Unmanned (9780385351263) (30 page)

“What’s that mean?”

“Whatever I want it to.”

He walked away, still in a sulk, then checked the rear door on his trailer, making sure it was locked. He turned and grinned at Cole as if daring him to figure it all out. More dramatics, the last thing he wanted now, so he walked away without a further word. He went into the house for water, maybe a snack. He expected to find Barb and Steve in a celebratory mood, perhaps cocktails, the clinking of glasses. Instead they were drinking coffee, seated at the kitchen table with somber expressions.

“Unbelievable,” Barb said. “You were absolutely right.”

“I’m not so sure.” For the first time Steve sounded uncertain.

“What do you mean, not sure? She said it was her source, and look who it was. It has to be some kind of side deal.”

“We don’t know what those papers were.”

“A contract, like you said. A deal that cuts us out.”

“We don’t
know
that. There might be a perfectly good explanation.”

“C’mon, Steve.”

“
You
c’mon. We’ve all worked on stories where we thought we had the goods, everyone dead to rights, then it turned out we had it wrong, or had misinterpreted something. And Keira’s a good person at heart. The more I think about it, the less I think she’d do something like this.”

Barb stared in disbelief.

“We just
saw
her do it.”

“I don’t like what I saw, either. I’m just not convinced she’d do it that way.”

“Well, she’s done it. And this is professional. It has nothing to do with her personal side.”

“It has everything to do with it. And with what we just did, too, spying on her. Maybe you can separate the two, but I don’t think she does, and I know I don’t.”

Barb held her hands out in abeyance.

“Easy. I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Then how did you mean it?”

She sighed.

“Okay. We’ll wait to hear her side. It’s not like we can kick her off the property. But if she’s making an outside deal, she has to cut us in on it. And if she won’t, then that’s the last she gets from us.”

“I’m on board with that. But then what? What if she says no?”

“We go back to my house and double down on our own sources, starting Monday. We go our way and she goes hers.”

“What about me?” Cole said. “And Sharpe, with his drone?”

Barb turned around. It was obvious by her reaction that she hadn’t heard him enter. Her expression looked more sad than disapproving.

“We’d be happy for any help you can still give us,” Barb said.

“He’s chosen sides,” Steve said. “Or have you forgotten?”

“That’s personal, too,” Barb said, “and probably none of our damn business.”

“But you said—”

“I
know
what I said. I don’t have to like it, and neither do you. But I’m not going to start telling people who they can sleep with.”

“Relax,” Cole said. “I doubt anyone would willingly sleep with anybody who just followed her down six miles of highway with a spycam.
Don’t you think?” He looked at Steve. “Or had that already occurred to you?”

Steve shook his head but said nothing.

It was dark now. They expected Keira to come wheeling up the drive any minute. But half an hour passed, then an hour. Had she seen the drone after all? If so, maybe she had pointed her car west and kept on going, leaving them behind for good. But this was her family’s place. She would at least come back long enough to pack her things and kick them out.

A second hour passed, then a third. They scraped together some pasta, a wilted salad, and the dregs of a cheap Cabernet and ate together in silence. Steve was the first of them to express concern.

“You think she’s okay?”

“Call her cell if you’re suddenly so damn worried,” Barb said.

No one made a move, although Steve did check online updates from the county and state police. Cole went outside and found Sharpe tinkering with the engine by the glare of a flashlight, fine-tuning the settings. He asked if he could help. Sharpe put down his screwdriver and looked up at the sky.

“What I’d really hoped to do today was make an initial run over toward IntelPro. Start getting the lay of the land. But I guess the True Confessions crowd had other ideas.”

“Couldn’t we go in the dark? Don’t you have infrared?”

“Yes. But not for our maiden over there. We need a wider margin for error until we get a better feel for the place, don’t you think?”

“Maybe so.”

They heard a car engine in the distance, which made them look up. A few seconds later, Keira’s Nissan emerged into the clearing.

“Well, this should be interesting,” Sharpe said.

“I better go see how it goes.”

Sharpe said nothing. He nodded and went back to work on his drone.

COLE WALKED INTO
the house just as it was beginning.

“Great,” Keira said cheerily. “I’m glad you’re all here.” She unknotted her scarf and tossed her coat on a chair. “I got some great stuff.”

“You look empty-handed to me,” Barb said.

And it was true. No notebook. No envelope. No documents. Presumably the stuff she’d gotten from her agent was locked in the car, or maybe somewhere else altogether. Signed, dated, copied, and already returned, for all they knew. Fully enacted, with a check on the way.

“No, seriously. You wouldn’t believe what’s going on.”

It was then that Keira, usually so well attuned to everyone’s moods and signals, finally realized something was amiss. Steve was slouched in a chair with his arms folded. Barb sat catty-corner, legs crossed, lips sealed. Cole lingered by the door, hoping she wouldn’t look him in the eye.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “What’s happened?”

“You were seen,” Barb said.

“Seen?”

“With your so-called source. Caught in the act.”

“By who?”

“Does it matter?”

“There was no one there to watch us. There’s never
anybody
there on Sundays. It’s why we meet there.”

“So this wasn’t the first time?”

“I told you. It’s a good source.”

“
She
, you mean.”

A pause, just enough to slow her down, make her think about it.

“Yes, she.”

Keira looked at each of them in turn, puzzled, but maybe starting to get it.

“What do you mean, ‘You were seen’?”

“Keira, for fuck’s sake! We know it was Felicity Barrow. We know you’ve been meeting your agent. Stop trying to act like it didn’t happen!”

“It was me,” Cole said.

He blurted it out before she could ask another question and dig herself—or them—any deeper.

“It was all of us, really, but my doing. We followed your car with the drone and we saw you there. A high-res image, sharp enough to read the tag numbers on both cars and to see you take the documents from her in the parking lot, or whatever it was she put in the envelope.”

“A book contract, right?” Barb said. “And I’m betting your name is the only one on it.”

Keira looked back and forth between Barb and Steve.

“I’m sorry,” Cole said, disconcerted that she hadn’t yet turned around. “I know it doesn’t matter now, but I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it, but I did.”

He didn’t know which was worse, her silence or the way she continued to look at the others as if he wasn’t even there. Without a word, she turned and went past him, right out the door, not even a glance. They heard a car door slam and waited for the sound of the engine. Instead, she came rushing back in, the door banging open behind her. She was red in the face, and walked briskly to the coffee table in front of Steve and tossed the manila envelope—the one they’d seen—onto the tabletop. It landed spinning, then hissed to a stop.

“There. Take a lot at my ‘book contract’ and big movie deal.”

No one moved.

“Well, go on, goddammit! Open it up and see! Then tell your spaceman Mr. Science fly guy Nelson Sharpe to come have a look, too, because he’ll probably be as excited as anybody. I’ll be upstairs when you’re done. Packing.” She headed for the steps, then stopped. “Or not packing. Actually I don’t know what the hell I’ll be doing. Calling Felicity, maybe, so I really
can
get a book deal. Fuck you guys.
All
of you.”

They listened to the force of her footsteps, first as they ascended the stairs, then as they crossed the floor above them and came to a halt at her bed, which heaved and went silent. Barb sighed loudly.

“God. We handled that with real tact and finesse, don’t you think?”

Steve stood. “I’m going up there.”

“To do what?”

“Try and sort it out. Take the blame, like I should’ve done from the beginning. Tell her it was my idea.”

“Why?”

“Because it was?”

“It was all of us, Steve. That’s the whole problem.
We’re
the whole problem. How many times have you seen a double-bylined story with my name in it? Once? Never? And there’s a good reason for that. I don’t play well with others. And you—well, anytime you try to deal with a woman professionally you let your dick do most of the thinking, if thinking’s even the right word for it. That’s been clear for years.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit. It’s half the reason you’re going up there now.”

Enough
, Cole thought. They could go on like this all night.

“Maybe we should look in the envelope first,” he said.

They turned and stared at him. Barb offered a pained smile.

“Leave it to the pilot to make the first germane point of the afternoon.”

Steve was closest, so he sat back down, undid the little clasp, and shook out the contents. Folded papers, different sizes, but a lot of them. He furrowed his brow as he spread them on the table.

“Holy shit.”

“What is it?” Barb asked.

“Property plats. And some kind of design plans. There’s a landscape blueprint, a building permit. All of it’s from the county planning office.”

Barb walked over and started sorting through the pile. Cole followed, looking over her shoulder at the blueprint. He was shocked by what he saw, but held his tongue. A footfall on the stairs made them turn around. It was Keira, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Some book contract, huh?”

Barb lowered her head, saying nothing.

“So do you want to hear what all of that means or not?” Then, to Cole: “Go and get Sharpe. If I’m going to keep working with a bunch of people I can’t trust, then one of them might as well know what he’s doing. He’ll be all over this.”

Cole left the house without a word. He found Sharpe putting away his tools.

“There’s some stuff in there you’ll want to see,” he said. Then, when Sharpe merely grunted, exhibiting little enthusiasm: “Fits neatly with all your theories.”

This perked him up. He wiped his hands on a rag and followed Cole into the house, where Keira had gathered up the loose papers and was facing Barb and Steve across the coffee table. Sharpe plopped down in an empty armchair. Cole remained standing, taking up a position at the end of the couch. It felt as if they were gathered for the reading of a will.

Barb motioned with a hand, seeking permission to speak.

“Keira, I’m—”

“Save it, okay? First things first. Yes, my source down here is Felicity Barrow, but not for any of the reasons you think. She can’t be identified as the provider of this material because there are other people she’s protecting. Is that understood?”

Cole and the reporters nodded. Sharpe, new to this side of things, took his cue from the others and nodded belatedly.

“She’s had a place down here for thirty years, long enough to be pretty plugged in. For a while now she’s been a big opponent of development, so she’s got all kinds of sources in the planning and zoning offices. When IntelPro moved in ten years ago she was all over it. At first she liked the idea. Setting aside all that acreage for training pretty much guaranteed it would never be bulldozed for condos or a golf course. But she’s always been curious about their intentions for future use.

“I told her a while back about this piece we were working on, and said there might be a tenuous connection, given that IntelPro was how two of us got onto this story. She said she’d keep her ear to the ground for anything useful. That’s how I first heard about the two ex-CIA trainers, Barb, the ones you’re supposed to meet with.”

“Thanks.”

Keira ignored it.

“A couple months ago, strange stuff started to happen out there, enough to make her nose twitch. Construction crews were coming and going. Cement trucks, backhoes, lots of heavy equipment. She checked for permits but the county said everything had been sealed, and they wouldn’t tell her why. She filed about a dozen Freedom of Information requests and they still haven’t answered. Last week one of the suppliers for IntelPro’s mess facility and commissary began filling weekly orders for some new facility out there. Separate invoice. Low volume, but different enough from the usual profile of institutional foods to make it interesting. Neighbors of the place claimed that a handful of Latinos had moved to the premises. A family of groundskeepers, that was the working theory. Then one of her sources at the courthouse gave her this stuff—building permits, blueprints, a landscaping plan, everything you were just looking at.”

“It’s a landing strip.” Cole said. “That’s part of it, anyway.”

Sharpe practically sprang up out of his armchair.

“May I see the item in question?”

Keira handed him a blueprint, which he spread open on the coffee table.

“Exactly what I expected,” he said, smiling now. “And these outbuildings, three of them. Little hangars, probably, places to park all their new hardware, out of the elements and out of sight, except when they’re using it. Even when they start flying, they’ve got enough acreage to take anything up to a higher altitude, well beyond view, before they ever leave the premises. And look.” He jabbed a bony forefinger at the plans. “Here’s the location in relation to the rest of the property, the exact coordinates. Perfect.”

“Think you can fly over for a better look?” Keira asked.

“I can program the location right into the flight plan. Once we’re there, Captain Cole can make any adjustments we’ll need. My cameras will easily do the rest. This is a gold mine. No wonder they’re suppressing it.”