Fic: Blue Thunder--Chapter Two
Jensen screeched to a halt outside his home, a cabin-style house in the Mount Washington area of LA.
Once inside, he dropped his keys on the side table, and then pushed the play button on his answering machine.
There was a message from his sister telling him that she and her husband were back from their holiday in Florida and did he get the postcard they’d sent? Jensen smiled to himself as he absently went through his mail; bills, bills and more bills. And a postcard from Key West. The next two messages were both from Danneel, complaining that she hadn’t heard from him in nearly a month and she was getting really sick of him ignoring her messages. Jensen winced and then went and got himself a Lone Star beer, opening it with the bottle opener that was sitting on his kitchen bench and then tipping his head back and downing half of the bottle in one long gulp.
Danneel had been his best friend since college. He’d been deep in denial back then, still counting his blessings that he didn’t seem to be as sex crazy as all his buddies; relieved that he didn’t seem to feel the same desperate pressure to lose his virginity that all the other freshmen did. Even though he’d taken to drinking whiskey and beer like a fish took to water, even though he’d pretty much stopped going to Church on a Sunday, he figured that the whole ‘no premarital sex’ thing, was the one value of his parents’ that he was getting right. Whenever he allowed himself to be peer-pressured into making out with a girl it felt wrong and Jensen had just assumed that was because sex before marriage was a sin and he was a good Christian boy who wanted to make his mama proud.
Until Danneel.
Danneel who hadn’t been quite as drunk as he’d thought she’d been. Danneel who’d noticed that he wasn’t really into it. Danneel who’d sat up straight on his lap, palmed his barely hard dick, stared straight through his eyes into his soul and said, “Omigod. You’re gay.”
He’d ended up with his head between his knees, breathing into a paper bag while Danneel rubbed his back soothingly and told him that it was okay.
Jensen had never named the sin that he knew hid deep within his soul, had never acknowledged that when he jerked off imagining Piper Laurie and Paul Newman making out in The Hustler, it wasn’t really Piper Laurie who was turning him on. Danneel had helped him, if not come to terms with his sexuality, then at least to acknowledge it. She played the part of his girlfriend during college to help him keep his secret and she was still willing to play that part, whenever he needed an official date for something.
Jensen wasn’t exactly out; conservative, religious parents and six years in the military kept him firmly in the closet. But Jim knew. And Danneel, of course. The only others who knew were the various guys who Jensen had exchanged hurried hand jobs and sloppy blowjobs with in public restrooms and sex-on-premises venues.
The thing was, Danneel took her best friend duties pretty seriously and she knew that when he stopped taking and returning her calls it was because things weren’t going well for him. Jensen groaned. It was too late to call her now; she had a kid and it wasn’t fair to call at this time of night, no matter what Danneel said in her last angry message. But he’d make sure he called her in the morning. Maybe even arrange to meet up on the weekend. She’d like that.
Jensen took his gun out of its holster and put it in the drawer of his lamp table.
There was a takeout container of chow mien in the fridge that had only been there since last Friday, and Jensen was just thinking that he’d heat that up for his supper before heading to bed when a bright set of headlights swung across his living room window and a car pulled to a stop right in front of his front door. The dog next door began to bark.
Shit. Jensen yanked open the lamp table drawer and pulled out his gun. Had he locked the front door? Jensen couldn’t remember. He crept silently toward it and then froze when the door knob began to twist slowly. The door swung open gently and a bulky shape pushed its way inside. Jensen raised his gun. The lumpy shadowy-shape pushed the door shut and Jensen flicked on the lamp and yelled, “Freeze asshole!”
Beside the door Danneel gasped and clutched her sleeping son closer to her chest.
“Jesus Christ, Danni!” Jensen said lowering his gun and hiding it behind his back. “I thought you were a burglar! I could’ve shot you both!”
Danneel was wearing a red trench coat, belted at the waist, and a black beret. Her eight year old son, Timmy, was clinging to her front like a baby monkey and he had an old blue blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
Danni rolled her eyes at Jensen. “How many burglars come through the front door with a key, Bozo?”
She may have had a point, but Jensen wasn’t willing to concede it. “Yeah, well,” he said, “You scared the shit outta me.”
“Sorry,” Danni’s bottom lip dropped. “Could you maybe put the gun away now, Jenny -bean?”
Jensen scowled. “Do not call me that,” he returned the gun to the lamp drawer. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Here, hold him,” Danni passed Jensen her sleeping son. “I need my blender. I left it here that time Chris was in town with his band and you had that party.”
“Oh yeah,” Jensen nodded. “You were making margaritas,” he frowned. “That was months ago. Why do you suddenly need your blender at 2.00 o’clock in the morning?”
Danni was already on her way into the kitchen. “Well, you see, Jensen, you have this problem. You don’t pick up the damn phone.”
Jensen put Timmy down on the sofa. He covered him with a throw rug and then frowned. Kid must be deaf to have slept through all the ruckus he and Danneel had been making.
“Are you going to come?” Danni asked.
Jensen went and leaned in the doorway in between the living room and the kitchen. “To what?”
“Chad and Sophia’s anniversary party.”
Jensen frowned. “I thought they broke up.”
“Yeah they did. And then they got back together again. The party’s this Friday.”
Jensen closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his forehead. Sophia and Danneel had been friends since college, and Jensen knew Sophia and her husband Chad pretty well. The couple had been breaking up dramatically and then getting back together again, ever since college. They’d gotten married about five years back, but it hadn’t changed anything. They’d separated and then got back together again twice-or three times now, Jensen supposed, in the time that they’d been married. Jensen actually wasn’t sure they could legitimately claim to have been married five years, given the amount of that time they’d been separated. Also? Chad was kind of a dick. When he’d had too much to drink (something that happened far too often) he’d hit on any woman in the room. He’d even hit on Jensen once; told him that he had real pretty cock-sucking lips and that if Jensen ever wanted to blow him, he wouldn’t say no. Jensen had leaned in close and then explained to Chad that he also had a real firing gun and a permit to carry concealed.
“It’s okay,” Danneel said softly. “You don’t have to come. It’s not like you promised to be my date or anything.”
Jensen opened his eyes and stared at her.
“I wasn’t being sarcastic,” she said. “I know how you feel about Chad, so I figured you probably wouldn’t come. I was just hoping,” she shrugged and then sighed. “We haven’t spent a lot of time together lately and you’ve been,” she trailed off and then pursed her lips and fixed him with a steely expression. “Jensen, I know you’ve got issues; hell you’ve got annual subscriptions; and I’d really like to help you,” Danni reached up and put her hands on Jensen’s shoulders. “Just remember, Jenny-bean, you can run, but you can’t hide.”
“Joe Lewis,” Jensen said. “Very good.”
Danni sighed again and then bit at her bottom lip. “Sooner or later, we’re gonna talk. I love you too much to lose you; you know that.”
Jensen slipped his arms around Danneel’s waist and pulled her close, burying his nose in her hair and inhaling the scent of her apricot shampoo. “I love you too,” he said.
Jensen stood wrapped around his best friend, listening to her heartbeat for a minute or two before pulling back. “I got a new partner today,” he said, surprising himself. He hadn’t planned on telling her about the debacle with Garcia, or about Jared.
Danni looked at him cautiously. “Good or bad?”
Jensen inclined his head. “Good I think. His name’s Jared. He used to work over at the 77th precinct, transferred to us because the assholes over there didn’t want to work with a fag.”
Danni made a small hurt noise and put a hand over her lips. “Oh, Jen,” she said. “Is he okay?”
Jensen couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah. I mean, I’m sure there’s damage, you know, under the surface. But he seems like a cool dude.”
“Yeah?” Danni nudged Jensen’s shoulder. “Is he cute?”
“Danni!”
“Well is he?”
Jensen rolled his eyes and then rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “He’s very tall. Big hands. Big feet.”
“Big cock?”
Jensen’s jaw dropped. “Really, Danni?”
Danni shrugged, completely unrepentant. “Oh come on, don’t try telling me you haven’t been speculating. So where’s my blender?”
Jensen pointed to the cupboard where he’d stashed the blender after the party, and Danni took it with a whoop of triumph. She turned to Jensen and looked at him sternly. “We’re gonna catch up on the weekend,” she said, “and you’re gonna talk to me about what’s going on in that head of yours, okay?”
“Yes, mom,” Jensen teased.
Danni rolled her eyes. “Could you carry Timmy out to the car for me?”
Jensen picked up the sleeping boy and followed Danneel out to her white Toyota Celica. She opened the back door and Jensen placed the sleeping boy gently onto the back seat.
Timmy sat up abruptly with a grin. “Hiya, Uncle Jensen,” he said.
Jensen threw his head back and laughed. “Hiya, you little faker,” he ruffled the boy’s hair and then stood up and shut the car door.
Danni wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “You take care of yourself, all right? And if you get lucky with your new partner,” Danni waggled her eyebrows, “then you call me straight away so that I can live through you vicariously.”
“Goodbye Danni,” Jensen waved her off and then went back into the house and heated up the left over Chinese for his supper.
He flicked the TV on while he ate and caught a news report about the ‘attempted rape’ of Commissioner Loretta Devine, who was still in a critical condition in hospital. “We still don’t have anything on the rapists,” the Chief of Police told a reporter. “They had no identification on them, but they were probably Latin American and almost certainly illegal aliens.”
Jensen frowned. Why were they pushing that ‘attempted rape’ line so hard? Even a rookie should’ve been able to see that this was a carefully planned assault and robbery. The attackers had targeted the councilor’s briefcase; they’d taken it in the driveway of her home and run off with it. Surely, if the plan had been to rape her, they would have bundled her into her house, or the back of her car, or even dragged her to the banana loungers? But they didn’t. They stabbed her, grabbed her briefcase and ran. Jensen had a brief memory flash of the attacker who’d been trying to climb over the fence getting shot; of him falling off the fence; of papers flying everywhere as he dropped the briefcase. Jensen frowned again and ran a hand over his chin. Maybe some of those papers were still out there. Maybe it would be worthwhile to go and check. Maybe he might learn what the powers that be were trying to cover up.
Jensen pushed back from the table, got his jacket and his gun and went out to the car.
--
Jensen was half way to Commissioner Devine’s house when a newsreader interrupted the radio station’s broadcast of Sweet Home Alabama to announce solemnly that Commissioner Devine died of her stab wounds at 3.36am, without ever regaining consciousness. “A good woman,” the newsreader said, “and close confidant of Mayor Steven Williams, Ms Devine was well-respected by both the Latino and African American communities which made up the majority of her constituents. She will be sorely missed.”
“Goddamn it,” Jensen muttered under his breath.
When he pulled up out the front of Devine’s residence there was no police tape in evidence. No sign, in fact, that this had been the scene of a homicide not too many hours ago. “Oh yeah,” Jensen muttered to himself. “That’s not suspicious at all.”
He chewed at his bottom lip for a moment and then got out of the car and approached the high, spiked, brick and wrought-iron fence. He took his jacket off and threw it over the iron palings before vaulting over it. Taking out a flashlight, he began to look around; first around the miraculously clean pool which had been pink with spilled blood not so long ago, and then around the area where assailant number two had been shot. Jensen shone the flashlight on the ground, on the fence, and finally up into the trees, where he spotted a ragged-looking piece of white paper plastered against a leafy branch.
Jensen climbed up onto the fence and pulled the piece of paper down. It was torn and worn through in some areas where it had obviously gotten damp, but Jensen could still make out that it was a page of hastily scribbled hand-written notes. Unfortunately, it was written in Spanish. The only word Jensen could understand was THOR, although why Commissioner Devine had written the name of a Norse God in capital letters, he couldn’t even begin to guess. Jensen pocketed the piece of paper and then went back to his car.
When he pulled up outside his house, Jensen sat for a moment contemplating what he should do next. Maybe he could ask Garcia to translate it for him? He knew she was pissed at him for the, you know, loony tunes stunt he’d pulled the other week, but she liked him too. He didn’t think she’d refuse to help.
Somewhere close by a car engine backfired and suddenly Jensen’s heart was racing. He couldn’t breathe, his palms were sweaty and he could feel beads of moisture running down his face too.
“Shit. Shit,” Jensen pushed his seat back and leaned as far forward as he could, trying not to hyperventilate. “I’m not there, I’m not there.” Jensen’s head felt like it was swarming with bees and his chest hurt so badly it felt like he was having a heart attack.
“Just a panic attack,” he told himself. Again and again. “Not there, not dying. Just a car backfiring. Stupid fuckin’ trigger. Get a grip Ackles.”
Jensen hated psychologists, hating going to therapy, because real men shouldn’t need to. A Marine should be able to tough it out. Both of those thoughts were bullshit and he knew it, but they were deeply ingrained. At least the psychologist he’d seen under sufferance had taught him how to pull himself out of a panic attack. It was hard and it took time, but being aware of what was happening and having the tools to combat the symptoms had been a big help.
The sky was starting to get light by the time Jensen was able to get out of the car. He headed straight for the Jack Daniels and poured himself half a tumbler with shaking hands. He downed it quickly, relishing the burn, and then poured himself the same again. It was enough to quiet the bees is his head and Jensen staggered to his bedroom, kicked off his shoes and crawled, fully dressed, under the covers. It still took him almost an hour to fall asleep and when he finally did, he was plunged straight into all his worst nightmares.
--
Jensen woke up to the sight of sunlight streaming through a gap in his curtains and the sound of his pager beeping shrilly.
He folded an arm over his face and groaned.
The pager stopped and Jensen got up. He used the john and then showered, standing under the steam with his eyes closed until he started to feel a little closer to human. He didn’t bother to shave.
Once he was dressed-blue jeans, a light-grey Henley and an olive plaid over-shirt-he took a look at his beeper. It had gone off again while he was in the shower and it was Jim trying to get hold of him. Big surprise. Jensen went and made himself coffee. Not until he’d downed half a cup of strong black caffeine did he pick up the telephone and dial Jim’s direct line.
“Goddamn it, Ackles!” Jim shouted at him. “I’ve been trying to get you all morning! Why don’t you answer your fuckin’ beeper!”
Jensen sucked in air. He really wasn’t in the mood for this shit. “Is that right?” he said. “Well how about this? How about the next time I’m suspended, so is my fuckin’ beeper!”
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone and then Jim said, “Feel better now?”
“Yeah,” Jensen fired back, “actually, I do.” He ran a hand over his face and breathed out slowly. “Sorry, Jim. I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Then get your ass down her pronto, Son. Got some suits here who want you back on flight duty.”
--
Jensen went in dressed just as he was because technically he worked nightshift and it was only midday.
Jim was waiting for him in the parking lot, standing and chatting to two men in grey suits, one of whom was smoking. Jim excused himself as soon as he saw Jensen’s impala and hurried across.
“Jesus, Jensen, did you have to dress like a hillbilly?” he grouched when Jensen got out of the car.
Jensen shrugged. “I’m off-duty.”
“Yeah. Well. You’ve just been assigned to special detail,” Jim put an arm around Jensen’s shoulders and guided him toward the two suits.
“This is Mr Frederic Lehne and Mr Sterling Brown from Washington. This is Jensen Ackles, my best pilot.”
There was a round of handshakes and then Lehne said, “I’m glad we found you in time, Ackles, we’re due out at the Weapons Testing Range in two hours and it’ll take us that long to get there.”
Jensen raised an eyebrow. “Weapons testing?”
“Yeah,” Lehne gestured toward a nearby van and the group started to head toward it. “Everything I’m about to tell you is highly classified,” Lehne said. “You don’t discuss it with anybody, you understand?”
“Uh huh,” Jensen said.
“We’re testing a new helicopter prototype. We’ve got our own pilot, but your city’s been chosen as the operational testing area and your mayor is very anxious that his people participate.”
“Ours is not to reason why,” Brown said with a smile that Jensen found rather unsettling, “ours is just to submit to the whims and fancies of uptight local politicians, am I right?”
Jensen gave him a tight insincere smile and then looked at Jim with a question in his eyes. Jim and Mayor Steve Williams were good friends and Jensen had always found the mayor to be pragmatic and down-to-Earth. If Williams wanted someone he knew and trusted to pilot this prototype, then there was a damn good reason for it.
Lehne guided everyone into the steel-grey van and once they were all inside a uniformed officer slid the door shut.
Jensen dosed quietly in his seat as they headed out to Pinkville, the Weapons Testing Range and he startled when someone tapped his shoulder.
“Easy there, solider,’ Brown drawled, proffering a packet of Carltons. “Just wanted to see if you wanted a smoke? Jason, was it?”
“No and no,” Jensen shook his head. “My name’s Jensen not Jason and I don’t smoke.”
“Jensen, right,” Both Brown and Lehne lit up and Jensen frowned. Great. Nothing he loathed more than being trapped in a small space with cigarette smokers.
Brown sucked hard on his cigarette and then blew smoke in Jensen’s direction. “Real Hollywood name you got there, Jensen,” he said.
Jensen raised an eyebrow. “Least I ain’t named after a brand of cigarettes Sterling.”
Brown laughed. “What can I say? I’m a special blend.”
Lehne cleared his throat. “So, Jensen, I understand you were in ‘nam?”
“That’s right,” Jensen tried to inject a truckload of finality into his tone. He looked out the window and hoped Lehne would get the message
“Two tours, was it?” Lehne persisted.
“Just one.”
“One combat tour?”
Jensen made a conscious effort to relax his muscles. “Only six months was combat. After the ceasefire I was part of the Truce Observation Force and then I took part in Operation Frequent Wind,” he cleared his throat and decided to try a more direct approach to changing the subject. “You gonna tell us about this special detail?”
Lehne was silent for a moment and then he said, “You know we’ve got the Olympics coming up here next year?”
Jensen rolled his eyes. “I don’t live under a rock, kinda hard to miss the preparations. We’re already having regular drills.”
“And they’re needed,” Brown said. “For a few short weeks the attention of the world is gonna be focused on this town and every nutcase and terrorist with a pipe bomb and a cause is already drooling about the worldwide audience they’d get if they blew this thing up. And that’s what this special detail’s all about; the potential for catastrophe. The last thing we want is a Munich-style massacre; some crazy communist trying to strike a blow against capitalism.”
“Huh,” Jensen inclined his head. “So…you’re talking about crowd control, from the air?”
“Booyah!” Brown clapped his hands slowly. “Give that man a cigar.”
Jensen narrowed his eyes and then glanced at Jim again. Sterling Brown was getting under his skin. There was something about him that just rubbed Jensen’s fur the wrong way.
“It’s been tried before, you know,” he said shortly. “Didn’t work out so good.”
“Oh yeah? Where was that?”
“Vietnam.”
“Right,” Brown drawled the word. “Well we’ve added a few new wrinkles to that.”
“Uh huh,” Jensen screw up his nose. “Such as?”
Lehne stared at him until it started to feel uncomfortable and then smiled a disconcerting smile. “Oh, you’ll see, Jensen, you’ll see.”
--
Pinkville was teeming with people, and judging by the number of parked coaches, they’d been brought in by the busload. The place was crawling with military personnel and guarded by heavily armed MPs and there was a huge set of steel bleachers set up in front of a mock, film-lot-style town, which was peopled by three-dimensional plastic cut outs and had car and truck bodies strategically placed on the side of its one main road.
As Jensen and his companions began to climb the bleachers to their seats at the top, Jensen rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin and then addressed himself to Lehne.
“You say this thing has anti-terrorist capabilities. Are you saying it’s armed?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Lehne pulled his own pack of Carltons out of his jacket pocket and lit up.
Jensen frowned. “I thought it was illegal to arm police helicopters?”
“Well, now,” Brown said, “that would depend on the circumstances, wouldn’t it?”
Jensen wasn’t sure he liked where this was going. America was supposed to be the land of the free; a staunch advocate for human rights and civil liberties. Protecting America’s political ideologies while also protecting it from terrorists, was a challenge; a difficult balancing act, and Jensen suspected that the government was about to step security up a notch, at the expense of some civil liberties.
“People aren’t gonna like this,” he said, turning to Jim and shaking his head.
Jim wasn’t looking though; too busy staring out at the horizon. “You hear that?” he said. “I think it’s coming.”
Jensen stood beside him with a hand on his brow to shield his eyes from the sun.
“Oh yeah,” he breathed as the chopper came into view. “She’s beautiful. What do they call her?”
Lehne chuckled and looked back over his shoulder at Jensen. “It’s a special helicopter,” he said, “so somebody hung a nickname on it. It’s called Blue Thunder.”
--
Blue Thunder was black and she was all angles. Almost rectangular in shape, she was sleek and streamlined and something about her reminded Jensen of a dragonfly. Her blades thrummed as she approached and the sunlight glinted off her side and Jensen sat down heavily into the seat he’d been directed to and stared up at her as she made her way toward him. He may, possibly, have been a little in love.
“Alrighty, gentlemen, take your seats please,” said a sergeant holding a microphone. “Thank you all for coming out today to see our magnificent lady in action. I’m Sergeant Charles Whitfield and before we get to the demonstration, I’m here to tell you a little about Blue Thunder,” he paused and gazed out over the assembled crowd, his eyes meeting Jensen’s briefly. “Blue Thunder is one thick-skinned lady,” he continued. “She has one inch thick Norad NATO armor, which not even armor-piercing .50 calibre ammunition will be able to penetrate. Your terrorists will need a rocket launcher or a fighter jet to take out this lady,” Whitfield paused again to let that sink in and Jensen shuffled in his seat, folding his arms across his chest and crossing his feet at the ankles. “Speaking of fire power,” Whitfield spoke into the microphone again, “Blue Thunder has a forward-mounted, 20mm electric cannon with six barrels that can fire 4000 rounds of ammo per minute, and a chain-gun in her nose capable of dealing out precise firepower. And that, gentlemen, is one hell of a shit-storm in anyone’s language. ” He paused again. “Blue Thunder is also a full surveillance platform, with video, infra-red, and audio capabilities, and she has external audio pickups capable of hearing a mouse fart at two thousand feet. She also has access to almost any computer database in the world,” there was a lot of excited murmuring at that and Jensen understood why the security agencies had such a hard-on for this chopper, but at the same time, he couldn’t help but think of all the ways she could be misused. “Our lady also has as a ‘whisper mode’” Whitfield continued, “which cancels a lot of the noise from the rotor blades and enables her to operate in almost complete silence, and she has a turbine boost for the two turbines, to give her extra power.”
Jensen watched as Blue Thunder flew overhead, made a loop and then headed back out to the horizon again. Sergeant Whitfield, meanwhile, drew everybody’s attention down to the street mock-up below. Some of the car bodies below had been painted white and some had been painted black. Similarly some of the cut-outs of people were red and some were white. Lehne leaned in toward Jensen and explained that the white dummies were the civilians; the innocent bystanders, and the red ones were the terrorists.
“All right, gentlemen,” Whitfield said. “Y’all sit back and watch while the lady struts her stuff. The objective here is for our pilot to knock out the red dummies and the black cars, while leaving the white dummies and cars untouched.”
Beside Jensen, Lehne nodded. “In a riot situation we want to be able to get the bad guys, while protecting the innocents.”
Jensen watched as Blue Thunder screamed in overhead and then suddenly her guns were blazing. Black cars erupted in balls of fire and smoke, wheels and hubcaps rolled away from the wrecks, red dummies were torn apart, their heads blown off, their chests obliterated. Miraculously, not a single white car or dummy was touched.
“Oh my God,” Jensen said.
Lehne grinned. “Impressive isn’t it. Of course, that kind of firepower wouldn’t be used unless our worst case scenario came to pass, like armed insurrection. But it’s comforting to know you’ve got it on tap, am I right?”
Jensen merely raised an eyebrow.
“Gentlemen if I may have your attention again,” Sergeant Whitfield said. “The sheer firepower of the electric cannon is extraordinary, but in this next demonstration, you’ll notice the very selective nature of the firing. This is not a strafing run where you pepper the whole street; this little lady picks her targets carefully.”
Blue Thunder had flown off toward the horizon after her last demonstration and Jensen watched as she flew back toward the hastily-reassembled mock street. As soon as she was close enough, Blue Thunder began firing her nose-cannon, and Jensen had to agree that the shooting was both fast and precise; although occasionally not precise enough.
“You see that?” Brown said, when Blue Thunder finished her run and took off for the horizon again. “All of the red dummies are blown to Hell!”
“Yeah,” Jensen nodded. “And a few of the white ones too.”
On Jensen’s other side, Lehne shrugged. “There’s one dead civilian for every ten terrorists killed. That’s an acceptable ratio.”
Jensen raised an eyebrow and then turned to Jim, who was sitting behind him. “Unless you’re one of the dead civilians,” he said, almost under his breath.
“All right,” Sergeant Whitfield spoke into the microphone again. “Last pass, gentlemen. Anybody wanna bet on the school bus?”
Once again, Blue Thunder screamed overhead, headed straight for the mock-street. Once again, she took out a bunch of terrorist dummies and black vehicles, but this time she took out a cluster of dummy children as well, and Jensen winced, his hand going to cover his mouth.
Blue Thunder headed back out to the far horizon and Jensen frowned as he watched a school bus winched into position.
“We haven’t told our pilot everything about this school bus,” Sergeant Whitfield said. “Let’s just see if he can figure out what’s wrong with it.”
From where he was sitting, Jensen could see a whole bunch of white dummy children sitting in the bus. Suddenly, a bunch of red dummies sprang up on the seat behind each child, and Blue Thunder opened fire. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite the precision run they’d obviously been hoping for, because by the time the barrage of gunfire was finished the bus was blown half in two and had there been real people inside, everyone would’ve been dead or very seriously injured.
“Oh shit,” Jensen wasn’t sure whether to gasp in horror or laugh. He glanced at Jim, who just shook his head. To add insult to injury, a group of white dummy children appeared abruptly from behind the school bus and Blue Thunder’s pilot was so surprised by their appearance that he blew them all away.
By now, Jensen was openly laughing. The demonstration had proved that Blue Thunder was up to the challenge; unfortunately the same couldn’t be said for whoever they had piloting the helicopter.
“And that concludes our demonstration,” Sergeant Whitfield said, a little stiffly, Jensen thought. “If you’d all like to come down below we’ll take a closer look, and I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have.”
Jensen made his way down from the scaffolding and over toward where Blue Thunder was now parked on the ground. He walked beside Jim, following behind Lehne and Brown and he heard Lehne call out, “Excellent shooting, Colonel, truly first class.”
“Oh excellent was it?” he heard a familiar nasally voice reply. “The Goddamn gun jammed again, made me mess up several shots. I nearly killed the lot of you on that last pass. You tell Ordinance from me that if it happens again, I’ll slice and carve and tear at them in ways they can’t even imagine; until there’s nothing left of them.”
Jensen stopped walking and swallowed hard.
“Jensen?” Jim put a hand on his arm. “Are you okay?”
Jensen nodded. “Yeah. Just, uh, someone I wasn’t expecting to see again.”
Jim inclined his head toward the chopper. “You and the Colonel know each other?”
“Yeah. We served together in the pits of Hell aka Vietnam. Bastard tried to have me court-martialed once.”
The Colonel was now heading Jensen’s way, flanked by Brown and Lehne.
“Well, well, well,” the Colonel said, staring straight at Jensen. “Look what we have here.”
“Colonal Heyerdahl, this is Captain Jim Beaver of the Air Support Division,” the two men shook hands, “and Jensen Ackles. Jensen’s going to do the actual testing over the city.”
Jensen nodded at Heyerdahl, his hands firmly clasped behind his back and his expression grim.
“Chris,” he said. “Finally made Colonel, I see.”
Heyerdahl’s smile was smarmy. “You know how it goes, Jensen,” he said. “If you’re a nice guy, nice things happen to you.”
Jensen bit down on the urge to scoff disbelievingly. “I’ll try to remember that,” he said.
Over by the chopper, Sergeant Whitfield was inviting people to step up for a closer look and to ask him questions. Jensen nodded at Heyerdahl again, and then stepped around him and headed straight for Sergeant Whitfield. Jim followed.
As Jensen walked away he heard Heyerdahl ask Lehne how they’d ended up with him.
“He was assigned to us,” Lehne said. “Him and his observer. By order of Mayor Steven Williams.” The distaste in his tone was obvious.
“He’s totally unsuitable,’ Heyerdahl said. “And he’s damn lucky he didn’t end up court-martialed during the war.”
Jensen glanced at Jim whose lips were drawn into a thin line.
“So, Whitfield,” Jensen slapped the sergeant on the shoulder. “What can you tell me about these top drawer surveillance capabilities?”
Whitfield brightened considerably. “That’s the really exciting thing about this bird,” he said. “Firepower is all well and good but this baby’s surveillance capabilities are what will stop any terrorists. See that there? That’s your TV camera, with a hundred to one zoom lens and this here is your heat-sensitive infra-red filter.”
Jensen opened his mouth to ask a question, but a hand on his shoulder silenced him.
“We could’ve used this in ‘nam,” Heyerdahl said, his voice grating on Jensen’s every nerve.
“Could’ve used something,” Jensen muttered, trying to stay focused on the instrumentation that Whitfield was now talking to Jim about.
“Tell me, Ackles, do you think you can fly it?”
Jensen turned to face Heyerdahl and smiled, or at least his lips turned upwards, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You flew it,” he said pointedly.
Heyerdahl laughed, fake and nasally, and then shook his head. “You really are something else, Ackles. But I have to tell you, after everything that happened during the war, I’m really not sure you’re up to this,” he ran a hand across his chin. “I tell you what, I’ll check out your capabilities tomorrow. We’ll meet at your Air Support base, twelve o’clock sharp, and I’ll put you through your paces. See if you’ve got what it takes.” He patted Jensen on the shoulder again and sauntered away, before turning and making the shape of a gun with his thumb and forefinger and miming firing at Jensen. “Catch you later, sport,” he said.
Every muscle in Jensen’s body was locked up tight and his hands were balled into fists.
Of all the people who could’ve been involved with this project, why did it have to be the man he hated more than anyone else on the planet? Jensen forced himself to relax and when he was finally able to focus again, Jim was watching him carefully.
“Well,” Jim said, turning to look at Heyerdahl’s retreating back, “irritating little mother-fucker, ain’t he?”
Jensen couldn’t agree more.
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