Whirlwind (28 page)

“Fer-de-Lance here, sir. Sorry to call at this hour but “

“Report.” One word was enough for most situations.

“McKenzie’s data vault has been cracked, sir.”

“Excellent.” Soldiers need the simplicity.

“It’s a two-terra byte partition on a file server out here in California. Mirrored on a second server at the same site.”

“Contents?” Verbosity breeds complexity.

“Unknown. This computer geek … calls himself Sledgehammer… was unable to decode a single word of it. He told me it would take a neural net processor array to break the encryption key.”

“Status?” Complexity requires thought.

“Erased, sir. This, uh, Sledgehammer overwrote both partitions with ones and zeros several hundred times. Whatever data McKenzie had on them is gone forever.”

“The hacker?” Thought impedes obedience.

“I was at his shoulder every second, sir. Watched him like a hawk. There’s no way he made a backup for his own use. Those files are deleted permanently. Guaranteed.”

Schmidt smiled faintly. McKenzie was now a man without armor, his head an easy trophy for anyone who wanted it. “Tour insurance policy has been canceled, Charles,” he whispered. Sir?

Vulnerable at last it was a warming thought, and Schmidt allowed himself a few seconds to relish it. Then back to business: “This Sledgehammer character, Fer-de-lance, he has a reputation. No matter how closely you supervised him, there exists a possibility that he pirated those data.”

“I am aware of that, sir.”

“A single keystroke is all it would take. He could have copied McKenzie’s files and sent them off to some other site on the Internet. Neither you nor I nor any man would know that he had done so. There’s profit in McKenzie’s files, blackmail profit.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I need assurance that such will not occur.”

“I’m seeing to it now, sir.”

“Ah. I am delighted to hear you’ve taken the initiative. Do bear in mind that it would be best if his remains are in a condition that hinder identification.”

“In progress. No fingers, no fingerprints. No teeth, no dental records “

“DNA testing?”

“Only if the fish don’t do their job. At the moment, I’m in a boat about three miles off Stinson Beach. They say there are sharks in these waters.”

“They say correctly. Great whites, I believe. Well done, soldier. I’m pleased with your work.”

“Would you like to speak with Mr. Sledgehammer before I put him overboard, sir? He may be difficult to understand, but he can still talk.”

“No, thank you, Fer-de-Lance. But do leave the line open so I can hear… well, whatever is to be heard.”

“My pleasure, sir.”

“The pleasure is all mine.”

The northern Arizona landscape was new to Irina, scenery so different from the sterile deserts of the south distant buttes like stately ocean liners; black lava tufts, each tall as a skyscraper; salmon-pink cliffs; tabletop plateaus speckled with piney groves; cloud armadas billowing across an infinite sky. The road ran arrow straight, and on every side the vista would lift all but the most sullen heart.

Irina’s heart was, although she did not think of it in these terms, most sullen.

They were on the Navajo reservation, the “rez” Charlie called it because he was an old hand out here and knew the lingo. Dead dogs lay by the road, milestones on a highway from no place to nowhere. Infrequent intersections were prostituted with garish signs importuning tourists to visit.… the casino .… the pottery shop .… the historic trading post… Leave your dollars, please, then leave.

Open spaces again, nothing profaning them, not even electric pylons. Rolling plains of coral-green sage, mustard-yellow rabbit bush, jimsonweed with corpse-white flowers. A huge black raven soared in surprise from the road’s verge, startling Irina as much as her passing had startled it.

“Water?” Charlie asked, one hand on the Escalade’s leathered steering wheel, the other offering a bottle of Calistoga.

She shook her head.

“Better take some. We’re at six thousand feet here. It’s dry country. You dehydrate without noticing.”

Having already said to Charlie everything she had to say, she neither wished to reply, nor to see him smile his infuriating smile, nor hear him assert over and over again that it was his firm intention to protect her whether she liked it or not.

How dare he?

She had been trained by the best, been at the top of her class in every discipline, finished first in every competition, won every

“Just because the air is cool, it doesn’t mean you’re not sweating. Moisture is wicking out of your skin as fast as it would in the open desert.”

She refused to look at him, the arrogant man. Superior, she was superior to him in every attribute except experience. What gave him the right to be so overbearing?

“Drink some of this water, and stop your sulking.”

Snatching the bottle from his hand, she hissed, “I am not sulking.”

“Oh, excuse me. Would ‘pouting’ be a better word. How about ‘grump-ing’? I know damned well the only accurate word for the expression on your face is ‘scowl.”“

She savored the water, had needed it more than she had known. After a second swallow, then a third, she twisted the cap back on, dropping the bottle in his lap. “I am capable of looking out for myself.”

“We had this argument before. You lost.”

“You will not succeed. I will not be put in jail. I will return to my nation.”

“Had that argument, too.” He was grinning again, damn him!

“You have done more than I would have believed possible. I am…” she licked her lips, the word didn’t come easily “… beaten. You have Whirlwind, whatever it may be. You have my computer disk “

“Not yours. Belongs to my government.”

She felt herself flush with fury, and liked it like that. “Arresting me serves no purpose. Only my humiliation. Is that what you want? What is that wonderful American phrase, the one you use to teach bad puppy dogs good behavior ‘rub my nose in it’?”

He answered with maddening reasonableness. “At the risk of repeating myself, I’m trying to protect you from people who think you know more than you should.”

“I know nothing. Only the code name of a project. Only the location of a laboratory that probably has been moved.”

“Nobody knows what you saw in that lab except you. Maybe you don’t know a thing. Maybe you do. And if that’s the case if you do happen to have a few of our national secrets locked away in your very sharp mind then you’re a dangerous proposition. Doesn’t matter that Whirlwind’s safe and sound. Doesn’t matter that I’ve got that disk in my hip pocket. What matters is that you may have knowledge that “

“I do not. How many times do I have to tell you? You know the truth. You worked out how much time Dominik and I spent in that laboratory. We had no chance “

“Give it a rest, Irina. I believe you. The only information you’ve got is what I’ve given you and that isn’t worth diddly. But my opinion doesn’t count. I’ve said this before, and I’m going to say it again, and by God, I hope this time you listen. I am not your problem. The people whose hands I’m trying to keep you out of they’re your problem. They honestly and sincerely think you know something of vital importance to the national defense. There is no way on God’s green earth that you can persuade them otherwise. I’m the only one who can do that. If I can get you to safety, yup, I think I can do that very thing.”

“You are not telling me everything.” A shot in the dark. But it felt right. As she spoke the words, she knew they were true. “There is something else.” She could read him now, read him like a book.

Charlie frowned at her.

“What is it? Tell me, Charlie.”

He chewed the corner of his lip. His eyes focused less on the road than on some inner space she could not touch, but which, given time, she knew she could reach.

“Do you think I am weak? Do you think I cannot take it? Am I just a little child who is not to be trusted with the truth? Is that how you see me?” He winced. She’d pricked him. “I can handle it, Charlie. Whatever it is, I can deal with it. I might even be able to help. I am good, Charlie, you know I am good. Tell me, and we can work it out together.”

His jaw tightened. “No,” he snapped. “Not now. Maybe later.”

“Unacceptable! I am the one who is in danger! You cannot “

“Sure I can.” With a wolfs grin, he tightened his grip on the steering wheel and locked his eyes on the road. “You know that flying saucer stuff?”

He was changing the subject on her. Unbearable! “No, and I do not wish to.”

“It was back in 1947. The Air Force was launching radiosonde balloons from Holloman base, looking for high-atmosphere radiation in case Stalin was testing nukes. They called it Project Mogul.”

“I am utterly uninterested.”

He ignored her. She might as well not even be there. “So one of these balloons comes down on a ranch outside of Roswell, New Mexico. Well, of course the military runs scampering to fetch its top secret equipment. Then some local rancher tells the newspapers that he thinks an alien spaceship has crashed, and the Army’s trying to hush it up “

“You are treating me this way because I saw you cry.” As soon as she spoke, she regretted it. No man wishes to be seen in his weakness, not even a man as strong as Charlie.

He did not so much as blink. For this Irina, now abashed, was thankful. “Well, my dad figured that was a God-given opportunity to mess with the Russkies’ heads, so he sets up an operation to convince your people we really did have our hands on a UFO “

As furious at Charlie as she was at herself, Irina turned her face to the window. Hamadryad to King Cobra. Do you copy?”

“Cobra here. I copy.”

“I’m in chopper four. We’ve acquired the target.”

Schmidt reached out a finger, ejecting Rosenkavalier’s silvered harmonies from his Gelandewagen’s impeccable Harman stereo. “Position?” he asked.

Hamadryad shouted to be heard above the roar of his helicopter’s engine. “Unmarked dirt road, sir. Runs parallel to the west side of Mitchell Canyon. Can you find that on your map?”

The G-Wagen sported a wide-screened GPS display. In the passenger seat, Coral Snake, once a Gurkha on India’s northern frontier, now a master

sergeant of no nation, tapped a query on the keyboard. “Found it, sir. Mitchell Canyon. Thirty-six degrees and three minutes north. One hundred nine, eighteen south.” His clipped English was flawless, not the least hint of that colonial lilt that always reminded Schmidt of his homeland’s conceited Hindu bourgeoisie. “Our position is almost directly south of it. No roads are shown near the west rim.”

Lifting the microphone to his lips, Schmidt depressed the Send button. “Are you certain it’s our target, Hamadryad?”

“Affirmative, sir. Lollipop-red Cadillac Escalade. There’s no missing it.”

Schmidt touched his tongue to the corner of his lips. How many luridly colored Escalades could there be on northern Arizona’s back roads?

Only one, Kolodenkova’s.

A bit after seven in the morning, a janitor found a vintage Winnebago parked behind a school building, muffled cries coming from within. He’d called the local law. Soon thereafter, an aspiring Wyatt Earp, sidearm drawn and hammer cocked, had cautiously opened the suspicious vehicle. Two red-faced retirees were tied up in the back. One of them had wet his pants.

Miss Kolodenkova’s work, no doubt about it.

The girl’s MO was to steal another car as soon as she abandoned whatever she was driving. However, there’d been no auto thefts in the town, not a single one. Schmidt only had to think about that fact for a moment before ordering his men to roust every automobile dealer in the area out of bed.

It didn’t take long to find the right one.

A more than merely nervous used car salesman bur bled that yesterday, just before closing time, a woman calling herself Caroline Sonderstrom paid cash for a distinctive used Escalade. Yes, sir, the official Cadillac designation for that Escalade’s exterior is poppy red, but its more of a fire-engine red, you know, or maybe cherry, ‘cause it’s the brightest red you’ve ever seen. Stands out like a hard-on in a nudist colony, if you know what I mean. Aw, sure, she fits your description to a T, only her hair is brown, but the thing is, when I took down her driver’s license number, I noticed her photo showed her blonde. No, sir, I didn’t even think about it for a second, because you know the ladies they change their hair more often than most boys around here change their jockey shorts.

Gratifying.

It was about time Charles slipped up. He’d used old photos for the girl’s false ID. Unfortunately she dyed her hair to disguise herself. Had Charles been a bit more professional, he would have been prepared for that particular contingency. Schmidt most certainly would have been.

Glancing at the GPS systems’s digital map, he pressed the Send button again. “Which way is she headed?”

Hamadryad responded, “North.”

“Our GPS database does not seem to portray every dirt track and cattle path in Arizona. Hamadryad, you’re going to have to help me find the turnoff. I’m on Navajo road thirty-four, repeat three-four, headed west. We’ve already passed a number of ranch roads. There’s no way we can tell from the ground which one Kolodenkova is on.”

“Stand by, Cobra. I’ll drop back toward the highway and see if I can spot you.”

“I’m switching my emergency flashers on. We should be easy to recognize.”

“Copy that.”

Hide in plain sight. He gave Kolodenkova credit for her cleverness. The girl intentionally chose a high-visibility vehicle. His soldiers would be looking for an anonymous car or truck Dodge, Chevy, Ford, all the common nameplates found on every highway in the West. What they would not scrutinize was something so ostentatiously eye-catching that no fugitive would dare use it.

Clever, uncommonly clever, she was a worthy opponent. The end game would be sweeter for that.

“I see you, Cobra.”

Schmidt craned his neck. His G-Wagen had just passed through a pungent coniferous forest. Now on open plains, wild grass and grazing sheep, he peered into the distance. Two o’clock high, a tiny black dot hovered above a mesa layered like a cake. He flashed his high beams three times.