Chapter 5

FIVE

The two officers sat in the SCIF room, reading the days intelligence reports in front of them.

“Looks like we had another one” the junior officer, a captain, reported, still reading his report

“Where at?” the more senior Officer, a Lieutenant Colonel asked

“About forty miles east of Selatapura Harbor. One possible shoot down.”

“Ours or theirs?”

“Looks to be ours. AWACS had a picture clean, but the Tomcat’s radar begged to differ. Next thing they knew he went NORDO, and then dropped off radar, Data Link and everything went dead so we only have the primary tracks.” The younger officer reported.

“Mancuso’s just going to love this…” the Colonel muttered.

 

The two men continued to read in silence.

“Whats that make it… eight instances these past few months?” the Colonel asked.

“Yep, all within spitting distance of the Chopinburg region”

The Colonel threw down the file he was reading from “What are they doing there? I thought the Old Man said that they had a handle on it?”

 

“They got sidetracked.” the Captain admitted.

“With what?”

“A Priority one tasking. That helo that was chasing them into Hatties a few days back? They linked it to a Yuke smuggler, Sergio Anatoly. Apparently back in the last war, he had a hand in getting a bunch of those war criminals out of Usea.” the Captain explained with a smirk.

“Im betting they picked him up, and from that look he probably sang like a songbird?”

“You know it. So, the Old man has them inserting into Emmeria next week to go bag the bitch” the Captain said.

“Who is it?” the senior man asked.

“Butcher of San Marco”

“Fuck, I thought we got her already” The Colonel admitted.

“She was detained back in oh-six by ISAF, but thanks to our brand-new best friend Sergio, she escaped. Intel’s good and it looks like she’s there”

The two men sat back.

“Might be worth it. Hope this anomaly doesn’t kill the entire Air Force in the meantime” the Colonel said absently.

“So how goes Agent Palmer and his lapdog Baxter’s crusade against Der Gesichtslose Soldat?” The Colonel asked

“Who knows, they were at Selatapura the other day sniffing out leads. But nothing credible yet”

“Seems to be a lot going on down there these days”

“Yeah. Probably because the Elevator if I had to guess. But that entire area has been a hot bed since the sixties. I think the region must get passed around more than some of those girls I knew in college” the Captain mused

“And you ask why your still single.” The Colonel chided, raising an eyebrow at the comment.

“Whatever, I’m married to my job, remember?” The Captain defended himself.

The Colonel shook his head and let out a ragged breath. “Captain I really wonder why the hell they even keep you around-“ he began

“-I like to think its my Boyish good looks and charm” the Captain interrupted, causing the Colonel to pause

“Like I said, I don’t know why they bothered to keep you around. Personally, I think we should have just shot your ass and saved us the effort”

The Captain swung out his left leg and pulled his slacks leg up, exposing the prosthetic limb

“I don’t recommend it” the Captain said cheekily

“You’re such a pussy, Come talk to me when its an arm and a few organs” The Colonel shot back.

“Fine old man, you win. Now let’s get the rest of this done so The Old Man doesn’t have Stanton chew our asses”

“Your ass, Captain. Stanton can’t do shit to me” The Colonel said grinning

“Fine then, be like that” the Captain groaned.