Skyhook (27 page)

“What are you planning to do after this, Ben?” the pilot asked.

“After the flight?”

“No, after the project. We get signed off tonight, they start building and deploying the Boomerang devices immediately, and we’re out of a job.”

“I guess I really haven’t thought about it. What do you mean they’ll deploy them immediately?”

The chief test pilot raised his hand and smiled. “Hey, you didn’t hear that from me, okay?”

“But… that’s true?”

The pilot was backing away with a broad smile, his head nodding in the affirmative. “

Let the record read the defendant properly refused to answer Dr. Cole’s question because he had no need to know.”

Ben smiled in return and waved him off, returning to his computer console in the cabin in mild alarm.

What does he mean, “immediately”? I thought we’d have several weeks to dean up any remaining problems with the program. The mere thought of a software problem suddenly activating a Boomerang black box in an Air Force bomber during a routine flight was beginning to haunt him almost as much as the presence of the commercial airline data he’d discovered.

UNIWHUE HEflDQURRTERS

A half mile from the Uniwave hangar, General Mac Mac Adams’s arrival back on the Elmendorf flight line had been carefully coordi

nated with a staff car to whisk him back to his office in the project headquarters building for several urgent meetings, the last of which had been postponed until nearly 5:30 p.m.

“General, a Sergeant Jacobs dropped a package by for you,” his secretary announced as he came in the door. Mac nodded to a man in a gray business suit and gestured for him to wait a minute as he took the small rectangular box from her and leaned over her desk to scribble a note:

Please erase from your memory and any logs the fact that Jacobs brought this. And shred this note.

She read it quickly and nodded as he turned to the seated man.

“Come on in, Dan,” MacAdams said as the security chief moved into the office and closed the door behind him before picking up a small portable control device.

“May I turn on the bug neutralizer, General?”

Mac nodded, and Dan Jerrod punched the appropriate button, inundating the office with a wild array of silent radio signals designed to foil any clandestine listening device.

“Jon passed on your cryptic message, Dan. Our Dr. Cole is becoming a problem?”

“He’s a smart man, General, and a loyal one. He not only found renegade computer code and commercial airline information embedded within, he figured out what the code was, and I have no doubt his mind is working away right now on the question of what possible explanations there are.”

“And what are the possible explanations?”

“Dangerous. Some of them. If he goes down the wrong track, he could conclude all sorts of things that could cause us real security problems; and if he panics and goes outside the fold, the damage could be monstrous.”

Mac sank into one of the chairs arrayed around a coffee table and sighed. “We’re going to be airborne for the last run-through here in two hours or less. Any worries about Dr. Cole holding up?”

“No,” Dan Jerrod said. “I’m far more worried about how he works this out in his head later on. He’s not the type of guy to sit back and shut up, General. He’s the careful type of whistle-blower who makes sure he’s got the case nailed down first, then will not be silenced—except physically.”

“Our best, worst nightmare always in military and government.

Precisely what we fear, and precisely what keeps us free as a people.”

“Yeah, weird, isn’t it? And they say the Chinese have a ying and yang ability to tolerate dissimilar realities.”

“How loose a cannon is he? And, with this information he has, precisely what kind of threat are we looking at?”

“I, unfortunately, didn’t help much when I told him to talk only to me because there could even be moles in the organization.”

“Nothing like planting ideas, Dan.”

“I know it. I’ll consider myself spanked for bad judgment.”

“You’re aware of the Rosen situation, by the way?”

“The lost Albatross, the daughter, and the angry FAA? Oh yeah.

That’s another volatile mix I’m watching, although I think we’ve got it contained—thanks to your help with those radar tapes.”

“He found civilian airline data embedded in that so-called renegade code, Dan,” Mac was saying as he watched the security chief’s eyes for a reaction. “That really has me worried.”

“Me, too.”

“And, you’re working on it?”

“As best I can.”

“I don’t have to tell you, I’m sure, that the project is paramount, or that the urgency comes all the way from the White House.”

“Sir?”

Mac shifted uncomfortably in his chair, very glad the anti-bug device was busily blocking any possibility of his words being emblazoned on what could otherwise end up being the tombstone of his career.

“If we should be unfortunate enough to end up in a contest between Dr. Cole and what we’re trying to accomplish …”

“Yes, sir. I understand. The project comes first.”

April could read the defeat on Jim Dobler’s face before he hung up the phone. He sighed and turned to her, shaking his head.

“April, I’m truly sorry, but the only way I can take you back there on the surface is through a line of Coast Guard pickets, and they won’t be amused.”

“The area’s still restricted, then?”

He nodded, sitting back in the faded cocoon of his timeworn desk chair to the sound of creaking springs and squawking imitation leather. A pleasant aroma of wood smoke hung in the thick air of the office, giving it more the feel of a tiny rural country store than a dockside office, but the trappings of a waterfront operation were all around, including a large aluminum fishnet hanging on the wall.

A burst of static filled the room suddenly, coming from one of the active two-way base station radios he kept on the side of the desk, but Jim ignored it as he continued the explanation he needed to give her.

“I know where we could get a miniature submarine with a cou

pie of grappling devices on the front, but they’d charge a fortune, and it would take weeks to get it here.”

“Frankly, I don’t have either the fortune or the time.”

“Well, the other problem is … whatever they’re doing out there, they don’t want any of us watching, and even if we could get the sub, they’d probably detect it and go nuts.”

” They’ meaning … ?”

“The Navy. I’ll bet Scott was right about that.”

Another burst of static, irritating in its intensity, filled the overheated room again. Jim reached for the volume control and cranked it down slightly.

“What’s the radio for?” April asked.

“One’s a standard marine band, for anyone inbound who needs fuel or the other services we can provide. The other’s an aviation radio tuned to the common channel out here.”

She looked at him with a puzzled expression, prompting more.

“Seaplanes land here, too, just like you and Scott did the other day, and they can call me on that to—”

An irritated voice cut through the channel at the same moment.

“Dobler, will you please come out here and tie me up!”

Jim smiled as he got to his feet and grabbed his parka.

“I don’t see anyone out there,” April said.

“When it’s low tide, this part of the dock isn’t floating, so the fuel dock sinks out of sight.”

April pulled on her parka and followed Jim out the door and onto the ramp down to the floating dock, where a Grumman Widgeon was floating motionless, the engines already stopped. She watched the nose hatch open and Scott McDermott appear, nodding to April as he focused on Jim and held up his hand to catch the mooring line.

The two men secured the Widgeon before Scott stepped onto the dock. She could see he was working hard to make the arrival seem routine, but the way he began fumbling for words as he saw her waiting with folded arms told the tale.

“Hello, again,” Scott said.

“Hello. Forget something?” she said, keeping her expression carefully neutral. There was no point in reigniting the morning’s unhappy exchange.

He snorted and looked skyward, as if checking an inbound storm.

“Naw … well, yes.” Scott turned back to her, glancing at Jim, who was also standing with folded arms and a knowing expression.

“I stumbled across something I thought was interesting.”

“You talking about Ms. Rosen, here?” Jim quipped.

Scott began blushing, his entire face shifting toward red as he pretended not to understand. “I … ah, thought she might be interested in this,” he said, turning to meet April’s eyes. “I was on the way back when I checked with Anchorage Radio, which is the … ah, a service they provide …”

April was nodding. “Anchorage Radio is an FAA Flight Service Station. I know. I’m a pilot, too. Remember?”

“Oh. Right. Well, I was getting an inbound briefing—”

“In the air? I thought you were supposed to do that before departure.”

The jibe stopped him cold for a few seconds.

“Ah … usually that’s the way it’s done … before leaving.

But… anyway … I happened to hear about a temporary military operations area newly created not far from here, and … I just got curious, because I’ve never heard of one right along there.”

“Where is there’?”

“Well, the eastern end of it is a bit southwest of where we found the Albatross, and the western end runs west of Seward.”

“They’ve got the surface all restricted to boat traffic now, Scott,” Jim said. “I’ve been on the phone all afternoon.”

“Well,” April said, “Mr. McDermott, thank you for coming back to tell us this.”

Scott hesitated, looking sufficiently off-balance to trigger a tiny spark of sympathy in April, especially when he began studying his shoes and tapping some incoherent code on the wooden dock with his sole before looking her in the eye.

“

ook, April, I apologize for leaving you in the lurch.”

There was a guttural sound from Jim Dobler. “Don’t think my house was ever called a lurch’ before,” he said. “Is that like a yurt?”

Scott ignored him. “We both agree something strange is going on out there but… hear me out a second. When I got into Anchorage, I went over to the FSS and did a little personal research on what was going on last Monday night when the accident happened, and guess what? The very same military operations area was created for that night, too.”

April uncrossed her arms, remembering the F-15s she’d seen landing at Elmendorf days before. “There’s an awful lot of Air Force fighter activity around here, and I’m sure there’s a lot of training going on. Why would that restricted area be connected with what happened to my father?”

Scott shrugged. “I don’t know that it is. But it’s unusual. I know the restricted airspace around Alaska—this part, at least—and this kind of sudden military-operations-area creation is very odd.”

“What are you thinking, Scott?” Jim asked.

“I’m thinking there’s a special operation of some sort going on tonight, and I’m thinking there was one on Monday night, and even if it has nothing to do, April, with what happened to your folks, it’s too coincidental to ignore.”

She was shaking her head. “Dad lost a prop blade. Either it came off by itself, which is possible, or he clipped some metallic structure below, like a ship mast. The zone you’re talking about—this new MOA—has to do with airplanes and airspace.”

“Didn’t you say you asked the Coast Guard to see a tape of their vessel traffic system for that night?” Scott asked.

“Well, sure … to see if the Albatross showed up onscreen and to check on what ships might have been coming through the area, but they haven’t performed. I figure we’ll have to sue them to get that information.”

“April, stop and think about this. The Coast Guard charged in and took those tapes. That sort of thing just doesn’t happen unless

there’s a military operation of some sort going on, and it may well be connected with these restricted areas.”

“But, I don’t understand how they could connect.”

“Maybe your dad did hit a ship on the surface that was taking part in some airborne exercise. Hell, I don’t know, but I tell you, my instincts are telling me there’s a connection, and I think we should go take a look.”

“We?” April said.

“Yeah. Unless you, you know, don’t want to. There’s no charge, April. This one’s on me.”

“Either way, yes, I want to. Just sitting here doing nothing is tearing me up,” she said, suddenly realizing the import of her words and glancing at Jim, who was reflecting ever so slightly their impact. “Jim, I’m sorry for how that sounded. That was not a reference to you and all your tremendous efforts on my behalf.”

“I know.”

“It’s just the fact that together we’ve been unable to move things forward.”

He shrugged, a shy smile registering appreciation. “Glad to help, April. So, you want the generator and the camera stuff again?”

“No, Jim,” Scott answered for her. “I’m just low on gas.”

“Well, that I can change.” He started to turn to get the fuel hose.

“Jim, you want to come along?” Scott asked.

Jim shook his head. “No. I’d just be ballast.”

“Well, we’ve got about an hour of daylight left. I’ll have to land back at the airport. Would you mind picking us up in a few hours?”

“Naw, I wouldn’t mind.”

Ur ith the waters of the bay a bit more choppy than the previous afternoon, the takeoff was a series of heavy shudders through the wave tops before Scott could yank the Widgeon free of the surface, barely skimming the next swell. They climbed to the west, turning then to the south down the channel toward Bligh Reef.

“We’re going to stay low?” April asked when she finally got the David Clark headset adjusted and the boom microphone in position, barely touching her lips.

He nodded, his head on a swivel for other traffic, before looking at her. “I thought we’d stay at about five hundred feet, which should be below most of the air traffic radars. We could be seen by anything airborne, of course.”

“