He stepped into the waiting room to find Sharpe, seated alone.
“Where are all the others?”
“The scribblers took off. Looking for the Afghans, I think, or doing whatever it is they do in these situations, making a goddamn nuisance of themselves. They were already talking big about a book deal. For two of them, anyway. I suppose that Steve fellow will just have to go corporate. The little Air Force captain—”
“Riggleman?”
“Yes. He was trying to reach his general and wondering if he still had a job. Good luck with that, I told him.”
“Castle?”
“Disappeared. Not long after we got here. Back into the shadows where he belongs.”
Cole supposed that that should bother him. He still had more questions for the man, but doubted now that he’d ever get a chance to ask them. Somehow it all seemed okay, mostly because he was still gliding on a powerful updraft of exhausted elation. For the moment he was happy for any of the others to proceed and prosper however they pleased, even Steve.
“You look done in,” Sharpe said.
“In a good way. Mission fatigue.”
“Dehydration, more likely.” Sharpe nodded toward a bank of vending machines across the room and handed him a crumpled dollar bill. “Here. Get yourself something to drink. I’ve got a ride coming. We’ll drive you back if you like.”
“Sure, that would be nice.”
Cole crossed the room slowly. He slid the dollar bill into the machine, watched it roll back out, then finally got it to stay. He punched in his selection and then listened to the can as it rumbled its way toward the bottom. A long and sugary swallow, then Cole smiled to himself. Behind him he heard a door opening, voices in greeting, laughter, a slap on the back.
When he turned around, the fellow named Derek from the DIY Drones meet-up was standing there in his ugly leather jacket, smiling at Sharpe, who was smiling right back. The soft drink can began to feel a whole lot colder.
Derek caught his eye, nodded, and crossed the room. “Heard that was quite a neat bit of flying you did this morning. And with a twenty-knot wind, too. You did us proud.”
“Us?”
He reached inside the leather jacket and handed Cole a red and white business card.
DEREK LESTER
VICE PRESIDENT FOR OPERATIONS
TRICORN ASSOCIATES
MCLEAN, VA
“We could use a man of your talents. For testing, mostly. No rush, though. Give me a call whenever you think you’re ready.”
Cole looked at Sharpe, who shrugged and smiled, perhaps a bit sheepishly, and then walked over and whispered something into Derek’s ear. Derek nodded with an air of understanding before departing without a further word.
An awkward silence, which Sharpe finally broke.
“It’s the one outfit that lets me operate pretty much as I please.” Then, when Cole said nothing in reply, “Hey, it’s pick your poison or lose your livelihood. The Pentagon made sure that was my only recourse. All my other clients cut and ran.”
“So you went with Tricorn. What’s the matter, IntelPro and Overton weren’t hiring? And now they get everything you know, everything you develop. Their property, not yours.”
“As if they all won’t have it eventually, anyway. Hey, you got what you wanted.”
“So did Derek.”
“Which means all three of us come away from the table satisfied. So did the scribblers. And I’m sure certain members of Congress with an ax to grind will reap their own rewards once this fiasco begins coming to light. Isn’t that the way the marketplace is supposed to work? Either way, I thought we made a pretty good team.”
Sharpe held out his right hand, a gesture of either reconciliation or farewell. Cole stared at the hand but made no move to take it. He didn’t even want to look again at Sharpe’s face, although he supposed that at any moment now the man would be smiling, the joke on Cole, the rules having been changed yet again while he wasn’t paying attention.
Cole turned and headed for the nearest door and entered a long hallway, not even knowing where he was going. Halfway down it he stopped to collect himself, breathing quickly, feeling the blood rush to his fingertips. Too much damn stimulation for one day.
A door clicked open behind him. He wheeled quickly, angrily, ready to lash out with both fists, only to see that it was a girl — the girl — staring up at him with an expression of abiding curiosity. Her eyes gazed without blinking, huge and brown, exactly as he had pictured them in so many dreams and nightmares, in so many waking moments back at his trailer in the desert.
Two women in Afghan clothing stepped into the hallway behind her, with a police officer bringing up the rear. The women said something to the girl in a language Cole didn’t understand, but she did not turn to follow them toward the waiting room.
She just kept staring at the man who was staring at her.
“C’mon, sweetie,” the policeman said. “Time to go.”
The girl raised her arm, waved shyly — once only — and then turned. She broke into a trot to catch up with the two women, who were already heading out the door.
“Good-bye,” Cole said hoarsely.
The word seemed to hang in the air for seconds after she departed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to several people from the 432nd Wing “Hunters” at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, who assisted me during my research for this book by allowing me to see firsthand the way such missions operate. Thank you to Public Affairs Staff Sergeant Alice Moore for arranging access and showing me around the base; to Captain Gary Ford for a fascinating interview, to Lieutenant Colonel Lance “Sky” King for an interesting lecture, and, most of all, to the pilot-sensor team of Captain Nicholas “Hammer” Helms and Airman T. J. Masters, whose candid accounts and descriptions helped me gain a deeper understanding of the special pressures and demands of Predator missions. They also offered a valuable window onto the lifestyle of those soldiers who, for lack of better terminology, now serve their country as “commuter warriors” from locations based far from the field of combat.
For offering valuable updated advice on certain scenarios in Afghanistan, I thank journalists Nir Rosen and Dexter Filkins. I’d also like to thank the incomparable aircraft designer Pierre Sprey for his insights on the workings of the Pentagon with regard to the development of aircraft and weapons systems.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dan Fesperman’s travels as a writer have taken him to thirty countries and three war zones. His previous novels include Lie in the Dark, which won the Crime Writers’ Association of Britain’s John Creasey Memorial Dagger Award for best first crime novel; The Small Boat of Great Sorrows, which won their Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller; and The Prisoner of Guantánamo, which won the Dashiell Hammett Award from the International Association of Crime Writers. He lives in Baltimore.