Chapter 10

After Dom escorted Mike to the outside, Hawke looked at Archangel, "What's this assignment?"

Marella opened the briefcase and handed Archangel the file. He then opened the file and began the debriefing, "There is program the Firm has been conducting with the military. It started out as an experimental program and to be honest no one thought much of it at first. It's called the Stargate Program."

Hawke could help but asked, "Does it involve wormholes and false gods?"

He stood baffled, "What? No!" He shook his head unsure why he even asked the question. "It's a remote viewing program. The Firm was trying to see if the human mind was powerful enough to see events in real time as they happen and even before."

Caitlin asked, "Like a psychic?"

"Yes," he admitted. "We have volunteers from the military. Most had limited results but a few of the volunteers proved there could be something to it. One of those volunteers is a Major in the US Air Force named Michael Rivers."

Hawke shifted his weight, "Why are you telling us this?"

"Major Rivers was the volunteer who yielded the most accurate results," he told him. "I never disclosed Airwolf to him but he could see it in his visions." He removed a hand drawn paper, "He drew this."

Hawke took the paper and looked at the drawing of Airwolf flying through the tunnel of clouds that brought him to the future and back home. "Okay!"

"He feared the chopper would disappear," he told him. "He doesn't know what the tunnel is but did identify the chopper as Airwolf."

"And?" he played dumb.

"And he also gave us valuable intel on the Soviets," he added. "Major Rivers was on leave when he disappeared. Sources indicate he's in Soviet hands and being forced to remote view for them. I want you and Airwolf to rescue him."

Hawke asked, "Why Airwolf?"

He then handed Hawke another paper, "He also has remote viewed your brother and thinks he can locate him. We get back Major Rivers and we find your brother."

"You are talking about going into the Soviet Union," he stated.

"It won't be easy, Hawke but Major Rivers is a huge asset." he assured him.

Short Time Later

After Archangel and Marella left from the briefing Hawke needed to debrief Mike and Dom.

Caitlin asked, "You want me to keep Mike busy while you tell Dom the assignment?"

He shook his head, "No!" He stood and waited for the pair to walk back inside after Archangel and Marella had lifted off.

As the pair walked through the door Mike mentioned, "No wonder the man refuses to wear white…Blinding!"

Dom chuckled, "You get used to it." He looked at Hawke, "So, what's the assignment?"

Hawke asked, "What do you know about remote viewing, Mike?"

"Remote viewing?" she asked. "The government did some experiments in it but nothing ever panned out."

"The Stargate Program?" he asked her.

"You probably know more than I do," she admitted.

Caitlin stood by rather perplexed. She didn't understand why Hawke was asking Mike what she knew.

Hawke handed the drawing of Airwolf to Mike and Dom, "They have a remote viewer. Major Michael Rivers drew that and identified it as Airwolf. Look familiar?"

"Hey," Dom motioned. "That's the storm we hit."

Caitlin interrupted, "Wait a minute! You already went through a tunnel made of clouds like that?"

Hawke admitted, "We did!"

She asked, "When?"

"When we were taking a test flight," he told her.

"But Major Rivers said that Airwolf disappeared." she countered. She then looked at Mike, "She knows about Airwolf?"

"She kind of does," he confessed.

"You didn't tell Michael that she knows," she balked.

Mike came up with a cover, "I'm a computer engineer. They needed a computer engineer and asked me to help."

"I see," she let the excuse go for it made sense.

Dom wondered, "What's the mission, String?"

"The Soviets have Major Rivers and we need to rescue him," he told them.

Mike cocked an eye, "How are we gonna do that?"

"Don't know yet," he admitted. "Ya think you could use Airwolf and that laptop to hack into the Soviets' satellites?"

She grew wide-eyed, "That's one hell of a hack-job."

"But can you do it?" he asked her.

"I can try," she agreed.

Caitlin asked, "Laptop?"

Hawke excused, "More computer lingo."

"Their satellites are directed towards Russia on the globe," she reminded him. We will have to be airborne and flying in hostile territory for me to hack in."

Hawke smirked and kidded, "Or we sneak you onto a space shuttle and you hack in while in orbit."

She shook her head, "No!"

Caitlin gathered, "I take it you are recruiting Dom's niece to help out with this assignment."

"We need her," he stated.

Caitlin sounded worried, "I know she is your niece, Dom. But I just watched her try to open a camera and couldn't do it." She looked at Mike, "I certainly hope you are a lot better at computers than loading film."

"I can do this," she insisted. "You just have to have a little faith in me."

"I don't know you," she told her.

Hawke held up a hand, "Trust her on this."

"Okay," she sighed unsure.

Dom wondered, "How do we tell Archangel we need to fly over USSR territory without exposing Mike?"

"I'll come up with something," he told him.

Caitlin countered, "Just tell him your recruited her. They can do the background check and everything will be fine." She looked at Mike, "Unless you can't pass a background check." She looked at Hawke and Dom and then back at her. "You can't pass one?" She looked back to Hawke, "Does she have a criminal record?"

He shook his head, "No! She's not a criminal."

"Then why can't she pass the background check?" she wondered.

Mike stated, "We should tell her."

Hawke threw her a look, "I don't think so."

"Tell me what?" she demanded.

Mike held up the drawing, "Airwolf flew through this anomaly two times; once with just Dom and String and the second time with the three of us. The first time they were sent into the future. Thirty years into the future. They were teaching me to fly it when we hit the anomaly and they came back to when they left."

Caitlin gave a funny look, "What?"

"I'm from the future," she told her.

She looked at Dom and Hawke and then back at Mike. She couldn't believe it for it so odd. "This is a joke!"

Hawke admitted, "We were gone for weeks."

Amused she asked, "Was I in the future?"

Hawke nodded, "Yes! You were there. You were older and you helped us adjust. You gave us a place to stay."

Caitlin amused, "So you and Dom traveled into the future, found me as an old broad and Dom's young niece who is a computer genius?"

Mike nodded eagerly, "Yeah…That's it!" She feared her mother's reaction if she knew the truth for so far she was not believing them.

"Cait," Hawke started. "Mike is a major in the Air Force. She flies helicopters and is a computer expert."

She looked at Dom, "Did you really go into the future or is this some sort of joke?"

Dom told her, "We really went there, Cait. You were there too. The reason Mike didn't know how to load film in the camera is because those digital cameras become so popular that film is obsolete. She never saw a roll of film before."

Caitlin asked concerned, "Do you have any proof to what you just said to me?" She wanted more than anything to believe them but it seemed like such an unlikely story.

Hawke admitted, "Actually we do."

"Let's see it," she told them.

"It's in Airwolf," he stated.

Later that day

Hawke drove Caitlin to Airwolf to show her the proof. He decided it was best if Dom stayed behind with Mike for he needed to maintain some control over what was said. He parked the jeep in the secret cave and looked over to Caitlin.

"You sure about this?" he asked her.

"I need to see proof," she insisted. "I want to believe you but traveling to the future…"

"Okay," he sighed and climbed out from behind the wheel. He led her to the chopper and opened the rear door. He climbed inside and retrieved the laptop and Dom's cell phone. He figured it would be better if he didn't show her the imagines on Mike's phone for she would see right through the ruse of being Dom's niece. He thought it would be better to maintain that cover for he feared how she would react meeting her adult daughter.

He held the iphone before her and tuned it on, "This is Dom's. It's a cell phone but it also has a camera in it." He showed it to her as it lit up. "You use your finger to bring up programs on it. It's called a 'touch screen'."

She cradled the phone in her hands and gasped, "Oh wow!"

Hawke brought up Dom's pictures, "These are the pictures he took while in the future."

"He took one of himself?" she asked amused.

"He took a number of himself. They have something called 'picture messaging'. You can take a picture of yourself and send it to a friend." he explained. "Dom took pictures of himself and sent them to you." He flicked through the pictures until he found a picture of Caitlin sitting at the table sipping her coffee.

She gasped upon realizing what she was looking at. "That's me! I'm an old lady."

"I thought you looked pretty good." he told her.

She touched the screen with her finger and another picture came up. It was Archangel. "That's Michael! He's an old man. He's dressed normal." Another photo came up of Hawke riding the lawnmower, "You're mowing the lawn?"

"Your neighbors are Rob and Bob and they are lawn fanatics who are just annoying," he mentioned.

"And they owe you a case of beer?" she asked.

He admitted, "We had a bet. Whoever has the best lawn wins the beer."

She went to another picture, "That's Mike! You said I had you and Dom live with me. She's at my house!"

"She would come to visit," was all he would reveal.

She gently handed the phone back, "That's far more advanced than anything the Firm has."

He took the phone and shut it off, "Which is why Archangel cannot know about Mike or the phones. This is a laptop. It's a computer that has more processing power than all of Airwolf's computers combined. You know what will happen if the Firm finds out about this technology? About Mike? They will take it. They will take her. We cannot let them know."

She assessed, "So you didn't send Mike outside to prevent her from finding about Airwolf. You sent her outside to prevent Michael and Marella from finding out about her."

"Exactly," he agreed.

She wondered, "If Mike hasn't been born yet then is she Dom's great niece? He's old enough to be her grandfather."

"Something like that," he replied. He hated misleading her but he knew the the shock of meeting your adult child face-to-face and wished to spare her that trauma.