His car was riddled with holes.
He drove to the first crossroad, took a right, then sped toward an isolated spot between two villages and turned down a small dirt road. In a few hundred meters of bouncing dirt road, he cranked the wheel and smashed into a group of small bushes. He removed his newly scratched leather briefcase from the floor of the passenger side, and abandoned the Audi. Then he quickly ran two kilometers to the nearest town.
When he finally had time to think about what had just happened, he sifted through his mind for a reason. The blonde was obviously a lookout. But who were the three with the silenced Uzis? They knew where he was staying and where he was going. But how? He'd have to think about that. In the meantime he needed a new car.
Jake Adams showed the gate guard his ID and the rental contract for his new Volkswagen Passat. The rental company had sent it from the Frankfurt Airport after he reported the Audi missing.
His papers were in order. The stern-faced guard waved him on base. Jake knew the routine from his days as an officer in Air Force Intelligence. In fact, he had been stationed near Bitburg for three years.
He drove slowly to the end of an old hangar near the flight line. The corrugated metal building, painted Earthtone brown, had been slapped up in the 50s to provide maintenance space for U.S. fighter aircraft. It had long since been replaced by hardened individual shelters that resembled long concrete igloos. The old hangar would have been condemned if Teredata had not needed the space.
Teredata International Semiconductors was a sub-contractor on nearly every aircraft in the Air Force and Navy arsenals. Charlie Johnson, until his mysterious disappearance, ran a team of five men, all ex-Air Force technicians, on the new avionics retrofit to the F-15s at Bitburg. The project was on the cutting edge of technology. The Top Secret security clearances required by the tech reps proved that.
Jake sat in the parking lot for a moment to think. In a situation like this he always felt like an actor preparing to perform on stage, so his first impression was important. He hoped someone would know where to find Charlie, but realized he was probably dreaming. A quick fix wasn't in the cards on this trip. The three men with silenced Uzis had just assured him of that.
He got out and walked toward the building, stopped outside the metal door to the hangar for a moment, and squeezed his left arm against his 9mm automatic. It was always a comforting feeling knowing it was there.
He entered the small office at the North end of the old hangar. He recognized the man sitting behind the large gray metal desk from his personnel photo as Blaise Parker, second in charge of the Teredata Bitburg operation.
The man glanced up at Jake, but didn't look him in the eye. His long gray hair stuck up in places. His white shirt with red and blue vertical stripes bulged over his belt. He appeared more as an unsuccessful car salesman than one with a great deal of technical information.
"I'm Jake Adams." Jake reached out to shake his hand. "I'm sorry I was…delayed. I assume Milt Swenson mentioned I'd be coming by."
Blaise Parker still refused to look him in the eye. Parker, like Johnson, had over twenty years prior service in the Air Force before Teredata hired him. Both men knew the F-15 inside and out. Nothing unusual showed up in his background.
"Mr. Swenson sent a Fax saying someone would be coming by," Parker finally said in a slow southern drawl. "He didn't mention your name. It's not like Charlie taking off like this. I've known him for ten years, and he's never been late for work, let alone gone for days."
"So, you're the one who contacted Milt?"
Parker nodded. "Yeah, I told the security police and OSI, but they said they don't have jurisdiction over civilians."
That was true. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations worked with the German Polizei on matters dealing with military personnel on or off base-mostly drug cases. The security police only handled base security and minor infractions like DWIs. "And the Polizei?" Jake asked.
Parker finally shifted his gray eyes at Jake. "They said they'd look for his car, check the local morgues, and that's about it."
"They could find him. But in the meantime, I'll be looking for him. I'll need a list of all his associates and friends in Germany. Local hangouts. Favorite habits he has. Anything that could help."
"Sure." Parker thought for a moment and then scribbled on a piece of scratch paper. "This could help."
Jake scanned the note. "This is it?"
Parker nodded. "He likes the huge schnitzel at the Gasthaus Birkwald. He stops there every night on the way home from work."
"Anything else?" Jake asked. "Any German friends?"
"No. He's a loner. Once in a while we all get together, but that's about it."
Jake realized he didn't have much to go on. "What about the other Teredata tech reps?"
"I've talked to all of them. They have no clue. They're all out working on a bird in the hangar. If you'd like to ask them yourself, I'll go fetch 'em one by one."
Jake thought for a moment. "Sure. But first tell me about the recent failure rate of the chips."
Parker looked up quickly. "I don't know how to explain it. It just started happening."
"Do you have any of the bad chips?" It was a question Jake already had the answer to, but it was worth a shot.
He shook his head. "Nope. Charlie destroyed them."
Now that was interesting. Charlie told Milt that one of the other reps destroyed them inadvertently. "If another one fails, make sure you hang on to it," Jake said, although he didn't expect that to happen.
"I will! Mr. Swenson already briefed me on that."
Parker let Jake use the office to talk to the rest of the tech reps, but as he suspected, they were of little help. Charlie Johnson was a loner. He worked hard, but the consensus unanimously pointed to his being a basically boring individual after work. Time would tell if that theory held up.
Back outside in his car, Jake realized that Blaise Parker and the other tech reps would probably be of no further help. He already knew that Charlie Johnson frequented the Gasthaus Birkwald. That was the reason he took a room there. Maybe Charlie's apartment would reveal something. He started the car and headed toward Charlie Johnson's apartment on the outskirts of Koblenz.
CHAPTER 4
As the massive carrier turned into the wind, salt spray showered over its bow. High, dense clouds hid the glow of the early January stars. The Mediterranean was dark and desolate.
Kurt Lamar braced himself against the starboard catwalk, waiting for the first jet lights to appear over the horizon. Leaning against the gray metal barrier, he glanced down at the choppy waves nearly seventy feet below. The forty knot winds over the deck, cold and bitter, reminded him of his early morning deer hunts back home in Wisconsin. The first red and green aircraft lights flickered in the distance from the stern of the ship.
The muffled voice of the Air Boss sounded: "On the flight deck, all hands get into a complete and proper flight deck uniform. Clear the port catwalks; standby to recover aircraft. A-7 at one mile."
The aircraft's lights got closer and closer until the outline of its wings and fuselage could be seen. The sucking of intake air and roaring of engine exhaust, laboring toward landing speed, finally reached his ears. Kurt could tell now from the tail markings that it was an A-7J from his squadron.
The engine screeched as the pilot slowed his aircraft more and descended toward the heavily pitching deck.
Moving his legs further apart for stability, and grasping a metal railing, Kurt flexed his muscles, and his heart pounded with excitement and fear. He could never get over the feeling of helplessness involved with watching flight ops.