Nora bent over his shoulder, watching him while he worked. As the CUCS unit powered up, a tiny screen bloomed with what appeared to be a frequency map. Frank fiddled with dials, getting the occasional suggestion from Nora.
“There!” Nora said, pointing at the screen. “See that ping in the M-band. That’s from a Wasp hunting us.”
Tucker searched the skies, holding aloft the antenna like some mystical sword against that invisible threat. “Has it found us?”
Nora shook her head. “If it spots a target, you’ll see another spike in the X-band. That’s the signal for a Shrike or Warhawk to begin an attack run. From there, those killer drones will continue the hunt until they eliminate their target or are called off. You’ll know that by a strobing pulse in the S-band.”
Definitely don’t want that.
Tucker continued to crane his neck. “Can you trace the Wasp’s signal? Find out where it’s at?”
“Turn in a slow circle,” Frank ordered as he opened the laptop.
Tucker obeyed, trying not to get tangled in the antenna wire, until Frank and Nora simultaneously ordered him to stop.
Nora bent closer to the laptop screen, her face illuminated by the glow from it. “See there? That pinpoint is the drone’s FLIR—its forward-looking infrared radar. Because of power limitations, the range isn’t particularly good.”
“How good?” Tucker asked.
“Max of five hundred yards. It’s probably sweeping along the river’s edge, trying to acquire us. But it looks like it’s being directed to come straight at us.”
Probably tasked with surveilling the cabin.
“We’ve got maybe ninety seconds,” Nora said. She snatched the keyboard from Frank’s knee and began typing rapidly on it.
“What’re you doing?” Frank asked.
“Trying something. You just get the CUCS ready to broadcast.”
Tucker stared in the direction of the river. “Can you jam it before it gets here?”
“Better.” She smiled, typing even more swiftly while staring down at the screen in Frank’s hand. “I know the tracking software the Wasp employs. I wrote every line of that code. I think I can hack it on the fly and take control.”
Tucker frowned down at her. “And do what with it?”
“You name it.” She continued typing. “We can use it to call down a Shrike and rain hellfire upon those Tangent bastards and smoke them all.”
Tucker liked the sound of Nora’s plan, but he stared over at Diane, who sat slumped against a tree, her head hanging. Kane sat beside her, leaning against her, as though keeping watch on a wounded comrade. Tucker felt a swell of affection for the shepherd, knowing his big heart, that boundless well of compassion inside the dog.
He suddenly felt very tired, knowing he’d lost half of Nora’s team. But it was replaced just as quickly by that steely determination ingrained in all Rangers.
“As tempting as that is,” Tucker said, “we need to look down the road. To level the battlefield for the next fight.”
Which I know will come.
He knew this was far from over, and they would need to gather every asset available.
“What did you have in mind?” asked Nora.
“Let’s grab it.” He faced Nora and Frank’s stunned expressions. “Do you think you two could commandeer that Wasp and recruit it to our cause?”
Frank shifted on his knees. “We can sure as hell try. We got nothing to lose.”
Nora nodded.
“Then do it.”
The two set to work. Unfortunately, hacking into the Wasp proved to be more difficult than Nora had anticipated. With it closing in, her fingers flew over the keyboard. Frank offered suggestions, which were met with expletives or nods of agreement.
“It’s almost on us,” Frank warned.
Tucker searched through the canopy. At this point, there was no way they could outrun the drone, not in the SUV, certainly not on foot.
“It won’t let me in,” Nora moaned.
Frank put a hand on her trembling shoulder. “You can do this,” he said, his voice firm and calm. “Just focus. Put everything out of your mind.”
She took in a deep, shuddering breath and bent closer to the screen as code flew across it.
Frank suddenly pointed. “Stop! What about that?” He read a line of code aloud. “Transmit autonomous run upon acquisition . . .”
“Maybe,” Nora said. “I don’t—”
A low whine echoed through the forest, silencing her.
They were out of time.
“Screw it,” Frank said and reached over and punched the return key.
They all held their breath—then the wall of code broke into two blinking lines:
CANCEL ALL TRANSMISSIONS
TRANSFER CONTROL TO CUCS 12958
“CUCS 12958?” Tucker asked. “Is that us?”
Frank grinned triumphantly. “Damned straight.”
Nora returned to typing. “Lemme see what I can do from here.”
Moments later, Nora brought the Wasp over their heads and into a holding pattern above the access road. The drone was X shaped, a yard wide, and painted a matte black. It hovered six feet off the ground, humming with the soft whine of its four propellers, one at the tip of each crossbar.
“I’m sending a signal to the Tangent ground monitoring station,” Nora explained. “Telling them that the Wasp has incurred a propulsion malfunction. Making it look like it plummeted into the river.”
So it’ll be considered lost.
Smart.
Tucker watched as she expertly lowered the Wasp to the road, making a soundless landing. They all stared toward the idling drone.
“What now?” Frank asked.
Tucker stalked toward it. “We make those bastards pay.”
7:17 A.M.
By the time the sun was up, everything looked brighter—if not better. Tucker was headed east along Highway 20, having just cleared Tuscaloosa. He had stopped to refuel their SUV at a large truck stop and let Kane take a bathroom break. He left Frank to fill up the Durango, while he got an update from Jane on his satellite phone.
“She may lose her leg,” Jane said, reporting on Diane’s condition. “But at least, for now, her—”
An eighteen-wheeler sitting beside the diesel pumps started its engine, drowning her words out. He stepped farther away, pressing his phone to his ear. “Say again.”
“I said, at least her cover seems to be holding.”
He sighed.
So good news and bad news.
Hours ago after leaving Lacey’s Spring, Tucker had made contact with Jane. He had everyone—and the acquired Wasp—loaded into the Durango. The original plan had been to take the evacuated members of The Odisha Group to Atlanta, where Jane had mobilized a team she trusted to take them off the grid. But with Diane in grave condition, they had shifted operations to Birmingham. Jane constructed a cover story for Diane, which included a fake Virginia license and the tale of an abusive boyfriend to help explain her injury.
“When will the doctors know more?” he asked.
“Within the next twenty-four hours. If they don’t get the sepsis under control, they’re going to take her leg.”
“How’s she holding up?”
“According to my guy out there—who’s posing as her concerned brother—she’s scared, but she knows to keep playing along.” Jane’s voice grew softer with concern. “How about you? How’re you doing?”
“As well as can be expected.”
He glanced over as Frank hooked the gas nozzle to the pump. In the backseat, Nora crouched over a laptop. He and Frank had tried to get the woman to stay behind in Birmingham, but she had refused. She warned them that they still needed her help, especially if they wanted to put the Wasp to use. Unfortunately, Frank couldn’t disagree with her.
Still, Tucker suspected Nora was driven less by a need to be useful than a desire to exact revenge upon those who had killed her friends, especially Sandy. As he drove t
hrough the night, he saw her tears as she looked out at the passing scenery, unable to sleep. With the adrenaline worn off, the weight of her loss must have finally struck her. He understood this reaction all too well. In the heat of a firefight, as friends were lost or wounded all around you, you kept moving. It was only later, in the dark of night, that you could measure those losses and try to make sense, to mourn, to find a way to live with your grief and guilt.
“Where are you headed now?” Jane asked, drawing his attention back.
“Las Cruces, New Mexico.”
It was their only lead, one that came again courtesy of Nora. She had told them that Tangent was closing up shop at Redstone, moving operations to advance the next stage of this operation.
But what was it? What required such secrecy that it left a swath of dead bodies in its wake?
“We know Tangent Aerospace is headquartered out of Las Cruces,” Tucker explained. “That alone makes it worth checking out, but Nora also mentioned a name she had overheard regarding the new operation. A place called White City. I think it might be code for the army’s White Sands Missile Range.”
“Just outside Las Cruces,” Jane mumbled. “Makes sense.”
“Hopefully we’ll find out more once we’re there.”
“Just watch your back.”
“If I don’t, I know someone who will.” He glanced down at Kane, who noted his attention and wagged his tail. Kane had a bandage taped over the bullet graze across his hindquarter, but the dog looked ready to go.
After saying his good-byes, Tucker hung up and walked back to the Durango with Kane. Frank was washing the windshield with a little too much diligence, overly focused on such a simple task.
“What’s wrong?” Tucker asked.
Frank glanced over at him, giving him an incredulous look. “What’s wrong? You have to ask?”
“I do. You’ve barely spoken since we left Birmingham.”
Frank stepped over, tossed the squeegee into a blue detergent bucket, and sighed heavily. He combed his fingers through his hair and lowered his voice after a glance at Nora. “We were supposed to be rescuing those kids, but we got half of them killed.”
Tucker had been expecting this conversation. “And they’d all be dead if we did nothing,” he countered. “At least Nora and Diane have a chance now.”
“But if we’d been more careful, thought things through more . . .”
Tucker recognized this familiar lament, having heard it all too often, both from other soldiers and from his own lips. “Frank, combat sucks. Terrible stuff happens. Even the best soldiers make mistakes, and sometimes they get people killed. You can let it cripple you, or you can learn from it and move on.”
Frank looked down at his toes. “I . . . don’t know if I can do that.”
Tucker decided it was time for some tough love. “Then this is where we need to part company.”
Frank jerked his head up. “What?”
“You heard me. If you can’t pull it together, you’re a liability. More likely to make a mistake. You could get us all killed.”
“I wouldn’t—”
“Not intentionally, but your head is in a bad place. I need you completely here—or gone altogether. I’m going to take Kane for a walk. You’ve got ten minutes to decide.”
He left Frank and took Kane over to a grassy area. He hated to be so stern with the man, but sometimes it was better to rip off a bandage and let a wound air out. Kane used the time to sniff out a few precise spots and lift his leg. After the allotted time, Tucker led the dog back.
He found Frank already in the front passenger seat. He opened the back door so Kane could jump in next to Nora.
“We all set?” he asked.
Nora mumbled some acknowledgment, Kane wagged his tail, and Frank stared for a long breath and nodded.
Tucker climbed behind the wheel. “Then let’s hit the road.”
10:22 A.M. EDT
Smith Island, Maryland
“So you lost them?” Pruitt Kellerman repeated.
He stood at his desk, his back to the view of Chesapeake Bay and the Washington skyline. He leaned with his fists on the desk’s polished surface and brought his face closer to his computer monitor’s built-in camera.
On the screen, the faces of Karl Webster and Rafael Lyon stared back at him. Neither man answered. Behind their shoulders, he could make out Tangent’s ground monitoring station, consisting of banks of computer workstations, all lit by dim halogen lighting.
“Have I got that right?” Pruitt asked.
Webster answered, his eyelids swollen and pinched. “Sir, they’re all most likely dead.”
“It’s the most likely part that worries me.”
“The vehicle they tried to escape in is sitting at the bottom of the Tennessee River. We didn’t find anyone inside, but the current is fierce. Any bodies could be halfway to Kentucky by now.”
Lyon cut in. “We’re monitoring police scanners in the cities along the river for reports of drowning victims.”
“What else have you learned?”
Webster answered. “We now know they were staying at a cabin across the river. The manager remembered the dog. We’ve got descriptions of both men, but no credit cards. They paid in cash.”
By now Lyon’s brow had folded into deep angry ridges. He was not a soldier who tolerated mistakes, especially his own. “We did pick up two incoming calls to Sabatello’s phone.”
Webster shifted uncomfortably in his seat at the mention of Jane Sabatello; a flicker of guilt flashed across the man’s features, likely from being reminded of another of his failures, of how he had let the woman slip through his net and escape.
“We know the caller is using a satellite phone,” Lyon continued. “A nonstandard model with enhancements.”
“Enhancements?”
“Encryption, proxies, that sort of thing. Definitely reeks of black ops.”
“Do you think this guy is someone from our own government?” Pruitt asked. “Or an outside player?”
“Too soon to say. Another call or two and we should be able to get an ID.”
Pruitt straightened, stretching a kink out of his back, refusing to let this setback unnerve him. “Assuming one or more of the Odisha people escaped, what damage could they do?”
“None,” Webster said a bit too quickly. “No individual had the complete picture of the project, I’m sure of it.”
“What about stage two? Were any of them aware of where you were moving operations this week?”
Webster slowly shook his head. “I don’t see how. My men were under strict orders not to talk.”
Pruitt frowned.
Hardly an ironclad guarantee.
He knew from personal experience that there were always leaks.
“Do we delay for now?” Webster asked. “Wait to make certain we’re clean before proceeding?”
Pruitt tucked his chin, calculating odds and evaluating risks. If he jumped at every shadow, he would not be where he was today. One did not rise high by ducking low. One had to be bold.
“No,” he decided, “we stick to our timetable.”
Lyon’s lips tightened into a thin grin of satisfaction. “Yes, sir.”
When it came to bloodshed, the man was always eager.
“However,” Pruitt cautioned, “when you both get to White City, put up some extra coverage.”
While I might be bold, I’m not stupid.
“If that man and his dog escaped and end up at our door, let’s make sure they’re properly welcomed.”
THIRD
WHITE CITY
17
October 22, 1:08 P.M. MDT
Las Cruces, New Mexico
Tucker entered the hotel room to find Frank and Nora bent over their spoils from the raid on Redstone. The Wasp rested on the carpet. The drone’s inner workings were exposed, with equipment and tools strewn all around it.
“We’ve named him Rex,” Frank announced with a grin.
�
�Rex?”
Frank motioned to Kane, who followed at Tucker’s heels, sniffing at the two bags of Chinese takeout in his hands. “You have Kane. We have Rex.”
Nora simply rolled her eyes and leaned over the open braincase of the drone with a tiny screwdriver in hand. “It wasn’t a unanimous decision.”
Tucker crossed and placed the food on a small dining table next to a kitchenette.
Late last night, they had reached Las Cruces after changing rental cars twice while en route across the country. Once here, he picked a hotel on the outskirts of the city. It was a golf course resort made up of casita-style rooms about a half mile from Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park. Their two-bedroom unit had polished cement floors, a small kiva fireplace, and best of all, a deep soaking tub in the bathroom. He came close to sleeping away the entire night in the damned thing.
At the crack of dawn, after a short breakfast of huevos rancheros and oatmeal, Frank and Nora had set about examining the Wasp in more depth. Tucker had watched them remove the top canopy and get to work, but as their language grew technical, full of jargon that could not possibly be English, he took Kane out for a tour through the neighboring state park. Its three hundred acres bordered the Rio Grande. With the park mostly empty, they spent the morning exploring trails through scrublands, meadows, and riverside woods.
But now it was time to get back to work.
“Besides naming it, what else have you learned?”
“Rex is beyond awesome,” Frank said, sounding like a kid on Christmas morning. “Everything is self-contained inside its skull. Battery, guidance system, radar, even a ten-terabyte solid-state hard drive.”
He pointed to the skull, the drone’s spherical central housing. It was twice the size of a basketball, supported by a trio of spider-leglike landing struts. The drone had two wings that crossed at its midline, forming a large X, with four teardrop-shaped protrusions at the ends that housed rotatable, variably pitched propellers. The whole thing weighed a scant twenty pounds.
Frank waved a hand over its small bulk. “The exterior is made of carbon fiber.”
“One that’s micro-honeycombed to trap light,” Nora added. “A type of stealth coating.”
War Hawk: A Tucker Wayne Novel Page 17
