High Flight

by David Hagberg

  “Which means?” Murphy asked.

  Danielle shrugged. “Kirk McGarvey may have something after all.”

  “Please!” Ryan said.

  “If Bruno Mueller is involved, as the FBI thinks he is, it could implicate the Russians. He was trained by them.”

  Murphy held Ryan off. “What’s your point?”

  “Tell the President to go slow until we have more facts. Could be a Japanese faction. Could be a Russian plot to embroil us in a shooting war with the Japanese.”

  “For what reason?” Ryan shot back.

  “I don’t know, but both possibilities are, I think, worth considering. As is a third—that another independent organization is behind this. Every airplane that crashed was a Guerin 522. That means something. As does Phil Carrara’s murder. He was working with McGarvey, and McGarvey is—or was—working for Guerin.”

  “He went to Japan.”

  “Yes, and to Russia,” Danielle answered, tiredly. “Whatever your problems with him are, Mr. Ryan, I have known Kirk since he first started for us. He is a good man.”

  “Did you know his parents well?” Ryan countered.

  “I don’t want bickering,” Murphy said finally. “Where is McGarvey?”

  “Portland. The FBI has him,” Ryan said.

  “Have him brought here as soon as possible.”

  “We’ll try. But it seems that every time we make a decision, he finds out about it faster than I can write a memo.”

  “Mr. President, it’s my understanding that you have ordered a blockade against the Japanese navy leaving its home waters,” Murphy said. “That may not be the best course of action.”

  President Lindsay could hear the hesitation in his DCI’s voice. It was uncharacteristic, and unsettling. “We don’t have many options, General. I assume you’ve seen the latest NSA intercept.”

  “Yes, sir. But there’s a possibility—it’s remote but still possible—that something else is going on here. We just don’t have all the facts yet. It’s too soon.”

  “What other possibility?” Lindsay asked, looking down the table at his advisers. They listened on the speakerphone.

  “A former East German intelligence officer could have something to do with the crashes.”

  “Mr. Doyle mentioned the possibility.”

  “He was trained by the Russians, Mr. President. And it seems too coincidental that the Russians have picked this moment to attack the Japanese.”

  “They attacked because of the Tatar Strait incident.”

  “Yes, sir. But isn’t it odd that a Russian frigate was blown out of the water so easily?”

  “Are you saying that the Russians sacrificed that ship?”

  “No, Mr. President. I’m saying that it is one of many possibilities that we must consider. The Japanese are our allies.”

  “Somebody brought down those airplanes for a specific reason, General. It was no act of random violence.”

  “I agree,” Murphy said. “Could be a group in Japan. Could be a Russian group. Or it could be a third, as yet, unknown organization with an unknown motive.”

  “That’s no help to me, Roland,” the President said firmly. “Based on all the available information to this point, can you say it’s not the Japanese?”

  “No, sir. But I can’t say it’s not the Russians.”

  “Then I have to go with that until you can bring me some additional information.” The President sat forward in his chair. “Nobody is going to war with anybody, Roland. I merely want the situation contained long enough to find out what’s going on, who is behind it, and why.”

  “I’ll get back to you, Mr. President,” Murphy said.

  “Do that, General.”

  Ryan walked into Dick Adkins’ office on the third floor and set a portable cassette player on his desk. “We’re placing you under arrest at this time, Mr. Adkins. As an attorney, I can advise you that you have the right to remain silent. Security is waiting in the corridor.”

  “What’s the charge?” Adkins asked calmly, as if he had expected this.

  “Violations of the National Secrets Act.” Ryan switched on the tape recorder. The first voice was Adkins’.

  “ … NSA is reading heavy traffic from the Japanese embassy here to their Ministry of State in Tokyo. Some of it has to do with the crashes.”

  “I’ll be on the ground in a few minutes,” McGarvey said. “Have the general convince the President to hold off for as long as possible.”

  Ryan switched the tape recorder off.

  “I see,” Adkins said. “Who’s going to run Operations?”

  “I am,” Ryan replied smugly.

  The MSDF naval and naval air station at Otaru in Hokkaido’s western bight had been on continuous alert for seventy-two hours. During that time ninety percent of its ASW ships and planes were at sea or in the air. Lockheed/Kawasaki P-3C sub-killer, tail number 4417, was given vectors to the Soya Strait where the Russian destroyer Sovremennyy had been sunk.

  “Looks like they’ve sent a submarine,” the pilot told his weapons officer. “The bastards.”

  “We’d better call for more assets. Where there’s one, there’s probably another.”

  “The Aukumo and Akiqumo are en route from the 23rd. We just need to buy them some time.” The two ships were destroyers.

  “At least the American Third Air Force at Misawa is staying out of it.”

  “For the moment,” the pilot said, a fierce expression on his face. “This is our country. Our fight.”

  The seas were rough in the Soya Strait. Nevertheless, Captain First Rank Lestov figured he would be able to spot the orange distress markers sent by survivors of the Sovremennyy. But nothing showed up in the scope after two sweeps. “Nyee-cheh-vaw nyet,” he said. Nothing.

  “Conn, ELINT. Wakkanai is still sending on at least one of her arrays. The others are apparently down.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Lestov said.

  The Russian’s Pacific Fleet Far Eastern Reconnaissance Center at Vladivostok was fully staffed. Lieutenant Arkadi Papyrin watched the thermal imaging down-link terminal from the RORSAT satellite currently making a pass over the Japanese north island of Hokkaido and the Soya Strait.

  He keyed his comms. “Major, I have an update at Zebra-Two.”

  Major Ivan Isakov walked over from his command console. “Have the Americans at Misawa responded?”

  Papyrin enhanced the region from Otaru north. “No, but there is a new image in the air in addition to the two MSDF jets. Looks like a P-3C ASW aircraft. Almost over the Strelka. But look there, just south of Rishiri. Two destroyers, maybe an hour out.”

  “The Strelka is still near the surface?”

  “Da. He’s probably looking for survivors.”

  “Send it to them,” Isakov ordered. “But in case he misses the message, we’ll send it out on ELF as well.”

  “I have him on the MAD.”

  P-3C 4417 pilot Lieutenant Togame Muto corrected his course to the right and reduced throttle to bring them closer to the surface. The night was black. “How deep is he?”

  “Kan-cho, he’s just below the surface,” the ELINT officer reported. “Stand by. Radar is picking up his periscope and snoophead.”

  “Is he looking for survivors?”

  “Maybe, but his radar is lit. He’s headed toward Wakkanai.”

  “Do we drop a fish on him?” the weapons officer asked excitedly.

  “Prep a pair of Mark-50s,” Muto said. “And get that off to base and to the Aukumo and Akiqumo.”

  The message from Pacific Fleet came at the same moment the Strelka’s own sensors detected the presence of the Orion ASW aircraft.

  “Presents us with an interesting problem, Viktor,” Captain Lestov told his XO. He lowered the periscope. “Do we wait to see if they attack, or do we dive now and launch a sub-sea missile on Wakkanai, which would pinpoint our position, or submerge and wait to see what other assets they bring up, which would tell us how serious they are?”


  “I think there is no question of their seriousness, Captain,” Savin replied.

  Lestov smiled sadly. “We have no business being here.”

  “No, sir. But we have our orders.”

  “Indeed.” Lestov looked at his crew. Good men and true. “Mr. Savin, crash dive the boat. Make your depth three hundred meters. Sound battle stations missile.”

  “The target is diving,” the ELINT officer reported. The P-3C 4417 was on her outbound pass, the Russian submarine behind them.

  Muto hauled the big four-engined airplane in a tight turn to the left. “Do we have a weapons release authorization?”

  “Stand by,” his comms officer said.

  “Weapons, do you have a positive lock?”

  “Hai, Kan-cho.”

  “Launch on my mark,” Muto said, fighting the low-altitude turbulence.

  “We have weapons release authorization alpha.”

  “Stand by,” Muto said. The nose of the Orion came around to one-hundred-eight degrees. “Weapons lock?”

  “Hai!”

  “Fire one and two!”

  The moment the two torpedoes—each weighing in excess of three thousand pounds—were released, the P-3C’s nose came up sharply. Muto compensated.

  “One and two away.”

  “Time to impact?”

  “Estimate nine-five seconds,” the weapons officer reported.

  “Prep torpedoes three and four. Launch sonobuoys on my mark,” Muto said. They crossed over the submarine’s submerged position, and he banked the P-3C hard to the right to bring them around for a second pass.

  “I have sounds of bubble making,” the ELINT officer reported excitedly. “Many decoy buoys in the water.”

  “Time to impact?”

  “Four-zero seconds.”

  Out of the corner of his eye Muto could see fires burning at Wakkanai ten miles to the south. It made his blood boil. Almost certainly there were dead comrades down there. The shame of it was almost impossible to bear.

  “Stand by,” the weapons officer said. “Time to impact, now.”

  What the P-3C made up for in endurance and stability, it lost in speed. The nose seemed to take forever to come around.

  “Negative ten seconds from impact.”

  Muto looked at his co-pilot.

  “Kan-cho, I show a miss with both torpedoes,” the weapons officer reported.

  “Launch the sonobuoys now,” Muto ordered, his stomach sour. “What does the MAD show?”

  “We’ve lost him, Kan-cho,” the ELINT officer said.

  “Not for long,” Muto replied. “We’ve just started.”

  Mueller stood at the head of the stairs listening to Reid and the young woman argue. She had come to kill him, but first she wanted answers. Hundreds of people dead, and she wanted to know why. What did he hope to gain? How could he live with his conscience? She wanted to batter him with her anger and her guilt. She was to blame, as they all were, for not listening to McGarvey. He was the only one who knew what really happened, but they wanted to arrest him.

  There it was again: McGarvey. He could hear what in the woman’s voice when she spoke the name? Love?

  Mueller had two considerations if he was going to remain at large for any length of time, hunted by every legitimate law enforcement agency in the world. He would need Reid’s money and he would have to kill McGarvey.

  Reid could transfer funds electronically once they got clear of this place, but McGarvey was a different story. Sooner or later the FBI and Interpol would give up. New issues would arise, and this case would drop off the most active file. But McGarvey would never give up. He’d read McGarvey’s Stasi and KGB files, and he had a great deal of respect for the man. If he was going to meet McGarvey head to head, he would need an advantage.

  He eased the Beretta’s safety off and walked down the hall to the open sitting-room door.

  The young woman, her back to the door, stood facing Reid. She held an automatic pistol at arm’s length. If it went off she’d break her wrist. She was an amateur.

  Reid stood next to a wingback chair near the window. His face lit up.

  Dominique started to turn. Mueller stepped into the room, and reaching over her shoulder snatched the gun from her grasp.

  “No,” she cried. But any thought she had about trying to fight ended when she looked into his eyes. She lowered her arms.

  “Who are you?” Mueller asked.

  “Her name is Dominique Kilbourne,” Reid said. “She’s a lobbyist for the airlines.”

  “Let her answer,” Mueller said mildly, pocketing her gun. “Are you a friend of McGarvey?”

  “You’re Colonel Mueller,” she replied in wonderment. But her eyes betrayed her. She was more than just a friend to McGarvey.

  “Yes.”

  She shuddered. “You’re an assassin.”

  “The same as McGarvey.” Mueller turned to Reid. “Are you capable of driving?”

  “Yes.”

  Mueller tossed Reid the car keys. “Pack a bag and leave it in the downstairs hall. Then get my car. It’s a green Ford Probe on the upper side of R Street two blocks from here. Across from a woman’s boutique.”

  “I can’t leave.”

  “Two FBI agents were out front watching your house. I killed them.”

  Reid stepped back as if he’d been slapped.

  “They were gathering evidence against you, I suspect. They’ll send others, so hurry.”

  “But …”

  “It very nearly worked as you planned, Herr Reid, but not quite. Stay here and you will be imprisoned. Come with me and you will have a chance of continued freedom.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “The Canadian border at Buffalo.”

  “And then?” Reid asked.

  Mueller watched Dominique. “We’ll see. Mr. McGarvey will come for her, as he has all of his women.”

  “He’ll kill you,” Dominique said softly.

  “That is a possibility.” Mueller smiled pleasantly. “It will be most interesting to see how it turns out.”

  “I’ll get the car,” Reid said.

  “In the meantime, I’ll get acquainted with Ms. Kilbourne.”

  The chopper that had tried to land on the roof of Seventh headquarters burned furiously where it crashed in the parking lot. Platoon Sergeant Ingrid Wentz figured they had five minutes before the mob reached the upper floors where she and Jones, who were the only survivors from Baker Platoon, had retreated. They’d rounded up seventeen other HQ personnel who’d gotten left behind in the bugout and herded them upstairs. They were admin types and wouldn’t be able to offer much help in a knockdown dragout. But they were military personnel, and most of them carried sidearms. She raced down to the fifth-floor corridor from the roof where the others were covering the elevator and two stairwells.

  “Lima and Kilo companies are pinned down across base at 26th,” Jones reported. “And I can’t raise security ops.”

  “An air evac is out unless they can control the small arms fire,” Wentz said. She was so frightened that her voice wanted to catch in her throat. But she wouldn’t let it happen. She was a Marine.

  “Search-and-rescue is standing by three minutes out.”

  “Didn’t you hear me, goddammit? The fucking chopper is down.”

  Jones just looked at her. He knew the helicopter had crashed.

  “Okay, let me talk to them.”

  The power suddenly went out, and the emergency lights at each end of the corridor automatically switched on.

  “Fuck!” someone shouted.

  “Belay that!” Wentz ordered. “It means they can’t use the elevator. Kill those lights, and double up on the stairwells.”

  “SAR One,” Jones said.

  “Anything comes through those doors, kill it.” Wentz took the handset as the emergency lights went off, plunging the corridor into darkness. “SAR One, Baker Platoon Sergeant Wentz.”

  “What’s your situation, Sarge?”<
br />
  “I’m set up on the fifth floor with fifty well-armed personnel. But I don’t want to hurt any civilians unless I’m forced into it.”

  “What about Charlie-Seventeen?”

  “No survivors, SAR One. We need some help right now!”

  “Roger that. The Japanese authorities are en route.”

  “We need an air evac. Can you lay down enough tear gas to come in? I really don’t want to use my grenade launchers or LAWS. A lot of people will get hurt.” She hoped to Christ they knew that communications weren’t secure, and that she was bluffing. The platoon hadn’t been equipped with anything heavier than M16s.

  Something crashed on the floor below them, and there were many sounds of breaking glass, twisting metal, and splintering wood. The mob was destroying the building.

  “Ten minutes.”

  “We don’t have ten minutes, SAR One. Suggest you get serious or we’re dead meat.”

  “There weren’t fifty people left in the building,” Don Moody said. “Admiral, if we don’t do something there’s going to be a lot more casualties on both sides.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Admiral Ryland said. “Nothing from the Japanese authorities?”

  “Not a thing,” Captain Byrne said.

  The morning outside the windows of the Boeing Sea Knight helicopter was still pitch black. To the east it was impossible to pick out where the sky met the sea. Only behind them could they see the loom of Tokyo on the horizon.

  “Do we have any tear gas aboard those choppers?”

  “No, sir. They’re search-and-rescue, not crowd control.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Moody said. “It’s a long shot, but I don’t see any other options.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Assuming the Japanese are going to send someone down there to clear out the base, we have to buy some time. But no matter what happens there’ll be casualties. We need to minimize them by keeping the crowd away from our people.”