Wu Tian ignored the sounds of the electronic equipment behind him, focused instead on keeping his weapon trained on the unsuspecting hikers less than one hundred yards down the slope. He shifted his body weight slightly, disturbing a small stone that tumbled a few feet before catching on the netting.
“Easy,” she warned, holding her breath while watching the bobbing heads for any sign they had picked up the faint noise. But their chattering continued unabated, and their steady gait appeared unfazed. The wind lower in the canyon must have drowned out whatever sound the falling rock had caused.
“How much longer for the download?” Wu Tian asked.
She reached for the portable tablet computer and tapped on several icons before accessing the information she needed. “It’s almost complete.”
Wu Tian took his eyes off his target to glance over his shoulder at her, and the stone that had caught in the netting slipped underneath the loose material and tumbled down the hill, picking up speed at an alarming rate and bouncing off larger rocks with a clatter.
“Shit,” he muttered, shifting targets to sight in on the brunette, whose head whipped in their direction.
“She heard that,” Chen said, discarding the tablet for her MP7.
They held their breaths, listening to the fading echo of the falling rocks as they waited to see if the women would spook and bolt back down the canyon or just attribute the falling rocks as an expected part of nature.
Keep walking, she silently urged.
Then the blonde pointed directly at them and shielded her eyes against the sun, squinting through the glare to make out whatever had caught her attention.
“Take them,” Chen ordered before uttering a quiet curse.
Wu Tian’s MP7 submachine gun spat two rounds in quick succession, hitting the brunette high on her forehead, ripping the bandanna off as her head snapped back and showered the canyon in crimson. His second shot missed high. He pivoted slightly and fired two rounds at the blonde that missed completely. The last thing they saw was the frenzied whipping of blond pigtails as she looked at her fallen companion and ducked out of sight.
Chen rushed at Wu Tian and shoved him forward. “Get her!”
He ripped the camouflage netting up and tossed it over his head, exposing them to the deep blue sky above. Then, without another word, he hurled himself down the hill, sliding and leaping as he gave chase to the blonde.
“Don’t let her get away!” Chen shouted.
29
Colt dropped the parachute bag containing his flight gear on the ground near the double glass doors leading out onto the flight line. He had almost forgotten it inside the Corvette’s trunk, but a flash of olive drab canvas through the splintered fiberglass reminded him that he had signed a sheet of paper taking responsibility for the almost half-million-dollar helmet. It seemed such a trivial thing, given the circumstances, but he was in enough hot water already.
“What’s in there?” Punky asked, holding a rag against the gash she’d sustained on her forehead when it slammed into the unforgiving steering wheel.
Colt ignored the question and gave her a serious look. “I think it’s time you told me what the hell is going on.”
She glanced at the college co-eds working behind the desk, then back to Colt. “Can we go somewhere more private?”
He was getting tired of being jerked around but knew of no place more private than in the cockpit of his plane. He nodded at the receptionists and heard a click as the doors were unlocked. Retrieving the parachute bag once more, he turned and walked out onto the ramp with Punky hot on his heels.
“Where are we going?”
“Point Mugu,” he said.
She pulled even with him and shook her head. “No, we’re not. We need to go find my partner.”
He stopped walking and turned to face her. The pain was still evident on her face, but she masked it behind a professional determination he recognized in almost every warrior he’d served alongside.
“Look,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do for him. You heard it same as me.” She opened her mouth to argue, but he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “If you really want to do right by him, then help me figure out what is going on so we can stop more people from dying.”
Her resolve seemed to harden as she considered his words. Finally, she said, “What do you think I’ve been doing? Rick was following a foreign intelligence operative code-named TANDY…” She trailed off, and her eyes glassed over.
“Is that who we heard on the phone?”
“I don’t know,” she said, struggling to fight back tears. “But who else could it be?”
Without realizing it, he reached up and felt for the thumb drive in his flight suit breast pocket. He wasn’t sure how KMART and TANDY fit into what had happened to him the night before, but finding out what was wrong with the F-35 was his priority. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I need to go to Point Mugu.”
He could tell she was losing her patience. She took a deep breath and looked around before speaking. “Okay, here’s the deal. And this is classified.”
He nodded.
“The NSA has been intercepting communications between our two subjects for several months. Last night, KMART sent a message to his handler stating the ‘target aircraft survived’ and that the ‘operation failed.’”
“What operation?”
The words aircraft carrier flashed in his mind.
“We don’t know,” she replied, glancing away to watch a twin-engine Cessna taxi to the runway. “But it gets worse. Last night, KMART told his handler that you had downloaded information that could compromise him—”
“What makes you think it’s me?”
“This morning, he used your name.”
He knew she had said the Chinese knew who he was, but it just didn’t make sense. Sure, he was a TOPGUN instructor and helped develop tactics for the fleet, but… “Wait, are you saying those men were targeting me because of information they think I have?”
She pulled the rag away from her head and locked eyes with him. “What did you download, Colt?”
He opened his mouth to deny it, but a horrifying thought stopped him. If the Chinese were worried the information he had downloaded compromised their spy aboard the Lincoln, then that meant they were somehow responsible for the erratic behavior of his jet. “Nothing,” he said, but even he knew it sounded unconvincing.
“I need to know,” she pressed.
Despite all the training he’d received at SERE school in resisting interrogation, he found himself hopelessly unprepared to combat her fierce blue eyes. He likely would have failed the course in Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape if he had been questioned by a woman as determined as Punky. At last, he sighed. “I downloaded the squadron’s maintenance data.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Why?”
“I’m going to take it to a test pilot friend who’s way smarter than I am. Maybe he can get it to engineers who can decipher what happened.”
“Jug,” she said, putting the pieces together.
He nodded. “You coming or not?”
They both heard the sirens at the same time and turned in the direction of the abandoned Corvette. Sooner or later, he knew the police would figure out who the car belonged to, and they’d spend the rest of their afternoon answering questions in an interrogation room instead of stopping whatever plot the Chinese had concocted. He knew she probably had broken protocol by leaving the scene, but he wasn’t burdened by such bureaucracy.