but not much else, because he didn’t know anything else. He and Al had been briefed on everything they needed to know about flying the mission, but nothing else.
Al’s leg was in full nervous jitter as Seven ignited the overhead blades that would carry them on their first ever top secret mission. The days at sea prior to arriving at the target location provided plenty of time to ponder the event and possible outcomes. Seven couldn’t help but question what Gran and the Colonel would be told if things didn’t go well and their grandson didn’t return. He knew he was flying to a landscape that would not be welcome to US military. He considered the legality of his mission and how it would be addressed if things went bad. His mind raced with political cover-ups, scapegoats, and criminal prosecution. He resigned all the thoughts about things going bad to the resolution that he just couldn’t let things go bad. He pulled a small square of paper from the top breast pocket of his flight suit and taped it to the windscreen before him. Al watched the action and smiled as he read the posted note. “Big Bev will always get you home” was all it said.
The “milk run,” as it was labeled by the six-man team seated in Big Bev’s belly, was just that. A quick run to the store to drop off or pick up whatever the team had concealed in their gear. Seven and Al flew the big bitch in the dark using night vision. They arrived as scheduled and the gear was quickly unloaded. The team minus the security detail sped off in the light vehicle into the darkness as Big Bev shut down her engines and sat quietly in the blackness. A short time later a bearded man from the security detail ran up the loading ramp and announced that the team would “be back in five.” Exactly five minutes later the light armored vehicle drove up the ramp with the same occupants that it left with. Big Bev came to life and once the ramp reached the closed position, she lifted into the night darkness and proceed back to the ship. It was an uneventful flight.
That was it. There were no shots fired, no wounded combatants, no sounds of live rounds striking Big Bev’s exterior skin, no loud exchange of success or failure shouted among the returning