by Jim DeFelice
Ray Rubeo could be cynical and hardheaded. More than one of his former employees would certainly swear that he was heartless. And in many ways he was and had always been a loner — a fact attested to by his home on a ranch of several thousand acres in the remote high plains of New Mexico.
But Rubeo also believed that science was, ultimately, a force for good. He had seen evil many times over the years, and in his heart he believed that science must fight against it. Not only in the vague sense of defeating the confusion and chaos of the unknown, but directly and immediately: if science was a product of man’s better nature, then surely it found its greatest calling in fighting man’s worst nature.
That was, for him, the simple reason that science and war coexisted: science opposed evil.
It was true, he conceded, that occasionally science was misused. Such things were inevitable. But they did not negate the fact that he counted himself among the good. He was not a religious man — at least from a conventional point of view he was arguably the opposite — but he was nonetheless moral.
And so, looking at the images he had just been sent, he felt his stomach turn.
It was not the destruction, or even the body of the child burned so badly that it was barely recognizable as human.
It was the fact that this destruction had been caused by his own invention, the intelligence system that guided the Sabre UM/F–9S.
Rubeo reacted to the video uncharacteristically — he deleted it. Then he flipped his tablet computer onto the table, got up and walked across the kitchen to the coffee machine. As it began brewing a fresh pot, he went out on the patio behind his house.
The sun was just rising over the hills. It was a brilliant sunrise, casting a pink glow on the clouds. The landscape in front of the rays brightened, the rocks and tall trees popping out as if they had been painted.
Rubeo walked to the far end of the patio, breathing in the air. He thought of the many people he’d known over the years, thought of the campaigns he’d been involved in, thought of the few people he regarded as friends.
Faces of those who were gone came at him. Jennifer Gleason, his assistant, his protégée — the only scientist who was truly smarter than he was, one of the few he’d turn to for advice on a difficult problem.
Gone, way before her time.
Too much nostalgia. Nostalgia was a useless sentimentality, a waste of time.
Back inside the house, Rubeo went down to his workout room and went through his morning routine quickly. The phones were ringing — his encrypted satellite phone, the work line, the private house line, and even the cell phone no one supposedly knew about.
He showered.
In the kitchen, he picked up the tablet and was glad to see that he hadn’t broken it. He brought up his messaging program and retrieved the deleted file. He forced himself to look at it again. Finally, he took his private cell phone from the counter and called Levon Jons.
“Pack,” he told him. “I need to leave in an hour.”
“Uh, OK,” said the former Marine.
Jons headed security for Rubeo’s wholly owned company, Applied Intelligence, doubling as his personal bodyguard overseas. Rubeo knew that Jons was barely awake, but that was immaterial.
“What kinda clothes and how long?” asked Jons.
“It will be a few days at least,” said Rubeo. He tapped the face of the tablet and got a weather report for Sicily. “It’ll be warm during the day, cool at night. Thirty Celsius, down to twelve.”
“English?”
“You are looking for Fahrenheit, Levon,” said Rubeo dryly. “Roughly 85 degrees down to 54.”
“OK. Where are we going?”
“Sicily, for starters.”
4
Sicily
After a seemingly endless series of debriefs and interviews with intelligence officers and command, Turk was “released,” in the words of the German colonel who was the chief of staff to the head operations officer, General Bernard Talekson. The colonel was not particularly adept at English, but the word choice struck Turk as unfortunately appropriate. More sessions were scheduled for the next day, and they would undoubtedly be more “rigorous”—another word used by the colonel with understated precision.
Turk was surprised when he left the headquarters building that it was only early afternoon; it felt as if he had been inside forever. Buses ran in a continuous loop between the various administrative buildings and the hangar areas. He hopped one and rode over to the area where the Tigershark and Sabres were kept. This was a secure area within the base; only personnel directly related to the mission were allowed beyond the cordon set up by the Italian security police.
All of the aircraft had been taken inside the hangars. The Tigershark sat alone, parked almost dead center in the wide-open expanse of Hangar AC–84a. The Tigershark was a small aircraft — it would have fit inside the wings of an F–35. It looked even smaller inside the hangar, which had been built to shelter a C–5A cargo aircraft. So small, in fact, that even Turk wondered how he fit in the damn thing.
Chahel Ratha, one of the lead engineers on the Sabre team, was kneeling under the belly of the plane, shaking his head and mumbling to himself.
“Hey Rath, what’s up?” asked Turk.
Ratha bolted upright so quickly Turk thought he was going to jump onto the plane.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” said Turk.
“Then you should not sneak up on peoples!” said the engineer sharply. Even though he was American — born and bred outside Chicago — Ratha spoke with an Indian accent when he was excited. He blamed this on his parents, both naturalized citizens.
“Sorry,” said Turk.
“Yeah, sorry, sorry. Yeah. Sorry.”
Ratha waved his hand dismissively, then walked away, heading toward one of the benches at the far side of the office.
“Jeez,” said Turk.
“Hasn’t had his herbal tea today,” said Gene Hurley, another of the maintainers. “Don’t take it personally.”
An Air Force contract worker, Hurley headed the maintenance team. Because of the advanced nature of the aircraft, the technical people were a mix of regular Air Force and private workers. Hurley had actually worked in the service for over twenty years before retiring. He claimed to be doing essentially what he had always done — but now got paid twice as much.
“He’s freaking about the investigation,” said Hurley. “And on top of that, all the janitors are on strike. Toilets are backed up and there’s no one around to fix them.”
“Really?”
“Italians are always on strike.” Hurley shook his head. “Even the ones from Africa. If you gotta use the john, your best bet is hiking all the way over to the admin building. Or taking your chances behind the hangar.”
“That sucks.”
Hurley shrugged. “Third strike since we got here. I don’t know why. The service people are always changing. And they’re pretty incompetent to begin with. But at least the toilets worked.”
“I just came by to see if you guys needed me,” said Turk.
“No, we’re good for now. Maybe tomorrow after we finish benchmarking everything we’ll get down to some tests.”
“Any clue what happened?”
Hurley shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to guess,” he said. “But if I did, I would start by saying that it almost surely didn’t have anything to do with the Tigershark. But, you know — if I could guess about things, I’d be making a fortune betting on baseball.”
“I’m going to knock off. Probably go back to the hotel,” Turk told him. “You need me, hit my sat phone.”
“Sure thing.”
Turk started away.
“We’ll get it eventually, Captain,” added Hurley. “We’ll get you back in the air. Eventually.”
* * *
Eventually.
The word stuck in Turk’s consciousness as he rode the bus back toward the admin buildings. In his experience, “eventually” meant one of two
things: never, and the day after never.
It was sick how quickly everything had turned sour. By all rights he should be celebrating right now — he had kicked ass and shot down four enemy aircraft in quick succession.
Four. He was still tingling about it.
Or should be. He could hardly even think about it.
The shoot-downs had been almost entirely glossed over in the debriefs. All anyone wanted to know about was the Sabre screwup.
Naturally. Stinking robot planes were the curse of the world. UAVs were taking over military aviation. The Predator, Reaper, Global Hawk, Flighthawks, now the Sabres — in four or five years there wouldn’t be a manned combat plane in the sky.
The Tigershark was supposed to show that man was still needed. He was supposed to show that man was still needed.
And this accident showed…
Nothing, as far as Turk was concerned. Maybe it would demonstrate why UAVs were not to be trusted, but somehow he didn’t think that was going to happen. There was too much momentum, and too much money, for that to happen.
The bus stopped near the buildings used by the Italian base hosts, pausing for a few minutes because it was slightly ahead of schedule. Feeling antsy, Turk decided to get off and walk over to the lot where he had parked his car. It was a decent walk — about twenty minutes if he didn’t dally too much — but it was just the sort of thing he needed to clear his head.
“Ciao,” he told the driver, pretty much exhausting his store of Italian as he clambered down the steps.
They were miles from the sea, but the air was heavy with it today. The sun peeked in and out of the clouds, keeping the temperature pleasant. Sicily could be brutally hot, even in March.
Turk cut through the maze of admin buildings, zigging toward the lot. As he did, he heard something he’d rarely if ever heard on a military air base before — the sound of children playing. Curious, he took a sharp right between a pair of buildings and found himself at the back of a building used as a day care center by the Italian staff. A low chain-link fence separated a paved play area from the roadway.
A group of ten-year-olds playing a vigorous game of soccer caught Turk’s eye and he stopped to watch. The kids were good. He had played soccer himself through high school, making all-county at midfield. He admired the way the kids handled the ball, able to move up not only through a line of defenders but across dips and cracks in the pavement without tripping or looking down at the ball.
Suddenly, the ball shot over the fence. Turk leapt up and grabbed it, goalkeeper style, as it was about to sail over his head. He hammed it up, clutching the ball to his chest and then waving it, as if he’d just caught a penalty kick at the World Cup.
The kids stared at him. There wasn’t so much as a half smile among them.
“Here ya go,” he yelled, tossing it back.
The player closest to it ran over, tapped it up with his knee, then headed it back over the fence. This was a challenge Turk couldn’t turn down — he met it with his forehead, bouncing it back.
He was out of practice — the ball sailed far to the left rather than going back in the direction of the kid who had butted it to him. Another child caught it on his chest, let it drop and then booted a missile.
Turk jumped and caught it. He motioned with a mock angry face, pretended he was going to haul it back in the child’s direction, then meekly lobbed it over toward the kid who had headed it earlier.
The boy caught it on his knee, flipped it behind him, and tried juggling it on the heel of his foot. But that was too much, even for the little soccer star in the making: the ball dribbled away. One of his teammates grabbed it and flicked it back to Turk, who kicked it and managed to get it over to the kid who’d launched the missile earlier.
The back-and-forth continued for a while longer, and in fact might never have ended except for a van that pulled up at the head of the alleyway.
“Is that you, Turk?” called the man in the passenger seat.
It was Zen Stockard.
Turk bounced the ball back to the children and gave them a wave, then trotted over to the van.
“Bravo, il Americano,” yelled the kids. “Bravo!”
“You have a fan club,” said Zen.
“Just little kids — you see how good they are at soccer?”
“They look pretty good.”
“I wish I was half that good now, let alone at their age.”
“You seem to be holding up well,” Zen told him. “You want a lift to your hotel?”
“I have a car in the lot.”
“Rental?”
“There’s like a pool at the hotel. You sign for it. Some days there’s no cars, some days you have your pick.”
“Hop in, we’ll give you a ride.”
Turk reached to the rear passenger door and slid it open. Jason Black was behind the wheel.
“I’m not supposed to say anything to you,” Turk said. “Just, uh, just so you know.”
“Colonel Freah told you that?”
“No, uh, General Dalce, the Frenchman.”
“The intelligence chief, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
Zen chuckled at some private joke.
“Thanks for meeting my plane, Senator,” said Turk. “I appreciate it.”
“Not a problem. I’ve been there.”
Turk liked Zen — a lot — and he liked his wife, Breanna Stockard, who as head of the Office of Special Technology was his ultimate boss. But he wasn’t entirely sure what he could or should say. Zen had been friendly and reassuring when he landed, but Turk hadn’t been in the mood to talk. And now the questions the investigators asked made him suspicious that they were going to try and find some way of blaming him for the accident.
If there was an inquiry, Congress would probably eventually get involved. Anything he said now might come back to haunt him.
“You flying tomorrow?” asked Zen.
“Planes are grounded. I don’t know — I’m sure I’ll have to answer a lot of questions.”
Zen was quiet for a moment. “I always tried to get right back in the air as soon as I could. Take a milk run or anything.”
“Yes, sir.” His options were pretty damn limited, Turk thought, but he didn’t say that.
“I can mention that you’re available, if you want,” said Zen. “I know General Pierce pretty well.”
“Sure.” Pierce was the head of the American flying contingent. He was a two-star general; Turk had met him exactly once, in a reception line.
“Nice flying in that encounter,” Zen continued. “Four shoot-downs in the space of what? Two minutes.”
“I think it might have been a little less, actually.”
“Damn good. Damn good.”
“Thanks.”
It was high praise coming from Zen, who had pioneered remote combat piloting with the Flighthawks and had several dozen kills to his credit.
“I just kind of, you know, hit my marks,” added Turk.
“I’m sure it was more than that.”
“Well. It’s what I did.”
Turk wanted to say something more, but wasn’t sure exactly what it should be. And so the conversation died.
Turk directed the driver to the car, which was near the front of the lot.
“Thanks for the ride,” he told Zen as he got out.
“Any time,” replied Zen. “You have the rest of the day off?”
“Oh yeah. I figure I’ll catch something to eat. Maybe do some sightseeing or something later on. I’ll be around, though.”
“If you need anything, you should let me know.”
“Yes, sir. Thanks.”
* * *
Zen watched the young officer walk to his car. He couldn’t blame Turk for being angry, even if he did hide it fairly well. The storm clouds were already thick and getting thicker. The Libyan government had picked up the images off YouTube and was circulating them far and wide. The casualty reports ranged from three to three dozen. A bevy of
international journalists were en route, as evidenced by their Twitter feeds.
A tsunami of condemnation was sure to follow. Zen suspected that the matter would be brought before the UN General Assembly within twenty-four hours.
The only question was what effect it would have on the Western powers. Already there were rumors of a “pause” in the air campaign.
He turned to Jason. “We might as well go over to our hotel.”
“He’s pretty down,” said Jason.
“Yeah, I don’t blame him.”
“All hell’s going to break loose, huh?”
“Hopefully not on him,” said Zen. “He seems like a good kid.”
“Did he screw up?”
“Hard to say for sure, but I doubt it. Complicated systems.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s practically a modern ace. He got those shoot-downs. Nobody’s going to give him credit, though. They’ll think the computer did it.”
“But he was flying the plane.”
“Yeah, but they won’t think about that.”
As Zen knew from his own experience, there was a sometimes bitter divide between “traditional” pilots and remote pilots. Turk actually fit into neither camp, as he did both.
In fact, it wasn’t even easy to say where Turk fit in administratively. Technically, he was a test pilot assigned to the Office of Special Projects, doing temporary duty assigned to the allied flight command as part of a project to test the Sabres. He wasn’t even an official part of Whiplash — the DoD and CIA joint command, which temporarily “owned” the Sabre UAVs on behalf of Special Projects.
“I’m just glad I’m not in the middle of it,” said Zen. “What’s the latest on Rome?”
“Flight is still on tomorrow for ten,” said Jason. “You’ll get there just in time for the opening speeches.”
“Can’t arrange to miss that bit, huh?”
“I thought—”
“Just teasing. Come on, let’s go grab some dinner.”