He had met only once with the CIA since Las Vegas.
They had agreed to rendezvous at the lone bar in Paiute Wells, a dusty little Nevada town where people from Cactus Flat occasionally hung out to break the boredom of life on the base. The bar was a seedy relic from the 1950s, with a row of glass bricks in the front and Naugahyde-padded swinging doors that had small windows in the shape of spades from a deck of cards.
When Troy related the meager details that he had learned about the mysterious Raven, the CIA men had conveyed their disappointment.
"Is that all? We need more… and we need it soon."
When Troy asked them why they were so impatient, they implied that other information, developed from other snitches, suggested that whatever Harris and his confederates were planning, they were planning to do it sooner rather than later.
"More… More… More."
The words spoken to the snitch echoed in his head as he made his way to the small office that Harris used when he was at Cactus Flat. Troy knew that Harris would not be in his office today. He had just boarded his Gulf-stream and had headed out for parts unknown. Over the past couple of weeks, Harris had been away more often than he was at the Flat, a fact that tended to support the CIA supposition that something big was demanding his attention elsewhere.
The door to the office was locked, of course.
Troy had been to Harris's office a dozen times, but only when Harris was there. What he was about to do gave him the creeps. His alter ego as a snitch made him feel dirty.
Long ago, when Troy was still in high school, and still in that stage of life where pranks are part of life, he had learned the art of lock picking. Objects placed in lockers, especially gooey, messy, explosive objects, were great fun. So too was the feeling of accomplishment that came with being able to pick the heaviest padlock in order to place such ridiculous objects to ruin the day of an unsuspecting fellow student.
The office was the same as it always was — except, of course, for the absence of its usual inhabitant. As such, it was uncharacteristically quiet.
What was he looking for?
Troy really didn't know. It was one of those cases where he knew that he would know it only when he found it. Where should he look?
That was an even bigger question. The desk was piled high with papers, folders, and memo pads. So too were most other surfaces in the room, and that didn't count the four-drawer file cabinet.
Troy realized that it would take a week to methodically search everything.
The clock on Harris's desk read 10:14.
How much time dare he spend doing this?
Even if Harris was away, someone else might have a key and come in for some reason.
Got to be out of here by 10:30, Troy decided.
How should he go about this?
He decided that he would try to imagine what Harris would do, so he lowered himself into the former general's desk chair and looked around the room.
Troy tried to imagine where, if he had something important to conceal, would he hide it in this room?
Keep it close. This would rule out anything beyond arm's length. If it's an active operation, then keep it where it can be easily accessed — but keep it out of sight.
With this in mind, Troy searched the bottom half of each stack of papers on the desk, then turned to the drawers.
The clock on the desk read 10:22.
The bottom drawers of the big, old-fashioned metal desk were crammed with folders and tablets. Pausing to read what was written on each of them was time-consuming.
The clock on the desk read 10:35.
He had already blown his schedule, and there was nothing to show for it.
Was it a wild-goose chase?
Troy sorted through the tops of the piles on the desk. The clock on the desk read 10:48.
He had been at this for more than half an hour.
One more pass through the drawers, and then I'm done, he thought.
He started by pulling out the bottom left drawer. What's this?
He didn't remember the blue folder with pieces of duct tape on it. He was sure it hadn't been there before. The tape!
The first time that Troy had looked in the drawer, the blue folder had been attached to the underside of the drawer above it. Somehow, he had jiggled it loose.
This, he quickly discovered, was what he had been looking for.
Correction, this was what the CIA men had been looking for.
The first page gave a short overview of an innocuous-sounding process that was referred to as "The Transition."
If the United States reaches a point where it cannot be properly governed, read the opening paragraph, it is the responsibility of the private sector, in the form of PMCs, to intervene…
There was page after page of dry details about how an independent entity would be formed to manage and operate the government during The Transition. Most chilling was the description of how PMC military units would be activated to neutralize the U. S. armed forces. The attached tables of statistics showed how the effectiveness of the traditional armed services had declined in direct proportion to the increase in PMC capabilities.
They actually believed that they could pull this off?
The clock on Harris's desk read 11:17.
Troy had been at the desk for more than an hour. He had to get out of here before his luck ran out.
Having memorized as much as he could about the details of The Transition, Troy carefully retaped the blue folder to the bottom of the middle drawer.
Chapter 40
"You're having all the fun up there in Shakuru, Loensch," Raymond Harris said with a grin, approaching Troy at the coffee urn.
The sun was just coming up, painting the sandstone bluffs west of Cactus Flat in the vivid colors that photographers stay up all night to capture. Harris was up awfully early for a man who had returned to the Flat after midnight.
"Not today," Troy said, returning the smile. "I don't have a flight scheduled until tomorrow. I'm going into town this morning to get some stuff at the drugstore."
In fact, he was going into Paiute Wells to attempt to make contact with the CIA.
"Your razor blades and deodorant can wait," Harris said, sipping his coffee. "I'd like to have you demonstrate Shakuru for me. I'd like to fly as your copilot for a short flight over the desert."
When Harris said "I'd like," Troy knew that it was to be interpreted as a direct order.
An hour later, both men were in their high-altitude space suits and doing a walk-around of the Shakuru. Troy took his place in the forward of the two tandem seats, and Harris lowered himself in behind. Technicians helped the two men seal their helmets and fasten the gloves to their suits.
With a thumbs-up from Troy, the massive flying machine was wheeled through the open doorway of the hangar and onto the tarmac. It was obvious by the way Harris went through the preflight checklist that he had done his homework on the operation of the aircraft.
Troy ran up the engines, handled the takeoff, leveled out at five thousand feet, and let Harris take the controls. He was an experienced pilot, and he handled the Shakuru skillfully. Troy felt him pull back gently on the stick and resume a climbing spiral.
"The rate of climb is sure better than you'd expect," Harris observed.
"That was my reaction the first time also," Troy agreed.
"Let's take this bird up to where we can see some of the view," Harris said.
"Copilot's airplane," Troy said into the intercom, indicating that he was letting Harris run the show. If Troy had been nervous about flying with the man less than a day after he had rifled his desk, the nervousness quickly faded.