Cyclops One af-1 Page 11

  “What if we used Cyclops?” asked the President.

  Blitz thought many things at once. Striking a helicopter would be fairly easy for the weapon, which had already proven it could do so in trials. It could operate out of Afghanistan and fly either over that country or just over the border. And, if successful, it would have a tremendous impact on both countries, impressing them with American resolve to prevent nuclear war.

  On the other hand, it was filled with risk. American lives would be at stake; worse, if it failed and word got out about the attempt, American prestige would suffer.

  What was prestige next to millions of lives? If they stopped this war, wouldn’t that prevent others? Wouldn’t it help deter attacks against America itself?

  “The laser system itself may work,” said Cook. “But the plane crashed, didn’t it?”

  “We have another one,” said D’Amici. “What do you think, Professor?”

  “How can we trust it when the other malfunctioned?” interrupted Cook.

  “There have been new developments,” Blitz said. The report on Gorman’s latest findings — and, just as important, what she wanted to do about them — would come over from the JCS. But, given the circumstances, the President would not be happy if Blitz didn’t tell him about it now. D’Amici stopped putting and stood with his golf club in his arms as Blitz summarized the latest theory and recommendations.

  “I can’t believe the Russians would steal the aircraft,” said the President finally.

  “Nor can I,” said Cook.

  “There are questions that are worth investigating,” said Blitz.

  “We can’t just invade Russia,” said Cook. “That’s what Gorman’s talking about here.”

  “They want to use Cyclops Two?” said the President.

  “I think the idea is that it would be able to neutralize anything the Russians had,” said Blitz, uncomfortable at carrying water for a plan that hadn’t been finalized and wasn’t his to begin with. “But it may have been added because the people at North Lake are pretty adamant about wanting to be involved.”

  “If the Air Force is thinking of using Cyclops in an operation, obviously they believe it’s ready to be used,” said the President. “And if that’s the case, then we should use it in India, if all else fails.”

  No one spoke for a moment. Blitz looked at a picture on the wall behind the President that showed Dwight Eisenhower taking the oath of office. D’Amici admired Ike for many reasons. Like Ike, he was in favor of a strong military, yet suspicious of the industrial complex necessary to equip it. Eisenhower had taken a proactive role in several conflicts; would he do so here?

  “I’d like to see what a plan involving Cyclops looked like,” said D’Amici. “Can you take care of that, Professor?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Blitz.

  Chapter 11

  Captain Jalil stretched his legs as he walked up the ramp to the headquarters building, fighting against the urge to run. He could think of only one reason his colonel had summoned him. The attack date had been set.

  The regiment’s forward base consisted of a short airstrip and a collection of tents scattered around two L-shaped buildings, both of which appeared to date from the British occupation, if not before. Made of large clay blocks covered with more than a century’s worth of paint, the buildings had large windows along their sides; they were more like arboretums than military offices. The morning was still cool in the valley northeast of Sutak in Kashmir, and Jalil felt a chill as he walked down the long hallway. Perhaps it was energy and anticipation: He had waited so long for this that he couldn’t hope to hold himself back, now that the moment had arrived.

  Jalil turned the corner to his commander’s office, entering the wide doorway and snapping to attention. His commander continued to work over something on his desk, not offering the slightest hint of acknowledgment. The commando captain stood at stiff attention the entire time; it was relaxing in a way, allowing his muscles and bones to ease into a perfect posture.

  “Captain, we have a slight difficulty to deal with,” said the colonel finally before looking up.

  Jalil didn’t answer. He felt disappointment — worry, really — that the plan had been canceled. But he kept his body motionless.

  “Due to the nature of our arrangements, not everyone is aware of our commitments.” The colonel frowned. Only a small portion of the army and air force were involved in the plan to make the country safe from the terrorists across the border; while they knew they would be supported after the fact, success depended on maintained secrecy, even from those superiors not privy to the plan.

  “We are receiving a visitor in the next day or two who must be handled very carefully,” the colonel continued. “He is an American — a spy, really — though of course he won’t admit that. I believe he was allowed to come here because the base seemed the most innocuous place for him to be: far from the front line and nearly unoccupied.”

  Jalil resisted the temptation to grin at the irony. “What if the visitor is here when the order comes?” he asked.

  “Then I suppose it would be useful for him to meet with an accident. While on patrol with us, perhaps,” said the colonel. “Demonstrating the audacity of our enemy. I would prefer that it did not come to that, but if it did, a suitable script could be arranged.”

  Jalil nodded. His colonel grimaced a second, then turned his attention back to his desk, jotting something on a pad. The captain waited nearly a full minute, still at attention, before leaving the office.

  Chapter 12

  “We’re not dredging the lake,” said Gorman.

  “I don’t want to dredge it,” said Fisher. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette, even though they were inside the North Lake control room. “I want to look in it. All I need is some sort of sonar to run across the bottom.”

  “And what exactly do you think you’ll find?”

  “Maybe nothing. Maybe a big hunk of an airplane with something big enough to identify it.”

  “It’s a waste of resources.”

  Fisher shrugged.

  “The plane wouldn’t have just disappeared in the lake,” Gorman said. “No. We’re not wasting our time. Don’t smoke that cigarette in here or I’ll have you arrested.”

  Fisher tapped the cigarette on the table. “You’re not going to make me have the Canadians do it, are you?”

  Gorman didn’t answer.

  “They were setting it up to look like a crash, but something went wrong,” said Fisher. “That’s what I think.”

  “We flew over that area several times during the search.”

  “Not that far north.”

  “We did go over it.”

  “It’s beyond your grid. And a lot of that shoreline would be covered by trees from above. That may have been part of the idea.”

  “You’re way off base, Andy.”

  “Here’s your chance to prove it.”

  Gorman said nothing.

  “You wanted me to interface with the Canadians, right?” said Fisher. “Consider this taking you up on your offer.”

  “As a matter of fact, Andy, why don’t you just go search the lake yourself. Jump in it, as a matter of fact.”

  Fisher stuck the cigarette in his mouth. “Sarcasm isn’t your thing,” he said, leaving.

  * * *

  Firenze squeezed his eyes so hard, the eyeballs hurt. The recycled air of the protected research facilities was triple-filtered and adjusted for humidity as well as temperature, but something in it nonetheless aggravated his sinuses and seemed to drain all the moisture from his body.

  Even if Colonel Gorman’s theory was true and Cyclops One had been hijacked or stolen, he still couldn’t explain what had happened to the F/A-22Vs. While it seemed logical that some sort of kill command had been sent from Cyclops One to the Velociraptors, there was no evidence in the telemetry data. Not one integer was out of place or unaccounted for.

  They’d looked at everything, even the radar altimeter.
There was no way the accident had occurred. No way.

  The scientist slid his chair back. Fatigued, his brain no longer functioning properly, he decided there was only one thing to do: He pulled out his laptop and fired up Free Cell.

  Firenze had gotten through one deal when he was interrupted by a loud garrumph. A lanky government-type stood in front of him, a foam coffee cup in one hand and a Pepsi in the other.

  Fisher, the FBI agent.

  “You look like a Pepsi guy,” said Fisher, handing him the can.

  “Thanks. Hey.”

  “Hey yourself. Got a minute?”

  “Sure.”

  “You want to finish the game first?”

  Firenze killed the game without saving it. “Just helps me think, you know?”

  “Cigarettes are less frustrating,” said the agent.

  “More expensive, though.” Firenze laughed.

  “You know what happened to the Velociraptor yet?”

  “I’ve been working on it. What happened was impossible. It was like snapping off a power switch. Except that it came back on.”

  “Maybe there was a loose wire somewhere and Howe just hit it hard enough to get it to reconnect,” said Fisher. He pulled over a chair and sat on the back, his feet balancing it on the floor. “Used to have a TV like that. You had to slam the top a couple of times to get the colors right.”

  Firenze laughed again, though they’d actually checked into a more sophisticated version of the agent’s theory.

  “You think Howe faked it?”

  “Faked it?”

  “Like he didn’t really have a malfunction.”

  Firenze shook his head.

  “You didn’t think of that, did you?” The FBI agent took a long sip from his coffee.

  “No, I didn’t. But Colonel Howe would never be involved in something like this. Never.”

  Fisher nodded slowly. “What about Megan York?”

  “I don’t think she would, either.”

  “Other people on the plane?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “Tractor beam,” said Fisher suddenly.

  “Tractor beam?”

  “Sure. That Russian spy plane — has a giant tractor beam. Flashes through the air, tows Cyclops One back to base.” Fisher smiled. “I talked this thing over with one of my guys back at the Bureau. Hope you don’t mind. He knows a lot about computers and stuff. Not too good at Free Cell, though.”

  “Why would I mind?”

  “He thought it had to be one of two things,” said the agent. “One, it didn’t really happen to Howe. Or two, there’s a command in your computer that erased itself.”

  “The code couldn’t have erased itself. We can see all the commands,” explained Firenze.

  “You can see the commands you’re set up to see.”

  “Well, yeah. That’s everything.”

  Fisher looked at him for a minute, then shrugged and stood.

  The environmental system, thought Firenze: the circuit that controlled the heater and the air conditioner.

  No way.

  But they hadn’t checked it.

  Fisher dug into one of his pockets. “This cell phone — you can get me anywhere, anytime. Works all over the place. Unless you call from my boss’s phone. That’s blocked out.” He unfolded a bent business card from his other pocket and gave it to Firenze. “You get something, give me a call, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Really okay?”

  “Really okay,” said Firenze.

  “I think you’re right about Howe,” Fisher said. “For what it’s worth.”

  Chapter 13

  Bonham considered not picking up the phone, since he’d already told his assistant that he was leaving, but then habit got the better of him. He picked up the handset and then practically barked into the mouthpiece, intent on scaring off anyone who wanted to waste his time.

  “Bonham.”

  “General, this is Dr. Blitz. I have a request. I realize it’s unconventional, and I want you to speak candidly and without prejudice in response.”

  Bonham sat down in the chair and listened as Blitz briefly outlined the situation in India and Pakistan. The bastards were really going to kill themselves, Bonham thought.

  “Could Cyclops Two be positioned to strike the helicopters before they attacked?” asked the national security advisor.

  “Of course.” The words slipped out of Bonham’s mouth automatically, without any consideration whatsoever. Blitz obviously realized that and asked the question again.

  This time Bonham thought about the problem more carefully. It wasn’t simply a matter of sending the airplane halfway around the world. Its entire support team had to go as well.

  But it could do it. One of the early simulations as well as a war game exercise had outlined almost exactly the same mission.

  For a brief moment Bonham returned to the Air Force careerist he’d once been, aware not only of the importance of the mission but the difficulties involved in getting the job done. Above everything else was a strong desire to succeed, to accomplish the job; logic came after the emotion, a plan to succeed.

  And then came something darker and deeper — something that had been part of his makeup as an officer but suppressed.

  Bonham saw that he had an opportunity that could not be thrown away. He didn’t have a plan yet — he was far from a plan — but he sensed there would be one.

  “We can do it.”

  “Actually,” said Blitz, “it will be an Air Force operation, not NADT’s. That’s why I’m asking for your assessment.”

  “War Game Bosnia 2,” said Bonham, naming the exercise. “We took out a SpecOps helicopter team. You’d want the Velociraptors as backups, just in case, but it’s doable. Very, very doable.”

  The war game had taken place during the previous administration, but Blitz was no doubt aware of the outcome. He murmured vaguely.

  “We can have Cyclops Two ready. It is ready. And the Velociraptors,” said Bonham. “We’ve been scrambling the team for Colonel Gorman; this just involves shifting priorities.”

  “It’s not going to be your operation,” said Blitz again.

  “I understand that.”

  “I’d like to speak to Colonel Howe.”

  “Of course. It will take some time to locate him,” said Bonham.

  “Our discussions — this doesn’t represent a final decision,” said Blitz.

  “Of course not,” said Bonham, his mind seeking ways to make sure it was.

  Chapter 14

  Howe watched from the sidelines as Gorman and her people refined their plans to find Cyclops One. It was impressive, a veritable air and sea armada that could cover several thousand square miles of the Russian Far East. If her plan had been approved, fully half of the available assets — and a good portion of the unavailable ones — in the northern Pacific, Hawaii, and on the West Coast would have been thrown into the project.

  Twice, the people at the Pentagon sent her back to the drawing boards. Through it all, Cyclops Two and the three F/A-22Vs remained out of the mission plan, apparently because of objections from the top. Only the Cyclops test monitor aircraft, an RC-135 whose test equipment could presumably be modified to help detect the laser plane, was in the mix.

  Howe would accept that. He could fly aboard the plane as an advisor to the task group. It wasn’t what he wanted — he wanted to be in the Velociraptor, he wanted to nail Meagan himself — but he could accept it.

  The memories that had haunted him over the past few days had retreated now behind the flames of a burning house. He saw his anger at being betrayed as a physical thing, something consuming the past and leaving it in ashes. He would get her; he would bring her back.

  And yet, for all his rage and hatred, part of him didn’t believe it could be true. Part of him thought she would never ever do this — never give up her country. Rogers, maybe, or even one of the weapons people, but not Megan. Part of him thought the
y must have killed her to do this.

  Megan was rich enough to do anything she wanted, but she had become a pilot and gone to NADT because she believed she could contribute something. She wanted to make the world safer; she saw Cyclops as exactly that kind of program, something with far-reaching implications.

  Had her whole spiel been bull?

  The lasers were one-of-a-kind products, hand-built, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The two they had had taken more than twenty-four months to construct, and there weren’t any others in the pipeline.

  He’d get her.

  As finally approved by the Pentagon, Gorman’s plan called for a Special Forces unit to stand by while a pair of Rivet Joint ELINT gatherers and U-2s conducted offshore surveys of the Russian Far East, concentrating on the area where the Mystic Bs were operating from. Additional satellite assets were being ordered into place over that part of Russia, and two fresh teams of interpreters were being assigned to help look for clues about the planes. The NSA was reviewing intercepts from the area over the period to hunt for clues to the plane’s disappearance; a Navy spy vessel that worked with the agency was being directed into the area.

  “Make love to me,” she said. “Make love to me.”

  * * *

  After Gorman’s plan was finally settled, Howe went about checking on the myriad administrative tasks associated with Cyclops. Crisis or no crisis, there were innumerable details to be checked, initials to be scribbled, E-mails to be acknowledged. His mind squared his emotions off into the corner, and while he felt as if he were missing part of himself, he managed nonetheless to go about the routine business with what he at least thought was a veneer of reasonable calm.

  Howe worked his way over to the Testing Lab 2, where a team had begun working on the modifications necessary for the monitoring aircraft. Firenze and a knot of scientists huddled at the far end over some hastily arranged tables; a row of workstations duplicated part of the RC-135’s readouts, allowing them to test their changes.

  Firenze, though the youngest in the group, was by no means the strangest; that honor went to one of the two experts in digital compression and communication techniques used by the shared avionics system. The two engineers were both about 350 pounds and dyed their close-cropped hair matching shades that varied according to some scheme Howe had never managed to decipher.