Unmanned (9780385351263) (24 page)

“In U.S. air space? Even I don’t think they’ll get approval for that.”

“Who needs approval when you’ve got the PATRIOT Act? And they’ve definitely got the juice in Washington to influence those new FAA rules. Add it up, and you’ve got a pretty damn lucrative business model, plus the power to look inside every window in America. And if nobody can hear it or see it up there at twelve thousand feet—well, I don’t need to tell you what that means.”

No, he didn’t. Especially considering what Cole already knew about certain parties who were already willing to cheat beyond the supposed limits.

“How is Castle part of this?”

“From what I always heard he was one of the people pushing the envelope overseas on IntelPro’s behalf. A great advocate of sharing—sources, flight access, chat access, and just about any and all the tech they want to load up on. The way he saw it, the more people looking for bad guys, the better.”

“Do you think they were in it together on the fuckups, too? Like mine?”

“One way or another.”

“Then why would they be trying to ruin him now?”

“Maybe he spoke up. Maybe he’s just a scapegoat. Or maybe they realize he’s already a known quantity, so why not use him to divert a little attention, a little misery. To clear their own path to a more prosperous future. They also know the Agency won’t ever talk about anything, except for the cryptic stuff Bickell’s peddling. That makes Castle the perfect foil, and it would explain why they’re feeding your friends all that bullshit about how he’s back in the neighborhood. A means of scaring you, to throw you off the real story. Or this whole smear campaign could be cover, to help keep the Agency off their backs while they keep Castle under wraps.”

“In other words, you really have no fucking idea.”

“Which is another reason for bringing you here. To show you how we might find the answer. Because I’m convinced that Ground Zero of IntelPro’s drone program is out in those woods in the middle of their
training acreage. And your reporter friends, with their new waterfront location, offer the perfect vantage point for taking a peek from above. That farm can be our passport into IntelPro’s great unknown.”

“You want to launch a drone from there? A spy drone?”

Sharpe smiled.

“Keira’s place must be thirty miles from the training center.”

“By road, yes. All those twists and turns, the bridges, a ferry, up one peninsula and down the next. But as the crow flies? Or a drone? Seven miles, tops.”

“What’s the range of your quadcopter?”

“Oh, hell, that thing? That’s a toy, and a damned noisy one. I’m way beyond that.”

“So you’ve got another one.”

“Of course. Too big to fit in any damn Jap car, even when I break it down. But I’ll bring her tomorrow, you’ll see. A range of fifty, sixty miles, air speed about seventy-five, max, with state-of-the-art noise reduction and stabilization. And it’s got two cameras. One mounted where the cockpit would be, so the pilot can see where he’s going, what’s ahead, with a one-hundred-eighty-degree range of visibility side to side. Pretty much what you’d see if you were flying it yourself, right up there in the sky. The other one’s below the nose cone, just like with a Predator. Full turret action and a complete field of vision, and it displays on my iPad. The pilot camera displays in a pair of goggles, sort of like the ones you were using to fly Bert’s quadcopter, only better.”

“Two sets of eyes.”

“It’s the way I wanted to configure the Predator. But I was overruled, of course. I’ve only got one problem, but it’s a big one.”

“What’s that?”

“The autopilot’s fine, as far as it goes. But without knowing the lay of the land over at IntelPro I’ll have to do most of the flying myself, and, well, I’m pretty damn awful at it. This thing needs a professional hand.”

“So you want me to do it.”

“It’s what you’re trained for. Hell, you even flew Bert’s wobbly little copter right off the bat, no problem at all. He was impressed, I could tell. So what do you say, Captain Cole? Ready to get back in the saddle?
And believe me, this will be ergonomically better than any damn setup the Air Force ever built for you, and that’s the gospel. When they put together that shitpile of a GCS you ended up with out at Creech they ignored every last one of my recommendations. But what else is new.”

“You’re serious about this.”

“Hell, yes, I’m serious. I’m bringing it over tomorrow for a test flight, so you’d better prepare your friends for my arrival. While you’re at it, have someone make a bed for me at that country estate. My own house is going to be out of the question for a while. Too risky to go home now.”

“Oh, they’ll love that.”

Sharpe laughed.

“They’ll tolerate me, once they see what I can give them. A bird’s-eye view of forbidden territory. A reporter’s dream come true. No more public relations gatekeepers to bar the door.”

“And if they don’t go for it?”

A smile spread across Sharpe’s face and stayed there.

“What? What are you thinking?”

“Maybe your friends need to have the fear of God put in them to make them go for it.”

“What the hell’s that mean?”

“All in good time, Captain Cole. All in good time.”

Sharpe’s smile widened, as if the film version of whatever he was thinking was playing out across the windshield.

Whether the journalists would welcome the idea or not, Cole wasn’t sure he was ready for this. The old emotions from his Predator days were already stirring. Anxiety and edginess, the pressure to not fuck up, the long and lonely aftermath when you couldn’t tell anyone what you’d seen, what you’d done, what it felt like. The dying girl, propped on an elbow, mourning the loss of her arm. A scream emanating from the center of the earth.

“Pull over up here,” Sharpe said.

“Where?” They were back on Route 50, ripping along through farm country at sixty-plus, but they were nowhere near the convenience store that had served as their rendezvous point.

“
Anywhere
, goddammit!”

Cole looked in the mirror, wondering if Sharpe might be responding to someone in pursuit. Maybe Stan’s X8 was out there, buzzing along in their wake. But the sky was empty, the traffic routine. He braked and pulled onto the shoulder.

“Here?”

“As good a place as any. I’ve made arrangements.”

Just like before.

“Tomorrow you won’t have to ferry me around anymore. I’ll be driving a van, someone else’s. And I sure as hell won’t be using E-ZPass.” Sharpe gestured toward the white plastic transponder stuck to the windshield of Steve’s Honda. “They don’t call it a transponder for nothing, you know. If they ever connect you to the journalists, which I’m betting they’ve already done, it will only be a matter of days before they track you down.”

“Shit.” Cole stared at the device, wishing he’d thought of that himself.

“All the more reason for us to act quickly. Unlatch the trunk.”

Sharpe went to the back and hauled out his big drum case. Then he slammed the lid shut and began lumbering down the highway with his quadcopter, like an overage member of some washed-up rock band, hitching his way to a concert.

Cole pulled back onto the highway and slowly accelerated. He watched Sharpe recede in the mirror until he was no more than a dot. Then he floored it for home. Okay, so “home” wasn’t the right word. But for now it was all he had. And tomorrow it would become his new place of work, his own little air force base with its own mini-Predator. Back in the saddle, indeed. He took a deep breath and drove on.

TRIP RIGGLEMAN CHECKED
his notes a final time, stacked them neatly, and slid them into the folder. There were two copies—one for him, one for General Hagan. He was always a little tense before these review sessions, especially the first one, when it was paramount to show signs of progress.

Today there were additional grounds for concern, including some items that he could mention only with the greatest care and delicacy, if at all. His earlier uneasiness over the unusual nature of this case, which he hoped would disperse as he dug deeper, had only intensified and grown more complex. Something was in the air with this one.

“General Hagan will see you now.”

It was Hagan’s secretary, standing in the open doorway, hair pinned up in a ’do straight out of a 1960s sitcom.

“Thanks.”

Riggleman stood, checked the creases of his trousers, the neatness of his shirttail, the position of his spectacles on the bridge of his nose. Everything in place, everything ready. Except for his stomach, which grumbled in warning, a product of nerves and three cups of coffee.

As he entered the office, a squadron of jets roared over the building. The floor trembled, the windowpanes buzzed in their frames. It had been going on all morning at Nellis, and the whole base reeked of jet fuel. Even in here, with the air-conditioning tuned to a crisp 68 on an unseasonably warm morning, there was the slightest whiff of the runway.

“Sir.”

He snapped off a salute, which Hagan returned from behind the
desk. The general broke into a slow smile of anticipation as Riggleman placed a copy of his notes on the corner of the desk and slid into a facing chair.

From experience, Riggleman knew there would be no small talk, not for a while yet. Nor would the general offer food or drink. Hagan’s style was to get right down to business. They waited for his secretary to shut the door, then the general cleared his throat.

“What do you have for me, Captain?”

Riggleman knew better than to offer the most important material first. Hagan liked him to save the best for last, and, like any armchair detective, he relished a blow-by-blow of how his favorite sleuth was proceeding.

There was an art to Riggleman’s spiel. A smattering of geekspeak, a few of his own terms. It never hurt to show off a little, and it gave him license to resort to bullshit at points where the material was thin—and there were certainly a few of those points this time.

Cole was proving to be an elusive quarry, a complicated man. A fuckup, yes, or he wouldn’t have washed out to begin with, but a fellow who seemed to be proceeding with caution and deliberation. Not that Riggleman wouldn’t eventually find him, as long as General Hagan gave him the necessary time and resources. And that was part of his job today, to convince the general that he’d earned the chance to finish. That made it all the more necessary for Riggleman to present his findings professionally, smartly, in a manner that would hold Hagan’s attention to the end. He drew a deep breath and began.

“First I took a fresh look at the preliminary findings—credit records, phone records, airport security footage,” he told Hagan. “The legwork was solid but incomplete. I expanded the credit search to include his in-laws and anything under his children’s names. His parents are deceased, but I checked their names as well in case he might have used an older identity. Nothing. He was an only child, so there were no siblings. I did the same sort of sweep for phone records or any other sort of activity that might have raised a red flag. Still nothing.

“I took the available security footage from Vegas International Airport and from Logan and the Portland Jetport and ran it with some video enhancement software and a few facial recognition tools, using
images from two fairly recent photos of Cole that were on file with the DOD.

“When that came up empty, I used the same tools to analyze video footage from the identical time period for four additional regional airports here and in the Northeast, plus three Amtrak stations, two local bus stations, and multiple toll facilities on all major highways leading out of Vegas and in the corridor between Boston and Moultonborough, New Hampshire.

“There is very little facial capture at the tollbooths, although sometimes people without E-ZPass capability will lean out their windows enough for a pickup. Admittedly a long shot, but no luck. Most of the footage from the train and bus stations was of such poor quality that it was virtually useless. I did sample a few random public rest stop facilities on theoretical eastward routes for the days in question, but at some point you’re dealing with the law of diminishing returns.”

“Understood. Continue.”

He could tell that Hagan was loving it—the thoroughness, the tech at Riggleman’s fingertips, his ease in employing it. In a weird way, the general also seemed to be enjoying the apparent elusiveness of their quarry. Or maybe Riggleman was projecting his own admiration. However Cole had proceeded, he seemed to have shrunk his footprint to the bare minimum. Not off the grid, perhaps, but close to it.

“All of Cole’s current and past email addresses have been inactive for more than a year. Complete radio silence under all known cyber-identities. So I used data mining software to forage all recently created accounts for Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, and other major servers. I swept that material searching for anything that might allude to his own name, his children’s names, or any of his known Air Force nicknames, such as Monkey Man.”

“His Viper call sign,” Hagan said with a hint of fondness. “Remember it well.”

“I focused especially on Internet signatures from Nevada. Again, nothing. I augmented this with a data sweep of message boards, chat rooms, and discussion forums with any topics related to DOD policy on UAVs, Afghanistan, Air Force issues, you name it. A few suspicious entries turned up, but all of them were accounted for.”

Hagan nodded, still a captive audience. But Riggleman had arrived at the delicate portion of his presentation, material that was tricky not so much because of what he’d discovered—precious little—but because of how the process had unfolded.

“Personal interviews were next,” he said. “I began with Owen Bickell, the former CIA man. He declined to be interviewed in person but agreed to speak over a secure line, which I arranged.”

“He was cooperative, I hope?”

Riggleman paused, weighing his words.

“Yes and no.”

“No?”

Hagan had nearly come up out of his chair.

“He was cordial and pleasant. He fully acknowledged Cole’s visit, and he candidly discussed their previous relationship of a few years ago, when Captain Cole trained him and two other Agency officers in UAV operations and techniques, out at Creech.”