THE BLACK HAWK LIFTED OFFthe pad at Van Nuys Airport into the cloudless blue sky.
Brodie sat on the forward-facing port side, strapped in and wearing Army-regulation noise-canceling headphones with an attached comm link so they could communicate over the loud rotors. Ahead of him in the gunner’s seat was the crew chief, Sergeant Kent Campbell, a man of about thirty-something in camo fatigues, who was not operating any type of gun, which was probably for the best in the skies over Los Angeles.
In the middle next to Brodie sat Major Dan Klasky, early thirties, who was third-in-command at Camp Hayden and had been the first to greet them upon their arrival at Van Nuys. He was also dressed in camo. Next to Major Klasky, on the starboard side, sat Maggie Taylor.
Up front in the cockpit were the pilot and co-pilot. It had been years since Brodie had flown in a Black Hawk, and it looked like the choppers had gone through a few upgrades in that time, with more custom screen displays on the instrument panel than he remembered.
Brodie watched out the window as the helicopter rose over the San Fernando Valley. The day was bright and clear, and as they gained altitude Brodie looked out at the endless grid of low-slung houses that blanketed the Valley. As the chopper swung east, he looked out Taylor’s window at the Hollywood Hills to the south, home to celebrities and other wealthy Angelenos.
Major Klasky, who had been polite but not too chatty up to this point, spoke into the comm link. “We’ve got mild weather today, sonot too much turbulence. We should be airborne for about ninety minutes.”
Brodie replied, “Copy that.”
“Colonel Howe will brief you upon your arrival.”
In other words,Don’t spend the flight bugging me for information that I’m not authorized to share.Brodie took the opportunity to survey the view.
He looked down at the suburban grid, specked with blue swimming pools and clusters of green trees. To the east, he saw the sprawling range of the San Gabriel Mountains, which were matted with forest growth that marked the border between the Los Angeles Basin and the desert beyond.
Brodie looked ahead out the windshield at the approaching mountain range, which stretched as far as he could see to the horizon.
The Black Hawk gained speed along with altitude, and within twenty minutes they were almost across the mountain range, and he could make out the vast beige expanse of the Mojave Desert.
Brodie asked Klasky, “What’s the weather at Camp Hayden this time of year?”
The major replied, “Spring is not too bad. It can get hot in the days but not unbearable, pleasant at night. The occasional storm, but usually nothing too extreme. We’re between the winter rainy season and the summer monsoon season.”
“You get monsoons?”
Klasky nodded. “Two flash floods last September. The waters sent car-sized boulders crashing into the camp perimeter.”
“Sounds like a challenge.” Actually, it sounded like hell. Who wanted this gig? There must have been a mystique, a certain cachet, to working on a top-secret project in the middle of nowhere. Like the team at Los Alamos building the A-bomb, or the Air Force pilots and engineers testing the next generations of warplanes and stealth bombers in the Nevada desert. What Major Klasky and his colleagues wereworking on at Camp Hayden could be at least as game-changing as those clandestine projects. Perhaps more so. At any rate, the desert was the U.S. government’s favorite place to hide its secrets. And to bury its mistakes.
As the Black Hawk cleared the San Gabriel Mountains, Brodie looked out at the Mojave Desert stretching to the horizon in all directions. The sandy terrain was broken up by the faint grids of sparsely populated towns and settlements, and clusters of low mountains and craggy hills dotted with scrub.
The afternoon sun hung high above and behind them, casting a sharp shadow of the Black Hawk as it sailed over the desert expanse. To the north, strong winds had kicked up a sandstorm, which at this height and distance appeared to be barely moving—a suspended hazy brown veil, about a mile wide, obscuring the land and sending wisps like fingers into the blue sky.
Brodie glanced at Taylor, who was surveying the jagged mountains out her window and maybe having flashbacks to the bad old days in Afghanistan, where she and her Civil Affairs teams would crisscross the tribal lands overseeing public works projects, haggling with village elders and warlords, and hoping not to become the target of a Taliban ambush.
We’re going back to the desert.
Different desert. Different mission. Whole different world. Scott Brodie was fairly sure there was no one in Southern California who wanted him dead, except maybe an ex-girlfriend who’d moved to San Diego.
Taylor asked over the comm, “Is that the camp perimeter?”
Brodie looked out his window and saw a chain-link fence with razor wire snaking across the vast desert.
Klasky replied, “Yes, ma’am. This is all federal land, but that marks the outer perimeter of Camp Hayden and creates about a ten-mile buffer around the camp gates. There are no public roads anywhere around,but adventurous hikers or off-road drivers are spotted in the area on occasion. There has never been an intrusion.”
In a few minutes Brodie overheard the pilot and co-pilot communicating, and radioing to someone on the ground. The pilot eased off the throttle and began a slow descent.
Brodie looked out the windshield. About three miles ahead was a low rise of craggy hills, and at their base he saw a grid of roads with structures. Camp Hayden.
As they approached, he could make out individual buildings—some flat-topped cinderblock structures that might be the barracks, a few pitched-roof buildings that could be a mess hall or PX, a line of steel Quonset huts that probably served as equipment storage, and, on the western end of the camp, two cul-de-sacs lined with ranch houses—most likely for senior officers. At the east end was a helipad with a parked Black Hawk, toward which their own chopper was now headed.
In the middle of the camp was a paved parade ground and a high flagpole. Atop the pole fluttered an oversize American flag, and below it a black flag featuring the shield insignia of the 75th Ranger Regiment. Brodie could see a few figures standing on the parade grounds, and a couple of parked Humvees.
The entire camp, including the helipad, was enclosed by a tall steel fence topped with razor wire. Two narrow roads led into Camp Hayden, from the south and the west, and each ran up to a security gate flanked by guards. There were two tall observation towers at the northwest and northeast corners, and a cell tower a little outside the perimeter fence to the southwest.
