She opened her eyes again and this time caught the faintest of glows, from a small battery powered emergency light. She blinked, her eyes slowly adjusting to the dimness.
Ariana reached forward, her hands touching the keyboard. She could work that in the dark but she paused as nothing happened. She remembered ordering Carpenter to shut Argus down. Ariana pressed a button on the side of her console and accessed the back-up emergency computer. She hit one of the keys and was rewarded by the glow of her screen. It worked and that meant there was juice coming from the banks of batteries in the cargo hold.
She quickly accessed the emergency program. The computer worked, slower than Argus would have, but eventually the back-up emergency program was up. She hit the command for the emergency lights and the interior of the plane was bathed in a dull red glow. She checked the time and blinked. According to the back-up computer it was over fifteen hours since they'd gone down.
Fifteen hours! Ariana slowly processed that fact in her head. How could she have been out that long? And why had a rescue party not arrived yet? With fumbling hands she unbuckled her harness. She noted as she stood that the plane was resting slightly canted to the right and forward. If they'd crashed, it had to have been a very controlled crash, since the body of the plane seemed intact.
She staggered through the passageway to the console area. As she entered she could hear ragged breathing to the right. She reached out and felt warm flesh. It was Mark Ingram, still strapped to his seat.
Looking down the length of the plane she could see that the crash had had another effect. Ariana hurried to a body laying up against the bulkheads holding the computers. It was one of the imaging camera operators and he was dead. His seatbelt must not have been fastened and his neck had broken when he hit the wall after his chair had slid down the plane.
Ariana looked at him, remembering what she knew about him. She remembered a company picnic less than two months ago. He had a family. She glanced over at his normal console position. There was a photo of a woman and two children that he kept taped to the edge of his computer station. Ariana took a flight jacket that was lying on the floor and put it over the man's face.
Everyone here was still unconscious, but some were starting to stir. Ariana retraced her steps going back forward, passing through her office to the communications center.
There was someone moaning behind a bank of equipment as Ariana turned the corner past her office. Mitch Hudson, strapped to his seat, was pressed up against the back side of equipment. A large rack holding radios had fallen over and slammed on top of his lower body, pinning him into his chair.
“Mitch, are you all right?” Ariana asked as she leaned over him.
Hudson opened his eyes. “My legs.”
Ariana looked down. The sharp edge of a receiver had cut through his flight suit. Blood was oozing from torn flesh. Ariana grabbed the metal and strained but it didn't budge. Then she tried his chair, but the sharp intake of breath as soon as she moved it a fraction of an inch told her that it might be better to leave him motionless for now.
“Let me get some help.”
Hudson weakly nodded, closing his eyes.
She went back to the console area. Ariana tried to remember but the last thing her mind played back to her was giving the command for everyone to lock in and prepare for crashing. She grabbed Mark Ingram's shoulder and shook him. Soon he was blinking, looking about.
“What happened?” he asked as he unsnapped his harness and stood up.
“I don't know,” Ariana answered. “We're down but we seem to have made it all right.”
Ingram unbuckled and stood, looking about. “The pilot's must have managed to make it to a landing strip somewhere.” Then he spotted the body under the jacket.
“It's John. He's dead,” Ariana said. “Mitch is pinned against a console up front. He's hurt.”
Others were standing up now, stretching, trying to get oriented, thankful to be alive. She directed two men to the front to help Hudson.
George Craight, a camera tech moved toward her and Ingram. “Where are we?” he asked.
Ariana had been thinking about Ingram's comment that they'd made it to a landing strip. If that were the case, why weren't rescue personnel cutting their way in? For once she wished they had windows in the bay. Given their location when the trouble had started, she knew there were no landing strips marked on the map within a hundred kilometers. The last thing she remembered was the pilot shouting, but he’d made no sense.
Ariana turned toward the front of the plane. “Let's find out.”
Ingram and Craight followed her as she passed through her office into the communications area. Hudson’s legs had been freed and he was carried to the rear to be bandaged. Ariana grabbed the latch that led from the commo area to the cockpit. It was reluctant to give way, then turned with a sudden snap as Craight added his strength to hers. A gust of thick air blew in. Ariana took an involuntary step back as she saw that the top half of the cockpit had been cut out, leaving exposed metal edges and wiring. Beyond, a thick yellow-gray mist was swirling about. She thought she could see what appeared to be the faint outlines of some very tall trees in the fog just in front of the plane, but it was hard to make out. Ariana remembered the scene the forward video camera had showed her just before it went dead-the same fog. Her eyes lowered to the seats.
“Oh God!” Ariana staggered back another step. The pilot's body was still strapped in; what was left of it. The top half was gone, leaving just legs and the beginning of a torso ending in a red, gooey mess where the stomach should have continued. Loops of entrails trailed from the body to the torn out metal and disappeared over the edge. The co-pilot's seat was empty, but the cloth was covered with bright red splashes of blood. The seatbelts ended abruptly.
Craight and Ariana tentatively stepped forward into the cockpit, Ingram edging up behind them. Ingram mutely pointed to the right. The navigator wasn't in his seat. Ariana followed the line of Ingram's finger. The navigator must have tried to get away from whatever had happened to the other two in the cabin. His body was crammed under the console holding the plane's flight radios. One arm was wrapped around a stanchion, the fingers rigid. The other arm and half his chest was gone, cut off smoothly as if by a surgeon's knife. His face was contorted with a look of pure terror.
“What happened to them?” Ariana asked, more to push away the horror than expecting an answer.
“It must have occurred during the crash,” Craight offered.
Ariana didn't believe that. The cargo bay was relatively intact. How could the top of the cockpit be ripped out? She looked more closely at the edge of the metal: it was cut smoothly, as if removed by a blowtorch, not torn apart by a crash. It was as if someone had popped the front of the plane off to look inside. What could have cut through metal like that, Ariana wondered? Surely not the force of impact, since it was on top of the plane, but there was no other way she could logically explain it to herself.
She staggered as if she'd been hit in the back of the head and a bolt of pain ripped across her consciousness. For a second she thought she'd been hit in the head, but when she turned there was no one there. She realized that the pain was inside her head.
“Let's get out of here,” she said.
Craight was moving forward toward where the front windshield had been, trying to see where they were. Ingram edged back toward her and the door.
“Craight!” Ariana snapped. He half-turned and all that did was allow Ariana to be able to see the expression on his face as a beam of golden light touched him in the back. The light expanded and covered his entire body. Craight's left hand was grasping the edge of the pilot's seat and the light touched the metal, backed up and snapped shut at his wrist, neatly severing his hand.
Craight screamed as blood gushed from the wound but Ariana could see that the blood was kept in by the field around Craight, bizarrely flowing up along his arm as if there were a transparent golden cap on the wound. Ariana focused on Cr
aight's eyes, seeing the pain and shock that they expressed. The light rose up, lifting Craight with it so that he was suspended five feat above the plane's floor. Then he was swiftly withdrawn out of the cockpit into the mist. As he went, Ariana could see that his mouth was open, his throat working as if he were screaming, but there was no sound. Then he was gone. She looked back inside. The hand was still clutching the top of the pilot's chair.
Ingram staggered back toward her. She grabbed him and pulled as another beam of light narrowly missed him. They jumped into the commo area, the wind slamming the door shut behind them, but they didn't pause there, continuing through her office, stumbling into the console area where the others were gathered.
Everyone inside the cargo bay looked up as a loud noise grated through the interior. It sounded as if something impossibly large was sliding across the top of the plane.
“Where the hell are we?” Ingram whispered.
* * *
Patricia Conners had a wonderful imagination, her husband had always kidded her about that, but she was also very conscientious. The blurs on the three pictures of Cambodia had been bothering her as she worked on other projects and taskings. Finally, her in-box empty, she decided to check everything one more time. Maybe she had missed something the first time around.
She ran a diagnostic on her own computer and printer. Everything worked fine. She went over the KH-12, both the imaging gear and the satellite's on-board computer. Both checked out.
Conners took a pad of paper and put it on her desk. She drew a circle at the bottom of the page and labeled it Cambodia. Then she put a smaller circle in the middle of the page and labeled it KH-12. She drew a line from the bottom one to the middle one. That was the imagery path. It was processed by the on-board computer, which had just checked out. She drew another small circle at the top of the page and labeled it “ME”. She drew a line from the middle circle to the top one. But she knew that that line was composed of several elements. She turned to her computer to find out exactly what they were.
“KH-12 bounced to MILSTARS 16,” she muttered, tracing the data's path. She checked an index binder. MILSTARS 16 was one of the numerous satellites put in geosynchronous orbit by the military to sustain their secure global communications network. This particular one stayed in place over the South China Sea. It covered all of Southeast Asia and the Philippines.
Conners was very aware of both the capabilities and specifications of MILSTARS satellites and the communications system they supported. They were designed to be extremely secure and interception/jam resistant. They could antenna-hop, frequency-hop and burst-transmit. They were also hardened against nuclear attack and electro-magnetic pulse (EMP).
She knew it was a long shot, but she decided to check MILSTARS 16 to make sure it had not garbled the data from the KH-12. She requested a self-diagnostic from the satellite's computer. Two minutes later, the data was displayed on her screen. She read it through, interpreting the numbers and codes as only one who had spent many years reading the mathematical codes of the machines of space could.
All was correct-Conners paused. She looked through once more. The data from the KH-12 had been relayed without disturbance, but there was something about the MILSTARS diagnostic that bothered her. She tried to find what it was, but it eluded her, just a nagging suspicion that something was wrong somewhere else in the system. After a half-hour trying to figure it out, she had to give up and take two of the Tylenol’s she carried in her purse to fight off a splitting headache.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lawrence Freed had so far refused to answer any of Dane's many questions. Dane was particularly interested in how Freed and Michelet Technologies knew about his escape from Cambodia thirty years ago. Freed also disclosed no further information about the plane that had crashed. Other than the lack of answers, Freed was a courteous, if distant, escort. Dane knew Freed had military somewhere in his background. There were too many of the little indicators in his demeanor for it to be otherwise.
On board the private jet, Dane had washed up and even given Chelsea a quick cleaning, her hair fouling up the drain in the small shower on board, but Dane figured whoever could afford such an aircraft could afford to get the shower unplugged. Freed had had fresh clothes ready for him that fit perfectly, a subdued look of khaki pants and black shirt. Already, if nothing else, Dane was impressed with the efficiency and wealth of Michelet Technologies, a company he'd never heard of, not that he kept track of such things.
The only conversation they had on the plane was initiated by Freed.
“I heard you were with Special Forces during Vietnam,” Freed said.
“Yes.” Since Freed wasn't exactly a fount of information, Dane felt no pressure to give anything away.
“MACV-SOG?” Freed asked.
“Yes.”
“Tough unit.”
Dane looked at the small black man. He finally noticed the ring on Freed's hand and the triangular symbol carved into the stone, indicating he had served with the Army's elite Delta Force, a symbol only someone in the know would recognize. “Very.”
And that was it. The rest of the ride was spent in silence, although Dane suspected he might have snored a bit as he slept most of the way, Chelsea at his feet, also napping. Dane woke up as the plane touched down at Los Angeles International. There was a limousine waiting for them on the runway.
As they rode through Los Angeles to the north, Dane pondered the unusual situation. He knew it wasn't the money that had brought him to Glendale, California. It was the desire for information. Freed and Paul Michelet knew things about him. Dane wanted to know how much they knew. With the mention of Cambodia, Freed had opened the lid on something that Dane had locked tight for three decades. His exhaustion from the search had kept his emotions from boiling over, but now he felt them all sliding about. He'd tried to forget about what had happened on that last mission over the fence and now it seemed it had remembered him.
The expensive shrink Dane has seen ten years ago had told him that one couldn't let go of the past until one faced it and dealt with it, but Dane had assumed he had been speaking metaphorically. Apparently not, Dane mused as he watched the freeway roll by until they exited in Glendale and pulled up to a large black and chrome building with the word MICHELET prominently displayed in front.
Freed escorted Dane and Chelsea through security checkpoints and into the executive elevator. They bypassed the first twenty floors and stopped at the top. The stainless steel doors silently slid open and they walked into an anteroom where three secretaries were manning desks. Freed led Dane past them and into a massive office, dominated by a large desk, one of the secretaries following.
A distinguished looking man turned from looking out over the city and strode forward. He extended a hand. “Mister Dane, I'm Paul Michelet.”
Dane took the hand, surprised at the strong grip. Michelet leaned over and patted Chelsea on the head. “And this must Chelsea.” He straightened and gestured toward a conference table on the left side of the room. Another man was already over there. “I'd like you to meet Professor Beasley.”
Dane shook the professor’s hand. He noted that Chelsea didn't seem to be alarmed by anyone present, which was a positive sign. He himself felt different waves of emotions coming off each man and it was hard to sort out who was feeling what.
Michelet had moved to the end of the table. “Let's sit down. Can I get you anything? Coffee, soda, a drink?” The secretary hovered, ready to fill the order.
“Coffee,” Dane said as he took a seat. He immediately noted the maps taped to the table top with acetate overlays covering them. All that green, the contour lines, the rivers, the language. Cambodia.
“Mister Michelet, I'd like to know what's going on,” Dane said. “Your man,” he indicated Freed who sat across from him, “hasn't told me much.”
“He was authorized to tell you as much as necessary to get you to come here, no more than that,” Michelet said. He waved a hand and the secretar
y left, closing the door firmly behind her.
“Perhaps I should have played harder to get then,” Dane said. “Maybe I'd know more.”
“Please,” Michelet looked tired. There were dark rings under his eyes. “I am sorry about the manner in which we are forced to operate, but there are lives and a great deal of money at stake.”
“Which is more important to you?” Dane asked.
“One of those lives is my daughter’s,” Michelet said.
“You didn't answer my question,” Dane said.
A red flush spread over Michelet face.
Freed leaned forward. “A specially modified 707 from our company carrying Mister Michelet's daughter and an imagery survey crew went down over Cambodia yesterday. Our last contact with it as it was going down put its position here,” he pulled a piece of acetate up from beside his seat and laid it over the map.
Dane checked the spot. As he had expected, it was in the area of his last mission.
“Do you have a transponder beacon?”
“We have nothing,” there was an edge to Michelet's voice. “No beacon, no radio contact, nothing.”
“Doesn't the airplane have an automatic transponder?”
“Yes, but we're not picking it up,” Michelet said.
Dane wasn't surprised. “How many people were on board?”
“My daughter, three in the flight crew and eight in the scientific crew.”
“How do you know they weren’t killed in the crash?”
“I don't know that, Mister Dane,” Michelet answered. “But while there is any possibility of someone being alive, I will pursue every option I have to rescue them.”
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