by R. R. Irvine
“Shit.” There it was, big as life. Top fucking Secret.
He reexamined the procedures set down on the file’s cover sheet. He had no leeway, not when it came to coded red flag designations.
With a grunt, the general got up from his desk and locked the office door. The sound of the lock engaging would be enough to signal his aide that there were to be no interruptions.
He paced for a moment, choosing his words in advance, before picking up the scrambled phone that connected him with General Walters at the Pentagon. Only Walters himself was authorized to pick up at the other end. If the call went unanswered for more than four rings, Moreland’s number would be recorded in code that would automatically be deleted from the computer file after sixty minutes. At the end of that time, Moreland would have to call again.
This time, however, Walters picked up immediately.
“This is a red-letter day,” Moreland said.
“Wait,” Walters said.
Moreland smiled grimly, knowing that his superior officer would be going through the same procedure he’d gone through himself only moments before. Red letter and red flag were one and the same.
“Go ahead,” Walters said, meaning he had the coded list in his hand.
Quickly and precisely, Moreland summarized the information at hand.
“Are we sure there’s an airplane in that area?”
“That’s not confirmed as yet since we don’t have anybody on the ground, but it’s certainly a possibility, considering the fact that there are archaeologists on the site even as we speak. Do you want me to investigate further?”
“Absolutely not,” Walters said. “Red flags are worse than booby traps. Fax me everything you have, then destroy your copies.”
General Walters resisted the temptation to slam down the phone. Instead, he cradled it gently, and muttered, “Why me, for Christ’s sake? And why now?”
He closed his eyes and imagined waves of shit, rising on a tide of red flags, until they swamped everything. With a sigh, he rose from his desk and stepped into the private John adjoining his office. Carefully, so as not to wet his uniform, he splashed cold water on his face. When he looked at himself in the mirror, his eyes fixed on the three stars attached to the epaulettes of his air force uniform. Three down and one to go, he thought, but knew he’d never achieve the highest rank his country had to offer. That was one dream he’d abandoned for another, that of being a millionaire. And that was no longer a dream, but a reality. The first payment of that reality, his consultancy fee, had already been deposited to his off-shore account. More money would follow the moment his retirement papers went through.
It was like stealing candy from a baby, or so he’d thought when he made the deal. Only now he might have to earn his money. The red flag had seen to that.
Christ, he’d hoped to keep a low profile. Take the money, sit back, and enjoy the good life; that was his motto. He’d been looking forward to playing lobbyist and strong-arming his academy buddies whenever a particularly juicy defense contract came up. But that wasn’t what they were paying him for; that was routine, just good business. If he didn’t do it, someone else would. But this file? Judging by the looks of it, someone was about to land in deep shit. All specific information had been removed from the military records, that much was immediately obvious. No one in the Pentagon, himself included, knew what S-OPS17 stood for. Only its classified designation remained on file, which by itself was enough to get all references and queries bucked up the chain of command. In theory, though, the buck stopped here, with him. The military buck, that is. From now on, passing the buck was a violation of his oath as an officer. For a million dollars, though, he didn’t really give a damn. He would do as he was told, and pass S-OPS17 along to his new employer, CMI. To do that, he’d have to use a more secure line of communication than the Pentagon offered. Of course, CMI had more money than the Pentagon to spend on such niceties.
General Walters returned to his desk and pushed a button, signaling his driver to bring the car up from the basement parking garage. Thirty minutes later, he reached his newly purchased house in Georgetown.
“Is this legal?” his wife had asked when the CMI rep first showed them around the place.
“It’s just one of the perks of being a top beltway bandit,” the rep had replied. “Keep in mind that escrow doesn’t close officially until the general retires.”
At the moment, his wife was visiting antique shops with one of the decorators supplied by CMI, so he had the house to himself. Even so, Walters took the precaution of locking the study door behind him.
He switched on the CMI computer—state of the art yet user friendly—that sat on a nineteenth-century English partners desk that cost more than a humvee, or so his wife had said. CMI didn’t care. Why should they? They were one of the biggest military contractors in the country. The biggest when it came to contract overruns. They produced everything from jet fighters to small arms. It was said that war couldn’t be conducted anywhere in the world without CMI making money. An incredible feat, the general knew, especially since CMI had been nothing but a small metallurgy outfit when it joined the Manhattan Project during World War Two. Consolidated Metallurgy, it had been called then. Now it was simply CMI, a logo that appeared on products throughout the world, and not just military hardware, but pharmaceuticals, refrigerators, and even soft drinks.
On the face of it, CMI’s achievement seemed impossible. Bigger companies had worked on the Manhattan Project—Allis-Chalmers, General Electric, Westinghouse, Union Carbide, even Du Pont. But CMI had left all those giants in its wake. While they moved like dinosaurs, answering to boards of directors, layers of vice presidents, and stockholders, CMI followed the vision of one man, Leland Hatch. With a Ph.D. in physics by the age of twenty, Hatch had been one of the wunderkinder attached to the Manhattan Project.
Following CMI procedure, the general used his mouse to open a dedicated window on the computer screen. After that, he switched to the keyboard to type in the first of his codes. The entire sequence required two minutes to enter and had been committed totally to memory. On this level, nothing was ever to be written down, that was a prime CMI directive.
When he reached the final entry level, the general hesitated. He’d never been told who had access at the New York end of his computer hookup, but he suspected it had to be someone very high up indeed. At the Pentagon, he had only the Joint Chiefs to contend with, but at CMI there were half a dozen people with more power than any four-star general. Carefully, using one finger to make absolutely certain he hit only correct keys, the general typed in his final access code and hit enter.
After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, TYPE IN RED-FLAG DESIGNATION appeared on the screen.
S-OPS17, he answered, and once again hit the enter key.
WAIT flashed on the screen.
Five minutes went by before his computer beeped. SUMMARIZE THE SITUATION.
Nervously, hitting the wrong keys constantly, the general relayed what information he’d gleaned from the classified faxes he’d received from SAC Headquarters.
ASSESSMENT?
MILITARY LEAKS NOW PLUGGED, BUT NEWS MEDIA UNPREDICTABLE, Walters answered.
AGREED. TAKE NO FURTHER ACTION AT YOUR LEVEL. DESTROY ALL RED-FLAG MATERIAL. WIPE S-OPS17 FROM ALL MEMORIES, YOURS INCLUDED.
The general sighed with relief, then followed procedure, asking for a code confirmation of the destruct order.
He twitched as H-ONE appeared on his screen. Christ. Leland Hatch himself had been at the other end of the line.
CHAPTER 9
By nine the next morning, Nick was rocking on her heels and staring openmouthed at the bullet holes in her B-17. The pilot’s windshield showed a line of them, gaping .50- calibers, that would have killed him instantly. The copilot’s Plexiglas had been blown away completely. Through the opening where it should have been, she saw the desiccated fingers of a detached human hand protruding from the debris that filled the cockpit.
&n
bsp; “Look at these fuckers over here!” one of her workmen called.
She left her perch directly in front of the cockpit and slid off the fuselage and into the narrow pit that had been cleared along the port side of the aircraft.
“Motherfuckers,” the man clarified when he put a fist through one of half a dozen holes that had been punched through the bomber’s aluminum skin immediately behind the pilot’s seat.
“Cannon fire,” she said.
Mark Douglas, who’d been dogging her every move, stopped taking photographs long enough to say, “What the hell happened here?”
She ignored him to measure the punctures. Until now, she’d only seen photographs of battle damage like this. “Twenty-millimeter cannons, I’d guess, but I’m no expert in ballistics.’’
“Keep talking,” Douglas said.
Nick’s only answer was to shake her head. The kind of damage the Scorpion had sustained could have come only from heavily armed fighter planes. Yet none of her maps indicated that this part of New Mexico had ever been used as a firing range.
She retreated to the awning’s artificial shade, along with Douglas who was still following her. The thermometer read ninety-two, three degrees hotter than yesterday at this time. Even so, she hugged herself against a sudden inner chill.
“I know how you feel,” Douglas said. “That mummified hand gave me the creeps, too.”
“I hadn’t expected it, that’s all.” Nick pulled off her cap and fanned herself. “The Scorpion looks like it was used for target practice, only I don’t think they had remote- controlled target planes during World War Two.”
“And the hand?”
“It could be a local, I suppose. Maybe an old prospector like Gus Beckstead who got trapped inside somehow.”
“Sure. He decides to get out of the sun and then conveniently up and dies knowing an archaeologist like yourself would come along some day and put things right.”
“You tell me, then.”
“No, you don’t. You do the talking and I write it down. That’s the way journalism works.”
Sighing, Nick took a bottle of water from one of the cartons stacked under the awning, tossed it to Douglas, then grabbed another for herself and drank deeply.
“Hey, Doc,” one the men called to her. “There’s a whole body in here.”
Nick took over immediately, worming her way through the copilot’s side window and then digging carefully with her fingers to preserve the find. It took her half an hour to uncover the skull completely. Some mummified flesh clung to it, but no smell remained, thank God.
Another thirty minutes of cautious digging uncovered pieces of a uniform and a badly corroded brass bar, still recognizable as the insignia of a second lieutenant.
Nick switched sides of the aircraft, digging into the cockpit through the port window. Within minutes she found a second skeleton in the pilot’s seat. The skull was missing, which came as no surprise considering the number of .50-calibers that had come through his windshield.
She left the skeletons in place and carefully backed out of the cockpit.
“I want pictures before we do any more work,” she told Douglas. “My camera’s conked out.”
“You sound like my editor,” he said, moving in for close-ups.
As soon as he finished, he sat on his haunches and rubbed his bad leg. “I don’t mind doing your dirty work, but I expect information in return.”
Her mind raced, sorting through possible scenarios, none of which seemed logical. In New Guinea, she’d expected to find bodies. In fact, that had been one of her goals, to locate lost airmen, still technically listed as missing in action, and put them to rest once and for all. Here, there shouldn’t have been bodies, unless the plane had never been discovered, which seemed unlikely.
“Out loud, if you don’t mind,” Douglas said. “Give me a minute.”
Before he could protest, Nick led her digging crew to the point on the starboard side of the bomber where they’d find the main door. “Clear this area next. When you reach the door, don’t open it, just give me a shout.”
“It doesn’t seem right,” one of them said. “The air force should have buried these boys long before now.”
“We’ll have to see to it, then, won’t we?”
“You’re damned right.”
The others nodded and went to work eagerly despite the soaring temperature. While they dug, she stood to one side, marveling at the amount of damage the airplane had sustained. With the removal of each shovelful of sand, more holes were revealed. A couple of them were almost big enough to use as doors themselves.
“You’re not talking to me,” Douglas said.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Look, I know you don’t have all the answers yet. Maybe you never will. But it doesn’t really matter. Whatever happened out here, this is one hell of a story and you know it. I’m not about to sit on it, either. So I’m telling you in advance, I’m calling it in to the paper as soon as I get back to town. This is a once-in-a-lifetime story, a mystery plane shot down in the desert. Hell, it’s Enquirer stuff. Only this time it’s real and it’s mine.”
“Give me another day to investigate the site more thoroughly.”
Before Douglas could answer, Gus Beckstead drove up, honking his horn continuously the last fifty yards. As soon as his truck stopped, he was out and loping toward them, waving his arms.
“We’re rich,” he called out as soon as he was in range. “We’ve got an offer for my plane. Some collector wants to buy the whole shebang.”
Douglas clicked his ballpoint pen. “How much?”
“The mayor’s still dickering.”
“Who’s making the offer?”
“Some lawyer called. He says his client wishes to remain anonymous.”
“Don’t make any quick decisions,” Douglas said. “I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that this plane might be worth more than you think.”
Beckstead squinted at him suspiciously.
“Show him, Nick,” Douglas said. “I’ll shoot photos of the two of you studying the bullet holes, and the bodies.”
Looking bewildered, Beckstead inspected the B-17. When he’d finished, his chin sank onto his chest. “It can’t be worth much shot up like this. It’s junk.”
“You’re not thinking straight,” Douglas said. “I can see the headlines now. „Mystery Bomber Found in Desert. Dead Crew Still on Board.’ Once my story hits the paper, you know what happens next, don’t you?”
Beckstead shook his head.
“You and your plane will be instant celebrities. Television will be here.”
“Do you really think so?”
“If I do my job right, they’ll be thicker than flies,” Douglas said.
Nick groaned. She’d have to push hard to get her work done before the site was overrun. After that, there’d be chaos, and anything she published would be suspect.
“While you’re writing in that notebook of yours,” Beckstead said, pointing a finger at the reporter, “take this down. This plane is on my land. It belongs to me. I haven’t signed all my rights over to the mayor or that council of his.”
“I thought you were partners,” Nick said.
“This changes things.”
“How much was the lawyer’s offer?” Douglas asked again.
“It’s not worth talking about, son, thanks to you. Now, why don’t I drive you into town so you can send in that story of yours.”
Douglas glanced at Nick. “I want to be here when you go inside the plane.”
Beckstead spoke up. “These are my men, son. I can shut work down for the rest of the day, if that’s what you want.”
“Give that order,” Nick said, “and you’d better find yourself another archaeologist.”
“What about it, son? Do we still need her?”
“If you want to be on the talk shows, we do.”
Beckstead’s eyes widened. He was offering to shake hands with Nick when one of the workmen c
ame over to say, “We’ve found the tail.”
The tail stabilizer, minus its rudder, was wedged against the B-17“s main door. Torn and mangled the way the tail was, it shouldn’t have been there. It should have been debris somewhere farther out in the desert. But Nick didn’t care, because the tail number was still legible, 44-4013.
She raised a fist in triumph. Identification was now a certainty. All she had to do was make a phone call and that would be the end of Douglas’s mystery. Then maybe she’d have some peace and quiet to finish her work.
“I want the men on overtime,” she said. “We’ll work till dark if the heat doesn’t kill us.”
CHAPTER 10
The dead should stay buried, Leland Hatch thought as he carefully deleted all evidence of the Scorpion from his computer files. By the time he was finished, not even the God of hackers himself would be able to re-construct so much as a byte of information. Even the Cal Techies on his payroll hadn’t been able to break in to his system. The thought of all their deflated egos started him chuckling. When he’d issued the challenge, the look on their Techie faces had told him they thought their boss was over the hill, senile even, but he could still run rings around them. He could still—
Only the dead weren’t buried, were they? Not in proper graves.
Damn. There it was again, his conscience, creeping up on him along with old age. Sprouting and sending out feelers in hope of finding what? God?
Well, if you“re there, God, thanks for keeping my damn conscience at bay for so long.
Night, like now, was the worst. That’s when his conscience—if that’s what it was—acted up. The light of day chased it away with all the other goblins.
At the moment, the only light in Hatch’s library came from the computer screen. Using the remote control, he triggered the main lights. The walls sprang to life with the rich hues of Renoirs and Monets discreetly lit by strategically placed spots.
When it came to consciences, he decided, Catholics had the best idea; they could confess away their sins. But what about physicists? Could they blow up the world, or pieces thereof, and say they’re sorry?