Authors: Jim DeFelice
Fisher had almost made it to the helicopter when the evil sibyl’s gaze fell upon him. The landscape turned purple and a hideous howl filled his ears. The earth would lie fallow for seven years.
“Mr. Fisher!”
A curse formed on his lips but went unuttered; he didn’t want to lose the grip on his freshly lit cigarette. Instead, Fisher pretended he hadn’t heard anything and continued toward the waiting airplane.
It was no use. Gorman had the angle and appeared in front of him with twenty yards to go. Fisher threw on the brakes lest he touch her and melt.
“Hey, what’s up, Captain Bligh?” Fisher asked. “Tahiti in sight already?”
“Where are you going?”
“That plane over there.”
“Who authorized your flight?” she asked.
“You color-blind, Jemma?”
“Huh?”
“This isn’t a blue suit I’m wearing. I’m outside of your chain of command. Plane’s got a seat and I’m taking it.”
He took a step toward the plane but she put her hand up.
“Whatever you paid for the manicure, you got ripped off,” Fisher told her.
“Andy, you can’t leave.”
“Why not?”
“We’re in the middle of an investigation.”
“That’s why I’m getting on the plane,” said Fisher.
“But if the Russians took Cyclops One—”
“Which they didn’t.”
“Damn it, listen to me.”
Jemma’s face flushed, probably with embarrassment that she had used a four-letter word. Fisher smiled and took a long drag on his cigarette. “Mom’s gonna wash your mouth out, probably with lye soap.”
“Listen, if the Russians—whoever—took the plane, then they had to have inside help.”
“Makes sense.”
“We have to figure out who it is and build a case. That’s FBI territory.”
“You think? I pegged it for CID or DIA or something,” said Fisher. “Jeez, Jemma, when you roll your eyes like that, how come they don’t pop out?”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, really, they look like they’re going to drop on the ground.”
“Are you going to help or what?”
“I
am
helping.”
“By leaving?”
“Didn’t you make that suggestion yourself the day I got here?”
She drew back, her face turning red. Fisher would have enjoyed the performance immensely, but he was concerned about missing the flight. It was the only plane headed eastward for several hours. “Andy. Listen. Do you know who was helping here? Beyond the crew? Was Howe involved?”
“I haven’t a clue,” said Fisher. “Probably not Howe.”
“Why do you pull my chain like that?”
“ ’Cause it’s so easy.”
“Do you think there was a conspiracy here to steal the plane?” she demanded.
“Makes sense.” Fisher shrugged. “But I’ll tell you more when I get back.”
“Andy…I…we need someone here who knows what they’re doing,” she said.
“Leaves me out,” said Fisher. He took a step forward.
“I’m asking nicely.”
“Can I get a sonar up to look in those lakes?”
She looked exasperated. “No. That’s…to get permission to do that, and then get the gear…given the other evidence now…You’re nuts. Why are you obsessed with the lakes?”
“Bonham’s the one who’s obsessed.”
“He only suggested it.”
“You don’t think that’s interesting?”
Gorman’s sigh sounded like the mating call of a horse. “I don’t understand you. You figure out that the plane has been taken, then you come up with a crazy theory one hundred and eighty degrees in the other direction: that it crashed in the lakes.”
“Who says that’s my theory?”
Gorman stamped her feet, a gesture that reinforced Fisher’s suspicion that she had equine blood in her. “I’m going to put Kowalski in charge.”
“It is kind of nice to see you grovel,” admitted Fisher, seeing the crewmen starting to button up the plane. “But I gotta get going.”
Howe shut down his aircraft, slowly working himself out of the restraints, moving with great deliberation as if he were reluctant to leave the plane. He’d flown nonstop to Kabul, Afghanistan, refueling by air along the way. Ten thousand miles, give or take; it was a serious haul, even in the pilot-friendly Velociraptor, coming on top of several hours of intensive planning and then hustling to leave. By all rights and normal flight rules, he was owed some major sack time, but nothing about this operation could be called “normal.”
There was no way he could go to bed until he made sure the operation was under control; a slew of details had to be attended to if they were going to be ready to take off tomorrow night, the analysts’ best guess about when the Indians would launch their attack.
Howe extended his arms and stretched his back, twisting his muscles. Deciding he had officially caught a second wind, he pulled himself out of the cockpit and onto the ladder that the ground crew had brought over. The men had been waiting for some hours for his arrival and were already swarming like ants on a jelly sandwich. The Velociraptors’ “home” team was due to arrive in another few hours from North Lake, but the crew here—residents and others gathered as the ad hoc operation was pulled together—gave up nothing to them in terms of skill, speed, and precision. With a wide range of experience in various aircraft, the maintainers could probably have rebuilt the aircraft from the ground up if necessary.
It wasn’t. The Velociraptor and its sister, now being secured by Timmy a short distance away, had performed perfectly. If he hadn’t been there, Howe would almost have doubted that the glitch that killed the controls on his original aircraft had even happened.
“Man, do I have to take a leak!” yelled Timmy by way of greeting as he climbed down from the plane. “Piddlepack’s full up, and I had my legs crossed the last thousand miles.”
Howe shook his head and began walking toward a pair of Humvees waiting nearby. By the time he had ascertained that they’d been sent to bring him over to the base commander, Timmy had joined him.
Part of the air base had been given over to the operation, in effect quarantined from the rest of the world. A two-star general had come over from CentCom to take charge of the operation and was waiting for Howe in a suite down the hall from the base commander’s headquarters. Eight F-15Cs and a KC-135 tanker were tasked to the group, along with Cyclops Two and the Velociraptors. An AWACS and its escorts were due in shortly from Saudi Arabia, along with an E-3 upgraded Rivet Joint aircraft code-named Cobra Two, which could provide real-time intelligence from intercepted electronic transmissions, including radio and telemetry. There were two different SAR packages already here, manned by troops from Special Forces Command and including not only Air Force PJs or pararescuers but Army SF troopers as well. The packages were built around a pair of MH-60s, modified Blackhawks used for long-range missions; within a few hours they were expecting a long-range MC-130 that could be used for long-distance operations as well.
Compared to the way the military ordinarily did things, the operation was thrown together. But the force it was able to project was, pound for pound, one of the most potent ever assembled, short of a nuclear-strike team. The warfighters were relying on not dozens but hundreds of highly skilled personnel backing them up: aircraft mechanics, survival shop specialists, weapons orderlies, fuel handlers, cooks, clerks, security people, communications whizzes, drivers, and gofers. The pilots might get any glory that was handed out, but in reality they were a very small piece of the pie.
Major General Alec Liu had been briefed on the mission by the planners who had helped Howe outline it back in the States, as well as by the Pentagon and even Dr. Blitz. According to the latest estimates, the Indians would hit the radar site within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. The attack would be made at night, but as yet it had been impossible to get a better idea of when. That meant a twelve-hour patrol, on top of the time it would take to prep the mission and get into position.
Liu, an Air Force officer, realized how far that would push the flight crews and kept shaking his head as they traced the expected flight area on the map. There was no way to provide proper relief crews for the main elements of the mission: Howe, Timmy, and the crew of Cyclops Two were going to have to fight through their fatigue for the marathon mission.
Liu’s borrowed command center had been a recreation room twenty-four hours before; the general and Howe stood over a large Ping-Pong table as they reviewed the tasking order and other data relating to the mission. Other officers gradually filtered in, and what had started as an informal brief took on a more comprehensive tone, complete with a weather report from one of the general’s staffers. Liu, shorter than Howe and a bit pudgy, was a roll-up-the-sleeves kind of guy, and gave the impression he could run out on the tarmac and drive the fuel truck himself if the ground crew turned up a man short.
Captain Atta Habib, the commander of Cyclops Two, arrived just as the briefing was breaking up. He’d left some hours ahead of Howe, but his slower aircraft naturally had taken longer to arrive.
Habib looked as if he’d run the entire way. His eyes drooped and he seemed to be tottering on his legs. Howe didn’t even bother recapping the latest intelligence reports; he told Atta to go and hit the sack.
“That sounds like a good idea,” Liu added over Howe’s shoulder. “As a matter of fact, I think it should be an order for all flight personnel.”
“I wanted to check on the weapons for the Velociraptors,” said Howe.
“Taken care of, Colonel. Go get some rest. Now. We have just under twenty-four hours before this thing goes off.”
At some point in every investigation, it became necessary to journey to the heart of enemy territory, to brave destruction in the quest for the truth. You could gird your loins with body armor, arm yourself with all manner of weapons, but in the end, it came down to two things: luck, and timing. Luck could not be controlled. Timing, however, could be managed. Fisher, relying both on precedent and clandestine reconnaissance, adjusted his plan accordingly and plunged into the abyss, also known as FBIHQ.
Thanks to his careful preparation—and luck—he made it over to his destination in the great bowels of the enemy camp without incident. In the deepest, dankest basement corridor, in an area once reserved for industrial waste—or worse—he found his quest: Betty McDonald, a true believer, pure of soul and smoky of lungs.
“Cut the bullshit, Andy,” said Betty, who headed a forensic accounting team that worked on national security projects but was actually assigned to the government crimes section of the Criminal Investigation Division, probably because someone had hit the Tab button incorrectly when preparing the last organizational chart. Betty had helped Fisher several times in the past and apparently didn’t have the pull to be permanently unassigned from such duty.
That or she’d lost the paperwork in the pile that flowed from various portions of her desk.
“Just tell me what you want,” she said as he closed the door to her office, battling a bag filled with shredded paper. The remains inside the clear bag looked suspiciously like candy wrappers.
“I’ll take a cigarette for starters,” said Fisher.
“You can’t buy your own cigarettes?”
“On what they pay me?”
Betty’s laugh sounded something like the snort of a hippopotamus.
In a good way.
She rose from her desk and went to the lateral filing cabinets, where a large air-filtration machine sat. She poked the side and the smoke-eater began to whirl.
“You don’t really think that does any good, do you?” asked Fisher, taking a cigarette from her.
“Keeps the boss happy,” she said, sitting back at the desk. She opened the top drawer after she lit up, taking out a bag of Tootsie Rolls, which she habitually chewed while smoking. The combination kept her teeth a healthy black.
“Did you get those financial profiles?” Fisher asked.
“No.”
“Didn’t DOD send over those authorizations?”
“I got the data you asked about, Andy. They’re not financial profiles. They’re barely disclosure statements. Do you have any idea of what we do down here?”
“Besides the orgies?”
Another hippo snort. “If you’re looking for bribes, you want to go over to U-Rent and get a metal detector,” she told him. “You’ll have better luck digging up coffee cans in their backyards.”
“You’re getting funnier, Betty. You really are.”
“It’s the nicotine talking.” She reached down into the nether regions of her desk, digging out a file she had had prepared for him. NADT mandated annual security checks for all its personnel, and the checks routinely included credit reports as well as asset listings. A member of Betty’s team had gone over the data.
“If they know their accounts are being checked, they’re unlikely to hide any money there,” said Betty, handing over the information. “We did comparison sheets where the records were deep enough. Three years.”
“Boring as hell, huh?”
“Your missing pilot’s rich. I’d like to be in her will.”
“So I hear. These are the same forms they had out at North Lake?”
“You’ve seen them already?” Betty’s tongue nearly got tangled in her candy. “God damn it, Andy, you know how short-staffed I am?”
“So, how rich is York, anyway?”
Betty began rattling numbers through the smoke rings, calming somewhat. The family was among the top thousand in the country, depending on how their holdings were valued. On the one hand, she had no close relatives—her parents were dead and she had no sisters—but on the other hand her “real” money was parked in trusts.
“You can’t even tell how rich these people are from the statements,” said Betty. “That’s my point. They’re basically the same bullshit forms Congress uses, and you know how revealing
they
are.”
“Like your shirt.”
While Betty inspected her clothes, Fisher looked at the sheets, which—contrary to what he had insinuated—were somewhat more detailed than the data available at North Lake. York’s included a long list of trusts that she had an interest in.
“Can you find out what these trusts hold?” he asked.
“After you get the subpoenas and double my personnel line, sure.” Betty popped another Tootsie Roll. “Overtime pay would be nice too.”
Fisher leaned forward. There was a cup of coffee at the edge. Something appeared to be growing in it; otherwise, he might have taken a sip.
“I have this other idea,” he said. “But it’s a long shot.”
“What idea of yours isn’t?”
Fisher reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a three-page list of names. “These are the companies that are involved in Cyclops,” he told her. “Just the weapons part. I was wondering if we could get an idea of any relationships they have.”
“What are you, a marriage counselor?”
“Watching Jay Leno is really paying off for you, Betty.”
She took the list and immediately started to frown. “Are these
all
private companies?”
“I don’t know. What’s the difference?”
“Well, for starters, it’s as hard getting information on private companies as it is for individuals.”
“So, it’ll be a snap, huh?” Fisher took a long draw on the cigarette. Betty smoked no-name cigarettes, and this particular one reminded him of horse dung. But insulting her would not be particularly productive. “There may be paperwork over at DOD that lets us look at their financial records.”
“Did you ask?”
“Not directly.”
“Have you talked to GSA to see if there have been any audits?”
“See, that’s why you’re the expert. I didn’t even think of that.”
“Do we have grounds to look at their books?”
Fisher shrugged.
“That means no. This is a lot of work, Andy. Even without going in and looking at their books.”
“I’d also be interested in whatever else they’re doing, what other project they’re tied into. Also, I’m looking for real estate records. I’ve hit a dead end on that side.”
She tried to hand the paper back to him. “This isn’t really accounting, Fisher. This is something you should be doing yourself.”
“You know me and numbers,” said Fisher.
Betty turned aside to one of the three computers lined up on the side of her desk—she had a laptop and a PDA on the desk itself—and pressed a few buttons.
“Hmmmm,” she said.
“See. I knew you could do it.”
“It’s going to take longer than I thought. No way.”
“Great,” said Fisher, jumping up. “Call me, okay?”
“Andy. Andy!”
In retrospect, Fisher realized that he had made a tactical mistake in managing his exit, for undoubtedly Betty’s rather sonorous voice had set off some sort of deep vibration within the Bureau’s clandestine internal security system. Nonetheless, he almost succeeded in escaping completely from the complex—but then,
almost
only counts in horseshoes and grenades.
Actually, the latter would have been an appropriate metaphor.
“Andrew Fisher!”
When faced with a difficult situation, Fisher knew, there were only two possible ways of dealing with it. The first was to face it bravely. The second—infinitely preferable—was to run away as fast as you could.
Given that his way down the hall was barred by several security types, Fisher chose the former.
“Hey, boss,” he said, swirling around. “What’s happening?”
Jack Hunter’s red face glowed in the corridor, his mouth open while his brain worked to string together a sentence of passable coherence. Hunter was executive assistant director for National Security—Special Projects, a kingdom that had been carved out of Counterintelligence when no one was looking. It was often said that Hunter was old-school Bureau, though no one could figure exactly what school that might have been. In any event, he was among the most deliberate speakers in Washington; several field agents believed that talking to Hunter was the best way to prepare for a lifetime as a Zen Buddhist monk.
Fisher, for one, had never put much store in Eastern religion and believed that patience was overrated. Still, with no avenue of escape open, he waited for his boss to get to the point.
“A camel, Fisher? A camel?” said Hunter finally.
“Yeah, bit me,” said Fisher. “Ain’t that a bitch?”
“It should have bitten your head off. And what was this about water?”
“Hey, Egypt’s in the middle of a desert. Had to buy water.”
“Five trainloads of water?”
“I think it was only four. You better send somebody over to check that one out.”
Hunter’s face shaded even redder. “Why does Colonel Gorman want to talk to me?”
“Sounds like a personal matter,” said Fisher. The way was now clear, and so he hustled toward it.
“Fisher! Stop this instant.”
Fisher obeyed, but only because he could no longer afford to waste time discussing Bureau finances. He pulled his cigarettes out.
“You can’t smoke in here. It’s a federal building!”
“Right, chief,” he said, turning and heading toward the doors.
“Fisher!”
“I’m going, I’m going.”