CHAPTER 17

"Lexa? I thought I told you to stay put."

"I found an escort," Lexa replied, still a little disoriented, but perseverant.

"Hawke?" Marella said unbelievingly. "What happened to you? You look even worse than she does."

"He has been determined to stumble around her with the rest of us, even after flying back from Russian and loosing about a gallon of blood."

That earned her an unappreciative scowl from Hawke. "Not a gallon," he corrected, although he knew he couldn't deny the others and admittedly he had lost a lot of blood, Airwolf's cockpit alone being proof.

"Either way, you both need some medical attention. I could arrange for an ambulance and have you both on your way in just a few minutes."

"No," both replied immediately.

"I'm not going anywhere," Hawke insisted. "There has been a security breach and something important is going to be missing if we don't do something about it."

"I'm not leaving either 'til the mission's successful. Besides, I think it' wearing off," she added, attempting to mask the sudden sickening feeling that had just hit her stomach.

"My army - the staggering wounded," Marella quipped. "Oh well, you use what you have, right? And about all I've got is the two of you with enough stubborn determination for a whole branch of the military."

\A/

"I think I heard something this way," Caitlin said, turning around the corner, gun still in hand. Dominic followed.

Just in front of them, the door slammed shut, locking behind the escaping fugitives and leaving them unable to do a thing about the criminals leaving through the hangar.

Muttering curses under their breaths, the twosome started looking for an unlocked door or other way to gain access into the FIRM's hangar. No way could be found though.

"We can't have lost them; we just can't have."

"Wait a minute," Dom cautioned. "I hear someone."

A locked door to their left suddenly flew open and Marella came through, flanked by her walking wounded army right behind her.

Breathing out a sigh of relief and disappointment all at the same time, Dom and Cait lowered their weapons as the rest of the group joined them.

"Any idea where they went?" Lexa asked hopefully.

"Out through the hangar," Dominic replied.

Deftly Marella entered in her access code and lead the way through.

"Where could they be?' Isabel demanded of herself impatiently. "One of the helicopters is missing," Marella suddenly realized. "They're gone then."

"No," Hawke replied "We can't let them get away."

"But how?" Caitlin questioned, confused, as she watched Hawke climb into a nearby Long Ranger. Kicking the rotors into motion, impatiently waiting for them to gain momentum as his woozy companion climbed in beside him.

"The files - me, Dom, Cait….Airwolf. They're going after Airwolf."

\A/

"So what've we got?"

Maria simply continued glowering at the names on the paper on front of her. "Stringfellow….Saint John…What kind of names are those?"

"I don't care about the names; I just want some background information about Airwolf and its crew."

"You should know plenty about them considering all those committee meeting you sat in on," the younger agent retorted. "Stringfellow Hawke - he's currently now almost thirty seven, has a presumed nephew, amerasian, living with him and has no other known living relatives. His brother is MIA in Vietnam and finding him is Stringfellow's main goal in life. He has agreed with Archangel to relinquish control of Airwolf back to the FIRM once his brother, dead or alive, is found and brought back. He served three tours in Vietnam in the same unit as his brother from seventeen on until the fall of Saigon in '75. After the war, he worked for the FIRM as a covert agent for two years then as chief test pilot on the Airwolf project following a year long disappearance for which we have no record of where he might've been. Since then he has been steadily employed at Santini Air by Dominic Santini,\\ and lives in a secluded cabin in the woods."

"Good, and the others?"

"Saint John Hawke is Stringfellow's older brother by four years, occasionally helped out at Santini Air before shipping off to 'Nam in where he acomplished the rank of Captain before being shot down July 4, 1969, and missing in action since then. Le van Hawke is assumed to be his son, but no certain identifications have been made."

"Tell me more about Mr. Santini."

"Dominic Santini is the owner and operator of Santini Air, which we believe also served as a cover for their government work. He is the surrogate father of both Hawke boys after their parents drowned in a boating accident when Stringfellow was ten and Saint John fourteen. He often provides backup to the younger Hawke on Airwolf missions and served during the Korean War and World War II."

"Anyone else?"

"One more - Caitlin O'Shaunessey. She was taught to fly by her father and in her early twenties joined the Texas Highway Patrol, aerial division. After the town, Pope County, was mysteriously shot up, she took a leave of absence and later showed up in Van Nuys where she went to work for Santini Air part time. Eventually she also got involved with Airwolf and is now considered a third member of the team.

"And Airwolf, affectionately known as 'The Lady,' is a FIRM-made stealth attack helicopter designed by a now deceased Dr. Charles Henry Moffet. During a presentation to the senator, Moffet obliterated the entire control center and took Airwolf to Libya. Later taken back by Hawke, Airwolf has been hidden somewhere in the western United States for the last three years, flown by Hawke and Santini for on missions of national interest in exchange for the FIRM's looking for Hawke's brother, only to be returned if Saint John is found. It is an aerodynamic lifting body able to reach three hundred knots or can disengage its rotor system and ignite two additional turbines with which it can exceed mach one. Airwolf is armor plated and armed with a variety of weapons ranging from thirty millimeter canons to nuclear tipped Shrike missiles."

"That truly is one heck of a chopper," the pilot remarked. "And I've heard a dream to fly. For the ones outside the cockpit though….that black battleship is hell with rotors."

She had to smile at the comment, knowing to be all too true, but also that it would be the two of them on the inside and everyone else on the out.