7

Sting like a Bee. Land like a Butterfly.

"The way I see it, is only difference between a bomb and a missile is that one is propelled and the other is not." Will said, interrupting the pregnant silence that fell over the crew and leaving only the sound of Airwolf's cabin noise.

Minutes later everyone rallied. They removed the access panel to the armament store that sat low and behind the cabin bulkhead.

Will was a specialist bomb technician and had carefully disconnected three hellfire warheads from their fuel and rocket body. No toolbox was complete without duct or high-speed tape and a crude bomb was wrapped and spliced together in very little time.

Weighing about sixty pounds, it took two men to manoeuvre it around Sam's body and to Airwolf's sliding rear door.

Having identified the two incoming jets, Saint John announced. "Two J20's ten miles and closing," his tone was earnest.

They had to move quickly and had been hovering quietly out of the way over secluded farmland while they got the makeshift bomb together.

Now they really were cutting it fine as Nash approached the tall, narrow smoke stack cautiously.

Nick and Will were positioned awkwardly and had secured themselves with the winching harnesses to keep them from falling to their deaths.

Inching towards the top of the stack, it was noted that it wasn't in use, Mei informed everyone that it was only used a couple of times a week and remained on a pilot flame the rest of the time.

That was fortunate indeed, but they were working against the clock and the longer they stayed hovering at the facility, the more likely they would be compromised.

Lights had already started to come on within the accommodations that were built over their target and Saint John had updated the status of incoming Aircraft, the numbers now having increased to fifteen and the original idents closing in at five miles.

Meanwhile, on the RV Dolphin, somewhere in the middle of the Pacific, the rest of the crew were powerless to do anything but monitor the whereabouts of Airwolf's movements. In radio silence, it was only The Lady's systems that told them she was still wheels up via the pings she left through the INMARSAT satellite.

The unscheduled delay not far south of Wuhan had them all worried.

After pinpointing the ping to the location, Le announced that there was another Research Centre at that pin and the group surmised that the Airwolf crew were tidying up something that was unforeseen.

Project Guardian had picked up on the new flight movement bearing down on the location through to the two American Carriers that had pricked up their ears while patrolling the South China Sea and had subsequently been put on alert.

Michael and Marella had in turn notified the crew and everyone sat on tender hooks watching the blips and graphs on the multiple screens that Le had set up in the communications room on the superyacht.

"One mile and closing!" Saint John announced urgently as the first of a larger squadron of Chinese fighter jets closed in.

Nash and Nic had been coordinating their position over the stack, "Now!" Nick said loudly to Will and they both let go of their deadly incendiary.

"Go!" Nick said to their pilot. Will reeled out of the way while Nick made sure of their mark, watching the makeshift bomb disappear into the mouth of the chimney. He quickly scrambled back into the cabin, slamming the door shut with a bang, before flinging himself into his seat and harnessing up as quickly as he could.

Nash had already pitched The Lady forward and was rapidly picking up both speed and a little more altitude. He wasn't about to stick around to oversee their dirty work and called for turbo's, disappearing into the night, below effective radar and in stealth mode.

It wasn't until they had put more than thirty miles between the incoming fighters and themselves that Nash let out a breath of relief.

Saint John was intently monitoring their surrounds and by the look of the behaviour of the blips on his radar, Airwolf had managed to appear to vanish into thin air with all but the first two jets retreating from whence they came and leaving them to flounder about in their search of the mystery helicopter that had taken them by complete surprise and confounded them.

All eyes were peeled on the screens back in the comms room on the RV Dolphin.

The pings Airwolf made were coming in intervals through the satellite and Le was kept busy isolating her unique signal from the thousands of others to try and keep tabs on her as he worked impatiently.

The last ping had The Lady south west of Wuhan and halfway to the coast, so the signs were on their favour but as always, nothing good would come from becoming complacent and everyone remained on edge.

Michael startled when his cell interrupted his intense introspective thoughts. Looking at the screen, he saw it was Ayden Chapman. Sighing, his gut plummeted, telling him it probably wasn't great news.

Discreetly excusing himself from the Comms Room and acutely aware of the multiple sets of eyes that followed him he walked out of the room and into a hallway.

Michael braced himself before finally answering.

"Yeah, it's Michael. What's up?" he asked Ayden.

"The President has just informed me that the CCP has threatened US interests if we don't surrender the doctor immediately." Ayden said in deadly serious tone.

"They know it was us?" Michael asked suspiciously.

"Well, they may have suspected all along. Looks like one of Dr Zuan's co-workers got quite close to her. He could have been an operative." Ayden said flatly.

"Yet they didn't end her when they found out?" Michael asked with an element of disbelief.

"No, seems she was too valuable to them and they were either very good at hiding that they knew, or even better at... persuasion." Ayden said, revealing the frightening possibilities.

"Well. I suppose that's not entirely a surprise is it?" Michael asked, scrubbing a hand over his face, naturally being careful of his glasses and his missing eye.

Picturing the scenario's in his head, he wouldn't put anything past the CCP, especially with what they were currently doing with the Uighurs in prison camps. "Do we know what they're targeting?"

"No, but we've been given till 1200 Beijing time to hand the Dr over." Ayden answered.

"We don't even know where Airwolf is at this point, we still don't have radio contact." Michael argued uselessly.

"Yeah well, it's a moot point at this stage , but if the CCP makes good with its threat, you can pretty much guarantee war is imminent." Ayden said with a foreboding tone before the two continued discussing further strategy.

Airwolf was making a Mach two plus retreat down the same path they had tracked to get to Wuhan, it took her half an hour to make it to the coast and back into open airspace.

"Sentinel, this is Beautiful Lady. Do you Copy?" Nash said, when he was finally able to use comms.

Nash's voice crackled though Le's headset.

Beautiful Lady, we copy," Le said, flicking the switch to loud speaker. "Good to finally hear from you, Wings."

Instantly the tension in the room fractured and everybody seemed to breath a collective sigh of relief even if it was only to be sort lived.

"Mission accomplished." Nash said before his inflexion changed. "But we had some air to air and a man down. We lost him"

Everyone in the comms room reeled with the news.

Shaking his head in dismay Branson asked "Who?"

"Sam." Nash answered sadly and followed quickly with a small measure of reassurance. "But we got him, we got him and we're bringing him home."

Michael had returned to the Comms room on he tail end of the sentence with his own developing news. "Yeah about that," he said with his usual flare for putting a spanner in the works.

What little spirit that was left between Nash and Saint John, was abruptly quelled with those three words and then also those that followed while Michael explained the situation and ordered Nash to keep Airwolf in the area.

"What?" Nash asked in a tone laced with incredulity.

Michael could almost feel the daggers Nash was undoubtedly wanting to shoot at him and pictured the young gun's jaw working in the same way that String's used to do when he was faced with an unpleasant complication.

At the same time the rest of the crew, including Marella rounded on Michael, all in similar fashion which caused him to internally cringe even though the man was always very good at keeping a cool and calm façade.

"You can't just expect us to hang around just burning juice up here Mike." Nash said acerbically as he continued to cast doubt over their precarious situation.

Knowing it wouldn't be well received, Michael steeled himself for what he was about say.

"We need you to make a detour. We want you to drop the Doctor and the men off on the USS Ronald Regan. They'll be transferred onto a transport and flown out. You'll fuel there and standby for further orders."

"But.. " Nash said, starting to argue.

"That's a direct order from the President. Airwolf will be safer waiting on a military platform and can be deployed at a moment's notice."

We'll be sitting on a target the size of a city block, are you nuts?"

"You'll be hiding in plain sight."

"What about the crew? You don't think they'd start asking questions?"

"Relax will you? Only those who need to know will be briefed on what they need to know." Michael said, trying to reassure the tempestuous pilot.

Nash huffed at Michael's casual tone. "Relax? Now I know you've finally flipped. Michael, there are five thousand personnel on that ship! How in realty are we going to manage that?"

"That's my job Nash and now you need to do yours. You can't pull the same BS that Saint John did last time," he said, knowing Saint John could hear him too.

The man at the EDCC shook his head but stayed silent while Michael continued. "You were officially serving your country the moment the threat was made, do you understand?." Michael said more sternly, reminding Nash that Airwolf was still technically property of the US Government even if they didn't officially know that she still existed.

Nash would have been lying if he wasn't worried that this addition to their mission would jeopardise that very secret.

He wasn't the only one. They were all operating on a knife edge.

Michael didn't want to pull the rank card, but he felt that this was the time. Like Nash, he also didn't have a choice and had to follow his own orders. There were bigger things at stake.

Nash was still silently fuming on the other end of the radio.

"Do you understand Major's?" Michael repeated, cutting through Nash's dark cloud with the use of his surname.

"Yes Sir." Nash said, reluctantly conceding through gritted teeth and then asked for The Reagan's coordinates.

As soon as Michael and Nash's radio comms finished the entire room erupted into argument.

Marella was mad at her other half – "We should have discussed this before blindsiding..."

Branson equally so - "What the hell do you think you're playing at...?"

Jo was aghast – "That's my boy ...!"

Caitlin just wanted Saint John back – " How could you...?"

Dale crossed her arms angrily. "Asshole." She said, mumbling under her breath.

Le stayed quiet but felt equally betrayed that they were being strongarmed into having to involve themselves as part of the larger military presence and the real possibility of The Lady's cover being blown straight out of the blocks.

Michael held up his arms in surrender in an attempt to calm the onslaught. "Hold on, hold on." He said to little affect.

Then he whistled.

The shrill tone caught the crew's attention and gave Michael the break he needed to get a word in.

"The decision had already been made. We have two flotillas on high alert in the South China Sea with Airwolf in the region, President Tobias felt it was best to keep the aircraft there to bolster their ordnances and to give The Lady more cover at the same time.

"What? Two fully stocked Aircraft Carriers and their how-ever many destroyers covering their arse not enough?" Branson asked, not believing the older man for a second. "Seriously Michael, what difference could one super copter make in that military soup?"

Michael gave a little shake of his head and now he had more time to think, he aversely had to agree. "It wasn't my call Richards..." he said scanning the room and giving everyone a cursory glance, "I'm just the messenger and sometimes these things happen. Airwolf's next mission was already decided upon the moment China threatened the USA.

"It's out of my hands." He said softly and almost apologetically. A shiver ran down his spine at the thoughts that continued to develop in his head.

Michael's cell alerted him. "Shit." He swore when Chapman's number came up again on his screen.

In the South China Sea, flying halfway between Luzon and the Spratly Islands and with a thin line of light just emerging on the horizon, Airwolf had just slowed enough to engage her rotors as she approached the group of ships that surrounded the mighty USS Theadore Roosevelt.

Le suddenly noticed a secondary electronic signal on Airwolf's position now that her stealth capabilities were shut off as she drew nearer the powerful Navy fleet.

"Hmm, what's that?" Le asked more to himself then the others in the comms room.

Even so, the rest of the group moved closer to find out for themselves what had caught Le's interest.

"What is it Honey?" Caitlin asked, placing a hand on her son's shoulder.

Le pointed to the second blip being sent - a separate frequency to that of the Lady. "I'm not sure Mom."

Le drew his brows together in concentration while his fingers flew over the keyboard to isolate the foreign marker and then it dawned on him. "I think it's a tracking chip ."

Nash selected wheels down and was coming in on finals to land on the giant Carrier bathed in amber light off her own lighting and that of the new morning.

A green shirt stood on deck, ready to help marshal The Lady safely onto the expansive but extremely crowded micro airport.

"Beautiful Lady this is Sentinel, do you copy?" Le's voice broke Nash's concentration as his voice came through the headphone's in his helmet.

"Copy that. But I'm kind'a busy trying to land here Le," Nash said as he adjusted for a crosswind only a hundred feet off the deck.

"Wings, Airwolf has a secondary tracer onboard." Le said, informing The Lady's captain.

Michael had also been distracted by what was happening in the comms room and had left Ayden on the line calling through the speaker for him in vain.

"What?!" Michael said finally, barking into Ayden's ear.

"Miss me Michael?" Aiden asked with an annoyed quip.

Putting his cell on speaker, Michael didn't answer him straight away.

"Airwolf's been traced to the Big Stick Chapman!" Michael said, calling the ship by her nick name in an accusatory tone, while still focusing on the monitors over Le's shoulder.

"Well that explains what I'm calling you about, the CCP has just made a threat on the entire South China Sea fleet if we don't hand over Doctor and they want Airwolf now too."

There was a pregnant pause in the group and apart from the electronic sounds coming from the comms, you could hear a pin drop.

"So, they know Airwolf is no ordinary Helicopter?" Caitlin asked in alarm.

"Yeah, I'd say the tussle in Wuhan probably caught their attention." Marella said, crossing her arms in front of her

"And I'd say that was confirmed when The Lady turned up again where she did, when she did in such a short time." Branson said, following up both the women's train of thought.

Le had one ear on his connection with Airwolf while he was waiting for Nash to make a safe touchdown and one ear on the drama unfolding within the comm's room.

He relayed the news to Nash, who swore under his breath and took Airwolf back up and away from the Carrier, his concentration ruined.

"What do you mean we've been tracked? Why didn't The Lady pick anything up?" He asked.

Le was wondering that himself and had been furiously tapping away at his keyboard to why it wasn't picked up on Airwolf's sensors.

"Unless," Le said, letting the word float for a moment when an idea crossed his mind. He looked back at the data and when the signal first became apparent.

"The tracker. It's somewhere inside The Lady!" He said, confirming his suspicions. but not explaining himself.

Saint John had been listening in on the somewhat vague conversation and felt three pairs of eyes boring into him from within the passenger cabin. He casually turned and ran his keen eyes over the two Delta Force Operators and the Doctor. They all appeared mildly concerned by the aborted landing and were not patched into goings on from the radio comms.

Saint John pressed the intercom button. "Wind shear," he said as part of an explanation to Nash's distraction for the go around.

A look of understanding crossed Mei 's face but the two boys didn't seem entirely convinced. Saint John shot them a look, casually placing a finger over his mouth when the Doctor wasn't looking to keep them from asking questions while he waited for further information.

"Get that bird down on the deck, Nash, then get it checked out it and we'll go from there." Michael ordered from the RV Dolphin.

At this point Nash didn't really have a choice. He needed to rid The Lady of the offensive tracker and begrudgingly, he knew the Carrier was the best place to do that. The DFO's had some handy gear that he'd could utilise to scan for the device.

Airwolf touched down easily at Nash's second attempt and a minimal crew in Hazmat suits were waiting on the deck near their landing spot on Michael's prior successful negotiations.

Then the penny dropped. The potential exposure to the pathogen meant minimal contact and a wide birth.

Quarantine was the perfect cover.

Only thing was that now Nash began to worry if they had actually been exposed or not. It was a sobering thought.

Before opening the doors, the deck crew made contact with Nash and in turn, he made sure that everyone onboard was briefed to the ship's hazard procedure.

Nick and Will made quick work of snapping on some protective gloves and putting on face masks that were left in a box on the deck in front of the helicopter. They placed Sam in a body bag also provided and carried him some distance from The Lady. They were asked to place him ontop another open bag for the crew to close up and transfer to the ships morgue.

The two Delta Force men were then escorted by some of the crew across a deserted part of an otherwise chaotic deck and to a panelled portable building that had been erected near the bridge. Here they had to strip and take a shower with decontamination liquid and then dressed in their own hazmat suits before they could be transferred to an isolation ward in the infirmary.

Saint John helped Mei down to a gently rolling deck where the process was repeated.

Nash stayed with the sleek chopper and the Carrier crew were under order to not approach.

The Lady was not to be left on her own without one of her crew. Even though it was against the ships protocol, it was overridden by top brass in Washington.

While they waited for Mei to finish the decontamination process, Nash and Saint John set about cleaning the worst of Sam's blood from Airwolf's alloy floor and scanned every inch of her for the device that had been tracing them but came up empty handed.

After the Doctor was moved on, it was the boys turn.

They would have to go through the decon process again after giving The Lady a deep clean and refuelling her. They were given a change of Navy flight suits and their old ones would be destroyed. Only then would they finally be able to bunk down for a few hours to eat and rest onboard The Lady while waiting for their next set of orders.

It had been a long night and the sun had risen to the east. Nash and Saint John were taking advantage for their downtime, the relative safety of the Reagan's deck being one of the most weaponised zipcodes on the planet.

Below deck in an isolation room, Mei was required to report to Project Guardian under the guise of the CIA before she was finally allowed to rest.

And her story would have bordered on the unbelievable if she wasn't part of an undercover intelligence mission. A lot can happen over so many years.

Dr Zuan's Mission became finite once she had managed to be able to stabilise the pathogen. It was ten times more virulent than Marburg Virus.

It was attached into a soluble powder and could be either applied wet or dry anywhere that rodents and the various other host animals traditionally lived. From there it could easily spread with minimal effort

That's where the Daigou shoppers came into it. It would be their job to plant the contagion throughout major cities in their hundreds of thousands.

There was a saying that always rang true: First things happen slowly and then they happen fast.

This was especially true of the Virus and once it was out of control, it could decimate a population within weeks.

The powdered VHFs21 had been stored in the vast warehouse under the rurally based Laboratory, and the entire store had now likely been compromised by fire and any that wasn't would have been completely dissolved by the suppression systems leaving the site and who knew how many square kilometres contaminated.

Of course, it wouldn't have been very clever if the CCP didn't think ahead and insist the manufacture of both a vaccine and an antidote to keep those who were useful safe.

It took Dr Zuan's team three years to produce and test the Vaccine, and to prove that it worked, the Chinese President forced Mei to take the first official dose. That was almost five years ago.

She didn't suffer any side effects nor did she die, millions of doses had been produced and stored in those cryo canisters at the city based Wuhan Lab ready to distribute among President and his CCP operatives with continuing supply to follow for the general population.

The antidote took a further three years to complete and three weeks before Mei's rescue, she and her colleagues had been locked in the sealed cells and purposely exposed to the pathogen.

The narcissism of their communist leader shone through once more. He wanted to see for himself how well it would work.

The Doctor who already had a level of protection, only received mild symptoms akin to the Flu.

So, in President Li Chunglung's eyes, she was fit to continue his little experiment.

But the cruellest twist was that Doctor Zuan wasn't able to access her fellow lab techs to administer the antidote as soon as possible. Instead, she was forced to wait until she could access each cell only when it was remotely unlocked for her.

It was a sick little game to test just how far into the symptoms the antidote would prove to be effective.

It turned out that once the bleeding started, it was too late, so the Chinese President ordered a little more tweaking, which is where Dr Zuan was at when the facility was raided by Operation Alpha.

Now it was time for her to wrap up her work and rethink where she would go from here. Little did she now she was so near yet so far.

Only hours later, from somewhere in the South China Sea, all hell was about to break loose when the warning went out and the entire fleet was put on red alert.