Threat Level Black (23 page)

Daylight made a big difference.

In the dark, viewed through the night goggles and even in the starlight, Pong Yan had seemed about half the size of a small rural airport in America. In the early-morning light, as Tyler approached the strip where Howe’s Berkut had landed and taken off, it looked more like a beat-up gas station with two sheds at the far side.

Tyler had found a team of Army Rangers as escorts, along with an Air Force officer he’d pressed into duty as a UAV expert. The man was actually a maintenance officer with a helicopter squadron who had only a passing knowledge of UAVs, but, as Tyler told him, just the fact that he could pick a UAV out of a lineup meant he had more experience than Tyler did. Tyler had also taken Somers along as a kind of all-around consultant; the old guy didn’t know much about UAVs, but Tyler liked him and thought he might come in handy. Their job was pretty straightforward: go to the field, inspect the hangar, find the UAVs. If they existed, Tyler was to have them shipped back to the States for study. This mission took priority over the situation report, which Moore could handle without them in any event.

The two Air Force Pave Lows carrying the team circled the area once, the pilots and crewmen getting a feel for the situation. The helicopters were big green brutes armed with machine guns and able to lift vehicles a decent distance; they’d brought gear to attach to the UAVs with the idea that they would carry them sling-style to a large airstrip about seventy-five miles south, where a C-17 could be brought in to ferry them away.

Tyler leaned over the door gunner as the helicopter took a turn. The mountains had a dusty haze over them, a dull shimmer of dirt as if the despair that had settled over North Korea under its Communist rulers was finally being shaken off. The landscape itself was beautiful; from the air the hills and mountains beyond gave no hint of the hardship the people here had withstood for decades.

The helicopters settled down and Tyler climbed out, choking back the dust. The Rangers moved out quickly, fanning across the field to take positions. Tyler walked toward the hangars, then remembered Somers, turned back, and waited for the historian. For the first time since they’d met, he realized that Somers was actually quite short, perhaps five feet six or seven. Something in the older man’s manner gave him a taller presence somehow—made him seem psychologically more commanding.

“That’s what we’re looking for?” asked Somers.

Two oddly shaped aircraft sat wingtip to wingtip in the open-faced hangar. The planes looked like something out of a sci-fi movie. Small—they were about the length of a pickup truck, and not all that much wider—they had no cockpits and short wings that angled up, almost as if they were origami gulls. Unpainted, their metal fuselages had sharp angles in the front, which melted into gradual curves about where the cockpit would normally be. Large, thick pipes sat at one side of the hangar, along with an array of what looked like large cans and tubing.

“That’s it,” said Tyler.

“These things fly?”

Their Air Force expert was bent over, trying to get a piece of dust from his eye. Somers took a step toward the hangar but Tyler stopped him.

“Might be booby-trapped,” he told him.

“Nah.”

“Let’s get the experts to check it out,” said Tyler, calling over to the Rangers’ captain.

The planes had not been booby-trapped. According to the Air Force officer—who punctuated everything he said with a disclaimer that he was by no means an expert—the aircraft were surely robots but were missing key parts, starting with their engines. In fact, he wasn’t entirely sure what sort of power plants they would have. Probably a jet, he thought, but the configuration at the rear might be able to fit a turboprop.

“Like I say, I’m no expert.”

Tyler had brought along a digital camera and started snapping pictures. Meanwhile the helicopter crew sized up the aircraft for transport. They debated whether by removing their wings the aircraft would fit within the oversize helicopters, but that idea was soon vetoed; while they had equipment with them to cut off the wings, Tyler interpreted his orders to mean the UAVs should be returned intact if possible. The helicopter could lift 20,000 pounds, or roughly the equivalent of an empty F-16; the Korean UAV looked to be well within the parameters, though ultimately the only way to find out was to try it. Tyler decided they’d take a shot with only one of the craft; not only would that make transport safer and easier but it would leave another here in case something went wrong.

The Air Force crewmen, with help from the Rangers, pulled the UAV from the hangar, rolling it on its thin, tubular gear. The specialists trussed it with thick belts, arranging the sling to get the balance right. This took considerable time, and they knocked off for a bit, breaking with some MREs and some assorted candy bars before the helicopter pilots lifted the Pave Low up and hovered into position to hook up its cargo. Standing well off to the side as the specialists did their thing, Tyler thought the sixbladed helicopter was actually straining to stay down; her tail twisted upward slightly, as if she wanted to tell the men fussing below her to get out of the way and let her do her job.

And then the tail began rotating oddly, and the helicopter pushed hard right. Tyler stared at the big green bug, which looked as if it had been caught in a bizarre wind. He heard something crack: It was as if the sky above him was a large sheet of ice and snapped in two.

The helicopter fell off sideways, flames shooting from the area below the back of the engine, and he heard the explosion of a rocket-propelled grenade landing nearby.

“Take cover!” someone yelled, and he hit the dirt.

Howe was sitting in Alice’s office when his cell phone rang. Thinking she was calling him, he answered, only to find Fisher on the line.

“Half the FBI’s looking for you,” Fisher told him. “Where the hell are you?”

“I’m sitting in a real estate office, waiting for someone to show me some houses,” said Howe. “She’s late.”

“Somebody’s trying to kill you. They blew up my car at the diner.”

“They’re trying to kill me and they blew up
your
car?”

“I didn’t say they were smart,” answered Fisher. “Who’s this girl you’re supposed to meet? You know her?”

“She showed me some houses yesterday. And we had dinner.”

“Give me her address,” said Fisher.

“Why? You think she’s been kidnapped?”

“I don’t think anything. Just give me her address and the one where you are.”

“You think they took her because they want me?” said Howe.

“I try not to think. It gets me in trouble,” said Fisher. “Now give me the addresses.”

Howe did.

“You stay where you are,” Fisher told him.

“I want to wait in my car,” said Howe. If someone was coming after him, he didn’t want innocent people hurt. “If they really did kidnap her, what’s going to happen?”

“They’ll let you know they have her,” Fisher said. “Look, you mind if I bring the FBI in on this? Kidnapping is kind of their area.”

“You
are
the FBI.”

“Yeah, but these guys are the real FBI agents. You’ll see: fifties haircuts, Sears suits, whole deal. Listen, when you get called, the caller’s going to tell you not to call the police, right? You don’t pay any attention to that part. Okay?”

“I’m not stupid.”

“That’s good to know.”

Howe sat in his car outside the real estate office, worried now and wondering what was going on. He thought of calling Fisher back for an explanation, and even brought the last-call menu up, but then didn’t hit the Send button.

Most likely this was all going to turn out to be a product of overworked imaginations, of people getting tense when the best approach was just to lie back and see what happened.

Of course, if anybody was laid-back it was Fisher. If a tornado was coming, the guy would light up a cigarette, then step to one side at the last minute.

A dark sedan made its way up the driveway finally. Howe got out of his car and walked over to it as it pulled to a stop.

“I’m Howe,” he said, leaning down toward the passenger side as the door opened and a man in a suit got out.

“Into the car,” said the man, pushing a pistol into his stomach.

As Howe hesitated, another man came out from around the other side. He saw a woman’s arms, bound together, reaching from the back.

“Let her go,” he said.

“Into the car,” demanded the first man, this time putting the gun into his ribs. “Or I’ll shoot you here.”

Fisher had Howe pegged as someone who didn’t like to stay home when everyone else was out partying, so he wasn’t particularly surprised when the FBI agents he’d sent scurrying up to him called back and said he was nowhere to be found.

“This is the girlfriend’s address,” Fisher told the agent. “Send somebody over there to check it out.”

“Hey, listen, Andy, it’s not like we got nothing better to do,” said the agent, Pete McGovern. He was a non-smoker but in every other way extremely dependable, the sort of guy who answered his phone on the first ring and paid off on poker debts. “Me and Christian over here have to finish checking on a whole shitload of references this afternoon.”

“Which would you rather be doing,” asked Fisher, “looking in some guy’s bathroom window so Social Security can hire him to deny a widow’s monthly check, or breaking the biggest national security case of your lifetime?”

“Don’t pull my pud, Andy.”

“That’s what I like about you, McGovern: You have a way with words.”

“Where’s the stinking address?” asked the agent. “And, for the record, these background checks were for the Department of Justice.”

“Even more reason to blow them off.”

The cell phone buzzed in Howe’s pocket. The man sitting next to him turned and pointed his gun at his face.

“If I don’t answer it, they’ll get suspicious,” he said.

“If you touch it, I’ll shoot your head off,” said the man.

Alice sat next to him in the back of the large Mercury, her hands bound and a scarf tied across her mouth. She looked angry, not afraid.

The men had put police-style handcuffs on Howe’s wrists, but his hands were in front of him and he thought he might be able to grab the gun if he lunged. But the men in front also had weapons, and it seemed unlikely that he would be able to overcome all three men before one of them shot Alice.

He’d have a better chance once they stopped the car and they got out.

“What the hell is it you want, anyway?” Howe asked.

No one bothered to answer.

“Are you not telling me because you don’t know?” he asked. “Or because you’re stupid?”

“Just shut the fuck up, okay?” said the man on his right. He pushed the pistol against his head. “Because, really, the easiest thing to do would be to shoot you here.”

“Franky,” said the driver. “Not unless we have to.”

Fisher pulled over to the side of the road to consult his map. As he pulled it out, his cell phone rang. It was McGovern.

“Apartment’s empty. Door was unlocked. Sign of a struggle.”

“Just like in the movies,” said Fisher.

“We’re going to need local help.”

“Yeah, do it,” said Fisher. “I got to keep this line clear.”

He keyed off the call before McGovern could say anything else, then tried Howe again. Once more there was no answer. He went back to looking at the map. Of the hundreds of thousands of roads in the area, Howe could only be on ten thousand or so. Fisher lit a cigarette as he considered the mechanics of roadblocks. He flipped on the radio just in time to hear a traffic report from the WKDC traffic chopper. Fisher listened to smoking buddy Maureen Justice claim that traffic hadn’t moved this smoothly since Madison’s second administration.

Out of ideas, Fisher snapped off the radio and went to the pay phone to call McGovern.

“Local detectives sent some people right over,” said McGovern. “They were real cooperative until they heard your name. What are you going to do now?”

“Wait for my phone to ring. If Howe calls we can track it down. I already have it set up.”

“What if he doesn’t call?”

“Then we move over to Plan B.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m not sure, but it involves spectacular detective work, a car chase, gunshots, and a hell of a lot of cigarettes smoked down to the nub.”

Howe had to punch two keys on the cell phone to call the last number he had dialed; without taking the phone from his pocket it wouldn’t be easy to find the buttons, let alone hit them in the proper order. And there was little chance of even getting the phone out without the thug next to him seeing.

The driver’s comment earlier seemed to mean that they were under instructions not to kill him. But it could also mean that he wanted to wait until they reached a place where it was more convenient.

They were moving along at a good clip on the highway, but there were enough cars nearby that someone might at least notice if the car veered suddenly, or even see bullets flying through the side glass.

Better to wait and see what developed.

The world above Tyler’s head shaded red, pulsing with the short, sharp breaths he took. He forced himself to look for Somers. Three breaths, four—he looked left, looked back right, finally saw the historian sprawled behind him.

God, I killed him.

Tyler scrambled over to him. Somers was breathing. As far as Tyler could tell, he hadn’t been hurt, just lost his wind.

Gunfire popped nearby, the sound ricocheting off the nearby hills. The helicopter lay on its side fifty yards in front of him.

He was too scared to help the people stuck in it; too chicken.

Coward. Stinking coward.

Tyler leaned his head forward in the direction of the stricken aircraft. He felt as if something were holding him back, wind rushing against him. Voices screamed at him:

Coward.

Coward.

Something rippled across the metal of the helicopter. The front burst upward. Tyler couldn’t process it: The big bird seemed to be moving on its own. Again the wind held him back and he pushed his head down, saw something in the metal: a hand. Part of the fuselage rippled from gunfire from a few hundred yards away.

Tyler jumped to his feet and ran to the chopper. A body sprawled against a spar just inside the open hatchway. Tyler leaned in and grabbed it. The metal beneath his chest gave way; he fell into the Pave Low in slow motion, the side of the helicopter squishing as if it were held up by Jell-O. Tyler started to choke and blinked his eyes, grabbed hold of something—body or metal, he couldn’t even tell—and pulled.

“I’m okay. Get Chris.”

Someone pushed through the twisted metal on his right. There was smoke, something brown in his face. Tyler leaned into the dark hole, knowing he wasn’t coming out of here. He didn’t want to; he wanted to get away from the voices persecuting him, wanted to just fall into this black hole. He was a coward and he wanted to just disappear, to be sucked into oblivion.

“Help,” said someone.

“I’ll help you,” Tyler answered.

It seemed as if he were swimming, as if he were out on the river at night, under a bridge or a ledge, trapped as the current twisted around him.

“Out—we’re getting out,” he said, and there were raindrops now, the splatter of something against the surface of the water nearby.

He pulled and then pushed and could stand, and wasn’t in the water anymore. And someone yelled, “Here,” and the voice inside his head once more called him a coward. And then he saw that his hand was grabbing at a shirt. He stood and he pushed; he moved backward. Then he started to move forward.

“Come on,” someone shouted. “You’ve got them all, come on. They’re gunning for the helicopter.”

Tyler threw himself backward, tumbling onto a sandy beach.

Not a beach: the strip, away from the downed helicopter, away.

The ground was farther than he’d thought it could be—so much farther. His head finally hit and the pain shot up against his mouth and then back to his ears and to his neck and down his spine, and he vibrated as he swam again, the voice calling him a coward over and over.