Once Airwolf landed, Allen began shutting her down before removing his helmet which revealed him to anyone who would have been in front of the menacing helicopter. After opening the door and stepping out Allen announced "Everyone here now?" His mother moved out from behind her rental Tahoe and said "You know how to make an entrance kiddo, how did you get your hands on Airwolf?" That was when the other door opened and Michael Cold Smith Briggs the third stepped out and said "That would be my doing." Caitlin looked at him and said "Michael? Whats going on?" Michael noticed St. John and Jo standing just in the shadows and said "Maybe we need to put the guns away and sit down so I can brief everyone." Mike Rivers said "Don't mind me, I'm already sitting so I am going roll over to the old girl and make sure my best friend's nephew hasn't hurt her too bad."
As everyone got seated Michael began the briefing "The only prototype of Airwolf's most recent successor, Code named Direwolf, was built and was nearly done with testing when it's flight crew stole it. The only people that are capable of actually flying Airwolf in combat against Direwolf are in this room. Allen is the best bet on paper, St. John being more experienced actually ends up being more successful than Allen in the computer models, Cait wins three out of four times according to the computer, and Jo wins around sixty eight percent of the time. The computer models almost seem to want Airwolf to win, but those models are based on data taken directly from both Airwolf and Direwolfs onboard systems. Allen's computer profile is based strictly on his service record and the computer projects him to win every other time. Everyone else, including the Direwolf models, has a model based on actual data from Airwolf. And Direwolf. We believe the people behind all three attacks on you are mercenaries hired by, or working with, Direwolf's thieves." Addie interrupted Michael and said "Me and Mom were attacked, Allen doesn't look like he has been in any kind of a fight recently, he's not pissed off, so who else was attacked?" Michael sighed and said "Shortly after St. John and Jo left Santini Air, a mercenary team raided Santini Air. No one was hurt or taken, although the staff there were interrogated at gun point. Then the police showed up after a neighbor saw the operation and called 911." Caitlin then asked "So what now?" Allen chimed in "I'm hoping that Uncle St. John will come with me and Airwolf, I need someone familiar with her capabilities to show me the ropes." Michael then said "And I was hoping to catch a ride back to civilization on the ground. This kid takes after his father and String terrified me traveling at Mach 1 plus below fifty feet and he was familiar with Airwolf." Caitlin laughed and said "I'll gladly give you a ride back to the airport, then we can fly into Santini Air." Mike chimed in and said "I'll fly back with the kid and St. John. I wanna get a look at those upgrades, and my condition won't be a problem at the engineers console." St. John looked at Mike and said "Thanks for volunteering me." Mike replied "We both know you were already planning lessons for the kid." Jo laughed and said "He's right. So what about finding Direwolf?" Michael said "We believe the thieves plan to auction her off to the highest bidder. Iran and China have reportedly made offers and the Russians are trying to find it and steal it for themselves as are the North Koreans. We have a few advantages, starting with the home field advantage and David Three Feathers having a grudge." Jo asked "Who is this David Three Feathers?" Michael replied "The only person who has flown Airwolf that isn't in this room. He almost managed to stop the theft of Direwolf, and nearly died for his efforts. He's part of Allen's team." Allen then spoke up and said "So is Addie. I'm gonna need someone who can handle themselves to go in with me to recover Direwolf if we find it on the ground. Uncle St. John and David can handle Airwolf in case we fail." Addie nodded and Jo asked "Why not take Alex?" Michael then chimed in and said "Simple, he's plan C." Lori asked "Maybe I missed something, what is Plan B?" Allen replied "I find Direwolf and blow it out of the sky."
St. John then asked "What can you tell us about Direwolf?" Michael then said "Direwolf is the modern development of the Airwolf Program. She's bigger, more heavily armed, we believe it's mach two capable, and aside from the rotor system she's a fifth gen fighter. Where Airwolf used both passive and active stealth mechanisms, Direwolf is entirely a passive stealth system because we have been unable to reproduce Airwolf's active system. Essentially on paper she's a better bird in virtually every aspect, but so were HX1, Redwolf, Scorpion, and N3." Mike grinned and said "N3 was a particularly nasty surprise. My understanding was that it's theft is what led to the Airwolf program being shutdown." Michael then said "It was, now imagine it but with modern systems and even faster." Mike whistled and said "So we have our work cut out for us." Michael answered "If it was easy I wouldn't get the Hawkes involved." Addie asked "Can that thing seat four?" Michael replied " It does." Addie then said "I'll fly back in Airwolf. I need to know what kinda systems I am gonna operate when I help steal back or kill this Direwolf."
Thirty minutes later Airwolf was lifting off, Cait and everyone was taking every vehicle out of the lair with Levi riding Addie's bike back to Santini Air. Once Airwolf was clear of witnesses Allen pushed her super sonic and Mike began familiarizing himself with the upgrades to Airwolf while showing Addie how things worked. Addie then asked "Mike, what does this 'Native flight mode' indicator mean?" Mike looked at it and said "My god, He's flying this thing without computer assistance. Imagine trying to fly an F-16 or B-2 without computer assistance, that's essentially what he's doing right now. Your father and the mad man that built this thing are the only two people who have ever done it." Addie asked "Did you ever try it?" Mike said "Couldn't, Airwolf determines the level of pilot assistance. Keep in mind that normally the pilot doesn't really fly Airwolf so much as they ask it to do what they want, unless it's in native mode, and the computer makes it happen. We tried bypassing the flight assistance a few times and Airwolf wouldn't even lift off. The computer would dial back to sixty percent flight assistance with St. John, but never anymore than that. When the computer goes into native mode, Airwolf and the pilot are actually complementing each other to the point that they are essentially flying her together." They were approaching Los Angeles when Addie said "Let me see the radar controls." Mike watched as she dialed in on an artifact and said "We have a single stealth contact at three o'clock, eight miles out, headed away from us. Altitude is 40k feet, speed is two hundred fifty knots." St. John then said "Wanna check it out?" Allen replied "Oh yeah, and if it's Direwolf we need to kill it before it can get away or do damage somewhere." St. John said "In that case Mike, keep an eye out for radar scans and suppress them." Allen turned Airwolf, said "Turbos," as Airwolf lept to Mach speed.
Moments later Airwolf dropped in behind an all black helicopter that looked very much like a bigger version of itself. St. John commented "That thing looks dangerous." Allen then said "Let's get their attention, Combat mode." As Airwolf's weapons deployed, Allen planned his attack and the moment those weapon systems indicated they were ready Allen raked the other gunship with the guns and spoke over the radio "Land that thing and surrender, or not. It doesn't matter to me. The only difference is whether you live or die." Direwolf's response was to deploy weapons and try to get behind Airwolf. Airwolf with the Allen at the controls was nearly impossible to shake as the older gunship was more maneuverable and able to accelerate quicker. Unable to shake Airwolf, Direwolf fired a missile at a commercial airliner forcing Allen to distract the missile with Airwolf itself, and then decoy it with a sunburst. This gave Direwolf the chance it needed to get behind the older gunship. The problem was that Airwolf with Mike fine tuning the active radar suppression was still a stealth aircraft even in combat mode, and that made her a nearly impossible target for Direwolf. After getting raked by Direwolf's guns Allen initiated a hammerhead stall and a rotation that brought Airwolf behind Direwolf. Selecting a sidewinder, Allen fired the moment he got a lock on the other gunship. The missile hit, and detonated but didn't kill Direwolf. The sudden difficulty the pilot had controlling Direwolf along with the smoke pouring out of the tail demonstrated the missile caused serious. Just as Allen was about to fire a second sidewinder, Direwolf went to mach two and escaped. Not anticipating combat, Allen had not conserved fuel and now it limited his options. Knowing they were low on fuel they accepted that they simply couldn't pursue their wounded prey.
Later when Airwolf landed at Knightsbridge the crew was met by Marella and David as they emptied out of Airwolf. Allen said "Get them to refuel and rearm Airwolf. David, let's say someone shoved a sidewinder into the tail of Direwolf. Where could they make repairs?" David considered it and said "Not really possible. To get her Airworthy they would need a machine shop, a few days, and a lot of skill." Marella asked "Why?" David replied "It's tough, but now it's hurt and the pilot isn't that impressive."
Author's Note: Allen is intended to be what String would have been if he had grown up with his father (albeit a crippled father). Allen is also going to be a bit different than String, St. John in many ways will take on the role of Dominic outside of Airwolf making him more of a mentor. I really wish I could have had String in this story, but any story with String would have to have him taking out the big bad and putting him in the wheelchair to sideline him didn't seem right. In my mind letting him pass away after he and Cait had two kids seemed the best option. I do plan to flashback to his cause of death in a future story.