Authors: Dale Brown
“Yeah, roger that. We’re lining it up.” Turk clicked off the radio mike. “Computer, Sabre Control Section: Sabres, follow-on for prebriefed maneuver A–1. Devolve from that to landing pattern Baker. Acknowledge.”
“Sabre Commander: Sabres Acknowledge,” said the computer. The commands appeared in his HUD.
Turk slid back to the starting point for the fly-by. The Sabres came around and executed their part of the show perfectly—just as they had earlier. Turk banked, called in to the tower to land, and got into position without any more interference from Rocks Johnson. The Sabres lined up behind him, aiming to fly over and then land.
He was less than 1,000 meters from touchdown when a proximity warning sounded in the cockpit. One of the Sabres was moving toward his tail at 500 knots.
“Sabres, knock it off, knock it off,” said Turk. In that same second he pulled the throttle down, killing his speed. The aircraft flattened, losing altitude precipitously. But the unending runway was created just for such emergencies. He came in hard and fast, but had acres in front of him; the Sabres jetted harmlessly overhead.
“What the hell just happened?” he yelled.
“Tigershark, abort landing,” said the computer controller, belatedly catching up to the emergency. “Abort. Abort.”
“Thanks,” muttered Turk, checking his instruments.
The knock-it-off command should have sent the Sabres into a predesignated safe orbit at 5,000 feet, southwest of the runway in a clear range. But the radar showed them circling above and approaching for a landing.
“Ground, what’s going on?” said Turk. On the ground the Tigershark was as vulnerable as a soccer mom minivan, slow and not very maneuverable. He moved off the marked runway toward the taxi area, unsure of where the Sabres were going—a very dangerous position.
“Ground, what the hell is going on?”
“We have control, we have control,” sputtered Johnson. “Get off the runway.”
“Yeah, no shit,” grumbled Turk over the open mike.
“T
he engineers think there was an error in one of the subroutines when they were landing,” Johnson told Turk when he reached him at the prep area. The crew had taken over the Tigershark and were giving her a postflight exam. “They think Medusa defaulted into the wrong pattern.”
“ ‘Think’ is not a reassuring word,” said Turk.
“That’s why we test this shit out, Captain. Your job is to help us work things out.”
“Maybe if I controlled the planes from Medusa, rather than handing them off to you—”
“The test protocol is set,” said Johnson, practically shouting.
“You don’t have to get angry with me, Colonel,” snapped Turk. “I’m not the one that fucked up.”
“Nobody fucked up here.”
“Bullshit—the Sabre flight computer almost killed me. It’s supposed to be hands-off to landing.”
“You should have watched where the hell you were.”
“What?
What?
”
“Hey, hey, hey, what’s going on?” said Al “Greasy Hands” Parsons, stepping in between them.
Johnson ignored Greasy Hands, pointing at Turk. “You remember you’re in the Air Force, mister,” he told him. “I don’t care who your boss is. At the end of the day, your butt is mine.”
Johnson stalked away.
“I swear to God, if you weren’t here, I woulda hit him,” said Turk.
“Then you’re lucky I was here,” said Greasy Hands. He laughed.
“Blaming me for that? What a bunch of bullshit.” Turk was still mad. His ears felt hot because of the blood rushing to them. “He almost killed me. He’s supposed to override manually immediately if there’s a problem. Not wait for me to call knock it off. Not then. Shit. I get hit on landing, that’s it.”
Greasy Hands was silent.
“Damn,” said Turk. He shook his head. It was typical Johnson: bluster and blame on everyone except for himself.
“Come on,” said Greasy Hands. “I’ll buy you a beer at Hole 19.”
Hole 19 was a club at Dreamland.
“I gotta finish the postflight brief,” said Turk.
“I’ll finish it with you.”
Turk smiled. Greasy Hands was old-school, a former chief master sergeant now working for the Office of Technology. He’d served at Dreamland for years. Now he was Breanna Stockard’s assistant, a kind of chief cook and bottle washer who solved high-priority problems. He was a grease monkey at heart, a tinkerer’s tinkerer who could probably have built the Tigershark in his garage if he wanted.
“I’m OK, Chief,” said Turk.
“I’d like to tag along.”
“All right, come on. Boring stuff, though.”
“Boring’s good in this business,” said Greasy Hands, patting him on the back.
Chisinau, Moldova
T
he obvious next step was to disinter the bodies in the small cemetery and see if the records were wrong and one of them was Stoner’s.
Danny had no stomach for the job and was more than a little relieved when Reid said he would arrange for a CIA team to do it. He thanked the police chief and his son for their hospitality, buying them a late-morning breakfast at the town restaurant. Then he drove back to Balti, where he returned the Renault in exchange for a ride to the airport. The rickety old helicopter took him to Chisinau in forty nail-biting but uneventful minutes.
Nuri and Flash were waiting for him when he returned. They’d just come from the Russian bank, where they opened accounts with electronic access. They also scattered a dozen bugs around the place, all with video capacity. The bugs transmitted data to a receiving unit stashed in a garbage bin behind the building, and from there to the satellite network MY-PID used.
“Hey, boss,” said Flash. “Cool helo.”
“Don’t let the paint job fool you,” said Danny. “It rides like a washing machine with a switchblade for a rotor.”
“We have some leads,” said Nuri, leading them toward the car he’d rented. “Some better than others.”
The best involved a doctor who specialized in sports medicine, and was quoted in the
Le
Monde
story. MY-PID had tracked him to a small clinic in the capital. There was only one problem: the clinic had closed ten years before. At that point the doctor had ceased to exist.
At least officially. But MY-PID had tracked bank accounts he’d used, connecting them to a mortgage on a house just outside the city limits. The mortgage had been taken out six months after the clinic closed—and paid off eighteen months later. The name on the mortgage was different, but the person was also a doctor: Dr. Andrei Ivanski.
MY-PID turned up little information on Ivanski. He was Moldovan, of Russian descent, according to certification papers. He had no active practice in the country.
Were they the same person?
Nuri thought they probably were. And, interestingly, the doctor also had an account at the Russian bank, though the records showed it hadn’t been used for nearly four years.
“He has a pretty nice house,” said Nuri. He showed Danny satellite pictures of it as they drove into town. “I want it under surveillance, get some more information, see if we can figure out what the doc is up to.”
“Maybe we should make an appointment and ask him,” suggested Danny. “Does he have a practice?”
“In town. But first we need background,” said Nuri. “We need to know what kind of questions to ask.”
“Ask him about steroids.”
“That’s the last question we ask,” said Nuri. “We don’t ask that until we’re reeling him in.”
“I don’t know if I’m buying this whole human engineering thing,” Danny told Nuri. “For one thing, I’m not convinced Stoner survived the crash. For another, I don’t see a connection with the sports place. It’s all pretty far-fetched.”
“Enhancement, not engineering,” said Nuri. “You don’t like the idea that Stoner was involved? Is that it?”
“I don’t have feelings one way or another.”
It was a lie, but Nuri didn’t call him on it.
“Look, Stoner was Agency,” Nuri told Danny. “I know he was your friend, but in some ways he’s like a brother I didn’t know. And I agree the whole thing is pretty far-fetched. But if they have a genetic test—”
“It’s not foolproof,” said Danny. “He may be in that cemetery.”
“We’ll know about the cemetery in a few days,” said Nuri. “In the meantime, these are our best leads. Until Kiev.”
Washington, D.C.
T
he argument with his wife still felt a little raw as Zen wheeled himself into the congressional dining room, where he was planning to lobby a pair of congressmen on the companion bill to his scholarship measure. Both were from the opposing party, but he didn’t figure either would be a hard sell—they had large military installations in their districts, and one had a brother who was still on active duty with the Marines.
The ease of the assignment let his mind drift a bit, and he thought of the NATO meeting even as he came up to the table where the congressmen had already been seated.
“Senator, good to see you,” said Kevin Sullivan, an upstate New Yorker in his third term. He practically jumped out of his chair as he grabbed Zen’s hand.
His companion, Brian Daly, was more reserved. But it was Daly who began the conversation by mentioning that he’d talked about the bill with his brother in the Marines. His brother, a lieutenant colonel, had heartily endorsed it.
That was good enough for Daly.
“I think it’s a good idea, too,” said Sullivan. “I’m on board.”
“Great,” said Zen. “Let’s eat.”
“My brother remembers you from your Dreamland days,” said Daly as they waited for their lunches. “He was on a deployment in Iran when you were active.”
“Hell of a time,” said Zen.
“He said you guys were something else. You took out a laser site in broad daylight? Ballsy.”
“Your brother was probably in a lot more danger than I ever was,” said Zen. “The guys on the ground always had it worse. Hell, if I was in trouble, I could just fly away.”
That was more than a slight exaggeration—piloting the Flighthawks from the belly of a Megafortress, he couldn’t “just fly away” at all. He was completely at the mercy of whoever was piloting the big plane—or firing at it.
During the war between Pakistan and India, it had almost cost him his life. At one point, the plane in flames, he parachuted out with Breanna. They’d spent several days shipwrecked on an island.
Air-wrecked. Whatever.
Their lives had changed so much since then. It wasn’t just because they weren’t in the same line of work anymore either. They had different outlooks on things, different attitudes toward Teri and how to raise her. Different priorities with their jobs and lives.
So what did any of that have to do with their argument?
Nothing.
Was that what really bothered him, their growing apart?
They weren’t apart—they were just older, with more things to worry about.
“There was a rumor today on one of the blogs—Politico, I think—that you were headed to Kiev,” said Sullivan.
“I am,” said Zen, returning from his brief daydream. “Senator Osten’s going to be in the hospital awhile.”
“Oh yeah, how is he?” asked Sullivan.
“I talked to him yesterday. He was joking about all the things he’s not supposed to do now.”
“You wouldn’t figure him for a heart attack,” said Sullivan.
Actually, thought Zen, you would—he didn’t exercise, was more than a little overweight, and had a complicated family medical history. But it was the sort of polite comment people made in passing.
“Do you really think Ukraine should be part of NATO?” asked Daly, changing the subject.
“I don’t think it’s a bad idea,” said Zen. “What do you think?”
Daly was neutral; Sullivan was opposed, though only mildly. Both seemed worried about diluting NATO as a military force by adding relatively weak allies on the border of Russia. It was a reasonable argument, even if Zen disagreed. He wasn’t in much of a mood to get into a philosophical discussion of how to best offer a counterweight to Russia.
But Sullivan and Daly were.
“Russia is a diminished force,” said Sullivan. “A nonentity militarily.”
“That’s what worries me, to some extent,” said Daly. “When you’re beaten down is when you get dangerous.”
“They haven’t been beaten down.”
“They think they have. That’s what matters.” Daly turned to Zen. “I’d be careful at that summit,” he told him. “I’ve heard plenty of rumors that the Russians are out to disrupt it somehow.”
“I’ll be as careful as possible,” said Zen.
Sitting at a committee hearing two hours later, Zen decided he would be more than careful—he’d spend a little time at the shooting range before leaving, something he hadn’t done in a few months.
And he’d buy Breanna some flowers. That was also long overdue.
Chisinau, Moldova
T
he doctor’s house was an American-style McMansion that would have looked right at home on Florida’s Gold Coast. In Chisinau it looked like something from outer space.
Three stories high, with lots of glass and stone, it lorded over the nearby houses, which would have looked large in any other context. Two parallel runs of spiked iron fencing surrounded the property. Eight feet high, the fence was a deterrent to trespassers, but not any more so than the dogs that roamed the interior. Unlike the one Nuri had encountered in Italy, these were rottweilers, and appeared to be trained guard dogs; they moved in twos with almost military discipline.
The dogs were more than enough to dissuade Nuri from sneaking in the way he had at Moreno’s, but in addition there were video cameras and infrared motion sensors all along the fence line. As Flash put it, the doctor did not want anyone making unannounced house calls.
So Nuri decided they would settle for NSA wiretaps, and in the meantime plant some video bugs in the neighbors’ yards in hopes of getting a picture.
Flash volunteered for the job. The game plan was straightforward: he’d rent a motorcycle, whiz up into the area, plant the bugs per Nuri’s directions, then head back to the hotel where they were staying. Danny would back him up in the rental car. Meanwhile, Nuri would access the accounts they had set up at the bank, giving MY-PID a route into the bank’s computers.
The first problem they encountered was with the motorcycle: they couldn’t find one to rent. Flash was ready to do the job on foot when he spotted an open bicycle shop on the way out of town. The owner wouldn’t rent anything, but was willing to part with an older ten-speed for fifty euros.
They put the bike in the trunk of a rented Dacia and drove out of the city toward the development just after dusk. The houses around the doctor’s were all relatively new, built within the last ten years. MY-PID’s scan of the property records listed several Russians with connections to Russian organized crime, but for the most part the homeowners were part of the small class of nouveau riche Moldovans who’d made money in various legitimate enterprises, the most popular of which was the pharmaceutical industry, which the Moldovan government had set out to encourage a number of years before.
Flash got out of the car about a half mile north of the doctor’s house. He took the bike they’d rented earlier from the trunk and began pedaling slowly through the neighborhood. Danny drove around until he found a spot where he could see most of the house with his night glasses.
“How’m I lookin’?” asked Flash.
“You’re good. Looks like there’s somebody in the second story of the house,” Danny told him. “Back room. Moving around.”
The glasses couldn’t see inside the building, but they were powerful enough to catch heat signatures close to the walls and windows. Danny scanned down the nearby streets. The only people outside were a block and a half away, working in a lit garden at the side of their yard.
“Car coming,” he said. “Mercedes up that street on your right.”
“OK.”
Flash slowed his pace as the car came to the intersection and turned past, then crossed the street and stopped near the fence of a yard diagonally across from the rear of the doctor’s house. Danny watched him take a video bug from his pocket and plant it on a slim tree that stood just outside the fence.
MY-PID sounded a tone over the radio system, telling them that the bug was working.
“Next,” said Flash, hopping back on his bike.
Danny drove down the block, circling around to lessen the odds of someone noticing him. Flash installed two more bugs and was halfway through the project when MY-PID announced that one of the garage doors in the doctor’s house was opening.
“You hear that?” Danny asked.
“Yeah. I’m just up the block.”
A Mercedes came out of the garage.
“Where do you think he’s going at this hour?” asked Flash.
“I’m going to find out,” Danny told him. “Can you finish that on your own?”
“Piece of cake.”
Danny doused his lights as he turned down the street parallel to the doctor’s house. The Mercedes appeared a few seconds later, driving down the hill in the direction of the city. Danny let him get a block ahead, then put his lights on and started to follow. Without a tracking device, he had to stay relatively close. It was Surveillance 101—a course he’d never taken. Once more he felt like a fish out of water, playing detective or spy when he’d been trained as a commando.
The Mercedes went six blocks on the main road, then turned in the direction of the city. But just as Danny started to accelerate, it veered off suddenly, taking a right on one of the side streets. Fearing that he’d been seen, he continued going straight, slowing down as much as he dared. He looked, but couldn’t see anything up the side street as he passed.
He went a block, then took a parallel street, hoping to circle back. The road ran for nearly a quarter mile before he found an intersection. He turned left when he reached the street the Mercedes had taken, calculating that the doctor had continued in that direction. But he ran into a dead end; he made a U-turn and headed back to the main road.
The Mercedes was nowhere to be found. Possibly it had pulled into one of the estates that flanked the road; Danny decided he’d take another look.
“Flash, how’s it going?” he asked.
“On the last one.”
“I lost him, but I want to run down some of these roads for a second and see if he turned in somewhere. I’ll meet you at that little gas station we passed on the way up.”
“Sounds good.”
Danny found a place to turn around. As he drove back down the road, he realized that two of the estates had guardhouses set back a bit from the road.
“MY-PID, identify property owners for the street I’m driving down,” he ordered.
The computer had already accessed and downloaded the city property records, and within moments was reading off a list of owners.
Danny stopped it when it got to the Russian government.
“Is that the ambassador’s residence?” he asked.
“Negative.”
“Who lives there?”
“Not listed. Correlating with other data . . . residence appears to be occupied by the assistant ambassador for business. Possible link to GRU.”
In other words—the spymaster for the Russian military lived there.
Or might.
Was that where the doctor had gone?
The house was undoubtedly under surveillance, and Danny didn’t want to risk drawing any more attention to himself than he already had. He went back out to the main street and noticed a fire hydrant near the curb directly across from the intersection. He pulled over, got one of the video bugs and set it under the hydrant’s plug. Back in the car, he made sure he had a view of the street, then went and picked up Flash.
B
y the time Danny and Flash returned to the hotel room, Nuri had pieced together more of the money trail, with the computer’s help. Breaking into the Russian bank records after accessing the system through the new account, MY-PID found that 200,000 euros had been wired from the Russian account into a Moldovan bank account just that morning. The money was withdrawn in the afternoon, apparently in cash.
He showed Danny the money trail on the screen of their secure laptop. MY-PID had an Excel-based account tool that not only gave account balances and transactions, but could compare transactions to others at the same bank in real time, looking for related moves in shadow accounts. The SEC would have killed for it.
“First thing in the morning,” said Nuri, “we get a look at their security cameras. We’ll review the video and find out who went in there.”
“You think they’ll just hand it over?” asked Flash.
“Sure—if we’re there to fix it.”
“How do you get around not speaking the language?” asked Danny.
“I have a hearing aid,” said Nuri. “I pretend I’m hard of hearing, and I use MY-PID. Used to do it in Africa all the time. Plus my Romanian is getting better. Same language.”
The computer continued to churn through various bank records, first looking for obvious connections like direct transfers, then gradually becoming more esoteric. It looked for accounts that had similar usage patterns, but the only thing it could identify was an account used by GazProm, the Russian energy company, which made large transfers to cover payroll. No other accounts had received large transfers from the Russian account, and the only transactions the Moldovan bank account had on record, aside from interest payments and fees, were cash withdrawals.
“They probably use other banks,” said Nuri. “This just happens to be the one account we found.”
“Or this is all the money they get.”
“Maybe,” admitted Nuri. “But Moreno paid a hell of a lot more than this.”
“Maybe their agent takes a cut.”
“Hefty cut.”
“Subject Mercedes sighted,” reported MY-PID.
Nuri hit the keys on the laptop and pulled up the image, which was beamed from the fire hydrant. The car turned left instead of right—away from the house.
“Love to bug the car,” said Nuri.
“Oughta bug the Russian spymaster’s house instead,” said Danny.
“Probably already is.”
Nuri looked up at Danny.
“Shit,” he said. Then he grabbed his sat phone to see if he was right.