“I’ve read up on that,” Colt said. “Sounds promising.”
He nodded. “The static tests have had positive results and the strikes against land targets have been successful, so now we’re testing it against a ship.”
“Which one?”
“That Devil Dog Uber that caught fire in San Diego a few years back.”
“The Bonhomme Richard?” Colt whistled. “Pretty big boat.”
“Yeah, well, the mucky-mucks in acquisitions at the Pentagon want to see if this weapon will be the next carrier killer.”
…carrier killer…
Colt felt his heart thudding in his chest as he recalled TANDY’s words and swallowed against the dryness in his mouth. He cleared his throat. “When’s the test?”
“Tonight.”
Colt felt his face flush, but Punky burst through the door and interrupted his thoughts before he could speak them aloud. “Have either of you ever heard of the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud?”
Both men turned to look at her, but neither answered.
“I just heard back from my contact with the NSA,” she said. “It seems earlier today somebody at Cal Poly used the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, known as EC2, to modify an electronic waveform of unknown purpose that could be transmitted line-of-sight.”
“You’re speaking Greek,” Colt said.
“It’s a scalable cloud-computing service.”
“Not helping me much.”
Punky rolled her eyes, then looked at Jug. “When you want to run a complex computer program for one of your tests, what’s the one thing you need?”
“Processing power. We have designated computers for tasks like that.”
She nodded. “Think of this like a time-share cloud-based version. The more processing power you want, the more units you rent. You only pay for what you need.”
Colt held up his hand to stop her. “Okay, I get it. It’s a big computer. But what does that have to do with anything we’ve been worrying about?”
“If what happened to your jet was intentional, how would somebody go about gaining control?”
Jug leaned forward and answered for him. “Through a computer virus,” he said. “A virus that could be transmitted wirelessly, maybe.”
“What would that look like?” Punky asked, nodding her head as she saw the test pilot putting the pieces of the puzzle together.
“An electronic waveform transmitted line-of-sight,” he said.
“Bingo.”
Colt shook his head, still trying to make the leap the others had clearly already made. “Okay, so let’s say this Cal Poly waveform is the one that was used to take control of my jet. I still don’t see why we can’t just send the FBI to the campus and raid the computer lab to prevent this new modified waveform from falling into the wrong hands.”
“Because,” Punky said, drawing out her answer. “The wrong hands already have it.”
“What do you mean?”
Punky looked between the two pilots. “Whoever ordered the waveform modification already transmitted it using an X-band transceiver.”
He stared at her with a blank look on his face.
“To a Chinese satellite in geosynchronous Earth orbit.”
“Oh, shit,” Colt said.
“It gets worse,” she continued. “That satellite acted as a relay to re-broadcast the information.”
“To where?”
“Somewhere in the Channel Islands.”
37
Colt just stared at Punky and let the implication sink in, still trying to process the bombshell she had dropped on them. He had come to accept that what had happened to his jet the night before was no mere fluke but an act of overt sabotage. And it worried him to know that the Chinese weren’t done meddling with the Joint Strike Fighter.
“So, what now?” Jug finally asked, breaking the trio’s silence.
Punky turned and made eye contact with Colt. He knew she had her sights set on the woman who had killed Rick, and nothing was going to dissuade her from exacting vengeance on the Chinese operative. The only problem was that neither of them knew where she was, and even if they did, they couldn’t ignore the bigger threat while seeking revenge. Colt broke her gaze and turned to Jug.
“What time is your test?”
Jug looked at this watch. “They should be loading the ordnance now.”
“What’s the load out?”
“Two AIM-120D AMRAAM and two Joint Strike Missiles,” Jug replied.
Colt cocked his head to the side, wondering why they were loading two Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles for what amounted to a SINK-EX. “AMRAAM? What for?”
Punky let out an exaggerated sigh, letting the two men know she lacked the patience for their technical banter. “Boys, maybe we could focus on the problem at hand.”
Jug looked wounded, but he nodded in agreement. “You’re right,” he said. “You two should focus on stopping the Chinese threat. I need to get upstairs and finish my mission planning for this test.”
“You can’t really intend to go through with this test,” Colt said.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because the waveform we suspect is the cause of my jet’s erratic behavior last night was transmitted to an unknown location in the Channel Islands.”
Jug huffed and walked out of the makeshift paraloft without waiting for Colt to finish his argument. Colt and Punky followed on his heels, walking quickly to keep pace with the test pilot.
“Hold up, Jug.”
He wheeled on Colt. “Look, Smitty asked me to help you out. Hell, I would have helped even if he hadn’t asked. But I’ve been preparing for this missile shoot for months. Months, Colt. Admirals at the Pentagon are interested in the results, and this will either make or break my career.”
“I know. But Jug…”
He placed his palms flat on Colt’s chest. “But nothing. Listen to me, brother, I think you and your lady friend…” He paused and looked over Colt’s shoulder at Punky. “No offense. You two are on to something. I get that. But I still don’t see why I should call my boss back in China Lake and tell him I couldn’t get this done. Or call the three-star for acquisitions and tell him he’s going to have to wait a little longer to pull the trigger on buying this weapon.”
Colt understood what this test meant to his friend. They might have gone different routes in their careers, but he imagined the test track wasn’t much different than the one he was on in the world of tactics. You advanced based on the merits of your contributions, and if you failed to provide something meaningful to your community, you were left sitting on the side of the road, wondering why the bus drove off without you.
“I hear you, brother,” Colt said in a softer tone. “Maybe just postpone it? Delay it a day. Wait until we hear back from China Lake. Let us get some answers first.”
Jug sighed, and Colt could tell he was at least questioning his decision to move forward. “I can’t delay it, Colt. There is a Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser off the coast right now providing range clearance. They launched one of their helos for a search and rescue mission, but—”
Punky interrupted him. “What search and rescue?”
“Apparently some hikers didn’t show for their return trip to the mainland, so the National Park Service called in the Coast Guard to help with the search. The Mobile Bay was in the area, and—”
“Did you say the Mobile Bay?”
Jug squinted at Colt, wondering where this line of questioning was headed. “Yeah, she’s on loan to us for the test. Why?”
“The Mobile Bay is the ship that was harassed by those orbs last night.”