Strike Force Delta Read Free

this runway were five huge aircraft hangars, all in severe disrepair and abandoned long ago. On the other side were the cliff and then the sea beyond. This place was once a bustling Coast Guard air station; in years past large maritime patrol craft would land here to be serviced. But the base had been decommissioned for nearly two decades, and the weeds and the corrosive salt air had overtaken it since.
    It was at this desolate location, appropriately called Cape Lonely, that the futuristic aircraft finally landed.
    There was a one-man welcoming committee on hand waiting for it.
    He was Eddie Finch. An ex–Coast Guard NCO now in his sixties, he’d been assigned to Cape Lonely Air Station during his active career. Now he was like a ghost here, still haunting what might very well be a haunted place.
    He was out on the runway pulling weeds when the strange aircraft arrived. He’d been told, by a close friend, that the airstrip, little used in the past decade, would be needed tonight, that a single aircraft would be coming in to land.
    Like those before him, Finch felt the strange airplane’s arrival before he heard it, then heard it before he saw it. The air around him started moving; his ears started ringing. Then the most god-awful-looking thing came straight down, out of the thick fog, landing like something from outer space. It took Finch a moment, but then he knew exactly what it was and who it was carrying. But still he was upset.
    â€œIf I knew it could land like that,” he grumbled, “I wouldn’t have been out here all night, pulling these damn weeds.”
    The weird airplane never turned off its engines. Its side door opened and the five men in orange prisoner suits tumbled out.
    They greeted Finch warmly. He looked like a thin Santa Claus and was a grandfatherly type. The five men held great respect for him. They crowded around him.
    â€œHow much time do we have?” one of them asked the elderly man. “Enough for a cup of coffee?”
    The old man just shook his head. “Not this time. You’re moving again right away.”
    He motioned over to the edge of the cliff. A smile came to his wrinkled snow-bearded face.
    â€œWant to see something?” he asked them.
    At that, the thick fog miraculously parted—suddenly they could see beyond the edge of the cliff to the coastline and the ocean below. Floating about five hundred feet offshore was an extremely rusty containership.
    The five men let out a hoot. For them, this might have been the most beautiful sight in the world.
    No sooner were the words out of Finch’s mouth when another sound enveloped the cliff. This racket was a little more familiar. Horizontal rotor blades turning in the mist and wind. Powerful engines on another powerful machine. It came out of the fog a moment later.
    It was a helicopter. But again, not an ordinary one.
    It looked mostly like a UH-60 Blackhawk, the mainstay of the U.S. military’s helicopter forces. It was dull black, charcoal almost. This was because it was layered in Stealth paint.
    It was about one-third bigger than the typical Blackhawk, though, and it was very wide. It could carry nearly a dozen more people than a standard UH-60 and many more weapons, too. This one was festooned with heavy machine guns, Gatling guns, grenade launchers, missile launchers, the works. In many ways, it was a flying tank.
    Add in its sound-dampened engines, its suites of high-tech navigation and communications gear, its night-flying capabilities, and the fact that, again, it was covered in the technology of Stealth, no surprise its nickname was the Superhawk.
    â€œIt’s only because that thing,” the old man was telling them, pointing back to the futuristic transport, “is too big to land on the ship that they had to send this up foryou. But I understand you’ll appreciate the ride itself. For sentimental reasons.”
    â€œAmen to that,” one of the five men