“…may be just a publicity stunt, but officials are alarmed that, apparently, the airship is not showing up on Phoenix air-traffic control radar. Our avionics experts have concluded that, for an airship of this size, some sort of radar-invisible composite must have been used in the structure of the airship. This raises the possibility that the airship is possibly stolen, secret military technology.”
The senator’s huge mouth fell open.
“Which raises some disturbing questions. Who would have the military intelligence to even know about a secret, stealth airship—and have the influence to access it?” Katie asked.
“And they’d have to be recklessly impudent. By that I mean extremely irresponsible, Katie, to use it for a television promotional stunt.”
“Who fits that description, Katie?”
The senator’s husband came down the stairs in his boxers and a dingy, threadbare bathrobe still bearing the great seal of the President of the United States of America.
“Mornin’. You left the phone off the hook. Hill.” He settled the phone on its base. He didn’t notice that his wife was red-faced.
The phone rang immediately. “Hello?” He listened, then said in a whisper. “’Course it’s me! And who might you be?”
The sound of a diesel locomotive interrupted him. It was his wife. The senator was not happy.
Chapter 36
Colonel Simonec found his flight crew huddled around the tiny portable TV on the toolbox. “Let me see!” He shoved bodies out of his way.
He hadn’t wanted to believe it, but there it was on the eight-inch screen. The top-secret Extremely Big Ear drone airship, EBE 1, was drifting uncontrolled through Phoenix, dangling a banner for some TV show.
Simonec allowed his mind to leap into the future. Where did he stand? Sure, he was charged with the care and deployment of the EBE, but he hadn’t ordered it on its missions. He had been forced to surrender control. They couldn’t pin this on him. Right?
Simonec grabbed the TV and brought it close to his face. Something was glinting off the EBE’s right flank strut. The EBE was a stealth ship, designed not to glint.
Simonec marched the chief of his ground crew into a corner of the bay. “Tell me you took the damn watch off the EBE before you sent it out last time.”
His ground crew chief looked at him a long time without answering, but that was as good as an answer.
“Tell me you at least wiped your fingerprints off it.”
The ground crew chief looked as if he were going to throw up.
So that was it The watch was still secured to the EBE and the watch would be traceable to Simonec’s ground crew. They couldn’t prove Simonec knew about it, but they didn’t need to prove it. Simonec was responsible for his ground crew. They’d perpetrated some act of sabotage, and that meant they must be in on whatever screwy mess had gotten the EBE into Phoenix—that’s what the higher-ups would assume.
Simonec knew that somebody in the U.S. military was going to get scapegoated for this fiasco, and he knew it would be him.
Katie Abing couldn’t wait for the commercial break to end. “This is going to be one of our best shows ever,” she told her makeup girl.
“You’re kicking butt, Katie. Just don’t let that jerk Bob step all over your sidewalk.”
“Yeah.” Katie got all shivery inside as the cameraman held up his fingers. Three. Two. One. The live light came on.
“Welcome back to Good Day, U.S.A. I’m Katie Abing, and it looks like the inmates have taken over the asylum! Let’s go live now to New Mexico and correspondent Allison Quarberg. Allison, can you explain what we are looking at?”
“We don’t know much yet, Katie. What you’re seeing is apparently a custom-made recreational vehicle that is traveling the interstate at speeds of, get this, more than 120 miles per hour. Now, New Mexico State Police tell us this vehicle is already wanted for numerous state traffic violations dating from last week. We do know the vehicle is registered to a Romeo Yun-Fat, who has a Connecticut state driver’s license.”
“Could it be the same Romeo involved in The Ladies’ Man stunt in Phoenix?” Katie asked.
‘I’d believe anything, today, Katie.”
“How far are you from Phoe—?” Bob asked.
“You’re only about a hundred miles from Phoenix, is that right, Allison?” Katie interrupted.
“We’re just over the New Mexico border and, in fact, the vehicle has been speeding since it left Phoenix. That was less than an hour ago.”
“What a day!” Katie exclaimed. “What next, I wonder?”
Harold W. Smith knew what was next.
Acquiescence. Surrender. Defeat. He was beaten.
Somehow, somewhere, everything had whirled out of control. How did that happen? He’d kept a pretty tight rein on things for a lot of years, and now, chaos.
Really, it had been coming for a long time. Ever since Remo became Reigning Master. Maybe, Smith thought, he ought to have paid closer attention to Remo’s complaints. But it was difficult. Remo was always complaining.
“I accede to Remo’s demands or I fold the operation,” Smith said. “It has come to that.”
Mark Howard nodded. “Actually, you have no choice but to accede to Remo’s demands, regardless of whether you fold the operation or not,” he said. “If he exposes this operation in the way he’s threatened, well the scandal will paralyze the federal government and the political parties. We can’t let that happen.”
“You’re right.” Smith sighed deeply and held his hands over his keyboard, lost in thought for a moment, as if thinking over his decision one last time.
“You’ve tried to control what cannot be controlled,” Mark said. “I suggest you let it go.”
“Ignore our security concerns?” Smith demanded, hands hovering.
“You’ve kept CURE secure because you’ve been diligent about controlling what you can, but you never could control all the unknown factors. These things were before your time or completely out of human hands to begin with. Just because you know of them now doesn’t mean you need to control them.”
Smith weighed the words.
“We can’t control ourselves into paralysis,” Mark added. “What good is that to anybody?”
“That makes good sense,” Smith said. Sitting straighter, with brisk movements, he began to key in his commands.
“We can see what appears to be a statue in the rear wraparound windows of the Airstream,” Allison reported. “It’s an old man in a bright red robe, sitting cross-legged.”
“That window design is certainly not original to the Air—” Bob commented, but was cut off.
“Is it a Buddha, Allison?” Katie asked.
“I think so, but quite skinny and wrinkled compared to the Buddhas I am familiar with—Something’s happening. We have a U.S. Army helicopter on the scene. Man, are they in a hurry. Are you seeing this, Katie?”
“That’s actually an Air Force chopper, Allis—” Bob said.
“They’re attacking!” Katie exclaimed. “No. I think someone is getting out of the chopper. Yes, they’re being lowered onto the RV. He’s kneeling. He’s knocking, I think.”
“Could you get the door?” Remo called. His voice had to carry through the SUV and all the way to the back of the Airstream to the meditation chamber.
“They are not knocking on the door. They are knocking on the roof.”
“Could you get the roof, then? I’m trying to drive.”
“I am meditating.”
The knock was polite, but it came again. “Come in!” Remo shouted.
Remo heard the roof latch crank. He had noticed the square section of the roof, but had not realized it was a hatch. The visitor tugged a few times, then knocked again.