Airwolf and all associated characters (except mine) are owned by Belisarius Productions, NBC Universal Television, Atlantis Communications. All persons described herein are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental. Copyright infringement is not intended.

Angels Rising

Chapter 1: Identity Crises

16 January 1987

Dina was so focused on soldering the circuit board that she hardly heard the door to the lab open. It was the familiar tapping of her boss' rosewood cane on the floor that caught her attention, and she quickly straightened up and put the tool aside.

The tall blond man in the impeccable white suit entered the room. One sea-blue eye stared at her from behind glasses that had the left lens permanently darkened. His facial expression was so bad-news bleak that she knew she couldn't address him casually. "Is there a situation, sir?" she asked, expecting him to tell her that her expertise would be needed for an assignment.

"Worse," he said quietly, his voice hoarse as if he'd been shouting. "Something big is going to happen very soon. Even I didn't realize it until only a few minutes ago." He reached into a pocket of his jacket and handed her a 3-½ inch diskette. "Consider this my last orders to you. When you leave today, take anything personal with you and don't return."

She felt like she'd been punched in the stomach. Had she been fired? No, if that were the case, she'd have been told by her immediate supervisor. For the Firm's Deputy Director to do something like this, it had to be extremely serious. "Sir, why?"

"It's all on that," he told her as he nodded at the diskette. "Please, if you've trusted me up to this point, trust me now. Don't tell anyone, don't even mention that you saw me." He turned to leave. "If you don't hear from me within a week, go to ground."

"Archangel…" she whispered, suddenly terrified, more for him than for herself.

He glanced back at her. "Watch yourself, Agent Jophiel." In a flutter of white, he was gone.

Dina stood frozen to the spot. From the time she'd completed her training, he had addressed her that way before either of them had departed on an assignment. But this time, judging by the tone of his voice, she wasn't certain if they would see each other again.

In compliance with his orders, she continued her day as she normally would. After finishing the circuitry, she set it aside and carefully put all the tools away before making notes on a clipboard to keep track of her progress. Then she went to the small table that served as a desk and retrieved her purse, a light sweater (the air conditioning made it too cold for her at times) and the Swiss Army knife that Archangel had given her as a gift when she'd graduated training.

As far as she knew at this moment, the other people who'd been in her class two years ago were either out on assignment or dispersed around the various departments of the Firm. She dearly wished she could warn them, especially Aidan Dalziel who had been her partner on a few missions, but she had been specifically instructed not to tell anyone. That alone indicated that Archangel suspected that someone on the inside was about to make a move and he didn't want to risk that person being tipped off. The fact that he'd warned her was a testament to how much he trusted her, so she couldn't let him down.

She left the building by her usual route and exchanged some small talk with the security guard at the door before turning her back on the facility for what would be the last time.

A week passed, and she hadn't heard from Archangel at all. The Firm hadn't even called to ask where she was, because they were accustomed to her being sent out on assignment at a moment's notice and not reporting in for days at a time. Then she saw on the news that an explosion had occurred at the Santini Air charter service in Van Nuys, killing the owner and severely injuring one of the employees.

There was no doubt in her mind that it had been no accident, contrary to what the news reports said. If Santini Air had been targeted, chances were that anyone in the Firm division that Archangel had overseen could be next. Fortunately, she'd been prepared. She went to a cabinet and extracted an envelope that contained cash and a letter to her landlord. From a closet, she pulled a carefully packed travel bag and slung it over her shoulder.

It was time to disappear.

3 March 2013

The elderly man paced back and forth restlessly, almost oblivious to the limp that had plagued him for decades. His latest attempt at finding the one person who could potentially help him with his problem had met with failure. Even the contacts he had remaining to him at his former place of employment hadn't been able to make much progress.

"Please sit down, Michael, before you aggravate your leg further," advised the white-suited, chestnut-haired woman who sat behind the desk that at one time had been his own. "I said I would keep trying, and I meant it. Why don't we go through the information again; there has to be something that we missed."

"You know very well that I can't talk about it here, Marella," he said quietly.

Marella leveled her gaze at the man who had been her boss and her friend, and pressed a button underneath the desk. There was a soft click as the door locked itself and the environment quieted as the various electronic devices in the room powered down. "Is that better?"

"Much." With a sigh, he called up memories that were almost thirty years past. "I knew her as Dina Brandon, although I believe that's not her real name, and she claimed that she was originally from Bellingham, Washington. Black hair, dark eyes, possibly some Native American ancestry from the way she looked. She was in the electronics internship program from September '84 until June of '85, and was one of the brightest young women whom I'd had the pleasure of knowing. Her overall performance placed her in the middle of the pack, but I could tell that she had put herself in that position deliberately."

"I wonder why she would do such a thing," Marella mused. "Perhaps she didn't want to attract attention to herself for some reason."

Michael nodded. "That's exactly what I thought at first. But then I realized that if she was intelligent enough to do that, it meant that she was subtly challenging the higher-ups to see if they would notice. And I did." He paused and then sat down in one of the chairs that faced the desk, stretching out his left leg. "I took her under my wing and gave her extra lessons, and when she proved to be an excellent candidate, I recommended her for a full-time position. Over the next year and a half, she became a valuable member of the computer department, and even accompanied me on a few local missions that required her expertise." He added, almost to himself, "Perhaps she was too valuable."

"What happened then?" Marella prodded.

"One day in January '87 there was a major security breach, and one of the members of her team accused Dina of being responsible. I trusted her enough to know that she wasn't, but Chairman Zeus wouldn't take my word for it. He had her fired, and then he took out his frustration on me. When I was reassigned overseas soon afterward, I lost track of her. I never knew what happened to her after that."

With a nod, Marella said, "I remember that. As per regulations, your entire division was shut down, all data erased, and within the week most of the personnel were replaced. I was one of the lucky ones; I got posted to a place in what you would call the back end of nowhere. Then, as you know, when I heard in '94 that Zeus was finally retiring, I jumped at the chance to come back."

Michael sighed again and tapped the end of his ever-present cane lightly on the floor before looking up. "That young woman had come to feel like a daughter to me, but despite my efforts over the years to track her down, I haven't been able to find her. Contacting you was a bit of a last-resort move on my part, I'll admit."

"I can assure you, Michael, that I'll do everything in my power to help you find this woman," his former aide said in a reassuring tone. "I owe you that at least, after all we went through."

"Loyal as ever," he said as he stood and gave one of the enigmatic half-smiles that he had been famous for. "I really appreciate this, Marella. Please keep me posted."

10 May 2013

"So, what's for dinner?"

Nadine groaned at her husband's too-frequent joke, that he cracked the moment she stepped in the door after arriving home from work. The past few days had been unseasonably warm and the last thing she wanted to do on this Friday evening was cook. "What, no 'Hello dear', or 'How was your day'?" she snapped back at him. "Just 'What's for dinner?' is it? It would've been nice if you'd cooked something for a change, since you get here sooner than I do. Or better yet, order in." She hung her purse on a hook next to the door, where she usually did.

"At least I can cook," the dark-haired man complained. "All you can cook well is anything that comes out of a package."

"That's not true, Lucas, and you know it!" Nadine said. "Come to think of it, in all the years we've been together I haven't once heard you complement me on my cooking, no matter how hard I try."

"I shouldn't have to," was Lucas' rejoinder. "Oh, all right, I'll order us a pizza, but you'd better make up for it tomorrow!"

Grumbling to herself, Nadine retreated into the bedroom and began to quickly change out of her work clothes. With any luck, she'd be done by the time that Lucas got off the phone. The last thing she wanted was for him to walk in on her.

Once she was dressed in loose jeans and a T-shirt, she sat on the bed with a sigh. Seventeen years of marriage and her husband still didn't respect her. Their love had faded a long time ago; the main reasons they stayed together were for the convenience and the fact that he didn't believe in divorce. Privately she was glad that they'd never had children. If children had been involved, things would've been so much messier.

Lucas' footsteps were coming up the hallway when the front doorbell rang. Less than a minute later, Lucas barged into the bedroom without knocking and said, "There's some old guy at the door for you. He said his name was Mr. Briggs. Is that anyone you know?"

The name jogged a faint memory in Nadine's mind. The surname was relatively common, but still… "I'm not sure," she said as she got up and hurried after Lucas to the door. The mysterious guest was standing with his back to the doorway as he gazed around the front yard, but when Nadine prompted, "Mr. Briggs?" he slowly turned toward her.
She was struck speechless. The man's face was deeply lined, his hair and mustache were snow-white, and the clothes he wore were casual. But there was no mistaking the glasses with the blacked-out left lens and the silver-headed cane. "A…" she began to say, and then cleared her throat as she realized that she couldn't speak her old greeting in front of Lucas. "Sir?" she asked instead.

"That voice," the man murmured in awe as he stared at her. "Dina?"

Nadine stepped forward. "Michael!" she cried and embraced him tearfully.

Michael returned her hug with a sigh. "My God," he whispered, "it really is you."

She let him go. "Where on Earth have you been all these years? I tried to track you down but I couldn't find anything."

"The same goes for me," Michael said wryly. "I think you and I need to have a long talk."

"Absolutely," she said, and grabbed her purse off the hook as she jammed her feet into her shoes. "Are you up to walking?"

His blue eye twinkled. "I can manage."

"I'm coming too," Lucas announced, with ill-concealed suspicion in his voice. "I don't like Nadine walking around in this neighbourhood in the evening; it can be dangerous."

Nadine said evenly, "I've told you many times that I can defend myself. Michael is a dear friend from a long time ago, and what we might talk about probably wouldn't be interesting to you anyway." It would be difficult for her to speak freely if Lucas was with them. Unfortunately, her husband was both insecure and jealous, traits that prompted his insistence on being in her company as much as possible, no matter how much it inconvenienced her.

"Mr. Redmond, I appreciate your concern," Michael added diplomatically, "but it's not necessary. I might be old, but I happen to know several ways to kill a person just by using this," he tapped the end of his cane on the ground. "Your wife will be quite safe."

"Pff, fine," Lucas scoffed, and retreated into the house.

After closing the door, Nadine walked with Michael to the street, and she indicated a local park a short distance away, where they could talk relatively undisturbed. "I'm sorry about that. He used to be a good man, but something in him broke when we found out that I couldn't have kids. If it weren't for his family's strict beliefs, he probably would've divorced me a long time ago. It would've been better for both of us if he had."

"You definitely look like you've had the raw end of the deal," Michael observed. "Will you tell me what you've been doing with your life? How did you end up here?"

"That, old friend, is a long story," she said with a smile. "But I'll summarize. The week after you told me to leave the Firm, I went home and finished my schooling. I took degrees in several sciences before going into forensics, much to my parents' disgust, but it's what I wanted to do. Being a part-time spy… excuse me, intelligence agent, for a year and a half helped." She grinned at him. "I helped to solve some high-profile cases for the police, but fortunately the publicity for that usually goes to the department in general, so I never was singled out."

Michael nodded. "I read about those and had a feeling that you might've been involved. Every time I got close to finding you, however, I would hit a dead end."

"I had reasons for covering my tracks," she said apologetically. "Not the least of which was protecting myself from vengeful criminals. In 1996, a loose-lipped informant tipped off the brother of one of the people I helped to put away." She grimaced. "He murdered my parents while I was at work."

"Oh my God…" Michael murmured.

"He was caught and jailed eventually, but after that, I felt that I had no choice but to leave town. I changed my name again, moved across the border, and I've been living here in Penticton since. Lucas Redmond's family are mainly farmers and foresters; they've been here for generations. They wanted him to continue in that line of work, but he saw the potential of the computer field and he's now a partner in a marketing business." She shook her head ruefully. "They're nice people, but like I said, their beliefs grate on me. And they resent me for not being able to have kids even though it's not my fault. I feel like I'm stagnating here, but there's little I can do because I have no other family that's close by."

Michael put his free arm around her shoulders in a comforting gesture. "I'm beginning to wish you could've come to me," he admitted. "When you were with the Firm, you thrived on the work. After I was unceremoniously shipped off, I lost track of you, and I had to hope that they didn't decide to terminate you," he said worriedly.

She smirked but there was sadness in her eyes. "Oh, they tried, but I made sure they never found me. I was surprised that they even would, given that my position hadn't been a sensitive one. Then again, I had worked with you, so…" She gave a shrug.

He closed his eyes and sighed. "Of course. Standard operating procedure."

"Which, thanks to you, I'd been forewarned of, and I didn't stick around long enough to see what happened to the other members of my team. The only person who had all my pertinent information was the program resource manager, and I was sure that he was the first one that they got rid of. That's the main reason why they were never able to track me down afterwards." She reached up and clasped his shoulder. "It would've been nice to know that you were somewhere safe, though."

Michael gave a bitter laugh. "In that line of work, nowhere is truly safe. I survived. Some weren't so fortunate."

Nadine was silent for a moment. "Were you ever able to find out what happened to…" Even all these years later, she couldn't say the names in public. "…your allies?"

He nodded. "Eventually, yes, I did. Long story short: after the explosion at Santini Air, all of them scattered to the winds. In the confusion of the restructuring, nobody at the Firm, or the Company as it became known, was able to find them." He gave a condescending smirk. "It helped that I was able to delete a few pertinent files before I left."

She laughed. "Of course, you would have. What happened to the charter business, then?"

"It was taken over by Dominic's only available relative, his niece Joanna Santini. I was recalled to the States in 1990 during the Kuwait crisis, which gave me the opportunity to track down the family and check on them. They were all well, and given the circumstances, swore me to secrecy as to where they lived and what their future plans were." His voice softened somewhat. "The one loose end I could never find was you… until in a fit of desperation I sent a request to Marella, whom you might remember. She's now Deputy Director of Intelligence at the new Firm."

"I do remember her, and it doesn't surprise me that she stepped into your job. Of all the people who worked with you, she knew you and your methods the best." It was clear from what Michael was not saying that a great deal had happened that he still couldn't or wouldn't talk about, but she knew better than to press him on it. "It looks like retirement suits you, though. Do you raise polo ponies now, like you once mentioned to me?"

"Yes, that, among other things," he confirmed, his blue eye twinkling. He tapped his cane on the ground with a thoughtful expression. "Something tells me that your interest in this place goes beyond a casual walk or two."

With a chuckle, Nadine gestured at the verdant greenery that they were walking through. "You're as observant as ever, Michael; I could never get much past you. Yes, this is one of the few unspoiled green areas left in this section of town. I did a lot of work with the community to help preserve it. It gives me a sense of peace and privacy that helps me come to terms with the evils that exist in the world." Smiling at him again, she continued, "All chit-chat aside, why are you really here, Michael? You never did anything without a purpose, so I'm sure you had another reason to find me than just to catch up."

The man stopped walking, sighed heavily and glanced at the ground for a moment. "I need your help."

She knew that stance. "If you're talking about doing something for the Firm, or whatever it's called now, I will tell you right now that my answer is no," she said somberly. "If it were anything else, I would consider it, because there's little that I wouldn't do for you after the kindness you showed me back then. But I am not stepping back into that political quagmire; I've had enough of that already."

Michael regarded her evenly. "I had a feeling you would say that." Then he said with anger colouring his voice, "I said the same thing when they knocked on my door three months ago. I've been retired for fifteen years and I wanted nothing more than to enjoy the rest of my life without getting mixed up in another government scandal. But they insisted, because they were convinced that I was the only one who could get them the information that they were looking for."

Something clicked. "Airwolf."

He nodded, looking a bit embarrassed. "Airwolf."