Tha Black Eagles

The

Black Eagles

By Larry Hall Sr.

© Copyright 2006-2011, Larry L. Hall Sr.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to everyone who wants the world to be more than it is. Everyone wants the world to be a better place when they leave it then when they arrived here.  This book is dedicated to the Dreamers, the Lovers of Life, and the people with abounding imagination for good.  The ones who believe in something greater than themselves even if the facts say otherwise, their hearts know better. The ones who believe good will always conquer evil in the end and just maybe even before the end.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Introduction

Returning from a Mission

A New Mission

Betrayed

A Gnawing Hunger

Conspiracy

A Diversion

A Reverse Surprise

A Plan of Attack

South Pole Complex

Finding Slavikoff

Rumors of my Death

Saving the World Again

The Battle

Home?

The Beginning of a Mystery

The Virginia Facility

The Sentence

Training Continues

Training Ends

The Research Labs

South Pole Again?

Whoop, There it is

Change of Heart

A Little Excursion

The Hangar

The AE Lab

A Problem Arises

Contaminated

Changes

Try and Get Control

Forgiveness

The Future

A little Errand

Resurrection

Revelations

Discoveries

Discussion and Preparation

Time to Go

Introduction

My name is not important but you may call me Talon. Not the name I was born with but it describes me as well as any. What is important is that I am a member of a fighting force. My comrades and I don’t officially exist. We do a lot of the dirty work that no one else wants or can do. We report to no one man or group and take full authority to do whatever we think is necessary to keep our planet safe. We work behind the scenes and keep a very very low profile.

We’ve done things that would make a maggot vomit. We have foiled evil plots for the last twenty years and no one knows it. We watched as governments fall and have aided in the rising of several new ones. We have little mercy and expect even less. We have no conscience and very few weaknesses. We are the very best of the very best…. And oh did I mention that we are all Vampires?

I know what you’ve heard but I’m going to set the record straight. We Vampires are not the evil undead as you have been told in all of those B movies you’ve seen. We are born just the same as you. The one big difference is that we have a special genetic mutation. The defect has its benefits as well as its drawbacks. We don’t live forever and cannot change shapes into wolves or bats. We need blood but just because our body doesn’t replenish our supply, but we rarely bite someone on the Jugular just to get food. Crosses and Holy water have no affect on us but we do have a singular allergic reaction to Garlic but we are relatively safe as long as we don’t ingest or get injected with it. We do have above human strength and an unusually long lifespan of two hundred years or so. We can move at incredible speeds but the act drains us at an accelerated rate also. We heal very quickly and even given enough time can replace organs and limbs. We need very little sleep, as little as an hour a week if pushed to extremes. Our reflexes are accelerated making us the perfect warrior. We have an extreme sense of smell and can see in virtual darkness. We have no aversion to sunlight and if you met me on the street you wouldn’t even notice me. We can go long periods without food, water or air in a state of pseudo-suspended animation if necessary. This is probably where the stories of the undead came from. Probably one or more of our ancestors was accidentally buried alive and escaped, but when he awoke he was probably staked through the heart immediately. Of course a wooden stake through the heart will kill us but wouldn’t it kill anyone.  Until about fifty years ago we were hidden because who wants to awaken form a sound sleep with someone driving a wooden stake through your heart.  A scientist contacted us in the early nineteen-fifties who didn’t try to eliminate our species but instead studied us as an anthropologist would study any people from a foreign culture. He wasn’t the first to see our potential but he was the first one that didn’t try to eliminate us from the face of the earth on first sight. He contacted the government officials and to say the least they were skeptical. The doctor said he would protect our families by concealing our true names and locations from them. The others and I, we didn’t trust the doctor and gave him false information about our families and where we lived. After seeing what we were capable of the government agencies went wild with anticipation. However they felt they needed to contain us somehow. They tried locking us away until they could figure how to use us but we don’t take well to forced confinement. If one of us is incarcerated for any extended time the others will find a way to kill them rather than letting them endanger everyone by letting the general knowledge of our existence become public. Some commit suicide and others go out fighting tooth and nail. We escaped from our confinement with relative ease and let the people in charge know we would work only under our conditions. After a while they acquiesced to our demands and that was the beginning of the Black Eagle.

Returning from a Mission

There were four of us returning from a mission in a good mood. This was an easy one. Just kill a small group of terrorists who were planning to bomb churches in the American south. They said before we killed them that they were doing the work of Allah and they were not afraid to die. We replied Say hello to him for us? and killed them all without ceremony. We decapitated them and had a quick liquid lunch, but before we returned them to the sponsoring country we wrapped their bodies in pigskins and pork entrails and dropped them at the doorstep of their sponsor. The note we left said, Allah doesn’t want this kind or your kind. Continue as you have and you and your whole family faces the same fate. I think we made an impression because a day or so later the sponsor started condemning in the strongest terms the same people he had earlier sponsored and announced his retirement from public life for health reasons. It seems that the older faithful just doesn’t have the resolve of their younger mind-controlled youth. This shows that it is possible to terrorize terrorists if you are willing to shall we say ‘Go the extra mile’.

Upon returning to our European base we were greeted by a representative of the United States Air force. He wanted to propose a special mission and needed to speak with us in a general meeting. I went to get a shower.  My wife Hannah greeted me in our quarters. Most of us had families and they traveled with us. We have learned the hard way to leave our families alone is a one-way trip to grief. Although we spend most of our time in the U.S. we sometimes like to visit the European bases for a holiday or just to see more of the world. We have twelve bases across the world with five being in the United States, three in Europe, Two in Asia and one each at the North and South poles. My wife Hannah and I almost never discuss my work and she doesn’t want our son to know details about what I do so we always speak of other things. I took a shower and she made me a meal. My son’s name is William but I call him Bill. He is a typical seventeen years old except he too is a vampire. He knows what that means but it chafes him that he has to keep it a secret. He sometimes sees the normals as something to be hated or pitied. He has a lot to learn and I’m afraid he will find the lessons hard and painful. He has a bad habit of venturing out in the evening and shall we say having dinner out. He knows we must keep a low profile but he likes to get a drug dealer or a thug to corner him thinking he is an easy mark then kill them and drink their blood. I don’t mind for the most part as long as he leaves the innocents alone but lately he has gotten sloppy and was almost seen a couple of times in the last month. He’s smart enough to use a knife to slit their throats rather than bite them making it look like just another gang murder. I said, I’ll have to speak to him again but it can wait until after the general meeting? It’s scheduled for just over an hour from now. Hannah replied, William didn’t come home until late this morning and he smelled of alcohol. I replied, He had better not be drinking the blood of a drunk or I’ll have to kick his ass. She replied Now Talon, don’t be too hard on him. Surely you remember your teenage years. and she smiled at me. I did remember and it scared me that my son could be doing what I did over a hundred years ago. I said, Things are different now. It’s harder to get away with a group of feedings nowadays. You know as well as I if they capture him either we or he will have to keep our secret. She looked down knew what I meant. I went to his room and he was sitting in his bed with a set of headphones on. I touched him on his leg and he looked up and removed the headphones. He said Hi Pop. What’s shakin? I looked into his eyes and my resolve started to weaken. I said Your mother said you are out at all hours of the night and come home smelling of alcohol. He frowned and said Mom needs to mind her own business. I replied, You are her business and you had better change your attitude. He looked up as if to defy me and I reached down and lifted him by his collar and his look changed. I said, You know your mother loves you and worries about you. I smelled him and there was the faint odor of alcohol. I said, You also know that alcohol is a slow poison to our kind yet you insist on drinking from the polluted ones.  I put him down and continued. I know its hard being what we are but you have to understand that the normals can’t know of us right now. He replied, Why do we care if they know we exist? I said You weren’t around in the other time The time of our grandfathers when they were almost hunted to extinction just because they were different. He replied Pop this is the twenty-first century not the tenth. I said Maybe so but do you think the normals would accept a race who would outlive them by over a hundred years? They fight and kill over such stupid ideas as religion and money. What would happen if they knew what we could do and they could never be as us. He said Maybe we should take over and rule them for their own good. I said There was a vampire once that thought as you. He took a small group and developed an almost religious zeal to make the world a place of order and perfection. He conquered almost half the world before he was stopped killing millions in the process. He started with the best of motives but ended as a despot. He finally committed suicide in a bunker in Berlin Germany with his mistress, or at least that’s what the normals think happened to him. He turned with a jerk to face me and said Hitler was a vampire? I said Hitler and many others. It was a bad time for us. We had to kill thousands of our own kind just to set things as they should be. There have been other vampires with the same idea in the past. Genghis Kahn, Nero, Napoleon, Mussolini, and believe it or not a few Catholic Popes as well as Mayan and Aztec kings. We are an ancient race and have lived in all cultures on this planet. Some say we’re not originally from this planet but there has never been any kind of proof that we’re not native to Earth. He replied I think people could accept us now that they are educated and understanding. I replied, A person can be educated and understanding but people are scared of anything that doesn’t fit into their perception of what’s normal. He sat down and I said Just keep your night excursions to a bare minimum and leave the innocents and drunks alone. He nodded and I said, By the way, you’re grounded for the next two weeks. He started to say something but when his eyes met mine he sat back down and said, Yes sir. I smiled at him and said And treat your mother with the respect she deserves." And I closed the door on my way out. I had to hurry or I would be late for the meeting.

I arrived just as the Air Force representative rose to speak as I took my seat. It had been a long time since we needed a general meeting of all of the European representatives of our group. It was a rarity and soon I would find out why.

A New Mission

The Air Force Representative started. Ladies and gentleman I am here to propose a mission. It has come to the attention of our security forces that there is a threat against the United States and possibly the entire world. I have here a report telling of a plot to use a genetically developed virus against the people of the U.S. It was developed by a division of the Martyrs of Allah and has a devastating potential. We want you to find and destroy this virus and any traces of the research. The French representative stood and said Why should we care, it was proven centuries ago during the Black Plague that we are immune to communicable disease and viruses. The representative continued Our treaty states that you will protect our population from such threats, and how long do you think before they bring the fight to Europe if they succeed in the U.S? The English representative said, How many caches of the virus do you know of? He replied Several at least. The English representative said You mean you don’t even know exactly how many there, are? He replied, No not exactly, that’s why we need your help. They have been able to move the virus before we even knew it existed. There is a theory that it might already be in the U.S. in several large cities. We want you to raid the lab in Basra and bring a sample to our labs in Hong Kong.  We can then assess the threat and make the appropriate plans. It would be good if you could bring one of the scientists back, but we don’t need an international incident and you may kill them all if they become a threat to you or the mission. Please let me know when you choose the people for the mission. That’s all I have until the mission briefing.

Betrayed

I was called into the office of our European representative and I knew what he wanted. He requested me to lead the team to deal with the virus situation. I accepted as always and was briefed. The lab was underground as usual. Why do the bad guys always put the labs underground? Do they think that if anyone goes underground they think, Hey, I may not be able to get out any windows here? I better not go in. It was heavily guarded and fortified as usual. There was an entrance that was unguarded. It was unguarded for a good reason. It exhausted a toxic residue from the underground power plants and any normal human would die within a few moments in the tube, as it was not only poisonous but also caustic. It would however prove only a small deterrent to us. We were to slip in during the day and capture a sample of the virus and destroy the entire complex and the scientists who work there save one whom we will bring back for interrogation. We would have sixty hours and seven members. We think there are over two hundred in that complex and have to make sure none of the leadership get a chance to leave or warn others. Being as there are only three exits we have a chance to get that done but there may be exits we don’t know about yet and we need to find them first. I would go in first and recon the site and then call for backup when I know what I need to know. I figure it will take me ten to twenty minuets to get over the fumes from the exhaust where I will enter then another hour to search the labs for exits. To allay suspicions we will arrive in the usual way, in coffins. Most normals have an aversion to opening a coffin when they think someone may be inside. If someone did open and discover us it could be very bad for them. There is civil conflict in Basra so coffins are a staple of everyday life there.  We would leave in nine hours and would return within sixty hours. I left the office with no misgivings as I had done similar things unnumbered times in the past twenty or so years. I went home and sat down at the kitchen table. Hannah said, How long will you be gone this time? I replied No more than four days. She replied, This is the eighth mission without a break. Do you intend to keep doing this for the entire time we are in Europe? I said This will be the last for a while and we’ll take at least a month to explore Europe if you want when I return. She smiled and said I’m going to hold you to that. We need to spend time as a family for a while. I nodded and went to get ready for the mission. I arrived at the station and got my standard issue. That consisted of my pistol, grenades, knife, several vials of food case of emergency and various other gadgets that I won’t describe here. I met with the other members of the squad and we went to our private airstrip and loaded into our so-called transportation. We arrived at the Basra airport and were loaded onto the truck for our trip to the desert. We arrived and got out of the coffins. We disposed of all but one special one to transport the captured scientist in and I scouted ahead and found the complex. It looked like an old warehouse in the middle of nowhere and I searched for the exhaust port. I found it and removed the wire cover carefully. I radioed the rest of the squad who were waiting about a half-mile from the complex for my next report. I crawled into the pipe and replaced the screen carefully and re-secured it. If anyone checked it would look normal. I was almost overtaken by the fumes before I realized what had happened so the rest of the fifty or so yards were a struggle for me. I arrived at the bottom and looked out into a small chamber. I heard no one there so I took my tools and exited the pipe. I was sick but knew I couldn’t vomit so I choked back the bile and crawled into a dark corner of the room to rest. I didn’t even have the strength to replace the cover to the pipe and knew if anyone came in now I was as good as dead.  I lay there for another fifteen minuets and knew I was behind schedule and actually thought to myself "I’m getting too old for this shit. I was undisturbed and as I recovered I replaced the cover to the pipe. I went to the door and opened it slowly. No one was in the corridor and there were no cameras so I exited the room. I heard voices down the south hall so I went the other way. I was amazed that there was so little security. No cameras or guards so to speak. Something smelled like last weeks fish but I continued. I found other corridors and followed them but still no guards. My instincts said for me to get the hell out but I stayed. I found the lab and there were several people in lab coats running around inside a clean room and three guards at the doors. I sneaked around for another thirty minuets or so and found no other exits than the three we knew of. The small number of guards made me uncomfortable but maybe I was getting paranoid in my old age. I called the rest of the squad and went back to the exhaust room. I waited for them to come down and shortly they arrived down the same tube I came down. I watched while the rest recuperated and after about ten minuets they were ready to go. We separated and made our way to the lab. I took three and sent the other three to destroy the exits. They would report to me and then we would begin the assault. We waited just outside the lab and then the report came in. On my signal they would seal the exits with explosives and we would attack. I gave the signal and three explosions came almost immediately. We burst into the lab and killed the guards quickly and started attacking the others in the lab. I motioned and one of my people grabbed one of what I assumed was one of the scientists. We killed everyone else and my computer expert Cobra went to the terminal to start the destruction of the research data and equipment. I had a bad feeling. After a minuet or so Cobra said, This is garbage, there’s nothing her except some trash files. I looked around and found that there were no other security forces trying to kill us and then it hit me. I shouted Everyone back to the exhaust pipe. Now! and I turned and shot the last person in the lab coat.  We ran to the pipe and started up. As I approached the top I noticed that the top was sealed and smelled like it was welded shut. It was a trap. I should have known when the guards were so few. I yelled down to the others and I crawled back down. I did a quick head count and there were only six of us. I looked and said, Where’s Hacker? Cobra said, He was at exit two. We then heard several quick explosions and the whole complex shuttered and shook. I tried to open the door and it wouldn’t move.  The oval window was broken and the hall outside was filled with dirt and rocks. The complex had self-destructed and we were trapped in this small room with no way out. We had explosives but would blow ourselves to bits if we used it in such a closed area. I assumed the top was sealed airtight and thousands of tons of debris blocked the other door. I was angry with myself for letting myself be trapped so easily. Here we were fifty yards from the surface with limited air, no way of escaping and a possible traitor loose to cause no telling what damage. I asked Any ideas? Zilla said Lets blow the top of the pipe and see if we can go that way. I replied, If they’re as good as I think they are, there is a large solid mass on top of the tube to stop just such a plan from succeeding. And I also guess that enough C4 to open the top would cave in the rest of the pipe. I have another idea. I’ll go up the pipe about half way up and set a small charge. A charge big enough to blow a hole in the sidewall small enough for one person to work inside and while all of the others go into self-induced stasis for a while. There might be a chance for that person to dig to the surface, fix what’s wrong and then wake the others down here and escape. I figure that it will take about three hours to dig the twenty yards or so to the surface. With everyone asleep there may just be enough oxygen to get the job done. Cobra said, Someone will have to stay awake to remove the dirt from the tube or it will fill up before you get to the top. I hadn’t thought of that but he was right. I replied, I’ll come down and move the dirt myself. There won’t be enough air for two to stay awake that long. He replied That will take almost twice a long and I don’t know if there is enough air for us if you fail. I said Does anyone else have another idea because I’m open for anything just about now. After a stressed silence Zilla said, Sounds like a plan to me. I’ll just lie over here and rest. Wake me if you need me. I said Everyone take an emergency food ration before you lie down and go over there behind the pipe out of the way. Also cover your faces with your hats and bandannas so the dust won’t get into your faces. They did as I asked and I shaped the charge specifically to make a hole large enough for me to work but not enough to hurt anyone down below. I set the charge and went back down and sealed the tube. I cried, Fire in the hole!" and everyone crouched down and I pressed the button. We heard a muffled explosion and when I opened the door the pipe was filled with dirt and small rocks. I raked it out and climbed to the hole. It was a little small but I figured I could use it. I yelled back down for everyone to get some rest and I would awaken them when I reached the surface. I started digging. The going was slow because every fifteen minuets I had to go back down and clear the opening. After about two hours something I should have expected happened. I figured I was about twenty feet from the surface when I was digging up and the hole started to fill with sand. I had forgotten I was in a desert and I was in trouble. The sand was coming in faster then I could move it back into the tunnel. The tunnel was not slopped enough for the sand to fall into the pipe and I was being buried alive. The sand was coming in at an increasing rate and I was already buried up to my shins in sand.  I knew the sand would fill in the tunnel and I could never move enough of it for us to escape. I pulled the goggles down from my helmet and tightened them over my eyes. I knew I had one option.  I dug frantically to make the opening where the sand was coming in as large as I could so I could stand up as much as possible. My only hope was to dig my way to the surface slowly trying to make a space for me to breathe from time to time on the way up. It was highly likely that I would get trapped like a wasp in amber as the sand fell to conform to my body but it was my only option. I stood up as tall as I could and pulled the sand down while moving my legs up as soon as there was enough sand to get a solid footing. I was digging with my hands and moving my legs to try and keep them free. It was slow going and the sand was getting tighter around my feet. The sand got tighter and tighter and even though I made a space around my face with part of my helmet breathing was becoming difficult as the sand tightened around my chest. It was all I could do not to panic and I kept digging and moving my legs as much as possible knowing if I stopped even for a second I would be trapped and die. My muscles strained and ached and I knew if I didn’t get some relief soon death would look awful good to