Hawke wasn't sure what he hated most. The sight of a replacement at Archangel's desk or a feeling like that of re-injuring a bruise that he felt every time he saw Marella talking to Laban, whose fair hair and blue eyes were too much of a reminder of the man he was replacing. That Marella towered over the shorter, stocky Laban did little to relieve Hawke's discomfort and he wasn't sure if it was better or worse that Laban wasn't wearing white.
"Run it again," Laban ordered and Laura restarted the videotape.
The images were disjointed and out of focus. The camera was mounted to the traffic copter to capture images below, its lens set for a much greater distance and the twenty seconds it had actually captured images after frantic repositioning by the traffic reporter told them little they didn't already know.
"No ADF pod, obviously," Marella said. "Cannons are mounted in the wings, like Airwolf. Ballistics reports no match in any records on the 40 mm shells that were recovered. Retractable landing gear. From a distance, she could be Airwolf's twin."
Hawke disagreed but decided to keep his mouth shut. He still wasn't entirely sure what role he'd been assigned, how exactly he fit into this team.
Laban exhaled. "Is it worth listening to the audio tape from tower control?"
Laura shook her head and reached into a folder in front of her, extracting a few pages stapled together. "Here's a transcript." She passed a copy to everyone seated in front of Archangel's desk. "At 16:38:20, Angel One, specially the pilot, Karen Allenden, notified Knightsbridge tower control of bogey sighting and requested backup. At 16:39:13, Angel One notified the tower that they'd taken a closer look and were unable to identify the pilots." She turned back to face Laban. "Two pilots, both male, wearing headsets, not helmets as the Airwolf pilots do. At 16:39:55, Angel One reported that they were under fire and had been hit. Knightsbridge tower lost contact shortly after that. Total time from initial sighting of the bogey to the crash is under two minutes."
The transcript was a lot more detailed than that, Hawke thought, skimming through it rapidly, a play by play of the unfolding crisis up through the attempts to somehow get Angel One on the ground. Apparently the pilot, Allenden, had left the channel to the tower open and she and Archangel had been talking almost the full two minutes. Reading what appeared to be a faithful transcription, Hawke could almost hear the surprised outrage in Archangel's voice, "Goddamnit, they're firing at us!"
He swallowed away the lump in his throat.
"DI?" Laban said with a look at a man Hawke didn't know.
"We can't say whether this was opportunistic or targeted. As the attack was within fifteen miles of Knightsbridge, there's equal probability that they would have hit any of our helicopters…"
"Is it DI's assessment that it's a coincidence that a fake-Airwolf took out the head of our Airwolf project?" Laban demanded.
The other man flushed. "No, sir, but we cannot clearly determine whether this was a targeted attack or a more general attack on a Firm helicopter. Archangel was returning from a code word clearance project site. No flight plan was filed. He had no scheduled return time, nor did his office provide any estimates of his return to any callers. Our bogeys would need to know where he was to target him in particular and we haven't found how they could have done so."
"Air Traffic Control," Marella said suddenly.
"You use Firm call signs with ATC?" Hawke asked, surprised.
"I meant Air Route Traffic Control Centers," she said, looking distracted as she shook her head. "And no, we squawk tail numbers."
"Our bogey would have needed to know the specific tail numbers," Laban said pensively. "And they'd need someone at the appropriate ARTCC."
"Could've hacked the system," Hawke offered.
"Did Archangel tend to use the same helicopter?" Laban asked, looking directly at Marella.
Hawke didn't catch it at first, was surprised at how Marella flinched at the question.
"He uses whatever is available," Laura answered firmly. "Generally the mechanics give us one of two, both Bell 407s. I'll find out whether or not there was any contact with ARTCC."
Hawke flipped back through the transcript of the tower call, and then fingered the pertinent entry.
"16:39:13, Angel One notified the tower that they'd taken a closer look and were unable to identify the pilots," he read, looking first at Marella and then Laban. "That look went both ways."
Laban studied Hawke. "So it's possible that the bogey fired on Angel One only after realizing Archangel was aboard."
Hawke shrugged. "Anything's possible. That bogey was in the area for a reason, maybe looking for Archangel or maybe just looking for a Firm helicopter." His lips tightened. "They hit the jackpot."
Laban nodded slowly. "You're the only combat pilot here. What else have you picked up?"
Hawke blew out a breath as he considered the question and his answer. "Two things. First, the pilot of that bogey has practice firing those guns, so they're probably not a recent addition. Either he's done a lot of target practice or he's a combat pilot. Some pilots make it look easy, but it's anything but easy to hit the tail boom of one moving helicopter from another moving helicopter when both are moving up, down and side to side."
Marella gave him a wan smile.
"Second thing is, I think the bogey was trying to force them down." Hawke rubbed his face, noting the startled looks he drew. "If he'd wanted to kill them, he would have turned the cannon on the cockpit or the engine housing, not the tail boom or the tail rotor."
"Maybe he's not as good a shot as you made him out to be," Laban said skeptically.
"Maybe," Hawke agreed. "But they tried an autorotation and he let them. Once he wounded Angel One, he backed off. That says force down to me."
"A force down in heavy forest?" Marella didn't look convinced.
Hawke shifted in his chair. "I didn't say the bogey wished them well. Just maybe that he was sending a message."
Laban sighed heavily. "Hobart, please tell me that DI has completed the analysis of exactly what message these people are trying to send."
The man Hawke still didn't know nodded and lifted a manila file with a handful of colored stickers on it.
"I have a copy for you, sir, but it's Eyes Only. I delivered a copy to Zeus just before this meeting started."
Laban reached a hand out for the document, and looked apologetically at the rest of the team. "Any summary you can share?"
Hobart consulted his notes, frowned and bit at his lip for a moment before answering.
"The primary theory has been that the goal of these incidents is to prompt us – that is, the Firm," that said with a quick glance at Hawke, "to recover the Airwolf aircraft. A secondary theory, which is our current assessed opinion is that the combination of incidents, and the escalating violence are designed less to recover the aircraft and more indicative of a concerted effort to discredit the Firm."
"Two good people are in ICU to discredit the Firm?" Hawke said, angry, appalled.
"There's no evidence that Archangel was the primary target in this series of incidents, nor do we anticipate that they will cease," Hobart said, somewhat apologetically. "I can only say that an even partially successful attempt to kill our DDO is a major escalation of matters within a larger mêlée."
"I have no idea what you just said," Hawke said in frustration, "but I'm pretty sure I don't like it."
There were times Hawke wanted to turn Airwolf's cannon and missiles onto the politicians and bureaucrats who played games with people's lives. This was one of them. It made sense in so many ways that Washington D.C. was built on swampland.
"Hawke, I understand your frustration with that assessment," Laban said, raised eyebrows and a nod in Hawke's direction. "I promise you that if there is any tactical information in DI's analysis, I will make it available to this team." He turned his attention to Marella. "Where do we stand with our search?"
"We hit that concrete mixing plant east of Chula Vista at 0730. There's enough physical evidence to conclude that a Bell 222 was modified and painted to resemble Airwolf there, but it had been abandoned for at least three days. That's how long we were watching it."
"Who owns the plant?"
Marella's smile was strained. "The State of California. The entire property was seized for nonpayment of back taxes about a year ago."
Laban swore.
"The plotted trajectories of all interactions with this aircraft indicate it heads south after each incident. Miramar and Los Alamitos have offered full cooperation in monitoring air space."
"I hear that we have a decoy Airwolf? Were you planning a trap?"
Hawke's head spun, between Laban and Marella.
"No sir. Not a trap, per se. We were going to have the Air Force transport our decoy to Andrews AFB in a C5 under high security."
Laban rubbed his eyes. "Jesus, do you really think …" He stopped abruptly. "Sorry, didn't mean to speculate. How were you going to make it look legit?"
Marella grimaced. "We hadn't actually discussed it with Hawke yet, but obviously we'd need his cooperation to make it seem we'd actually recovered Airwolf." She turned to Hawke. "How do you feel about going to jail? Just for a few days?"
"How is he?"
Marella glanced at Hawke. "Funny, I would have sworn your first question would be why I wasn't at the hospital."
She stood aside and let him enter her office before pushing the door closed behind her. He looked around in curiosity, had never been there before. The glass desk, computer workstation, and lack of clutter were very like Marella but he was surprised at the complete lack of personal objects; the office was impersonal, almost sterile.
"He's just out of surgery," she said, leaning against the door, watching him survey her office.
"Again? Why?"
"Internal bleeding," she answered, looking away from Hawke. "They haven't been able to stabilize his blood pressure. This is their second attempt to find the bleed." She sighed. "This might be something new or something they couldn't see last time."
It was unsettling dealing with this version of Marella, as if all emotion had been squeezed out of her and he was left with something other, something less. From a distance she'd appeared almost normal. Now, within a few feet, Hawke could see how her skin stretched tightly over her face as if every bone and muscle was clenched, a look exacerbated by the almost painfully tight way she'd pulled back her hair. A lack of sleep and time was playing havoc with her normally impeccable presentation; there were wrinkles in the white silk dress she wore and she was chewing off what little remained of her lipstick.
"I want to see Michael."
That drew her interest, but as she looked at Hawke, she frowned.
"Don't tell me it's not possible," Hawke warned.
"Why?"
Hawke tensed. He couldn't actually explain the almost overpowering urge. "He's a friend, Marella. When friends are in the hospital, you go see them." And he needed to know if Zeus was lying to him.
She shook her head. "He's in Intensive Care. They restrict visits to five minutes out of every hour and it's family only, Hawke."
He pounced. "That why you're not there?"
"No," she sighed. "I'm not there because here I can do something." She sat at her desk, pushed a pile of papers into one neat stack and tapped it on both ends, and then frowned at it. "Do you have any idea of what it's like to sit outside an ICU just waiting? I can't help him. I can't do anything but sit and wait. I. Can't. Do. Anything."
Grumbling, Hawke perched himself at the edge of her desk while she shifted more papers, not looking at him. He understood precisely. Neither one of them did helpless very well.
"At least here I can track down those bastards who did this. Find that stupid helicopter pretending to be Airwolf and whoever is behind this." She turned on Hawke, voice sharpening. "Why is it always Airwolf? I'm beginning to hate that helicopter."
Hawke wondered if it was a blanket statement that included Airwolf's crew. "Airwolf didn't shoot down Angel One."
"He's not a field operative or a case officer any more," she continued as if he hadn't spoken. "He's a Deputy Director. His battles are supposed to be bureaucratic or political, not…." She jerked her right hand almost spasmodically in a circle.
"Not the kind where people die," Hawke agreed softly.
She still wasn't crying; her eyes were dry, bleak landscapes of suppressed emotion, of containment. A lunar landscape held more life.
"I hate that helicopter," she repeated.
"You know it's saved his life," Hawke felt obligated to remind her.
"No." She turned to face him finally, standing and at last truly engaging. "Kruger grabbed Archangel because he knew Airwolf would get him out. That helicopter is the reason he lost an eye and full use of his leg. It's the reason he's in ICU right now."
Hawke bit his lip physically, bit his tongue figuratively.
"Do you know how many people died at Red Star?" she demanded as she moved away from her desk, circling Hawke. "Five people were killed during the attack. Three others died from their injuries."
He could see a dim spark flaring in the depths of those black pupils. Come on, he thought. Get angry. Feel the emotion.
"That was Moffet," he said blandly.
"Nineteen others were injured, six permanently disabled; they never came back to work."
"Michael went back to work. So did you."
"Yes, with steel reinforcing in four vertebrae," she spat. "It took months for the fusions to mature, rehab to strengthen my muscles, learning a different way to sit, walk, lift. And even with all the rehab he did, that he still does, Michael never recovered full function in his leg."
Hawke caught his breath. Briggs' injuries were visible and therefore known, but he'd shared no detail about Marella's.
"I didn't know," he said quietly. He waited a moment for her to accept his apology.
"Zinn was right. We should have destroyed it after Red Star. Moffet contaminated it."
"She's a helicopter, Marella," Hawke said, exasperated. "Not a landfill."
"A Mach 1 helicopter that kicks butt," she said, voice tinged with bitterness. "Except that it keeps coming back and kicking our butts. I keep a separate file tracking how many of our people have been killed or injured in Airwolf-related incidents." She looked at Hawke and he could see the misery working its way to the surface. "How many lives are required to pay for a billion dollar helicopter?"
"Michael's still alive," Hawke said, pushing Zeus' dire prognosis out of mind. "He's made it through the first twenty-four hours."
"He almost bled to death from the pelvic fracture." Marella stopped for a moment to catch her breath and Hawke could hear it waver slightly. "The chance of infection or blood clot is…"
She stopped speaking, breathing hard through her mouth as if suddenly winded.
"Still too high," Hawke conceded. "He's not out of danger." Two steps and he was standing next to her, one hand sliding around her waist to support her sudden unsteadiness as he guided her to the chair behind her desk
"I've never been this scared in my life," she whispered, voice suddenly hoarse. "I don't think he's going to live."
Her voice broke on the last word and she bent over, head towards her knees. Hyperventilation, Hawke thought, crouching next to her as Marella physically shook. One hand rubbing her back, he refrained from offering false reassurances. She wouldn't believe them anyway and she'd despise him for being trite.
"Michael's pretty stubborn," he said, finally, offering something truthful that she might cling to.
He thought for a second he elicited a laugh from the way her shoulder were quivering. He hadn't expected tears from such an innocuous statement, but it was tears finally, long overdue and welcome, in Hawke's opinion at least.
"I said I'd do it, Dom and I meant it," Hawke said into the phone, starting to lose patience. "You don't have to participate." He saw Laura exchange looks with Marella but ignored them. It would be more convincing if the FBI arrested both him and Santini but it was up to Dominic, not the Firm, if Dominic volunteered to sit in jail for a few days.
"It'll be later today. First I'm going to pay a visit to a friend who's in the hospital."
It was the price of his cooperation and he'd been unyielding in negotiation. He'd sat in a jail cell before and it was never pleasurable but beat most days or nights he'd spent in Vietnam and a good number of the missions he'd flown for the Firm. And if it helped to smoke out the rat bastards using Airwolf against the Firm, it'd be worth it.
He'd held his questions until he and Marella were in the helicopter, en route to the hospital. There was an awkwardness between them after her tears and the silence had been heavy, like wet fog.
"Who's Zinn?"
She'd been gazing out the window, attention somewhere far away but returned almost instantly. Tapping her headset, she switched the headset channel so that it didn't match the one used by the pilots. He followed her lead; that neither of them was flying was something he'd let go unquestioned.
"You probably know him," she answered, calm confidence returning with a focus on business. "Ray Zinn helped build Airwolf."
Hawke reacted, head pulling back as his brows raised a bit. He mouthed the name, running it against his memory without finding a match.
"Ray Zinn is, or was, an avionics engineer who specialized in increasing engine potential. He designed and built Airwolf's turbos."
Another thing Moffett had taken credit for, Hawke was willing to wager.
"Is or was?"
Marella's shoulders lifted. "He hasn't been seen in almost three weeks and we've been looking. We believe he is involved, although his participation may not be wholly voluntary."
Missing during the period where the fake Airwolf had been out and about causing trouble and Zinn probably knew enough about her construction to help the mockup.
"So what did you mean that he was right and you should have destroyed Airwolf after Red Star?"
Marella sighed and glanced out the window for a moment before replying.
"Zinn was at Red Star when Moffett attacked the tower. Zinn survived but his fiancé, Jill Loring, was killed." She gave Hawke a rueful smile. "They'd met on the project. Anyway, after we…you, recovered Airwolf, Zinn started lobbying within the Firm for it to be destroyed. He said we'd created a tool that was too powerful; he even compared Airwolf to a nuclear weapon." She shook her head, clearly remembering the events. "He went too far; when no one in the Firm was willing to hear him out any more, he started lobbying Congress."
Hawke agreed; Zinn had definitely gone too far. The Firm didn't sit back when an employee started sharing dirty laundry.
"But as of three weeks ago, he was still alive?"
Marella glowered. "We're not quite as heavy handed as you make us out to be, Hawke. He was retired, classified as psychologically disabled after Red Star."
"Nice," Hawke snorted. "Get him out of the way and make sure no one else listens to him."
A shrug. "He was a loose cannon. Discrediting him was a humane and effective way of dealing with him before he became a major problem. We helped him land a job within the avionics industry, where he's been happily employed since he left the Firm."
"Until three weeks ago or so," Hawke murmured. "You think he was building this bogey we're chasing?"
"No, I don't," she answered, as frank and open as he'd heard he since the 'incidents' had started. "Not on his own anyway. And the Ray Zinn I knew would never have participated in an attack on any helicopter, even a Firm helicopter." She gave him a bittersweet smile. "At one time I would have said, especially a Firm helicopter."
The helicopter flared, eased into the landing zone on the roof of the hospital.
"I thought this was Medevac choppers only."
"It is," Marella answered, quickly un-strapping her harness. "That's why we're getting dropped off. Let's go."
Hawke followed her out of the hatch, ducking automatically under the wide sweeps of the rotors as he jogged towards the door set on the other side of the roof. The Firm's helicopter was in the air before he reached it.
He followed Marella, who seemed to know her way through the labyrinthine corridors of UCLA Medical Center to the ICU. The click of her heels on the polished floors drew the attention of an older couple and a young woman in a white dress, seated in a waiting room just outside the wide double door entrance leading to Intensive Care.
Marella wore a pasted smile as she greeted the older woman with a hug and then turned back to Hawke.
"This is Hawke. He's a friend of Michael's. Hawke, this is Mrs. Hayden, Michael's mother."
Mrs. Hayden had Briggs' eyes, or rather he hers, though hers were faded and red-rimmed. Unlike her son, she dressed to emphasize the startling clear blue of her eyes with a royal blue jacket and skirt that looked to Hawke's inexpert eyes like heavy silk.
"Ma'am," he stammered, surprised. He knew Briggs had family, knew his mother was still living, but still felt as if Briggs' life outside the Firm was an alternate reality.
She smiled -- like her eyes, her smile was the same as her son's -- and there was more than a hint of South Carolina in her voice. "It's a pleasure to meet one of Michael's friends. His life is so tightly compartmentalized, I rarely get the opportunity."
"Though hardly the circumstances we'd prefer," the gray-haired man standing next to her said. He held out a hand. "Porter Hayden."
Hawke took the hand, shook it automatically. "Yes sir, I know. It's an honor and pleasure to meet you, General, Mrs. Hayden," he lied.
Who said all those hours of officer training wouldn't come in useful some day? He just hadn't expected Briggs' mother to be married to a retired Air Force general, especially one who'd held a command in Vietnam. He'd have to have a word with Marella for failing to warn him.
Still grasping his hand, Hayden nodded, as if Hawke had confirmed something expected. "You're not Air Force," he said with confidence. "I'd know you if you were."
"Army," Hawke replied, gracefully letting his hand drop. "But not for a long time."
"Pilot," said Hayden.
"Helicopters."
"Of course," Mrs. Hayden said bleakly and then shuddered.
Marella, always attuned to small cues, stepped forward. "Hawke's involved in the investigation. He'll be unavailable for the next few days and would like to visit Michael now."
It took Hawke a moment or two to realize that Marella was essentially asking permission for him to do so.
Mrs. Hayden closed her eyes, her face a mask of weariness and pain. "Yes, of course," she said, almost inaudibly. "There's been no improvement."
Her husband put his arm around her and drew her back to where they'd been sitting.
Marella tensed, swallowed and then nodded. "I know." She turned to Hawke and slipped one hand behind his elbow. "Let's go."
He had questions. He had a lot of questions, so many in fact that he didn't know where to start or whether he even wanted to go down the path of asking.
Marella stopped just before the double doors to ICU and looked at him.
"Yes, she's always that dramatic," she said in a low voice. "Michael swears it's only since she married Hayden and I'm sorry that I didn't warn you about him. I forgot you didn't know." She pushed through the doors.
Hawke would have given Briggs' mother the benefit of the doubt; her son was gravely injured and she'd traveled cross-country to sit by his bed in Intensive Care. Hayden was another story. He could see why Briggs would keep that family association private. It was obvious that Marella knew a lot about the Briggs family dynamic so he'd trust her judgment. He followed her into the hush of ICU.
There weren't any rooms with walls and a door, just areas partitioned off with curtains. The nurses on duty looked up, saw Marella and nodded. The place seemed bereft of human sounds. Everything Hawke heard was mechanical. It smelled of metal and antiseptic. If he strained, he could hear human voices at a murmur, no louder. He walked as quietly as possible, hyperconscious of making the slightest sound. No library or church ever had that much of an effect on him.
Marella held back one set of curtains; Hawke entered and saw a bed with a man in it, surrounded by equipment: monitors, pumps, tubing, lights and more monitors. Something beeped every few seconds. The man didn't even look like Archangel and Hawke turned away, realizing that they were at the wrong bed. Marella's eyes, and the distraught look in them, convinced him otherwise.
"Jesus," Hawke whispered, stalled near the foot of the bed.
Briggs looked vulnerable without his glasses. His hair, uncombed and unwashed, looked darker than normal against skin that was the translucent gray-white of skim milk. Familiar features were partially obscured by bruises, abrasions and tubing; the nasogastric tube disappearing into his left nostril and the ventilator tube held in position at his mouth masked his mustache.
Hawke made his way forward, slowly, studying the heavy stillness of a body that lacked Briggs' restless energy, his sheer presence. Aside from the sickly pallor of his skin and a number of ugly gashes and abrasions, there was no obvert trauma, no visible basis for the grim prognosis Zeus had delivered.
Multiple fractures, internal injuries, Zeus had said. Marella had spoken of a pelvic fracture. Under the chest high blanket, Hawke saw the outline of a cast or brace or something on Briggs' right thigh and a metal bar or brace across his hips tenting the blanket up at least an inch. Tubes snaking out from under the blanket were probably drains.
Moving to his left, to Briggs' right, Hawke could avoid most of the tubing. Careful not to get tangled in the IV, he touched Briggs' arm, surprised and relieved to find it warm.
"Michael," he said, adopting a hushed tone appropriate to the environment.
Marella slipped inside the curtains. "He's in and out of consciousness," she said quietly. "And even when he's awake…."
She trailed off and Hawke glanced at her, saw the crushing worry in her face.
"He's very weak," she said.
Hawke crouched next to the bed, shifted his hand to Briggs' shoulder. Briggs wasn't awake; his right eyelid was closed and unexpectedly long eyelashes cast a shadow on his right cheekbone. There was a familiar but not particularly welcome scent that Hawke recognized from his own hospital stays: an odd blend of sweetness and antiseptic as if the pores of the body were excreting all the drugs and fluids being pumped into it.
"Michael, it's Hawke. I'm sure Marella has told you this already but you're safe, you're in a world class hospital and you're going to be okay."
The ventilator pump hissed; Briggs' chest rose and fell as an oxygen mixture was forced into his lungs. Other than that, there was no movement, no reaction from the bed.
Marella looked as if she might start crying again. Hawke tried to think of what he'd want to know if he were the one lying in ICU.
"There's a pretty smart group of people dedicated to finding the folks who attacked you. Marella's involved, so am I, and you know neither of us are all that patient or forgiving. We'll find those bastards."
Hawke tightened his grip on Briggs' shoulder.
"Your job is to just keep breathing, buddy. Give your body time to recover, let it start healing. The doctors will do the rest."
He stayed in the crouch, one hand on Briggs for a while. It was the closest he'd come to praying in a long time and he wasn't expecting an answer. The continued hiss of the ventilator and the beep of the heart monitor were as good as he could expect right now.
He felt Marella's hand on his back, looked up at her and read in her face that it was time to go. He awkwardly patted Briggs and consciously refused to say goodbye.
"See you later, Michael."
Marella lingered for a moment, inside the curtains. Glancing back, Hawke could see her finger-combing Briggs' hair into some semblance of his normal style.
He made it to the doors leading out of ICU before he started swearing in a low voice.
