Chapter 127

Having an airport close to headquarters had always been a positive, but as Cadon rode over to the facility in the passenger seat of an SUV piloted by Elliott, he wished it was further away so he’d have more time.
The military airport at Knob Noster had been a bust. So now they were going to check on their own aircraft to see if any of them were salvageable on a tip that Aaron may have done more to keep them locked up than any of them knew. Schmidts was more knowledgeable about what had gone on in those last days than anyone else, and he had let Elliott know they should go check it out.
But Margie had also ordered a couple of transport helicopters to be there in about an hour. She’d talked to the Australian prime minister and gotten the go-ahead to let LIGHTS borrow two choppers and their pilots for a few days, so long as they were just dropping off and coming right back. She didn’t want to lose a warbird rescuing prisoners that weren’t related to any of her friends--apparently. Now that Jamie was free, the Australians would be withdrawing back to their own continent pretty quickly. It seemed to Cadon that their friends from down under were becoming less and less helpful by the moment.
They had also been given the go-ahead to launch their diversion attack in New York. Margie had already left Kansas City to return to Washington DC where most of her forces were still accumulated so that she could organize her troops for the planned attack on New York City’s Grand Central Station.
Two other SUVs were carrying team members and supplies. Thanks to Schmidts, Elliott was also privy to a piece of information that would come in quite handy. Apparently, Aaron had hidden a lot of weapons in a secret vault before the Revelation. This was the first time they’d had access to them since before Holland was captured. The headquarters buildings had been teeming with Vampires until now. Cadon’s eyes had almost bulged out of his head when he saw just how much stuff there was in there for them to use, including a ton of titanium bullets, grenades, and some larger guns like the bazooka Brandon had used in Russia. That might come in handy to knock some doors down.
The chain-link fence around the airport was not in good shape. Not only were there plants growing up and over the top of it in many places, but it had also been cut and curled so many times, there was no point in even having a gate.
Ironically, the only way to get the SUVs in was for someone to get out and use some bolt cutters on the chain that was holding the gate closed.
Unfortunately, no one had a pair of bolt cutters.
“I’ll be back,” Elliott said, shifting into park and getting out of the vehicle. Brandon got out of the back seat as well. Between the two of them, they were able to snap the chain pretty quickly and swing the gate open. Wiping rust off on their black leather pants, the two walked back to the vehicle.
“Well, I guess I’m out of practice,” Elliott said, the smirk on his face telling all of them that he was about to make a stupid joke. “I’m a little rusty.”
Cadon shook his head as a few of the others in the back groaned. “However do you come up with such witty jokes so quickly?” he asked, dryly.
Elliott shrugged. “It’s what I do. I don’t care if no one else thinks I’m funny. I think I’m funny, and that’s all that matters. The rest of you can either laugh or go to hell.” He drove the SUV through the gate and parked it in front of the closest hangar door. The other two SUVs followed.
Cadon took a deep breath and got out, hoping that the situation was not as dire as they all thought it would be. He wasn’t holding his breath. Chances were that what they were about to find inside was a disaster.
Elliott threw up the hangar door, the metal grinding on metal sounding like a shrieking alley cat as a cloud of dirt flew up into the air. He coughed a few times and then stepped inside.
In front of them, they could see the outline of a plane, but it was hard to tell what shape it was in. The sun was going down, and the hangar was dark. Cadon’s eyes shot through the darkness better than any human’s, but he wasn’t familiar enough with what he was looking at to know whether the plane looked like it was in shape to fly or not based on the outline.
As they approached, it became clearer what the situation was.
The plane was trashed.
Not only had someone ripped the door off so that they could get inside, sticking a head into the interior let them know pretty quickly that the inside had essentially been used as a toilet, amongst other things. There were spent needles everywhere, as well as empty liquor bottles and cans, and other trash.
“Damn,” Elliott said, resting a hand on one of the wings. “This was one of your dad’s favorite planes.” He shook his head solemnly.
“What is it?” Cadon asked, looking at the outside of the plane to see if he could tell.
“It’s an airplane, Cadon,” Elliott said, completely straight-faced. Putting his arms out to his sides, he continued, “You know? Vrooommm vrooom!”
Holding a hand to his forehead, Cadon took a few deep breaths. “What kind of plane is it?”
“Oh. A trashed one,” Elliott nodded.
“It’s a G five,” Brandon said. “We used to have eight of these. It looks like there’s another one down there.” He pointed off into the distance.
Cadon stepped back and looked down the row. He could easily see about fifteen other planes, but none of them looked like they were capable of flying. “Where are the helicopters?”
“Next hangar over,” Brandon answered. “There’s a door down there.” He gestured at the far end of the hangar.
Stepping over all kinds of trash, and God knows what else, Cadon followed Brandon through the hangar. Other team members were mulling around, taking their chances by sticking their heads into the other planes. As they walked past one of them, Heather shouted, “Dang! There’s a body in this one!”
“Lovely,” Brandon muttered.
“Probably some bum taking refuge who got bit by one of Holland’s minions,” Elliott surmised.
They passed through the door to the other hangar. The situation here was just as bad, if not worse. None of these aircraft looked usable at the moment, including the helicopters. In fact, most of them didn’t even look salvageable. Cadon would let someone else be the judge of that, though. His mechanical experience was limited to learning how to change the oil in his car when he was a teenager, just in case he ever needed to know how to do that.
That was the problem with coming from money. When you didn’t have it anymore, you found yourself lacking in certain areas of life that other people had assimilated to long ago.
His parents had always tried to teach both Cadon and his sister Jo how to do regular day-to-day stuff, but for the most part, he’d blown it off like a spoiled brat, thinking that he’d always have someone around to do that stuff for him.
He’d been very wrong.
“Thank God Marge is giving us a couple of her birds cause these fuckers are shot,” Elliott said, resting a giant hand on a broken rotor blade that was sagging down from the top of the chopper.
“This is all trash,” Brandon said, a disgusted look on his face.
“We’ve got some good mechanics.” Elliott pulled his hand off of the blade and dusted his palm off. “There’s a chance some of these can be fixed. Come on. I hear some aircraft that actually function.”
Cadon heard the buzz of blades in the distance as well, slowly getting closer. He took another look around and thought that whoever had to fix these pieces of junk better be highly skilled or else he wasn’t getting in any of them.