Chapter 9: Friend or Foe?
10 AM
Ex-Lieutenant Commander Rick "Jester" Heatherly woke up in the back seat of a Dodge Ram pick-up truck, which belonged to the bartender at the Aces High Tavern. Maverick was driving the truck and Charlie was in the passenger seat keeping an eye on Jester. Rooster and Phoenix followed closely behind in the other vehicle.
"Where the hell am I?" Jester grumbled, still slumped over, only feeling half conscious.
"We are heading back to that hole in the wall bar where we all just left from, and we are going to try and get a little bit more information about the two men who intercepted Hangman and Coyote last night," Charlie responded.
"You ain't getting any pertinent information out of that BUFFOON bartender back at the bar. He barely knew how to open a bottle of Bud," Jester emphatically stated.
"Well… if I can't get him to talk, I'm sure my friend, Smith and Wesson, will help him refresh his memory."
Maverick shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Really, Charlie? Is that your answer for everything?"
"It hasn't failed me so far," she smirked.
"Now, Jester, tell us more about this 'Red Line Bomber' you helped to create. What is it capable of doing?" Maverick inquired.
Jester positioned himself in a more upright sitting position. He then cracked his neck from side to side a couple times. "What is it capable of?" He echoed Maverick's question. "Imagine World War III happening in the blink of an eye. Imagine a plane that can get in and out so fast, you could never stop it because you could never catch up to it. In fact, when I say it's fast, I'm talking nearly 9,000 miles per hour fast- with the capacity to deploy twice the payload it took for you guys to destroy the mountaintop. It could bomb every country on Earth in a day's time… BY ITSELF!"
"That's impossible!" Maverick retorted. "The avionic ingenuity it would take to build such a thing doesn't exist. The Dark Star was the closest thing to having that capability, and it could barely hold up at Mach 10, and that's without missiles.."
"Yeah. Well, I guarantee you… IT DOES EXIST! I should know. I helped build the damn thing!" Jester declared.
"Why would you help build something like that? Especially knowing what it was capable of?" Charlie sighed.
"The same reason Maverick works on his World War II plane… It's just what us pilots do," Jester answered. "It was my last 'HOT SHOT' thing to do. It was going to be my legacy. 'The Airplane to End All Wars!' he said as if he was reading a newspaper headline. "Nobody would dare face her."
"Well, it sounds like we might have to face her," Maverick retorted. "Who else knows how to fly that thing?" Charlie asked.
"As far as I know, only me and Viper were able to fly it," Jester replied.
"Well, at least that's one good thing." Maverick cheered. "Viper is dead. That means the only other person who can fly it is sitting in the truck with us."
Just then, Jester asked a very important question. "Are you sure Viper is dead?"
Maverick chuckled at the question. "Yeah. I'm pretty sure I watched his plane get obliterated by Hollywood and Wolfman," Maverick replied with confidence.
"You're pretty sure?" Jester retorted.
Maverick then thought back to that moment. "He did give us a thirty second head-start… but I'm sure it was him flying the plane."
"So… you didn't actually see him take off in the plane?" Jester continued inquiring. "How do you know it wasn't just Sling-Shot flying the plane?"
Maverick continued thinking back. He began to remember the flight maneuvers the enemy aircraft performed. They were basic maneuvers, the kind that any pilot could perform. "Could Viper still be alive?" he thought to himself.
Seconds later… They all pulled into the Aces High parking lot.
"We'll continue talking about this later," Maverick said to Jester. "But for right now, we need to go in and get more information as to Hangman and Coyote's whereabouts."
Suddenly, as the five of them exited their vehicles and began walking towards the tavern door-
WEE-WOO-WEE-WOO-WEE-WOO-WEE-WOO! Sirens were blaring as four police cars pulled up onto the scene.
Then, every police officer got out of their vehicles, and their guns were drawn, pointing directly at them. "FREEZE! PUT YOUR HANDS UP WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!" One officer demanded.
Maverick and gang immediately put their hands up in the air. "What's going on?" Maverick piped up.
"You are under arrest for armed robbery!" The officer hollered, moving in closer, his gun still drawn.
The bartender stepped outside. "That's them all right! The crazy blonde woman has a giant gun in her purse!"
The police officer approached Charlie. He then quickly snatched her purse and looked inside. Everyone's eyes got big when they saw the size of the gun he pulled out. The police officer then looked to see if the gun was loaded. "There's no bullets! It's empty!" he announced.
"Empty?" Maverick said with surprise in his voice.
"And you were worried I was going to get one of us killed," Charlie quipped.
The police officer took out Charlie's driver's license and went back to his car to look up her information in the police database.
"What do we do now?" Rooster asked.
"Just give it a second," Charlie replied. "The officer will let us go in a few seconds now."
"Ha!" Rooster laughed. "I'm pretty sure stealing a truck at gunpoint is still against the law."
After a few seconds, the group watched as the police officer's face went from one expression to another, until finally-
"You five are free to go!" The officer declared, commanding all his men to lower their weapons and return to their vehicles.
"WHAT THE!?" The bartender blurted. "She held me up with her gigantic Dirty Harry weapon and then stole my fricken truck!"
The officer walked over towards the bartender. "You give them any information they want to know!" he demanded. The officer had obviously been told about the urgent national security clearance Maverick and Charlie held, and that clearance was much bigger than Charlie's Smith and Wesson.
As the police officer was ordering the bartender to comply with the investigation, Maverick noticed a security camera mounted on the outside of the bar, facing towards the parking lot. Maverick then butted into the conversation the officer and the bartender were having. "We are going to need to see your security footage from last night," he demanded. "And- we are still waiting on that Budweiser and Shirley Temple that we ordered earlier tonight," he joked, the bartender still shaking his head in disbelief. Maverick was beginning to enjoy having top security clearance.
The bartender showed them to the security room.
Charlie instructed him to rewind the footage back to when Hangman and Coyote entered the bar. She wanted to see who they were talking to. However, the further he rewound the film, the fuzzier the tape seemed to get.
"What's going on?" Maverick asked the bartender.
"I have no clue," he replied. "There seems to be some sort of a glitch."
"They probably had equipment that could scramble the video feed," Charlie suggested. "Keep rewinding until the footage becomes clear again," she instructed.
The bartender did as she asked.
The footage finally became clear again a few seconds before the two anonymous men walked in.
"Shit! We got nothing!" Maverick exclaimed.
"Wait! Rewind the parking lot footage back a few seconds," Charlie instructed, focusing on the vehicles in the parking lot. Then she spotted something. "Look. Right there," she pointed at the screen. "Do you recognize those motorcycles?" she asked.
"Honda CBR Blackbirds," Maverick replied. "The same motorcycle Jester was riding."
Maverick called out for Rooster to bring Jester into the security office.
After they brought him in… "Is there something you're not telling us, Jester?" Maverick interrogated. "It looks like a couple of your friends stopped in before you did."
"What are you talking about?" Jester retorted.
"Whoever met up with Hangman and Coyote rode the same type of motorcycle you were riding earlier," Maverick stated. "I doubt it was just a coincidence," he added.
"Maybe they were trying to set me up," Jester snapped back.
Maverick could only give Jester a steely gaze, wondering if Jester had something to hide.
"Rewind the footage back a bit further," Charlie instructed. "I want to see if we can get a look at the men who were riding the motorcycles."
The bartender kept rewinding the footage, until finally they spotted the two men entering the parking lot. Unfortunately, their faces were concealed by helmets.
"Shit. No faces. No license plates to run either," Maverick said.
Then, Rooster noticed something about the jackets they were wearing. "Look at the symbol on their jackets."
"What about it?" Maverick asked.
"It's a knight," Rooster continued.
"And…?"
"The Knights are a motorcycle gang in Southern California," Rooster explained. "Most of them hang out at a bar about ten miles from here."
"How do you know that?" Maverick asked.
Rooster shrugged his shoulders. "I've done my fair share of riding," he smirked.
"Well. What are we waiting for?" Charlie piped up. "Let's go check out another bar. Maybe the service will be better than this shithole," she mocked.
Minutes later, Maverick and his crew pulled up about a block away from a bar called Josie's Hideout. There, they spotted several motorcycles, two of which were the same Honda Blackbirds they saw in the security footage. A few bikers were standing outside talking. All the others were inside.
"Rooster, why don't you go around back and see if you find anything strange going on," Maverick instructed. "See if you can spot Hangman and Coyote anywhere. If you do notice anything strange going on, call me."
"What are you going to do?" Rooster asked.
"Charlie and I have top security clearance. We're going to walk straight through the front doors," Maverick replied with a cocky tone of voice.
As Rooster made his way around the backside of the building, he began looking through all the windows. At first, he didn't see anything out of the ordinary. But then, as he gazed through the last window, he spotted Hangman and Coyote. He immediately called Maverick.
"Hangman and Coyote are here."
"Do they look hurt?" Maverick asked.
"No. But they do have a few men standing around them. I think they're being held as prisoners. What should I do?"
"Just wait there. Charlie and I are going in."
All eyes were on Maverick and Charlie as they walked into the joint.
Maverick looked around, hoping to spot the two guys from the security footage. When suddenly-
"Can we help you?" A man's voice called out from behind them.
"Yeah," Maverick turned around. When he did, there was a big man, nearly seven foot tall, staring at him. Maverick had to blink a couple times because he couldn't believe how big the guy was.
"Well..?" The big guy pressed for an answer.
"I'm looking for the owners of the two Honda CBR Blackbirds sitting outside the bar," Maverick stated.
"Who wants to know? The big guy asked, stepping in closer to Maverick.
"My name is Pete Mitchell. I have top security clearance. I'm ordering you to show me where the two men that I asked about are."
"Hahahaha!" Several bikers began laughing.
"Why didn't you just say so," the big biker smiled. Then, he picked up Maverick and tossed him across the room, causing Maverick to crash into a table full of beers.
Charlie began to reach into her purse for her gun, but Maverick looked at her, shaking his head, as if to say no, don't do it. He then got up from off the ground, dusted off his shirt, and approached the big man again.
"Now. I'm only going to ask you one more time, and then I'm going to have to get serious. Where are the two guys who own the Blackbirds outside?"
The big guy grabbed Maverick by his collar. "You don't learn, do you?" he said, holding his fist in the air.
Suddenly, CRACK! Rooster came flying in with a pool stick, smashing it over the big guy's head.
The big guy didn't budge. He didn't even seem like he was affected by the blow to his head.
Rooster began backing up. "Oh boy," he fretted.
"You're going to pay for that!" The big guy exclaimed, shoving Maverick aside and moving in towards Rooster. He then picked Rooster up and acted like he was going to smash him into the main bar. But, before he could-
CLICK! The sound of a gun was being cocked.
When the big man turned around, he found himself staring down the barrel of Charlie's Smith and Wesson.
Several other bikers drew their own weapons and they all began closing in.
Then, before anything else could happen-
"What's going on here?" A voice yelled out.
When everyone turned to look, Hangman and Coyote were standing there.
"We're here to rescue you guys," Rooster replied, still being lifted up off the ground.
"Rescue us?" Hangman repeated. "Why would you need to rescue us?"
"Aren't you guys being held against your will?" Rooster asked.
"Nope," Hangman replied.
"Then… What are you doing here?"
"What are you doing here?" Coyote retorted.
Maverick stepped forward. "Let me explain," he said, holding his hands up to make sure everyone could tell he was a friendly. "We received intel that our crew was in danger. We also received intel that you two were intercepted by a possible enemy. We then went looking for you at your last known location. Finally, that led us here."
"How do we know you aren't the enemy?" Hangman interrogated.
"What?" Maverick asked, confused by his statement.
"You heard me! How do we know you aren't the enemy? We were told that someone in our crew had joined the wrong side. We figured it was you guys. That's why we are here."
"Wait a second," Rooster spoke up. "Are you trying to say that you don't trust us?" he asked in frustration. "Un-freakin'-real!" he continued. "When Charlie told us that you guys might have been compromised, I told her to go kick rocks. Now, you are saying we can't be trusted?"
Maverick quickly interjected. "Wait. Who did you guys meet with last night? Who told you we couldn't be trusted?"
Just then, a familiar voice spoke up. "We did!"
When everyone looked to see who said that…
"Slider… and Merlin?"