Trade-Off

by Trade-Off (retail) (epub)

  ‘Grant,’ the driver said, turning round to look at them. Then he turned back, started the engine and drove away towards the main gates of the Air Base.

  ‘It’s a mess,’ Templeton said flatly. ‘How come this hick sheriff managed to take out two of your team?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Harris snapped. He was getting a little tired of people blaming him for the deaths of Wilson and Rogers. Ketch had spent the better part of ten minutes draining all over him about it the previous evening. ‘I wasn’t there, so how the fuck do I know? Sometimes the mark gets lucky, that’s all.’

  Templeton grinned mirthlessly. ‘Actually, it wasn’t just luck,’ he said. ‘We got a faxed copy of Reilly’s service record this morning. He was in Special Forces over in Vietnam, and he’s quite a tough cookie. If he got the jump on your guys, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.’

  Harris shook his head. ‘It would have helped if we’d known that ahead of time,’ he said, exasperation evident in his voice. ‘The guy just looked like a typical small-town sheriff – beer belly and all. If I’d known his background we’d have handled him way differently.’

  ‘Right,’ Templeton said. ‘Water under the bridge. The point is, we know now, so we’ll know how to handle him when we do find him.’

  ‘Any news on that?’ Morgan asked.

  ‘Nope,’ Templeton said. ‘The last update we had from the Bureau placed the perps still in Washington D.C., but nobody really believes that any more. They slipped out somehow, and it’s my guess they’re heading our way. Roland Oliver concurs.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Harris said. ‘We don’t know how they’re travelling, but that really doesn’t matter. All we have to do is sit here, wait for them to show up, and then take them down.’

  Templeton grunted. ‘Sounds real easy if you say it quickly, but the one thing it isn’t going to be is easy. Reilly’s background was news to us, but Hunter’s going to be a handful as well. He’s supposed to be a British cop, but according to Roland Oliver he’s a bit more than that.’

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’

  ‘He’s working as a police officer now, but he spent most of his career in the Royal Navy. It took the Bureau until this morning to find out that he trained in the military as a pilot, and reading between the lines of his service record it looks like he had two stints with the British Special Air Service as well. The Bureau’s estimation, based on data received from London, is that he’s possibly now working for British Intelligence, but they don’t know any more than that. If the details of his record are anything like accurate, we’re going to have to assume he’s just as competent as Reilly, maybe more so.’

  ‘Shit,’ Harris said. ‘That’s all we need.’

  FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

  ‘You got that?’ William McGrath asked.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Myers replied. ‘Every flying club, flying school and aircraft owner within fifty miles radius of D.C., plus all companies in the area which own, operate, maintain or repair aircraft. It’ll take a while,’ he added.

  ‘I know. So get started now.’

  As soon as Myers left the office, McGrath reached for the telephone. He wasn’t quite sure who was going to be more irritated by what he was about to tell them – the President of the United States of America or the anonymous man in Nevada.

  Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

  ‘So what you’re telling us, Mr. McGrath,’ Charles Gainey said, ‘is that these two men could be anywhere by now?’

  McGrath nodded. ‘Yes, Mr. President. We’ve yet to confirm that an aircraft is actually missing, but the lack of any sightings of the fugitives and the fact that this man Hunter is a qualified pilot suggest that they could have escaped by air. I believe that the police and FBI presence in this area would have located them by now if they were still here.’

  ‘You believe,’ Gainey said, emphasizing the word, ‘but you don’t know?’

  ‘No, we don’t know, but we have to work on the basis of probabilities. I’ve instructed a blanket check to be made of all flying clubs and flying schools within fifty miles of the District Capital, plus checks run on all companies which own, operate or maintain aircraft. I’m assuming that Hunter stole an aircraft, but it’s also possible that he even hired one. I mean, Reilly went to Avis for the car they used to snatch the Director, so I wouldn’t put anything past them.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m hearing this right,’ James Dickson growled, ‘so let me just recap. These two guys – one of whom had an APB and shoot-to-kill order out on him – just flew commercial into Washington, casually wandered into FBI Headquarters and walked out with the Director. They then rigged a bomb in the car they’d goddamn well hired from Avis and made the Director drive it back to Pennsylvania Avenue, where some no-brain FBI officer obligingly instructed a sniper to fire at the car and detonate the bomb. Is that right so far?’ He glared at McGrath.

  ‘We don’t know they flew here commercial,’ McGrath said, ‘but that’s what we believe, given the timings involved.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Dickson said angrily. ‘Then, with every cop, FBI, CIA and Secret Service agent in Washington out on the streets and looking for them, with every road blocked and every other means of exit covered, they calmly climbed into an aircraft and flew off into the wide blue yonder? Is that what you’re saying?’

  McGrath nodded. ‘That, Mr. Secretary, is our best estimation.’

  ‘Jesus wept,’ Dickson muttered. ‘When this situation’s been resolved there’ll be some heads rolling in the gutters, I can tell you.’

  ‘That’s enough, James,’ Charles Gainey said. ‘Assuming you’re correct, Mr. McGrath, where do you think Reilly and Hunter will be heading?’

  McGrath spread his hands wide. ‘As I said at our last meeting, Mr. President, our best guess is that they’ll try to get to Roland Oliver. They’ll be heading for Nevada.’

  ‘And what can they do when they get there?’ Gainey mused.

  ‘I don’t know,’ McGrath said. ‘Security at the base is tight enough to ensure that they can’t get inside, not even by air, so I don’t think there’s much they can do.’

  ‘Suppose they find out – never mind how – what Roland Oliver actually does? Suppose they go public and release it to the press?’ James Dickson said. ‘What then?’

  ‘We’d deny it, of course,’ the President said. ‘And anyway, knowing what Roland Oliver actually does, who’d believe them?’

  Cassia County, Idaho

  Douglas and Robbins hadn’t made the kind of progress they had thought they would, and took their second compulsory stop at just before one o’clock local time at a small roadhouse a few miles south of Burley, still inside Idaho.

  They had decided not to route south through Utah, because that would have taken them to the east of the Great Salt Lake. Instead, they were avoiding the more populated areas and were going to travel more or less straight to Montello in Nevada, then down through McGill and direct to Las Vegas.

  They weren’t bothered by their comparatively slow progress. Roland Oliver never objected to lengthy deliveries, and they were paid by the hour, plus expenses, so the longer the journey took, the more money they made.

  Even with the delays they’d encountered, they should still make Vegas no later than about midday Saturday.

  Montgomery County, Virginia

  Dave Charles wasn’t pleased at being dragged away from his TV set. He’d been looking forward all week to the Friday afternoon game, and had given himself and his mechanic the day off the better to enjoy it, but the cops who knocked on his door at the end of the first quarter made it clear that he had absolutely no option.

  He stuck a video tape into his VCR, pressed ‘Record,’ and hoped Lucy and the kids didn’t start pressing any buttons they shouldn’t. He pulled on boots and a plaid jacket, and walked out to the cruiser.

  ‘So what’s the big rush?’ he asked the patr
olman in the front passenger seat as the cruiser pulled away from the curb.

  ‘Just a routine check, sir,’ he said. ‘We’ve received information to suggest that somebody’s stolen an aircraft from this area, and we just need you to inspect all the aircraft at your field. You’re the eighth person we’ve checked this afternoon,’ he added.

  Dave Charles started to laugh, then stopped. ‘And I guess all those other people found all their aircraft present?’

  The police officer nodded.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Charles said. ‘Look, stealing an aircraft’s not like heisting some Ford off a street corner. You don’t just hot-wire it and drive it away. You need flying skills – expensive flying skills – plus there are always security systems to get around.’

  ‘Even at a small operation like you run?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Dave Charles said. ‘Especially at a small operation like mine. I don’t own the aircraft, so I take even more care of them than most people would. The hangar only holds six aircraft maximum, and I never accept more than that number at any one time. I never leave aircraft out on the field, and the hangar’s got its own security system.’

  ‘How many aircraft have you got at present, Mr. Charles?’

  ‘Three. A Cherokee and an Aztec, plus a crop-duster that’s being collected next week.’

  ‘Are they all flyable?’

  ‘Yes,’ Charles said. ‘We haven’t started work on the two Pipers yet, and the duster’s only just been finished.’

  Eighteen minutes later the cruiser bounced into Dave Charles’s field and stopped in front of the closed doors of the hangar.

  ‘Looks OK to me,’ one patrolman said, glancing round.

  ‘The main doors can only be opened from the inside,’ Dave Charles said, and led the way round to the side door. He tried the handle, and confirmed that the door was still locked. Charles pointed out the grey wire leading to the key box, inserted his security key in the box and disabled the alarm system. Then he unlocked the side door, hit the light switch and led the patrolman inside.

  ‘There you are,’ he said, but his voice trailed away as he looked towards the back of the hangar.

  Three minutes later one of the patrolmen emerged from the side door and began speaking rapidly into his personal radio.

  Groom Lake Air Force Base, Nevada

  Roger Ketch put down the telephone handset, got up and walked across to the corner of his office. He’d had a temporary bed installed there as soon as he’d received the first call from Director Donahue about the Beaver Creek incident, and he hadn’t left the building since.

  He stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes. He’d expected the call from McGrath, and he’d also anticipated the result of the manhunt in Washington, but that hadn’t done anything to lessen his irritation with what McGrath had said.

  The fact that Hunter was a pilot was unwelcome news, but as far as Ketch could tell, the situation was more or less unchanged. There was no way that Hunter or Reilly could get into Nellis, and there was a real limit to what they could do outside. Quite apart from anything else, if they did something stupid, like trying to tell their story to the press, they’d have to expose themselves and that would be enough to let the clean-up team locate them and take them out.

  He called Harris’s mobile phone and advised him about the missing crop-duster. Not that there was anything they could do about it until Reilly and Hunter showed themselves – trying to locate a crop-duster in a country filled with them was pointless. Better by far to wait. Sooner or later the two fugitives would have to try to get into McCarran Air Base or Nellis, and once they did, they could be dealt with.

  Ketch had already ordered heightened security at McCarran through his contacts in the US Air Force, and issued detailed descriptions of Reilly and Hunter. Area 51 security wasn’t directly his problem, but he was happy with the standard measures.

  Area 51 occupies an area of the Nevada desert about the same size as Switzerland. Fencing it would have clearly been impossible, or at least prohibitively expensive, so the Air Force has taken a different approach. The boundary is marked in all accessible areas by notices – which included a warning that the use of deadly force is authorized – and the entire perimeter is ringed by masts which carry infra-red and conventional cameras and motion sensors.

  This passive security system provides the Area 51 guards with total surveillance of the boundary by day and night and in all weather conditions. Anything bigger than a rabbit is detected by the motion sensors, and the cameras can then identify exactly what has triggered the system. There are no breaks in the boundary, and no way around the sensors.

  Active security is in the hands of a large team of guards who are linked by radio to the main security complex. These guards wear camouflage uniforms without insignia and are heavily armed: they patrol randomly around the perimeter in white, unmarked four-wheel drive Cherokee Jeeps with roof-mounted light bars.

  If anyone does wander inside the perimeter, the guards react immediately. If the intruder is genuinely lost or just curious, he or she will be picked up by the guards, taken to a security building located well away from any sensitive parts of the Groom Lake complex, roughed up, and then escorted out of the area. A prosecution for trespass may or may not follow.

  Serious attempts to gain access to Area 51 have been few, but in at least one case a small group did penetrate over five miles inside the perimeter. Their bones are still whitening in the Nevada sun where they were shot.

  The only ground approach to Area 51 is along Groom Lake Road, a ten-mile long unmade track accessed from Highway 375 – the recently-renamed ‘Extraterrestrial Highway’ – and buses carrying workers to and from Groom Lake regularly travel at speed along it. No other road traffic is permitted without pre-notification and armed escorts.

  Ketch wondered for a few moments if he ought to advise his counterparts in Roland Oliver about what was going on, but decided not to. He rationalized his decision by reference to the low risk of anything actually impeding the ongoing operations, no matter what Reilly and Hunter did, and by the impossibility of the two fugitives getting close enough to Groom Lake to find out anything concrete about the project.

  Those were good enough reasons, he decided. But unspoken at the back of his mind was the real reason – that any close or face-to-face contact with his counterparts was still, despite the length of time he’d been involved with Roland Oliver, totally repugnant to him.

  Four Corners (intersection of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico)

  Hunter’s original calculations of the duster’s speed and endurance, and the distance they were having to travel, had necessarily been based on estimates and approximations. Because he had flown long enough to subscribe to the adage that there were old pilots and there were bold pilots, but there were no old bold pilots, he’d erred on the side of caution, under-estimating the duster’s speed and over-estimating its fuel consumption and the distance to be covered.

  With the duster parked neatly behind a tangle of scrubby trees some fifty miles to the southwest of Four Corners, Hunter and Reilly sat on the ground, leaning against their bags, Hunter drinking a Coke while Reilly sank the last but one of the cans of beer, and eating chocolate. Around them, the light was fading and Hunter could see the first stars beginning to appear against the darkening sky.

  ‘Hate to think what this diet’s doin’ to my complexion,’ Reilly said, wadding a chocolate bar wrapper into a ball and tossing it to the ground.

  ‘You’ll survive,’ Hunter said.

  ‘How’re we doin’?’ Reilly asked, as Hunter studied a chart.

  ‘Pretty good, all things considered. After Parkersburg and Indianapolis, I’d planned to refuel near St Louis, Kansas City, Wichita and Trinidad, Colorado – that’s a total of six stops today – but the duster’s been a lot more economical than I’d expected. We stretched each leg to better than four hundred and fifty miles, which meant only four refuelling stops and saved us time. It
also reduced the risk of some farmer seeing us parked on his land and asking a lot of awkward questions.’

  Hunter stretched his arms and yawned. ‘I’m not sorry to have stopped, though,’ he added.

  ‘You and me both,’ Reilly said. ‘If I never see another crop duster again, that’ll be just fine with me. And tomorrow?’

  ‘We’ve still got the fuel in the chemical tanks,’ Hunter said, ‘but it doesn’t look like we’re going to have to use it. The main tank is about three quarters full, so that gives us a range of around three hundred miles. From here, we’ll follow the state boundary to the north of the Grand Canyon, then head down towards Las Vegas. We’ll need to park the duster somewhere where it won’t be noticed too quickly, then borrow a car – that’s your department – and get ourselves into Vegas.’

  ‘And then?’ Reilly asked.

  ‘And then we start asking questions,’ Hunter said. ‘The only lead we’ve got is that the Roland Oliver subjects get shipped out from McCarran Air Force Base, so that’s where we’ll start.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Reilly said, doubtfully.

  ‘Have you got a better idea?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘Dunno,’ Reilly said, ‘but getting into McCarran could be a bitch. The Air Force’s security’s gonna be real tight, especially where these Roland Oliver people are concerned. And don’t forget that if the guys running these clean-up squads have got an ounce of brain between ’em, they’re gonna expect us to pitch up at McCarran.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Hunter said. ‘So?’

  ‘Well, I’m just wonderin’ if maybe we can kinda sneak up on the problem from a different angle. Make Roland Oliver come to us, rather than us trying to find them.’

  ‘Oh, yes? And how?’

  Reilly drained the last of his beer and dropped the can on the ground.

  ‘I’m gettin’ fed up with this stuff, too,’ he said, inconsequentially. ‘Not sure, yet. I got a glimmer of an idea, but I’m gonna sleep on it. What time’s breakfast?’