“They’re supermen?” said Danny.
“That would be an exaggeration. The sorts of enhancements we’re talking about, we think, would increase lung capacity, say, metabolic recovery rates. Strength might be increased through implants, bone replacements, or the exoskeleton devices, the things that you were involved in testing—”
“You mean the wing?” said Danny.
“Exactly.”
Dreamland had helped develop a device that allowed soldiers to literally fly across the battlefield. Called by various names — Rocketman was more popular than Wing, which was the Whiplash nickname — the gear was used by special operations troops for select missions. The research involved in constructing it had found a much wider application, affecting everything from parachutes to the jacks that helped ordies load bombs and missiles onto aircraft. A civilian company had used the technology to create one-man cranes and lifts, which it planned to introduce to the market in a few months.
“The truth is, we don’t have a lot of details,” continued Breanna. “We’re making guesses based on some eyewitness accounts which, as you know, aren’t always credible. But we have a video showing one of the Wolves moving with incredible speed while another puts his fist through the side of a car.”
“Wow.”
“The video is very sketchy. It’s some sort of laboratory piece. Very low resolution.”
“Not a sales brochure, huh?”
“Danny, this is serious. The sources are sensitive. Highest code word.”
“I’m sorry.”
“There’s something else. Something that affects us both.”
Breanna paused. Danny didn’t say anything, and the silence immediately struck her.
Does he know what I’m going to say? Has he somehow intuited it?
“I think — there’s some evidence,” she started, losing her steam, “that — one of the Wolves may be Mark Stoner.”
Danny still didn’t say anything.
“The— There’s a visual similarity in the video. I noticed it right away,” Breanna continued. “It’s eerie, if it’s a coincidence. It may be a coincidence. But…”
The phone line was so silent, Breanna almost wondered if she had lost the connection. But the computer would have told her if that was the case.
“The… there is other evidence,” she said. “I don’t know — it’s not conclusive, but here’s what it is. The killer on the assassination in China was drinking from a Coke bottle immediately before the murder. The Chinese gathered it and got a sample from it. They have saliva, and some drugs — he wasn’t drinking cola, it was some sort of maintenance drink we think, it had enzymes and amphetamine in it. In any event, the Chinese analysis of the DNA material has something like a seventy-three percent chance of matching Mark’s.”
The percentage had to do with the original sampling technique used in recording Stoner’s DNA in the 1990s, as well as the quality of the material the Chinese had collected and the process they used to analyze it. Breanna told Danny about the doubts some of the scientists had mentioned, and the arguments that placing an actual number on the odds of a direct match were difficult and misleading.
“Do you think it’s him?” asked Danny when she finished.
“I don’t know. I simply don’t know.”
“Wow.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I–I wasn’t — I’m not sure that it’s him.”
“It’s all right Bree. I understand.”
She could have kissed him right then. She would have, if he were there. He was taking the news a lot better than she had when she first heard about the possibility of Stoner being alive.
“The Moldova connection,” Danny prompted. “What do you make of that?”
“That may be important,” she said. “I mean — it is where Mark was shot down. On the other hand, it could be a coincidence. It is a good place if you’re looking to have some quiet banking transactions.”
“I think I ought to look into it.”
“So do I.”
16
Danny Freah stared out the window of the Fokker 50–100 as the aircraft approached the airport at Chisinau. While Moldova shared a border with Ukraine and in some ways had a similar history, relations between the two countries were cool. Moldovans seemed to resent Ukrainians almost as much as they resented Russians. The flight he had taken was the only scheduled daily flight between the two countries. Even so, the aircraft was only half full, and its age indicated that the line wasn’t particularly profitable.
Danny tightened his seat belt for the landing. After so many years in military jets, the smooth, unhurried descent felt almost like a car ride. He waited as the plane left the runway for the taxi strip, then got up and grabbed his things as soon as he could see the small terminal in the window. He was the first one off, practically running for the open terminal door.
Relax, he told himself. Slow down. Nothing was going to be gained by haste.
The white-haired customs agent who checked his passport was impressed that he was an American. His English, though heavily accented, was very good.
“You’re here on business?” said the man.
“I have some appointments,” Danny told him.
“This is very good — you will like Moldova. A very good climate for making money. I studied in U.S. of A. myself.”
“Really?” said Danny.
“Nineteen seventy,” said the man proudly. “Amherst. But I returned. We always return to our home.”
“True.”
“A good place for business,” said the man, handing his passport back.
“Maybe you should open a business yourself,” suggested Danny.
“Too much to do,” said the man. He looked down at the floor, as if lamenting decisions he had made long ago. But then he immediately brightened. “Good luck to you.”
“Thanks,” said Danny.
Danny’s ostensible goal in Moldova was to visit the Russian bank branch in Chisinau, where he would plant some bugs and attempt to gather more information about accounts associated with the Wolves. But he also intended to check out the crash site. And to do that, he had to head north to Balti. He decided he’d get that out of the way first; not only was MY-PID still pulling together information on possible connections to the account, but Nuri and Flash were due to arrive in the morning; they could bug the banks as easily as he could.
Balti was something he preferred doing on his own.
His flight to Balti in the north, barely eighty miles by air, was in a brightly painted former Russian army helicopter. To get in, he and his fellow passenger had to squeeze past the copilot’s seat, buckling themselves into the tandem seats in the cabin. The engines whined ferociously as they took off, and the noise hardly abated as they flew, the cabin vibrating in sync with the three-bladed prop above.
The Balti International City Airport had a long runway, but was used so rarely there were no car rental or other amenities there. The terminal building was deserted and locked, and the grass around the infield of the airstrip overgrown.
Danny had arranged for a driver and car to take him to the bus station, where a small car rental shop promised to rent him a car. But the driver wasn’t there when he got off the plane. He called the company twice and got no answer; after a half hour he decided he had no choice but walk into town, a six or seven mile hike. He took his bag and started down the long concrete access road.
Weeds grew through the expansion cracks. Danny pulled his earphones from his pocket and connected to MY-PID, asking the computer if there were any other taxis in town.