High Flight

by David Hagberg

  But these were Japanese waters.

  He looked up at his XO and officers and gave them a faint smile. Good men, he thought. Expert, dedicated, and loyal. No captain could ask for more. Sad that this would be the last time they’d sail together.

  “Sound battle stations.”

  “Hai, Kan-cho.” Minori rang the Klaxon.

  “Come right to two-six-zero, dive to six hundred fifty meters.”

  “Yo-so-ro, turning omo-kaji to two-six-zero degrees, down angle on the planes eighteen degrees.”

  “Very well,” Kiyoda said. His boat was coming alive. “Report when battle stations are manned and ready. Report when at course and depth. And prepare for silent running.”

  “Aye, aye, Kan-cho,” Minori said, his eyes bright.

  Carrara steadied his shoulder against the bole of a tree as he studied the sprawling farmhouse and outbuildings one hundred yards across a clearing. The fire number at the entrance to the long driveway off the highway matched the one from the trace. Whoever had telephoned Reid had done so from here less than two hours ago.

  They’d confirmed the location and then had discovered the dirt track through the woods east of the house. So far as they could tell no one had used the road for a long time. The snow was undisturbed except for animal tracks.

  Someone was in residence. Smoke curled from the chimney, and Carrara could make out the rear bumper of what looked like Reid’s Mercedes on the other side of the garage at the rear.

  He brought the glasses around to the south. The end of Dulles’s main runway was five miles away. A five-hundred-yard-long blackened scar was plowed through the woods on the other side of the airport. Bits and pieces of glass, plastic, and metal debris from the crash still sparkled in the distance.

  “We can wait for darkness, if you want. But I think I can get to the house, put a bug on the phone line, and get back without detection,” Ulland said.

  Carrara looked up. Ulland was studying the open field through his binoculars.

  “The grass is tall enough so that if I keep down nobody in the house will spot me.” The TS operative grinned. “Might be able to put a pickup on one of the downstairs windows.”

  Carrara studied the approach across the field through his binoculars. The grass was tall enough. “I’ll cover you from here. Anything goes wrong, I want you out of there on the double.”

  “Gotcha,” Ulland said. He went back to the van for his equipment.

  Takako Kunihiro and Masao Yakota, driving a white Toyota van with dark windows and identical to the one that was following McGarvey, made a second cautious pass by the driveway to the farmhouse Edward Reid had come to. Beside the fact that Reid was rabidly anti-Japanese, they were only interested in him because McGarvey was. They’d had a difficult moment when McGarvey had broken off tailing Reid and had headed back into the city. It was obvious that he knew he was being followed, so Hamagachi and Korekiyo, driving the lead unit designated Sand Dollar, had kept with him. They now knew that they were of more interest to McGarvey than Reid was. It told them something.

  “Nothing,” Yakota said.

  “I agree. Find out where Sand Dollar is, and if they need our help we’ll join them, or we will return to the embassy,” Kunihiro instructed.

  For the first time Carrara wished he had a weapon. From where he stood within the woods he could see where Ulland had entered the tall grass, but he could not spot him now. If Reid were involved with the Dulles crash, and if he were somehow involved with the former East German intelligence service, they would not take kindly to being spied upon. Especially if Colonel Mueller were here. The man was an assassin and would be armed.

  Ulland popped up at the far edge of the clearing, about ten yards from the back of the house, and keeping low hurried the rest of the way to where the phone line came in.

  Carrara studied the back of the house through the binoculars. Because of the angle of the sun there was nothing to be seen in any of the windows, either downstairs or upstairs. Nor was there any movement anywhere on the property that he could see.

  Ulland removed the cover from the telephone junction box on the side of the house, did something to the wires inside, and replaced the cover. Next he reached up and attached something to one of the windows and then melted out of sight back into the tall grass.

  The entire operation at the back of the house had taken less than sixty seconds, and Carrara breathed a sigh of relief.

  Mueller stood perfectly still ten yards behind and to the left of the man watching the back of the house through binoculars. The second man had probably placed a bug on the phone line and possibly a sensitive microphone on the dining room window and had started back across the field.

  Their van had made two passes on the highway and then had not come back. This was the only vulnerable approach, and Mueller had come up to wait for them. He did not think they were FBI. The Bureau conducted operations on a much larger scale. And except for the white Toyota van that had also made a couple of passes, no other vehicles of any interest had gone by. If they were CIA, however, they were working out of their charter, which made this a rogue action. Reid must have been mistaken about the Saturn.

  He’d gotten two clear looks at both men, and he was satisfied that neither of them were Kirk McGarvey, the only man he had any cause to fear.

  He raised up to sniff the air. A confrontation was coming between them. He didn’t know how he knew it, but he felt that somehow they would meet, that their destinies were intertwined. Melodrama, he thought. But the feeling was strong, and growing stronger.

  “This is David Kennedy.”

  “Sam Varelis, National Transportation Safety Board. I’m calling from Washington for Kirk McGarvey.”

  “Mr. McGarvey is not here.”

  “I’m trying to reach him. Can you help?”

  Kennedy hesitated. “Mr. McGarvey is no longer in our employ. Has this anything to do with the accident last week?”

  Varelis wanted to talk to Mac, but Kennedy was the ultimate responsible party. “This is an unofficial call, Mr. Kennedy. Can you tell me what happened with McGarvey? Have you been pressured by someone here in Washington?”

  “If this isn’t an official call, then what do you want?”

  “I’m trying to save lives.”

  Again Kennedy hesitated. “So am I.”

  “Where is he?”

  “You’re a friend?”

  “Yes, he’s a friend, so far as I’d trust him with my life. Or anyone else’s.”

  “I don’t know where he is. But the Attorney General is going to issue a warrant for his arrest.”

  “On what charge?”

  “Industrial espionage and obstruction of justice. I just received the call.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Varelis blurted.

  “I agree,” Kennedy said. “Have you come up with something?”

  “I think there’s a possibility that your Dulles crash, and the accident in ’90, were not accidents.”

  “What have you found?”

  “Both crashes were caused by port engine failures. The exact same failures, which caused the same structural damage to the wings. That’s nearly impossible.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “I’m faxing you the material. But Mac has to be informed.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. How can I reach you?”

  Varelis gave him a number. “Be quick about it, Mr. Kennedy.”

  “I will, believe me,” Kennedy assured him.

  The snow muffled Mueller’s footsteps as he came up directly behind the man waiting next to the tree. At the last moment Carrara turned.

  Mueller pushed him back against the tree and drove the stiletto through his throat hard enough to sever his spinal cord at the base of his skull and penetrate the tree trunk, pinning him like a bug on a specimen card.

  Carrara tried desperately to fight back, but Mueller held him in place until his body finally went limp, then propped his legs under him so that
the knife through his throat would temporarily hold him upright.

  The second man suddenly rose up from the grass at the edge of the clearing twenty feet away and charged like a bull in an arena.

  Mueller languidly turned toward him and raised his left arm as if to ward off a blow. At the last possible moment he reached up with his right and yanked the stiletto out of Carrara’s throat. He stepped quickly to the left, inside Ulland’s guard, and plunged the blade into the man’s chest, just below his left breast.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Reid was shaken to the core. “I know this one.”

  Mueller had brought both IDs down to the house. “Phillip Carrara, was he someone important?”

  “He was Deputy Director of Operations. The third most important man at Langley.”

  “What about the other one?”

  “I don’t know. Probably a technician from the Technical Services Division. But you know what this means. There’s going to be an all-out manhunt.”

  Mueller shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about? Weren’t you listening? We’re done! Everything is down the tubes. My life … everything. It’s all over!”

  “Not unless you fall apart. They weren’t here officially.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Think about it, Reid. Does the CIA work this way? You said they didn’t. If you were under investigation the FBI would have brought a team out here, not the CIA. These two were freelancing for somebody. McGarvey.”

  “They’ll be missed.”

  “Yes, they will,” Mueller said mildly. “But I’ll take care of it.”

  Reid wanted to believe everything was okay. But like Zerkel he was on the verge of a breakdown. “How?”

  “Leave it to me. In the meantime I want you to get ready to get out of here. You’re going to go home to resume your normal activities until Sunday.”

  “Normal activities?” Reid looked at the German as if he were crazy.

  “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  Reid opened his mouth, then closed it.

  “I’ll be back in an hour. Be here.”

  Mueller donned a pair of thin leather gloves, pocketed the wallets, and went outside. From the back porch he studied the woods across the clearing. There was no sign that anything had happened, nor, from where he stood, could he see the van parked at the end of the dirt track. The forecast was for more snow sometime this evening and tomorrow morning. If it was heavy enough the van’s tracks would be covered. He removed the bug from the telephone junction box at the side of the house, and the pickup from the dining room window, then crossed the field on the same path Ulland had used to sneak down from the woods.

  The gray windowless Dodge van was equipped with sensitive electronic eavesdropping equipment, some of it low-lux cameras and infrared-sensitive recording devices used for nighttime surveillance operations. One rack contained telephone-tap receivers, tape recorders, and tracing apparatuses. Another contained two-way communications radios, at least two of which were high-speed burst encryption devices designed to maintain up- and down-links with satellites. Still another contained sophisticated computer equipment that could be patched into any number of bases. Mueller had seen or heard of a lot of this. His KGB training had been the best, and during his six months in the States he had gleaned information about such equipment then in the developmental stage at the National Security Agency. One of the tape recorders had been used. He switched it on.

  “Thank you for calling the Lamplighter. How may I direct your call?” a woman said. “Let me speak with Mr. Reid,” Mueller’s own voice answered.

  He rewound the entire message and erased it. They’d probably had a tap on Reid’s Georgetown house this morning. There’d been a two-ring delay before the call had been rolled over to the Lamplighter office. Next he went searching for the trace to the Sterling farmhouse, finding it without problem, and erasing any evidence of it from the computer memory. He could find no indication that anything had been sent back to Langley.

  He drove the van to the end of the dirt track and loaded the two bodies in back. Then he covered what blood had splashed on the snow and the drag marks from the bodies. By morning all traces of what had happened would be hidden until a meltoff and then would be washed away. Mueller got behind the wheel of the van, drove it around to the garage behind the farmhouse, and went back inside.

  “How is Louis doing with removing his safeguards?” he asked Reid.

  “He says he’s working on it. I saw you put the van in the garage. It can’t stay there. Sooner or later it’ll be discovered.”

  “That’s right. When we leave I’ll take it up to Baltimore and dump it.”

  “If you’re stopped, or if someone sees you, it’ll be all over.”

  “That’s what you’re paying me for. Before Sunday I want an additional two million dollars deposited into my Channel Islands account. Will this be a problem?”

  Reid looked at him sharply, but then shook his head.

  “I’ll take the cash you brought for Louis as well.”

  “I understand. What about the last three repeaters?”

  “I’ll take care of them tomorrow.” Mueller stepped closer. “You understand what I am capable of, Reid. If something happens and the authorities come after me, nothing on this earth will stop me from getting to you.”

  “I’d be a fool to breathe a word—”

  “Believe me,” Mueller said softly.

  Reid’s eyes widened. He nodded. “I do,” he said.

  “Bridge, CIC.”

  “CIC, aye,” the FF Cook’s second officer answered.

  “I’ve got two airborne incoming, bearing one-seven-zero, twenty-seven miles out, speed five hundred knots.”

  “Can you say type of aircraft and altitude?”

  “Sir, they look like F/A-18 Hornets, at two thousand feet. They’ve illuminated us.”

  “Ours?”

  “I don’t think so, Mr. Boyle. They’re coming from the northeast. I’d guess Tanegashima.”

  “Stand by.”

  “Aye, aye.”

  Ensign Tim Boyle called the captain on the growler phone. “This is Boyle, Captain. We have a pair of incoming aircraft that CIC thinks is Japanese.”

  “Have the Barbey and Thorn been notified?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “Do it. I’m on my way.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.” Boyle hung up and called their sister ship, the FF Barbey, first. They too were painting the incoming fighter/interceptors, and they’d already informed the DD Thorn, thirteen thousand yards southwest.

  Captain Zimmerman showed up on the bridge a minute later, his utility blues rumpled as if he’d slept in them. “Get me Jim Otter on the Barbey,” he told Boyle. He called CIC on the growler. “This is the captain. How far out are they?”

  “A little under twelve miles, sir. Should be overhead in ninety seconds. But they’ve dropped to below five hundred feet.”

  “Any chance they’re ours?”

  “Negative, Captain. ELINT has intercepted a transmission to the aircraft from Tanegashima.”

  “What’d they say?”

  “It’s encrypted. We’re working on it.”

  Zimmerman hung up the growler phone and accepted a handset from Boyle. “Jim, we’d better stand by battle stations.”

  “It’ll be provocative.”

  “Overflying us in the early morning without first establishing a comms link is aggressive enough for me. Especially now. Mike Hanrahan’s got his hands full.”

  “Has anyone tried talking to them, or to Tanegashima?” Lieutenant Commander Otter asked.

  “ELINT picked up a transmission from their base. As soon as it’s decrypted and translated we’ll have a better idea.”

  “Could take awhile, Adam.”

  “We’re here to escort the Thorn. We’re not going to act like sitting ducks.”

  “You’re the boss,” Otter s
aid at the same moment the two Japanese Air Self Defense Force fighter/interceptors screamed overhead and CIC called back.

  As soon as the Japanese submarine had gone deep and faded from sonar detection, the Thorn had gone to battle stations. The arrival of the two Japanese fighter/ interceptors had not improved anyone’s disposition.

  “They just passed over the Barbey, ten thousand yards and closing,” Sattler in CIC reported.

  “Same drill as before,” Hanrahan told his XO. “If they want to get close enough to trigger our guns, then so be it.”

  Ryder didn’t argue. He gave the order.

  Forty seconds later the ASDF Hornets passed port and starboard of the Thorn just outside the Phalanx’s Vulcan cannon aiming and firing radar envelope.

  “They’re making wide turns. Looks like they’ll come back for another pass,” Sattler said.

  “Did they drop anything into the water?” Hanrahan asked.

  “Negative.”

  “Anything from sonar yet?”

  “Nothing, Captain. We lost them at fifteen hundred feet, and nothing’s showed up since. But he’s not supposed to be able to dive that deep.”

  “No breakup noises?”

  “Negative.”

  “Well, we’re getting another lesson in Japanese technology,” Hanrahan said. “We’ll stay on this course and speed. Sooner or later he’s going to have to come up for air.”

  “Meteorology says the winds might be diminishing for the next few hours. We might be able to send the choppers up.”

  “Good idea. Meantime, anything else out there?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Keep a sharp eye. If I’m right they’ll send out another Orion for station keeping.”

  “What’s going on, Skipper?” Sattler asked.

  “Don, I wish the hell I knew,” Hanrahan replied.