Airwolf And I, Vice Versa

Chapter Ten

Archangel strode over to the Hangar with Special Agent Carsten. He had been most distressed to read Kristien’s reports en route and then the up dated files as he flew over to England. Even more shocking was Kristien’s theory that it was something to do with Moffet. It was late evening.

Dominic opened the hangar door.

“Hello Dominic.” Archangel greeted Dom warmly.

Dominic looked Carsten up and down. “You know you can’t come in here.” Dominic gently reminded him.

“I hear there is a security risk, I should be involved.” Carsten reminded him.

“String says only Archangel in here, sorry.” Dominic replied shutting the door on the Agent.
Archangel looked at Airwolf stood in front of him. The hangar spot lights shining down on the aircrafts armoured lines. God that was a beautiful sight. It had been several months since he had seen Airwolf and the last time he had she had a hole in her side, damaged and looking more than a little sorry for herself.

Hawke sat in Airwolf with the starboard door open. He was dressed ready in Airwolf’s flight suit as was Dominic. Archangel noted Hawke’s defensive position and thought better of going over to him.

Archangel had come alone down to the hangar and without anyone from the FIRM. Carsten had arranged to pick him up from the USAF base at Lakenheath, where an F 14 had brought him in direct from Washington.

Kristien was sat at the laptops.

“Kristien, thanks for the updates.” Archangel knew Kristien had persuaded Hawke to contact him over this.

“Don’t thank me yet.” Kristien thought everyone was very premature at this point. She had nothing other than some machine code in Airwolfs on board computer. She had no idea who actually put it there, nor how long it had been there, nor what information it had downloaded over time. All she knew was that to put it there required some of Moffet’s passwords and only Moffet and she had those.

Hawke looked over at Archangel dressed immaculatley in white. He did not trust him and would at any second press TURB START ONE button and start Airwolf up. He had already prior to Archangels arrival deployed the ADF pod and the cannons. Hawke sat at the controls, holding his gun loaded and ready.

“So someone has found where you hide it then Hawke.” Archangel replied.

Hawke looked right through Archangel.

“Oh no, that’s not what Kristien said.” Dominic corrected Archangel.

“Krisitien, what do you think.” Archangel asked her to produce her theory.

“Someone has had access to Airwolf, whether she was at the FIRM or with String, and has sat at the EDCC and programmed Airwolf with this code to release information at any given time. To do this they would need access to Moffet and his passwords.” Kristien stated the facts.

“Well Moffet is dead.” Dominic opened up his hands to Kristien. “String saw to that.” Dominic stood leaning on Airwolfs nose with his thumb up pointing it towards String in the pilots seat. He too was protecting Airwolf at String’s request.

“An eternity of hell.” Hawke muttered under his breath remembering that Gabrielle died in his arms after Moffet had tortured her for hours. He closed his eyes and replayed the images that were burnt into his mind, Gabrielle’s twsited, tortured body in the hot desert sand and how she died in his arms, due to exposure.

“What about known associates?” Kristien asked looking over at Hawke feeling his pain about Gabrielle.

“We don’t know.” Archangel replied rubbing his forehead hoping Kristien wasn’t going to ask any further questions.

“You are telling me that despite my warnings you allowed Moffet freedom to meet with his new Libyan friends to arrange Airwolf’s new vacation place in the sun?” Kristien replied in disbelief.

Archangel looked at her. “Yep.” He knew that she gave various warnings about Moffet and recommendations to have him followed. He had always regretted ignoring her. He carried the scars to prove what a rookie mistake he made on that.

“Well there’s irony for you.” Kristien replied.

The report into Airwolf’s disappearance and then supposedly being destroyed in Libya was quite brief. Hawke would never have been debriefed. So Archangel had pieced together what he knew. Kristien knew Archangels style of penmanship from reading the report.

“Well someone else at Red Star Control had access then to Moffet and his passwords, other than me. Either that or Moffet has reincarnated.” Kristien told them. Even she had to work really hard to get the passwords off Moffet, the constant following around, the playing of chess, which Kristien had to pretend to be slow at so that the game was not over in 8 moves from her. The endless watching cctv footage and after all that she had to think like the bastard also and work out his ciphers. Kristien felt a shiver go down her spine and looked over at Hawke who still had his eyes closed dealing with his curse. She wasn’t sure if it was the thought of Moffet or whether it Hawke’s own ghosts causing her to shiver. One thing for sure, she could feel it.

“Well I had Marella look over who is left from Red Star Control.” Archangel told them. “Including Marella and myself, ten others made it out alive. Twelve out of forty five.” Archangel grimaced as he remembered how Moffet unleashed Airwolf’s arsenal on to Red Star Control before stealing Airwolf, he had shielded Marella as best as he could, losing one eye, breaking an arm and severely damaging his leg, making him limp for the rest of his life.
Archangel reached into his briefcase and handed Kristien the files. “Maybe you can profile who is left.”

Hawke marched over from Airwolf and took the files from Kristien. Kristien gladly handed them over. “What am I now? Another one of the FIRMs unpaid employees here.” She reminded Archangel that whilst Hawke and Santini played with Airwolf she did not need to particpate as she had completed her favour already and more besides. “Surely you have staff to do that? I do have a life you know.” Kristien tried to remember the last time she actually did a whole days training with her horses instead of snatching an hour here and there, probably the day before Archangel arrived the first time. She was beginning to think that perhaps she needed to restrict the FIRMs access to the estate as it was getting a bit crowded. “Albeit a little too busy one now.”

“We do, question is would Hawke here trust what we said?” Archangel replied looking directly at her and then diverting his eyes to Hawke who was going through the files.

“You said twelve made it out alive. There are only 10 files here.” Hawke looked directly at Archangel with a burning rage.

“Yes that’s right.” Archangel knew that.

Dominic looked over at Kristien who had already guessed which files were missing.
“Where’s yours and Marella’s files?” Hawke continued to stare at Archangel his voice not disguised at being angry.

Dominic raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes and the situation which was starting to get out of control. Mamma Mia, he thought to himself, here we go again.

“You are not suggesting what I think you are, are you?” Archangel raised his voice at Hawke.
Hawke ignored Archangel’s annoyance at being implicated and continued to stare barely holding his rage inside. He was only three steps away from Archangel, enough for him to take a good swing at Archangel and send him flying across the Hangar floor. It would not be the first time he would have done this, and one decent swing usually did the trick even if it did mean breaking a knuckle as a result of it.

“God you are.” Archangel could not believe that Hawke’s paranoia had taken him this far. Archangel did not disguise his disgust at being implicated nor his anger at Hawke. “Hawke why the hell would I find Kristien for you and provide all the parts for Airwolf so you can continue to fly her for us. You know our agreement we have, I would never jeopardise that.” Archangel’s face reddened just keeping the lid on his temper. He too wanted to knock Hawke off his pompus arse. He had taken over three years of this shit, more if you counted the time that Hawke test flew Airwolf. “I am sure you have had Kristien go over those parts with a fine tooth comb and the fact she has found some machine code in the orignal parts, which from the looks of it has been there a while. If that’s the case, why the hell haven’t we taken control before and flown Airwolf out from under your fucking arses and took it back, getting rid of you once and for all? Huh? Think about it damn it.”

Both men stood their ground, not moving, both ready to take a swing at each other.

“So Kristie how about telling us if you can trace who is doing this?” Dominic asked to break the stalemate between the men. “Where’d she go?”

Archangel and Hawke both looked at Dominic and then turned to look where Kristien was last at the laptops. No one noticed that during the altercation between the two men that she had slipped silently away from the uncontrolled fury that was raging within the Hangar.