Wings of Steele - Destination Unknown (Book 1) by Jeffrey Burger

Puerto
Rico. Something about drugs, gun play, dead police officers... and
that's fine, we're happy to help. But now, not only is the B25
missing, but two of my birds as well. SO ,
exactly what is your involvement?" he quickly added... "and I don't want to
hear, need to know either."
    "I'm
here because that plane is ours."
    "Oh
really..."
    "It
was on a classified assignment. What happened in San Juan and why, is
unclear. It'll take some time before we sort that out. But the
aircraft definitely needs to be recovered. Bring me up to speed.
What kind of progress have you made?"
    Captain
Richards led the two CIA men to a plotting table which showed
flight and search patterns. "We're here," said the Skipper
pointing to an icon on the table.
    Using
the plotting table, he illustrated the chain of events. "Two F18's,
Blue Flight, had a visual on the B25 about here. It was on a direct
heading with this weather system here..." he said, tapping his
fingertips on the table. "The F18's approached and contacted
your plane, staying with it. We were monitoring the bird to bird
communications and found the closer to the storm they got, the worse
their signals got. I've seen a lot of strange weather out here in my
time, but nothing like this."
    "What
do you mean," said Stephen, scratching his head.
    "Well
first, it was so dense the radar couldn't see into it, it produced
some kind of intense interference. We're thinking EM –
electromagnetic, though I'm not sure how that's possible. The pilots
had serious difficulty communicating, both with each other and with
us. By their own admission, there was no rain, no wind and no
lightning. Just lots of interference. We tried to recall them, but
they got so close to the front... well, we lost all contact. Period.
All three aircraft went in, none came out. We had a second flight of two birds we vectored to join
Blue Flight when they first reported contact. As the second flight
approached the intercept point, they lost radar and communication
started to break up. We recalled them to a safe distance, as they
egressed, their electronics returned to normal...”
    "What
do we do now?" Stephen rubbed his face with both hands.
    Richards
pointed to the table. "We've got search and recovery birds
out, here, here and here. They're flying overlapping patterns. We've
even sent two birds through the front on the same heading. The weird
thing is, is that the interference has stopped and communications
are completely normal."
    "They
wouldn't have shot it down would they?" Stephen was beginning to
get increasingly worried, and the headache gripping his temples
wasn't helping.
    "No,
it's not likely, unless they were fired upon, they would need
clearance from me to fire upon
a civilian aircraft. Besides, that wouldn't account for my two missing birds, and it would've left some kind of debris."
    "So
what you're saying, is you haven't found anything yet?"
    "That's
right, not a thing."
    Stephen
was trying to wrap his head around the whole situation, "So
what the hell happened to them? They can't just disappear in thin
air!"
    Richards
shrugged. "Well, it's a big ocean... technically we're not in it, but we are near the edge
of the Bermuda Triangle," he said offhandedly. “Lots of
unexplained stuff happens out here. I don't have to like it, but it is a fact.”
    Stephen
Miles never believed in the mysterious stories and was in no
mood for levity. There always had to be a logical answer, even if it
wasn't immediately apparent. He sat down on a chair at the Con and
rubbed his throbbing temples. "Got any coffee?"

CHAPTER
EIGHT
    SWEET
SUSIE, LOCATION UNKNOWN: DOWN
THE RABBIT HOLE
    Jack
Steele opened his eyes with a start and smacked his knees sharply
on the control yoke. He was greeted by a totally enveloping darkness
and slowly came to realize he was still strapped into the pilot's
seat of the Sweet Susie. After unbuckling himself, he rubbed his
smarting knees.
    Fighting
the strange disorientation he felt, his mind slowly began