Sekret Machines Book 1: Chasing Shadows

by Tom DeLonge

  Alan did as he was told, his fingers suddenly clumsy. Morat talked him through the next stages, the engagement of an entirely different thrust and navigation system accessed through a console that had been dark on his previous flights. Now it blazed with illuminated digital diagrams, graphs and gauges. As Alan’s mind raced, Morat kept talking in a level, matter-of-fact voice.

  “Okay,” said Morat. “I’m synced with your systems remotely so I can see your status. I’ll let you know if anything doesn’t look right. And don’t worry. The Locust is designed to protect itself and there’ll be no thermal build up as we go. The ship won’t let you do anything crazy or incompetent without making you jump through a whole lot of clarifications and overrides.”

  “Thanks for that vote of confidence,” said Alan. He was, he knew, tipped up on his back, the earth behind him, but he felt quite level, normal even, though his arms felt lighter than usual when he moved them. “Where exactly are we heading?”

  “The upper thermosphere, assuming we don’t burn up en route.”

  “What?”

  “Kidding,” said Morat. He was enjoying himself. “Like I said, friction is for ordinary pilots. Enter the following coordinates and set your speed range to yellow. As we cross over the mesosphere, another set of sub-controls will activate and heat shields will close over your windows. You don’t need to do anything, but as we emerge, the ship will shift to an entirely different propulsion system. It will feel a little different, but it’s quite normal and you don’t need to do anything. These things practically fly themselves.”

  “So why am I here?” asked Alan. He was genuinely nervous now. Even frightened.

  Morat just laughed. “Good one,” he said. “Okay. Engage when ready. I’ll see you on the other side.”

  Alan closed his eyes for a second, took a breath, and hit what he continued to think of as the ignition. Rightly or not, he had no idea.

  The ship leapt forward, which was to say—he had to remind himself—that it leapt up, an impossible vertical surge of gravity defying acceleration accompanied, for once, by a distinct rumble of energy. Ignition, he decided, was right after all.

  The Locust’s speed was staggering. It didn’t so much fly out of the troposphere and into the stratosphere as punch through, getting faster still as it hit the rarefied air of the mesosphere. He was sixty miles above the earth and climbing at the same staggering rate, the altimeter flashing a constant stream of numbers: 200 knots. 350. 500. And then, at last, with the thermosphere falling away below, the engines powered down and Alan, sweating for reasons that had nothing to do with the external temperature any ordinary ship would have just generated, looked out.

  All was suddenly still and silent. Above him was blackness. And stars. Below was a pale blue ball, swirled with white, the earth itself, incandescent in the dark. It was breathtaking.

  “This is Night Bird One,” said Morat’s voice over the headset. “All okay, Phoenix?”

  Alan cleared his throat.

  “I think so,” he said. “Everything looks good.”

  It was easily the most inadequate thing he had ever said, and that—as Lacey would have pointed out—was saying something. He gazed out into the furthest reaches of space, taking it all in—or trying to—as Morat’s voice talked him through what he called the LEO—low earth orbit—operating systems.

  “You’ve got to be more conscious of fuel levels up here,” he was saying. “Little bursts are all you need. And try to get the heading right the first time. Constant adjustment reduces dwell time.”

  Alan was barely listening. He was in orbit—higher, in fact, than the International Space Station, and outside his cockpit, the air was so thin its properties were not very different from the vacuum of space. He was gazing down from what had been called “the heavens” for thousands of years, a view few men or women had ever seen with their own eyes, and if someone on the planet’s surface somehow got a glimpse of him, he would appear as a star. He had been a pilot. Now he was an astronaut.

  “… which is why all counter-detection measures are automatically engaged as you leave the lower atmosphere, though that means you have to be alert to your own proximity warnings.” Morat explained. “Satellites won’t move for you because they won’t see you coming. You got that, Major? Phoenix, do you read?”

  “Yeah,” said Alan, absently. “Yes, Night Bird One, I’m here. Just … taking it all in.”

  Insofar as anyone could.

  “Okay,” said Morat. “Let’s try some maneuvering exercises.”

  He either hadn’t heard the awe in Alan’s voice or chose to ignore it.

  For the next hour Alan flexed the Locust’s LOE capabilities, moving from point to point, stopping, turning, changing altitudes and executing a range of rolls and banks, dives and climbs. Surprisingly, and in spite of the fact that every thrust had to be countered by another just to bring the vessel to a halt or change its direction, the Locust functioned more like a conventional aircraft up here. Banks of nozzles along each edge lit like jet or rocket engines, glowing bluish as they fired, so that following Morat it was almost possible to imagine they were flying in formation over foreign seas. It was a relief to find something up here that took the edge off the strangeness. Alan found his nervous apprehension draining away as they soared through the blackness over the rolling planet.

  They kept well clear of the International Space Station, “In case someone happens to be looking out the window,” Morat said, but they navigated their way through an array of satellites, most of them strange, ungainly things glittering with gold and sprouting wing-like solar panels of cobalt blue. Many of them bristled with antennae and dishes, but others looked like the shiny innards of oversized domestic appliances—housings of coils and struts, drums and irregular boxes, disks and tubes—their functions impossible to guess at. None of them would detect the Locusts “unless you actually hit them,” Morat deadpanned, “which we try not to do.” What were they worth, Alan wondered, these drifting hunks of technology? Billions, maybe more. All hanging in their orbits for him to waltz around, like a child in a museum after dark. A burst of weapons fire and he could cripple the business interests or surveillance systems of a dozen countries. In any future conflict involving the USA, the Locust would surely play a part up here.

  The streak of light came from above, arcing across the blackness, a point of light with a tail.

  “What’s that?” he said.

  “What do you see, Phoenix?” Morat returned.

  “Bogey at eleven o clock. Now ten. Wait …” He checked his instruments but no movement registered. “I’ve lost it.”

  “Negative on that, Phoenix,” said Morat. “Probably a meteor or a piece of space trash burning up on re-entry.”

  Alan craned his neck to stare through the window, bringing the Locust about almost absentmindedly as he did so. His instruments were, after all, showing him nothing. He pivoted the Locust.

  “You’re changing heading, Phoenix,” Morat said.

  “Just seeing if I can get a better look,” said Alan.

  “It was nothing. Leave it.”

  “Hold on,” Alan mused, firing the Locust’s thrusters and shooting forward in the direction of the light he’d seen. For a moment it was like he was back at Safid Kuh, the brilliant light burning in the sky in front of him, his weapons jammed, men—his men—dying on the ground below …

  “Hold your position, Phoenix,” said Morat.

  “One second,” said Alan. Nothing was shutting his systems down today, not in the Locust, and he wasn’t about to let the bogey slip away. He sped toward it, adjusting to go round a satellite that hung like a great shining metal insect in the sky, all legs and antennae.

  “Phoenix, we have a mission to perform. You need to return …”

  Alan, barely hearing him, said nothing. His attention was riveted to the other vessel up here in the black where nothing should be. Because he could see it again now. As he had come around the ungainly satellite he
had seen it, a sleek silver arrowhead with three blue white flares on its trailing edge.

  Engines.

  “That’s no meteor,” he whispered.

  “Phoenix, I insist that you hold your position,” came Morat’s voice over his headset.

  “There’s something up here,” Alan replied, staring at it. The ship—it was a ship, it had to be—banked and accelerated away. His right hand strayed to the console and, with a touch, activated his weapon systems. “I’m going after it.”

  35

  JENNIFER

  Heathrow Airport, London

  JENNIFER HAD BOOKED HER FLIGHT FROM A VISIBLY uneasy ticketing agent whose eyes kept straying to the smears of dirt she hadn’t been able to get off her clothes when she cleaned up. Jennifer thought how lucky it was that her passport was still in her purse. She kept an eye on the airport police, staying close to them where possible, but she did not speak to them. Her mission was to get out of the country, and nothing was to get in the way of that.

  She had just enough time, before her flight, to buy a carry-on suitcase and enough over-priced clothes in the airport shops to last her a week. She didn’t relax until the plane backed away from the jetway and began to taxi.

  She flew British Airways to Washington, DC, landing at Dulles Airport. The destination had almost been selected at random, but not quite. On the plane, she opened up her laptop, paid for Wi-Fi, and read everything she could find on Senator Tom Powers, the Nevada Republican whose name had been in her father’s files, a man who had visited their house in her teen years. He looked much the same now as he did then: pale, well-groomed, with ice blue eyes and a handsome bearing that was as much attitude and confidence as it was bone structure. He was in his late sixties now, what the media called a Washington insider. She e-mailed his office, saying who she was and requesting a meeting.

  More misplaced trust?

  No. Powers’ connection to her father was real and proven over time. And she would be more careful about what she told him than she had been with Letrange.

  The thought of him needled her. She’d been duped, her instincts manipulated by a skilled liar. How could someone be that good at deception? It was more than work skills. He was a sociopath. She wondered if he was working for anyone other than the Maynard Consortium, but could find only the thinnest of professional profiles online, and nothing telling. Of the Interpol agent Chevalier, there was no online trace at all. She kicked herself again, feeling the old angry spike of humiliation that she had been so completely played.

  At least he didn’t get you into bed first, she thought.

  Had that been a possibility, part of his long game? She shuddered at the thought, not so much with revulsion, but at the horror of it being all too plausible. She’d considered it. Under other circumstances, it may already have happened.

  She pushed the thought away, studying her computer and making mental notes, until her eyes ached with the strain and she closed them for a moment, waking an hour and a half later over the Atlantic ocean. She woke up her laptop and sent Deacon an e-mail, in which she told him everything except where she was going, asking him to report all that had happened directly to the police. She was taking no chances now.

  I’m e-mailing the police the whole story and will call them myself, once I get settled. I’m sorry. I hope this all blows over soon. I’d like to come home and see you.

  The rest of the flight was uneventful. Awake now, she stared uncomprehendingly at two different movies, was rude to the middle-aged businessman beside her who tried to flirt with her, and finally slept for the last two hours. She was hungry enough to eat whatever they put in front of her and, as they came in to land, drank a Diet Coke. She wanted to be wide awake when they touched down.

  They landed in Washington at two in the morning, East Coast time. She saw no sign that anyone was anticipating her arrival, and made her way directly to ground transportation, where she boarded the first hotel shuttle she saw. The driver said there were rooms available at the Westin in Weston Heights. She had no idea where that was, but it didn’t matter. She signed in as a Miss Andrea Bell, though she had to use her credit card to cover her costs, so she doubted that would stand too much scrutiny if anyone was looking for her. The room was on the fifth floor, elegantly modern and spacious in ways hotels in England almost never were. She set the alarm for seven and slept. By the time she awoke, there was an e-mail from the office of Senator Tom Powers waiting in her inbox. She read it, changed her clothes, and called a cab.

  Jennifer had never been to the US capital before. She was underwhelmed. The hotel district was new and featureless, and the highway could have been any busy city artery during morning rush hour. It was with something of a shock when she caught her first glimpse of the Washington Monument, stabbing upwards out of the trees over the Potomac. By the time her taxi had left her outside the Hart Building on Constitution Avenue, there was no doubt that she was in the heart of the world’s most powerful government, and was meant to feel its presence.

  The Hart Building, in spite of its marble façade, was blockish and modern-looking, without the neo-classical elegance of its surroundings. It felt utilitarian, which was fine as far as Jennifer was concerned. She didn’t want to be overawed any more than was strictly necessary.

  Powers’ office was on the third floor, above the Central Hearings chamber. Jennifer looked for an elevator, crossing the great atrium with its static mobile of dark, cloudlike shapes suspended over spiky metal mountains. The Senator’s secretary announced her, and she was ushered in almost immediately.

  He was older than the pictures on his web page suggested, and without the careful lighting and photoshopping, he looked haggard. The smile he gave her was weary and a little sad.

  “Miss Quinn,” he said, rising and extending his hand. “You have no idea how sorry I was to hear about your father’s passing. I sent flowers to the funeral but my schedule …”

  “They were much appreciated, Senator, thank you,” said Jennifer, who had not known about the flowers.

  “So what can I do for you? I can arrange a tour of the building, including a trip on our rather exclusive little monorail, if you like, but maybe you’re a bit old for that now. It’s been what, ten years since I saw you last?”

  “About that.”

  “Edward doted on you. You must feel his loss very deeply.”

  Jennifer nodded and smiled but she was keeping a tight rein on her feelings so that she could watch him. “I was wondering if you could tell me something about your business dealings?” she said, sitting as he did.

  “With Edward?”

  “Or with the Maynard Consortium generally.”

  She said it lightly, as if the distinction didn’t matter, but she saw the caution in his face immediately.

  “I’m not sure I have had any direct dealings with Maynard,” he said.

  She smiled at his use of direct. Of course he hadn’t. Maynard was all about indirection, money passing through multiple hands before it reached its destination.

  “Was there a specific transaction you were interested in?”

  He was testing the waters, she thought. Trying to find how much she knew.

  “Well, on November the fourth of last year, a political action committee supporting you received a contribution of forty-thousand dollars from a Nate Hapsel.”

  Powers performed a memory search and smiled.

  “Ah yes. Nate is a rancher in my home state,” he said. “Very successful and committed to staying so. You understand, of course, that my re-election committee had nothing to do with any PACs supporting me. That would be illegal. I believe Nate had concerns about federal encroachment into private lands…”

  “No doubt,” Jennifer interrupted. “But the money wasn’t really his, was it? It came via an account in Singapore, through his hands, but the transaction originated with Maynard.”

  “Oh, I think it’s very hard to say what dollars belong to whom, once they come out of someone’s bank,” s
aid Powers, smiling his politician’s smile. “It was still Mr. Hapsel’s money, however he came by it. Do you mind my asking what this is all about? We have inquiries set up to look into campaign finance, and I have been cleared at every level. I hope you aren’t suggesting anything untoward.”

  “Not at all,” said Jennifer, matching his smile. “I’m really just trying to fill in some details about my father’s interests. For personal reasons.”

  “Quite,” said the Senator, nodding thoughtfully.

  “When did you last speak to him?” Jennifer asked.

  “Oh, a month or so before he passed. He seemed in good spirits. A real tragedy and a shock to hear …”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Oh, this and that. The implications of a trade deal, I think. I really don’t remember very well.”

  “So it wasn’t specifically a SWEEP project?”

  Again, her approach was light, conversational, but the Senator was not as good a liar as Chevalier/Letrange. He blanched, and his eyes flashed to the door in case someone might overhear. When he spoke his voice was low and hoarse.

  “I’m not familiar with that er … entity.”

  “Yes, Senator, you are,” said Jennifer, “and I have the files to prove it.”

  He stared at her and his fingers began to drum on the edge of his desk.

  “What do you want?” he said at last.

  “Information,” she said.

  “About SWEEP? Out of the question.”

  “Senator, I am not looking to make life difficult for you, but I think my father had become involved in something he wanted to step away from. Something involving investments of which he did not approve. I need to find out what. I owe him that much. I suspect you do too.”

  “Me?”

  “Those contributions to your election campaign began a long time ago. As we were saying, there are laws against foreign campaign contributions, and there are ways around those laws. Your first successful run depended on them, if I’m not mistaken. My father was part of the decision to support you. I have proof of that.”