Covert Operations, Fairhope

Roger Bull is a veteran sergeant with nine years experience in the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office (metropolitan New Orleans). He attended three colleges: Southeastern Louisiana University (biology, chemistry and physics), Louisiana State University Law Enforcement Institute (advanced police studies), and Holy Cross College via a grant from the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office Law Enforcement Assistance Program (criminology, psychology, sociology).  Roger Bull is the author of Within the Heart and Soul, and a chapter in Fairhope Writers Group Anthology.  That chapter, Covert Operations, Fairhopean excerpt from TechWorld Terrorism is provided here.

8:30 P.M. CST, K4R4, the designation for H. L. Sonny Callahan Airport, in Fairhope, Alabama –

“4-Romeo-4 this is Bravo Tango Golf 7-2-5, please repeat your last instructions. Our radio picked up some radio interference.”

“Sssssssssccrhcrhssssssssssss…”

“4-Romeo-4 this is Bravo Tango Golf 7-2-5, please repeat your….”

“Zzzzzzzt. Pop, pop!” (The electronics and lighting go completely dead. The pilot releases the mike button.).

“What the heck is going on?” The pilot of the Beechcraft King Air 100 is struggling with a ‘blacked-out’ aircraft about to land, or about to….

“Circuit breakers blew. Won‘t reset. Tried three times.”

Less than 500 feet in the air and about a mile and a half from the airport, Jack Thompson is fighting the 25 knot crosswinds buffeting the blinded aircraft. The plane is traveling at about 11,000 feet per minute. If the pilots could see the ground, it would be a blur.