Unmanned (9780385351263)
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“So, Captain Cole, looks like you’re off to a good start. But as we always say in this business, what can do you do for me now?”
“ ’Scuse me?”
“That file you saw,” Steve said. “That would be a good place to start. You saw Fort1’s name, but what else?”
“Not much of anything really. I was just getting a look at everything when the SPs came through the door, pulled a gun on me.”
“But you said—”
“I know. I lied. Sorry. But I did give you Castle’s name. And I just gave Barb the tip on Tangora.”
“Relax, Steve,” Keira said. “He’s contributing.”
“Then how ’bout some sources,” Barb said. “That’s the one place you could help us most. Now that you’ve got a secure email address you could start reaching out to other colleagues, anybody who might have worked these Fort1 missions.”
“I haven’t seen most of these guys for more than a year. And I’m not likely to get a warm welcome if—”
“C’mon,” Steve said. “You can at least try.”
“Maybe it’s better if he eases back into things,” Keira said, “instead of cold-calling like a salesman, especially with people who outranked him.”
“I’m with Steve,” Barb said. “We’re not asking for some Deep Throat with all the secrets. We’ll take anybody, at any level. Preferably reprobates and malcontents, or anybody else who might have thought this wasn’t such a great setup, letting these IntelPro guys run the show.”
Her description immediately brought to mind a likely candidate.
“Well, there was this one Pentagon guy,” Cole said. “Came and spoke to us at Creech. Pretty plugged in, but he was based in Washington.”
“Air Force?” Steve asked.
“Civilian. Some kind of design guru, not just for the Predator, but for all the integrated systems. Worked a lot with outsiders, too. That was one of the things that was pissing him off.”
“Name?” Barb asked.
“Sharpe. Nelson Hayley Sharpe.”
“Three names. Sure sign of a huge ego.”
“The brass kinda thought he was a loose cannon.”
“And you met him?” Steve said.
“He spoke to our attack group. It was supposed to be a pep talk on how we were riding the wave of the future, trailblazers, all sorts of feel-good bullshit. But at the end there was a Q and A, and he sorta ran off the rails. Somebody asked him how much longer before the other side started getting this kind of capability, and what that would mean. He said it had already happened. Not al Qaeda or anything, but the world at large. Friends, enemies, public, private, you name it. He said some of the best tech was being fed straight from the Pentagon to the street, and that as much as we all loved this shit now, in five or ten years we’d be scared to death of it because everybody would have it.”
“And he was civilian?”
“I think that was part of the problem. ‘Not from our culture.’ That’s what our COs were saying afterward. One of them called him a hippie bastard.”
They had a good laugh over that while Barb topped up his coffee.
“So he was what, Pentagon staff?” Steve asked.
“I think so. Some special R and D group.”
Keira, who’d been quiet awhile, was now busy on her laptop, the keys moving in a flurry.
“They fired him,” she announced. “Or he retired, take your pick. Three months ago, it says.”
“Perfect,” Barb said. “No flacks to head us off at the pass. Where’s he now?”
“Doesn’t say. I’ll keep checking.”
“Think he’d remember you?” Steve asked
“Probably. Before his talk he spent an hour inside our GCS, watching Zach and me on a recon. We were showing him how we used all the shit he’d developed, but he knew some of the apps better than we did. Plus, I was the guy who asked the question that set him off.”
“You hippie bastard!” Barb said.
More laughs. More coffee. As if, with enough caffeine, she might jazz out every last drop of his memory.
“Here we go,” Keira said. “Looks like he’s set up a little consultancy. Eclectic mix of services, everything from security software to aerodynamics. There’s a photo. What a face!”
Everybody leaned in for a look.
“Yul Brynner with a hangover,” Steve said.
“Or on quaaludes,” Barb said.
“His website says he’s based in an old farmhouse,” Keira said. “Loudoun County, Virginia.”
“Easy driving distance,” Steve nodded at Cole.
Another clatter on the keyboard while the rest of them watched.
“There’s an email address.” She turned the laptop around, facing Cole. “Sign on to your account, if you want. You can message him right away.”
“Okay,” he said uncertainly, looking at the others. “What should I ask for?”
“A personal audience,” Steve said. “Set that up and we’ll help with the rest.”
“Maybe throw him a hint that you’ve taken his advice to heart, and now you’re trying to do something about it,” Barb said.
Keira frowned.
“Don’t lay it on too thick. If he’s fresh out of the pipeline they’ll still be keeping tabs on him. It might make him wary.”
“Good point,” Steve said. Barb shrugged.
“Whatever. But send it now.”
Cole felt their eyes on him as he began typing. He pecked in Sharpe’s address, paused, then … nothing. Where to begin?
“Want me to write it?” Keira asked gently.
“Sure.”
He turned the laptop around, and for the second time that morning he submitted to the authority of a ghostwriter, marveling again at their ease with language, their ability to move to the heart of things in a few quick sentences. Keira’s message was a model of clarity and humility, asking for assistance and advice even as it seemed to offer the promise of a sympathetic ear.
“Look okay?” she asked.
Her question was for Cole, but Steve and Barb also wanted to see. After a few tweaks and tugs, the request to Nelson Hayley Sharpe for a meeting at his earliest convenience was soon hurtling into the ether.
By then it was nearly eight o’clock.
Soon afterward, Keira left for downtown to check property records at the courthouse for the row house on Pickard, and Steve set off for points unknown. Barb refilled her mug and went back to her laptop.
Cole watched her from the couch. After a few clicks she entered an almost trancelike state. From the flashing of the screen he could tell she was surfing through a wide array of archival sites.
A community of loners, Cole thought. Even when everyone was here, the house felt strangely hollow, emptied of almost everything but secrets—their own, and whichever ones they’d pried loose from others. Or maybe he was just tired and out of sorts. He missed his children, his home, his old life back in the ’burbs of Vegas. He missed flying, too, the feeling you got when you were up there alone, soaring above everything.
Feeling drained, he rinsed out his mug at the sink while looking out the window at the gulls circling above Stansbury Creek in the morning light. He set the mug on the draining board and returned to the couch. With a stab of shame he briefly inspected the stained sheets. Then he pitch-poled onto the cushions and pulled up the blanket, hoping to steal a few more hours of sleep. Barb’s keyboard clattered on.
This time he slept without dreaming.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
NELSON HAYLEY SHARPE RUBBED the bumps on his shaved head and considered his options.
He could shut the gate and activate the lock, so they’d have to get out of their car and walk the last half mile. Or, as always, he could let them drive straight to his door, clomping into the house with their lawyerly warnings and institutional arrogance, hiding behind aviator shades as they pawed through his papers and clicked at his mouse, searching for God knows what sort of bullshit.
Choosing the former
would make them more ornery than usual, but he’d at least have the satisfaction of watching them stumble and swear as they worked their way uphill through the stubble and cow patties. Because lately they were really pissing him off. They’d even started poking around among his clients, issuing vague warnings and generally endangering his ability to make a living. Three customers had already cancelled. Even Stu over at Whitethorn, who never let anything rattle him, had begged off.
“Nothing personal, Nellie. Ingenious stuff, as always, but I can’t have the feds breathing down our necks, know what I mean? Maybe later, when you’re not such a hot commodity.”
And so on, until the flow of checks dwindled to almost nothing and the bills began to pile up.
His finger hovered above the mouse as he continued to deliberate while watching their progress on the desktop screen. The government-issue car bounced slowly in the ruts, field sparrows fluttering from its path. A few seconds later they passed through the open gate, deciding the issue for him.
“Fuck,” he said to himself. “This is getting really old.”
He knew what had brought them here—a statement he’d made yesterday to CNN. The reporter had interviewed him for twenty minutes. The irony was that he’d talked mostly about how the drones were a good thing. Compared to the so-called surgical bombings of the past, drone combat was far more efficient, and despite the occasional mistake, it killed far fewer civilians, largely because it allowed you to be more deliberate and precise in your targeting. He was proud of that. But those weren’t the quotes they used. They seized on his final comments, when he sermonized briefly about how recklessly we were forging ahead with drone technology, making up the rules as we went along—if indeed there were any rules—heedless of the toll on our privacy, not only in war zones but potentially in every nook and cranny of our own country. Except that he forgot to say “potentially.” The quote the Pentagon probably would have hated most had, of course, been the one CNN liked best, and the reporter used it not only in the news segment but also in the promotional tease at the top of the hour: “What should really scare you is that right now they’re employing only a fraction of their capabilities. Soon they won’t just be looking down your chimney. They’ll be flying down it, too, with aircraft the size of hummingbirds, or smaller. I know, I helped develop them, at a testing ground right around the corner from where the Wright Brothers used to work.”
So here they came, to tell him yet again in their own by-the-book fashion to please shut the fuck up, as specified in his severance agreement. Or else he’d pay a price. As if he wasn’t already.
He stood, waiting for the door to open. He was a craggy monolith of a man whose angular peaks and hollows had grown more pronounced with age. Shaving his head had only made his big brown eyes look bigger. He could’ve passed as a distant cousin to those bug-eyed space aliens depicted in so many wacko fantasies.
They knocked. Progress of a sort. Then they opened the door before he crossed the room. No matter. He had already taken the usual precautions. It’s why he had posted so many sensors and security cams outside, a whole alarm network monitoring every approach to his house. Advance warning gave him time to activate the software he had designed himself. Within seconds it cloaked, and in some cases erased, whatever work was likeliest to draw their unwanted scrutiny, while simultaneously disabling the passwords for his desktop, his notebook, and his smart phone. They hadn’t yet wised up to the trick, which told him once again that the Pentagon’s security experts weren’t half as skilled as the ones earning the big bucks in the private sector. To his mind, that illustrated one of DOD’s biggest blind spots: If they thought their new technology was devastating in their own hands, just wait until they started sharing it on the outside, with people who in some ways were far better equipped to exploit it.
“Welcome, gentlemen, as always.”
He stood with his arms crossed. The two men, familiar by now, actually seemed a bit sheepish this time. The first one, taller and older, always did the talking.
“Should I read you the usual warning, Mr. Sharpe?”
“I’m aware of my obligations. Tea? The kettle’s still warm.”
“No, sir. We should only be a minute.”
Maybe they, too, were tiring of the charade. Probably acting under orders issued more out of pique than practicality. And they hadn’t yet come up with a damn thing. He looked around the place with a hint of embarrassment. His house had always been a bit of a dump, ever since his last daughter moved out in ’91. But this morning it was particularly messy. Books and magazines everywhere, empty Chinese takeout boxes still on the coffee table, dishes stacked in the kitchen, clothes strewn on chairs and doorknobs, outdated and oversized stereo components coated with dust, cables everywhere. Was he becoming a hoarder, one of those lonely old misfits you always saw on TV? At least he didn’t own any cats. No smell of urine or stale beer. Just garlic from the Chinese, the herbal rot of wet tea leaves, the ticklish funk of dust, the leaden silence of too many hours alone. The shorter fellow sneezed as he began sorting through a stack of papers.
“You went through those last week. Not that it makes any difference.”
The man didn’t even look up.
“Got any more interviews scheduled?” the taller one asked. Sharpe didn’t even know their names, their ranks, anything about them.
“None presently. They’re good marketing tools for my business, that’s why I keep doing them. I’m entitled to promote my business, you know.”
“And we’re entitled to keep letting your clients know of the restrictions you’ve agreed to operate under.”
So they weren’t even going to try to hide their recent meddling.
“I really don’t want to get lawyers involved.”
The shorter one spoke up for the first time ever, stopping what he was doing and looking Sharpe right in the eye.
“Then don’t.”
Sharpe took a step toward him, caught himself, and silently counted to ten. They’d be gone soon, back out on the highway and headed for the Capital Beltway. And he still had other ways of fighting back, ways that would piss them off even more if they ever found out. Foolhardy, probably, to try such things, but maybe it was inevitable once you got your back up.
“Okay, then.” The taller one again. “I’ll leave the paperwork.”
“Don’t forget to check the mailbox on the way out.”
“Already did. Publisher’s Clearinghouse thinks you may be their next lucky winner.”
This drew a smarmy grin from the shorter one. Sharpe held his tongue, barely.
Within seconds they were out the door, shuffling off like a pair of missionaries who’d failed to win a convert. He listened to the engine turn over, and then the creaking of the car as it bounded down the drive toward the bypass. Then he got to work.
First he pulled his keys from his pocket. Attached to the key chain was a cigarette lighter, or so it appeared. It had taken him an entire Saturday afternoon to produce the likeness. It was actually a flash drive, containing the software he always used to protect his data during these inspections and, just as important, to restore it once the coast was clear.
He plugged it in to let it work its magic, which included the random selection of a dozen new passwords for various accounts that he used. Then he pocketed the flash drive, printed out the list of the new passwords, examined it just long enough to commit the list to memory—which for him took only about twenty seconds—and then incinerated the printout in his pellet-burning woodstove.
Sitting back down at his desk, he used one of the new passwords to sign on to his email account, which he’d been using just before the alarms went off a few minutes ago, alerting him to the arrival of his visitors. Now a new message was waiting for him, from someone he’d never heard from before, although he recognized the name of the sender. One of the pilots at Creech. A bit of a malcontent, he remembered now. Or at least he hadn’t been afraid to ask a provocative question. And now he wanted to meet.<
br />
But Sharpe also remembered hearing that this fellow had gotten himself into trouble, after a raid that ended badly. Just the sort of fellow, in other words, who might get him into even deeper trouble than he was already in.
Sharpe sighed and typed a curt reply, feeling a bit cowardly as he did so.
Yes, I remember you, and wish you good luck with whatever you’re pursuing. But meeting with you wouldn’t be in my best interests right now.
He was about to send it when the alarm sounded. He clicked to his security camera, and there they were again, coming right back up the driveway, this time at twice the speed, and having already cleared the gate, as if they’d finally figured out how he was outsmarting them and were trying to return before he did it again.
He slipped the flash drive back into the slot and activated another shutdown. To buy a few extra seconds he ran to the door and slammed home the deadbolt and security chain. No sooner had he finished than they were turning the knob, then pounding their fists. He slowly backed up, all the way to the kitchen door.
“On my way!” he sang out, with one eye on his computer screen as it worked through the final stages of the shutdown.
“Open now or we’re breaking in!”
He grabbed clumsily for the flash drive disguised as a lighter as the screen went dark, then shoved it into his pants pocket just as the door crunched open, the frame splintering against the lock.
“What the fuck! Forced entry now? I was two steps away, assholes!”
The shorter man pinned him against the wall and pulled back his arms, binding his wrists with a plastic restraint. The taller one scanned his desktop, feeling the console for warmth as he scowled at the darkened screen.
“Where is it?” he shouted.
“Where’s what?”
“Whatever piece of shit software you’re using to shut this thing down.”