She looked around the room.
“If we have the drone secured and we know about the C-130’s crash, why are we all still here?”
“You mean aside from you fainting?”
She ignored Mike’s comment and turned to Holly, who sighed.
“Nobody’s told us dinkum, but I’m betting that we have another problem.”
70
Through the Peking Duck and, ultimately, even over red bean paste sesame balls with honeyed Tieguanyin tea, Zuocheng remained cagey over Huan’s replacement. Instead he spoke mostly to Mei-Li about his own granddaughters, who would soon be going to university—unless they could be married off advantageously of course.
Then, just at the end of the meal, Zuocheng lounged back in his chair and turned back to Ru.
“This hasn’t been mentioned outside of the CMC, so you didn’t hear it from me, Ru. It’s most worrying, but Peng Yan has gone missing.”
Even with all of his years of political maneuvering, Ru was unable to repress his astonishment.
71
“Shit!” Drake looked down at the last two bodies in the Groom Lake morgue, lying side by side and dressed in US Air Force flightsuits.
“We weren’t able to identify this man and woman. They have no identification, no dog tags.” Harrington waved a hand at them. “They were at the rear of the aircraft, separate from the rest of the crew. The impact broke their necks. I had my team scour the area several times, but we found nothing else. I even had my men watching the NTSB team closely in case they found something we missed.”
Clarissa stood to the other side of the corpses. Humbled, at least for the moment, she’d divulged a complete list of drone operations—and Drake tried not to be sick when he thought of the cost to the pilots. Thankfully, the program was very new, so only a few pilots had gone through The Rip, but Harrington’s descriptions of their status were horrific.
He’d insisted that she accompany them to the morgue—to her credit, she had looked ill at the barely recognizable remains of the three crew members.
But neither she nor Harrington knew about the true identities of the other two passengers aboard the plane.
Neither would even suspect.
Or ever could know.
Drake knew, and felt like the murderer who’d broken their necks with his own hands. He couldn’t wipe off the feeling against his slacks and finally had to brace himself on the edge of the table to stop the motion.
So close.
Peng Yan and his wife had been the highest-placed contacts the US had ever made in China’s Central Military Commission.
Peng Yan, in his role as the department head of the Equipment Development Department, was at the leading edge of Chinese military innovation.
Drake’s ultimate hook on Yan had been via the man’s wife; she was an avid UFO buff.
Yan had made a trip to Groom Lake the price of his becoming a double agent.
His demand had been very carefully couched.
“I wish to see the innovation that has happened. I do not expect you to trust me to see your new works. But our friends the Pakistanis delivered to us the tail section of your stealth helicopter that crashed in bin Laden’s compound. I wish to see a complete one. I wish to sit in an SR-71 Blackbird and fly an F-117 Nighthawk because I love the history; I know you keep those original stealth planes nearby and ready for service. And my wife wants to visit where the UFOs are kept.”
Drake’s protests that there weren’t any UFOs had earned him a tolerant smile.
“Yes, we both know that. But she wishes to visit Groom Lake anyway. Perhaps even eat in the Little A’Le’Inn restaurant along the famous Extraterrestrial Highway.”
“Their roast beef is better than their ‘Alien burger’,” Drake had sealed the deal at the last G20 meeting.
The Intelligence Support Activity, typically known as either ‘The Activity’ or ‘The Army of Northern Virginia’—the elite intelligence and action service of US Special Operations—had overseen smuggling the Chinese couple in through Mexico. And now there was nothing to smuggle back out except a pair of unfortunate corpses.
Shit!
“Bury them very privately and with full honors,” he looked at Harrington across the table. “No pictures. No DNA. No names.”
72
Unable to get more out of Zuocheng about the disappearance of Peng Yan without directly asking, which would have been unimaginably rude, Ru surreptitiously signaled the girl before he excused himself for the toilet.
Peng Yan. Peng Yan?
Gone missing?
The Director of the Equipment Development Department of the Central Military Commission had gone missing?
If Yan had merely gone on an unannounced holiday with his mistress—such things were not unheard of—he still would have answered a summons.
But if the leadership had him removed, as quietly as they’d erased Ru’s former commander General Huan’s existence…
For Zuocheng to announce he was missing, something had gone very wrong. Unless he resurfaced soon and with some unassailable proof—such as a secret mission for the President—he would never be trusted again.
An opening in the CMC? The specific opening he was perhaps the most qualified for in all of China. Such dreams never came true.
His signal to Mei-Li had been to go with Zuocheng and perform for him in any way he desired. To buy a position on the CMC, he’d sell far more than her pretty little body.
If only he could discover what had happened to the J-31 and Wang Fan. His nephew had been many things, but incompetent was not one of them. If Ru could answer that, he would know how to play the card.
With the right kind of information, he could leap past the CDI and straight onto the CMC—with or without Mei-Li spreading her legs for Zuocheng.
Yes, if chosen, Ru would be bound to all of Zuocheng’s agenda, anything he asked for going forward. But that too was a price Ru was willing to pay.
The instant he was out of the Chrysanthemum courtyard, he texted General Nason.
73
Drake rushed into the office where he’d left the others, Clark and Clarissa in his wake.
Except it was empty.
Then he spotted them gathered around the remaining MQ-45 Casper in the deeply shadowed hangar.
As he hurried to join them, he saw that Miranda was conscious. Wide-eyed with some shock, but he didn’t have time to address that. The other three stood well back.
Drake rushed up to her.
“I need an answer. We have less than two minutes.”
“An answer to what?” Several of them asked in unison.
But not Miranda. She stood with her fingertips resting lightly on the long nose of the low drone. It was shoulder-height on her.
He hadn’t actually stood close to one yet and it felt sleek, cold, and as if it was watching him. He wasn’t a fanciful man, but he could feel death sitting there.
Without removing her hand, she simply watched him.
“Well?”
“We already know the cause of the problem.” Miranda brushed her fingers along the first hard chine of the nose.
“Problem?” Clark stepped forward. At least Clarissa kept her trap shut. She’d been much subdued by her brief incarceration.
“Shut up, Clark. A minute forty-five. I don’t have time to deal with you.” He didn’t know what would happen if he didn’t answer Ru’s desperate text, but he didn’t like the various scenarios that came to mind.
He might not like the CIA’s methods or their lack of oversight, but they had made exceptionally effective use of their newest weapon.
Weapon? Damn thing looked like it was grinning at him. The drone could easily end all of their careers if any of this was mishandled in the slightest.
Holly stepped forward.
He didn’t want to shut her down, then realized he didn’t have to. She wasn’t talking to him; she was facing Miranda.
“You can’t tell them the truth.”
>
74
Harvey looked everywhere for Maxie.
It had taken him half the afternoon to track down the memory before he’d found it.
Helen had said, “The Rip.”
…and so had Major Maxwelton.
The DFAC, the ball field, the dorms.
The dorms.
He still couldn’t make sense of it.
Maxie’s room wasn’t just empty—it was barren.
No two-dollar plastic baseball trophies standing on the dresser. No glove that Maxie’s father had given to him and he still used though it was a little too tight.
Photos of his dead sister—the reason Maxie had joined up in the first place fifteen years ago.
Clothes in the closet and drawers.
Spit-shined shoes and white dress uniforms.
All gone.
“What the hell?”
The empty room didn’t answer back.
“What the hell?”
“Hey, Harvey,” it was barely a whisper.
He spun to face Helen and found her in Colonel Helen Thomas mode.
She stood in the doorway, immaculate in her dark blue service uniform. So beautiful and perfect and austere that he wouldn’t dare approach her, even if they hadn’t agreed to show nothing in public. She’d never even used his first name outside the bedroom.
“Where’s Maxie? Major Maxwelton?”
She didn’t answer. She just stayed at the threshold with her service cap tucked under her arm. It was rare to see anyone in dress blues at Groom Lake.
“His gear is…” Gone.
“My condolences, Lt. Colonel Whitmore.”
Harvey stumbled back against the chair at the small desk, all that propped him upright.
“How? He flies from the ground. Like me. That’s safe, right? Isn’t it?”
Helen closed her eyes long enough for his pulse to pound five times in his ears.
“The Rip. I tried to tell you before. But I couldn’t bring myself to. I thought…by putting on the uniform…I hoped that I’d find the strength.”
“I thought you were trying to say you loved me.”
Again she went silent. The pain in her eyes answered that question as well.
“More than you wanted to.”
An infinitesimal nod.
“I should have escorted you to the Janet flight. Sent you home to your family this weekend.”
She had to clear her throat twice. “I would have stayed anyway. Until we’d spoken. Even before Major Maxwelton’s…difficulties.”
“Difficulties?”
“He exited the flight precipitously. It was too much. We sedated him, but he found a way to kill himself. I…didn’t want that to happen to you, Lt. Colonel Whitmore.” She finished the last in a rush.
“Oh.” He still didn’t know how to respond to that.
“You’ll be safe now. I’ve just been informed that they’ve cancelled the program.”
“Safe?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, I have to go. I have a meeting with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that I need to be ready for. That’s the other reason for this,” she almost smiled as she indicated her uniform.
Someone banged a door out in the hall and voices drifted in.
“I’m sorry. But I’m glad you’re safe now…Harvey.”
She saluted.
Only instinct had him returning the gesture before she was gone.
Safe?
Stuck on the ground with the disk of impossible iron still throbbing from The Rip pulling at him. Even when he wasn’t connected to the Casper.
What part of safe was that?
75
Miranda hated being the center of attention for even two people. Being faced by two generals, two CIA directors, and her own team was way too much.
She couldn’t think.
Couldn’t see past the drone that lay beside her. The cause of so much trouble, but also the closest tie to her parents that she’d had in years.
How was she supposed to get past that to think about this problem?
Her parents weren’t who she thought they were. But did that change who they were? Did the hundreds of hours spent on Kryptos and dozens of other cryptographic puzzles become any less because they were CIA agents?
Did—
“A minute thirty, Ms. Chase. I need an answer now.”
Miranda couldn’t focus. Couldn’t see past the betrayal…if that’s what it was.
How was she supposed to answer the general? She barely understood what he was saying through the jumble of her thoughts.
“You can’t,” Holly repeated. “Every advance, every generational leap ahead made by our defense technology is only a leap as long as it remains secret. Once a concept is created, once that idea is known to our enemies, we can’t put the genie back in the bottle. It will be out in the world for others to use. This,” she rapped her knuckles at the drone, creating a surprisingly pleasant bell-like sound. “This will slip out of our control. We must delay that as long as we can. Our enemies may be willing to ruthlessly expend the pilots. We must block that scenario.”
“A minute fifteen,” Drake reminded her as if stating the obvious limitations would aid her thoughts.
Miranda had to stop the barrage of words. She couldn’t think through them.
She couldn’t.
But just maybe…
“There was something Director Winston said.”
“What was that?” Drake barked out.
He’d said to surround herself with good people, then trust them.
She had trusted no one and nothing since a wiring fault in an air conditioning system had shorted into a fuel sensor, creating a spark that had blown her parents from the sky.
But just maybe…
“Excuse me,” she ducked under the long nose of the Casper and waved Holly to follow her to where Mike and Jeremy had been hanging back.
She led them a few meters farther away—then huddled them together and began speaking quickly.
76
Ru almost pissed himself in the men’s room. At his age, his bladder no longer emptied all at once, and he didn’t have time to be patient right now.
But he must be.
He had to give Mei-Li a chance to convince Li Zuocheng to take her home. In the unlikely event that she failed, he needed to have an answer from Nason. But he couldn’t hold off much longer.
Zuocheng had obviously laid down the gauntlet and was waiting to see how fast Ru picked it up. If Mei-Li couldn’t distract him, Ru needed to be ready.
Nason had promised him an answer in two minutes. No, he had texted Nason that was all the time that Ru had and the man had frustratingly replied “OK” like he was some American cowboy.
There was less than one minute left.
Where was that American bastard?
Why couldn’t he have answered before this meeting?
Ru double-checked that he hadn’t stained his pants, and then tried not to grind his teeth.
77
“Holly is right,” Mike stated once Miranda had explained the situation. “You can’t reveal the real cause to the Chinese of why their Shenyang J-31 jet went down. It would be a disaster. Perhaps even war.”
“But it’s what happened.” Miranda felt miserable. Now she was the one stating the obvious. Did the predilection cross genders?
“What if that wasn’t what happened?” Mike was staring at something over her head, but when she turned, all she saw was the hangar’s wall.
“Another reason!” Holly jumped in. “You said that to their imaging, the MQ-45 Casper drone looked like nothing more than a reflection. Let them think it was a reflection and that something else brought it down.”
She wanted to say, “But it didn’t!” Suppressing the reaction was hard.
“Right. You said dead planes didn’t lie,” Jeremy seemed to particularly like her phrase. “But what if they did?”
“Some other reason the plane went down,” Holly was now stud
ying the wall just like Mike, but Miranda still couldn’t see anything.
She knew she was even worse at lying than trusting others, but she tried. “The plane performed magnificently. The pilot was exceptionally skilled. His attempts to survive the attack should be in a textbook.” Still, all she had so far was the truth.
“So, we need something else to distract them with…”
“…even if only marginally plausible, but something for them to latch on to.”
Now Mike and Holly were completing each other’s sentences.
Rather than staring at the wall, Jeremy had been staring at the concrete floor with squinted eyes. Did narrowing of eyes help one’s mental processes? Miranda tried it but felt no smarter.
“A Russian conspiracy would be convenient,” how Mike sounded so casual was beyond her. But then nothing seemed to ever fluster him…other than Holly.
Jeremy kept squinting at the floor. “They copied the airframe from us, but much of the electronics in the Shenyang J-31 are rumored to be Russian. There must be something we can do with that.”
“Why would the Russians want to destroy a Chinese jet fighter?” Holly asked.
“We…” Miranda could feel the edge of an idea. Something that someone had said about how she approached a crash. “We… Oh! We found the who, just as Terence said I would.”
“Who’s Terence?” Mike asked.
Miranda ignored the question. “He said to follow the who to figure out the why. We have the real who—the CIA—and we now know the why.”
“But,” Mike looked suddenly excited, “if we change the who to the Russians, what could be their why?”
“Dead planes don’t lie,” Miranda couldn’t quite let that go.
“Yes, but we don’t have a dead plane this time,” Holly pointed out.
Mike nodded. Apparently he and Holly agreed, which was definitely a valid test from two very different perspectives.
Drone: an NTSB / military technothriller (Miranda Chase Book 1) Page 26