Unmanned (9780385351263) (17 page)

They knocked. Progress of a sort. Then they opened the door before he crossed the room. No matter. He had already taken the usual precautions. It’s why he had posted so many sensors and security cams outside, a whole alarm network monitoring every approach to his house. Advance warning gave him time to activate the software he had designed himself. Within seconds it cloaked, and in some cases erased,
whatever work was likeliest to draw their unwanted scrutiny, while simultaneously disabling the passwords for his desktop, his notebook, and his smart phone. They hadn’t yet wised up to the trick, which told him once again that the Pentagon’s security experts weren’t half as skilled as the ones earning the big bucks in the private sector. To his mind, that illustrated one of DOD’s biggest blind spots: If they thought their new technology was devastating in their own hands, just wait until they started sharing it on the outside, with people who in some ways were far better equipped to exploit it.

“Welcome, gentlemen, as always.”

He stood with his arms crossed. The two men, familiar by now, actually seemed a bit sheepish this time. The first one, taller and older, always did the talking.

“Should I read you the usual warning, Mr. Sharpe?”

“I’m aware of my obligations. Tea? The kettle’s still warm.”

“No, sir. We should only be a minute.”

Maybe they, too, were tiring of the charade. Probably acting under orders issued more out of pique than practicality. And they hadn’t yet come up with a damn thing. He looked around the place with a hint of embarrassment. His house had always been a bit of a dump, ever since his last daughter moved out in ’91. But this morning it was particularly messy. Books and magazines everywhere, empty Chinese takeout boxes still on the coffee table, dishes stacked in the kitchen, clothes strewn on chairs and doorknobs, outdated and oversized stereo components coated with dust, cables everywhere. Was he becoming a hoarder, one of those lonely old misfits you always saw on TV? At least he didn’t own any cats. No smell of urine or stale beer. Just garlic from the Chinese, the herbal rot of wet tea leaves, the ticklish funk of dust, the leaden silence of too many hours alone. The shorter fellow sneezed as he began sorting through a stack of papers.

“You went through those last week. Not that it makes any difference.”

The man didn’t even look up.

“Got any more interviews scheduled?” the taller one asked. Sharpe didn’t even know their names, their ranks, anything about them.

“None presently. They’re good marketing tools for my business,
that’s why I keep doing them. I’m entitled to promote my business, you know.”

“And we’re entitled to keep letting your clients know of the restrictions you’ve agreed to operate under.”

So they weren’t even going to try to hide their recent meddling.

“I really don’t want to get lawyers involved.”

The shorter one spoke up for the first time ever, stopping what he was doing and looking Sharpe right in the eye.

“Then don’t.”

Sharpe took a step toward him, caught himself, and silently counted to ten. They’d be gone soon, back out on the highway and headed for the Capital Beltway. And he still had other ways of fighting back, ways that would piss them off even more if they ever found out. Foolhardy, probably, to try such things, but maybe it was inevitable once you got your back up.

“Okay, then.” The taller one again. “I’ll leave the paperwork.”

“Don’t forget to check the mailbox on the way out.”

“Already did. Publisher’s Clearinghouse thinks you may be their next lucky winner.”

This drew a smarmy grin from the shorter one. Sharpe held his tongue, barely.

Within seconds they were out the door, shuffling off like a pair of missionaries who’d failed to win a convert. He listened to the engine turn over, and then the creaking of the car as it bounded down the drive toward the bypass. Then he got to work.

First he pulled his keys from his pocket. Attached to the key chain was a cigarette lighter, or so it appeared. It had taken him an entire Saturday afternoon to produce the likeness. It was actually a flash drive, containing the software he always used to protect his data during these inspections and, just as important, to restore it once the coast was clear.

He plugged it in to let it work its magic, which included the random selection of a dozen new passwords for various accounts that he used. Then he pocketed the flash drive, printed out the list of the new passwords, examined it just long enough to commit the list to memory—which for him took only about twenty seconds—and then incinerated the printout in his pellet-burning woodstove.

Sitting back down at his desk, he used one of the new passwords to sign on to his email account, which he’d been using just before the alarms went off a few minutes ago, alerting him to the arrival of his visitors. Now a new message was waiting for him, from someone he’d never heard from before, although he recognized the name of the sender. One of the pilots at Creech. A bit of a malcontent, he remembered now. Or at least he hadn’t been afraid to ask a provocative question. And now he wanted to meet.

But Sharpe also remembered hearing that this fellow had gotten himself into trouble, after a raid that ended badly. Just the sort of fellow, in other words, who might get him into even deeper trouble than he was already in.

Sharpe sighed and typed a curt reply, feeling a bit cowardly as he did so.

Yes, I remember you, and wish you good luck with whatever you’re pursuing. But meeting with you wouldn’t be in my best interests right now.

He was about to send it when the alarm sounded. He clicked to his security camera, and there they were again, coming right back up the driveway, this time at twice the speed, and having already cleared the gate, as if they’d finally figured out how he was outsmarting them and were trying to return before he did it again.

He slipped the flash drive back into the slot and activated another shutdown. To buy a few extra seconds he ran to the door and slammed home the deadbolt and security chain. No sooner had he finished than they were turning the knob, then pounding their fists. He slowly backed up, all the way to the kitchen door.

“On my way!” he sang out, with one eye on his computer screen as it worked through the final stages of the shutdown.

“Open
now
or we’re breaking in!”

He grabbed clumsily for the flash drive disguised as a lighter as the screen went dark, then shoved it into his pants pocket just as the door crunched open, the frame splintering against the lock.

“What the fuck! Forced entry now? I was two steps away, assholes!”

The shorter man pinned him against the wall and pulled back his arms, binding his wrists with a plastic restraint. The taller one scanned his desktop, feeling the console for warmth as he scowled at the darkened screen.

“Where is it?” he shouted.

“Where’s what?”

“Whatever piece of shit software you’re using to shut this thing down.”

“Hell, I didn’t even have time to log back on!”

“Check his pockets! Check up his ass for all I care!”

The shorter one emptied his pockets. The key chain with the lighter fell out along with some loose change, a handkerchief, and a stubby pencil.

“Nothing!” the shorter guy said. “Maybe he really didn’t have time.”

“You saw the signal. He’s lying his ass off.”

“Maybe the signal was bad. You know sometimes in the tests—”

“Shut the fuck up!”

So they had a new weapon now, some sort of sensor that showed when he was online, although Mutt didn’t seem to trust it, and now it looked like Jeff wasn’t so sure.

“You bring my Publisher’s Clearinghouse entry?” Sharpe asked. “It’s the only shot I’ve got at any income if you guys keep this shit up.”

“You know where the mailbox is,” the taller one answered. He sounded discouraged, the zeal gone out of his voice. Without a further word the men left, climbed back into their car, and drove slowly down the driveway. Sharpe tried closing the door, but it wouldn’t latch on the shattered jamb. The strike plate was dangling by a single screw, and there was a pile of splinters on the floor.

“Shit! There goes another fifty bucks.”

He went out to his workshop to see what he could find for repairs.

Two hours later, after a half-assed fix, a long walk to cool his temper, and a cup of tea to clear his head, Sharpe logged back on to his computer, re-upped his passwords and regular software, and then checked the view on his security cams to make sure no one was lurking within immediate range of the house or driveway.

Finally satisfied that, at worst, he had a few minutes to work with, he went back into his email account. There was one new message. Yet another client, one of his best, was asking for a meeting at his earliest convenience “in order to re-assess our current working arrangement.”

Another one bites the dust.
At this rate he’d be out of business by the
new year. Fortunately, he had another iron in the fire that even the Pentagon didn’t yet know about.

Sharpe noticed the email from the pilot again, and reconsidered his answer. Yet another lonely rebel, discarded by the powers that be. Well, fuck it. How much more trouble could he get into than he was already in? This fellow at least deserved the courtesy of a sympathetic ear. If he’d make the effort to visit, then Sharpe would make the effort to hear him out. If he turned out to be a plant from those assholes at the Pentagon, Sharpe would know soon enough. And if he was legit? Who knew? He might even be useful, a valuable tool for one of his new ventures. He typed a reply that was even briefer and more cryptic than before.

8 a.m. tomorrow, McDonald’s, Bingham Ferry Road, Leesburg. Use the drive-through window.

He had some valuable allies, but it was time to start recruiting a few more, and maybe this fellow was a good place to start. If his enemies wanted to up the ante, so would he. Maybe, as the Mafia liked to say, it was time to hit the mattresses.

He sent the message. Then he retrieved the flash drive from his pocket, shut everything down, and went upstairs to pack a bag.

TRIP RIGGLEMAN DROVE SLOWLY
down the lonely dirt road leading to Darwin Cole’s abandoned trailer, raising a contrail of dust that must have been visible for miles. He glanced over his shoulder to behold the bleak beauty of it—sort of like a vapor trail from one of those muscular fighter-bombers, a thought that made him wistful.

He was in a hunting mood, airborne or not, and this was his initial sortie. Before he began his online pursuit in earnest he wanted to try to take the measure of the man with a firsthand inspection of his recent home ground.

Riggleman felt strangely vulnerable out here in the open, as if a missile might zoom in from above at any moment, slamming into the modest Ford sedan from the base motor pool and blowing it right off the road, a blackened smudge on the prairie. Those unauthorized Predator photos had spooked him even as they excited him. Someone had already strayed out of bounds in this case, and Riggleman figured that before long he would probably do the same.

But did the earlier interest mean that someone would be snooping over his shoulder as he proceeded? This was certainly the kind of countryside that made you wonder—empty from horizon to horizon, with every glint from above winking like a potential eye in the sky. The feeling of being watched grew so strong in him that at one point, just after Cole’s trailer came into view at the base of a distant bluff, Riggleman braked to a halt and cut the engine. Silence. Nothing moved except the dust in his wake, which settled to the ground like a long brown serpent coiling itself to sleep—or maybe to strike.

He reached down to restart the engine, then hesitated and got out of the car. He walked around to the front, where he sat on the warm hood and peered off toward Cole’s saggy trailer. From here it looked like an encampment for some kind of survivalist cult. Between him and the trailer, not a single sign of life. Looking back in the direction he’d come from, he saw the long line of tire tracks left by the Ford. Over to his left, his own footprints, preserved for anyone who came later. Now he was feeling eerier than ever, so he hopped down and got back under way. He turned on the radio for company but got only static on AM, and nothing at all on FM. Some sort of dead zone, maybe. Nothing to beam your signal to out here anyway.

The trailer sat deep in the shadow of the bluff. The damn door was wide open, swaying in a fresh breeze. An unpleasant smell wafted from the opening like bad breath. Just inside was a pile of animal shit, probably coyote, still fresh enough to have attracted a squadron of green flies, which buzzed in protest as Riggleman stepped across.

A shotgun was propped against the wall near the door. He picked it up. Well maintained. He levered it open. Still loaded. Now that was odd. He propped it carefully back against the wall, wondering how long it would stand there, loaded and ready, until someone else came along. Years, maybe.

The kitchen sink was full of dishes and more flies. Coyotes had torn apart much of the furniture and bedding, leaving claw marks on the upholstery and dusty paw prints across the floor. Unwashed clothes were piled by the bed. The scene emanated an air of a life suddenly interrupted, so much so that he wondered for a moment if Cole might have been abducted.

It was an alarming thought. For one thing, it would cast Cole’s visit to the ex-CIA man in New Hampshire in an entirely different light. Had he been accompanied by others? Was he a hostage to a foreign government, perhaps? A dupe doing someone else’s bidding? Maybe his kidnappers had threatened to harm his family unless he cooperated.

But apart from the coyote damage there was no sign of a fight or struggle. No bloodstains, or broken glass, or clumps of human hair. And there was also the loaded gun, unfired and neatly set aside.

He went back outside. He’d checked the recent meteorological data
for the location, and it hadn’t rained out here since Cole’s disappearance. Yet there were no marks on the ground to suggest a scuffle, or the dragging of a body. Just footprints—two sets besides his own. One was man-sized, probably Cole’s. The other was almost dainty, probably a woman. Both led to a second set of tire tracks that presumably had been left by the sedan in the surveillance photo. Riggleman got out his smart phone and took shots of the tread pattern and the footprints. Then he went back inside for a more systematic search.