REUNION is an original story, inspired by the U.S. T.V. series AIRWOLF.
Copyright refers to the author of this original material, and is not meant to supersede any copyrights held by Donald P Bellisario or any other persons or corporations holding rights to the television series AIRWOLF and its characters.
Chapter One
Monday – Sunrise.
Stringfellow Hawke forced his eyes open and drew in a shallow, ragged breath.
He was feeling hot, light headed and confused, unsure what had roused him from a very disturbing dream.
And then he realised that he was not alone.
Someone was holding his hand.
He raised his head very carefully and forced his fuzzy vision to focus on the person standing beside him and his breath again caught in his throat.
A ghostly figure, clad from head to foot in white ….
Archangel?
No, this figure was definitely female, for she had long white hair falling around her shoulders ….
He blinked and tried to refocus on the face before him.
Yes, a woman, with soft features and bright, concerned brown eyes looming over him ….
Smiling benignly down at him ….
A beautiful angel ….
Not a ghost then.
Not Gabrielle either ….
He had been dreaming about her.
Gabrielle.
Listening to her soft voice imploring him to cling on to life ….
Telling him that she loved him, but that his time wasn't up yet …. That he should live …. Fight ….
Hawke's heart skipped a beat.
No, not the ghost of Gabrielle after all.
Was she angry with him? Is that why she wasn't here to greet him?
He blinked his eyes rapidly several times to try to clear his vision and subsided back against his pillows, trying to bring his thoughts into some semblance of order ….
Trying to bring to mind what he had been doing, the last thing he remembered.
Oh yes.
Dying.
Am I in Heaven or am I in Hell ….
No wonder he had been escorted by a parade of ghosts …. St John, Gabrielle ….
Mackenzie Jarvis …..
Obviously she was still on his mind and he had that dratted High School Reunion invitation to thank for it, dredging up memories and emotions he simply could not handle.
So, which was it?
North or South?
Definitely south, if the heat was anything to go by ….
No less than he deserved …
Eternal Hellfire and damnation ….
"Dom!" He exclaimed suddenly trying to sit up, eyes frantically searching the darkened room he now found himself in, and realised as excruciating pain suddenly shot through the whole upper left side of his body, that he wasn't dead after all.
"Lie still, Mr Hawke …."
"Mack?" His voice sounded alien as he forced his eyes to settle on the face now swimming into focus before him, wondering why he had uttered that name when his thoughts had so recently been centred on Gabrielle, and he began to comprehend that this was not some spectral illusion conjured up by his dying, oxygen starved brain.
She was real.
But she wasn't Mackenzie Jarvis, and he felt the disappointment like a physical blow to his guts.
She had seemed so real, had felt so tangible, her loving arms cradling him to her as she rocked him and comforted him …
No, that had been Gabrielle ….
Hadn't it?
Oh hell ….
It had just been a dream, a fever induced hallucination, a confused jumble of images from the past.
And now that the fog was beginning to clear his brain, Hawke realised that this was no angel.
It wasn't white hair falling around her shoulders, but a stiff white veil. She was clad in a modest white linen dress which fell to well below her knees and was belted at the waist with a simple piece of linen cloth, and from which hung a simple wooden crucifix attached to the end of a set of Rosary beads.
Nurse?
No. The crucifix and the beads gave it away.
An angel of the ministering kind ….
A Nun.
She proved to him that she was indeed real now, by reaching out to place her one hand lightly against his shoulder and pressed him back against the mattress, while the other came up to rest against his hot brow.
"Welcome back, Mr Hawke. My name is Sister Eve."
The sister took her hands away from his shoulder and forehead and moved further into the soft pool of yellow sunlight streaming in through the gaps in the blinds at the window.
"You had us worried for a while there, but everything is going to be just fine …." She assured him gently.
"Where …." He croaked frowning at the strangeness of his voice, so weak and thin and groggy.
"You are in hospital, Mr Hawke. You had …. "She faltered just for a moment, obviously struggling to find the right word. "An accident," she continued, reaching out to take his wrist between her fingers, seeking out his pulse once more, the job she had been doing just as he had regained consciousness.
"Where's Dominic?" he asked, aware now of the dryness of his mouth and the tackiness of his tongue as he spoke, watching her brow crease in concentration as she counted out the beats of his heart.
"Mr Santini is just down the hall. He is sleeping."
"He's ok?"
Thank God ….
Last thing he remembered was the sound of that horrible rattling exhalation filling his helmet, what he had feared was Dominic Santini's dying breath ….
"He will be just fine," she reassured, gently replacing his hand on the mattress now. "His wounds were not life threatening," she told him, again moving back into the light.
"You should try to get some rest, Mr Hawke," she raised her voice slightly now, trying to inject a little authority into it. "And please try to keep still. We had to perform surgery on your shoulder …."
His shoulder?
Oh yes.
Now he remembered.
Oh yes, he remembered it all ….
Hawke let out a long, ragged breath and closed his eyes, briefly.
Yes, he remembered the whole wretched debacle.
"Where am I?"
"There will be time enough for questions later, Mr Hawke, for now, please just try to relax, and let us take care of you," Sister Eve advised solemnly as she leaned in a little closer, taking in the soft flush on his cheeks and the sparkle in his eyes, although when she had taken his temperature a little while ago, she had been relieved to find that it confirmed that his fever was still coming down.
His temperature was down to 101° and his blood pressure and heart rate were slowly returning to within normal ranges.
He wasn't quite out of the woods just yet, but the signs were encouraging.
"I'm quite serious, Mr Hawke. You're still quite poorly …. You've had a fever," she explained when he continued to regard her in confusion. "You lost a lot of blood too."
Ah yes, so that was why he felt so weak and drained ….
"I remember …."
"You don't need to worry about that now, Mr Hawke. Just close your eyes and go back to sleep. You'll feel better when you wake up …."
"Where am I?" He demanded gruffly again.
"Africa. The Kingdom of Zarundi, to be more precise. Now that's enough questions for one day. Go back to sleep, Mr Hawke. There will be time enough for questions when you are well …."
"But I can't just lie here …." He protested, struggling to try to sit up, but the pain that suddenly wracked his body robbed him of breath and brought tears to his eyes.
"I don't want to sleep. There's stuff I need to do. People I have to talk to …. Dom, I want to see Dom …. I need to see Dom …."
"All in good time, Mr Hawke, now please, calm yourself …."
Hawke sank back against his pillows because he had no strength to do anything else, his body suddenly feeling heavy and lifeless and he realised that he was still feeling the effects of the anaesthetic they had obviously administered so that they could fix his shoulder and take out the bullet ….
"I can't …. Got to ….." He continued to protest, his heart suddenly filled with fear and dread.
Airwolf!
He had to go check on Airwolf, make sure that she was secure.
He had to get her out of sight ….
He had to get her back to the Lair ….
He had to contact Archangel ….
He had to tell him what had happened back there in Kembala and Cimbawe, and he had to find out what they should do with Robert Nimbani's body ….
He needed to kick somebody's ass for getting him into this mess in the first place, and he needed to do some serious damage to whoever it was who had betrayed them ….
But right now, he couldn't keep his eyes open ….
The darkness was creeping in from the corners of his vision and his body felt as though it was a dead weight, and he didn't have the strength to fight it.
Fleetingly he wondered if his ministering angel had given him something to knock him out, for now his brain was starting to feel sluggish and slow as though stuffed with cotton wool, and his eyelids were growing heavy, but, he silently conceded, it wasn't an unpleasant sensation ….
"That's right, Mr Hawke. Rest now. The doctor will be in to see you later …." The nun spoke in a soft, reassuring voice and he could feel her plumping up his pillows and straightening his bed linens as his eyes fluttered closed.
Good, the head honcho ….
Someone with some authority ...
Someone to brow beat into cutting me lose so I can take us home ….
Hawke thought groggily, unable to keep his eyes open any longer, and although he tried to fight against it he soon found himself succumbing to the sensation of sinking into a deep cushion of velvety blackness, comfortable, warm and safe ….
Where Mackenzie Jarvis waited to welcome him into her arms, her big green eyes filled with love, a gentle, adoring smile on her lips as she drew him into the comforting circle of her embrace and kissed him ever so lightly on the lips ….
And he did not find it at all strange that this Mackenzie Jarvis was not a shy, gauche teenager, but a mature young woman.
All that mattered was that her arms were just as welcoming, her lips just as soft and her kisses so ardent and so sweet and filled with such promise, and as he allowed himself to be enveloped by her embrace, and relaxed into her arms, as he drank deeply of her lips and slipped his arms around her too and drew her softness closer to him, inexplicably, Stringfellow Hawke suddenly felt as if he had finally come home ….
Several thousand miles away,
Knightsbridge, Headquarters of The Firm.
"Anything?" Michael Coldsmith Briggs III regarded his assistant, Marella with eager expectation as she entered his office, bringing with her a tray of fresh coffee, for which he blessed her with a smile.
He suspected that it was going to be another long and uncomfortable night.
Marella still looked immaculate in her white slacks, blouse and thin sweater, but there were telltale lines of fatigue around her dark, obsidian eyes.
Archangel knew that he probably didn't look much better himself, and he felt like he had been wearing the same clothes for a week, although in reality, it had only been two days.
The sun was now beginning to set, filling the big picture window behind him with a riot of colours, gold, purple, crimson, and briefly he imagined the same colours illuminating the African sky, only instead of setting, and bringing to a close this long and frustrating Sunday, it would rise and welcome in a more hopeful Monday.
"Not yet, Sir, but we only moved the satellite into position four hours ago …." Marella reminded him, pouring out a cup of strong, thick black coffee into a white bone china cup and passing it to him and again he smiled, acknowledging what a coup that must have been for her.
"I guess it is a big place …."
"A big, empty place," Marella sighed pouring her self a cup of coffee now. "Even I didn't realise just how much of Africa is …. Uninhabited."
"By human beings at least." Archangel sighed. "And Hawke and Airwolf could be just about anywhere," he sighed again. "Any word from the other Agencies? Any idea about what actually happened out there?"
"No," her expression changed now, and Archangel suddenly realised what had happened in the hours since they had last spoken.
Everyone else had no doubt divorced themselves from the debacle and scurried back to their respective hideaways, like rats disappearing down sewer pipes, to formulate their defences and apportion blame elsewhere, unwilling to take ownership for the shambles on the Dark Continent, eager to cover their own backs.
"I guess everyone packed up their kit bags and headed off back to Washington, huh? Not their problem?"
"Right. Not their problem."
"How nice to be able to simply wash their hands of any responsibility like that …."
"That's what you get for playing with guys who aren't averse to eating their own …."
"Mmmmm."
"Have you seen the ZNN coverage?" she asked now, her tone one of disgust and disbelief.
"Indeed I have …."
And after an hour or so of watching the triumphant and jubilant General Joshua Mendofa' smug, grinning face as he strutted across the screen, sticking two fingers up at the US, if only metaphorically, with every word that came out of his mouth, Archangel had shut the thing off, before he had succumbed to the desire to emulate Elvis and shoot out the screen with his service weapon.
"Hardly unbiased reporting …."
"What else can they do? Probably had one of the General's aides holding a gun to their backs," Archangel pointed out and Marella responded with a deep sigh.
"What about the Russians?" Archangel asked now, setting down his coffee cup on the desk before him.
"Again, still no word from them."
"That's encouraging."
This drew a frown from Marella.
Was he being serious, or sarcastic? It was sometimes difficult to tell with Michael ….
"I'm not so sure. If they have Airwolf, they probably don't want to brag about it, because they'd have a lot of explaining to do about how they acquired her …."
"And so would we …."
"Mendofa is emphatically denying that the Russians had anything to do with quashing the coup, so maybe they didn't. It's his power struggle after all, not theirs. They are only interested in the Uranium."
"Five will get you ten that they supplied the weapons and ammunition that annihilated Colonel Kubasa and his men, and in my book that makes them equally responsible. I wish I knew exactly what happened out there …."
He let out a deep sigh and paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts.
"The more I think about it, the more I keep coming back to how Mendofa knew that they were coming, and how he was able to be so prepared …."
Archangel pondered now, gently rubbing his chin with his right index finger, and realising that he was going to have to shave again as he encountered the five o'clock shadow sprouting from his chin.
"From what I read of the mission brief, that barracks was supposedly all but abandoned three months ago, because it was too far off their main supply route to adequately maintain. The regiment that was stationed there had been moved to the capitol, to help guard Mendofa and that just left a handful of trainees, what amounted to a bunch of raw recruits, allegedly, to guard what is, also allegedly, a safe border," Archangel reclined in his seat now, reaching out to lift his coffee cup to his lips and taking a sip.
"And that's why we jumped at the chance to mount a rescue mission. The original intelligence we had indicated that there was only a small military presence and that they would easily be overcome by the KPLA's forces," Marella surmised.
"Not quite easily Marella, after all, these were supposed to be the most elite troops in Mendofa's Army," he reminded. "The KPLA were training to expect some small resistance," he caught his bottom lip between his teeth, briefly, growing silent and thoughtful before adding; "Hardly a cake walk, but they probably weren't expecting a full scale ambush either. So, why keep Nimbani there?"
"Better than in the city, I guess? Some place remote, some place far enough away so he couldn't inspire an uprising on Mendofa's doorstep?"
"Perhaps, but if it were me, I'd put him in a nice big prison some place, lose him amongst the general population, hide him in plain sight, not single him out and put him under guard in the least protected outpost on a distant border …. After all, he wasn't supposed to be that big a threat …. Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer …."
"Put like that, it doesn't make sense, Sir," Marella concurred. "If we'd put this mission together, we would undoubtedly have questioned the validity of the information received."
"The more I think about it, the more I'm beginning to believe that we got suckered. All of us, the CIA. FBI. The Department of Defence …. We were told what we wanted to hear, and we fell for it …."
"They baited the hook and reeled us in …." Marella sighed. "But why? The threat is very real. The Russians are there in Kembala and they have staked a claim to the Uranium ore …."
"Marella, at this juncture, I'm not even sure of that anymore. I mean, the same people who provided us with the information about the Uranium also provided us with the Intel for Hawke's mission …. It wouldn't be difficult to double bluff us, get the people we usually use and trust to verify their information, just to make sure that we acted on it …. A mole, a rogue agent, greasing a palm here and there to get someone to turn a blind eye, or lie …. to tell us in just convincing enough terms, exactly what we wanted to hear."
"All this just to get their hands on Airwolf?" Marella spluttered, the sip of coffee she had just taken going down the wrong way at the thought and she hastily lifted her hand to wipe away a dribble that had escaped from the corner of her mouth before, it slid off her chin and stained her pristine white sweater.
"No, I don't even think it's about that. I think it's about making us all look like idiots …. And boy have they succeeded from where I'm sitting. It's all about the publicity for Mendofa. The propaganda machine churning away, manipulating the situation to make it look like Mendofa has good cause to do what he's doing out there." Archangel mused now.
"It's about doing away with Robert Nimbani in such a way that no-one would be able to make a federal case out of it. Mendofa wins hands down, he gets what he wants, the Presidency, his main rival out of the way, quelling any further possibility of an uprising from within his own country, making it clear that he will not tolerate any form of opposition, and eliciting the sympathy of every other tin pot dictator in the region, allying with him against the meddlesome US, outraged at our trying to interfere in their policies and way of government."
"And we fell for it."
"And we fell for it," he concurred.
"And you think the Russians provided the false verifications?"
"No way to prove it …. But yes. They'll do just about anything to make themselves look good, and us look incompetent …."
His voice trailed away then as he realised that no matter what the truth was about what lay behind the failure of this mission, it was of little consolation to Hawke and Santini, wherever they were.
"How long before we have all the data from the satellite?"
"Several hours yet, Sir. Like you said, it's a big place …."
"How difficult can it be to conceal one Mach 1 super helicopter?" he drawled sarcastically, although he knew that it was tantamount to looking for a needle in a haystack.
"Don't answer that. We both know that Stringfellow Hawke is a resourceful fellow, if he can hide her from our own satellites in his own back yard, it won't be hard for him to keep her out of sight, even in Africa."
"Where do the committee stand on this, Sir?"
"Do you really want to know, Marella?"
"Sir?"
"Zeus' first reaction was to accuse Hawke of using the opportunity to renege on his deal with The Firm. He even went so far as to imply that Hawke had toddled off to Asia to use Airwolf to find St John himself," Archangel sighed deeply in frustration and disbelief. "Sometimes I wonder about that man …."
"Sir …."
"He doesn't seem to be able to grasp the concept that Stringfellow Hawke is a genuinely loyal and trustworthy fellow and that the thought of using Airwolf for his own devices probably hasn't even entered Hawke's head."
"It's Zeus' job to be suspicious of everyone and everything …."
"Pity he failed to do it in this case, then isn't Marella, for it he had just had one grain of doubt, one iota of suspicion, we wouldn't be sitting here discussing it, and Airwolf and Hawke and Santini would be tucked up in their respective bolt holes and all would be right with the world …."
