Collateral Damage (10 page)

“That's your first mistake,” said Beast. “Never, ever fight fair.”

G
inella was waiting for them at their parking area when they returned.

She was not happy.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” she said to Beast as he stepped onto the tarmac. “Where do you think you were, kindergarten? That action was dangerous and unauthorized. It was completely against regulations and, damn it, common sense!”

“I, uh—”

“Don't speak,” she snapped. She turned to Turk. “And you—you! You're a test pilot. An engineer.”

“Well, no, I—”

“Is this what they teach you at Dreamland? I'm really disappointed in you, Captain. Really disappointed. I've seen your record—you're supposed to be a mature pilot with a good set of decision-making skills. Quote, end quote.”

Turk wanted to shrink into the macadam below his feet. She was absolutely right to bawl him out, and he knew it. He kept his eyes fixed on the ground as she continued, giving him one of the sternest lectures he had ever received.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” she asked finally.

“I was stupid,” he said. “I lost my head and acted like a jerk.”

“Get out of here before I do something rash,” she said. “Report to the maintenance officer.”

Beast took a step to leave. Ginella whirled toward him. “You and I are not done.”

“Yes, ma'am,” said Beast softly.

Turk didn't hang around to hear the rest. He practically ran to get out of his flight gear, then quickly made his way to the squadron's offices.

“Colonel talked to you?” asked the major sitting at the desk when he came in.

Turk nodded.

“I assume the plane checked out.”

“Yes.”

They went over the flight quickly. Turk wanted to finish as quickly as possible, hoping to avoid seeing Ginella again.

No such luck, though. She was standing in the doorway when he finished.

“Give us a minute, Major?” she snapped. It wasn't a question.

“Wanted to grab a coffee,” said the officer, who quickly slipped past her.

“I'm sorry,” said Turk, sitting back in his seat. “I know I was out of line. I know it.”

She frowned, but the quick admission of guilt seemed to take a little of her anger away. She went over to the desk the major had been using and sat behind it.

“I realize that I run things a little loose at times,” she told him. “On the ground. Yes. But that doesn't mean it's OK to act like a cowboy in my squadron. In the air, we are all business. Do you understand that?”

“I know. I was totally out of line.”

She stared at him. Her eyes were a light blue with small wrinkles of brown in them, as if the blue were tiny pages of a book arranged one on top of the other around the pupil.

“You're a good pilot, at least,” said Ginella finally.

“Thank you.”

“I wouldn't grin.”

“No.” Turk shook his head.

“All right, Captain. You can go.”

Turk rose and started to leave.

“Thank you for helping us,” said Ginella.

Turk turned around.

“It was my pleasure,” he said.

“Good.”

He left the room chastened, but unbroken.

12

Sicily

“I
t's not possible that the Sabre didn't know where it was.” Brad Keeler thumped his hand against the wall, tapping the map image projected there. “We have the GPS data all the way through.”

“And it functioned optimally?” asked Rubeo. “You're positive of that?”

“As positive as we can be.”

“Was there interference through the control channel?”

Keeler pursed his lips. The one vulnerability of all unmanned aircraft systems was their reliance on external radio signals, for control and navigation. Much progress had been made in the area over the past decade but it remained at least a theoretical vulnerability.

“We don't believe so,” said Keeler, weighing his words. “It would fail-safe out. Even if it were done very well, we should have a trace somewhere in the system.”

“The GPS?”

“GPS is trickier to track,” admitted Keeler. The Sabre got reads on where it was by querying the global position satellite system. In theory, the system could be fooled or even infiltrated. But it was difficult to do technically.

“Harder to catch,” noted Marcum.

“Absolutely,” admitted Keeler. “But there should be some trace of that.”

“Simple interference?” asked Rubeo.

“Again—it's theoretically possible. But if so, they're doing it in a way that we haven't seen before. And the NATO sensors didn't pick up any direct interference.”

“They hardly know what to look for,” said Rubeo. Interference in this case meant some sort of radio jamming, which generally was fairly obvious but could be done very selectively. In fact, Rubeo's companies were working on a system that jammed only select aircraft—in theory, one could confuse a single UAV in a flight, turning it against its fellows.

Only in theory, so far. The Libyans naturally would be unable to do this on their own. But there were plenty of people who might want to take the chance to test their systems in the field.

Rubeo couldn't control his agitation. He rose. “A virus?” he asked.

“So far, no trace. And it would have to be introduced physically. Which means by someone on the team.”

“Or someone who has access to the hangar,” said Rubeo. “Or the transports. Or one of the bases where they stopped. Or—”

“Point taken.”

“I want to know exactly what happened,” he said. “We need to know.”

“We are working on it,” said Marcum, rescuing Keeler. “We haven't been at it all that long. Barely twenty-four hours.”

“I've been here less than twelve,” said Keeler.

Rubeo pressed his hands together. “The government planes? What's the connection there?”

“At best, a diversion,” said Marcum. “More likely a coincidence.”

“Did they jam?”

“No,” said Keeler. “No jamming was recorded by any of the aircraft, including the Tigershark.”

“But there were ECMs,” said Rubeo. “They might have covered it. That would explain why the government attacked in the first place.”

Marcum looked as if he had just sucked a lemon.

“We've mapped all of the radars in the area,” said Keeler. “It's possible there was another one. But if it was interfered with, we can't figure out what the interference form would have been.”

“These are early days, Ray,” said Marcum. “We will get there. We have to build up slowly.”

“How well are you sleeping?” Rubeo snapped.

Marcum didn't answer.

“We all want to figure out what happened, Dr. Rubeo,” said Keeler gently. “We will figure it out.”

“I can't sleep at all,” said Rubeo.

13

Sicily

T
hough he headed Whiplash, the high-tech Department of Defense and CIA's covert action team, Danny Freah was not in Sicily on a Whiplash mission per se. Officially, he was only here to work with the locals and Air Force and secure the Sabres and the Tigershark, which were Office of Technology assets on temporary “loan” to the alliance. He wasn't even supposed to provide actual security, just make sure that the people who were charged with doing that did it.

Unofficially, he was here to find out what the hell had happened and to make sure that no one associated with the Office of Technology got railroaded.

Politics was a wonderful thing, especially in the military.

Danny had brought his figurative right arm, Chief Master Sergeant Ben “Boston” Rockland, along with two troopers, John “Flash” Gordon and Chris “Shorty” Bradley. He had a pair of Ospreys as well—one had come over with him on the Whiplash M–17, and the other had been part of a demonstration that Flash and Bradley were conducting in Germany when Danny got the word to get over to Sicily in a hurry. The Ospreys were available as transportation in the unlikely event he had to go over to Libya.

He doubted he'd need them. Nor did he anticipate needing more people. Most of his team was in the States on a training mission with U.S. Special Operations Command, and he decided to let them be for the time being.

“Pretty island,” said Boston, surveying the suite they'd been assigned at the NATO base. “Piece of shit command post, though. Barely fit a desk in either of these rooms.”

Boston wasn't exaggerating. Space at the facility was at a premium, as were simple auxiliary services like getting the floor washed—the ones in front of them were brutal.

“We'll have to make due,” said Danny. “You sent Flash over to the security?”

“Yeah, he's talking to the NATO people now. They have our Air Force guys, an assigned team from DoD working for OT, and Eye-tralians.” Boston had a smug grin as he mispronounced the word. “You going to call Nuri back from vay-kay?”

“I think we'll survive without him.”

“Probably be help ordering dinner.”

“We'll survive.”

Nuri was Nuri Abaajmed Lupo, the lead CIA officer with Whiplash. As an Italian-American who'd spent part of his childhood in Italy, Nuri spoke excellent Italian. He also had a decent amount of experience in the Middle East. But he was on his first leave in two years, and Danny saw no need to interrupt it.

“Probably knows where all the hot babes are, too,” added Boston.

“Find someone to clean the floor, Chief,” growled Danny. “I have work to do.”

14

Sicily

T
he high of his A–10E flight having been punctured by Ginella's scolding, Turk took his bruised ego back to his own small office on the base. He found it locked, with a guard in front of the door.

The Italian MP did not know what was going on or even why he was there, specifically. But he did know that his orders were that no one was to enter. And Turk fit the qualifications of “no one,” even though his name was handwritten on the door.

He went over to the hangar where the team was working over the Tigershark and Sabres, but no one there seemed to know anything about it. Turk was on his way to General Talekson's office when his satellite phone rang; it was Colonel Freah.

“Colonel, am I glad you called,” he said as the connection went through. “I've been locked out of my office.”

“Yeah, it's routine,” Danny told him. “Part of the investigation, Turk. Don't worry about it. How are you holding up?”

“OK, I guess.”

“Did Colonel Ginella hook up with you?”

“Uh, yes sir. I, uh, checked out two planes for her.”

“Two? Great.”

“I didn't think to check with you. I—”

“No, no, it's fine.” Technically, Danny wasn't in Turk's chain of command anyway. “She talked to me about it, then went through channels. I think it's a good idea for you to be, uh, useful if you can. Assuming you want to be. Do you want to fly with her?”

“Yeah, I will. Good squadron. I don't know how short-handed they are.”

“You're familiar with the planes?”

“Yes, sir. I flew them before they did, actually.”

“Well, good. Keep checking with the team to see if they need you for testing, but otherwise, as far as I'm concerned, you're good to go.”

“Thanks,” Turk told him, even though he figured the odds of getting back into one of Ginella's planes were infinitesimal now. He was thankful that she hadn't told Danny what had happened.

Not yet, anyway.

Danny told him about his office, suggesting he stop by “once we've gotten some furniture and figured out where the restrooms are.”

“I will.”

“If you want time off—”

“Actually, I'd prefer to keep busy,” said Turk.

T
urk eventually found his way back to the hotel, exhausted from the day and in need of a serious change of scenery. Once again he thought of Ginella's travelogue. But arranging a trip to the mainland seemed like too much of a hassle.

He went down to the bar and bought two beers, then smuggled them back upstairs to his room, feeling more than a little like a felon, though all he was doing was cheating the self-pay refrigerator out of a sale.

He flipped through the channels for a while. Most of the programs were in Italian, naturally, though after a few spins he found a movie in English with Italian subtitles. It was one of the early Terminators, the first, he thought, with Arnold Schwarzenegger before he became governor material.

Turk hadn't seen the movie in years and years. It was nice how the storylines in movies were always so clear: good versus evil. Good did good. Evil did evil.

You might have one flip around, or in a complicated movie, two or three. But in the end, you knew who was good.

Real life was always trickier. You might be a hero one second, then literally in the middle of a disaster the next.

He couldn't help but think about the Sabre attack. He'd seen a few screwups in his time, a couple of crashes, though never with anyone getting hurt. One time he'd come close to having to bail out of an aircraft. Ironically, it was an F/A–18, not an Air Force jet—he had been taking it up for NASA on an instrument run, testing a recording device—they had a new instrument to measure vortices off the wings. He was out over the Pacific when one of the engines decided it didn't want to work for some reason. Then the other one quit.

Fortunately, he had plenty of altitude and options. Among them was trying for a miraculous restart, as he called it now—he got the first engine to relight somehow, then hung on long enough to get into Miramar, the Marine air station in San Diego.

On final approach the engine quit again.

That caused him a little consternation. He'd been a little high and fast in his approach, perhaps unconsciously thinking the engine would blow, and that helped. Still, he barely managed to get the wheels onto the edge of the strip.

A lucky day. He might have plunged into the bay.

Or really gone off, and hit houses in the city.

He hadn't thought about either possibility at the time. You didn't—you just flew the plane, went down your checklist. Do this, do this; try this, now this, now this. Contemplating consequences was a luxury you didn't have.

So much so that when people congratulated him later, Turk wasn't even sure what the hell they were talking about. As far as he was concerned, the incident was a tremendous pain. He had to find another way back to Nellis, where he'd started the flight. And talk to a dozen scientists, most of whom were actually interested in the instrument the plane had carried, not the engine system.

For some reason, he'd never drawn a NASA assignment again. Coincidence?

The Terminator
ended—or didn't end, as it would go on to spawn a huge string of sequels. Turk went back to flipping through channels.

He stopped on the scene of a fire. He watched a row of houses burning, fascinated. They were in a small city. The sky behind them was dotted with black smoke, swirls rising like thick tree trunks in the distance.

Only gradually did he realize that he was watching an account of the Sabre accident. There were shots of ambulances coming and going. Then a close-up of a victim on a stretcher.

A woman, eyes closed, head covered with a bandage already soaked through with blood.

A small child, already dead . . .

He flipped the TV off and went to see what was in the minifridge.