Kat slipped away from him slowly, hating the disconnection as she put her feet on the cold floor and padded naked to the bathroom, trying to think of priorities. She turned at the bathroom door and looked outside through the bedroom window. The snow had stopped, and a clear, star-studded sky arched overhead. She wondered if she’d missed a call from Jordan. Obviously he hadn’t made it in, but where was he?
Robert was snoring lightly. He turned onto his back, but remained asleep as she tiptoed around the far side of the bed, enjoying the rich scent of him as she leaned over to kiss his neck and wake him up.
“Wha …?” He woke with a start.
“The bundling board didn’t work,” Kat said.
“No?”
“No. I was a bad girl.”
He smiled, reaching up to touch her face. “The heck you were.”
“But we have to get professional now and get dressed,” she said, whipping the covers off of him with one sudden motion.
“Hey! Has anyone called?”
“No, but it’s inevitable, and I want us to be ready.”
Less than 200 yards away, in the back of a rented utility vehicle, a lone figure raised himself cautiously above the window line and examined the images in his night vision binoculars. A light had gone on in the bedroom of the cabin, and now one in the kitchen, and the figure in the SUV turned to his companion huddled in a parka on the floor. “You’d better get your ears on.”
The other man groaned and forced himself to sit up and put on a headset, positioning a handheld electronic dish, which he aimed at the cabin’s front windows. A tiny beam of invisible laser light shot out to touch the distant window. The host unit recorded the precise distance of the unit to the window and measured every minute variation of that distance as the windowpane vibrated to the sounds from inside. An embedded computer translated the results and fed an audio signal to the headset.
“What are they saying?” the man with the binoculars asked.
“They’re talking about eggs and bacon and where everyone is.”
“Who, for instance?”
“Us. And someone else.”
“Dr. Maverick, I presume.”
The man shook his head and hunched over, waving the first man to silence as he held one of the earphones close and closed his eyes to concentrate, then sat up, muttering under his breath. “Good grief! Schoen is gonna have a cow!” The man looked over at his partner. “Guess who’s coming to breakfast?”
“Who?” his companion snapped. “Who?”
“Only the Secretary of State.”
The headlights of a car appeared at the end of the road behind them and both men ducked out of sight until it passed. The pickup camper was plowing its way slowly down the snow-covered lane, the driver a dark shape in the left front seat. As the men in the SUV watched, it seemed to slow in front of the Maverick cabin, then accelerate again, turning out of sight at the far end of the road to disappear.
For a split second, Kat thought she heard the click of something metallic somewhere in the cabin, but she could see nothing amiss. She looked at Robert across the tiny kitchen table and shrugged.
“What?” he said.
“Not important,” she answered. “I thought I heard—”
The sudden noise of the back door slamming open in their faces caught them both unprepared as a stoutly clothed figure burst into the room with a gun in his hand.
“FREEZE!” The voice was male, deep and menacing, but shaking as well.
Kat and Robert sprang to their feet simultaneously, hands in the air, as the figure slammed the door closed behind him and moved to one side of the kitchen, his eyes wide, his gun hand literally shaking.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
Kat looked at him carefully. “Dr. Maverick?”
“Who wants to know?” he snapped.
“Agent Kat Bronsky of the FBI. If you’ll let me, I’ll get my ID.”
The man said nothing as he studied her, then glanced at Robert. “Who’s he?”
“I’m Robert MacCabe, a reporter for The Washington Post and a survivor of the plane crash in Vietnam several days ago.”
Dr. Thomas Maverick shuffled sideways toward the living room door and glanced in before waving the gun at Kat. “Where’s your ID?”
“In the … in your bedroom, Sir.”
“Get it,” he ordered. She complied quickly, and he studied the badge and laminated card. He tossed it on the kitchen table, still fingering the gun, his eyes darting wildly between the two of them and the front door.
“Okay. I guess I believe you. The Washington Post thing is too bizarre to be made up.” He motioned them back to the chairs.
“Dr. Maverick, would you please stop waving the gun at us?” Kat asked.
He glanced at the .38 in his hand and nodded, then turned and pulled up another chair. “I’m sorry. I saw you in my house, and … didn’t know who you were.”
“Doctor,” Kat said, softening her voice. “You seem spooked. Is someone chasing you?”
He ignored the question. “Tell me why you’re in my house, please.”
“Did you know Walter Carnegie?” Kat asked, and noticed the instant reaction of fear ripple across the man’s face.
“Why?”
“Because he told us to find you.”
“Walter is dead,” Dr. Maverick said simply.
“We know,” Robert said. “He was my friend.”
Thomas Maverick sighed and shook his head.
“We need,” Kat interjected, “we need to start at the beginning. We have a lot to tell you, but I suspect you have even more to tell us.”
“We need to get out of here. We can talk for a few minutes, but then we’ve got to go. It’s not safe.”
FRIEDMAN MEMORIAL AIRPORT, HAILEY, IDAHO
The blue and white Air Force Gulfstream taxied clear of the runway and moved gingerly over the snow-packed surface toward the small commercial terminal, where a car waited in the dark, its exhaust curling around the rear and wafting through the gentle snowfall in the snowy scene.
Jordan James gathered his briefcase and overnight bag and wondered if he should order the crew to stay. There was an Air National Guard facility at Boise, and they were going to wait there, a plan Jordan decided was sufficient. Even if he found Kat immediately, it would be a few hours before they were ready.
When the engines were stopped and the forward stairs lowered, one of the crew raced off to verify that the driver was the one retained to take their VIP wherever he needed to go. He returned to the airplane to help the Secretary off.
“Sir, the major says to just call that cell phone number and we’ll be here within two hours. We’ll be waiting in Boise.”
“Understood. See you shortly.”
The crewman saluted smartly and raced back into the Gulfstream, raising the stairs as the pilots started the engines.
“Where to, Sir?” the driver asked.
“Hang on a second,” Jordan replied. “I have to call and find out.” He pulled out the slip of paper with the number of Kat’s satellite phone and punched it in, relieved when she answered on the first ring.
As they left the airport road, the Gulfstream roared overhead and turned to the west, its lights marking its progress as it sped away, soaring over the beacon of an inbound aircraft maneuvering for landing.
The Cessna Caravan slowed as the pilot turned on final approach and lowered the small landing wheels beneath the twin floats.
chapter 45
SOUTH OF SUN VALLEY, IDAHO
NOVEMBER 17—DAY SIX
8:05 A.M. LOCAL/1505 ZULU
Kat finished speaking and sat back in the kitchen chair, studying Thomas Maverick’s features. He was a bear of a man, carrying close to 300 pounds on a six-foot-three frame, his face wreathed in a full beard of reddish brown and his head almost devoid of hair. He was a physicist, he’d told them, with two decades of experience in the world of “black” projects such as the Stealth B-2 bomber and
others he still wasn’t free to discuss.
Dr. Maverick was rubbing his head, his eyes carefully alternating between Kat and Robert as he considered what to say.
“Okay. First, understand that I will not go to jail for talking about my project. However, I’m not muzzled with respect to other projects for which I haven’t signed secrecy oaths. And …” He held up a finger and stared at Robert. “One ground rule, Mr. MacCabe, is that this is all deep background. You ever use my name or expose me as a source and, truly, I’ll find a way to hurt you. Understood?”
Robert MacCabe caught the steely glint of Dr. Maverick’s eyes and knew he meant every word he said. He nodded immediately. “You have my word.”
Dr. Maverick nodded. “Very well. I think someone official’s trying to find me for the same reason you were. They think I know more than I do.”
“One thing first,” Kat asked. “Assuming you’re not Walter Carnegie’s deep-throat source, do you have any idea who is?”
“No. None. He wouldn’t tell me, but whoever it is, he knew this field.”
“You mentioned black projects,” Kat began.
“I never worked on lasers or beam weapons. Do I know unofficially of a black project regarding laser weapons? Yes. Did it include vital defense research into pulse beam, particle beam, charged particle, and other electromagnetic weaponry? Absolutely. Has it made several contractors very wealthy? Yes. Has the nation benefitted? Immeasurably. But are the projects sufficiently accountable to anyone but the project managers? In most cases, yes. But exceptions can occur. That’s what I believe happened with the antipersonnel laser research.”
“What? The managers lost control?”
Dr. Maverick shook his head. “No, the project developed a life of its own beyond congressional or even Defense Department control, thanks to three men in particular at the top who are quite bright, but devoid of a moral sense of what they should be doing for their country. I’ve seen a project go out of control only once before, but this one folded into another dimension, effectively disappearing from government oversight.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Kat said, watching him get up to make coffee as he talked and periodically looked out the window.
“First, you need to understand that black projects are inherently vital to our country, and they usually work very well. To develop one, it takes billions of dollars and thousands of people. The majority of the workers are civilians, like myself, willing to work in complete secrecy on narrowly defined components of a whole we do not understand and are prohibited from speculating about, in order to build something like the F-one-seventeen stealth fighter, or the B-two bomber. In the case of antipersonnel lasers, there was an accident in testing a few years ago that I’m not supposed to know about. It destroyed the eyes of a young technician who was a nephew of the President’s chief of staff, who was, and is, a very moral and humane individual. The outraged chief of staff learned the purpose of the research and convinced the President to cancel it and prohibit any such work in the future. But in doing so, the President—who was roundly despised by the defense establishment, as you know—threatened to pull several billion dollars of revenue away from the prime contractor on the black project involved.”
“So the contractor, or the black project, defied the ban?”
Dr. Maverick turned and held up an index finger. “No. Nothing that dramatic. The Pentagon rallied around the contractor and then rewrote and redirected the project so that no money or momentum was lost, but they were simply to apply their scientific knowledge and research to other, nonprohibited military applications of laser weapons. In reality, the project managers lied even to the Secretary of Defense. I know, because a good friend of mine was highly disturbed about it and had to confess it to someone. He left the project, had a nervous breakdown, and now teaches physics at a forgettable high school somewhere for a pittance.”
“So,” Kat asked, “and please forgive the interruption—they kept on with the antipersonnel side?”
He nodded. “Oh, they did new stuff, too, but they shifted the anti-eyeball research into a black hole within a black project, with plans to outlast the President.”
The coffeemaker had finished its cycle and, after Kat declined, Dr. Maverick poured a cup for Robert and himself before sitting back down.
“MacCabe, are you familiar with the Sputnik Syndrome?”
“I’m … familiar with Sputnik.”
“There are many versions of the principle. Pearl Harbor is another. In other words, in order to spark a unified determination to develop a weapon or a military capability, there has to be a substantial threat. If the threat doesn’t already exist, and you’re the national leader who knows it’s needed, you may have to invent it. That’s what I’m convinced Franklin Roosevelt did by sacrificing Pearl Harbor to get us in the war in time to win it. That was also what Sputnik did for our space program, and our military abilities in space.”
“So you’re saying—” Robert continued.
“I’m saying that up until the past few months, there has been no credible threat out there that anyone was developing anti-eyeball guns for use against military or civilian targets, and thus no reason for the new President to overrule the old ban.”
Kat had been listening in silence. She sat forward suddenly. “Wait. Are you implying that this black project will benefit from having their stolen prototypes used against civilian airliners?”
Dr. Maverick smiled. “Think about the predictable response when these mysterious crashes are revealed as being caused by such lasers. Publicly, there will be a call for an international ban on research. Privately—secretly—we already have advanced technology and can press forward to dominate the science while pretending to adhere to our own international ban. In addition, we’ll also be ahead in developing solid defenses against such weapons. We’ll order thousands of weapons produced and stockpiled, and more research done, in order to be ready if someone violates the ban. We did the same thing with biological and chemical weaponry.”
“And the contractor survives.”
Dr. Maverick nodded. “The contractor survives, in the best interests of the country.”
“So this black project may have helped lose those weapons?”
He shook his head. “Not directly. But if antipersonnel laser weapons were stolen and sold on the black market, as Carnegie suspected, the black-project managers would know two things. One, they were early prototypes and quite limited versus what could be developed later. And two, it would only be a matter of time before some military or terrorist group used one and created a new Sputnik Syndrome, thus rescuing them from the shadowy netherworld of project shutdown.”
“We think,” Kat said, meeting his eyes, “that Walter Carnegie made a good case that the U.S. government may be engaged in a frantic effort following the SeaAir crash to cover up the theft of those weapons, because they said nothing and did nothing for so long. But you’re implying the black-project managers may not have wanted anything done about the theft.”
“They may not have even reported the weapons were stolen, Agent Bronsky,” Dr. Maverick said. “This may be less a cover-up than an embarrassed nonresponse.”
“Then, who do you think,” Robert began, his eyes darting between Kat and Dr. Maverick, “is chasing us?”
Dr. Maverick raised his bushy eyebrows and glanced around again, paying particular attention to the living room windows. “The terrorists who stole those weapons would be the most likely candidates, but … I don’t know. Look, you can’t work in the black-project world without getting a bit paranoid about our own security. I mean, who’s chasing whom? A bunch of suits have been ricocheting around Vegas looking for me, according to friends. Are they terrorists, or are they our own people?”
“What do you mean, Doctor? Security people? I can tell you they aren’t FBI.”
He licked his lips and looked out the rear window before answering. “I don’t know. But someone was obviously scared enough of Walter C
arnegie to kill him.”
“You know that for a …” Robert began, but Maverick was shaking his head no.
“I only know that Walter would never kill himself. Look, can we get out of here? I don’t mean to be inhospitable, but I’d prefer to close this place up and go. I was only coming by for supplies when I spotted the light.”
Kat was drumming her fingers on the table. “Dr. Maverick, are you familiar with Jordan James?”
There was no particular reaction other than mild surprise, she noticed. He nodded after thinking for a few seconds. “Yes. CIA director a few years back, right?”
“Yes, but now acting Secretary of State.” She filled him in on their relationship before looking at her watch. “He should be arriving here in a few minutes.”
Maverick looked startled. “What? Here? My house?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
The sound of an engine and the crunching sound of tires on snow reached their ears simultaneously, the headlights showing through the window of the living room.
She watched as Jordan left the backseat of the car and walked quickly to the front door, buttoning his heavy overcoat. The car remained in front, its driver leaving the parking lights on and the engine idling as Kat introduced Jordan to Thomas Maverick and Robert MacCabe.
“I need to talk with you in private, Kat,” Jordan said, as they stood awkwardly in the tiny hallway. “If you folks will excuse us for a few minutes …”
She borrowed one of Dr. Maverick’s parkas and motioned Jordan through the back door. The first hint of dawn was lightening the sky to the east, but the woods behind the house were still dark and secluded. The blanket of new snow absorbed their voices. They walked in silence for about a hundred feet to one side of the cabin before Kat turned to him. “What is it, Uncle Jordan?”
He chewed his lip for a moment before responding. “Kat, I know for a fact there’s a renegade group within the FBI working for Nuremberg. Whoever they are, they’ve been seduced with the promise of untold riches.”
Kat unconsciously leaned away from Jordan, her eyes wide, remembering her impassioned defense of the Bureau. Robert was just a reporter. But this man was not only like family, he was a high-ranking official of the U.S. government. Loyalty to the Bureau alone couldn’t dismiss the force of his words.
Blackout Page 44
