Elise continued,” The two pilots reacted very professionally - modern plane and crew experience would have brought them out safely. The third pilot manipulated the situation by inserting warning alarms into the system, so that the pilot’s attention was focused on constantly treating other problems and not noticing what was really going on.”
Sam shook his head. “How could you possibly have worked all that out?”
Elise shrugged. “I pay attention to detail.”
Tom said, “Hey, Sam and I have been pilots for a long time, and neither of us could work it out after spending the better half of a night staring at the damned thing. Come on, how did you work it out?”
Elise smiled. “I got a phone call from someone at the British Air Accidents and Crash Investigators.”
“And?”
“It turns out the QAR had an additional set of video cameras set up. One of them was set at the back of the cockpit where the third pilot used his laptop to access the BUS and hack into the primary flight display. The video recorded everything he did. It showed him guilty as hell. There’s no question about it - the third pilot brought the plane down, exactly where he wanted it.”
Sam grinned. “That answers that, but there’s one thing I don’t understand.”
Elise said, “Shoot.”
“Where did the island come from?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Elise put the additional video footage on.
They watched the third pilot sabotage the Dreamlifter. From a different angle Sam, Tom, and Elise could see everything – from the false instrument readings through to the sequence of false engine fires.
Sam felt a surge of heat up his neck and was surprised by his own anger. “That scumbag! If we ever find him, he’ll pay for this.”
Elise grabbed the iPad and pressed down on the screen. “There’s more.” A separate video feed showed the cargo area. Light flooded in as the forward hatch opened up, and ten men dressed in military gear flooded in. Two flashes came from the direction of the cockpit and in short order, two of the men dragged the pilot’s bodies into the cargo area.
The two men joined the others releasing the sphere, and assembling and inflating two large pontoons around the engine. In under a minute, the whole thing was set up. The tail door cracked open. As the camera adjusted to the new lighting conditions, a large sea barge moved toward the plane. A heavy tow line was attached to the sphere, which was rapidly floated out as the cargo hold filled with sea water.
Tom stared at the screen, baffled, “They were professionals. There was no way this was done without inside help.”
“Okay, so there’s the sphere being loaded onto the boat, before the aircraft sinks. I still don’t see what happened to the island.”
“Have a look behind.”
Sam squinted. His eyes went in and out of focus as his brain tried to comprehend what he was seeing.
There was a thick fog.
Elise asked, “What do you see?”
“There’s a thick fog of some sort.”
“Right. And what sort of day was it when the Dreamlifter made its watery landing?”
“It was stormy. I remember they were flying in a total whiteout because of the clouds.”
“Sure. But at what altitude?”
“You’re right. They broke through the cloud cover. On the ground, it was overcast, but the sea was a dark blue, nearly ultramarine in color, with sun rays flickering off its surface.”
“That’s right. That’s what you saw on the FDR,” Elise said, a slight grin forming on her lips. “What do you see here?”
“It’s heavily overcast, with a thick fog setting in.”
“Right. Only the fog isn’t just now setting in. It’s dissipating.”
Sam said, “I don’t understand.”
“What color water would you expect to see if overhead were covered by thick, impenetrable clouds?”
“Dark. The water would take on a grayish-black appearance and be nearly impossible to distinguish.” Sam grinned, curiously. “But I watched the FDR recording through the cockpit windshield, that water was beautiful. It was blue and crisp, and full of sunshine glistening off its surface.”
“And it was all fake,” Elise said.
“How?”
“A trick done by the cloaks and mirrors of a magician.”
“How, Elise?”
“A combination of glycol and water.”
“What?” Sam asked.
“Theatrical smoke on a grand scale.”
Sam shook his head, and a grin creased the corners of his lips as he thought about the complexity of the simple ruse. “Someone, put up a smoke screen, and then, what, projected a small island and a runway directly over the top of it?”
“Yep.”
“How did they get the projector so far above?”
“Drones, most likely. DARPA’s using a similar technique for camouflaging troops as well as heavy military machinery.”
“What shape would the drone be?”
Elise responded immediately, as though she’d seen one previously. “It usually takes the shape of a large sphere with hundreds of projectors.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sam’s fingers worked quickly over his laptop’s keyboard to bring up the image from the FDR video that he had captured on board the Dreamlifter.
He clicked on the image, and the entire screen lit up with the image of the metallic sphere.
He grinned. “Something like this?”
“Yes,” Elise confirmed. “Something exactly like that. Why? Where did you get this?”
“Because that was on board the Dreamlifter.”
Sam stared at the image in a new light. Despite appearing like something out of a bad science fiction movie, there were more than a hundred small protruding tubes. The purpose of which, he had no idea, but he now wondered if they could indeed be projectors?
He asked Elise, “What do you know about it?”
“Not much. It was a project DARPA was involved in nearly a decade ago when I still worked for the CIA. At the time, computer technology just wasn’t powerful enough to make it work, but there’s been recent speculation that the project has become possible with recent developments in computing.”
“So it would seem,” Sam said. Through narrowed eyes, he asked, “The question is, if we were doing it first, why was it built in Germany?”
Elise shook her head. “Only to be put on a cargo aircraft and flown to Quonset, Rhode Island?”
“Right.” Sam took a deep breath as he remembered the scene from the Dreamlifter’s cockpit of the artificial island and runway. The image was seamless. “And now we have reason to believe that regardless of whether or not we produced a successful version of the product, the Russians definitely have.”
Tom stood up from the workstation and crossed his arms. “If the Russians already have the technology, why did they risk everything to steal it?”
Sam thought back to the mysterious theft of the specialized shipping container from the Buckholtz.
Could there be some sort of connection?
The door to the bridge opened, and Gene walked in. “I’ve been told the Buckholtz is ready to move and the tugboats are ready for the tow.” He offered his hand. “I really appreciate everything you and your team did for us, despite the loss of the cargo.”
Sam stood up and gripped the man’s hand with a firm shake. “Not a problem. Sorry we couldn’t save it. All the best with the repairs.”
“It will be a big project, but much better than had the Buckholtz been stranded throughout the winter. If you ever need anything, I’m at your service.”
“Thanks,” Sam said. Then, turning his laptop around, he asked, “I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen a machine that looks like this?”
Gene stared at the sphere. His eyes were dazed and hazy. All color was gone from his face. “Yes.”
Sam expelled his breath silently. “Where?”
Gene opened his mouth, bu
t nothing came out. His face twisted between horror and fascination. “Secured within the specialized shipping container.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Sam said. “That shipping container was 60-feet long and 8-feet wide. The image I just showed you was a perfect sphere.”
Gene shrugged. “I was told it was for some additional equipment, but also as a ruse to prevent it being stolen.”
Sam ignored the irony. “Who owned the device?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Reilly. Even after its loss, I’m afraid I cannot reveal who the owner was. I’ve already spoken too much. The loss was a tragedy, but there’s a lot more at stake, and I cannot reveal any more details.”
Sam knew that Quonset, Rhode Island built submarines, so there was very little doubt in his mind about who the buyer was. Still, he couldn’t work out why America would be sourcing such technology from a German manufacturer. And, more importantly, who would know enough to steal them.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t stop the theft,” Sam said. “Any news about who might have stolen the device?”
“No. Whoever was responsible certainly knew what they were doing.”
Sam met Gene’s eye. “So right now, all we have are those two bodies to go off of. We’d better hope the German Federal Intelligence Service can work out who they are and where they come from. They might just be the only lead we ever get.”
Gene sighed heavily. “That might be a little hard.”
“Why?”
The lines on Gene’s face deepened and his lips set in a hard line. “The German Eurocopter which had retrieved the bodies crashed approaching Berlin. The helicopter exploded on impact, and there were no survivors.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sam picked up his satellite phone and dialed a number off by heart.
A woman answered on the first ring. “Mr. Reilly. I hear you’ve been making friends in Germany.”
A small grin creased the edge of his lips at the secretary of defense’s reference to the scuba diver who’d nearly killed him. “Plenty of friends, but they seem to bring with them more mysteries and fewer answers.”
“Mysteries?” she asked. “About what?”
Sam filled her in on the two spheres that had been stolen through an elaborate, yet successful, plot to crash a modern jetliner and run a cargo ship aground. He finished by mentioning that the two unidentified bodies were most likely Russian, and how the helicopter carrying the German investigators had crashed and burned, destroying all evidence in the process.
When he had finished, the secretary of defense said, “And you’re telling me this, why?”
“Both the Boeing 747 Dreamlifter and the cargo ship were bound for Quonset, Rhode Island, meaning, I’m guessing the spheres were on their way to our submarine fabrication yard at Quonset.”
“I thought you said no one has admitted to what the spheres were and where they were headed.”
“No, but I figured that if two identical top-secret experimental devices that were en route to our submarine fabrication shipyard at Quonset under exceptional circumstances, you’d be pretty interested to hear about it?”
“What did the owner of the Buckholtz say?”
“It’s proprietary knowledge. And his customer doesn’t want that interrupted, despite the accident and subsequent… “accidental loss” of the specialized shipping container.”
“The owner of a German-registered cargo ship doesn’t wish to reveal his customer’s secrets – as he should not – as we should not pry into the lives of our European counterparts.”
“But I thought this might…”
“What?” she asked. “Concern the United States Department of Defense? This is about piracy at sea under the direct jurisdiction of the European Union. If they don’t want you involved, then you’re to accept it and sit this one out, do I make myself clear, Reilly?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Sam ended the satellite phone call.
Tom said, “What did she say?”
“She said it wasn’t in the U.S. waters and both victims are part of the European Union – at least until the British formalize Brexit – so we’re to sit tight and stay out of it.”
Tom raised an incredulous eyebrow. “What do you want to do?”
“Is your father still the admiral of the submarine fleet at Pearl Harbor?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Let’s go see him about what’s going on and what needs to be done.”
Tom grinned. “The admiral, my father, isn’t the type of guy who’s going to bend rules or break state secrets for his family. So, what makes you think he’ll talk?”
“Nothing, but it’s the only lead we’ve got right now. Whatever secret technology just went missing was originally headed for Quonset, Rhode Island. Given they both went missing, and the parts were stolen, after someone went to the trouble to carefully have them transferred by separate modes of transport, I’m guessing, that constitutes a threat to national security.”
“Right. Which means the secretary of defense would have jumped at the opportunity to interrogate you for information.”
“Which she didn’t.”
“You’re right.” Tom shook his head. “Which means, she’s lying and her hands are tied, or possibly, that she’s lying because the U.S. government did something very wrong, and now it wants to cover it up.”
“Either way, we’ll get an answer from your father when we mention the story over a nice family dinner.”
“He won’t break state secrets,” Tom said, emphatically.
Sam shook his head. “It’s all in the telling. We’re not there to pry out information - we’re just catching up because we’re in the area, all we’re going to do is mention the two bizarre circumstances and watch his face.”
“What reason do I give to tell my father that I’m in the area?”
“You need a reason to see your father?”
Tom gave Sam a look that implied not to go there and then shrugged. “Yeah. Don’t you?”
“Touché.”
Sam’s father was a businessman who never took a day off, and family affairs needed to be penciled in as company meetings.
Tom said, “So what are we going to do?”
Sam opened up the internet and pointed to an amateur surfing competition in Oahu… “It looks like we’re finally going on that vacation you’ve always wanted.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
South Pacific, 100 Miles South of the Galapagos Islands
Svetlana raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow as the captain of the Vostok approached her surveillance room, informed her that her room was being shut down for the next twelve hours, before locking her in the intelligence gathering room.
Buried in the bowels of the hull where the cold fish storage would have been – had the ship really been a fishing trawler – she was used to being locked out of the rest of the ship but being told her surveillance systems would be externally shut down for the next twelve hours was a new one for her.
She didn’t argue with her captain. He outranked her, and after all, the Vostok was an intelligence gathering vessel, if he wanted it to keep secrets, who was she to argue? She could have screamed like a caged animal, but who would listen? After all, the entire surveillance room was covered in a nearly foot-thick layer of soundproof absorbing foam. To listen to the intricate sounds she received, her office needed to be completely isolated. At least it maintained a perfect temperature all year round.
Instead, she watched as each of the complex instruments scattered across the walls of her office, including, an array of technology for long and short-range listening devices, radar, sonar, and satellite hacking equipment, were each prevented from functioning.
She made a coy smile.
Her captain had gone to the trouble of sending divers overboard just to conceal her listening devices and hydrophones with impervious batons. The curiosity piqued her natural interest as an intelligence officer.
What was he up to?
An hour later she heard the obligatory clank of a submarine secretly docking with the hidden chamber at the bottom of the Vostok’s hull.
A memory of the phone call she’d witnessed, in which her captain had spoken with an unknown person who’d offered to sell the USS Omega Deep and its invisibility cloak, flashed up in her mind.
Her heart raced.
Was it possible, as she waited in the dark, the Omega Deep was being transferred to her captain? Who would take it into the custody of the Russian Navy? She doubted it. If that was the case, why had he bothered to make sure she didn’t record the truth?
None of it made sense.
She paced about for a few minutes, wondering what she should be doing. Her consciences twisted in conflict between honor for her country and her integrity with her captain.
In the end, her country won out.
All her external instrument arrays were covered by divers before the submarine approached. But not her internal recording devices.
She grinned.
There was something about a government that knew the value of spending just as much time spying on their own personnel as others.
She smiled, placed her headphones on her head, and pressed play.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Svetlana closed her eyes and listened.
Her hidden listening device relayed what she needed from within the ship. She heard the voice of a man say, “My best man was killed in the process of retrieving the second device.” Svetlana’s well-trained ear recognized the voice, but couldn’t place it.
Her captain appeared unmoved. “That’s unfortunate, but it’s not my problem.”
“It just became your problem,” the stranger replied. “He was paramount to the mission.”
The next voice she heard was her captain’s raised voice. “And what about my fucking submarine?”
The stranger sounded nonplussed, answering almost in a whisper. “What about the submarine? It’s there, where we said it would be.”
“No, you didn’t!” The captain slammed his hand or possibly the stranger’s head against the steel bulkhead wall. “We paid for the submarine to be delivered to us. Where is it?”
Omega Deep (Sam Reilly Book 12) Page 14
