Antonio Ramos Craft was a white Latino. The man was formidable as he stood looking at Martin. He was called Warlock was about 5’10”, but weighed two hundred fifty pounds. Warlock was a major in the Atlantica
National Air Service which was headquartered in Harrisburg. His uniform was dark green with white piping.
The ANAS was the coordinator for all military air units in Atlantica. Major Warlock piloted a Skimmer and was assigned as Martin’s Security associate to search for Kurt Sloan.
The Skimmer that Warlock flew was ten years old. The jet air propulsion craft had been built in Pan Mexico, a loyal Atlantica ally. Martin and Warlock stood on the tarmac of the small landing field on the Duquesne Bluff.
The wind was blowing the directional flags west to east. They talked for a few minutes then Warlock said to Martin, it was perfect weather, since they were headed east, should board and take off. Soon they were zooming down the Monongahela River headed southeast. During the next hour they sped over rivers then on to the mountains. They were enclosed in a glass bubble at the front of the craft. Both wore mouth and ear pieces. They didn’t talk for a few minutes. Martin was captivated by the scene below as he tried to get used to peering at objects as they came into view and then quickly passed. It took him a while to get used to searching with the naked eye and reading the scanner that was between their seats. It wasn’t long before he could begin to make out the mountains. Down below the river glowed with the morning sun.
Martin looked over to the pilot and said, “The name ‘Warlock’ sounds familiar. Like from one of those old last century movies that’s shown late night.”
“It’s a name from I picked up from my military days. It means deceiver, or even worse,” he smiled in a crooked way. “The old meaning is one who is in touch with the evil spirits. A sorcerer,” he replied this time with a smirk.
“A sorcerer? Well I hope we can get in touch with the guy we’re looking for, who may be an evil spirit,” Martin responded trying to develop a relationship.
Warlock nodded at Martin and said, “Just so you know, I take this revolution of ours very seriously. I know from what my grandfather taught me about the Anglos and how they controlled people so they could stay in power. What’s funny, he was white of old Castillian stock. He was ahead of his time. So, I don’t want us to lose our power, the country we have. We have control and we’ll get more power if we stay together. I’m on a mission. I have my orders and from what I was told at the briefing, this is a big one. What I like about it, is that it’s a capture of an Anglo defector. I have been on many missions in my military career. I served in Brazil and the Turkish Campaign of the old U.S. Been a military pilot for twenty years, but now I finally have a war to fight that I really believe in. My mother was Latino, born in Venezuela. My Daddy was as white as the driven snow, a Colonel in the former U.S. Air Force, but he became part of the problem. He dumped my mother when I was a kid because of the Military prejudices against Latinos. It was my grandfather who became like my Dad.
In fact he hated his own son. So you see civilian, I have a stake in any job I’m told to perform for the government.”
“You’re a Major? That’s pretty far up there for a pilot, right?”
“It is. As I said, I was in the U.S. Air Force, just like my Daddy. Fact, that’s how I got there. Inside I hated his guts, outside I took advantage of his reputation. Now, I have a squadron in Harrisburg, but I take on urgent missions whenever asked. A couple of years ago I left teaching for the civil war in Brazil as a mercenary. Then I was in Lithuania when liberation came here. I came back and signed up in Nuevo York. The government wanted me to go back to teaching again. Not me, I talked my way into solo work and set up my reserve unit for emergency uses. I still teach as a profession, but too much office work makes a man stale. I hate being stale.
Life is meant to be lived, alert and sharp. That’s enough about me. Tell me about this traitor whose trying to escape with secrets that might endanger our country.”
“He’s an Anglo deserter. Took something with him that may hurt our Aquifer System.”
“Whoa, that’s big time. So, our job is to find him very soon, I assume,” Warlock said.
“Correct. We have to search an old hiking trail called the Great Allegheny Passage that goes between Pittsburgh and Columbia. The trail has been closed for years with no maintenance, but he’s using it to escape. Our job is to find him, pick him up, and take him back to Pittsburgh before he reaches the wall at Columbia. That’s it, in short form,” Martin said.
“That’s the way I like things, simple. Ok, so we sweep the trail. To do that, I’ve got various sensors, heat, voice activators, movement, video, of course. This baby can stop on a dime, land just about anywhere, hover, you name it. You have the perfect craft for this mission, McDonald.”
“Great, Warlock. Looks like we have a team,” Martin replied.
“Looks that way, but I’ll need your personal input about this guy. What’s he thinking? What are his goals?
That’s where you come in because you know him. The more we know about how he thinks, the quicker will find him.
“What’s your main job. I mean in the ANAS?”
“My main expertise is usually to get some place faster or find someone sooner than anyone,” he replied. “By the way look down there at that fire.”
He glided in over a large area along the river that was engulfed in flames. The inside of the rectangle was blackened and the fire had gone to the river bank. The fringes of the flames could be seen spitting up into the morning air. It was spreading like a carpet being pulled up on three sides.
“What’s going on, Warlock? Brush fire?” Martin said.
“Someone is probably clearing the land for next spring. Nuevo York wants all possible farm land tilled. I guess that’s what they’re doing down there.”
“Where are we? You said we’d skim slowly towards the border, but I lost track,” Martin said.
“Look at the monitor, McDonald, then over at three o’clock. That’s the Yough Lake according to the monitor. I want to go to the end of our tracker video. At least as far as I can safely go and then we’ll come back which takes us almost to Cumberland near the Columbia border. These videos of the trail you found are great, plus I was able to download from our library some original tracks of the trail about twenty years ago. Between the two, we have great visuals. Of course, we’re looking for one man in this vast territory, but at least we know he’ll be on this trail. We just went over Mt. Savage back there and Cumberland is coming up. We’ll turn around and wind our way slowly with the Laser scanner. It’ll pick up human heat from this altitude with no problem. I don’t expect there to be many human heat centers along that old walkway. Based on my calculations when you believe he left Pittsburgh, I can’t imagine him getting any further than Ohiopyle,” he finished.
“You said human heat. You mean it can tell between, say a deer and a man?” Martin said.
“Yep, even between a big man, 6’2, 200 lbs, or a small woman, 5’2, 100 lbs.”
Martin looked down at a curling stream that darted in and out of vision with the twisted and graded portions of hills that made this part of the country so uninhabitable. Only little river villages remained based on the latest map of the area that was done three years ago. Most of them were deserted. Looking down to the trail where it was exposed in some spots, he could see lots of debris, mostly tree limbs mixed with sloping piles of leaves. Up to that point Martin had little concern for his safety, but seeing the terrain, the mountains, and the absolute darkness that prevailed along the trail, he realized this would be dangerous than he thought. Finding one smart man on this trail would not be easy.
“There’s the Potomac coming up to your right, McDonald. It comes up and then turns Southeast at Cumberland.
I think we should land in Cumberland and talk to our command units in Pittsburgh. I had to get clearance from them just in case you wanted to land. It’s cleared, but this is on the frontier, so be prepared for some tough questions. We should touch base with them and let them know who we’re looking for and why. There was no sign of him on our first sweep, which was to be expected. In fact, I just wanted to scan the trail - let you see what we are up against. But my guess he is somewhere near Ohiopyle. We’ll go back over at one hundred feet.
If he’s anywhere on or near the trail we should be able to spot him. I’ll check in and we’ll land. Okay?” he said.
“That’s good. We’ve been going at this since daybreak, it’s time to stop for lunch. I’m hungry and this looks like good place to land.”
The Skimmer swooped in over the compact town crammed between the steep terrain. The river gleamed in the mid-day sun as the Skimmer landed on a pad near the center of town. It was the only craft on the heliport. They sat there for a few minutes awaiting for the Commander to approach them as instructed. Soon three individuals appeared dressed in drab olive and sand colored uniforms. They walked up and rapped on the glass. Warlock propped open the window.
“Pittsburgh Center, Warlock. This is McDonald, whose orders I am flying under,” he yelled down to the three standing stoically under the wing.
Martin observed the three. He noticed that one of them was a woman. They were all dressed alike, but she was the tallest of them. She had skin the color of coffee with cream. She was stern looking. Martin was very sensitive to black women in official capacities, because no matter what social or military rule, even in this Republic of equality, women still had a difficult time.
“Throw down your ID chip,” said the black woman.
“Who are you? Identify yourself. That’s protocol” answered Warlock.
“Fuck protocol! Drop your chip or this thing goes up!” the woman countered.
“This thing goes up or you go down. No one talks to me like that,” said Warlock and he hit the starter.
Immediately the engine opened up and they moved upward, the blast of their air burst knocking them over on the tarmac. They were up immediately and aiming their lasers, but the Skimmer was gone and over the steep hillside.
“Pittsburgh Center, this is Major Warlock. Do you read me?”
“We read you, Major. Why the liftoff from Cumberland?”
“I just peeled away because there’s something odd going on down there. I think the fuckin’ area is in enemy hands. They are definitely not friendly,” he shouted into the speaker. The screen showed the monitor in Pittsburgh going to another frequency.
They circled the town several times and then swooped toward the west with the sun high above them.
“Major Ramos, Jesus Christ!” came the reply from Pittsburgh Center. “They’ve had intruders six times in the last week who had false ID. We’ve communicated with them and sent a new password that is also in your command module. Bring it up and use it. We’ll ask for a new clearance for you and just use the new password,”
said the rapid fire communicator.
Martin heard the interchange over the intercom and tapped Warlock on his arm. “Warlock we have to get back there. This whole mission is too important not to verify that Sloan hasn’t gone through here yet. Verify or whatever you have to do, but get back there. We’ll leave as soon as I can find out something, one way or the other.”
“Okay, will give it another go, McDonald. Control sent them the new password and we have it too, so we’ll go back down as soon as Cumberland gives their okay. Nobody can be too careful, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose one of these Skimmers to anyone. But I guess they have been breached here recently, so I understand.
That was one tough lady.”
“Good looking too,” Martin added as they over flew over the mountains. At about one thousand feet they were still well below the tops of the mountain ridges. Warlock winged in and about observing up the trail as it would occasionally appear.
“Until we get clearance, we might as well check around here.” As they followed the trail, Warlock turned on his sensors and nothing came back indicating human presence. To prove its effectiveness he turned back towards Cumberland. For a while nothing happened. Then it went into a crackling sound with a red light flashing every second. Both sound and light became louder and brighter as they came closer to the Cumberland landing spot and the Security personnel awaiting them. Then he swooped away and both suddenly stopped. “That’s how it works McDonald. Pretty nifty, eh?” At that moment he got a message in his ear phone.
“I hear you. OK, we’ll be coming in,” Warlock talked into his mouthpiece. “You want the password from me?”
Whatever you say, here it comes and we’re heading in. Any problem with that?” he asked. He listened for a second and replied, “Roger and out.”
The Skimmer picked up speed as Warlock turned in a ninety degree swoop and headed for a landing. In a few seconds they were coming down onto the heliport. The same three Security people were standing to one side.
This time there was a group of militia, standing behind them with weapons drawn. They landed and the same ritual began again. They walked up and motioned for the window to come down. Their weapons were raised as before. The black woman was in the middle, with what looked like Captain’s bars on her shoulder and a deep scowl on her face.
Warlock looked down at the woman and cried out over the sound of the engine, “Octoberfest”. He hadn’t turned it off this time, and in fact the landing pods hadn’t been lowered as they had been before.
“Munich,” the Captain shouted the reply. Then she added, “You can disembark now.”
Warlock and Martin climbed down to the tarmac and were escorted over to a three story glass and cement building without a word being spoken. Inside the Captain asked for an explanation of their search. Warlock said he apologized for his takeoff now that he understood their security concerns. He introduced Martin who went into an explanation of the purpose for their landing. The Captain seemed to warm up a bit and said she would take them to Sector Intelligence whose mission it was to monitor all movement of people within a hundred miles. Martin felt better already. At least now he could search from this end and corner Sloan along the way. He was certain this was the way he was coming.
Not long after landing it began to rain hard. Warlock asked if they could stay until the storm passed. As it turned out it was late afternoon before the rains stopped. The Security team gave them a tour of the facility.
They explained the various methods of observation that were available. It would be very difficult for Sloan to pass this far without detection. As the storm slowed and finally passed, darkness was spreading in from the east.
They were asked to spend the night and Warlock agreed. After a rousing dinner with the now friendly Security team, Warlock went out to check the Skimmer and get the latest weather scan. He came back in and told Martin to be ready to lift off at sunrise because it would be clear, but that the weather was going to turn negative again with rain tomorrow and snow possible the following day.
It took Martin quite a while to fall asleep in the dorm as his mind replayed the day. He tried to visualize Sloan walking that curving, almost invisible trail along the river. He felt that he had been right in insisting they land in Cumberland because Security was now alerted. Tomorrow they could concentrate closely on the trail back towards Ohiopyle. His adrenalin was flowing, he liked this cat and mouse game. His last thoughts were about possibly switching professions by joining Security when he got back from Paris.