Assembled

Skimming just above the burning sand dunes, far below the bristle of a scorching setting sun, the predator shuttles its way across the sky. Inside the bay of the stark black steel Battle Hawk helicopter huddles the anxious, armed quartet of soldiers. Focusing all of their attention on the stranger who sits across from them, they search for something in the man's composure that would give a clue to this latest assignment handed down to their Special Forces team.

Two hours earlier they had been rushed into a briefing that was just that- brief on any details, and now they sped along at 150 kilometers an hour into an unknown situation. It was a circumstance requiring the services of four of the United States Army’s most skilled Delta Force combat professionals. Seventy-five miles north of Ahmad Al Jaber Air Base in Kuwait, the armed Pegasus crosses the invisible international border and into the hostile territory of Southern Iraq.

The mystery man, stoic and distant, turns to face the eyes that have pulled with their gravity for his attention since the helicopter lifted off. Looking over the men dressed in their sand camouflage uniforms and true to the proverbial phrase of “armed to the teeth,” he slides closer to where they sit. Their muscles tense to his closing presence on them. Looking back over his shoulder and out the open helicopter door the wind whips grains of angry sand against his sun darkened face as he pauses in a collected thought.

“The pilot and crew know where we’re going and that’s about it, but I guess that’s more than you got.” His voice trails off as the helicopter makes a sharp right bank and levels out. “You can call me Shelley.”

The men nod as they begin to size-up this vagrant to their knightly brotherhood. Their team is known by the code name of Camelot and the four men have adopted the call signs of Gawain, Lancelot, Perceval and Galahad. Without any communication between them, the men have all arrived at the same conclusion. They feel the vibe of a professional warrior entwined in this man who now guides their next quest for Uncle Arthur.

These crusaders have compiled unmatched experience over the years in the art of war. The enigma of the “mission that never was” has crossed their plates many times before. Trusting that what they would need to know to complete their task would be presented to them they remained stony silent.

Shelley begins again, “At approximately 1700 Zulu hours an Air Force C-130 carrying a special package crashed while returning to Kuwait City from a Hades Operation in Northern Iraq.”

The minds of the soldiers reel back by this unexpected notion. Blood races with a newfound loss of composure. The public at large knows of the term “Black Operations” as the dirty secret war the militaries of the world undertake against each other, but as its Greek Underworld name implies a Hades Operation was an imbibing of death itself. These were black holes of information and were to be denied to Saint Peter himself when questioned at the gates. These men are in a conversion from knights to Titans.

“We will land at the crash site in ten minutes. You secure and defend, I retrieve the package,” Shelly echoes on. “Nothing survived the crash except for the package and it may be compromised at this point.”

Soon the pilot rears the helicopter back thirty feet off the ground as the simultaneous sounds of five zips of gloves down a rope line mingle with the thump of blades impacting the air. Boots met sand and they spread out in their tactical dance.

The Battle Hawk gracefully arches its teeth toward the ground at anyone foolish enough to bark a challenge to her or her disembarked warriors. Flowing with adrenaline, the soldiers step out in an organized pattern around the location. Their tension remains and ascends even higher at the grim sight of hundreds of dead enemy soldiers strewn about in the darkness.

Calls pop over the radio, “Clear”, “Clear”, “Clear”, “I’ve got a wounded one and he just keeps muttering about a monster.”

“Break all contact return to the landing zone,” Shelley’s voice coolly breaks in on the radio. “I have the package and we are returning through your zones, pull back we will cover ourselves.”

The quartet leapfrog past each other providing protection as they exit to the helicopter through the sandblast from the whiling rotors. Even as they climb safely aboard, pockets of uneasiness etch in. They are aware of the unnatural tension in the air with them.

A single gunshot pops in the air.

The sand and dust worsen and the visibility around the helicopter begins to grow more perilous by the minute. All eyes on board the Battle Hawk betray their rigid training and stare, locked as the tall slender outline of Shelley breaks though the ascending sand wall of wind. A massive human-like outline closely follows behind. The two climb aboard and the helicopter shifts as it takes on the added weight of this massive newcomer with what appears to be bolts sticking out of each side of his neck.

In the desert night, scaly lizards with blood red stripes shaped like lightning bolts come alive across the rocky outcrops and race out into the night. A lone desert fox trots out of a cave and sits to stare at the moon, releasing a howl like that of a creature being brought to life in a laboratory.