Response Team

Chapter 28

Early Tuesday morning at 0203 a bad dream woke me up, and I immediately noticed David wasn't in bed. I rolled over to look in the bathroom but it was dark, and he always turned on the nightlight when he got up at night.

I stayed in bed listening to the house but it sounded the same. I heard his alarm clock ticking and the refrigerator running. But something felt wrong.

I sat up and got the small .22 pistol out of the drawer and the flashlight and walked to our bathroom, but he wasn't there. I turned to look at our bedroom door, it stood wide open, which was how we left it at night to hear the satellite alert tone.

I silently walked across the room and stopped outside our bedroom door to look down the hallway. At the far end of the hallway was the garage door, it was shut like it's supposed to be. My ears said everything sounded normal, but my Spidey sense still said something was wrong.

I silently stepped half-sideways down the hall checking rooms. I pressed my hand against the TAC room door but it felt locked, the room felt empty based on my palm pressed flat against the door. If I turned the knob the alarm would sound, the lights were off. No lights were on anywhere in the house.

The door to the basement stairs was shut but through the louvers I could see there were no lights on. A couple more steps and I looked to the right and saw the front door but it was shut and the lock button was in the correct position. A few more and I saw the dining area and with one more step I saw most of the kitchen but not the floor.

I looked around the living room. The most common place to find David if he wasn't in bed was on the living room sofa. But the sofa was empty and that room was dark too. I walked across the dining room and into the kitchen to check the kitchen floor but he wasn't there either.

Next, I walked out the back door and looked over the entire yard. The pool was covered, no signs of life. The overhead blinds were closed and the yard was dark and quiet. I even lifted the pool cover and shone the light across the pool bottom. All I saw in the pool was the floating lounger and an empty beer can on the bottom.

My last place to search was the garage. Back inside I crossed the dining room and opened the door to the garage. I lifted my arm and shone the flashlight and saw the truck was gone. Sometimes he left his truck outside all night, so I went to the living room windows and looked out at our front yard but the driveway and street were dark and empty, no truck to be seen, no notes left on the kitchen counter. My heart pounded with anxiety knowing David was gone. We were not apart very often and knowing he was missing left me feeling anxious and worried.

I went into the kitchen and turned on the can lights over the bar and sat on a stool. I set down the flashlight and pistol, and grabbed my cell and checked, but no messages had come in. I held it in my hand and contemplated calling David. I stopped and walked over to the living room sofa to check the alert box, but it showed no messages today or yesterday. This was very odd, but if he was with his truck he was probably fine.

Back on the stool I texted David, WHR RU? OK?

About twenty seconds later my cell vibrated and the display said: 'YIF-SB.' (YIF-SB= yes I'm fine, standby) Right then I wasn't sure if I was mad or relieved, can you be both at the same time? When he said Standby it usually meant: 'further info coming, nothing emergent currently.' On the Larsen Drama Scale that meant he was a situation level 2 or 3, where 0 was sleeping restfully and 10 was floating alone on the ocean and slowly being eaten alive by a great white shark and all he had to defend himself was a package of Oscar Mayer Baloney in one hand and a Zippo lighter in the other.

He texted me that he got a text from our boss, 'come to ELP to talk ASAP, alone.' So he silently left in his truck, he said he didn't want to wake me up because I was asleep like an adorable gay twink.

David told me later this was the conversation with the captain:

"Glad you could come; you're a good agent, probably the best." Captain Jones began.

"What's up sir?" David asked as he sat on the chair. Since it was late at night both men were in their civvies too.

There's a serious situation, we need your magic, your stealth and Seal training. You up for a bad one?" He asked.

"Perhaps."

"California. Ninety miles west of San Clemente is San Nicolas Island. Nobody lives there but there's a 1930s Army Air base with a runway and hangars. The place was built for planes running low on fuel before reaching the mainland, it's got one runway that sits roughly 300 degrees, and it's about ten thousand feet long and the tarmac is thick enough to land a B-29 or a passenger jet."

"Now comes the secret part. That old air base has been home to a CIA numbers station since the 1950s. They transmit coded radio messages to North Korea, northern China, and central Russia seven days a week. It appears someone broke in, killed the crew, and started sending surrender or die messages uncoded instead."

"Sounds embarrassing to our government." David replied.

"Yes, but it also halted the best means of updating CIA field agents with the best information. It's a threat to the security and the President wants it stopped immediately."

"Tell me about the facility."

"I knew you'd ask." The captain said as he unfolded a blueprint sized aerial high-resolution photo of the facility and slid it across the desk. "This building is a World War Two airplane hangar built to house a Catalina PBY seaplane but that mission ended after the Korean War. In 1955 the CIA constructed a 2-story building inside one corner of the hangar that has a small dormitory for the station crew to stay, cook food, and sleep. The station crews are on site for 72 hours and a chopper arrives and they swap crews for the next 72 hour shift. The place is not armored or protected otherwise, just ordinary locks on the doors. They want you to helicopter over and land on the waterfront. You need to approach by stealth then kill everyone, regardless of who they appear to be or what they say. Your mission goal is 100% fatalities, no clean-up, no witnesses, and no questions. They're offering a bonus for completion without a hitch."

"Just to be clear sir, they want the Americans terminated too?"

"Yes, its standard CIA protocol for numbers station ops. Any breach puts the crew on the suspect list, they know that before accepting the assignment."

We stood there in silence for a moment, then the Q&A continued.

"How do we get back to the mainland?"

"In two days a naval supply tanker out of San Diego will arrive and drop anchor to refuel the airbase storage tanks. They'll transport you back to San Diego, and from there you know how to get home."

"What's the bonus?"

"You complete the mission (by that he meant that everyone dies), keep it secret, and return to El Paso alive and they will deliver $300,000 in fifty dollar bills. I seem to recall you guys preferred fifties, right?"

David mentally did the math, which was six thousand fifty-dollar bills, or about thirty nine pounds of cash.

"Me and Ryan?" he asked.

"They requested just you to minimize the possible loss of our two best agents in the service."

David sat there staring in the captain's eyes then stood up and turned toward the door. As he walked across the office he said, "Not without my partner, we're a team, not sold separately."

The captain shouted, "STOP!" and slammed his fist on the desk. He snarled briefly at David then replied, "Okay! You and Ryan, but the bonus stays the same."

"What happens if we find the Americans are still alive?"

"Like I said, everyone on the island dies. That station has operated since the 1950s at the same location, same transmission gear. If they were suddenly attacked the agents would be primary suspects. There aren't more than a handful of people worldwide that knew the station was there."

"Is it a 2-man crew?" David asked and Captain Jones simply nodded yes and added if they were still alive they were probably tortured too.

David stood by the door with his hand on the knob and told the captain to page me to bring our gear immediately.

The captain picked up the phone and called the OD in the outer office and told her, "Please page Colonel Malone via satellite: rapid, full gear, ELP, right now!" The OD said, "Aye Captain," and hung up.

David was still asking questions and the Captain was showing him photos of the buildings around the air strip.

"What does the CIA know about what happened?"

"One of the crew hit their emergency button and the station went off the air, and that's all the CIA told me. This has also happened to other numbers stations and some run by other countries too; it's not a new thing. For them it generally means they were discovered and invaded by some sort of civilian looking paramilitary squad." He paused then said, "I think there was even a (2013) movie with the exact same story line years ago."

They talked for a while longer about the likely scenario and the Captain played a recording of a female speaking in Korean supposedly telling American spies to turn themselves in for safe transport out of the country.

I was in my underwear on the living room sofa in the dark when the box started screeching. I checked the box and saw the message and assumed David was involved, but whatever it was, now I was needed too. That was the first time only one of us were initially called; it didn't surprise me they wanted David first. He was way more of a soldier than I ever was, but we both graduated from Seal school.

Six minutes after a quick run through the shower I grabbed the cases and put them on the floor in front of passenger seat in my car and pulled the canvas dust cover off and tossed it on his rolling tool box. The alert message said ASAP so I didn't use the brakes much and made it to the airport in about five minutes. I went over 125 miles an hour around Biggs Field and the back corner of Fort Bliss, and down Airport Road. On Airport Road a cop car with lights and sirens caught up to me and stuck close behind me.

Back in the 1950s the old back corner of Fort Bliss, between Bliss and Biggs Field was where the (1953) movie Take the High Ground was filmed when it was the basic training area during the Korean War.

South of Fort Bliss you turn left onto Airway Boulevard which turns into Terminal Drive which takes you to the employee parking entrance on the east end of the passenger terminal. The cop shadowed behind me with his lights and siren on the entire time; I looked in the rear view mirror and saw the gate come down on his car but it snapped off on his light bar. He kept following me and I laughed but kept my eyes wide open for pedestrians. We never drove faster than about 6mph on the tarmac.

I stopped near where our transport jets parked just outside our tarmac door. I had to pound on the glass because the door was locked. The OD ran across the room and let me in. As soon as I stepped inside I heard David (on my implants) on the phone with the jet transport dispatcher, and he kept saying 'immediately.' Many people don't like being told 'immediately' and pretend they don't hear it. Those pilots were mostly CWOs so we out ranked them but they still didn't like to be ordered to do their jobs.

Soon after I got inside someone else pounded on the tarmac door, and of course it was a freshman El Paso traffic cop; he looked furious. The OD let him in and he wanted to arrest the person who drove the little Toyota sports car that he clocked at over 126mph on Airport Road. She asked him to walk over to the OD desk and take a seat.

"That would be Colonel Malone, he just arrived." The cop shouted that I was under arrest. She asked if he ran the license plate and still panting the officer said no, so she asked him to go outside and run his plate then come back inside, she said not to worry, as Colonel Malone would still be here. So the cop left and ran my plate then came back in and asked the OD, "What the hell is this place, who are you people?"

She got him seated and poured him a cup of coffee (handed him a bagel) and told him a little bit about the Rapid Response Service and what we did and the security level and our immunity from prosecution. Eventually he calmed down and left. On his way outside he paused at the door and apologized for breaking off the gate arm. The OD laughed and told him she'd have it fixed right away. We quickly changed into our Batsuits in the conference room so we could do it together, which sped-up the process. We packed our clothes, and chambered rounds in our machine guns but left them in the Batsuit case for now. It sounded like we were going into a possible combat situation. Sometimes the type of situation determined which ammo/magazines we loaded into the Batsuit case. Finally, we were ready to go and sat on the sofa in the front room with a view of the tarmac, waiting for the jet. Unfortunately, our office didn't have a view of runway 22, where they usually landed.

We had several different types of 9mm ammunition for the automatics, depending on the situation. We had one for hostile military situations, hostile civilian situations, and basic self defense. We also had low velocity rubber tip rounds for use on likely unarmed civilians.

This time of night our supersonic taxi would look like Venus low in the eastern sky approaching over the Hueco Mountains east of us; and David was unusually quiet, which worried me. He started to tell me over Whispernet that we were going to San Nicolas Island, 90 miles west of LA; there was a clandestine CIA numbers station that was captured. The invaders probably killed everyone at the station. Our job was to fly out and kill everyone, no exceptions. I glanced at him and nodded yes. I understood we might be killing CIA people and squatters on the island too. Our instructions were clear: everyone dies. We ignored the parts about secrecy because it was standard operating procedure for us regardless.

I remembered doing research on San Nicolas Island years ago and knew they've done nature studies and tried stocking it with a certain species to control rodents or something, then another species to control the predators when they got out of hand. So the question was: is there any chance of non-military people being on the island too? His answer was one word and his tone was serious: 'No.' then he repeated over Whispernet: 'Everyone dies except us.'

While I sat beside David on the sofa I wondered if he was ordered to kill me, would he do it? I know if I was ordered to kill him I'd put a bullet through my head first or the person that told me to kill him. Then, both of us were unusually quiet. The only sound in the room was the soft radio playing at the OD's desk.

We'd been in this exact situation before, seated on the sofa waiting for the jet to arrive, so the room was quiet while we sat wondering what the next 24 hours may unleash upon us and the world. When you hold nuclear weapons in your hands the entire world may change as a result of your actions. We had to remain clear headed and resolute to the cause of anti-terror and protection for the rule of law.

A light flashed in the windows as our jet entered the sheltered tarmac area outside our office. The OD saw the light too and called Fuel Services and Tug Services. We stayed on the sofa in silence, my heart was pounding with apprehension and David mostly stared at the floor. Then they said the jet would take us to the Naval Air Station in San Diego from there we'd go by chopper to the island and get dropped off on the beach and hike up to the air base. They also said we could be fired upon before landing on the shore, so act accordingly. David whispered that they'd drop us off on a beach far enough away that any crew standing outside the numbers station couldn't hear or see us coming; they'll fly in low and without lights or radar transponders. The pilot would warn us if there was radar operating on the island.

Twenty five minutes later we walked outside and got onboard the jet, then the pilot got in and the tug turned us around and tugged us away from the buildings. About 150' from my car the driver jumped off the tug and released the tow bar and drove away.

Our pilot today was one of the new Navy lieutenants, right out of combat flight school; they were called Butter Bars because of how their single gold bar appeared. We heard this guy had been flying since he was thirteen years old, and his father was a commercial pilot.

He spoke his start-up routine out loud to himself as he started the jet, both of us could hear him.

'Step one is to turn on the master power switch, then the avionics. The instrument panel comes on in a few seconds as well as several status lights. Next, the small turbine engine is started with a toggle switch, similar to an APU on a commercial passenger jet. It sits between the main jet engines and is called the Jet Fuel Starter. It powers hydraulics, the generator, and a gear box that spins up the main jets.'

'After the JFS is up and hydraulic pressure is in the green I move the T-handle in the cockpit which allows hydraulic fluid to turn the shafts and start the main jet turbines moving. After they reach a particular rotational speed I turn on the fuel and ignite the jets. Once both jets are on and green I shut down the gear box that powered them before ignition. After ignition they gain speed on their own until the RPM reaches flight speed.'

Once powered we got clearance to taxi to the end of the runway and await take off clearance. At that spot they run up the jets to check for proper function, with the jet exhaust venting harmlessly out into the desert. But I can testify from my own personal experience there are rarely any living creatures in that area, except some tough ass cactus and snakes. Even ants and spiders are blown into the next county.

During run-up we were cleared for take-off on 22, which sat sort of northeast to southwest, toward downtown El Paso, which was about fifteen miles away. Fifteen miles was a very short distance in a high performance jet. Most pilots made a gentle turn to the west to fly around the much shorter southern end of the Franklin Mountains where all the TV broadcast towers stood with red lights blinking. Since the first airstrip opened in El Paso 100 years ago, nobody has ever flown into the airport-side of the mountains.

He used a light touch on the throttle until we cleared the mountains and then aimed toward San Diego. This pilot was a lot gentler on the controls than the others. We climbed to 39000 feet and cruised above passenger airline altitudes (721 miles at 1300mph, flying time thirty one minutes, seven seconds to wheels down) to San Diego and landed at the Naval Air Base, runway 29. The approach in the dark took us low over the beaches on Coronado Island. I'm sure the hotels didn't appreciate us landing at night. But at low speed our jet wasn't very loud. It was probably quieter than most passenger jets.

We taxied around the north end of the air base to some large hangars. He parked near their large helicopter base and we climbed out in the dark without stairs. A Navy Shore Patrol van drove up and took us to the large maintenance hangars where they had one civilian looking chopper that was black and unmarked but appeared capable of carrying weapons and soldiers.

The van door slid open and we got out and walked over to the black chopper just as our jet took off for KCMO; the Navy crew were unlashing the props and getting it ready to fly. When the van arrived one of the crew waved at us to come closer. David was watching the sky to see what direction our transport headed; he whispered that he turned out to sea. We assumed he went off shore and turned around and then straight to KCMO but caused the sonic boom to happen about 150 miles out to sea. He was just a blue spot in the sky as he headed toward the west.

Aside from the chopper crew, the base looked rather quiet, except all the lights were on. I'm sure there were a hundred eyeballs watching us walk across the tarmac. This was a secret and unmarked helicopter, which made it attract watchers. I was certain the crew felt proud as they got it ready.

We stood back about fifty feet while they uncovered the windows and slid the side door open. Once the rotor blades were un-tethered they started the turbine, and strobe lights came on under the cabin and by the tail rotor. This one had the tail rotor enclosed, which decoupled it from the main rotor and eliminated most of that helicopter thumping sound, so it sounded like a small business jet airplane.

Slowly the blades began to move and it appeared the entire crew was on board and ready, the back seat crewman gestured for us to climb on board. I stepped on board and strapped our cases under the harness in an empty seat. We got our helmets on and connected as the door gunner shut the doors and the pilot introduced the crew over the comms system. In the dark back seat we didn't talk much, I think the crew felt slightly offended after they all introduced themselves and we didn't. I hoped they had the same instructions we had with regard to a stealth approach to the island. Years ago we had a six hour class about San Nicolas Island and the other Channel Islands; we were pretty familiar with them. They were of great military significance to the USA despite the fact that they appeared to be nothing more than a group of small granite desert islands off the California coast.

Moments later we lifted off and flew into the vast darkness, toward the northwest. The pilot said it would be standard flying for about 50 miles, after that it was lights out. I think we reached 2000 feet ASL flying into the dark expanse above the Pacific Ocean. There were no lights on San Nicolas Island except a light house on the far northern end which we probably wouldn't see. It was visible to ships on the main routes, not to helicopters approaching from the wrong direction. About half an hour after we left I saw the outside lights go out, which was very unusual for any aircraft, but I suspected this was a CIA owned bird that was stored and maintained by the Navy. I think this helicopter also had radar absorbing outer coating to make it less reflective to radar signals.

The pilot announced we were forty miles out and down to seven hundred feet; he also slowed our approach and shut off the radar transponder so we'd disappear from all air traffic control systems. The co-pilot was in constant contact (via satellite) with their base at San Diego to make sure there were no other airplanes in our area flying just above the waves. Lastly, at 30 miles out they lowered to 200 feet above the ocean, higher than the seagulls but they didn't fly at night. David whispered that the ATC regional tower in Los Angeles probably had foreign agents working there and reported any aircraft approaching the island; this Naval Air crew appeared to be well prepared; and I was impressed with them so far. Since we met, this flight crew appeared to be a total no-bullshit group of men, and I respected that. All conversation inside the chopper was strictly related to our flight.

San Nicolas Island was an oval shaped granite mountain peak that was flat on top. The long axis sat roughly northwest to southeast. The runway and hangars were on the southern end on the plateau about 350 feet higher than the ocean. Our landing zone was below the southern end on a granite shelf that was worn flat by thousands of years of erosion. Our site was too high for normal wave action and was near a paved road that ran from the air strip to the refueling depot and storage tanks on the beach. We'd have a steep hike up a rocky slope to the plateau. The Channel Islands were an ancient mountain range that probably sparked the old joke about California slipping into the ocean some day; it actually happened in the past.

The crew wore headsets that gave them 3D night-vision since we were flying blind otherwise. Barely 100 feet above the sea we slowed as we approached the shore, I unbuckled the harness over our bags and the door gunner slid open one side door. All we saw outside was dark but we could smell the fishy odor of the Pacific coastline. We bounced to a stop on solid rock. We climbed out and the gunner handed us our cases and slammed the door shut. We got down on the ground a few feet from the chopper as it quickly lifted off and disappeared into the night sky, still with no lights on. Watching a helicopter fly away in the dark with no lights on, the only thing I saw was a hint of blue flame coming from the turbine exhaust. After a few seconds even the sound was gone.

We sat up after the helicopter left and stayed put briefly to let our eyes and brains adjust to the unfamiliar dark surroundings. I opened our pelican case and got out our glasses, and from our other case we got our automatics with shoulder straps attached. David activated satellite comms in the pelican case. That linked our glasses and implants to the TDRS satellite and from there to ELP and the Pentagon. I was sure somewhere at CIA there were people seated in a small theater watching our telemetry, listening to our audio, and watching the feed from our glasses.

When we came to a remote place like this we had to remember to reset our thinking. Both of us were accustomed to life in modern El Paso where everything was paved and safe. But it required a totally different mindset to move about safely in the dark on a desert island far out in the Pacific, even though we were only two miles from a military airbase. And we still did not know what size military force we were moving toward.

I got out the tablet computer to locate our best route to the air strip. David said he thought he recalled reading there were multiple paths that were used by GIs when the island was a busy place during WW2 and Korea. He pointed toward the fuel storage tanks. We closed our cases and got up and hiked to the road then towards the tanks. We found a well-worn footpath up the steep hillside. With cases in one hand and machine guns in the other we slowly trudged up the old hillside trail. The current time was 0149 (El Paso time). On the way we discussed our attack plan and the use of spiders. This island still had dangerous snakes and was sporadically covered by an actual layer of bird shit, particularly along the coast. My stupid brain kept repeating old stupid bird shit jokes, but I kept them silent inside my skull. I'd rather be rehashing first grade recess jokes than freaking out about enemy fire. The sad truth was we had no idea what we were walking into; I hoped it wasn't a meat grinder.

San Nicolas Island was used for several things over the decades since it's been occupied by the US Military. There were animal habitat lands, a lighthouse with a lighthouse keeper's residence, and Cal-State did research into human habitation of the island going back tens of thousands of years. The main problem it had was there were no natural sources of fresh water, so there were very few plants except weeds and desert scrub brush. The island today was a large bird sanctuary with that semi-retired air base that was sort of mothballed but semi-maintained by the navy. The beaches were occupied by a vast population of elephant seals at certain times of the year. The waters were also home to blue whales and several species of shark.

Even before WW2 the US had lost aircraft and crews when they ran out of fuel within sight of the west coast, so the aviation authority built a landing strip and aviation fuel depot on the island in the 1930s. It was sort of a last chance gas station for airplanes on the way home. The airstrip was still open for emergency use only but was only used maybe once a month. Today, one hangar was very quietly used by the CIA to operate the west coast numbers station. Most of their other stations were in the Caribbean, Greenland, and on Guam.

There was also no commercial source of electricity on the island. Another reason why the Navy installed large steel tanks on the beach was to store fuel for those making emergency landings and to operate generators. The fuel was trucked up a long winding road from the beach up to the airbase. That operation was concluded in 1964. After the CIA started operating the numbers station they installed solar panels and a wind generator to charge the batteries.

If you've never heard a numbers station before there were several of them on the air around the world on shortwave. They broadcast messages that consisted of women reading a long series of numbers on the air. It sounded like someone reading a page of numbers into a microphone without any emotion, and they had to be read slowly and clearly. They were often repeated at scheduled hours, day and night.

This particular station used an 800 watt shortwave transmitter with a directional (log-periodic) antenna on the roof of the hangar aimed at Beijing so it covered North Korea, northern China, Mongolia, and central Russia. Shortwave radio listeners heard a woman reading numbers. After the message was read the transmitter went off the air until it was time for the next message. People receiving the messages had daily decoding tables to convert them back into secret messages. Numbers stations also changed frequencies and times so they were nearly impossible to block, but everything ran on predetermined schedules.

Numbers stations were operated by low level CIA (and sometimes by Naval Intelligence) people, they were usually local civilians recruited during college and were considered expendable by the CIA. Station crew did not know the meaning of the number messages. The most important thing for them to do was read them accurately and clearly and add no emphasis or emotion. They also worked under strict rules of secrecy and knew that any breach might end their lives. Usually the people working numbers stations were quiet antisocial people who had minimal social contacts and could do their jobs without attracting attention. Many of them were described as bookish unattractive people, which is common in the radio biz.

David knew which hangar housed the station; it looked like an ordinary 1940s airplane hangar. David said there were supposedly no alarms or perimeter security; they were supposedly operating in a locked structure built inside the hangar. It was sort of like a small two story windowless house built inside the hangar.

The footpath from the beach followed a gulley worn into the cliffs at the edge of the plateau; the top end was near the southern end of the runway. The aircraft maintenance buildings were about halfway down the runway on the west side, and those were our destination. Under cover of darkness we silently walked along the edge of the runway with our gear, about a half mile down the concrete runway. During that time we carefully watched for any signs of people. My heart was pounding knowing a gunfight could start at any moment and we didn't have much cover out here. Luckily, we had excellent night vision (ambient light amplification) with our glasses. The sky was clear and the moon was out so we saw rather well, but we were still like two black ghosts moving silently in the darkness.

He slowed and whispered to me to hold-up; I thought he saw something. From that distance I saw the moonlight reflecting off the racks of solar panels on the roof of the hangar. We also saw a wind generator; it looked like ones commonly seen on sailboats these days.

David whispered, "Smoke. You smell it too?"

"Me? No."

"Let's cross here." He said gesturing to turn left and cross the runway. So in crouching positions we silently slinked in close formation across the runway and down into weeds again. Then we walked up and across the taxiway, and back down into weeds again. By then the back corner of hangar #1 was about 400 feet ahead of us. That was when I caught a whiff of cigarette smoke too. My heart pounded in my chest as I rubbed my fingertip on the side of the trigger guard being careful not to touch the trigger to activate the laser. 'I smelt it now.' I whispered in a fake Texas accent.

Both of us had our silencers screwed on the barrels too, which slightly improved accuracy too, but shortened the range. The ammunition with us tonight was guaranteed to inflict horrific wounds on living flesh. They were a steel jacketed round that penetrated many types of body armor but once inside the body they created a shockwave that turned living organs into bloody goop. Those rounds were a military secret and 100% not NATO approved. They were somewhat similar in design to the rounds used on JFK and John Connally.

Let me tell you, walking across a ghostly airstrip by moonlight with a machine gun in one hand and a suitcase in the other didn't exactly comfort my soul. My entire body trembled from adrenalin and fear. David probably thought this was cool as hell. I was more than a little worried about booby traps and landmines. We knew nothing about the people that invaded the airbase and killed the CIA crew. We didn't even know how many were here. Two voices were recorded after they took over the station but were there two or twenty two invaders? We were about to find out. Our main advantage was we probably out-gunned them and had no hesitation using nuclear weapons. The invaders were here to advance a political cause; we were here to advance our financial goals. Both of us wanted to retire at age 52 and spend the rest of our lives on vacation.

We approached something on the ground that looked like an old telephone company junction box that provided some cover so we got on our knees beside it. David said he'd go around the back side of the hangar and told me to go around the front, we'd meet at the opposite corner. We knew there were no people on this side because we could see it. I nodded yes and he patted me on the shoulder but I was trembling too hard to talk.

David knew I turned into a somewhat of a pansy in situations like this. I usually just mirrored what he did, that was how I survived Seal school too. Without David I easily reverted back into just another bookish gay nerd. With David nearby I was ready to fight and fuck seven days a week.

We were near the back corner of the hangar, around the corner on the right side were the airplane doors. Around to the left was the nearly windowless back wall of the seaplane hangar (and beyond that was the rest of the island). The hangar looked really big up close, about four stories tall. We both smelled cigarette smoke and guessed they were on the far side taking a smoke break. We agreed to hide both cases, partially hidden by weeds and the steel box mounted on a concrete pedestal. As a joke I saluted him and he snickered and then took off towards the left; I silently moved toward the front corner ahead and to my right. My last view of him was over the top of my glasses.

I squeezed my belt packs in the dark to confirm one pouch was packed with three spiders, and the gas pellet case was inside its own little round pouch too. I got a lot of comfort knowing they were on my hip. That pouch held three boxed spiders, and if even one was missing it felt different.

In all honesty, if something dreadful happened to David my 2nd choice of people to trust enough to go into combat with would be the spiders. But I doubt the Pentagon would allow their use in actual overseas combat because they were a guarded secret weapon.

We both wore our glasses but had shut off the IR emitters since the moon was bright enough that it looked like just before sunrise, except it wasn't in color. The moonlight was casting well defined shadows on the sand.

Hours ago in the captain's office he showed us dozens of photos of all three hangars and all the radar buildings too. The first hangar had two people-doors. One was on the far corner and the other one was built into the telescoping seaplane doors. The enemy could suddenly appear from either entry so we both had door dangers to deal with tonight.

On the flight here David explained that the (2) CIA station operators always arrived by helicopter from Torrance Airport in LA. Then the departing crew got in and left right away. Each crew brought the supplies they needed: water, toilet paper, meds, weapons, and food. The flight plan for their helicopter always marked it as transport for US Fish and Wildlife biologists. They had one satellite phone and each agent carried a .45 handgun. This station has been operating here since the mid 1950s and had never once had any security issues and was considered the best assignment on the Pacific. Their biggest threats in the past were sealions on the beach during the mating season.

The way they worked was sort of like how an ICBM missile silo was shown in the beginning of the (1983) movie War Games. In that scene when the order came to turn the keys and launch the missiles if either of them hesitated the order was for the other to draw his sidearm and threaten to shoot. Same with the numbers station, both operators were armed and under strict orders to shoot to kill with any breach of protocols.

Looking for a job with the CIA? They're always interviewing for positions at the numbers stations. I suspect security rules for non-existing threats drove some people bonkers. We heard rumors that working at a numbers station was worse than working for the TSA.

The directional antenna and solar panels were disguised as ventilation machinery on the roof of the hangar, so they were impossible to identify on aerial photos. They were equally difficult to spot from the ground near the building. We heard they had a painted cover above the antenna that looked like HVAC equipment. The solar panels were reflective and were arranged to look like galvanized metal HVAC ducting on the roof.

Three days ago someone hit the panic button and the numbers messages stopped. None of the existing team arrived at the emergency evacuation point either. No new crews were flown in and the Navy was warned to stay off the island briefly. Two days ago the station returned to operation but instead of numbers the CIA recorded a masculine sounding woman's voice reading messages spoken in Korean. It sounded like a live read and was believed to be a group protecting their country from the CIA. The CIA claimed the NK government located the actual origin of the signal and orchestrated a mini-invasion and took control of the station. The Pentagon believed the attack might be the first step in a broader attack on the US west coast and the vulnerable shipping fleet. Our people in the Pentagon believed it was a single event sponsored by the NK government but orchestrated by a group wanting to expel US spies living in their country.

Some of their messages were translated for us and appeared to be directed at Agents in China and North Korea telling them to surrender, and that their spycraft was illegal and immoral. If they surrendered they would be treated with dignity and handed over to South Korea. The woman's voice in Korean sounded very angry and authoritarian. We both laughed at the recording our captain played on his cell. When Captain Jones heard the part about being handed over to South Korea he said, "Yeah sure, handed over in a casket 90 years after the US paid the ransom."

As I silently approached hangar #1 I scanned the ground ahead with my laser, if there were any trip wires they reflected light and appeared as a bright speck in laser beam. If they installed motion detectors the boxes would have appeared bright white on our glasses because of their warmth. When I got to the hangar I turned around and leaned against the wall and took several deep breaths to calm my nerves, then inched sideways to the corner.

Standing against the wall I carefully looked around for any heat signatures. The hangars sat on a high spot so my view was of the vast expanse of desert island. The aerial photos of the island we saw showed it looked sloped; the south end was nearly 150' higher than the rest of it giving the island the appearance that the north end sunk and tilted the entire plateau. Most of the nature studies and university research was done at the north end, far from the airstrip.

I slowly leaned my head around the corner to look across the hangar doors and tarmac. The doors were a bit wider than the 104' wingspan (21 foot height on land) of a WW2 Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boat. Just over halfway across was a small escape hatch built into the massive hangar doors. I got to thinking if this building was designed today it would have to meet new safety standards and there would be clearly marked exits on every wall, and a safety cage around the roof ladder too. During the war if a PBY caught fire while mechanics were working in a back corner their chances of getting out alive were poor.

After peeking for about ten seconds I slinked around the corner and carefully tiptoed past the hangar doors. I whispered to David about every twenty seconds to say where I was so we didn't shoot each other. I never saw the hatchway built into the airplane doors.

After another minute I reached the far corner but heard nothing, smelled no smoke, but suspected a firefight was only moments away. I whispered to David, 'Ready for a spider?' David whispered back 'yes, with two gas pellets.' We were about twenty feet apart standing flat against the outside walls; he was about ten feet from the people door taking cover near a storage shed. Straight across the tarmac sat a smaller hangar designed for another type of plane, probably a long distance patrol plane. Just outside the other hangar sat an old fire truck probably used for plane crashes on the runway. Without speaking he looked at me peaking around the shed and pointed to the fire truck. Judging by the rust and crumbling tires it probably hadn't been moved in sixty years. I switched-on the spider and set it on the concrete deck near the door and silently walked over to the fire truck and kneeled down on the far side. Moments later David silently joined me on the hard concrete tarmac and we crawled partially under the fire truck.

I immediately noticed it was like an oven under that truck as the sun's heat energy from the previous day was still being released from both the truck and the concrete tarmac.

Using my arm panel I switched one side of our glasses over to the spidercam and drove it inside the hangar and away from the door then scanned the area in IR and also watched for sources of manmade light. That was our first time seeing signs of human occupation; we saw light leaks around a door to a structure in the rear corner of the hangar. It appeared like a concrete two-story building inside the hangar. The rest of the inside of the hangar was empty except for several large crates full of trash.

Suddenly, David grabbed my forearm and we froze in place. Behind us we heard the sound of boots walking on concrete, as someone approached from behind. David whispered their latrine was on the far side of the second hangar, that's probably where he came from. That was the moment I realized that being flat on my stomach under an old fire truck also made us sitting ducks if he saw our feet. We stayed perfectly still as the boots approached and walked around the fire truck. The man walked in the hangar door and disappeared. We both sighed as my heart pounded and sweat dripped from every part of my body.

On our glasses I saw the man walk past the spider, across the hangar floor and in a door to the inside structure.

David whispered, "Let's ambush them on the way to go pee." I immediately agreed because we learned in Seals that was a moment of vulnerability for nearly every mammal on earth.

I asked if he wanted me to enter the structure and he whispered, "Yep, look around and I'll check the latrine and find some ambush spots." He used his arm panel to re-assign his right lens back to his own IR glasses cams. Since I controlled the spiders I could steer his glasses, but he couldn't control mine unless he used extra keyboard commands. My wrist panel was designated as the primary control of the spiders when the Pelican case was fully activated.

We split up again after we crawled out from under the fire truck. David left and crept around the second hanger, his path took him along the outside and around the back. After I no longer heard his footsteps I looked around the tarmac in front of hangar #2 and saw a mound of rotted old airplane and truck tires which offered more cover than the fire truck so I silently moved over there and found a spot and sat down and paid attention to our spider again. I whispered my move to David but he never replied.

I moved it silently across the dark dusty hangar toward the light leak and slipped under the door and into what looked like a small rectangular dayroom.

The room had two sofas and a table radio. I saw a bank of large 6v batteries on the floor with heavy cables connecting them. Nearby, sat two gallon-jugs of distilled water for the batteries. There were thick black cables running up the wall that disappeared into a hole in ceiling. I assumed they were electric lines coming down from solar panels on the roof.

I counted three Korean looking people sitting on sofas talking softly in a foreign language and assumed there may be others since these people were not dressed look like soldiers. In the next room I saw what looked like the actual numbers station. It consisted of two tables and a chair, a microphone on a boom, and a music stand to hold the number-scripts. There was a transmitter control, but to me it looked like simple on/off controls and nothing else. The transmitter was a steel box with several switches on the front, presumably for changing frequency with a simple turn of a click knob. I saw a thick coaxial cable that ran up the wall and power cables that snaked across the floor to the batteries. I got the impression that during the 1950s the crews probably also used oil lamps for light and maybe even for warming food.

In the studio a ladder was mounted to the wall that went upstairs so I ran the spider around the room and upstairs into a dark 20x20 room with lockers, military folding cots, blankets, cases of canned food with American labels, and military rations. There was a small stand with a Sterno stove for warming food. In the ceiling was a tiny lamp that looked like an old style automotive brake light bulb. So these people lived off a few amps of 12v DC power for 72 hours at a time. But I doubted it ever snowed here or got above 95 degrees either. This might be a nice place to live if you worked out the water storage problem but you'd definitely had to get accustomed to bird shit. Bird droppings got on everything here, being a bird sanctuary now.

On the wall upstairs was a world map with strings stretched between push pins showing confirmations of their signals. The receiving end of most of those strings were in Korea and China, but a few continued on into central Russia and up into Siberia. They had just one pin in northern Norway. Just for fun I wanted to stick one push pin into west Texas, but couldn't do it with the spider.

It climbed the wall to a shelf and looked around but saw no human body heat signatures, and no signs of a struggle. I climbed back down to the first floor and saw one of the three people stand up and walk out the door, possibly to use the latrine. I told David I'd searched the entire station, it looked like one of them was headed his way. I told him I could gas the other two if he wanted. I also told him I saw no signs of a struggle, gunfire, or dead bodies. All I had seen were three Korean looking people, one woman and two men sitting calmly together talking on the sofas in a small 10x20 room.

I heard his voice crackle 'affirmative' because we were at the distance limit for our implants. A minute later I heard more static and garbled speech from David, the guy from the Korean crew had already walked past the fire truck, clearly on his way to the boy's room.

I never saw it but David found a place to hide and ambush any takers. We always agreed it was better to knock them off one at a time than risk a shooting contest with imperfect protection on our side. I always preferred to gas people from a safe distance than get into a physical struggle. Sometimes I think David enjoyed a brief but one sided donnybrook.

After a few minutes I assumed he decommissioned the first one and soon someone would go in search of the missing comrade. Our comms were marginal with the signal passing through a huge steel airplane hangar. I couldn't just walk around the other side, as it might compromise his position. I moved the spider to a safe hiding spot under their sofa and put it into low power mode and silently walked around the back side of the hangar. Behind hangar #2 I could see the latrine, maybe 140 feet from me.

Near the latrine was a large mound of scrap metal items, like damaged cabinets, chairs, lockers, and airplane fuselage parts. I carefully approached it with my automatic aimed straight ahead. The footpath ran beside the scrap pile but I walked around it the other way, ready to open fire. On the far side sat a large steel cabinet, I got on my knees beside it for cover and whispered to David again.

"I'm on the other side of the metal scrap pile now." David replied that he couldn't see me so I touched the trigger to project a tiny red spot on some nearby stuff so he might see the dot. David replied, "Got it." Then he did the same. Looking at the only door on the latrine I saw a red dot on the door frame, so he was just inside the entrance to the 20x20 outhouse that was built in the 1930s.

I asked where the guy went and he said he 'aired him up' (slit his throat) and dragged the body behind the outhouse. At that moment I caught a glimpse of the 2nd man as he came around the back corner of #2 hangar and whispered, "You got company."

David did not reply. I stayed out of sight as the second guy stepped into the latrine in search of his missing comrade.

When I heard his boots on the stairs entering the latrine I peeked around the pile and saw the 2nd man stop at the entrance and softly call his partner's name but he never actually entered the building. He turned around and walked down the steps heading back toward the corner of the hangar. From the shadows beside the latrine I saw a shadowy figure rise up behind him and grab him around the neck. David rapidly pulled him backwards to the ground, a physical struggle started on the ground. I saw a hand holding a knife rise up and come down, then back up and down again. The man on the ground quickly stopped struggling and the stabbing motion continued for a few more seconds then stopped. The entire shadow-drama was silent and scary as fuck.

A silhouette stood on the footpath and gestured for me to come help. So I carefully got on my feet with the automatic aimed straight ahead and approached. Within ten feet I saw it was David, I helped him carry the bloody man around the back side and dropped him beside the other body. The first guy had his eyes and mouth frozen wide open and his tongue hanging out, his neck had multiple stab wounds. My guess was David severed his spine too, which ain't easy to do.

One more to go, but we still needed to search for the Americans and any more Koreans.

Just then we heard a woman's voice shouting in Korean over by the #1 hangar door, so we quickly hid inside the latrine thinking she'd never shoot up their only bathroom, where else was there to go? Is she gonna squat out on the runway?

The latrine was about 20x20 and had four tall pedestals with seats, two urinals, and no privacy. There was a counter on the other side but no sinks and no running water. Then, we heard that same voice shouting but much closer. Neither of us spoke a word of Korean but her tone sounded angry and rather mannish. David whispered, "I don't like the sound of that."

Then her shouting was replaced by automatic gunfire, both of us instantly dropped flat to the floor near the door. It sounded like she was firing an automatic blindly all over the area behind the #2 hangar. We heard bullets hit the scrap metal pile then heard bullets passed through the latrine walls, and then the shooting stopped.

We were in an awful position, totally un-protected. We didn't know why she stopped, perhaps she ran out of ammo. Most handhelds didn't hold many rounds regardless. I wished I had a spider outside I could utilize. The one inside the numbers station was too far away to get my 'return to me' signal. Luckily we were in our Batsuits. I crawled across the floor, out the door, down the steps, and got to my feet. Moments later David joined me against my back side, like we learned in Seals. We scanned the area with our glasses working but I saw nobody (no heat signatures) outside so we briefly hugged.

I took the lead and moved toward the back wall of hangar #2 then toward the tire pile. To both of us it sounded like the female had moved away toward the far side of hangar #1, maybe near that old telephone junction box (where we stashed our cases). I took his hand and got him started following me as we ran to the tire pile for cover. David whispered, "I saw someone, this way." He gestured with his hand and we took off retracing his original steps around the back side of hangar #1 toward the junction box. As we slinked along the back wall of the hangar he pointed at two radar buildings nearly a mile away. We saw the heat signature of someone in the distance running on a narrow dirt road with a flashlight. I thought I saw multiple heat signatures inside and around the outside of those buildings.

"That's where the CIA crew is I bet. They're tied up in those old aviation radar buildings. She wants to use them as human shields, or maybe kill them before we can reach them." He raised his hand and pointed at two buildings with radar domes on top down by the far southern end of the plateau. We were told all that hardware was removed and those buildings were empty concrete shells now. David whispered, "I got a bad feeling about this." Then suddenly we heard automatic fire and saw tiny flashes of light coming from around both buildings. We were being shot at by several enemy soldiers. I heard numerous bullets whiz by us and strike hangar #1 behind us.

Without asking his opinion I kneeled down and opened the pelican case and with one switch I activated the rest of the electronics. I grabbed a nuke missile and handed it to him, and then I got out the launch tube and closed the case. The Korean lady had vanished in the doorway of one of those concrete radar buildings and the shooting increased but we were probably out of range for most rifle ammo. It became clear there were way more than three North Koreans on the island.

About as quickly as anyone could rip open a case of beer David removed the cellophane wrapper from the 'dial-a-yield', other teams called them the 'Day Wrecker.' DAY stood for Dial-A-Yield. He held it upright so both of us could confirm which weapon it was. I watched David as he firmly gripped the yield ring and rotated it all the way down (five clicks), then back up one click to 15%. The default setting was always 50%.

I held the tube vertically, and using both hands he carefully aligned the pin (we used a Sharpie to draw a line on the outside of the launcher to show us where to place the pin when first inserting the device into the tube), and held-in the fins then lowered it into the launch tube until we both heard the pin click inside. While I carefully watched I noticed his hands were trembling too. Being shot at was unnerving. After loading David moved over to the hangar. Then he got down on his knees so he was less of a target. We still saw flashes of light and heard bullets whiz past us.

The sound a bullet made when it went past you was distinct, it made a high pitched buzz that flew by in less than one second. I heard people describe the sound like: Zoooooooo!

I took the launcher and set it on top of the junction box and climbed on top of it, stood up, spaced my feet for best balance and raised the tube to my shoulder and aimed at a radar building in the distance. The sky to the east was turning blue from the approaching sun. To the west the brightest thing other than stars were the two radar buildings, now lit by the moon and the light from the eastern horizon. Even without my glasses the buildings were noticeable; hopefully noticeable enough for the sensors in the projectile to lock-on too.

It took a lot longer than normal for it to recognize the target structure and differentiate it from the surrounding desert island terrain, but when it did and I heard tone in my ear. I released the large button and counted, 'One thousand and one' then re-pressed and held it while keeping the cross hairs centered on the closest building. Then I took in a deep breath and squinted my eyes, made sure my mouth was shut too.

Suddenly there was a huge FOOMP and with a flash and blast of hot sand and smoke in my face the device launched and knocked me backwards. I landed on my ass on the sand and weeds. Looking like fireworks we saw the round take off then alter course and fly vertically about 400 feet above the 20'x20' concrete building. It jettisoned the single stage rocket motor and deployed its white parachute. The six foot diameter silk parachute reflected more light than the building, it stood out boldly against the starry night sky. I turned to look behind me and shouted "HIT THE DECK!"

I rolled over, pulled off my glasses, and covered my eyes with my hands and stayed face down in the sand behind the electrical box. David dove forward onto the sand and covered his eyes and stayed flat on the ground. A few seconds later we heard a deafening CRACK! And suddenly it was like daytime outside. I squinted open one eye and saw blue sky and white clouds and brown desert plants, sand, and my own hands. Then like a tornado both of us got sand blasted, then the sun went out and everything became deathly quiet. David said he heard the hangar structure creak and groan from the powerful blast.

About ten seconds later we struggled to our feet and saw the radar buildings were gone, all that remained was a smoldering void in the desert. I opened the case and put away the launch tube, David walked over to me and grabbed the Batsuit case and mumbled, "Good shooting." He patted my shoulder but I was focused on the case and turning off the electronics. Hopefully our OD heard everything and saw telemetry from the device we fired; she was supposed to notify the State Department when we fired a Day Wrecker.

With cases in hand and automatics at our stomachs, straps over our shoulders we got up and started to walk toward the brand new crater.

We walked closer and saw a perfectly formed depression in the ground like it had been cut by a precision guided laser. It was shaped like a giant wok, maybe 500 feet across and 80 feet deep. Luckily it was far enough away that it didn't damage the runway or taxiway, but all the small radar buildings near that end of the runway were simply gone. Above it all a large white cloud slowly drifted east, I saw parts of it were glowing blue inside. David said the crater would eventually fill and provide anyone working here with a place to collect rainwater, after the radiation died down completely in a couple years. We stood there awestruck by the tremendous power of that weapon at just 15%. "Ho-lee fuck!" David slowly mumbled as we stood there stunned by the sight. It was sort of like standing on the rim of a volcano crater and looking across the open expanse. The inside of the crater was solid rock, but it almost looked burnt and blackened in places. The inside surface was super smooth like it had been polished too. All that was left of the buildings, the ground, and probably seven humans was a cloud of dust a few thousand feet in the air, slowly drifting east.

We turned and walked back to hangar #1 and searched the entire building and the CIA facility inside too. Then we searched the two other hangars and the fire station and found no signs of humans anywhere. By then the sun was up and David re-activated the Whispernet link to the TDRS satellite and advised the OD the mission was a success and we were closing up shop and heading back down to the beach, our ride would be here tomorrow. Until then we'd use some of the MREs and drinking water they left behind. We gathered food and water in a box, grabbed our spider hiding under the sofa, and hiked back down to the beach and made ourselves a small camp and waited for our ride.

David shut off our pelican case after the sun was high in the sky. We stripped down and ran across the sand and dove into the warm clear water on the beach. I could tell David was in the mood because his stuck straight out after he dropped his Batsuit pants and boxers. I wanted him badly and could not stop staring. His naked body always seemed to control my eyes, it was nearly impossible to look away.

There was a spot on the sand with partial shade (from the cliffs). And while he was swimming around some boulders harassing the fishies I walked over and sat down in the shade and waited for him to notice I was gone. About five minutes later I watched David walk out of the ocean in the sunlight with water dripping off the head of his dick, which was now only about 30% erect. The angle of the sun even lit the inside of his belly button and his body looked hot beyond description, I got hard just watching him walk toward me.

David's native brown skin tolerated way more sun exposure than my pale white Euro-descended flesh, so I was always first to find some shade.

David crash landed on the soft sand beside me and leaned back on his arms with his legs spread and a few grains of sand stuck to his hairless belly. I rolled on my side and reached over and set my hand on his flesh and rubbed him all over. He closed his eyes with an expression of quiet happiness on his face.

Up to his chest and I gently pinched one tit then leaned in and kissed the velvety dark-red circle and slid my lips side to side. David inhaled deeply. Then I pressed my lips firmly against it and sucked his tit hard inside my mouth while pleasuring it with my tongue. His tits were easily as big around as a tube of Pringles and were the softest flesh on his entire body.

I released the suction and repeatedly kissed his tit again, and then I kissed my way south to his belly button, which was still full of sea water. A little further south I took Little David in my mouth and lowered the side of my face to his belly and relaxed and sighed. Thinking of his pleasure (after several minutes of bliss) I got up without letting his dick drop from my mouth and moved on my hands and knees over between his legs and started working his shaft with my lips, the roof of my mouth, and my tongue. Research has shown that for optimal pleasure my tongue had to slide vertically over his piss slit.

David relaxed his body on the sand and started to moan (notice of impending orgasm). I think he lasted about 40 more seconds. I saw his hands close up into tightly clenched fists as I got a load of creamy sauce in the back of my mouth which went down like a thick smear of whipped butter on pancakes.

After his orgasm subsided I lowered my forehead to his belly but kept him in my mouth. He ran his fingers into my hair and gently caressed me for another technically flawless blowjob. Two hours later I did it again. Between orgasms we floated in shallow water off the beach. After his second orgasm David took me by the hand and walked me to the oil pipeline and sat me on top. He spread my legs and blew me while thumb massaging my tits. I think I lasted about 50 seconds.

Half an hour later he escorted me back to the pipes and knelt beside me and wanked me precisely as instructed with his thumb and first finger to an orgasm that was so intense I couldn't get hard again that day. That hand operated orgasm was so intense it sprayed out of my dick and got on my legs and all over the sand, so he licked most of the drops off himself. I was physically exhausted after that and had to stay on the pipeline and catch my breath. I even cried tears in the seconds before and after. All he did really was to slide the ring made with his fingers back and forth across the rim of my dickhead with the pad of his knuckles rubbing my piss slit. In the past he also tortured me by gripping my rod and firmly sliding his thumb side to side across the head of my dick. He said whenever he did that my face started to turn blue because I couldn't even breathe it was so intense. Today, while he wanked me by hand I used my hands to massage my tits. He said my entire body started fucking his hand, it was so intense.

One of my fantasies was to be pleasured by several men, one on my dick, one on my tit, one on my mouth, and the fourth one licking my bunghole. I guess I liked smooth twinks because I was one too, so maybe the best fantasy would be if those men were all small slender hairless men like me.

We found a spot where the sun warmed the ground until it was too hot to walk across so we unpacked their MREs and set them there to warm for an hour then had ourselves a late lunch and drank four bottles of water. The trick to eating MREs on the beach was keeping the sand out. We stayed naked until the sun was near the horizon and got back into our Batsuits and sort of made ourselves a pit to stay warm overnight and then we slept snuggled together all night.

The next morning the sun was well up by the time he woke me up, then we both had to strip and take a crap in the ocean away from the beach, so we walked over near the spot where the chopper delivered us where there was no sand; it's just strong currents over bare granite, and that was where we both did our business in chest deep water about ten feet apart. Two hours later our ride showed up; it was a 700ft long navy tanker, the USNS Henry Kaiser.

It took some fast talking and satellite calls but we got permission to come aboard for the ride to back to their port in San Diego. The crew were mostly young men, some of them looked cute and edible but most of them had shapely butts in their snug fitting uniform pants. We found a spot above the bridge (12 stories above the water) and borrowed two binoculars and spent our time 'observing' some of the crews servicing the lifting cranes on deck.

Everything on that ship got greased to prevent rust and friction. They were fun to watch and most of them on deck wore long pants and white t-shirts that really showed off chest and arm muscles and some of them had nice big puffy tits that stuck out and cast shadows down their front sides. While we leaned against the railing watching the young men work I'm sure David knew what I was daydreaming about. He said I often mumbled sex stuff in my sleep.

Nicolas Island was 98 miles from San Diego, at 22mph or less it would take over five hours. We spent the time getting caught up on our lack of water and nutrition so after watching the boys on deck we went below to the dining area. To be honest I was still tired and wanted to take a nap more than anything else.

Neither of us knew the rules for eating on board an active duty naval vessel. Since they didn't know us we had an armed escort (shore patrol officer) the entire time. We got in the serving line with trays and sort of learned by watching the others. Both of us wanted a burger and fries. They were cooked on a large griddle on the serving line, but getting one without cheese was a problem. The French fries were deep fried and kept warm under hot lights, which was suboptimal for a true French fry snob. They used cheap Heinz catsup that was loaded with HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) and made from cheap GMO tomatoes.

We just kept inching down the line and told the cook what we wanted. She smiled then gave us an odd look. The serving line cooks served the same crew members three times a day, month after month. After a while they recognized everyone on board, so the sudden appearance of new faces was unexpected.

Clearly, we had civilian haircuts (and clothes) and were accompanied by an armed navy cop. We got cheese despite asking for two without. They were served on plates with a scoop of lukewarm fries. The plate landed on a stainless steel counter about chest height, you grabbed it and put it on your tray and kept inching down the line to the left. We stopped at the cold buffet next for sliced tomatoes, lettuce, onion slices, and relish. Then came the condiments: catsup, mustard, and mayo in gallon pump bottles with stacks of plastic cups too. They had snacks and desserts but all of them looked like they came out of packages marked Hostess or Little Debbie (aka: cheap crap).

One thing we both did any time we went to a restaurant; as soon as we were seated we grabbed the catsup bottle and read the label. If the catsup contained HFCS we assumed the food ingredients were cheap crap too, so we never went back. To us it meant they only cared about money, not about us as people eating their food. We believed that HFCS was sort of a Screw-You ingredient, luckily it's not hidden on labels yet. It's legal for them to call Pink Sludge 'beef' on the ingredients list, which really pisses us off.

Finally, we arrived at the cashier. Most sailors swiped their ID badges and walked over to the drink stations. The cop with us handed his badge and said the captain authorized us as visiting military, the cashier smiled and stared at us. We moved to the drink machines, grabbed plastic cups, got ice, then pressed them against the lemonade lever and then turned to find a place to sit together. The cop gestured to a table on the far side of the room that was half empty. Each table sat six sailors. The tables and their swivel seats were welded together and to the floor. The tops were bare stainless steel with napkin dispensers, salt and pepper, and some hot sauces in plastic bottles in the center.

The three of us sat down with three young sailors at the other end of the table. They greeted us since they recognized immediately by our lack of military haircuts we were not active duty sailors like them. Introductions went around the table. David introduced us: "He's Colonel Malone, I'm Colonel Larsen, we work for the Pentagon." Then the cop introduced himself but the sailors all knew him as one of the assholes that ran the brig on board and tried to bust them smoking doobies on the fantail deck, or jerking off over the railing while trying to stay awake all night on deck watch duty.

One of the sailors asked, "Sorry Colonel, if you were in uniform we would have stood up. Aren't you the guys we rescued at the Nicolas Island depot?" Two of them had Alabama accents.

David and I laughed and smiled and nodded yes. Then before any of them could ask he said, "We were there inspecting the condition of the airstrip to see if the Navy wants to continue to maintain fuel service there."

The sailor who asked just said, "Ahh makes sense," and took another bite of his burger. Glancing around the small dining area it looked like most of the sailors were eating burgers. They actually weren't too bad. They sort of reminded me of a Wendy's single, but not as mushy and square. Their fries were almost the same as Wendy's too. Maybe they got all that stuff frozen from the same supplier on the west coast.

One of the sailors asked, "What's that airstrip there for?" I told him, "The place is old. Back in the 1930s and 40s airplane fuel gauges weren't that accurate or dependable, and sometimes they only carried enough fuel to reach LA, sometimes they ran short. We lost a lot of planes and their crews due to running out of fuel just off the coast. Before World War Two they built that strip as sort of a last chance airplane gas station. It paid for itself quickly in the war in lives and aircraft saved. The only problem today was if you made an emergency landing because of low fuel you might be waiting for days or weeks for the gas truck to arrive." They all chuckled but I wasn't kidding.

I asked them why there was a cashier if the Navy fed them at no charge. One of them said she was mostly doing food counts for ordering new supplies, but a few of the crew were supposed to be on special diets, so they received a separate meal allowance and had to pay to eat in the chow line. He said if you claimed to be strict kosher or vegetarian but ate hot dogs from the chow line then you had some explaining to do.

One of them asked how we got stranded on the island. David replied, "Our study covered the entire island and took a few days; we were supposed to call on the satellite phone when we were finished but the phone was dead so we had to wait for the next fuel delivery." They all seemed to believe his bullshit explanation. The good news was that meant nobody on the mainland heard about the bright flash in the sky that morning, and anyone who saw it probably assumed it was a distant thunderstorm way out on the ocean.

I considered showing them our magic trick where we communicate with ESP while they watched, but of course we actually used our implants to talk. Everyone seeing our demonstration believes it works.

By the time my burger was down to two bites left I asked the cop, "Can I go through the line again?" He grabbed a napkin to wipe his mouth and said, "You sure can." Then he asked one of the sailors to recite the rule about getting seconds. The pimply faced young Hispanic sailor proudly repeated the well learned rule: "Take all you want, but eat all you take. You can get an Article-15 for throwin' food in the trash." I looked down at my plate and saw the slice of melted sim-cheese I had to scrape off the burger with a spoon. Then stood up, glanced at David, he said, "Fries too please Colonel Malone." I chuckled when he called me Colonel. With my tray in hand I dropped my plate at the dirty dish window and got back in line, which was shorter now.

It took about four minutes to make it through the line again, burger and fries, lettuce-tomato-onion, catsup-mustard-mayo in tiny paper cups, refill my glass of lemonade, and back to the table. I noticed the cop watched me the entire way, like what would I do? Maybe he was worried I wound run back upstairs and jump 120 feet down into the ocean and swim to freedom in China? The guy obviously had no clue my case had a nuclear weapon inside, top secret NSA-grade satellite comm gear, and enough poison gas pellets to kill the entire crew in under twenty seconds. He was kind of like Barney Fife on a Navy Oiler! He had no clue and was doing what he was told and tried to look all tough and dangerous, so the enlisted men didn't toss his fat ass overboard late at night.

I wolfed down the second burger after scraping off the dreadful sim-cheese. David ate my fries. The cop looked impatient to leave since we were taking up seating for the enlisted sailors. Everyone at the table stared as I scraped off the cheese. When I looked up all eyeballs were on my tray. I smiled and chuckled but felt no need to explain my actions. I don't like cheese on burgers, if I get cheese that's all I taste, especially if it's cheap crap American cheese.

I think the crew ate in timed shifts and had exactly the correct number of seats to feed the crew in three shifts for each meal. The XO told us upstairs there were 96 sailors on board today, not counting us.

One of them asked why we were eating in crew's mess instead of officer's mess and David snapped back, "The food's better over here." One of the sailors instinctively snapped back, "Oh bullshit, sir!"

"No, it's true. The burgers are better over here." The only prop I was missing in that moment would have been a few carry-out packets of Gray Poupon Mustard to squeeze on my burger, with my pinky finger stickin' out. The cop mumbled we needed to leave to free-up the seats. So David collected the rest of the fries in a napkin while I daintily ate the last few bites of the burger. After wiping my mouth we lifted our cases off the floor and set them on the table. The cop loudly asked, "What's in those?"

David patted the Batsuit cases and said it held our uniforms and a change of clothes, and that case..." he said pointing at the black pelican case in front of me. "That case holds two nuclear bombs, an anti-helicopter missile, and our satellite comms gear." The cop smiled then assuming he was kidding laughed loudly, and then everyone at the table laughed. I smiled and winked at David, he sat there rather red faced since everyone thought he was telling an obvious lie. Luckily, he failed to mention his case also had two fully loaded machine guns. That probably would have pissed off the cop and caused him to arrest us and confiscate our cases, which could start a huge armed confrontation in the dining hall. Sometimes it's better to lie to the cops, especially the dumb ones.

We spent the rest of the trip on the bridge near the coffee pot answering questions from the XO and Navigator trainee about what it was like working for the Pentagon in top secret service and how we managed to be Colonels without military haircuts or uniforms. I corrected him, in that we were actually in-uniform, David unzipped his cammo windbreaker and showed he was shiny black from ankles to neck. The crew was amazed by the fabric that felt and looked like microscopic nylon chainmail. I told them it was bullet proof but they called bullshit on that too. I told our armed escort to shoot me.

He laughed loudly and said he'd end up in a straight jacket in the brig if he even pointed an unloaded pistol at an officer. We all laughed at his exaggerated response. By then it was late in the afternoon and the outline of San Diego was visible in the haze straight ahead of us. The XO said 90 minutes and we'd be stepping onto dry land. We thanked him for the ride.

David spoke to me on Whispernet and said he was jonesing for a cold six pack of Coors in tall brown glass bottles. I told him I was jonesing for our pool and his dick. He sputtered and laughed which made the crew look at him like he was nuts for suddenly laughing at nothing. By then the pilot had slowed to quarter speed and I saw the tugboats approaching on both sides. This 700 foot long tanker had to be carefully maneuvered into port, which was a well rehearsed maneuver.

We made it back to the Naval Base at 4:10pm and thanked the XO for the ride. David called for a taxi when we were almost to the front gate. We rode to the airport and bought plane tickets to El Paso, there were three round trip flights to El Paso every week, the next one was tomorrow at 9:30am, we stayed at the cheap airport hotel (no pool) and finally got cleaned up, re-hydrated, and fed. The bed felt nice too. I set the pelican case by the sink and plugged it in to charge. We worked on our report that evening and got a delivery pizza and a 12 pack. Those two things went together so well they must have been created by God himself. Thick gooey mozzarella cheese with slices of pepperoni and a soft chewy crust tasted even better when washed down with large swallows of ice cold regular Coors Banquet beer, not that weak lite beer stuff. Two slices of pizza and two cans of beer followed by a huge belch, loud enough to be heard down the hallway! And for dessert I'd like another cold beer and my husband's boner, thank you.

We got back to ELP and walked off the plane at 11:55am and downloaded our report; the replacement nuke was already at ELP. Captain Jones was happy and the CIA was happy (100% dead, as requested). The North Korean government was... not so happy. The State Department wasn't happy because it made them look like chumps when we detonated a nuke but they registered it two days later. Oops, sorry world! I think the OD forgot to make the call, but the decision to use that weapon was sort of a spur of the moment thing to fulfill CIA requirements (100% dead), not to mention saving our lives when we were pinned down. We billed the CIA for the nuke and one spider too, but it was still in my pocket.

We spoke briefly to the Captain over the internet video thing, he was in a hotel in D.C. for some reason unrelated to our mission, and David reminded him we qualified for the reward. Captain Jones said he already signed off on it after the NSA snapped some photos of Nicolas Island after their newly created rainwater retention pool was installed by us.

On the way home in our separate vehicles I told David, "Oh, and speaking of water retention, did you hear the latest theory on those ancient ground sculptures in Peru, what they were actually for?"

"No what?"

"They're called the Nazca Lines. They're now believed to be part of a wide area rainwater collection system, to gather and store rainwater in hand made underground tanks. They're essentially rain gutters on the surface to store as much water as they needed to grow crops and for drinking and cooking outside of the rainy season."

"What lead to that theory I wonder."

"Scientists discovered the underground tanks along each of the lines, but I think the lines were so old by then that their culture started making more lines to compete with surrounding tribes for who could make the biggest and most attractive patterns. Centuries ago people travelled long distances to see the lines and experience religious feelings. Maybe they sat around and smoked mushrooms and contemplated the Gods in the night sky."

As always we took the rest of the week off but had video conferences with the boss during the day to discuss the mission and the people we killed. But we never saw any of them in the light of day so we could not pick out any of them on sheets of mug shots either. Trying to identify the Koreans was a big deal to the CIA but we were of little help. They had to fly out and collect DNA from the two corpses we left rotting in the sunshine behind the latrine. BTW, that latrine did not blow over during the wind gust, but it doesn't stand perfectly vertical any longer.

The next day David got a call about the bonus money. A private courier wanted to schedule a meeting time/location for the next day. We picked our favorite isolated safe place: Range Road. Sometimes it was difficult to give directions over the phone but when you were northbound on US-54 north of El Paso it was basically the only right turn until you got to Alamogordo, can't miss it! 'It's right there across from the Otero County Jail.'

We met him at 10:09am, we arrived twelve minutes early. An unmarked black van approached and flashed his high beams and stopped behind us along the side of the road in the middle of the desert, about halfway between the range entrance and the highway.

David walked back to meet him wearing his Batsuit, while I stood beside the truck with an automatic behind me. I'm sure the co-driver was packing too. He set a cardboard box on the hood and handed David the clipboard to sign after checking his driver's license. The van turned around and left, David took the box and walked back to the truck. I kept one finger on the trigger guard just in case. I noticed it looked like the box was heavy in his arms, but it was only the size of a shoe box.

I cut open the box and peeled open the plastic bag and saw it was full of old fifty dollar bills, $300k in US currency, as promised. We'll never know exactly how many people were there when the nuke went off above their heads.

Back at home stuff got plugged-in and replacement supplies ordered. David put the box on the floor in the TAC room closet. After a shower we got in the pool. One of David's 'fun shit' ideas was we both stood beside the stone wall and on the count of three we ran to the shallow end and dove in. The trick was we had to push off hard enough to clear the shallow end. Normally, I would have daintily used the steps with one hand on the railing, walked to the where the bottom sloped sharply down then swim to the deep end.

I joined him with my butt against the wall, "Ready? 3-2-1-GO!" We sprinted eighteen feet from the wall to the shallow end and dove in on opposite sides of the floating rope and coasted under water to the deep end. When I felt my hands hit the far wall I popped up and held onto the side but he flipped over, got a gulp of air, and swam back to the shallow end. "Whatever" I mumbled because he always won our testosterone contests. He may be an athlete but he cried like a sissy when I made him come in my mouth.

Our neighbor Jeremy came over when he heard us in the pool after school, but like always we rarely spoke. We were like his older brothers, role models. He was actually a decent kid but difficult to look at, especially in a tiny high school swim team suit. The center breastbone of his chest stuck out, his chest was malformed and his nips were tiny brown dots with ugly long black hairs growing out around them. His belly button stuck out like a tiny doughnut, and his skin was pale white and heavily dotted by moles. His arms and legs looked like he hadn't eaten in a year. And from behind his butt was gone, his pelvis bones stuck out, and his spine was badly curved. We discussed buying him one of those personal hair trimmers as a Christmas gift.

I had no idea where that boy was ever going to find a girl who wanted him. I wondered if girls ever got Marfan's Syndrome.

Marfan's looked really weird all over the body, just look at a photo of President Lincoln, 6'4" and 160lbs, and imagine Abe in a Speedo flirting with you at a gay hotel poolside.

Contact the author: borischenaz gmail

Read update news on twitter: @borischenaz

Recommended book by this author available on Nifty: Crossing Panama. In the Adult-Friends section, dated Jan 1, 2022.