by Jim DeFelice
She saw him now: the way he looked at her on the access ramp outside the aircraft, puzzled. Why was that what she thought about — not their date rock climbing, or the time she’d had him take her to an opera.
Some opera. It was a traveling company in a gymnasium. He’d hated it — just about fallen asleep — but pretended to be interested when she started talking about it later, nodding in all the right places.
She was right, and she had done the right thing. This proved it, didn’t it?
Others wouldn’t see it that way. Tom wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
“ETA to the target area is now five minutes,” said the weapons operator.
“Yes,” she said, still struggling to focus.
Chapter 13
“Only a partial hit on target two,” reported Cyclops as Howe swung his aircraft toward the shoot-down. Both helicopters had disappeared from the screen seconds after the indicators flashed on Howe’s screen, indicating the weapon had discharged. “They’re definitely down, though.”
“I’m going to take a look,” Howe told them, slapping the throttle into afterburner. The flood of fuel into the rear chamber — tweaked and perfected after literally thousands of man-hours of fuss — ignited with a smooth, incredibly powerful ripple that nearly doubled the aircraft’s speed. The nozzle at the front of the engine was wide open, changing the world’s most efficient-at-speed jet engine into the world’s fastest jet-fueled power plant. The F/A-22V covered over thirty miles a minute, a proud cheetah running down her prey on the Africa savanna.
Howe’s heart beat lackadaisically, keeping time like the bass drum in a band, its cadence lazy enough for the hottest summer day. But his stomach felt the brief burst of acceleration — his stomach and the muscles in his arms, the tendons at his knees, his ribs, his joints, the small fibers of hair below his ear. They felt the acceleration and they thrilled to it. This was flying, moving through the air as fast as a Greek god, the leading edge of sheer thought. The aircraft strapped on his back was one of the best—the best—pieces of machinery ever perfected by man, attached through an electronic umbilical cord to a weapon as powerful as Zeus’s lightning bolts.
And it had just been used to avert World War III.
Thomas Howe, and the nearly thousand men and women connected to the mission, had just saved several million lives.
The idea was as intoxicating as the speed.
“Doesn’t that sound like a worthy thing to do? It’s something I’d die for. Truly.”
Howe pushed Megan’s voice back into the rush of the jet as he eased back on the gas, swooping to give the radar’s ground mode a good look at the wreckage. They needed to make sure the helicopters truly were down.
Timmy checked in, updating him on the attack package that was following the helicopters toward the border. The lead plane was now about twenty minutes from Pakistani airspace; they’d planned the attack very closely, giving the ground people ten minutes to take their targets.
Would they go ahead with the attack if the radars were still working?
No one knew. If they did, Cyclops Two and the Velociraptors would take them out.
“I have the lead plane,” said Timmy.
“Stick to the game plan,” Howe told him. “We’ve got plenty of time.”
He tucked his wing and plunged toward earth, flicking off the holographic HUD projection. The night was dark but clear, and he could see a pinpoint of fire at about ten o’clock in his windscreen, one of the targets burning after it had crashed.
“Splash one, definite,” reported Howe.
He was moving too fast and still too high to see much, even if it had been daytime. He went back to the synthetic view as he slid around the valley. The radar hunted the ground as if it were in its free-form attack mode, developed to help the next-generation attack planes turn up Scud missiles in tinhorn dictators’ palaces. The ground radar that the Indians had been targeting was only a few miles ahead; his RWR noted that it was active and hunting through the sky, though the Velociraptor had not yet been detected.
Push a button, and he could take it out himself.
Howe slapped the side stick, banking away. He hadn’t found the wreckage of the second helicopter, but he also hadn’t found it flying, either.
“Those MiGs are coming hard,” warned Timmy. “Eight of ’em.”
“We have them all,” said the Cyclops pilot.
“Hold on,” said Howe. “Wait until they’re at the border.”
“Hey, Colonel, you see that contact Unk-2?” said Timmy, referring to the computer tag on the large unknown aircraft flying northward near the Indian coast. “What’s his game, you figure?”
“Has to be a spy plane,” suggested Howe, just as he had earlier.
“Not Indian, though. Came off the ocean.”
“Could be the Russians.” They were a bit too far away to get good information about the aircraft, but its size and speed made it fairly obvious that it wasn’t part of the attack package.
Advising them, maybe, though one of Howe’s own ELINT aircraft ought to be picking up signals in that case. Cobra Two reported that the Indian forces were still flying silent com. The Pakistanis, meanwhile, did not seem to know anything was amiss.
“Lead MiG will be in range of the Pak radar in zero three,” said Timmy. “I don’t know…. He’s pretty low; hemight just get through.”
“We wait until he’s committed to crossing the border,” said Howe. He’d begun to climb now, swinging around the coverage area of the radar site. All of the Pakistani flights had returned to their bases; the only thing that the PAF had in the air were two Mirage IIIs back near Lahore. Besides the attack package closing in on the Kashmir border, the Indians had their 767 radar plane and its escorts flying near the border to the west, giving them coverage just about to Afghanistan.
Howe suspected that the Indians had other groups of planes airborne to the south, out of his task force’s detection range; they’d be preparing a follow-on strike once the first group of planes took out the sites. At the moment, though, they were too far off to see or worry about.
“One minute to border,” said Timmy. The two Velociraptors had separated about fifteen miles, Howe to the northeast and Timmy to the southwest of the lead MiG. They could divvy it up between them if they had to.
“Cyclops is tracking. We’re ready anytime, Colonel.”
“Bird One.”
“MiGs are slowing — turning! Shit,” said Timmy.
“Don’t sound too disappointed, my friend,” said Howe. “This just means we did our job.”
“Yeah, well, figures they’d wimp out,” said the wingman.
Howe laughed. His joints cracked; he hadn’t realized how tense he’d become.
“Bird One, be advised the strike force you’ve been tracking has used the word abort,” radioed Cobra Two.
“Bird One acknowledges. Well done, team. Kick-ass job, everybody,” said Howe. “How we looking out there, Timmy?”
“All I see is fannies with tails between their legs, scurrying home,” replied the wingman. “Our UFO’s still coming north, though. Sucker’s going to be at the border in, like, zero-five.”
“Yeah, I see,” said Howe.
“Maybe we ought to check him out,” suggested Timmy.
“Negative,” said Howe. “Cyclops, you’re cleared to head back to the barn.”
“That would be cave,” said Atta, the Cyclops pilot.
“Just don’t run into Ulysses,” said Howe.
Cyclops banked north, heading for its temporary Afghanistan base. The other aircraft checked in; Howe listened to the AWACS escorts working out a tank with Budweiser, the KC-135 assigned to make sure they didn’t go dry.
“Hey, that unknown contact is hitting the gas,” said Timmy. “They should be on Pakistani radar by now.”
“Bird Leader, be advised Mirage flight is being vectored south,” said Eyes.
“Confirming that,” said the AWACS controller. “Not sure what the
y’re doing. Could be heading for that unidentified contact, R2.”
The Pakistani airplanes would be picked up by the Indian radar plane quickly.
“Shit!” yelled Timmy. “MiGs are turning back.”
For a second, panic surged through Howe: the irrational fear he’d felt in the wake of the accident.
Then it was gone. He squeezed his hand on the stick, felt himself relaxing ever so slightly, giving himself over to the plane.
“MiG flight is receiving new orders,” said Cobra Two. “They’re being told to proceed…. They’re proceeding!”
“Understood,” said Howe. “Cyclops, give me status.”
Chapter 14
NADT’s headquarters was not marked from the highway, although Fisher surmised he was in the right place by the strategic rock formations that sheltered video cameras along the driveway. A half-mile in from the road, a row of closely spaced trees partially hid a picket fence extending around the property; the pickets themselves half camouflaged a grid of wires, probably electrically charged.
A guard post sat where the fence and one-lane access road met. Two security officers in nondescript uniforms stepped out to flag Fisher’s car down.
His Bureau credentials did not work their usual magic, but the guards did grudgingly admit him after calling for instructions. Fisher drove through the gate, over a bridge, and past a moat with geese that looked as if it had been stolen from a Disney movie; he almost expected to find Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs waiting for him at the front door.
Close. A woman in a black business suit, her skirt cut so high it had less material than a napkin, flagged him down near a long concrete apron punctuated by cement barriers.
“Mr. Fisher?” She leaned into his car, filling it with so much perfume, Fisher would have gone for a gas mask if he’d carried one. The top of her shirt was strategically arranged to highlight the natural skin tones of her chest; NADT obviously didn’t fool around.
“I was this morning,” said Fisher from his car.
“Very good, sir. Will you follow me?” Her tone was somewhere between officious and luscious. “Someone will come for the car.”
“Why not?” Fisher got out and followed Snow White to the one-story black glass building. The dwarfs were nowhere to be seen.
A single security desk stood in the exact center of the vast space; there was no other furniture, not even a potted plant on the first floor. Fisher’s guide smiled at the guard — he looked to be at least eighty and very possibly was the evil queen in butch disguise — then turned abruptly toward a ramp that opened in the floor nearby.
“You won’t want to smoke in here,” warned the woman as they strode down the ramp toward a single elevator. “Sets off alarms. Nasty things come down from the sprinklers.”
“Water?”
“Some sort of gas,” she said.
Fisher was tempted to test the system but held off, worried that the gas might be an even stronger version of her perfume. There were no buttons in the elevator, and no floor indicators. The car moved smoothly downward for about thirty seconds, then stopped.
Still no dwarfs. Snow White led him down a long hallway to a large reception area, where another young woman in an equally short skirt sat at a glass-topped table, her nipples poking rivet holes through her blouse. Fisher began to wonder if he had somehow made a wrong turn and ended at a brothel.
“General Bonham is not here, Mr. Fisher,” said the woman at the desk.
“I can wait.”
“You really should have called ahead.” She traded a smile with Snow White. Fisher realized that his knowledge of Disney films was severely lacking; he couldn’t figure out who she was supposed to be.
Figaro, maybe? But that would make him Pinocchio.
Ouch.
“I’m afraid you’ll be waiting a long time,” said the woman. “I believe he’s in Montana.”
“Is he?” Fisher had already checked: Bonham was in fact en route to D.C. Not that he actually wanted to talk to him. “Maybe you could check for me.”
“I’m never wrong,” said the woman.
Fisher spotted a pot of coffee on a credenza nearby. “Can I have a cup?”
“I’m sorry — the coffee is cold,” said the woman.
“I drink it cold.”
She smiled indulgently.
“Actually, I’m looking for Justin Pierce,” said Fisher. “I understand he’s the titular head of the agency.”
The word came out smoothly, despite the innuendo.
“Mr. Pierce is never in,” said the woman.
Fisher scratched the side of his head, emphasizing his confusion.
“Lice?” asked the woman.
“I think they’re gone, actually,” said Fisher. “Shampoo worked wonders. I want to talk to Megan York’s boss. I believe that would be the head of the technical support team. His name was Lee, I think.”
“Her name is Sylvia Lee, and she is in Hawaii for a conference.”
“ABM tests?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Personnel records?”
The woman curled her lips. Now he remembered who she was supposed to be: Cruella, the dog-hater in 101 Dalmations.
“Our personnel records are confidential. Unless you have a court order, of course. That’s the law.”
“Yeah, the law’s a funny thing,” said Fisher. “Who deals with the contractors, Miss—”
“That would be Ms.”
“You deal with them?”
“Only the general.”
“Your accounting office is which way?” said Fisher.
“Accounting is handled by an independent firm,” said the woman.
“Organizational chart?”
“It’s being redone. Anything else?”
“If you let me take a shot at that coffee,” said Fisher,
“I’ll bark for you.”
* * *
The halls of the Rayburn Building were proportioned in such a way as to impress mere mortals as they walked down them, and not even Fisher was immune to their spell. He felt imbibed in the spirit of democracy as he found Congressman Matt Taft’s office; though a poor government worker himself, Fisher understood the inherent importance of his role as public servant.
That and the fact that he had a slight caffeine buzz on, due to the consumption of not one but two Dunkin’ Donuts Big Gulps on the way over from NADT. Cruella had denied him her own blend, even after he’d demonstrated a howl pro bono.
Besides drinking the coffee, Fisher had used the trip to bone up on who exactly Congressman Taft was, besides being Megan York’s cousin. His briefing came courtesy of a newspaper reporter at The Washington Times who owed him a few favors and thirty bucks from a Super Bowl bet gone bad. Fisher had frankly expressed his ignorance, which for some reason never failed to impress newspaper reporters, and had received a detailed description of the congressman’s career, only partially condensed from the newspaper’s computer morgue.
This had taken all of two minutes. Several janitors at the Capitol Building had higher profiles than Megan York’s cousin. The twenty-ninth ranking minority member on the House Armed Services Committee, his name had appeared in exactly two stories over the past twelve months, and one was about rolling eggs on the White House lawn.
The congressman was not in his office, which wasn’t particularly surprising. His legislative assistant, a short, gnomelike man with a beard that reached to his chest, agreed to see him after growling at the receptionist, who reacted by cracking her gum somewhat louder than before. Fisher took one look at the gnome’s brown-stained hands and reached into his pocket.
“Why don’t we go outside?” he said, holding up his cigarettes.
The legislative assistant nearly bolted through the door. They were barely on the steps before he reached back and took a cigarette from the agent’s pack, jabbing it into his lighter.
“Been trying to quit,” said the gnome.
“Gee, and you struck me as a r
easonable guy,” said Fisher. He followed the gnome down the steps, watching as the man’s entire body underwent a transformation. Five minutes ago he had been an exploited career bureaucrat; now he was a maker of men.
“No way I’m quitting,” said the assistant.
Whatever else happened that day, Andy Fisher had saved another soul.
“This about Megan?”
“In a way,” said Fisher.
“They found her body?”
“Nah,” said Fisher. “You think she’s dead, huh?”
“After all this time? You don’t really think she’s still alive, do you?”
Fisher shrugged.
“Look, Matt’s in an awkward position,” said the gnome. “Obviously he wants her, uh, recovered. But he can’t put pressure on a top-secret project. Technically he probably isn’t supposed to know about it, since he’s not part of the intelligence committee.”
“Do they know about it?” asked Fisher.
“I don’t know.”
“What about his calls to NADT?” said Fisher.
“Which calls to NADT?”
“He didn’t try to get General Bonham?”
“He knows Bonham, of course; maybe he called and I didn’t know.”
“How does he know Bonham?” asked Fisher.
The gnome’s eyes opened a bit wider, then slunk back in their sockets as if retreating into a cave. “They’ve known each other for a while. But from where, I don’t know.”
“Does the congressman vote on appropriations for NADT?”
The gnome did a very interesting eye-rolling thing where his eyes seemed to disappear in the back of his head, then reappear at the bottom of his feet. The effect made it seem as if his eyeballs had traveled all around his body, a not unimpressive skill and certainly one that would be appreciated in Washington, where eyes had to be rolled several times a day, at least.
“His business interests are in blind trusts, if that’s what you’re getting at,” said the gnome. “The Tafts and Yorks and Rythes — the family owns a lot of high-tech stuff. Yeah, they’re connected. But they’re big in consumer goods and oil, energy: You’d expect it.”