Cyclops One - Страница 9

* * *

Flying back on the helicopter, Fisher got involved in a philosophical discussion with the crew chief about whether the inventor of lite beer ought to be hanged or simply jailed for life. Because of that, he wasn’t prepared for the attack that met him on the tarmac.

“Fisher, who the hell do you think you are, screwing up a rescue operation?”

“Hey, Jemma. You’re looking particularly pallid today. Wanna cigarette?” said Fisher, walking toward the pillbox that housed the elevator into the bunker complex.

“You can’t smoke on this base,” said Jemma. “There’s all sorts of jet fuel and flammable materials.”

“Write me up.” Fisher poked out a Camel and lit up. He had a hankering for a Marlboro, but his Indian suppliers didn’t go for the image, so they were hard to get. “How come you’re outside during the day? Aren’t you afraid of melting?”

“Fisher, what the hell were you doing?” She placed herself in front of him in a pose that convinced Fisher she had been a linebacker in a previous life.

“Looking at a piece of metal from our plane,” he said. “Then Bonham decided to have me tag along to the F/A-22V crash. Damn far north, don’t you think?”

“They have the course already computed.”

“Sure,now they do: Why the hell didn’t they figure that out before? Would’ve saved a lot of trouble. You’re going to have to get all your little men on the situation board to shift north, right? What are the Canadians saying about this?”

“Computing crash sites isn’t as easy as you think.”

“Which is why Cyclops is still missing, right?”

Gorman pulled the bottom of her uniform jacket down, smoothing it.

“Better off pressing it,” said Fisher. “That’s what you get for sleeping in it.”

“I don’t sleep in my uniform.”

“Pink jammies with fuzzy feet?”

“What did you see up there? Was the pilot alive when the plane hit, or what?”

Fisher studied his cigarette a moment. It seemed to him that the burn tilted slightly to the west, no matter how he held it. Maybe it was a magnetic thing.

Figure it out and he could use it as a compass.

“Well?” asked Gorman.

“Doc thought so. I don’t think he has much experience, though. Make sure they check the blood for carbon dioxide levels, but I’d almost for sure rule that out. Say, tell me about Bonham. How old is he?”

“How the hell do I know?”

“If he’s not in the Army—”

“Air Force.”

“Yeah. So he’s retired, right? But everyone calls him general and acts like he’s hot shit.”

“It’s an honorific. And he’s head of the NADT. He is hot shit, as you put it.”

“He’s a pain in your ass, isn’t he?”

Gorman’s cheeks shaded dark red. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“He thinks he’s running the investigation.”

“This is an Air Force investigation. I am in charge here.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t. Getting any pressure from Congress?”

“Congress? Why?”

“York’s cousin’s a congressman.”

Gorman shrugged. She obviously hadn’t known that, though she was about as likely to admit that as the pope was to confess he’d smoked pot in seminary. “Tell me about that piece of metal,” she said, changing the subject. “Was it from Cyclops One or not?”

“Oh yeah. We can discard the accident theory. Plane was definitely stolen.”

“What?”

“I’m going to start going through the personnel files. I was afraid it would come to this.” Fisher tossed his cigarette down. Mindful of Jemma’s concern about starting a fire, he crushed it out with his heel. “I hate using the Air Force computers. Maybe I can bribe somebody to do it for me.”

“Andrew—”

“I’d ask you but I know you’re busy.”

“For the record, your clearance on this case is strictly limited. It doesn’t cover the weapons system.”

“Jemma, my clearance is higher than yours. You know, maybe you should put a little starch into your shirt. Get rid of the wrinkles. They dock you for that, right? Demerits or something? Take away your cigarette privileges.”

* * *

Kowalski was heading the section reviewing the personnel records, which was, as Fisher predicted, using Air Force computers. The DIA agent took one look at him and shook his head as he entered the room. Fisher ignored him, walking toward the side of the large room where the coffee was sequestered.

“What’d you find in Canada?” Kowalski asked.

“Who the hell’s making the coffee here? You?” Fisher held up the pot. About half-full, it was as thick as Texas honey.

“I’ll send out if you tell me what’s going on in Canada,” said the DIA agent. “We’re just reading electrons here.”

“Found a part of an airplane.”

“And?”

“And it was obviously planted there. So whose bank account just grew by a billion bucks?”

“Fisher.”

“Come on. You’ve had enough time to dig up some dirt by now. A bank foreclosure, at least.”

Kowalski glanced at the sergeant who had accompanied Fisher into the room. “I’m afraid Sergeant Johnson shouldn’t be in on this discussion. Personnel matters are private.”

“Sean’s not going to talk, right? Besides, he doesn’t speak English.”

The sergeant gave a little smirk.

“Seriously, we can’t talk about this in front of anyone who’s not part of the investigation.”

“Maybe I might find something to eat,” said the sergeant. “Down the hall.”

“See, now you hurt his feelings,” said Fisher after the sergeant left. “Who’s our perp?”

“What happened in Canada?” asked Kowalski.

“Piece of the wing from the 767 that has some sort of serial number on it. Looked to me like it was dropped from five feet off the ground.”

“The engineers assessed it already?”

“No, but you know what they’re going to say: ‘No definable parameters’ or some such bullshit. They might get something from looking at the side — the metal has a shear I don’t think could’ve happened if it just ripped off. Anyway, it’s definitely there as a red herring. The F/A-22V was over here about a hundred and, what, fifty miles?” He diagrammed it in the air. “Bonham went up there to check it out.”

“Bonham went there himself?”

“Yeah, my kind of guy. Except he don’t smoke. Can’t be perfect.” Fisher took a sip of the coffee, which was starting to grow on him: It was now merely undrinkable, as opposed to hideously undrinkable. “Slip a couple of lead plates in here and you could start a car,” he told Kowalski.

“That far north, huh?”

“That’s what I’m thinking. How the hell did it get way the hell out there, huh? Modelers screw up?”

Kowalski shrugged. “I had this A-10A case once. It flew for something like two hours before it pancaked in. Incredible.”

“Yeah, but our plane missed some serious mountains.”

“Talk to the experts,” said the DIA agent. “Don’t talk to me.”

“So what I’m thinking, then, is if the Velociraptor could go that far, then the 767 could go even further, because it has a clearer path and it’s higher. Right?”

“Presumably.”

Fisher took another sip of coffee. He must’ve hit a good spot in the cup before: It was back to being hideously undrinkable. “So, who’s the prime suspect if the planes were stolen? York?”

“No way,” said the DIA agent. “All the crew people are clean. This could be an NSA operation, with all the background checks they put these people through. They didn’t trust the DSS backgrounds. Special checks were done by an FBI unit after the DSS’s came back clean.”

“Oh, that fills me with a lot of confidence,” said Fisher.

The DSS was the Defense Security Service, whose checks included not only searches of data records but visits to former neighborhoods. The FBI checks would have been similar but in theory more in-depth.

The FBI agent walked over to the two long tables at the center of the room where Kowalski and the people helping him had set up several computers. Two had hardware keys — actually, special circuits that acted as encryption devices — enabling them to directly access a government top-secret intelligence network known as Intelink. The network worked like a highly secure Internet; hypertext links connected to several sources on different subjects. There were limits: Intelink information did not extend to Sensitive Compartmented Information, ultrasecret data available on a very restricted basis. Cyclops, for example, would not be found in a query there. Nor could the computers access SpyNet, which was another top-level network used more for strategic security information.

Special authorization was needed to get into the personnel files Kowalski was using, and Fisher had to go through the biometrics ID routine twice, squinting into what looked like a set of stationary binoculars.

“Who are you interested in?” Kowalski asked.

“York.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause she’s not here. I only talk about people behind their backs.”

“Weren’t you saying a couple of hours ago that Williams was the prime suspect?”

“Sounded like me.”

Kowalski snorted.

“See, that’s why it’s got to be York,” said Fisher. “What do you figure the odds are of me being wrong twice in a row?”