The support for the above-stage camera, attached at the very top of the structure, drove down from the sky like a javelin. It embedded deep in the sand after punching through the corner of the blanket that Shao Yating had spread with his latest girlfriend—who looked amazing; there was nothing he liked so much as a pretty girl in a skimpy swimsuit. His physical fitness routine guaranteed an endless supply of them.
The J-20’s fuselage exited the far side of the bandshell’s wreckage, rammed into a dune, and stopped abruptly.
The rear fifteen meters of the twenty-thousand-kilogram airplane crumpled close behind the cockpit. Pivoting on that point, the tail lifted until it stood three stories tall, then continued over. Separating from the cockpit still buried in the sand, the entire rear of the plane flipped end-for-end, first planting its tail in the sand beyond the nose of the plane before finally slamming down once more on its belly.
The fuselage broke between the midframe bomb bay and the rear engines.
It finally came to a rest on the backside of the dune, right-side up, parked tail-to-nose with its own cockpit.
59
“It’s here,” Taz pointed at the sky as they were deplaning. The 767 freighter only had a small crew door that even Taz had to duck a foot to clear. She and Miranda were first out onto the metal stairs.
Miranda shaded her eyes against the late afternoon sun. “How can you be sure?”
She pointed to the two diamonds of jets launching off the end of the runway.
Miranda squinted, “Four Taiwan-built IDF fighter jets in the first group. Four American F-16s in the second.”
“Yes, they’re the F-16As, upgraded to Vs, because that’s all we could sell them before the PRC threatened violence if we sold them more jets. But they’re all on full afterburners. They’re headed somewhere in a hurry. I’m guessing that would be Ru’s J-20 scaring the crap out of them.” They turned to watch them as they disappeared to the west behind the 767’s tall tail.
Suddenly three bright streaks flashed past the far edge, closely followed by the eight jets.
“Missiles. They’re trying to kill the J-20.”
“If they do, there will be little for us to recover,” Miranda pointed out.
“I can think of worse situations.” As they reached the bottom of the ladder with the others close behind, Taz eyed the approaching Taiwanese officer. The man beside her had to be a customs official. And here was one of those “worse” possibilities.
“Hello,” the woman saluted sharply, her English was almost accentless. “I’m Siōng-hāu…apologies. I’m Colonel Zhao Tung-Mei. I was asked to place my Black Hawk helicopter at your service for the duration of your visit. I was also asked to hand this to you.”
Miranda took the brown envelope, glanced inside, then passed it to Taz. Taz pulled out the American passport tucked inside. When she opened to the picture, Holly glanced over her shoulder.
“Hey, it even looks like you.”
“That’s convenient, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
Taz handed it to the customs official.
He handed it back with a pen. “You must sign it, please. And add your address.” The wonders of traveling at this level, officials merely overlooked irregularities like magically-appearing passports.
She signed it. But didn’t know what to do with the address. “I don’t have—”
Holly took it, filled out something, then handed it to the official. He noted down the number, stamped it, and returned it to her.
Taz inspected the address, one she didn’t recognize.
“The four of us, not Miranda, rent a house together there. It’s close by her private NTSB office. It will do as well as anything else until we decide if your final address is swimming with my friend’s salties or not.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Holly slapped her hard on the back. “Anything for a mate of Jeremy’s.” She even offered a wink as if the broad Aussie accent wasn’t enough of a giveaway about her double meaning.
Taz tucked away the passport in her under-clothes belt pouch and ignored her.
But it did raise the question, was she helping Jeremy? Or was she his worst nightmare? He still believed the former. She still leaned toward the latter.
Once they were all checked off, the customs official strode away. Taz would wager that whoever got him next would be in for officious hell; nothing a bureaucrat hated worse than circumventing his own job under someone else’s orders.
Once he was gone, Colonel Tung-Mei led them toward a Black Hawk helicopter.
“I offer greetings from the general of the Republic of China’s Air Force, Tsai Jui-en. I have been asked to expedite your aircraft recovery.”
Taz knew it wasn’t that simple. “Do you know why?”
Tung-Mei smiled. “I look forward to your Senate releasing our latest purchase request for twenty new fighter jets and an equal number of Black Hawks. Though I’m unclear which aircraft.”
“Let’s follow those fighters we just saw go aloft.”
Apparently General Drake Nason had been busy during their FedEx delivery across the ocean.
Even as Tung-Mei’s Black Hawk climbed and headed west, a call came in on her radio about the location of a downed jet. During the five-minute flight eastward as they climbed over the rugged forests of northern Taiwan, everyone just watched out the windows. It was an island with twenty-four million inhabitants, she hadn’t expected there to be any wilderness. But in those thirty kilometers, they overflew no towns and only one or two roads.
Other than people milling on the beach, they were the first to arrive on the scene.
As they soared over the reported downing, all she saw at first was the massive wreckage, as if a giant C-5 Galaxy cargo jet had crashed on the beach instead of a small fighter jet.
A ridiculously small wingtip stuck out of the monstrous pile of twisted metal.
“This is going to be a real mess.”
Then Jeremy tapped her on the shoulder and pointed beyond the wreckage. How had she not noticed when he took the seat close beside her?
Beyond the mound of toppled scaffolding lay a small tube in three sections. It took her only a moment to see that the main fuselage of the plane had somehow ended up beyond the wreckage.
Tung-Mei pushed back the gathering crowd with the down-blast of her rotor blades. People huddled, or raced away to get clear of the windblown sand.
While the men all wore board shorts, the standard attire for Taiwanese women was apparently skimpy bikinis. She saw only two women in one-pieces, so the sand must really sting; they certainly raced away fast enough.
As they were landing, she saw that the sections of the fuselage were out of order.
She had no doubt that Miranda and Jeremy would solve how it was even possible for the parts of the plane to be so jumbled up.
No, what bothered her wasn’t the layout of the plane in neat little sections. It was Jeremy’s causal sphere. General Zhang Ru wouldn’t sacrifice a hundred-million-dollar jet just to show “good will” to General Drake Nason.
60
Taz did what she could.
Along with Tung-Mei’s Black Hawk crew, they quickly organized a security perimeter. Several policemen arrived and were instantly recruited by the colonel.
Unlike Americans who would push closer and closer when asked to step back, the Taiwanese simply did. They still ran their smartphones, just like an American would, but otherwise they were far more civilized than she was used to.
When the bandshell crew approached, they were upset about the destruction of so much work and worried about tomorrow’s concert—at least until they realized that the crashed jet wasn’t theirs, but rather an attack from the Mainland. She assigned them the task of making sure everyone was accounted for on their team and that no one had been caught in the wreckage.
With them occupied, she turned to watch the NTSB team.
Miranda was leading them on a walk along the edge of the debris. On
the smooth sand, they barely had to pause for Jeremy to jab a small orange flag into the ground, marking the outer edge of the debris field. It extended past the fuselage in only a few places.
As if that wasn’t obvious in the first place.
Miranda started heading toward the wing section sticking out from under the edge of the bandshell’s remains. Clearly she was preparing to do a complete crash investigation, even though they already knew the cause.
And then Taz saw something that completely erased any patience.
A Taiwanese Army truck arrived and a stream of soldiers unloaded. Their first action was driving back the crowds even further. That was fine.
But there was an itch that worried her.
Tung-Mei was nearby. “Did you get notification to your Army as well?”
One look at Tung-Mei’s face told her the answer to that.
“Why not?”
“Your general told my general that we were told to keep it most secret. We did not expect the crash on a public beach.”
“How many more Black Hawks do you have available?”
“Four in my squadron.”
“Good. Get them here, with lifting cables. Now!”
“But—”
“Then get aloft and get a cable on the cockpit section yourself. That’s the most important. Get it back to Songshan airport. Have them grab the other sections as fast as they can. We’re leaving.”
“Why—” But she was already nodding and pulling out her radio.
“Tell them to ignore anything, and I mean anything that is happening here on the ground. And see if your general can get these guys to stand down. Meanwhile I’ll do what I can.” Then Taz raced across the sand toward Miranda while Tung-Mei sprinted for her helicopter as she called the rest of her squadron.
“We have to go, Miranda.”
“What do you mean? We haven’t finished mapping the debris field’s extent yet.”
Taz recalled Miranda’s spheres of investigation. No matter that the debris field was little more than a few torn bits of metal, Miranda would study that until it was complete before even thinking to look at the plane itself. It was the plane that was the prize.
Taz made sure she had Holly and Andi’s attention, then she simply pointed.
Behind the Army truck, a steel-gray Mitsubishi SUV rolled up. And the man who climbed out of the passenger seat had all of the markings of a midlevel popinjay, swollen with his own importance. She knew the type just by his walk—the Pentagon Strut. Officious as hell.
“Bloody hell,” Holly’s mutter confirmed her assessment.
“The next step is for me to identify the perimeter of the debris field around the wing.” Miranda’s tone was sharp. Not with anger. Almost…with fear.
Taz took a grip of both of Miranda’s hands—remembering Mike’s advice just in time, she made it a firm grip.
It forced Miranda to focus on her. Not quite look at her, but it definitely locked her attention on Taz rather than the edge of the debris field. Most of which was buried under the unsafe collapse of the bandshell anyway. Though Taz would wager that wouldn’t stop Miranda for a moment; perhaps she wouldn’t even see the danger.
“We have two choices, Miranda, and only two.”
“I thought you said you had no choices.”
Taz wanted to laugh, and to cry. Miranda connecting the word “choice” across two completely different conversations, most of two days and an entire ocean apart, only served to illustrate how bewildering her world must be.
“At the moment, we have two. If we act quickly, we can secure most of the key pieces of this aircraft, load them aboard the FedEx 767, and get them safely back to the US. Then you can inspect them at your leisure.”
“What’s the second choice?”
“If we hesitate, that man coming toward us will claim the rights to the aircraft, and by the time he’s done, we’ll get none of it. Remember the possibility that you told us Ru mentioned. Agents from the Mainland would blow it up. It could be one of those people who just arrived.”
“Drake wouldn’t like that. He told me as we boarded the Black Hawk that he wanted this plane badly, but we must be careful.”
“Do you trust me?” The words were out before Taz realized it. No one had ever been naive enough to trust her—except her general who was now dead. And Jeremy.
Before she could take the words back, Miranda turned to look at the others.
Mike spoke first, “On this, Miranda, I would trust her absolutely.”
Taz looked at him in surprise.
“Gamesmanship at the top levels of the military? Way out of my league, Taz. Yours too, Holly, just in case you were getting some crazy ideas.”
Holly just held up her hands defensively; for once, not saying a word.
Mike turned back to Miranda. “Taz is your expert on this.”
“Okay.” And that easily, it seemed she had accepted it.
Taz couldn’t believe it, but now was not the moment to consider the implications.
“Mike. Jeremy. You two get Miranda onto that helicopter and get her back to the FedEx plane. If it looks as if they’re going to try and stop you, just go. The rest of us can always catch a commercial flight.”
“I’m staying with you,” Jeremy didn’t make it a request.
“Jeremy—”
“Tough. I’m sticking.”
Mike gave him a one-armed hug before rushing Miranda off to Tung-Mei’s helicopter.
Holly actually ruffled Jeremy’s hair rather than punching his arm. His swat at her hands was wholly ineffective. She headed over to help the cable team on the ground.
Bizarrely, they appeared…proud of him. Later. Another thing to think about later.
“Follow my lead,” she headed over to cut off the strutting peacock before he could reach the Black Hawk—they were rigging lifting cables as fast as they could but still needed more time. Then she side-shifted a step to walk close beside Jeremy, “And you keep quiet. You too, Andi.” Taz didn’t know why she was tagging along, but it was too late to argue.
“But—”
“Shh!”
And then they caught up to the popinjay.
61
“Lieutenant,” Taz greeted the man she’d pointed out.
Jeremy wasn’t sure why he himself was a problem.
The officer reminded Jeremy of his seventh-grade math teacher. Mr. Bantam had controlled twenty-seven unruly thirteen-year-olds with all of the military precision and perfect posture of a Marine sergeant.
“Major,” the man snarled out and tapped the gold five-petal plum flower on his collar point.
“Sorry…Major.”
But Taz would know that. Colonel Zhao Tung-Mei had explained the triple plum flower of her own insignia. Why would she intentionally antagonize the man?
Then Jeremy saw, behind the man, Miranda and Mike taking off aboard the Black Hawk. Moments later, they’d taken up the slack and lifted the cockpit away.
The Taiwanese major spun to stare aghast at the departing helicopter.
He turned to the orderly at his side and snapped out a command while pointing at the helicopter, ordering it to be stopped. At least that’s what Jeremy hoped it was, rather than orders to shoot them if any of them moved.
Andi said something in Mandarin that stopped the orderly as he reached for his radio.
The major spun to glare at her.
“You don’t want to be interfering in this, Major,” Taz said it as calmly as she’d ordered pizza at JBLM.
Miranda and the front section of the aircraft were well away, but Jeremy knew it was a ploy that would only work once.
“And why not!” he was practically spitting fire. He stepped close and glared down at Taz.
For lack of anything better, Jeremy slipped his favorite screwdriver out of the side pouch on his field pack and tucked it out of sight along his forearm in case he needed a weapon.
Taz reached into her belt pouch. She slipped out a card and handed i
t across.
Jeremy knew a CAC—Common Access Card military ID—when he saw one. He wondered why Taz hadn’t thrown it away.
“I’m Colonel Vicki Cortez of the US Air Force. I’m here on a highly classified special assignment for your General Tsai Jui-en. He, the Pentagon, three-star General Jorge Jesus Martinez, my commanding officer, and I appreciate your cooperation.”
Jeremy was careful to keep his expression neutral, since the last two of them were dead, even if only one was dead in reality.
The man eyed her suspiciously. He was just Jeremy’s height, but that was still eight inches taller than Taz. She was dressed in the wildfire t-shirt that she’d worn to the JBLM airshow, jeans, and boots.
“And who are these people?” The major was far from convinced.
Jeremy caught Taz’s attention, then glanced upward. Three more Black Hawks had just come over the horizon of trees and were already settling toward the remaining parts of the jet spread across the beach.
She slanted her gaze sideways.
He knew what she wanted, to get him out of the way by going over to coordinate with the Black Hawks. Instead, he watched until he saw that they knew exactly what they should be doing before he turned back to their small group.
Taz glared at him briefly.
“This,” she waved a hand at his chest, “is a civilian contractor here to liaise with your Air Force. Captain Andrea Wu is an aircraft specialist and Staff Sergeant Holly Harper is our structural specialist. We’re all cleared Top Secret or better. Now I must ask you, Lieutenant—”
“Major!”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jeremy saw someone walking over from the newly arrived helicopter, but he didn’t dare look away. Things were getting tense, and the major was armed. The screwdriver tucked in his own hand offered little comfort.
“Sorry. Major. Are you cleared for this operation? It has been code-word classified, and I’d appreciate the code before I can let you or your men proceed onto this site.”
Chinook Page 18
