Chapter 14

The skin covering the wings and body of the wing-suit is a pale, grayish color. I felt the outer skin and it’s like touching the skin of a deflated hot-air balloon, yet I could see the finely woven fibers of the metallic cloth.

Adam opened the compartment which contains his experimental, hydrogen fueled, turbine powered rocket.

I watched Carlton as he reached out to open the engine hatch on the small, tubular rocket. He looked it over, and quickly turned to Adam, “Adam, we’ve already designed a New-Age turbine which will fit right inside this same tube. The only thing left for us to modify, is mounting the fuel cell securely inside, so it will remain stabilized with the turbine during any and all flight maneuvers.”

The tube of the rocket he spoke of, looks like an aluminum-stainless steel alloy pipe, six inches in diameter and roughly eight foot long. The intake has a mesh grate covering the opening, and would appear to lay along the pilot’s back, extending forward a foot past the pilot’s head when he is encased inside the wing-suit in a prone position.

The wing-suit has a Swallowtail design in the rear, with the tube of the rocket extending out a foot or so – into split of the Swallowtail. I assumed this design was to allow the heat from the rocket to disperse without damaging the fabric or burning the pilot’s feet and legs.

As I looked it over while Adam and Carlton talked, I realized why Adam wanted to convert to the New-Age turbine power, for his rocket design. There would be no heat coming from the exhaust. That, and the facts that there would be no noise and never require refueling.

That made me think of the meteoroid. It had not burned out upon entering the earth’s atmosphere. What if Adam and Carlton could somehow use the heat resistance of the hardened meteorite shell, in a heat shield for the wing-suits?

“ADAM,” I spoke so loud, he and Carlton both jumped.

When I told them of my idea, they just looked at me ... Then both of them grabbed me, dancing me around in circles with them as they laughed.

Before they got totally out of control, I stepped away from them.

Just then, I heard Hawk and Falcon calling me – Daddy, we’re out of school and Mom says we can come see you.

I’m at the shop

I stepped to the door to see them standing in the doorway, grinning up at me. They are now chest high to me. It amazes all of us at their rapid rate of growth. Their six sisters have also grown.

The oldest girls now have bodies more like pre-teens.

Falcon and Hawk now wear their flight suits Savana made them. She made them as much like mine as she could, except for the fact theirs are not made of bulletproof material. The sleeves have altimeters and air speed indicators sewn in. Adam has already fitted them with safety helmets and face shields, including the flight recorders built into the top of the face shields. He’s also installed their communication devices inside their fabric, ski-mask, type helmets. Savana even included a transponder in their suits, when the military sent three for me to use. These special transponders will identify me – and now my sons – when we appear on NORAD radar.

Adam informed me that Hawk and Falcon would have flight suits identical to mine, in every aspect, when the Pentagon and CIA, each deliver our next shipment of supplies.

I stepped out and closed the door. Then I told my sons, “Let’s walk over to the command post and let them know we’re going for a ride – and inform them that ... we may make some noise.”

Falcon and Hawk have previously heard me break the sound barrier and they’re eager to know if they too will ever fly fast enough to break Mach-1. Today is the day. The sky is clear, winds calm and we have military personnel covering this place like it’s under military lock-down.

The sergeant in charge at the command post told us, “We now have our base radar set up and operational. We’ll see if we can track you and your sons. We’ll also record your flight – if we can keep up with you.”

“I hope you can, this is important to my sons ... and to me.”

With a wave from me, and a salute from Hawk and Falcon, we were off. When we were in the air, close to a mile high, I spread my arms. As we flew three abreast, each of them spread their arms.

My fingertips were touching each of my son’s fingertips. We have previously determined this would be our flight formation whenever we fly together.

Maintain formation and stay with me. We’ll take it up another mile, then we’ll go into a dive. We need to stay away from the houses, and military structures – we could possibly shatter some windows

West of our ranch, and joining our property at one point, there’s an area covering close to fifteen sections of desolate land, filled with nothing but deep gullies and rugged arroyos, where the extreme drought and the dust storms of the 1930s caused major erosion of the topsoil.

This is where I wanted to test my sons’ speed, and test their abilities to stay with me in flight. I knew the day would come, when they would want to fly with me on a mission like the one in Mexico City.

I was already looking forward to the day.

Without speaking aloud, I told them... When I call ‘dive’ we’ll bank hard right, into a vertical dive to within one hundred feet of the earth’s surface. From there, we’ll set a course – northeast to southwest – then fly out the far corner, before making a vertical climb back up to ten-thousand feet where we’ll stop. If either of you experience any physical discomfort or problems of any kind, let me know and we’ll instantly cut it short. When I call ‘check’ I want each of you to check your air speed indicators and call out your numbers – I’ll call mine back to you.

We were ready – I was nervous – but they were hyper as hell. We were flying in a circle, maybe a mile across. We were three abreast, banking slightly to the right as we circled lazily at a hundred knots.

‘DIVE-DIVE’ I called, banking hard right to dive straight toward the earth’s surface.

Hawk and Falcon were in perfect formation as we neared the earth. We leveled off at one hundred feet above ground, and I called, ‘CHECK’.

Falcon called, ‘six-six-eight-zero’

Hawk called, ‘six-six-eight-zero’

I called back, ‘six-six-eight-zero’

Without calling for a climb, I went vertical at full speed, my sons still in perfect formation. They were flying with their arms straight out in front of them just as I was. Each gave me a thumbs-up. I turned both my thumbs up ... and – just as we reached ten-thousand feet, I shut it off, stopping in mid-air. They were right beside me when I lifted my face shield.

“Boys, that was the most awesome feeling I have ever experienced in my life. Even more so than the day I first realized I could fly ... Simply because we did this together ... We hit Mach 10, and I know there has to be more in the tank for the three of us.”

“Daddy, did you look back when we hit that vertical climb?” Falcon asked.

“Yeah, Daddy, look down there now!” Hawk shouted, pointing to the desolate area we had just flown over.

The large block of land below us appeared to be totally flat from up here.

“Lets go take a look at that. Turn your cameras on, Papa Adam will not believe this.

The more I fly with my sons, the more I learn what we’re capable of. They are constantly trying new things and in doing so, teaching me things I had never thought of trying. Like now, when both of them suddenly dropped feet first from the sky as if a string had been clipped that was holding them up. I dropped with them and it was like free-falling in a parachute jump, until we reached the earth ... Then we stepped to the ground as if we were walking down a flight of stairs.

We were in the middle of what was once, a windblown, eroded and worthless piece of Oklahoma landscape. Now, the land is perfectly flat all around us – as if it had been precision leveled by earth moving equipment.

As I stood looking this place over with my sons, I knew that as soon as I could, I was going to see if this land is for sale. If it is, I want it.

Falcon asked, “It was the shock waves, wasn’t it, Daddy?”

“That’s exactly what it was. Low level – Mach-10 times three – to be exact.”

“Let’s go fly some more, Daddy. We want to see Oklahoma City and Dallas, Texas from the air. Could we?”

“Do you know how to get there from here?”

Hawk shouted, “Sure we do, Daddy. We have GPS... follow us...” They were off so fast, I had to try hard to catch them. I was as eager as they were. Just to be flying with them like this was a thrill for me. I knew that after today, I could possibly be gone for a week to ten days and I wanted to cram all we could into this time together.

Though we had already entered the airspace around Tinker Air Force Base, we cut our sightseeing trip short when we saw Interstate 35 – South ... Then we headed due south toward Texas.

In minutes we were in Dallas, two hundred miles south of Oklahoma City. Let’s go have a closeup look at AT&T Stadium, where the Cowboys play, Daddy – Falcon pointed to the west toward Arlington. We could see the giant dome from here, though we were still miles away.

Let’s go. We’ll fly down and have a close look, then head back. Just be careful when we fly lower

Look Daddy! The top is rolled back. Let’s go inside and have a quick look around, Hawk suggested.

– I knew better – but I gave them a thumbs up. I took the lead and banked to my left just as we entered the large opening in the domed roof. There was no game being played, but there was a grounds crew working on the playing field.

With a quick glance at each of my wingmen, I pointed to the other end of the field. We flew down each sideline, across both end zones and back, at sixty feet above the surface. Then I turned vertical between the cross beams and up through the open dome. Just as we turned vertical, the men below yelled and pointed up at us.

Oh well, let them try to explain what they saw ... We’re headed home.

Flying at twenty-one thousand feet, we were back at the ranch in minutes. When we settled to the ground near the shop, the sergeant ran from the command post, waving his hands.

“Boyd, you and your boys broke Mach-10, back west of here. That’s not all either, I clocked you coming from Dallas and you were flying at six-nine-nine-zero knots. That’s Mach-10.5

“Man – you guys were really smoking it.”

“Thanks, Sergeant. I knew we were moving on. Now I know my sons are as fast as I am.”

“Yeah, and there’s probably going to be some phone calls about all those sonic booms out here today. There for a while, it was like a war going on, back west of here.”

That night at the dinner table, I said my goodbyes to each of them – family members and friends – since I would be leaving before daylight. Everyone knew where I was going and that I may be gone for as long as ten days.

At bedtime, I went to tuck my sons and daughters in. With them sitting on the side of their beds, I made them promise me that they would help their mommas and study hard in class.

I turned to Falcon and Hawk...

“Falcon, you and Hawk have a big responsibility here at home while I’m away. I expect you to watch over your sisters, and be aware of anything at all around the property, that looks suspicious to you. Your momma has told you that you could go see Poppa Adam after school. I want you to take your sisters with you, and I expect you to be very careful as you fly with them. Except for an extreme emergency, I don’t want either of you to fly anywhere other than to the shop and back here.”

“We understand, Daddy. We’ll make sure everything here is safe and that our sisters are safe too,” Hawk replied as he and Falcon bumped fists.

Connie and Nora were awake when I went to our bedroom. Savana and Andrea were in the shower as I sat on the side of the bed and talked to the Cherokee cousins. “When are our babies due?”

Connie answered as she rubbed her swollen tummy, “Less than a week. We were just talking about it – hoping you’d be back before they’re born.”

“I’ll try my best to be back in time. If I’m not, I’ll be here as soon as I can.”

Nora told me, “We know, Boyd. We’ll have the rest of the family here with us and we’ll be fine. We just want you to be careful and not get hurt way over there on the other side of the world.”

Adam, Savana and Andrea were up to see me off at 5:00 the next morning. I had awakened at 4:30 and decided to stay up and shower. Wearing my Under Armor compression leggings, I slipped into the new flight-suit the CIA had sent me. I thought the flight-suit Adam and Andrea fashioned at the lab in Stillwater, was top notch, until I donned this one. As I stood before the mirror in the bathroom, I had to smile. There were eagle emblems on my chest and back, with a smaller eagle on each shoulder.

When I pulled my poly-carbonate flex-helmet over my head, I saw the dash-lights activate inside. There, above and below my line of sight, were all my instruments. They were built into the clear, UV Reflective, Li-ion battery powered, Poly-carbonate face shield. I powered up my electronics and watched as the instruments flashed, then lit up with a soft green back-light.

Adam told me as he walked out the door with me, “Boyd, in case you haven’t noticed the new speed indicator inside this newly designed flex-helmet – you now have the latest NASA version. This one has been tested on rocket boosters in excess of Mach-20 in space. I have a feeling, while on this long flight, you’ll discover that high-gear you’ve always talked about.”

“Thanks, Adam, I noticed the upper and lower instrument panels and glanced at each one, but I didn’t notice the difference in the speed indicator...

“Maybe by the time I return, you and Carlton will have your new wing-suit modified and you can test it with me beside you.”

“I’m looking forward to flying with you, Boyd. Be safe and keep in touch. The Pentagon has switched our frequency over to the digitally encrypted military communications satellites. We should have secure contact from anywhere around the world.”

“I’ll keep in touch so we can check that out.”

Adam turned to me, opening his arms...

This is the first time I’ve been asked to get involved in the security of our country, but I knew I could get in and out of a foreign spy outpost quicker and easier than anyone else ... without being caught.

Before lift off, I double-checked my communications and all my indicators. With a thumbs-up at Adam, I was on my way to meet the brass at the Pentagon.

Now that my new, voice-activated transceiver is built into my pullover helmet, I spoke in-flight as if talking to myself...

I knew I had plenty left. I’d hit Mach-10 yesterday with Falcon and Hawk flying with me. With President Sullivan asking me to check it out, I was more than happy to oblige.

I was flying at twenty-two thousand feet when I glanced from my altimeter to my speed indicator. I was at six-one-zero-zero knots, accelerating fast when I let it all out for the Boss Man. In three seconds, my indicator passed nine-nine-nine-zero knots.

Eagle-One, you nailed Mach-20 to the sky with that acceleration. We’ll have a sentry meet you at the door in two minutes.