She spoke in Spanish. Nobody
moved besides some involuntary flinching at the sound of the shot.
Marco knelt down to check the body. He touched his fingers to Jesus's neck
and then shook his head. "Dead. He fought the rightists for nine years and
dies because he can't keep his stupid mouth under control." He stood up and
looked at one of the others. "Strip his gear. We'll send some others back
to bury him." The man removed the combat harness and the rifle from Jesus's
corpse. The harness held a six-magazine pouch, a first aid kit, and three
canteens of water. When the man finished stripping the body, Marco said:
"Give them to the woman. She killed him, she can at least carry his
equipment."
Sherry took the gear, then laid the rifle down while she donned the harness.
The straps and the belt didn't need too much adjusting. It didn't ride
comfortably against her chest, whoever had designed the harness had not
envisioned it being worn by a woman. There was little likelihood that she
could draw her pistol with the harness on, but she didn't think she'd need a
pistol if she had an AK. She checked the weapon, it was loaded. She slung
the rifle in the same manner as the others.
Marco looked at her solemnly. "I see you know the AKM. Very well. Let's
go. Hernandez, take the point. Chico, second; the North American, third;
Angel, you're fourth; then me, Roberto and Francisco, you bring up the rear.
You understand five meter spacing, Gringa?"
"My name is Sherry, not Gringa."
"All right, Cheri," he pronounced it in the French manner, "Try not to kill
everything you see. It's an hour and a half to the base. Hernandez, move
out."
Hernandez set a fairly quick pace. From his speed, it was clear that the
guerrillas didn't expect any government forces to be in the area. Sherry
knew under the terms of the accord that they were in guerilla-controlled
territory. The spacing was more out of habit, Marco appeared to be a
disciplined commander. There were some questions she wanted to ask, but she
suspected that Marco would be fairly strict on noise discipline. Every
combat harness appeared to be worn in such a way that metal-on-metal contact
was prevented. Sherry and Angel made the most noise of any of them while
walking, but not much more than the men.
It was a hard trek, mostly uphill. The camp was well-hidden with rude
structures concealed under large trees. Sherry suspected she could fly
right over it and not see it unless she knew it was there. It probably was
well-visible to special optics and surveillance films, but those aren't used
in an attack. The siting made an air assault impractical, the only way to
attack it (other than bombing) would be uphill through the heavily- forested
terrain. It would not be a low-casualty endeavour for an attacker.
Marco called over a man as soon as they entered the camp, he told him to
take a full patrol and go to the airstrip to bury Jesus. The man didn't ask
what had happened, he rounded up twenty guerrillas and left in fifteen
minutes. There were over two hundred people in the camp, most of them men.
The women appeared to be evenly divided between support personnel (they
called them "camp followers" in earlier eras) and fighters. A dozen
children, maybe more, were running around.
Angel saw Sherry looking at the children, three of whom had come over and
were checking Sherry out. "This was an advance camp for the FNLN during the
war," Angel explained in English. "There weren't any children here the last
time I visited. They stayed in the bases closer to the border."
Sherry unslung the AK and found a tree to sit against. "You really were
feeding information to both the Americans and the guerrillas. How did you
manage to stay alive?"
Angel sat down next to her. "It was a balancing act. The Americans didn't
want the FNLN to come to power, but they didn't want D'Aubisson's people in
even more. They wanted enough information to get to the FNLN to ensure the
rightists couldn't come to power, but not enough so the leftists would win."
"And how did the FNLN take all this?"
"They saw things in a similar vein. They wanted more information, but they
didn't want the rightists in either."
Sherry looked puzzled. "Correct me if I'm wrong here, but didn't
Christiani, an Arena candidate, win the elections in `89?"
"Arena did, but not the ultra-right faction. By then even the leadership of
Arena had realized that they couldn't kill everybody who disagreed with
them. The American Congress was fed up with the war and Reagan wasn't there
to make them approve the aid. Besides, the Soviets were obviously in
collapse, the Nicaraguans were too, so there was little support on the other
side for supporting the war."
"Yet an Arena president successfully concluded peace talks."
Angel nodded. "Just as it took Nixon to open China."
Sherry smiled. "Old Vulcan proverb."
"What?"
"Never mind. So now what happens?"
"I'll try to convince Marco to give us some transportation out of the
country. What you need to do is to keep quiet and not start any trouble for
us."
"And if trouble finds us?"
Angel grinned. "We've done all right so far."
They sat there for a while. Angel was happy to, her feet hurt. Sherry's
did too, but she was more exhausted by the events of the day. She wondered
how angry O'Keene was when she didn't show for the afternoon flight, or if
she'd ever be able to resume working as a pilot again. Then she laughed to
herself, the first thing was to make it out of here alive and intact. after
that, she could worry about the rest of her life.
A man in fatigues came by thirty minutes later. "Marco wants to see you
two," he said.
They stood up, Sherry re-slung the AK, and they followed him to a tent.
Marco was sitting in a four-sided tent with the sides rolled up for
ventilation. He sat behind a table that was serving as a desk, it was
well-laden with papers. A high-frequency radio with a cassette deck was
sitting on another table. Sherry guessed it was a compression system, where
the messages are recorded and then transmitted in a very high-speed burst.
Marco gestured towards a corner of the tent with a pen. "You can take off
the rifle and the harness and leave it there." Sherry did so gratefully. As
she did, Marco talked to Angel. "I've talked to my commander, he is
inclined to assist you. Your motives for helping us in the past may not
have been the same as ours, but the results were beneficial to our cause.
We are not ungrateful and don't seek to kill our friends," he added
pointedly.
Angel nodded in thanks. "I am grateful for your help, Commander."
Marco nodded. "Cheri, you've helped a valued friend, so we will help you to
escape with her. We will not seek retribution for the death of Jesus. You
did not know him, and he didn't know you. It was an unfortunate incident.
While you are here with Angel, you are under the protection of the FNLN.
However, Jesus had many friends. They have been ordered not to seek
revenge. I cannot guarantee your safety should you return to El Salvador.
Understand?"
"Understood, and you have my thanks, sir," Sherry replied.
"Good. Now, as to your departure, the arrangements are being made. As you
suggested, Angel, we will accept the Maule in payment."
Sherry spoke up: "If I were you, I'd check it for a transponder bug."
Marco looked puzzled. "What is that?"
"It's a transponder that has been secretly wired into an airplane. When the
master is on, it's on. It has it's own code, so anybody with a radar or a
transponder interrogator can track it."
"You think one was installed in the Maule?"
Sherry shrugged. "I don't know, but it makes sense to me. If the
transponder return ceased at the place we were supposed to hit the mountain,
that'd be a pretty good indicator of a crash, don't you think?
"And I'd like to remove the programming card from the GPS before we go."
Marco smiled. "So if you get the chance for some payback, you will take
it."
Sherry's face took on a hard set. "Somebody's going to pay for this."
Marco looked thoughtful. He thought that he didn't want to have this gringa
mad at him. She looked capable of doing some serious damage to anyone who
made her mad. "I'm sure we can arrange that." He looked outside of the tent
and called to a woman out there. "Eva, take our guests to a spare tent.
Arrange for them to have food, some clean clothes and to wash up."
Both women thanked him for his courtesy and followed Eva to a tent. Eva
told them to wait there, she'd return as soon as things were arranged. She
was back promptly and led them to the cook tent. Lunch was some form of
stew and tortillas washed down with a local beer. It was very good, and
Sherry said as much. After they ate (Sherry ate more than Angel), Eva took
them to a tent that was a supply issue point. Another woman looked them
over critically and gave them each two sets of fatigues, four sets of OD
t-shirts, white cotton underwear, and socks. They took the clothes with
them to a tent that had three large tubs of hot water.
The two women were left alone to disrobe and take a bath. Angel looked at
Sherry when she saw her take the .380 from her left leg, but she didn't
comment. Both women kept their pistols nearby when they were soaking in the
tubs. Angel told Sherry that the third tub was for rinsing after washing,
so there would not be a soap film in their bodies. She also said that it
was essential to be completely dry before dressing in order to prevent a
fungal attack. There was even a box of bath powder. Luxuries start
creeping in once the fighting stops. Sherry put the shoulder holster on
under the fatigue shirt. Angel wore her pistol belt.
Eva took their dirty clothes from them once they left the tent. She told
them that they'd be washed so they'd have them to wear when they left.
While in the camp, they'd have the issue fatigues.
After that, they were left to their own devices. they walked around the
camp. Sherry noted they had a hospital, a school, an armoury with a repair
shop and a small firing range behind it. All the comforts of home. Nobody
hindered them or asked what they were doing. Angel was greeted by a number
of the guerrillas as a friend, they were far more reserved with Sherry.
Sherry realized that there was most likely some resentment over the death of
Jesus.
One boy who was about age six came up and stared at Sherry. Sherry squatted
down and said hello.
The boy continued to stare at her. "Did you really shoot Jesus with a
pistol?"
"Yes."
"He had a Kalashnikov. He was very good with it. The others had them,
too."
Sherry nodded. She felt a little uncomfortable in the boy's frank stare.
If she was from Mars that there would be less amazement.
"You must be very brave for a woman," the boy said and then ran off.
"Or very stupid," Sherry muttered to herself as she stood up.
Angel had heard her. "You may be right. Marco said there'd be no trouble,
but don't count on it. I'd stay away from the rifle range if I was you."
Sherry nodded. It sounded like good advice to her. They wandered around
some more and found a tent that was a small library. Most of the books
available ran to marxist-Leninist propaganda, but there were some newer
works about the principles of democracy and about capitalism and market
economies. The books that were the most used were romance-type fiction.
Romance works were popular among men, too. They each took a book and went
back to their tent. Sherry laid down on the cot to read and was soon
asleep. The day's tension had finally caught up with her.
At the evening meal, Sherry noticed that the guerrillas were very friendly
towards Angel, but treated her with a reserve bordering on hostility. She
mentally shrugged and accepted it. Marco had said that Jesus had fought for
nine years. He had to have had many friends among these people. It was
expecting too much that they welcome the person who had killed him with open
arms.
Sherry spent her time perusing the books in the library, including some of
the political propaganda. She thought it'd make sense to try and understand
the viewpoints of her hosts. Angel did some reading, but she spent most of
her time visiting friends and catching up on old times. Sherry overheard
some of the conversations, it seemed that a lot of the mutual friends were
dead. The war must have taken a horrific toll on the country.
Marco summoned them two days later. "Good news, we have arranged for you to
leave," he greeted them.
Angel smiled widely. "When do we leave, and how?"
"You're going to fly to San Jose. The Cessna is legally based there, so
you'll fly it there for maintenance. The cover story is that Cheri is a
ferry pilot. You do have the right licenses for doing that sort of work, I
assume?" When he saw Sherry nod, he continued: "Once there, you take a
commercial flight to Los Angeles. You have passports?"
Sherry said yes, Angel said no. Marco thought for a minute, then summoned
one of his assistants. He told her to take Angel and get a Canadian
passport for her. "We have the blanks for it, you see."
Sherry watched them leave, then turned to Marco. "Do you mind if I ask a
question?"
"I'll answer if I can," he said with some caution.
"How does a FNLN officer come to have his own airplane?"
"It was originally my father's. He taught me to fly it when I was fourteen.
When he died, it was left to my brother and me. My brother joined the FNLN
very early. The rightists confiscated our land in retaliation. I flew the
Cessna to San Jose before those pigs could get their hands on it. Now that
the war is over, I've flown it back."
Sherry mulled that over for a few seconds. "But you're going to let me take
it? There's a good chance that if something goes wrong with your plan that
it might be destroyed."
Marco sighed. "I know. It's the only thing left I have that belonged to my
father, but there comes a time to let go, I think. I'll give you a number
in San Jose to call if you have to land it somewhere else. If you do crash
it, I'll just have to console myself with that fine Maule." He smiled at the
thought.
"And what of your brother?"
"He was killed six years ago."
Sherry didn't say anything, she couldn't thing of what words would be good
ones. So she asked simply: "When do we leave?"
"Tomorrow morning."
"How were the arrangements made?"
Marco pointed to the HF radio in the corner. Sherry nodded and inside
started to worry. She didn't know where the encryption equipment came from,
but she doubted very much if it was unbreakable by somebody who wanted to.
Furthermore, she had no idea what the internal security of the FNLN was
like. Those who had tried to kill her and Angel might now know they had
failed and that the two knew that their deaths were desirable. This was not
a good situation.
Marco pointedly picked up some papers. Sherry took the hint and left, lost
in thought. Angel trusted these people, so Sherry wasn't sure she could
confide in her. Flying into the San Jose airport might very well be as
foolish as sticking one's neck into a noose.
The one thing Sherry was sure of as the day dragged on was that there was
something in the wind. If the camp's population was reserved towards her
before, they were downright icy now. At one point she ducked into the
ladies' latrine and pulled her .45 from its holster. Sherry normally
carried the weapon with a round in the chamber and the hammer down. She
eased the hammer back and slipped the safety on. She'd feel better either
with a shotgun or when she was gone from the camp.
Her instincts weren't failing her. An hour after supper a group of men
approached her. Two of them had AKs in their hands. Sherry started to draw
her pistol, both men put the rifles to their shoulders and aimed them at
her, she could clearly hear the loud metallic sound of the two selector
levers going into the "full auto" notch. She let her hand fall empty to her
side, the two men warily lowered their weapons.
They stopped about ten meters away. One of them said loudly: "We want to
talk with you, Gringa."
Sherry stood up. "I can hear you."
"You killed our friend, we have come to exact a price for your deed."
Sherry sized them up. A dozen men, two with AKs, five were carrying what
looked like long nightsticks. "I see. It takes a dozen men with two
Kalashnikovs to handle one woman. What big strong men your mothers raised.
I'll wager they must be very proud of your courage," she said with
considerable sarcasm.
The sarcasm wasn't lost on the men. The leader took one of the nightsticks
and tossed it so it landed at Sherry's feet. "You can have a chance,
Gringa. Pick up the stick."
Sherry did so. She felt its balance and mentally shrugged. Sometimes
there's no way out. "All right. Which one of you illegitimate offspring of
a diseased whore has the balls to fight a woman? Who wants to try first?"
She held the stick in a two- handed grip as if it was a broadsword (or a
tennis racket).
The speaker's face darkened with rage and he charged, holding his stick
raised high over his head in a two-handed grip. His intention was obvious,
he intended to try an overhand smash and crush her skull. As he swung the
stick, Sherry raised hers so it was angled across her body to the left and
she stepped quickly to the left. His stick hit hers and she swept the blow
aside. He had put too much energy into the attack, she rammed the end of
her stick into his midsection, then swept it against his head as he folded
up. He dropped to the ground, stunned. The entire fight had taken a few
seconds.
Sherry rolled her shoulders. "I think I am warmed up, now. Which one of
you pig-fuckers wants to go next?"
"`Pig-fuckers,'" one of the men exclaimed.
Sherry nodded. "Surely that's all you can have, for there isn't a woman on
the planet who would go to bed with any of you of her free will."
The next man came forward with a warier attack. He slashed at her face,
Sherry blocked it and countered with a strike at his head which he blocked.
They rapidly exchanged blows, all of them were blocked or diverted by the
other. Sherry swung one and changed her aim point at the last moment, he
was not able to lower his guard quickly enough and her stick smashed into
the side of his knee. He knew he was at a disadvantage, he dropped his
stick and retreated.
Sherry's breathing was coming at a faster rate. The man had had a lot of
power behind his attack and she wasn't as strong as she had been back when
testosterone coursed through her endocrine system. By now a crowd had
gathered, attracted by the sounds of the fighting. Money was changing hands
as bets were placed. This fight was turning into a public amusement in a
place where any entertainment was a rare event.
Now two men stepped in to attack. Sherry moved to the left and attacked
that man. She squatted beneath his blow and rammed the end of her stick
into his groin, then swept the stick up to block a vertical strike from the
other man. She shifted position, then had her legs knocked out from under
her by the man she had hit in the groin, for her blow hadn't hit where she
wanted it to. The other man stepped up and raised his stick to strike as if
he was splitting a log.
Sherry tried to scramble out of the way and guard herself, but she knew
there wasn't much hope of making it. The man was about to bring his stick
down on her when he (and most of the others) hit the ground as an AK was
fired in full-auto. They looked up after the burst and saw Marco standing
there, holding a smoking rifle. He was not in the least bit amused.
"I gave orders that the Gringa was not to be harmed. Now I see several of
my soldiers trying to beat her with sticks." He looked over the crowd, most
of whom refused to meet his glare. He focused on one man. "Carlo! You
knew my orders. Why did you not stop this?"
Carlo looked down at his feet, then met Marco's accusing eyes. "I have no
excuse, sir. She seemed to be doing very well at defending herself."
"For which you had better count yourself lucky. If she had been injured by
this, I would have shot the senior man here. Which would have been you."
One of the men with a stick, who had not stepped into the fray, challenged
Marco: "She killed one of our comrades. We have never let something like
this go unanswered until now."
Marco shifted his glare to him. "And what do you have to say about this,
Frederico?"
Frederico met his stare. "I say the prospect of peace has made you soft.
You are not tough enough to be a fighting leader anymore. I say you hide
behind the orders of the high command and are more interested in saving your
worthless hide."
The rage in Marco's face was obvious, but his voice was controlled. "You
think I'm soft? We shall see." He grabbed a soldier standing near him and
whispered in his ear. The man ran off and came back two minutes later with
two machetes. Marco took the machetes from the man and handed him the
rifle. "Soft, you say. I say you are a gutless slug." Marco tossed the
machete at the man's feet. "Pick it up, let us see the colour of your
intestines."
Frederico picked up the machete, the crowd moved back to give the two men
plenty of room. By now virtually every soul in the camp was watching the
fight. The two circled each other, holding the long knives in a guard
position and looking for any apparent weaknesses. Fencing with a machete
was a dangerous game, for if the opponents blade slid down there was no
guard on the handle to prevent one's hand from being cut. They exchanged
three blows, the metallic ringing of the machetes filled the air. Nobody
uttered any cheers for either man, it could be dangerous to voice support
for the loser.
Sherry squatted down, obviously tired. Her hand was near her leg where the
.380 was concealed. She figured her life was forfeit if Marco lost, so
she'd at least pay him back for his hospitality by killing Frederico if he
won.
There was another series of exchanges, Marco had a thin trickle of blood
down his left forearm. Frederico saw the blood and redoubled his attack.
He made two serious errors, he stepped in too closely and swung his blade
back too far for a blow. Marco swept his knife across Frederico's stomach.
The slash wasn't too deep, but Frederico lowered his arm from the pain and
the surprise. Marco didn't miss his chance, he swung his machete at
Frederico's neck and connected with a meaty chunk. The blade stuck in the
vertebrae and Marco let go of the handle, but it didn't matter very much.
Frederico sank to the ground and died as his blood stained the jungle
ground.
Marco strode over to the soldier he had handed his rifle to and snatched it
back. He spun around and surveyed the crowd. "Does anybody else here want
to question my orders."
Sounds of "No, sir" and "No, Commander" were heard.
"Good. Disperse and go about your business. Lieutenant Braga!"
"Sir!" The man who Marco had upbraided snapped to attention.
"Take a dozen men. You and a sergeant of your choosing will each command
six of them. You will provide security for the Gringa. She will leave here
unharmed and unmolested or I will bury you and the sergeant. Is that
clear?"
"Yes, Sir!" The fear in the man's face was clear. He knew that if any harm
came to Sherry, Marco would carry out his threat. He quickly found a
sergeant and ordered him to gather a detail. In fifteen minutes the
sergeant had a dozen armed soldiers, including three women. The sergeant
divided them up into two shifts and left with his six to get some rest.
Braga came over to Sherry. "Miss, it would make security easier if you
stayed in your quarters as much as possible. I have no authority to
restrict your movements, but please consider my difficulties in keeping you
safe."
Sherry agreed. The only times she left the tent for the rest of the day
were to go to the latrine. Braga provided some extra candles so she'd have
enough light to read, but she wasn't used to reading by candlelight and
turned in fairly early. Angel was not considered to be at risk so she
wasn't provided with an escort.
A messenger woke them at four am. She gave them the clothes that they had
been wearing when they arrived and told them to get dressed, have breakfast,
and meet Marco at his tent by five. Sherry was still tired from the
festivities of the night before. Angel apparently had gotten in late and
was barely awake when they went to see Marco.
He was waiting for them. A Coleman lantern illuminated his tent, he had a
air navigation chart spread out on the table. Sherry noted that Marco was
carrying a pistol now. "It's time for you to go, and I won't be sorry." He
handed her the chart and a flight-plan form. "The courses are plotted, the
compass courses and times are on the flight plan. I have no way to verify
winds aloft for you."
Sherry took the papers and looked them over. Better to be ask now than in
the air. "It seems straight-forward enough. Thank you, Commander."
Marco bowed his head slightly. "You're welcome. Keep in mind what I told
you when you arrived. Have a good flight." He looked at Braga. "Take them
to the airstrip, stay there until they depart in the Cessna."
Braga nodded and led them out. The walk was easier this time. It was
mostly downhill and Sherry wasn't carrying a combat load and a rifle. There
was just enough light to walk by at the start of the trip. This time it
took a little over an hour to walk to the airstrip.
The wind was calm. Sherry found a rag to wipe the dew from the Cessna's
windshield and began her pre-flight. She was very careful to look for
contaminants in the fuel. In a shack she found some cases of aircraft
engine oil and some tools. Braga was impatient, but Sherry ignored him.
She drained the oil out of the engine, safety-wired the drain shut, and
refilled the crankcase with fresh oil. The written words of an ancient
aviator sounded in her head, one who almost came to grief while flying in
this part of the world.
The control cables all worked the way they were supposed to. She opened a
few inspection ports and found nothing, It took her an hour before she was
satisfied that the airplane was indeed safe to fly. Whoever had stocked the
parts shack had thoughtfully supplied some waterless cleaner which Sherry
used to remove the grease and oil from her hands. Checking to see the
magnetos were off, she pulled the propeller though six blades, then she
gestured to Angel to get in.
The drill was the same: mixture full rich, mags on, pump the throttle
twice, and engage the starter. The Continental O-300 caught on the second
blade. Sherry idled the engine at 900 rpm until the new oil was warm. Then
she applied power and taxied to the end of the strip. A quick mag check at
low power, one notch of flaps, and she applied power, not rapidly to avoid
sucking debris into the propeller blades, but not slowly either as there
wasn't a lot of room on this runway. The Cessna bounced on the rough ground
and then slipped into the air. Sherry climbed to about 500 feet and
retracted the flaps. She turned the airplane to a little west of south and
took up her first course to San Jose.
Sherry stayed as low as she dared to. The 170 had barely enough
instruments to be considered airworthy, just a wet compass, an altimeter,
and an airspeed indicator. There was a communications radio but no
navigation gear besides the compass. The compass at least had a valid
compensation card. Lindberg had better equipment over sixty years ago.
The plotted course was fairly direct. That was a good thing, because Sherry
was a little concerned if they had enough fuel to make it to San Jose. She
wasn't too concerned about being spotted, the air defence system commanders
in El Salvador weren't too concerned about unknown aircraft leaving and they
didn't have a very good system, either. Picking up a small Cessna flying
low was not a simple task. Nicaragua's military was in shambles and Costa
Rica didn't have an air force. Others weren't likely to interfere; they
might be drug smugglers and people who bothered smugglers tended to contract
bad cases of bullet wounds.
Angel tried talking over the noise of the O-300, but she soon gave it up.
If anything, this airplane was noisier than the Maule for much of the
interior insulation had been removed. Then she started to turn green from
the turbulence as the ground warmed up. Sherry knew they could find
smoother air if she climbed, but that didn't seem to be a good idea.
Somebody had thoughtfully left some plastic bags in the chart pockets.
Angel used one of those to upload her breakfast. After she tied the neck of
the bag shut, Sherry opened a window and threw the bag out over the jungle
below.
Sherry was feeling a little uncomfortable, but it had nothing to do with the
turbulence. She turned left 90 degrees, held it for a minute and turned
back on course. Ten minutes later she repeated the maneuver to the right.
Ah, she thought.
"I think we have a slight problem," she yelled in Angel's ear.
Angel instantly had a worried expression. "We're not going to crash?"
"Probably not. But I think somebody's following us."
"You sure?"
"Hard to say. There is another aircraft behind us, seven or ten miles
back."
"What kind? Is it the military?"
"Can't say. Might be."
"Can we outrun them?"
Sherry shook her head. "Not unless they're in a smaller airplane than this
one, which isn't too likely." She looked at the chart, then found a valley
that might work not too far off her course. She turned slightly to
intercept the valley. Once over it, she descended sharply and flew down it
very low. After a few minutes, she turned sharply and headed back up the
valley, again at a low level. If she was right, they should be there right
about....now.
Seconds later a Cessna O-2 spotter plane came into the valley. The pilot
had to pull up abruptly to avoid hitting the 170. Sherry turned in his
blind spot and flew out of the valley to the west. She had no hope of
outrunning an O-2 (the military version of a Cessna Skymaster, the twin with
fore and aft propellers), but at least she could make it harder for him.
She hoped he wasn't armed as some nations had fitted machineguns to their
O-2s.
The O-2 took up position off Sherry's left quarter at about five hundred
yards. The pilot knew that there was no point in trying to stay hidden and
Sherry knew she couldn't shake the O-2. So they flew off towards San Jose
in loose formation. Sherry thought that the O-2 couldn't have come from
Nicaragua, they had mainly ComBloc equipment. That left El Salvador,
Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama. She wished somebody had given her some
information on who had what.
Angel leaned over. "What are we going to do? When we land, they'll have
us."
"Maybe not. Keep your seatbelt pulled tight. If I see a place to land, I'm
going to."
They were coming up on the outskirts of San Jose. They flew over farms and
industrial areas. None of it appealed to Sherry, she needed an open area
close enough in so they could stand a chance of disappearing before whoever
was working with the O-2 could react.
There! Sherry saw a park that had several soccer fields next to one
another. There didn't seem to be anyone on the fields. It was just big
enough to land in. Whether or not the Cessna could be flown out was not her
problem. They came up abreast of the park, Sherry chopped the power and
dropped the flaps. She flew a tight pattern and had full flaps dropped on
final. She landed the Cessna right at the edge of the park and held the
wheel all the way back as she pushed on the brakes as hard as she dared. It
still looked like she was going to run out of room, she pushed the left
brake and executed a controlled ground-loop. The landing gear held and the
wingtip didn't dig in, but it wasn't her idea of fun.
"Let's go," she yelled to Angel. Sherry yanked the mixture control back,
shut the mags and master off and had her door open before the prop stopped
spinning. There was a loud roar as the O-2 buzzed the field, Sherry was
betting the pilot wouldn't try to land. Several cars had stopped alongside
the road, Angel and Sherry ran up to one and asked the driver to take them
into the city for a very generous fee. Once in town, they had the driver
stop and switched to a cab after the car was out of sight. They did that
three times.
Neither one of them said anything in the cabs. Angel led the way to a
safe-house she knew about that was run by some people she trusted. The
couple who lived there let them in without comment. Once they had sat down
and relaxed with a cold beer, the woman opened the discussion. Nobody used
any names. "You are in serious trouble, my friend. A squad from El
Salvador is here, looking for you. We heard they were waiting at the
airport."
Angel smiled. "We landed somewhere else. Maybe Marco can get his airplane
back. How long has the squad been here?"
"Two days."
"What kind of squad," asked Sherry.
"A death squad," the man said. "They aren't here for a pleasure visit."
"And if they keep the airport covered, we are in trouble," Angel mused.
"There's no easy way out other than flying."
"Can't we take a bus," asked Sherry.
The woman frowned. "How hard do you think it's going to be to find you?
You must be 180cm tall, all they have to do is put the word out and everyone
will be looking for a tall Gringa trying to leave the country."
"So we don't give them what they're looking for," Sherry said.
"I don't understand," Angel and the woman said almost simultaneously.
"You have a pen and paper," Sherry asked. The woman gave her a pad and a
pen. Sherry rapidly wrote down a shopping list and handed it to the woman.
"Can you get this stuff?"
The woman looked at the list and smiled. "Very good. It'll take me two
hours. What size shoes do you wear?"
Sherry said a 43, Angel said she took a 36.
"Two hours. I'll be back." She grabbed her handbag and left.
Sherry looked at the man. "While she's gone, do you have a place where we
can get cleaned up?"
"Certainly." He showed them to a bedroom that had an attached bath. Angel
went first, then Sherry. It was a real luxury to be able to take a normal
bath after the makeshift ones at the FNLN camp.
Sherry was soaking when Angel came into the bathroom. Nice bod, Sherry
thought. "So, you want to tell me what you have in mind," Angel asked.
"Easy enough. They're looking for two women, one latino and one anglo who
look like they came in from the jungle. So let them look. If they see us,
that's not what they'll see. The woman's buying some clothes and some
grooming stuff. We're going to change the way we look."
Angel nodded. "All right, what is she getting me?"
"A nice full skirt, so you can move if you need to, a decent blouse, and
some low-heeled pumps."
"And what is she getting you?"
"Jeans, a work shirt, and a hat if she can find them used, along with some
Ace bandages and a hair clipper."
"What?" Angel looked confused.
Sherry sat up in the tub. "Look, she said that they're looking for a 180cm
tall woman. So we let them. I'll wrap the bandages around my chest and cut
my hair back. With any luck, I'll look somewhat like a man. They won't be
looking for a couple. Then we try and find a way out of here."
Angel looked a little shocked. "You'd cut your hair really short?"
Sherry stood up and reached for a towel. "It'll grow back if we make it.
If we don't make it, it won't matter very much." She looked at Angel. Her
hair was waist-length. "It'd help if you cut your hair, too."
Angel's eyes grew wide. She was proud of her hair. "How short?"
Sherry shrugged. "To your shoulders, maybe a bit shorter."
"No!"
"Do it. It'll add to our chances of surviving. Like I said, if we live, it
will grow back," Sherry urged.
"And if we don't, so what," sighed Angel. "All right."
The woman soon returned with the stuff. She and Angel cut Sherry's hair so
that it was just longer than military length, then the woman trimmed Angel's
locks to her shoulder. Sherry used baby powder on her chest to cut down on
the chafing, then wound the bandages as tight as she could. She then put on
the clothes, and stuffed a sock into her underwear to create a bulge. She
looked in the mirror, with the hat it just might work. The shirt was loose
enough to cover the .45, too.
Angel got dressed in a flowing cotton skirt and a white frilly blouse with
black leather low heels. The woman gave Angel a handbag that swallowed up
her 9mm quite nicely. Then the woman and the man drove Angel and Sherry
around the city. As he explained, the big problem was going to be going
though emigration at the airport. He had no fake passports to give them to
get past that point and both Angel and Sherry assumed that the death squad
was monitoring passport control.
"Let's drive around the airport," Sherry suggested.
The man looked over his shoulder. "Why?"
"I don't know, I'm just making this up as I go along. Maybe something will
occur to me."
He turned the car at the next street.
"I don't think we are going to find an airplane we can steal that will reach
the States," Angel said.
Sherry shrugged. "Never know until we check it out."
They did. Sherry saw a DC-7 that might work, but that's a damn hard
airplane to even try to fly single-pilot and she had no inkling how the fuel
system worked. It'd be embarrassing to crash in the hills with a bunch of
full tanks, if even the tanks were full She looked up as a helicopter passed
overhead. It was a US Navy SH-3.
"Where did that helicopter come from?"
The woman replied: "Your navy is trying to track the cocaine smugglers,
there is a bunch of ships about fifty miles out to sea."
"Including an aircraft carrier?"
"I am not sure."
Sherry was thinking hard. "Can you find out? Also try to find out if the
helicopters come at a certain time."
"Okay, I'll see what I can do."
Sherry nodded. "Good. Let's go back to where the small airplanes are
parked." They did. This time Sherry got out of the car and walked around.
Nobody challenged her. She checked out the hangars and came back to the car
almost an hour later. She got in smiling.
Angel looked at her. "You have a way?"
Sherry kept smiling. "I think so. There's an airplane in one of the
hangars that can be landed on an aircraft carrier. If the helicopters keep
a schedule, then we just borrow the airplane and follow the helicopter back
to the carrier and then land."
Angle looked aghast. "Simple plan. And what of the fighter jets on the
carrier? Surely you don't think they might object to your landing a strange
airplane on their ship? You just think they'll let you fly up and land?
And how are you going to take off from here? You think the control tower's
going to let you just steal somebody else's airplane like that?" She snapped
her fingers for emphasis. "Such a plan."
Sherry held her hands palms up. "So it's not perfect. But once we get out
to the carrier, we are on American territory. The death squads can't touch
us."
"And if they don't let us land?"
"Then we'll ditch the airplane next to one of the ships. They'll rescue us
with a boat or a helicopter. Either way, once we're aboard we're safe."
Angel looked at her as if she was crazy. The couple drove them back to the
safe house.
Some discreet questioning yielded a lot of information. The helicopters,
usually SH-3s, but sometimes CH-46s came very day, often two or three. They
arrived at 1300 and left at 1630. The times were set to allow them to
offload cargo, mail and passengers for a flight to Los Angeles and to pick
up any of the items being sent to the fleet offshore. The ships were 50 to
100 nautical miles offshore, they were using the E-2 radar airplanes to
track air traffic over Central America. Occasionally an escort ship would
pull into San Jose for a brief visit, but there wasn't one due for over a
week. Sherry preferred the idea of trying to board a ship in port, but the
time they'd have to wait was too long and the pier would probably be watched
very closely by the death squad.
They also learned that another team was due in the next day to look for
them. Nobody liked that idea very much. So if the weather was good, they
would go for getting out tomorrow afternoon.
The woman cooked up dinner. While she was doing so, the man asked: "What
kind of pistols are you carrying?"
"She has a .45 and I have a 9mm," Angel answered.
He shrugged. "I think I can do better than that for you. We'll check out
my stock after dinner."
They did. He had a wide selection of special-purpose weapons in a hidden
room in the basement. "These might be of some use," he said and pulled out
a box. He handed a pistol to Sherry. The weapon was a GI Colt .45 with a
suppressor mounted. The sights on the slide had been built up so they could
be of some use. He handed another one to Angel. "If you have to deal with
the death squads, it might help you if there was less noise around." He led
them into an adjoining room where there was a target set up twenty feet
away. He gave them some ear plugs. "The silencers don't kill all the
sound, they'll still be pretty loud in a room this size. But outdoors, they
won't attract any attention."
He gave them some ammunition, they both fired a few shots to get the feel.
Nobody wanted to do more, the room wasn't well ventilated and the fumes from
the shots were pretty bad. As the man had predicted, the guns were loud in
the room, but nowhere near as loud as an unsuppressed shot.
"Thank you," Sherry said formally. "Can I offer you my weapon in exchange?"
"Is it traceable to you?"
Sherry nodded. "Then keep it."
Angel offered hers. "This one was Julio's. I assume it can be traced to
him."
The man took it and smiled. "I think we can have some fun with it. Why
don't you go get some sleep? I'll clean up the guns and we can make any
further plans we need to in the morning."
"Sounds like a good idea to me," Sherry said.
It would be an understatement to say that Sherry was glad to unwrap the
Ace bandages that were restraining her breasts. Those who complained about
a tight girdle had nothing on her. The safe house had an old bathtub, which
meant it was big enough to accommodate her large frame. For many years she
had taken showers, baths now seemed luxurious. Her skin was red from the
wrappings. She hoped that tomorrow would be the last day she'd have to
endure wearing them.
As Sherry soaked, she had to admit there were a couple things about being a
man that she missed. Nobody had paid any attention to her when she had
poked around the hangars that afternoon. She doubted if a woman would have
been unnoticed. She didn't think about somebody trying to violate her, make
a pass, or voice lewd suggestions. But no way did she want to go back.
The man dropped the pistols off about an hour later. Sherry stripped hers
to check it out. She was most interested in seeing that the firing pin
hadn't been altered in any way. When she pushed on the back of the pin, it
protruded from the slide the proper amount. She couldn't figure out how to
check the ammunition just yet. Everybody seemed to be on the level, but
she'd sure hate to draw down on somebody and hear the dull click of a
misfire.
Angel seemed somewhat antsy, but Sherry didn't feel like talking. So much
depended on the airplane she had scouted out. It appeared to be airworthy,
but if it wasn't, they might not get a second chance. It was the only way
she could think of to get out of the country and into another one without
having to show a passport.
Neither one of them slept very well that night. They were both awake by six
the next morning, even though there was little they could do until that
afternoon. The woman of the safehouse had purchased some newspapers which
both Sherry and Angel read from beginning to end. The TV set was droning in
the corner of the living room and nobody was paying attention to it.
Sherry asked for a box of ammunition and went into the basement. There she
fired the silenced .45 and reassured herself that the pistol still worked
and that the cartridges hadn't been tampered with. The man offered to clean
it, but she declined. One way or another, she didn't plan on having the
weapon much longer than the length of the day.
Noon was approaching. Sherry went upstairs and wound the Ace bandages
around her breasts, wincing at the squashed feeling they gave her. The
woman had some dark theatrical makeup which Sherry used to create a beard
shadow. If her life didn't depend so much on the illusion she was trying to
project, she'd think this was really funny in an ironic way. `Well, Sam,'
she thought, `it's time to do your stuff one last time.' As she prepared
herself, Angel was getting dressed in her outfit. Sherry sighed. It's
showtime.
The woman stayed behind this time. The man drove them to a cafe near the
airport. Two SH-3s arrived right on time. Good old Naval Air. Near 2pm,
Sherry nodded slightly to the man. he paid the bill and they went to the
car. He drove them down to the field.
Security at this end of the airport was almost nonexistent, they drove right
onto the airport and down the rows of hangars. The man pulled in behind one
three hangars down. Sherry and Angel sat there for a few minutes as they
watched for any movement. Things looked good. Sherry and Angel got out of
the car and moved down the back of the hangars. Sherry winced at the sound
of Angel's shoes on the pavement.
The hangar door was unlocked. They went in, Sherry closed the door behind
them. It was fairly dark inside. Angel looked around. "So where is the
airplane that you will fly us to the carrier in," she asked.
"The big one with the round engine," Sherry replied. The "big airplane with
the round engine" was a T-28 that had fairly faded paint. What it had that
had attracted Sherry's interest was a tailhook. Sherry planned to land the
airplane on the carrier rather than try jumping out or ditching. She hadn't
done any of the three, but landing on a carrier seemed the best bet. At
least the risk of drowning was less.
Sherry's pre-flight inspection was as thorough as she dared to make it. The
T-28 thankfully had an intercom and headsets. Sherry seated Angel in the
back and showed her how the seatbelts worked and how the canopy worked if
they had to ditch. The T-28 didn't have any life vests, she found some in
an Aero Commander that was also in the hangar. The one fortunate thing here
was that the T-28 was at the front of the hangar, they wouldn't have to move
other airplanes to get it out.
Time was slipping by. They wrestled the hangar doors opened, then used an
old converted garden tractor to tug the T-28 out onto the taxiway. They had
just finished putting the tug back when Sherry saw some movement out of the
corner of her eye. A man had a gun out and was aiming it at her. Sherry
went for her silenced .45 and knew in her soul she'd never make it. There
was no cover to duck behind, either. A muffled bark came from behind her,
the man fell backwards. Angel had gotten her gun out first.
"Let's go now," Angel screeched. Sherry turned to run for the airplane when
two more men came from around the hangar. Angel nailed one, the second one
fired a shot that seemed very loud compared to Angel's shots. Sherry gasped
and fell in pain as the bullet hit her in the side. She retained her hold
on the pistol and rolled, then fired from the ground at her attacker. She
shot him four times.
Nobody else showed up. Angel helped Sherry up. "How badly are you hurt,"
she asked.
"I don't know," Sherry said, feeling the pain lance through her. "Help me
get my shirt off." Angel did so. The bullet had cut a deep groove in her
left side about an inch below her breasts and apparently smashed at least
one rib. It was bleeding freely. Sherry had Angel remove the ace bandage
from her breasts and wrap it around her torso over the bullet wound. "Help
me get into the cockpit," Sherry said.
Angel looked at her. "Can you fly like this?"
Sherry gestured at the three bodies lying on the taxiway. "You want to stay
around and explain to the police what happened here?"
Angel shook her head and helped Sherry get into the front cockpit, then she
got into the back. Sherry experimented, it hurt to move her left arm but
most of the time she wouldn't have to, the T-28 was flown with a military
stick used by the right hand. Out of habit, she turned on the master switch
and then turned on the pre-oiler. After five minutes of running the
electric oil pump, she primed the hell out of the engine and hit the
starter. One, two, three, four, she switched the magnetos on and the big
radial rumbled into life. She found the avionics master and turned the
radio on to ground control to monitor what was going on.
When the SH-3s called in for their clearances, Sherry taxied the T-28 down
the row of hangars to the far end of the taxiway. She listened on the
radio, switching frequencies with the SH-3s. She couldn't hear their side
of the conversations as they had military VHF radios, but she could hear the
controllers talking to them as their radios transmitted on both VHF and UHF
channels.
The SH-3s passed overhead. Sherry said "Here we go" into the intercom and
pushed the propeller control forward, then the throttle. The roar of the
radial echoed from the hangars as the T- 28 thundered down the taxiway. The
first sight the tower had was the T-28 rising over the roofline of the
hangars. Sherry raised the landing gear and the flaps and turned to angle
away from the SH-3s. The tower crew called frantically on the radio, Sherry
ignored them. She wanted to laugh, but it hurt to even think about it.
Sherry stayed low for several miles, keeping her eye on the helicopters.
When they were almost too far to see, she advanced the throttle and flew an
intercepting course. The angle was shallow enough that they shouldn't see
her. She flew a curved path at the end to bring the T-28 behind the SH-3s
at about one hundred feet. With any luck the men on the air-search radars
would have their primary target gain a little low and they might not pick
her up until she was a lot closer. She set a radio to the emergency (or
guard) frequency of 121.5 MHz. Sherry knew the standard drill was to try to
establish contact on that frequency.
What Sherry didn't know was that she had been tracked almost from takeoff
by an E-2C Hawkeye, the naval version of AWACS. That caused a quick rush on
the carrier to launch the Combat Air Patrol fighters, they had been sitting
in Alert-15 as no real need for them was foreseen. The flight deck crews
ran through the drill at a fast speed and both F-14s were launched in just
over ten minutes.
Sherry did see the F-14s coming her way, though. As she watched, their
wings swept forward and the flaps and slats deployed to enable the fighters
to slow to her speed. She pressed the push- to-talk button and said: "Good
afternoon, boys."
"Tango Two Eight, identify yourself and state your intentions."
Sherry read the registration number of the T-28 and added: "Pilot is
Anderson, Lieutenant, US Navy, Sierra Sierra November [she read her social
security number], state approximately three plus zero zero, two souls on
board, one wounded. Intentions are to land your home plate."
To say her transmission raised a fuss on the carrier was an understatement.
The carrier group commander, Rear Admiral Carter, turned to his Chief of
Staff, he ordered a secure radio link to the Commander of the Bureau of
Personnel, priority flash. He then took command of the air warfare picture
away from the cruiser who was running it. He ordered the F-14s to escort
the T-28 and have it circle around the carrier at a ten mile radius. The
lead F-14 relayed the command on 121.5, RADM Carter heard Sherry reply:
"Roger, but don't fuck around too much. I took a round back there and I'm
bleeding." By now every ship and its captain in the battle group had 121.5
turned up.
The COS handed Admiral Carter the satellite secure radio handset. He keyed
the set and said "BuPers, this is ComCarGru Seven, over." (ComCarGru Seven =
Commander, Carrier Group Seven)
The admiral at BuPers didn't have a radio set. He had to use a secure
telephone to a communications station. To let the tech at the commsta know
he wanted to talk, he would start his transmission by saying "one two three,
three two one." What Carter heard was "Two one, ComCarGru Seven, this is
BuPers himself, over." The `himself' let Carter know that the admiral in
charge was on the line. They weren't used to getting such high-priority
calls and the admiral was very curious what was going on.
Carter keyed the handset and waited for the synchronisation tone to stop.
"This is ComCarGru Seven himself. We have an interesting situation
developing." He relayed a quick sketch of the situation and Anderson's
service number. "Request you verify such an officer's existence, over."
"Three two one, this is Bupers. Roger, wait, out." It took five minutes to
pull a microfiche copy of Anderson's service record and rush it up to the
boss. His aide pooped it in a viewer, the admiral quickly read it. He
picked up the telephone: "One two three, three two one, Comcargru Seven,
this is Bupers, over."
Carter had bet his COS a coke it would take fifteen minutes to get an
answer. The COS didn't bother to hide his grin. "ComCarGru Seven, roger,
over." Everybody in flag plot gathered around to hear the information.
"Two one, this is BuPers. Name and number are verified. Officer is Samuel
Anderson, surface warfare. Did his first tour on Dahlgren, boiler officer
and gunnery officer. Fitreps top 1%. Graduated destroyer school (he gave a
date and class number). Assigned to Alwyn as Engineer. How copy so far,
over"
"Copy all, continue, over."
"Three two one. Here's where it gets strange. Anderson served fifteen
months on Alwyn, then abruptly transferred to DIA.." (Defense Intelligence
Agency) "..classified program. Cover fitreps state `performing duties
assigned' and give top marks. Anderson selected to lieutenant commander,
promoted two months ago. No information on DIA work available, over."
"Roger, copy all. If I can, will send `personal for' to you when I get this
sorted out. No further traffic, over."
"Two one, BuPers, roger, out."
Carter put the headset down, then looked at the carrier's captain, who had
come into flag plot when he was told what was going on. "Captain, please
get on the 1MC.." (shipwide PA system) "..and see if there's anybody on
board who served with Anderson."
The captain nodded and did so. In a few minutes, the carrier's Main
Propulsion Assistant, Lieutenant Dumphrey, was standing in flag plot as the
admiral told him what was going on. "I want you to ask this person some
questions and try to determine if that's Anderson up there."
"Aye aye, sir." The Admiral handed him a handset. "Tango Two Eight, this is
ComCarGru Seven."
"Tango Two Eight."
"Anderson, this is Bill Dumphrey. How're you doing?"
"Been a long time, Bill. I've been better. Caught a round back in San
Jose. They going to let me land this beast?" Sherry let go of the mike
button and spit in her hand. The saliva was tinged with blood.
"I need to ask a few questions, first."
"Don't stretch it out. I'm coughing up blood."
"How do you light a torch?"
"With a Zippo lighter."
"Which safety do you set first?"
"Superheater."
"What's a Jones class frigate?"
"No such thing. Jones was that jackass who sat behind you at Destroyer
School."
Dumphrey ran through about a dozen more questions, then turned to Admiral
Carter. "That doesn't sound like Anderson, Admiral, but he sure knows
enough about Anderson to be him."
Carter nodded. "Did you know Anderson could fly?"
"Yes, sir. He was in the base flying club. He seemed to be pretty good."
"Ok, son, thanks." He picked up the handset. "Two eight, ComCargru Seven."
"Two eight."
"You carrier qualified in T-28s?"
"No, don't have much choice, though."
"Can you bail out or ditch?"
"Negative. No parachutes. Life jackets of unknown quality. Passenger
unfamiliar with emergency egress, not too sure I can survive a ditching,
either."
"Landing on a carrier isn't a piece of cake, either."
"Maybe not, but it's the best choice I have. Request permission to come
aboard, sir."
"Roger, permission granted. Stand by." Carter said to no one in particular:
"Set flight quarters, prepare to recover a T-28. And make damn sure the
crash crews and the corpsmen are ready."
Sherry looked down at the carrier and saw it turn to align the wind with the
angle deck. About fucking time, she thought.
"Two eight, this is Paddles." (Paddles was the term for the Landing Signals
Officer, the one who had final control of the landing of all airplanes. The
term derived from the old days when the LSO used hand paddles to signal the
landing airplanes.)
"Two eight."
"I want you to fly an upwind over me at one thousand. Slow, drop your gear
and hook, and fly a standard pattern. Don't think of the deck as moving,
think of it as being stationary with a strong headwind. Keep the meatball
in the center of the mirror. When you land, go to full power in case you
miss a wire. Got that?"
"Roger." Sherry told Angel: "They're going to let us land. Make sure your
harness is as tight as you can make it, you'll hit it hard when we land."
"Ok, all set." Angel was terrified, but she kept quiet. Sherry broke away
from the F-14s and turned towards the carrier. She throttled back somewhat
and pushed the nose down. She flew over the carrier, pulled the throttle
back, pushed the propeller control to the stops, and dropped the landing
gear and the tailhook. Three green for the gear and one for the hook. She
turned to a crosswind, then to a downwind. When the carrier looked right,
she throttled back more and started the approach. The flaps went down on
the base leg.
She almost turned final astern of the carrier, then realized that she had to
turn for the angle of the flight deck, not the stern of the ship.
"A little low, add power, bring her up onto the glide slope," Paddles
commanded.
Sherry did that and quickly adjusted to the guidance of the mirror landing
system. She had to keep the ball in the center of the mirror.
"On slope, looking good. Keep her coming."
Sherry didn't acknowledge the advice, she flew the airplane. A little high,
reduce power and ease the nose down. She was approaching the deck, she
flared but didn't try to kill all of the sink rate. The landing gear
slammed into the deck, Sherry rammed the throttle forward as she was thrown
against the harness when the tailhook caught the number four wire. She
screamed in pain and greyed out, but retained enough composure to pull the
throttle back. Her vision returned, she saw people gesturing madly for her
to raise the tailhook and taxi away from the landing area. Sherry followed
the directions of the plane director. When he motioned for her to cut the
engine, she pulled the mixture out, shut off the master and flicked the mag
switches off when the prop stopped turning. She remembered popping the
canopy latch, but nothing after that.
There was a large group of people out on the observation areas when Sherry
made her approach. Word had gotten out that somebody who was not
carrier-qualified was going to try to land a T-28. Her approach was a
little unsteady, but nothing really unusual. The T- 28 slammed into the
deck in the "controlled crash" that was a carrier landing. Admiral Carter
muttered "Not bad, son" when he saw the hook grab the number four wire. The
prop blades were still spinning to a stop when the medical team climbed onto
the wing. They lifted Sherry out of the cockpit and laid her in a Stokes
litter. A doctor quickly checked her over and then they lifted the litter
and hustled her to sickbay. Other flight deck crewmen helped Angel out of
the rear seat. She was taken to a stateroom and initially held
incommunicado, although she was given magazines to read. Lunch was brought
to her.
The hospital crew had been told their patient was a wounded man, they were a
little surprised to find he was a she, but figured that the staff had
screwed up again. They prepped Sherry for surgery and ran her into the OR.
The carrier had a Naval Investigative Service agent embarked, he went
through the pockets of Sherry's clothes and brought the contents up to flag
country.
Admiral Carter was having lunch with his COS, the ship's captain, and the
commander of the air wing. The NIS agent handed him Sherry's passport
without comment. Carter took it and opened it to the photo. "What the
Christ is going on," he said and handed the passport to the COS, who looked
at it and passed it to the other two officers. BuPers had faxed Anderson's
service record, which included a photo. Carter took the photo and compared
it to the passport. He noted that the birthdays were identical.
The COS was looking over his shoulder. "Could it be his twin sister?"
Carter shrugged. "No mention of a sister on his Page Two." (A "page two" is
the record of emergency information.) He looked at the agent. "As soon as
she's out of surgery, pull a set of prints and fax them to NIS, op immediate
priority."
"Yes, sir," the agent replied. "She was also heavily armed. She had three
pistols on her person, one of them is a silenced .45 that has been fired
very recently. Her passenger has a Canadian passport that identifies her as
Angel Henandez. she also had a silenced .45 that was recently fired."
Carter rolled his eyes. "This smells like the sort of covert crap that
North was up to his ears in. Get the prints off as soon as you can."
The agent nodded and left. Carter took a message blank and rapidly wrote a
message, pausing a few times to refer to different pieces of paper, then
handed it to his COS. "What do you think of this, Ray?"
The COS took the message. It was an update to the oprep (operational
report) the admiral had sent off when Sherry first asked to land. The
update gave more details, such that the pilot was a woman, her passport
number, and that both occupants of the airplane were armed. It listed the
registration and serial number of the T-28. What caught the COS's attention
was the classification: SECRET SI NOFORN WINTEL (SI = special intelligence
NOFORN = do not distribute to foreign nationals WINTEL= warning,
intelligence sources and methods). "Why the classification, Admiral?"
"I don't want this one being handed about to everyone in the offices.
Something funny is going on here and we had best keep a lid on until we
figure out just what the story is."
The COS called radio central for a messenger. When the sailor arrived, he
handed over the message form and ordered that the typed copy be brought back
for proofreading.
Things got going ashore once the messages arrived. NIS agents checked the
FBI files and found only a card for Sherry Anderson. No card existed for
Samuel Anderson, even though he had to have been fingerprinted several
times. Another agent went to the Bureau of Vital Statistics in Sherry's
home state and found a birth certificate for her in the files. Though the
old registers listed Sam's birth, no birth certificate existed for him. The
old registers didn't have a listing for Sherry.
One of the senior agents in Suitland, MD (NIS HQ) noted that one of Sam's
hobbies was shooting. He also noted that Sam had been stationed in South
Carolina. Since the agent knew that SC required fingerprinting of
out-of-state military who buy pistols, he dispatched an agent to check with
South Carolina's Law Enforcement Division (what they call the state cops).
Sure enough, there were two fingerprint cards in SLED's files. The agent
faxed one of the cards to Suitland.
When the agent there compared the two, he smiled with some satisfaction.
Whoever had done all this work was smart, but nothing beats legwork.
Bureaucracy can move very quickly when there is a need to. Admiral Carter
had a summary of the findings so far in his hand when Sherry regained
consciousness in sick bay. While he wanted to start asking questions, he
waited until the doctor said it was ok to go and talk to her.
Like most post-surgical patients, Sherry looked awful. She had a catheter
and a drain from the surgical site and two IV bottles going into one drip.
Her eyes were open and registering her surroundings. Her first thought was
"I can't be dead, I hurt too damn much."
Carter came into sick bay. Sherry saw him and instinctively tried to come
to attention. "At ease, Anderson," Carter said. he had his doubts about
everything until he saw her try to snap to. That told him she had been in
the service for a long time. "How're you feeling, Commander?"
"I've been better, sir. Did you say `commander?'"
Carter nodded. "You were promoted to lieutenant commander effective two
months ago. If you are feeling up to it, I have some questions to ask."
Sherry smiled weakly. "I'll bet you do, Admiral."
Carter turned his head slightly and motioned. Sailors brought in recording
gear, both audio and a video camera and set them up. A stenographer brought
a chair in and sat down. Sherry had closed her eyes while the preps were
going on. Microphones were placed to pick up their words. Both Sherry and
the admiral spoke for a sound level check.
Carter started the recording. "This recording was made on (he gave the
date) in the sick bay of the USS Ranger. I am Rear Admiral Thomas Carter,
United States Navy. I am interrogating, please state your name, rank,
social security number and designator."
"Anderson, Sherry P. Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy. (She cited a
social security number) with a designator of 1110."
"Are you the same officer who is known to the Bureau of Naval Personnel as
Samuel P. Anderson with the same social security number and designator?"
"Yes, sir, I am."
"The last official knowledge the Navy has of you was that you were abruptly
transferred from the Alwyn. Yesterday you landed aboard the USS Ranger in a
T-28 registered in Costa Rica that was presumably stolen. You were flying
the aircraft and had a passenger identified as Angel Hernandez who was
carrying a stolen Canadian passport. Both of you were armed; among the
weapons were two suppressed .45 automatics that had been recently fired. Is
this a true summation?"
"Yes, sir, it is."
Carter nodded. "Let's go back to the Alwyn. I want you to tell me in as
much detail as you can what transpired from then until now. As you are
recovering from surgery, we will recess and reconvene as you desire."
Over the next four days, Sherry did just that. The sessions were first
fairly short, then lengthened as she regained her stamina. As much as she
could, she named every name she could and gave details of places. Each day
a copy of the tapes was sent to Washington. To preclude any problems in
customs, they were flown directly from the carrier to San Diego by C-3s.
Couriers then took military flights to Andrews Air Force Base. Suitland was
a short drive from Andrews.
The GPS cassette was taken to the manufacturer. They had no difficulty in
extracting the course programmed in. A check with the Defense Mapping
Agency confirmed that the course and altitude would have resulted in a
crash.
NIS agents fanned out over the country to verify her story. The survival
training, the training base, employment records, all were as Sherry said.
There were some discrepancies in the details, but nobody can remember
everything perfectly. Sherry had carried her latest pilot's logbook with
her, the entries were verified at the airports where it was possible to do
so.
One of the return flights to the Ranger brought some agents who wanted to
ask more questions. When they showed some of Sherry's testimony to Angel,
she told her story and her view of what had happened. The same flight
brought some uniforms for Sherry, wash khakis and underwear. In five days
she was starting to move around the ship a little. The steepness of the
ladders were tough, yet she kept at it.
By now the investigation was being run by the Navy's Inspector General and
the chief of Naval Intelligence. They took a very dim view of someone
sending one of their people on what amounted to an unknown suicide mission.
The NIS found a lot of resistance to their inquiries at the training base,
until they showed up with some subpoenas and a US Marshal. The first person
who refused them access was arrested by the Marshal; everyone else fell into
line and showed the agents what they wanted to see.
It was like unravelling a sweater. Each lead led to others. By the time
Sherry had been on the Ranger for two weeks, the NIS had found that a group
of DIA people were recruiting TVs and TSs for clandestine missions that had
a very low survival rate. Eighty had been recruited before Sherry, of whom
only nine were either alive or not in a foreign prison. The six who were in
prison were released by paying substantial bribes (not all of which involved
money).
Bureaucracies never learn a simple lesson: destroy the files. The other
intelligence agencies seized on the case as a way to shut down the
operations of a group of cowboys they had long despised. Six people were in
the training pipeline, two of whom had completed SRS. They were all offered
discharges with considerable severance pay. The four who hadn't had surgery
were given enough money to easily complete the process if they chose to.
While the other agencies were able to shut the operation down, nobody ever
proved any significant illegal activities on the part of those running it.
All the funds were accounted for. They had forged a lot of official
records, but every intelligence agency does that at one time or another.
Nobody was interested in making that a crime.
Sherry didn't see Angel again. She was quietly loaded onto a C-3 one night
and flown to San Diego. Once there, she was debriefed by a team of agents.
When the briefing was done, she was placed in the Witness Protection Program
and was never heard from again.
Sherry rapidly gained her strength back. The carrier's engineer wanted her
to grade some training exercises, but Admiral Carter vetoed that proposal.
So she spent her time roaming around the ship, and found that wherever she
went she was welcome. Part of her welcome was because she was friendly,
part of it was because she was the only woman on a ship of six thousand men.
She made a point of visiting the main machinery spaces as the engineers on a
carrier are rarely recognized by outsiders for the hard work they do.
Admiral Carter called Sherry to his cabin the night before the Ranger
returned to San Diego. He offered her coffee, then asked the steward to
leave.
"Sherry, we have a slight problem," the admiral said.
"How so, sir?"
"As you know, the law prohibits women serving on warships. But what we have
in you is a woman who has served on two combatants. There's no way to
disguise that in your service record. We can change the names on the
fitreps (fitness reports, the grading form for officer evaluations), but we
can't change the duty assignments you've had. Anybody who looks at your
record will know that something's seriously wrong.
"Now you may not know this, but under OPNAVINST (Chief of Naval Operations
Instruction) 1630 transsexualism is a cause for immediate discharge."
Sherry interrupted. "I'm aware of that regulation, sir."
Carter nodded. "However, you weren't discharged when it became known you
were a transsexual. You were allowed to stay in and the surgery was
performed at government expense. A barely competent lawyer could argue that
such funding meant that your transsexualism was acceptable to the service.
"On the other hand, we have the matter of the stolen T-28 and the killings
at the San Jose airport. We could link you to the shootings and the theft
of the airplane, but that could create some real embarrassment for the
government. So what I'm offering you is a three-part deal. Are you
interested?"
"I'm listening, Admiral."
"First we deal with the criminal charges. I'll hold Admiral's Mast and find
you not guilty of theft, possession of various weapons without proper
authorization, and murder. Once I clear you of those charges, you can't be
tried again.
"Second, if you'll resign your commission, I am authorized to offer you a
severance bonus of one hundred thousand dollars, tax free.
"Third, we have been in contact with the cargo carrier you flew for in
Wisconsin. They are willing to take you back if you can show them an
honourable discharge, which you will be given as part of the deal. That's
the package." He sat back in his chair and waited for her response.
It took Sherry three seconds to say yes. Admiral's Mast was held in thirty
minutes, with her being cleared of all the charges. Sherry was given a
military ID card so she could check into the BOQ upon arrival at San Diego.
The arrangement was that she had three days to buy a small wardrobe of
clothes, then she would be discharged.
The T-28 was unloaded under cover of darkness at San Diego. The elderly
radios in the T-28 were replaced with top of the line ones with a selection
of avionics from drug-smuggler's airplanes. The engine was overhauled,
hydraulic systems refurbished, and the airplane was repainted. The T-28's
owner had lost a tired airplane, what he got back was one that was in show
condition, so he was very happy.
Sherry made her way back to Madison, Wisconsin, and resumed flying DC-3s on
night cargo runs. As for what happened after that, well, that's the subject
of another story.
2. Part
He was smiling as always. The grin was a superior one, of a man who knew he
had the advantage and wasn't hesitant in letting you know.
He was fast, very fast. He had his pistol out and aimed before she had hers
clear of the holster. She tried to bring the nose of the .45 to bear, but
her brain was screaming that it was too late, way too late. He shook his
head slightly and squeezed the trigger....
The alarm woke her bolt upright. In spite of the heat of the midsummer
day, Sherry was shivering. The dream was coming more frequently. She
thought it was some delayed reaction to her Central American adventure, but
who knew for sure?
One thing was certain, there was nobody she could talk to about it. The
repercussions from her unexpected survival had torn part of the DIA apart.
Nothing ever hit the papers, except a brief mention of a drug-related
shootout at the San Jose airport. The training center had been shaken up, a
lot of the people in the clandestine section that had recruited Sherry were
shunted off to dead-end jobs to await retirement or were forcibly retired.
The psychologists who were in the section certainly wouldn't want to see her
again. Any other shrink would probably think she was crazy when she told
the story. Best to just hope the dreams go away.
Whatever a shrink might think, it had all happened. She knew that every
month when $1,500 (adjusted periodically for inflation) was deposited in her
investment account. If that wasn't enough, there was the Colt Commander
that was in her handbag or on her body, along with the credentials that
allowed her to carry it anywhere she desired.
Sherry threw the sheet off her body and went to the bathroom to take a
shower and relieve herself. While she showered, she thought about the
reunion with her parents. They weren't exactly overjoyed to find their son
was now a woman. They wouldn't have believed the story she told if it
wasn't for Rear Admiral Carter. He had an intelligence officer go with
Sherry and confirm her story. Her father hadn't said anything, he just left
the room after the explanations had been given. Her mother asked for her
address and phone number and said that they'd call, but to give them time.
That was six months ago. They hadn't called or written, so Sherry figured
that they had made their decision.
Enough. She had to be at the base in two hours to get ready for her flight.
The uniform was a lot simpler than the crews of the major airlines had to
wear, just a white shirt with epaulets (four stripes to indicate she was a
captain), black trousers and flat lace-up shoes. She was thankful she
didn't have to wear a jacket, a stupid-looking hat or makeup. The cargo
containers wouldn't have been impressed, anyway.
She grabbed an overnight bag (in case they got stuck), her flight bag,
handbag, and she was out the door. Sherry started her Honda and drove the
fifteen miles to LaCrosse airport. It was easy enough to live a lot closer,
but Sherry relished the time it took to drive, except in the winter. The
drive was easy and there wasn't any problem parking at the cargo terminal.
Sherry clipped on her security badge and went inside.
The flight was the same as it was yesterday and since she had returned.
Sherry and Tony, the co-pilot, would fly a DC-3 from LaCrosse to Madison,
then on to Rockford, Illinois and finally to Midway Airport in Chicago. At
each stop they'd receive a load of cargo. The cargo would be shifted at MDW
to a cargo jet and taken to a sorting facility in Tennessee. Then the jet
would return to MDW and they'd fly the DC-3 back to RFD, MSN, and home to
LSE. They would fly IFR down to ensure sequencing into the Chicago Terminal
Control Area. If the weather was good, they'd cancel IFR after leaving the
TCA and fly VFR back. The cargo volume was growing, there was some
discussion recently of shifting the routes around so that RFD would be
picked up by another route and the present route would start at Minneapolis.
Nothing was certain so far.
The weather wasn't unusual, a chance of scattered thunderstorms but
otherwise a fine night. The projected cargo weight wasn't a concern to
Sherry, the cargo containers generally cubed out first (meaning they were
full but not overweight).
Tony was preflighting the DC-3. After he finished, Sherry went out and
spot-checked his work. While she often varied what she looked at, most
often she inspected the exhaust stacks for cracks as a cracked stack could
cause an in-flight fire. This particular airframe was over fifty years old.
Airline captains have to retire at age 60, it was a good bet that DC-3s
would be earning their keep well past that age.
Every manufacturer since 1946 has tried to make an "airplane that is as good
as a DC-3." While others have replaced DC-3s in airline work, the DC-3 still
flies even as the airplanes that succeeded them have been retired to museums
or scrapped. The DC-3 gave Douglas a reputation for quality that lasted
until the DC-10 debased it.
Sherry was fond of the DC-3. She liked the solidity of the airplane and
flying it on the same route every time. Her recent adventure in South
America had given her her fill of excitement for a good while. As others
left the cargo airline to pursue careers with the majors, Sherry's seniority
crept up. Her life was boring, and she liked it that way.
She clambered up into the cockpit, Tony followed immediately afterwards.
Even with the side windows open it was hot in there. Sherry wadded up two
yellow foam earplugs and inserted them. Tony didn't use earplugs yet, but
she bet he would as soon as the hearing loss started showing up. Outside of
the airplane two mechanics were walking the propellers, turning the engines
over by hand to remove any oil from the bottom cylinders. They finished and
it was time.
Engine start: Sherry primed the right engine several times and engaged the
starter. She counted the propeller blades passing the cockpit, when the
fifteenth one appeared she switched the magnetos on. The engine caught with
the satisfying rumble of a 1,200 horsepower radial. Tony switched on the
radios and set them up while Sherry busied herself starting the left engine.
They now had their headsets on and were using the intercom for their
checklist recitations.
It took several minutes for the oil temperatures to rise enough to permit
taxiing out. Ground control had their IFR clearance: "Cleared as filed" as
usual with an expected climb to 5,000' ten minutes after takeoff.
The wind was up, a fact that made taxiing the DC-3 an art. Sherry locked
the tailwheel every time she could to help keep the airplane on the yellow
line. The tail was very susceptible to acting as a weathervane, Sherry used
differential power to counter the wind's effects.
She ran the engines up at the end of the taxiway. That made life a little
interesting for a Piper Warrior's pilot who taxied a little too closely
behind the DC-3. The other pilot may have expected the DC-3 to swing across
the taxiway for runup as did smaller airplanes, but the DC-3 was too big to
do that without the risk of wiping out a taxiway light.
The tower granted takeoff clearance, Sherry taxied out onto the runway and
rolled forward enough to ensure the tailwheel was straight. She locked the
tailwheel and added power. When the airspeed indicator showed 40 knots, she
raised the tail and brought the airplane to a level attitude. Tony called
the airspeeds, at the V2 speed of 84 knots, Sherry rotated (bringing the
nose up) and the DC-3 stately left the runway. She called for the flaps to
be brought up before reaching the limit speed.
"Gear up." Tony reached down and unlocked the mechanical latch, then he
moved the gear handle to "up." The green light went out, Sherry and Tony
looked out their respective windows to confirm that the gear was up. Tony
moved the gear lever into the neutral position, where hydraulic system
pressure held the wheels up.
The tower handed the flight off to Minneapolis Center, all routine. Sherry
was flying the leg, Tony worked the radios. Minneapolis handed them off to
Chicago Center, who in turn passed them along to Madison Approach Control,
and then to the tower. Somebody in a Cessna 182 was making a complete hash
of an instrument approach to Madison, the controllers kept trying to
straighten him out and meanwhile kept the scheduled flights and the general
traffic (at least the ones who did know what they were about) flowing
evenly.
The cargo container was loaded with all the efficiency that the air freight
company was richly famous for. The differences in starting this time were
that Tony only had to roll six propeller blades before engaging the mags and
that he flew to Rockford with Sherry handling the other cockpit chores. The
cargo loading drill was completed in the usual amount of time and they
taxied out for the leg to Midway.
There was nothing memorable about the leg into Midway. The controllers did
an efficient job sequencing the slower cargo aircraft in amongst the
passenger jets. They were parked on the cargo line in order of departure,
the slowest and smallest airplanes would leave first so that none of them
had to hold for wake turbulence from the previous departure.
Sherry shut the engines down. It was cooler on the ramp here now that the
sun had set. She and Tony went into ops to check on their load and to
arrange fuel. It was all very routine.
Or it was until they were walking down a corridor to the cafeteria. A man
in a suit came up and said: "Captain Anderson? His tone of voice was of
one who knew who he was addressing. When Sherry nodded, he continued:
"Would you come with me, please, there are some matters to discuss." He
flashed an FBI badge in a way that Tony couldn't see it.
"All right," Sherry said. To Tony: "I'll catch up to you later." He
shrugged and went on to find some chow. After he went around a corner,
Sherry asked to see the credentials again. The agent showed them. Peter
Garrison. "Am I under arrest, Mr. Garrison?"
He smiled. "No, just the opposite. We may be able to help you. Just come
with me and I'll explain it all to you."
"Ok, it's your nickel." Garrison led the way to a set of office and opened
the door. He went in first, Sherry followed. There was a man sitting in a
chair in the office. It was Keith, the firearms instructor from the
training center.
Keith stood up and extended his hand. "`Lo, Sherry, it's been awhile."
Sherry shook his hand. "Yup. I assume with the FBI agent here that this
isn't a social visit?"
Garrison indicated they should sit in a conference area. It had four chairs
around a small table. There were some file folders lying there. "You come
right to the point, Ms. Anderson. Do you know this man?" He extracted a
photo from the top file and handed it to her.
Sherry studied it for several seconds. "He looks like someone I've seen
around the center, but I didn't have anything to do with him."
"His name is Jack Gullenswan, and he was at the center when you were. What
he was doing is immaterial, but it was cancelled when your case blew up. He
holds you responsible for it and he's apparently going to act on his
beliefs."
Sherry looked at the agent wit some destain. "You want to translate that
into English?"
Keith answered. "Jack's going to try to kill you."
Sherry chewed on that. "What does he know?"
"Not a hell of a lot," said Garrison. "He probably knows where you live and
what you do, all of that's easy to learn. He doesn't know your history or
what skills you have."
"I see. What's his area of expertise?"
Garrison looked at Keith. Keith took the hint, he handed Sherry a folder.
"He's a sniper, a long-range rifleman. He's damn good, capable of hitting a
target on the first shot at 800 meters. Other than that, he has some
moderate skill at other weapons and unarmed combat."
"Does he have a weapon?"
Garrison nodded. "He recently purchased a Ruger rifle, chambered for .300
Winchester Magnum. He also bought an 8-power scope. He had the sight
mounted and he's been to a rifle range for sighting-in and practice."
"And?"
Keith sighed. "And he's good with it. The range goes to 500 meters, he
uses every damn inch. He bought some top-quality bullets and he's making
his own loads. We don't know what he's shooting, but he is grouping
sub-MOA, sometimes within .5."
Sherry was impressed. That meant Gullenswan could keep his shot groups
inside a 2-1/2" circle at a quarter-mile. It was some shooting. "Is he
still working for the government?"
"No, he resigned from the civil service two months ago," answered Garrison.
"Before you ask, we're keeping an eye on him, but that's all we can do. He
hasn't broken any laws and if he's careful, he won't."
Not until he actually fires at me, thought Sherry. She gestured at the
file. "Can I have a copy of this?"
Garrison nodded. "You can have most of it. I'll FedEx a package to you."
Isn't that convenient, Sherry thought. She stood up. "Thanks for the
information, Agent Garrison." They shook hands. She turned to Keith. "If
you're up around LaCrosse anytime, stop by."
"Sure will."
Sherry left the office and went to the cafeteria. Tony was at a table with
a few other pilots, he was working at a large serving of the "special of the
night." She shuddered, how he was able to eat as much as he did and not put
on weight was a mystery. She joined the line and picked up a bowl of soup
and a salad. Tonly looked at her with some curiosity when she sat down but
he said nothing.
Sherry mulled over the meeting all the way back to LaCrosse. She thought a
lot of her house and how to make it hard for Gullenswan to get to her.
Covering the windows was a first step, then she'd have to figure out how to
minimize her exposure to the outside in other ways. The area across the
street form her home was open country with some hills. If she wanted to
shoot someone in her home, that'd be the place to do it. Even better,
people sometimes used the land for target shooting, a gunshot wouldn't be a
cause for alarm.
It was apparent that whatever the FBI wanted, they weren't going to do
anything to Gullenswan until he broke the law. If she wanted to stay alive,
it was up to her to think of how to do it.
Sherry found a tape measure as soon as she came home. She measured her
windows and made a run to a drapery store. The saleslady seemed a little
puzzled at Sherry's insistence that the curtains be light-tight, but a
sale's a sale. Sherry also bought all the mounting hardware she needed to
hang them on the windows that weren't already set up for curtains. It took
her two days to hang them all. Then she turned the lights on in her house
and went outside at night. She made adjustments in different ones until she
was satisfied that nobody could see into her house.
That necessitated other changes. She had to buy grow lights so her plants
wouldn't die. The air was stuffy, so she rigged frames to hold the curtains
away from the open windows and yet not allow them to blow open. If she
didn't work at night and sleep in the day it might have been a little too
much, as it was it was like living in a cave.
She studied the material Garrison had sent to her. Outsied of telling in
detail what a good shot Gullenswan was, it didn't help much. The FBI had a
loose surveillance on Gullenswan, so she knew he wasn't around. That gave
her a little time, she went to a sporting goods store and bought an
inexpensive 8-power riflescope. She then started to cover the ground all
around her house, looking at the house through the `scope. What she was
trying to do was to determine where the best places to use for shooting at
her house.
A noise startled her on one of her surveys, she turned around to see a
6-point whitetail buck. She didn't move, the deer looked her over but
didn't run off. Sherry shifted, the deer ran off, his tail up. Sherry
smiled, now she knew why Gullenswan hadn't shown up yet. He was waiting for
hunting season. Nobody'd question why someone was out with a rifle then,
nobody'd think anything of a shot or two.
It took several days, but Sherry soon had a rough map of possible shooting
positions. One of them was what she'd choose, it had a clear view of the
front and side doors from a slight rise. The range was about 400 yards.
She then walked around to find a position that covered it and as many of the
other areas as she could. Her plan was gelling as she walked around: She
would get into position before Gullenswan did. Once he showed up and she
was satisfied that he was gunning for her, then she would follow the old
Code of the West: Do Unto Others Before They Do You.
What she needed was a sniper-grade rifle. She had the money but didn't have
the time needed to put one together and test it out. So she called Keith
and outlined her plan. He listened, said it sounded reasonable to him, and
that he'd be in LaCrosse the day after tomorrow when she returned from her
cargo run.
Keith showed up at the appointed time with a long silver rifle case and a
smaller bag. Sherry showed him to an empty office, he laid the case on the
desk and popped the latches. Sherry said "wow" in appreciation. Keith
lifted the rifle out and handed it to her. It was an M-21 sniper rifle, a
highly accurate M-14 with a Leatherwood scope. The sight itself was the
heart of the rifle, it adjusted the elevation for the drop of the bullet.
The case contained several hundred rounds of ammunition and spare magazines.
Keith cleared his throat. "I know you won't be engaging in any firefights,
but you might want to go do some practising."
Sherry smiled. "It's a beauty." Then she turned serious. "I think I know
what Gullenswan's plan is." She outlined her belief that he'd be in the area
during whitetail season and try to shoot her then.
Keith listened and nodded. "It makes sense. I'm guessing that you plan to
be able to stop him?"
Sherry nodded. "From what I know the police can't do a damn thing until he
breaks the law. And if what I'm suspecting is right, he won't until he
shoots. That's too late to do my ass any good."
"True, but don't forget that he's a better shot with a rifle than you are,
and he has a rifle capable of longer range than you'll be able to use the
M-21 effectively. It'll shoot accurately out to 900 yards, but you'd be
kidding yourself if you try to go much over 400. And if you miss your first
shot, he might nail you.
"And one other thing: Get a good pair of binoculars for spotting. Don't
use the riflescope for anything except target acquisition. If you use a
riflescope for spotting, someone else might see that as an unfriendly act
and react accordingly."
"Good idea," Sherry said.
Sherry started spending some time at a rifle range. After she verified
the sight's settings and became familiar with the rifle, she stopped using
the bench rest and began practising other shooting positions, especially
prone and kneeling. Standing wasn't going to be much use to her, but she
did shoot it enough to know how. The rifle had a Harris bipod which added
to the weight but made prone shooting a lot easier.
One conclusion she reached was that estrogen had cut into her strength quite
a bit. No doubt that Sam wouldn't have had anywhere near as much trouble
handling the weight of a loaded M-21. She regretted briefly that Keith
hadn't given her a AR-15A2HB to save a few pounds. But she didn't expect to
be humping the boonies with the M-21 if things worked according to her plan.
The FBI watch on Gullenswan was able to tip her off when he began his trip
towards LaCrosse. Sherry then went into her plan. She drove her car to the
airport and made sure she was seen boarding a commercial flight to Chicago.
This flight stopped at Madison (like her cargo run), where she slipped off
the airplane. a trusted friend met her at the airport and drove her back to
LaCrosse with the arrival planned for 3am. The last part of the drive to
her house and away were done with the lights off. Sherry changed into her
fighting clothes grabbed her gear: rifle, equipment, shelter half,
clothing, food, and water. She then donned a pair of night-vision goggles
and headed for her position.
It was cold at night and Sherry was thankful her gear was up to it. She was
set in a natural depression near the top of a hill about 800 yards from her
house, it covered several of the shooting positions she had scouted out.
Now it was a matter of waiting.
Whitetail season started the next day, sporadic gunfire could he heard as
soon as the sun came up and legal shooting commenced. Sherry checked out
every movement she could see, a fair number of hunters were either
stand-hunting or still-hunting. Most of them had on blaze-orange coats and
hats, which made spotting them easier. A couple looked like Gullenswan but
none of them appeared to be doing anything else than deer hunting. She did
see one hunter shoot a 4-point buck two hours into opening day, the deer ran
about 50 yards and collapsed. It was a well-placed shot. The hunter
field-dressed the deer and dragged it out to the road.
She saw him on the third day, or thought she had. Sherry was using the
night-vision goggles and saw someone pick their way towards one of the
shooting positions at 5am. She tried to see him through the riflescope but
it was too damn dark. The man settled in, then she couldn't see him. Damn,
she thought, I'm just going to have to wait for daylight.
Now she had to keep very quiet, for it was dead calm. If she made any noise
she'd have to assume that whoever it was there would hear her. While the
dedicated hunters tried to be in their stands before dawn, few were in the
woods this early.
Dawn brought a major disappointment, she couldn't see the man, not very well
at least. There was enough to say that someone was there, she could
occasionally see some movement. But she couldn't see who was there, not
enough to make a positive ID. Sherry wasn't about to shoot someone just for
being in a suspicious place. She'd just have to wait. Maybe when he left
his stand.
The problem there was that he didn't leave that night. Sherry wanted to
move so she'd have a better view of the hunter, but she didn't trust her
woodsman skills enough to move and carry her gear without making any noise,
certainly not in the dark. This was going to get old very fast, and she was
playing his game.
The next morning brought no change in the situation. Any doubts that it was
Gullenswan there vanished when a ten-point buck walked by less than 100
yards from his position. That was a large deer, any legitimate hunter would
have shot at it. But the hunter there didn't. Now Sherry was sure beyond a
shadow of a doubt that he was her intended killer, but the same problem
remained: she couldn't see a decent target through the riflescope. If
Gullenswan was a good as they said he was, then she had to connect on the
first try.
-----------------------------------------------------
Sherry was right: It was Gullenswan down there. He had spotted her car in
the employee's parking lot at the cargo terminal, so he figured that she was
on a run. He knew that she flew night runs and got back soon after dawn.
His plan was to use the first morning as a dry run, to make sure that the
position was a good one and he could acquire the target. But now it was the
second morning and there was no sign of the target.
Something had to be wrong, but he didn't believe that she had been spooked.
A private detective had done a bit of surveillance a few weeks ago, nothing
was unusual then. He wished that he had the resources of the official jobs
for this one, rather than the unofficial contacts that were paying for him
now.
He watched his surroundings for awhile. As far as he could tell, there was
no surveillance. Few cars drove by, but they didn't stop or slow down.
They weren't the same cars, either. What air traffic flew overhead was
clearly going to the LaCrosse airport. He didn't see any sign of anyone
around him watching, but he knew that meant little if the watcher was good.
Maybe her airplane had broken down somewhere else. The only DC-3s he had
seen recently were in latin America and he wasn't impressed by their
reliability. For now, he'd wait this out. He had adequate supplies for a
few days and the weather, while cold at night, wasn't anywhere near as bad
as some other jobs he had been on. Certainly nothing like the Baltics in
February.
Nothing happened for two days. Then one afternoon, both Gullenswan's and
Sherry's attention were drawn to her house. A car slowed down and stopped
at the mailbox. Two riflescopes were trained on it. It was her car.
Sherry watched as a woman got out, pulled the mail out, and got back into
the car. Sherry recognized her, it was Marsha Frye, the maintenance
librarian. What the hell was she doing, Sherry wondered.
Gullenswan wasn't wondering. The woman was driving the target's car. She
was the right height and hair colour. Marsha got back into the car before
he decided to fire. She drove into the driveway and shut the car off.
Marsha picked up the mail and walked around the front of the car towards the
back door. he had a few seconds and he used them; he fired when she was
about four feet from the side of the house.
Sherry jumped when she heard the shot. Through the `scope on her rifle
she saw Marsha's arms go flying, scattering the accumulated mail everywhere.
Marsha collapsed, her momentum and the bullet caused her to fall towards the
house. All Sherry could see in her `scope was Marsha's body from the waist
down. She wasn't moving.
Sherry stifled the urge to run down, all that would do is get her killed.
She cursed her lack of foresight in not bringing a cellular phone, that way
she could stay concealed and call for help. Her only option was to wait and
hope that if Marsha wasn't dead, that she didn't die from inattention.
From Gullenswan's view, all he could see of his target was her legs.
Nothing moved for twenty minutes, so he got up and started to make his way
towards the target to verify the kill. He was very alert for any sounds or
changes. He didn't think that he was under surveillance, the police
wouldn't have let someone lie there shot. It was more a force of habit than
anything conscious.
Sherry saw him break cover. He moved through an area that was fairly
thick with trees and brush, she tracked him, adjusting her `scope to
compensate for the changes in range. There was no wind, she was thankful
for that. If he didn't come to a clear area, she'd shoot him when he
crossed the road to the house.
Gullenswan was moving slowly. Sherry kept her breathing regular to control
any excitement which could throw her shot off. She knew that she'd only get
one chance with him. If she missed, then she'd be playing his game. And he
was a master.
The cover was lessening. She took up the slack on the trigger, adding
pressure as the sight was on, holding if it wasn't or if Gullenswan wasn't
clear. Just like a range, she thought. Keep a good sight picture....WHAM!
Gullenswan felt the bullet hit him before he heard the shot. The impact
staggered him, but he stayed on his feet and tried to run for cover. Who
the fuck could that be, a corner of his mind wondered.
Sherry reacted and fired again. This time she saw him go down, losing
control of his rifle, which landed several feet away. She watched for five
minutes, then she broke cover. She didn't move as slowly as Gullenswan.
She checked him out from several feet away. His eyes were open and had an
opaque look to them that she had seen on dead deer. Just to be sure she
took the bolt from his rifle and threw it as far as she could, the rifle she
flung in another direction.
Now she was running to the house. A semi blew its horn in annoyance as she
cut in front of it. She slid to a stop and checked Marsha, she was still
breathing. Sherry bolted into the house and called Keith's emergency
number. Whoever took the call said he'd get help there, she was to sit
tight.
Help came quickly, a helicopter from the local trauma center landed across
the road in ten minutes. By then Sherry had taken some Saran Wrap and used
it to seal Marsha's chest wound, then she covered her with a few blankets
and held her hand.
The EMTs had Marsha on the helicopter in less than a minute. Sherry didn't
think to tell them about Gullenswan until the helicopter was over a mile
away.
She did tell the cops who showed up, one checked him and said he was dead,
but they called for an ambulance anyway. They asked her where the man's gun
was, it took them an hour to find it and longer to find the bolt. The cops
wanted to know if he had shot marsha, but were distinctly uninterested in
who had shot Gullenswan. Her rifle was still lying on the walk next to
where Marsha had been. Nobody even picked it up to check if it had been
fired.
Somebody had things pretty well arranged.
As soon as the cops left, Sherry picked up the scattered mail and her
rifle. She went inside and took a long, luxurious bath, enjoying the feel
of the water taking away the accumulated filth and stink of living outside
for several days. When she was done, she let the water run down the drain,
then she took a shower to remove any film that was on her body.
Next she took care of the rifle, breaking it down and cleaning the bore and
the chamber. It was indeed a fine rifle and it had done its part. Then she
got dressed to go to the hospital. She remembered a lesson a man had once
given her: the staff'll treat you better if you look as though you're on a
similar level professionally. So she wore her navy blue suit and a white
blouse, her interview suit, along with medium-height navy pumps. Most
interview suits, however, didn't conceal a snub-nosed .38 as hers did.
She could see some bloodstains on the sidewalk when she went out to her car.
Those would have to be cleaned, but she wasn't relishing the job. Marsha
was an innocent in the incident, it was unfair that she had to suffer for
it. Sherry had felt a little bad about her first two kills, especially the
second man, but she had no twinge at all about killing Gullenswan. If
anything, she wished he had suffered a little more.
The drive didn't take very long, about thirty minutes. Sherry found a space
in the vistor's lot and went into the main entrance. The volunteer on the
front desk, an elderly woman in her early 70s, used a computer terminal to
ascertain that Marsha Frye was in the operating room, she directed Sherry to
the appropriate waiting area.
Sherry didn't make it there, not just yet. A woman with an FBI badge
intercepted her and steered her to an office suite. Sherry took Keith's
presence there as validation that the people were who they said they were.
Keith came over, touched her on the shoulder, and said: "Nice shooting for
a girl." He said it in such a way that Sherry could take no offence. Sherry
just smiled. "I'd like to introduce Patricia Altan, the agent who brought
you here, Justin Hagar of the DIA and Terri Schiller of the CIA."
Sherry nodded. "Ok, what's up?" What now, she thought. She found a place
to sit.
Schiller took the floor. "What we need to do is several things. First, we
need to conduct a debriefing. Then we need to go over a cover story that'll
hold water. After that, we need to discuss some other loose ends."
First, the debriefing. They had Sherry tell them the whole chain of events,
from when she left her apartment to go to Madison until she came to the
hospital. As could be expected, different details emerged as they went over
it until they were satisfied that Sherry told everything she knew. Hagar
seemed to be a little skeptical of her unwillingness to fire until she was
positive it was Gullenswan, but Altan finally mentioned that if she had shot
the wrong person that they couldn't have covered for her.
The second issue was the cover story. Like any good lie, it had to be as
close to the truth as possible. The final version was that Sherry had taken
off for Madison on a short vacation. She had run into a friend and since
neither one was having much fun, they came home. Her friend had dropped her
off at her house and Sherry just vegged out for a few days. Sherry had
finally called Marsha and asked her to bring her car by, Marsha did so and
was hit by a stray round from a hunter. Sherry had not heard the car arrive
so she was unaware that Marsha had been shot for at least a half-hour.
Sherry wasn't too enthusiastic about it. As she put it: "The cops and the
paramedics saw me. Most people don't wait inside their home for a visitor
wearing camouflage clothing and carrying a sniper rifle. Hell, if they were
ten feet away, they probably could smell me."
Hagar thought about it. "Yeah, we may be getting too detailed on the story.
Let's just say she was hit by a stray bullet fired by a hunter. That's
close enough as we all know that Gullenswan wasn't trying to kill her
personally. If she survives, then there won't be a lot of press interest
anyway."
"Fine," Sherry said with little enthusiasm. It sounded weak to her, but
then again, people getting hit by stray rounds wasn't exactly front-page
news this time of year.
"Ok," Schiller said. "That takes part of the immediate problem. Now, what
do we do to preclude a repeat?"
"What are you talking about a `repeat,'" Sherry asked somewhat stridently.
"How many vengeful snipers do you have out there, for God's sake?" She
looked right at Hagar.
"I suppose I'd better explain what's going on."
"Damn right," muttered Sherry.
"What we have," he began, "is a group of people who have manipulated the
programs to benefit themselves. In plain language, they used the system to
make a lot of money. The people who run black programs have a wide range of
latitude to get the job done. They don't have a lot of oversight, because
any outside auditor would have to be read into the program and know the
whole scope of it. So in effect we mainly hope the people running the
programs don't get too greedy.
"That didn't happen with the program you were in. Some people decided to
steal everything they could. We were becoming suspicious and were working
to catch them when you showed up on that aircraft carrier. Then we quickly
shut everything down and went after the profiteers."
"So where do I fit in now, and why did Gullenswan want to kill me?"
"As I said, you were the reason we shut them down. Gullenswan had a finger
in the pie, so he wasn't too happy."
"How much did he take out of it?"
Hagar looked a little discomfited. "He was a minor player in the different
scams, we figure he netted about two-fifty over three years."
"`Two-fifty' what?"
"Thousand."
"Not bad. I take it there were others who did far better?"
"Yes."
"Do they hold me responsible for screwing up their action?"
"Hard to say. We really don't know."
"How were they taking money out of the program?"
"I don't see where you have a need to know that."
Sherry shook her head. "You didn't answer my second question, either:
Where do I fit in. So I think you need me for something, otherwise most of
you wouldn't be here. I'm not one of your operatives, I'm just a private
citizen. If you want me in on this, then tell me the story. Otherwise I'm
out. Understand?"
Nobody said anything. Sherry nodded, stood up, and started for the door.
She didn't look back as she left the office.
The receptionist at the waiting room told Sherry that Marsha was still in
the OR. Sherry knew something about survival rates, so she took that as a
hopeful sign, she settled in for a long wait.
This is all there is of this story
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