“Hey, what’s up, Captain Bligh?” Fisher asked. “Tahiti in sight already?”
“Where are you going?”
“That plane over there.”
“Who authorized your flight?” she asked.
“You color-blind, Jemma?”
“Huh?”
“This isn’t a blue suit I’m wearing. I’m outside of your chain of command. Plane’s got a seat and I’m taking it.”
He took a step toward the plane but she put her hand up.
“Whatever you paid for the manicure, you got ripped off,” Fisher told her.
“Andy, you can’t leave.”
“Why not?”
“We’re in the middle of an investigation.”
“That’s why I’m getting on the plane,” said Fisher.
“But if the Russians took Cyclops One—”
“Which they didn’t.”
“Damn it, listen to me.”
Jemma’s face flushed, probably with embarrassment that she had used a four-letter word. Fisher smiled and took a long drag on his cigarette. “Mom’s gonna wash your mouth out, probably with lye soap.”
“Listen, if the Russians — whoever — took the plane, then they had to have inside help.”
“Makes sense.”
“We have to figure out who it is and build a case. That’s FBI territory.”
“You think? I pegged it for CID or DIA or something,” said Fisher. “Jeez, Jemma, when you roll your eyes like that, how come they don’t pop out?”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, really, they look like they’re going to drop on the ground.”
“Are you going to help or what?”
“I am helping.”
“By leaving?”
“Didn’t you make that suggestion yourself the day I got here?”
She drew back, her face turning red. Fisher would have enjoyed the performance immensely, but he was concerned about missing the flight. It was the only plane headed eastward for several hours. “Andy. Listen. Do you know who was helping here? Beyond the crew? Was Howe involved?”
“I haven’t a clue,” said Fisher. “Probably not Howe.”
“Why do you pull my chain like that?”
“ ’Cause it’s so easy.”
“Do you think there was a conspiracy here to steal the plane?” she demanded.
“Makes sense.” Fisher shrugged. “But I’ll tell you more when I get back.”
“Andy…I…we need someone here who knows what they’re doing,” she said.
“Leaves me out,” said Fisher. He took a step forward.
“I’m asking nicely.”
“Can I get a sonar up to look in those lakes?”
She looked exasperated. “No. That’s…to get permission to do that, and then get the gear…given the other evidence now…You’re nuts. Why are you obsessed with the lakes?”
“Bonham’s the one who’s obsessed.”
“He only suggested it.”
“You don’t think that’s interesting?”
Gorman’s sigh sounded like the mating call of a horse. “I don’t understand you. You figure out that the plane has been taken, then you come up with a crazy theory one hundred and eighty degrees in the other direction: that it crashed in the lakes.”
“Who says that’s my theory?”
Gorman stamped her feet, a gesture that reinforced Fisher’s suspicion that she had equine blood in her. “I’m going to put Kowalski in charge.”
“It is kind of nice to see you grovel,” admitted Fisher, seeing the crewmen starting to button up the plane. “But I gotta get going.”
Part Three
WORLD WAR III
Chapter 1
Howe shut down his aircraft, slowly working himself out of the restraints, moving with great deliberation as if he were reluctant to leave the plane. He’d flown nonstop to Kabul, Afghanistan, refueling by air along the way. Ten thousand miles, give or take; it was a serious haul, even in the pilot-friendly Velociraptor, coming on top of several hours of intensive planning and then hustling to leave. By all rights and normal flight rules, he was owed some major sack time, but nothing about this operation could be called “normal.”
There was no way he could go to bed until he made sure the operation was under control; a slew of details had to be attended to if they were going to be ready to take off tomorrow night, the analysts’ best guess about when the Indians would launch their attack.
Howe extended his arms and stretched his back, twisting his muscles. Deciding he had officially caught a second wind, he pulled himself out of the cockpit and onto the ladder that the ground crew had brought over. The men had been waiting for some hours for his arrival and were already swarming like ants on a jelly sandwich. The Velociraptors’ “home” team was due to arrive in another few hours from North Lake, but the crew here — residents and others gathered as the ad hoc operation was pulled together — gave up nothing to them in terms of skill, speed, and precision. With a wide range of experience in various aircraft, the maintainers could probably have rebuilt the aircraft from the ground up if necessary.
It wasn’t. The Velociraptor and its sister, now being secured by Timmy a short distance away, had performed perfectly. If he hadn’t been there, Howe would almost have doubted that the glitch that killed the controls on his original aircraft had even happened.
“Man, do I have to take a leak!” yelled Timmy by way of greeting as he climbed down from the plane. “Piddlepack’s full up, and I had my legs crossed the last thousand miles.”
Howe shook his head and began walking toward a pair of Humvees waiting nearby. By the time he had ascertained that they’d been sent to bring him over to the base commander, Timmy had joined him.
Part of the air base had been given over to the operation, in effect quarantined from the rest of the world. A two-star general had come over from CentCom to take charge of the operation and was waiting for Howe in a suite down the hall from the base commander’s headquarters. Eight F-15Cs and a KC-135 tanker were tasked to the group, along with Cyclops Two and the Velociraptors. An AWACS and its escorts were due in shortly from Saudi Arabia, along with an E-3 upgraded Rivet Joint aircraft code-named Cobra Two, which could provide real-time intelligence from intercepted electronic transmissions, including radio and telemetry. There were two different SAR packages already here, manned by troops from Special Forces Command and including not only Air Force PJs or pararescuers but Army SF troopers as well. The packages were built around a pair of MH-60s, modified Blackhawks used for long-range missions; within a few hours they were expecting a long-range MC-130 that could be used for long-distance operations as well.
Compared to the way the military ordinarily did things, the operation was thrown together. But the force it was able to project was, pound for pound, one of the most potent ever assembled, short of a nuclear-strike team. The warfighters were relying on not dozens but hundreds of highly skilled personnel backing them up: aircraft mechanics, survival shop specialists, weapons orderlies, fuel handlers, cooks, clerks, security people, communications whizzes, drivers, and gofers. The pilots might get any glory that was handed out, but in reality they were a very small piece of the pie.
Major General Alec Liu had been briefed on the mission by the planners who had helped Howe outline it back in the States, as well as by the Pentagon and even Dr. Blitz. According to the latest estimates, the Indians would hit the radar site within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. The attack would be made at night, but as yet it had been impossible to get a better idea of when. That meant a twelve-hour patrol, on top of the time it would take to prep the mission and get into position.