The national security advisor picked up his glass of water and took another sip. Three more lines were lit with waiting calls.
“Line two is your friend from New York, Kevin Smith, wondering about that ball game next Monday,” said Mozelle. “The Yankees?”
Blitz grimaced. Smith had field box seats right behind the dugout. But there was no way he’d get a chance to get to New York with everything that was going on.
“Better tell him we’ll reschedule,” said Blitz. “Who’s on two?”
Chapter 2
The northern Wyoming airport had been a military base back in the sixties. All that remained were a few low-slung hangars dating from the forties or fifties. Even from the distance, it was clear that weeds had overgrown the runway — though the expert on forward air fields Fisher had persuaded to accompany him explained that wouldn’t be a real problem. The pavement itself was in good condition, clear of debris and not even dusty, as if it had been swept recently.
Which Fisher thought very possible.
“You could put a C-17 down on this,” said the sergeant, walking along the cement with him. The Air Force Special Tactics or Special Forces squadron member was trained in combat control tactics, or landing aircraft in hostile or potentially hostile areas near the front lines. A lanky Texan with a scar on his cheek, Sergeant Bowman preferred Marlboros to Camels but didn’t turn down free-bies. “You might even get a loaded C-5A off. Nice long runway. Good shape.”
“You think it’s been used lately?” asked Fisher as they walked toward what had once been a hangar area.
“Well, something’s been in and out: We know that just from what the sheriff was telling you,” said Sergeant Bowman. “But uh, pinpointing it to a 767—that all’s detective stuff.”
“Where we going to find one of those?” said Fisher. He bent down to examine a spot on the pavement.
The local sheriff had told him that the strip had been used by pot smugglers during the nineties. The sheriff claimed he’d put a stop to it; Fisher figured that meant his price had started eating too far into the overhead.
There had been two reports of low-flying jets in the general area called in to the dispatcher three nights before, which would be the night after Cyclops’s disappearance. They’d actually sent a car out but of course found nothing.
“Fuel truck was there,” said the sergeant. He walked to a stained spot near the cement about twenty feet away.
“When?” asked Fisher.
Sergeant Bowman got down on the pavement. “Recent. Real recent.”
“Well, don’t taste it.” Fisher walked to the edge of the pad, then around toward the wall of the large building that sat at the corner of the ramp. The weeds weren’t all that high and a few were brushed back, but whether a truck had driven over them recently was anybody’s guess.
Fisher took a fresh cigarette out and lit up. The main entrance to the base was up a road to his left. They’d seen another service road farther south when they’d been in the air. There were all sorts of tracks running across a spot at the north side: ATVs, it looked like.
The next-door neighbors were a good twenty or thirty miles away. They had to be interviewed, even though it was unlikely as hell they knew anything.
The sheriff had offered his help. That’d be a laugh, almost as big as the one he’d get when he called the local Bureau office, surely undermanned, for help.
Fisher studied the tip of his cigarette. Was the dry air affecting it, or were his Indian friends doing something to make them burn faster?
The large hangar in front of him had no doors, but its roof was intact. Fisher walked to it and went inside.
The floor was so clean, it could have been vacuumed.
Undoubtedly was.
“Pilot wants to know how we’re doing,” said Bowman, who was wearing a radio headset.
“Tell him we’re ready to go,” said Fisher. “And ask him if he saw a good place for a burger.”
“Are you part of the investigation or what?” demanded Gorman as Fisher got off the helicopter back at North Lake.
“Both,” he told her.
“You can’t just go around commandeering helicopters, Andy. You’re part of a team. There’s a procedure.”
“Yeah, well, listen, Jemma, I found out where our plane’s been, or was, for a couple of days. Bitch of it is, I was about three days too late.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Maybe more — hard to tell. I’m thinking we can get those guys to do that thing with the contrails and radars again, only change the area. Then we backcheck that against the legitimate flights, because this was probably camouflaged as a legitimate flight.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Andy?”
“Buy me some coffee, Jemma. You owe me big-time.”
Chapter 3
Sitting in the second row in the control room, Howe watched the instrument readouts change on the big screen at the front as the technical people reviewed the data from his flight yet again. They’d been over it so much by now, Howe suspected they had every bit of computer code memorized, and still they hadn’t figured out what the problem was. According to the data, there was no problem.
The Velociraptor pilot who’d been bumped from the original test, Timmy “Blaze” Robinson, had come down to the control room to kibitz. He was perched on the back of the seat next to Howe, sipping a cola. In the row in front of them, Firenze — the head of the team that had developed the shared avionics system and its related interfaces, and one of the most important scientists on the F/A-22V project — stood over one of the displays, his finger jabbing at the data flow like an old-West gunman using his revolver.
“Copacetic,” said Firenze finally. “Perfectly copacetic.”
“What’s that mean?” asked Timmy.
Firenze looked up and blinked at him. “Means I can’t find a problem.”
“Maybe there isn’t one,” said Timmy.
“Mass hallucination,” said Firenze. The other scientists were knocking off to get some refreshments, soda mostly. “Kinda like the song on that new Weezer.”
“Haven’t heard it,” said Timmy.
There were talking about a CD by a rock group. The two men were roughly the same age, and while Howe didn’t see that they had much else in common, they apparently shared the same musical tastes.
“Mind if I borrow it? You’re going to be tied up, huh?”
“Go ahead,” said Firenze. “It’s up in the lab.”
“You’re a guy, Doc.” Timmy turned to Howe. “Hey, boss. Lunch?”
“Sounds good,” said Howe. “What do you think, Matt?”
“Very fuggled,” said Firenze. “We’re going to have to get into the bizarre theories next.”
“How bizarre?”
“UFOs,” said the scientist, who didn’t appear to be kidding.
“Hungry?” Howe asked.
“Nah. Thanks. Thinking to do.”
Howe caught up with Timmy in the hall. They went up a level to the NADT Lounge, a plush cafeteria that was one of the serious benies of working with a “private” contractor rather than the regular Air Force. Even the best military chow paled in comparison to the offerings at the Lounge.
Not that the pilots selected from the gourmet side of the menu. Timmy ordered a sausage-and-pepper grinder and insisted on extra garlic. Howe ordered a hamburger with melted blue cheese. It filled the plate, and the spiced fries were sharp and golden.
Megan used to love them, though she’d only eat a few.
“Too many make me fart,” she said.
It seemed impossible that the word had come from her mouth.