War Hawk: A Tucker Wayne Novel (42 page)

Tucker slowed, pulled the SUV off the road, and turned to Frank. “How about we send Rex up for a quick look around?”

Frank nodded, and in short order had the drone set up in a clearing out of direct view of the road. They gathered around Frank’s shoulders as he set Rex’s propellers to spinning and did a short test of the drone’s systems.

Kane spent this time sniffing at some trees and making sure each was properly marked. He was moving well again on his leg. His knife wound had been sutured before leaving Trinidad, but Tucker wagered it was the past forty-eight hours of rest that had done Kane the most good.

“All set,” Frank said.

“Keep Rex low,” Tucker warned. “Don’t want him spotted in broad daylight.”

“Got it. I’ve activated all of his electronic defenses to help hide him, and I’m keeping his sensor array in passive mode. Like you said, he’s only going for a look, right?”

Tucker patted Frank’s shoulder. A moment later, the drone sailed off the grass with a humming buzz and into the cold air. Upon reaching the level of the treetops, it sped away. Tucker watched on the screen as Rex skimmed the trees, whisking back and forth. Again most of the flying seemed to be self-guided with little input from Frank at the controls.

“Picking up anything on the EM?” Nora asked.

Frank brought up another screen. Tucker remembered it from before. It was a frequency map. “Hmm . . .” Frank mumbled to himself and adjusted a few dials, while getting some guidance from Nora.

Then suddenly there was a blue spike wavering on the map.

“M-band,” Nora said, lowering her voice.

Frank turned to Tucker. “There’s another Wasp in the air.”

“Probably a patrol,” Nora said.

“Careful,” Jane whispered.

As Rex skirted the enemy and forged higher into the mountains, more spikes popped up, shimmering and overlapping on the screen in the same band.

“Make that more than one Wasp,” Frank commented.

“Get Rex back here before he’s spotted,” Tucker ordered. “For now we have what we need.”

Jane turned to him.

Tucker was suddenly sorry he doubted her navigation skills.

“This confirms we’re at the right place,” he said. “Now we just need to find a way inside—and stay alive in the process.”

32

October 27, 11:15
A
.
M
. CET

Dinaric Alps, Serbia

Once back on the road, Tucker set about canvassing the area around the Skaxis Mining complex. They traveled rural paths, farm tracts, and muddy roads, circling the location from a distance, sending Rex aloft in short hops to try to triangulate the source of the transmissions between the Wasps in the air and the communication center on the ground.

They were trying to pinpoint the operation’s C3 hub: command, communication, and control. The only hope of stopping Kellerman and Lyon was to discover where that central hub might be located. Jane had an aerial map of the mining facility as part of the package prepared by Ruth beforehand. But pinpointing
where
the C3 structure might be hidden among the fifty square miles of quarries, pits, and mining buildings was proving to be a daunting challenge.

“How ’bout up there,” Frank said, and pointed to another road that seemed to head in the general direction of the mining complex, flanking its western side.

Tucker slowed, but a wooden black-and-white-striped barricade blocked access in that direction. Bolted to its front was a placard emblazoned with red Cyrillic lettering and the Serbian coat of arms: a gold crown atop a double-headed eagle.

Jane used a program on her iPad to translate the warning. “
Access restricted by order of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Trespassers will be arrested and prosecuted
.”

Tucker remembered a similar warning posted by the EPA outside the flooded quarry where Sandy’s body lay drowned.

Jane waved them on. “We should keep going. That looks legitimate.”

Angry, Tucker braked to a stop. “Let’s see what’s up there.”

Before anyone could protest, he hopped out with a reluctant Frank, and together they wrestled the barricade aside, enough for Jane to squeeze the Yeti through. The SUV’s polar-white exterior was now covered in mud and grime from the windows on down.

Tucker secured the barricade again, regained the wheel, and started up the forestry road. The way quickly grew steep, setting the vehicle’s four wheels to spinning to keep them moving uphill. The road became a set of serpentine switchbacks climbing the flank of a mountain. Unfortunately the path was slowly taking them the wrong way, in the opposite direction from Skaxis Mining.

“This is a waste of time,” Jane said as the Yeti fishtailed around a corner. “We should turn back.”

“Just a little farther,” Tucker insisted. “If we can get near the summit, we might be able to get a view over to the neighboring complex.”

“Rex can do that a lot easier,” Nora suggested, clutching the handgrip by her window in back.

“But he also could be spotted from the air.”

After another agonizing ten minutes, they reached the top of the crest. Tucker kept the vehicle among the densely packed fir trees and climbed out. The panoramic view from the ridgeline revealed the true breadth of the challenge ahead.

Skaxis Mining was a vast scar across the verdant countryside. Entire mountaintops had been carved away, with valleys filled with tailings and debris from the digging. Toxic green pools dotted the broken landscape, amid lumbering equipment and clusters of concrete buildings belching black smoke from tall chimneys.

“I’ve seen this sort of destruction back in the Appalachians,” Frank said. “It’s called MTR, mountaintop removal mining.”

“And right now it looks like business as usual.” Tucker watched a helicopter lift off, hauling aloft a metal bin full of debris and whisking it toward a dumpsite.

“But we know there are Wasps patrolling the area,” Nora reminded him. “So this must be the right place.”

He nodded toward the activity below. “With the mine operational like this, Lyon and company must be keeping their activities secret from the workers.”

“But where are they hiding?” Jane asked.

Frank shrugged. “A few more trips by Rex, and we should be able to pinpoint that command center.”

Jane still looked unconvinced. “That’s a lot of land to cover.”

Tucker searched past the mining complex and down to the red-tiled roofs of the village of Kamena Gora. From this height, he could spot other hamlets in the distance. They were tucked into neighboring valleys that spread out like five fingers of a hand. The palm stretched south in a series of lower hills and patchy forests, with the wrist marking the boundary with Serbia’s neighbor Montenegro.

Tucker studied that border.

What is Kellerman planning? And why here?

He knew of the historical tensions between these two countries and suspected it was the key to all of this and what was to come. Back in Trinidad, Kellerman had exploited the internal political tension of that island republic. He must be planning on taking advantage of similar conflicts here in the Balkans.

But how did he intend to play this out?

Tucker turned to Frank and pointed south. “Does Rex have enough juice to do a sweep of the Montenegro border?”

“If we got closer. Maybe launched him from outside that town.” Frank waved down to Kamena Gora. “I might even be able to hit two birds with one stone.”

Tucker looked at him.

Frank explained. “If I fly Rex south from that village, I bet I can get the final reading I need to pinpoint the location of the C3 hub for this operation.”

“I’m not taking that bet. I know what you can do with Rex.”

Frank scowled. “And here I thought I could get a free beer out of you.”

“You find where everything is being controlled from up here, and I’ll buy you a case of beer.”

Frank grinned. “Done.”

11:40
A
.
M
.

Back in the SUV, Tucker cleared them out of the forest-service lands and down to the neighboring valley floor. As they reached the outskirts of Kamena Gora, rustic cabins began to line the road, skirted by goat pens and pigsties. Well-kept picket fences, painted a stark white, ran in rambling lines across green meadows.

“Feels like I’m back home in the mountains around Huntsville,” Frank muttered.

Nora chuckled. “Sandy would’ve liked it here, too.”

As they entered the village proper, one difference became evident. The inhabitants showed none of the insular paranoia of the Appalachian mountain folk. Old men waved at them; small children laughed and chased after the car. Tucker pulled into the village’s central square and parked beside a raised fountain topped by a lichen-splotched statue of a soldier in midcharge, his bayonet extended toward his unseen enemy.

“Why are we stopping?” Jane asked.

“I’m going to check if anyone speaks English. See if there’s anything I can learn.” He turned to Jane. “You take the others to the southern edge of town and get Rex in the air, then come back for me.”

Tucker twisted toward Kane in the backseat. “You stay with them, too, buddy.”

It was risky enough showing his face so close to Skaxis, but with Kane in tow, he would stand out. People might talk about an American stranger and his dog. So he left the others with the Yeti, pulled up the hood of his coat, and tugged the edge of a scarf over his chin. Before exiting, he also donned a pair of sunglasses, not that they were needed on this overcast day.

As the SUV headed away, he strode over to a middle-aged woman wearing a blue kerchief on her head. She cradled a thick loaf of bread the size of a small child and noted his approach. She smiled, bowing her head slightly when he joined her.

“Is there somewhere to get something to eat?” He pantomimed putting food in his mouth. From past experience, he knew the best place for gossip was usually the local watering hole or diner.

“I speak Engleski,” the woman said, her smile widening at his poor attempt to communicate via sign language. “Come. I show you. Good food.”

She headed across the square toward a white-brick building with a sign in Cyrillic hanging from it.

“You American?” she asked.

“Canadian,” he corrected, doing his best to further mask his presence.

Everyone loves Canadians
.

“I am Bozena.” She placed a palm on her chest and looked at him.

Figuring Lyon probably still didn’t know his true name, he gave it up to this woman. “Tucker.”

“Tucker,” she repeated, as if testing his name, then nodded, apparently finding it acceptable.

“You come good time. Lunch today is
Jagnjec´a cˇorba
. Lamb soup. Very good on cold day.”

“Sounds wonderful.”

Her smile widened as she led him through the door. Heat from a stone fireplace washed the chill from his bones almost immediately. The dining space consisted of two long plank tables and benches before the roaring fire and a tiny bar with shelves of dusty bottles behind it. A set of stairs led up to what were likely rooms for rent.

Apparently he had stumbled into the Serbian equivalent of a bed-and-breakfast.

Bozena spoke to the proprietor, a bent-backed old man holding a large pot and ladle, and pointed to Tucker. The only other patrons were two rough-looking young men in work clothes with beige caps next to their elbows on the tabletop. Their thick, callused hands were clean but bore ages of dirt and oil under their nail beds.

Miners
, he imagined.

Tucker shed his coat and scarf, keeping half an eye on his two lunch companions, but after giving him a brief, dismissive glance, they returned to their bowls of soup.

Bozena stepped over and made an introduction. “This is Josif. He will take good care of you.”

“Thank you,” Tucker said as the woman headed out.

“You eat?” Josif asked. He lifted his ladle, which clearly doubled as the menu.

“I eat.” Tucker nodded and sat at the other table.

The old man returned with a big bowl and filled it with generous scoops from his pot.

Tucker leaned slightly aside and asked him, “Miners, yes?” He cocked his head toward the other diners. “Must be good for business with Skaxis nearby.”

The old man may not have understood, but he clearly recognized the name of the mine. “Skaxis.” He made a spitting motion toward the corner. The two men ignored him, huddled over their bowls, plainly too hungry and exhausted to care.

“Skaxis want us to go away,” Josif explained, waving his hand. “Want everything under us. But we say
ne
.” He stamped a foot as emphasis. “But they buy everything, even my sons.”

He turned and scowled at the two miners—apparently Josif’s sons—saying something to them in Serbian that caused the pair to hunch further over their bowls, plainly accustomed to this tongue-lashing.

Tucker began to get an inkling about what Kellerman might want out of a conflict in this area.

More land to expand his operations and exploit the wealth underfoot
.

Before Tucker could inquire further, the mud-stained form of the Yeti braked hard outside the square. Frank hopped out, quickly tucking the CUCS unit under his coat and casting around with a panicked look.

Not good
.

“Excuse me,” Tucker said and stepped outside and waved Frank over.

Frank hurried inside and joined him at the table. “You better see this.”

He placed the CUCS device on the table and cradled it from view in the crook of his arm. “Rex has spotted something. Sitting almost on top of the border, about two miles south of here.”

Frank brought up an aerial view of a copse of trees, maybe a quarter mile long and fifty yards wide. From a distance, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but upon closer inspection, there was something
wrong
with the treetops.

“Camouflage netting,” Frank explained. “I risked having Rex do a radar sweep.”