Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

It was solemnly decided that flying very important people--very senior military officers and high-ranking government officials--around in a C-20, the Air Force's designation for the Gulfstream III, would broaden his experience and hopefully cause him to forget the outrageously unconventional things he had learned and practiced in special operations.

When he had politely asked if he had any choice in the matter, he was politely told he did not and advised that down the line he would appreciate what was being done for him.

Shortly after he'd begun seriously contemplating resigning his commission--sitting in the right seat of a G-III and flying a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Whatever around was not what he'd had in mind when he applied for the academy--he'd run into Colonel Jacob Torine again.

Torine was sort of a legend in the Air Force Special Operations community. Sparkman had flown his Spectre in a black mission that Torine had run in Central America, and had come to greatly admire him. So when he'd come across Torine again, he'd told him of his frustrations--and of his thoughts of getting out to go fly commercial passenger airliners. "If I'm flying taxis, I might as well make some money at it."

Torine, as one ring-knocker to another, had counseled him against that.

And Sparkman had taken the advice, and some time later wound up then and again in the right seat of a Gulfstream V that ostensibly "belonged" to Director of National Intelligence Charles W. Montvale, though he'd yet to meet the man or have him on board.

Sparkman had heard that when Torine later had been given command of a wing of Lockheed Martin C-5B Galaxy aircraft, he had been as enthusiastic about it as Sparkman had been when ordered to park his AC-130H and get in the right seat of a Gulfstream, even though a colonel's eagle had come with Torine's reassignment.

And small wonder, Sparkman had thought, considering what Torine had to leave behind.

It wasn't much of a secret that Torine had been in charge of the Air Force's contribution to the Army's Delta Force and the even

more clandestine Gray Fox unit. Nor was it super secret that a certain C-22, the Air Force designation for the Boeing 727, sat in a heavily guarded hangar at Pope Air Force Base, which adjoins Fort Bragg, North Carolina. This aircraft had been extensively modified; it was whispered to have almost twice the range of the standard 727, was capable of being refueled in the air--and had a passenger compartment that could be depressurized at 35,000 feet so that Delta Force and Gray Fox special operators could make undetected high-altitude, low-opening (HALO) parachute jumps.

It also was rumored that in two hours, the so-called Delta Force 727 could be painted in the color scheme of any airline in the world.

Sparkman thought that that seemed a bit over the top--a two-hour paint job?--but he had never seen the aircraft, so he didn't know for sure anything about it, save that a Delta Force 727 existed.

But he believed another story going around: that Torine had used the aircraft in a black op in which another 727, a stolen one, had been recovered from a fanatic Islamic group that planned to demonstrate its disapproval of everything American by crashing the fuel-bladder-packed aircraft into the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.

Sparkman did know a little about that. He had been the co-pilot on a Gulfstream flight that had flown a hurry-up mission to take the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.

As they taxied to MacDill Base Operations, Sparkman had seen a great deal of unusual activity on the field. Yellow fire trucks had lined the main runway, and that implied an aircraft in trouble. But alongside the fire trucks were a half-dozen HUMVs manned by airfield Security Forces. Not only were there .50-caliber machine guns in the ready position on the HUMVs, but belts of ammunition gleamed in the sun. That rarely happened.

Even more interesting were two vans conspicuously labeled EXPLOSIVE ORDNANCE DISPOSAL.

Minutes later, two F-15s made a low-speed pass over the field, giving Sparkman time to remember that that was the type of aircraft he had expected to fly after joining the Air Force. Not some itsy-bitsy VIP aerial taxi.

And then something else very interesting appeared: a Costa Rican Air Transport Boeing 727 on final, about to touch down.

Costa Rican Air Transport? he'd thought.

MacDill was closed to civilian traffic.

The 727 had made a perfectly ordinary landing but was not allowed to leave the runway. The fleet of emergency vehicles--now joined by a half-dozen staff cars, most of these bearing general officer's starred license plates--rushed out to meet the plane.

Then a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment fluttered to the ground as a pickup truck with mounted stairs backed up to the forward door in the civilian transport's fuselage.

The plane's door opened and two men got off. They were wearing jungle camouflage uniforms and their hands and faces were streaked with the grease-paint normally worn by special operators deployed in the boonies.

The taller one, seeing all the brass, saluted, and it was then that Sparkman recognized Colonel Jacob D. Torine, USAF.

There was no way--not with all the brass around--that Sparkman could make his manners to Colonel Torine and politely inquire what the hell was going on.

But when he heard the rumors that Torine and a Special Forces major had stolen a 727 back from Muslim fanatics who had taken it with the idea of each of them collecting a harem of heavenly virgins just as soon as they crashed it into the Liberty Bell, he thought there might be something to it.

Especially after he heard two weeks later that Torine had been awarded another Distinguished Flying Cross, for unspecified actions of a classified nature.

The next time Captain Sparkman had seen Colonel Torine was at Andrews, as Sparkman was taxiing a Citation III to the runway for takeoff, this time hauling a senator to Kansas to give a speech.

Torine was in civilian clothing and doing a preflight inspection walkaround of a Gulfstream. A civilian G-III, which was interesting because Andrews also was closed to civilian aircraft.

Sparkman again had no idea what was going on, but he was determined to find out. If the Air Force insisted that he fly itsy-bitsy aircraft, he would see if he could fly Torine's.