Hm. Chances were good I'd have to meet and greet a bit. I added three cases of each of the drinkables and tossed in some assorted snacks that were likely to be rare in a war zone, then checked out and loaded everything aboard.
"Flitter,” I said, “We're going to Iraq. Get Tom Levine's last-known GPS coordinates from Stephanie, please, make the trip last eight hours, and park us twenty miles above the GPS point. Oh, and wake me when we get there with the new chime program at volume three."
Tiger took his usual place on the console ‘dashboard’ as we launched into the night sky. I refilled the cooler, then called up a field bed and stretched out for the night.
I woke to the bell-chime tones of Marilyn Manson's version of ‘Sweet Dreams’ and let it continue playing as I sent a field tendril to warm up my coffee and swilled some of it.
As the chimes-only chunk of the tune began to play a third time, I said, “Okay, flitter. I'm officially awake now,” and the music stopped.
I'd left around midnight, so it was eight-something plus six hours in Iraq, or a bit after two in the afternoon. After making a fresh coffee, eating a can of chicken noodle soup, and brushing my teeth, I called up a field screen and located Tom Levine's company headquarters.
"Flitter, send a probe to the company commander's office and see if you can find any paperwork with Sergeant Tom Levine's name or serial number on it, please. Send any info you find to my datapad. In the meantime, take us down and maintain an average height of one mile above the ground."
As we descended, I said, “Tiger, this is your chance to get off the flitter for a little while. Your nose is better than mine for following things. I'd like you to see if you can figure out where somebody went."
In fact, I had no real doubt that the men had been picked up, but a second opinion from someone with some inherent tracking ability couldn't hurt.
When the flitter stopped descending, I called up my board and my three and five suits, then Tiger and I zipped down to the most forward of the crushed grain patches.
Tiger hopped off the board and began exploring intently as I studied what remained of boot prints and other markings on the ground within the damaged area.
As I scanned the area, something I'd seen on the field screen the night before that hadn't seemed to make any sense suddenly flashed to clarity in my mind.
Some of the boot prints had been marred as if by something being dragged over them. They hadn't been obliterated; just scuffed and marred in a generally straight direction.
Where the scuffings of the dirt began and ended, the tops of grainstalks had been broken or damaged in a narrow path to varying degrees for some distance in two directions, as if something had been dragged through the field. Rope slings or ladders?
"They flew away,” said Tiger, “They came here, but didn't go back the way they came. This one's tracks end here."
Looking at the spot in front of his nose, I saw that the toes of someone's boots had dug deeply into the soil and dragged a bit, likely as the rope took his weight off the ground.
Pointing at the damaged stalks and scuff marks beyond, I said, “A helicopter came, but it didn't land; it dropped ropes for them. The men hooked themselves to the ropes and were lifted out of the field."
Chapter Three
Tiger seemed to be having a good time sniffing around and examining the field in general, so I left him to it with a warning to stay close and conjured a field screen as I called the flitter.
"Patch whatever you've found to my field screen, please."
About thirty icons formed on my screen. Tapping them up to readable size displayed various routine-looking supply, pay, and communications authorization forms.
None of the data appeared to lead beyond the normal daily concerns of a field unit, but while things seemed routine, something wasn't quite right. I checked his finance records.
There was no mention of Tom being assigned to temporary duty outside his unit. That just doesn't happen in the Army; in order to receive TDY pay, a field-grade officer—captain or above—has to authorize everything in quadruplicate.
I said, “If the company's officers have computers or PDA's, search them for mentions of Levine or these farms, please."
Some thirty seconds passed before the flitter said, “I've found nothing regarding Sergeant Levine or these farms, Ed."
"Okay. Now let's try to determine who was with him and do similar searches on those names. Begin with men from his unit during the last week or so. If you can't find three, check other nearby units. In quiet ops, they may pick men from different units so single-mission losses won't be too obvious."
While the flitter rooted through data, Tiger and I hopped back on my board and headed east to have a look at the farms. A long series of loops around the four properties showed us nothing unusual about the fields or dairy pastures.
The flitter announced, “I have found fifteen other men who are listed as being on TDY duty, but cannot be located. Their military occupations parallel those of Tom Levine's team."
"Thanks, flitter. Unless you locate them, we'll presume that means at least four teams are missing."
Heading us toward the buildings, I took us down to fifty feet of altitude and we approached the dairy barns at about thirty miles per hour.
Fifteen minutes of flitting around and through the open barns and storage buildings didn't turn up anything unusual, either. If anything nefarious was going on at the farms, it was doing so underground.
"Flitter, send probes to search for man-made artifacts and constructions under the farm buildings, please. Fifty feet or so should be deep enough."
Only a few seconds passed before the flitter said, “There are steel hatches concealed within each building. The passageways connect to a tunnel that extends northward four kilometers beneath the central road."
Four klicks. Two and a half miles. That's a lot of digging. The road was a good cover, too. It was concrete, so it likely had steel rebar in the roadbed. That would effectively mask the tunnel beneath it.
"What's at the end of the tunnel, flitter?"
"Storage facilities and accommodations for two hundred people."
"A bit more info, please. What's in the storage facilities?"
"Several types of munitions, food, water, weapons..."
"Okay,” I interrupted, “I kind of figured that. What sort of munitions? Generalize, please."
"Artillery and small-arms ammunition, rifles, assorted antipersonnel mines, SAM missiles..."
"Also what I expected,” I interrupted again, “Are any of the munitions currently loaded for chemical or biological warfare?"
"No."
"Do there appear to be any prisoners in the facilities?"
"No."
"Thank you, flitter. Send the GPS coordinates of the storage facility to my datapad, please. Include an inventory of weapons and their accessories. Also provide floor plans of the farm buildings and mark the locations of the hatches."
Tiger had been watching some cows being led to stalls for feeding and milking. He looked up at me and back at the cows.
"What are they doing to the cows?” he asked.
"They're milking them."
"Milking?"
"Yes, ‘milking'. The milk people buy comes from cows."
"I like milk. Should I also like cows?"
"That would have to be your decision, Tiger. There are two cows at the riding stable. What did you think of them?"
"I haven't met them."
"Ah. Well, you'll get another chance sometime. If you've watched these cows enough, we'll go back to the flitter."
He'd been sprawled near the nose of the board. Tiger stood up and hunkered down as he usually did for flight and said, “Okay. Cows aren't very interesting."
As we lifted to rendezvous with the flitter, I considered how to barter the tunnel info for news of Tom Levine and decided against the idea.
3rd World Products had refused any involvement in the Iraq war, including surveillance ass
istances. It seemed likely that openly using Amaran tech to provide such assistance might be very dimly viewed by Linda and 3rd World, perhaps dimly enough to cost me my flitter and implants as well as my job.
On the other hand, the info could win someone's confidence well enough to simply tell me what I'd come to Iraq to learn. In fact, it might be good to have more such info on hand to sweeten the pot.
I asked, “Flitter, how many other corporate farms—similar to this one in size—are there in Iraq?"
"Thirty-eight."
"Send probes to them, please. Chart any hatches and underground facilities you find and send that info to my datapad with GPS coordinates for each hatch and facility. Also make note of any prisoners and their precise locations."
Back aboard the flitter, I soaked up some coffee and munched through a can of green beans as I reviewed incoming info about the other farms on a field screen.
Twenty of the farms were just farms, but eighteen of them harbored underground complexes of various sizes. Three of them contained prisoners, but all prisoners were listed as having committed transgressions within their complexes.
Tapping up another screen, I located Tom's company headquarters in the basement of what had been government offices under Saddam Hussein's regime. US and allied forces had appropriated the entire building.
Heading the flitter that direction, I said, “Flitter, don't zap this can when I toss it overboard,” and when we passed over the city's garbage dump, I let the can drop to the pile below.
As we stopped above the headquarters building, I noted the amount of traffic beyond the barricades. The city seemed to be conducting business pretty much as usual.
I put some food and water by the console for tiger and asked, “Flitter, is brigade headquarters in this building?"
"Yes. It's on the second floor."
"Thanks. Tiger, have a good time watching the city. I'll be back in a while."
From his usual position on the console, Tiger said, “Okay."
Saying, “Three and five suits on, board on,” I slid off the deck and headed down to the building.
Flying around the building once on my board, I noted exits and entrances, guards, and the sandbagged machine gun emplacements on the roof.
There was no way to enter the building unless I closely followed someone else in, so I sat down on my board and waited. Perhaps fifteen minutes later, a convoy of military vehicles spread out beyond the barricades while one HumVee stopped to let two people out near a guardpost.
Zipping down there, I hopped off my board inside the guard perimeter and trailed the two guys to the building's big front doors. The right-side door opened and the two guys went in past a guard.
Using a field tendril to shake a decorative plant just outside the door distracted the guard long enough for me to slip through the doorway and into the lobby.
The two guys were on their way to the stairs, so I continued tagging along. When they headed downstairs, I called up my board and silently rode it up to the second floor.
Chapter Four
Stepping off my board, I walked the length of the corridor checking out the various offices. In one I found two desert-BDU-clad lieutenants—a man with the current ‘tuft-on-top’ military haircut and a brunette woman—discussing some satellite images. I sat down in an out-of-the-way chair to listen.
The woman suggested requesting another shot of an area, but the man said it would be a waste of time. He looked at his watch and picked up a stack of papers as he said, “I'll take these down the hall on my way out."
The lady LT said, “I still don't think..."
"Exactly!” the guy cut in, “That's why I'm in charge here, Dalton; to do the damned thinking.” Rapping the stack of papers with a knuckle, he growled, “I'm tired of talking about it. I've been here since May. You've been here less than a goddamned month. Just do what you're told until you know what the hell you're doing and shut the fuck up, okay?"
She was on her feet and nose-to-nose with him instantly, her angry eyes boring into his.
"Palmer,” she said in an even, but ominous, tone, “That's it. I'm going to start carrying a tape recorder. Every word you say to me from now on will be recorded. You think real hard about that before you swear at me like that again."
Rolling his eyes, Palmer gave her a leering grin and said, “Oh, I'm so scared, Dalton. I already think ‘real hard’ about you sometimes, you know. In the shower, mostly."
Grabbing his helmet from a desktop, he turned on his heel to stride quickly toward the doorway. I sent a tendril to push the open door halfway shut as Palmer looked back to shoot another leering grin at Dalton.
He walked smack into the edge of the door, his head slamming it hard enough to rattle the door on its hinges. Palmer dropped like a rag doll and landed on his ass, then flopped flat on his back, barely conscious.
Palmer's helmet rolled across the room near Dalton's feet and the stack of papers he'd been carrying hit the floor and spread out as if trying to escape.
Dalton looked absolutely shocked at this turn of events, but her gaze hardened as she bit her lip and grinned, barely containing her laughter. She leaned on her desk and toed Palmer's helmet with her boot, making it rock and spin as she waited for him to recover.
For a long few moments, Palmer just lay on the floor and groaningly tried to make his eyes focus, then he sat up rather unsteadily and stared unbelievingly at the door as he rubbed his head and groaned again.
Snickering, Dalton said, “Sure wish I'd had a camera. That was...” She laughed, “A simply stunning performance."
She punted Palmer's helmet across the floor to him. He had to take his hand away from his head to grab it, and I saw where the edge of the door had made its impression behind his left ear. Twin livid red lines led upward into the patch of hair on the top of his skull.
"Wow!” said Dalton, “That door got you good, didn't it? How will you explain that? ‘I wasn't wearing my helmet when the door attacked me.’”
Dalton laughed again and gestured at the well-scattered paperwork on the floor. “I believe you were on your way to deliver those reports?"
Palmer gathered the papers in glowering silence and shakily got to his feet, then reached down for his helmet. That was a mistake. He tottered and almost fell as he snagged the helmet strap and stood up too quickly.
Dalton snickered again and Palmer shot her a malevolent glare before he turned and—viciously shoving the door back against its stops—stalked out of the room.
I stayed where I was and watched Dalton as she canted her head slightly and studied the door. When I sent a tendril to pull the door away from the wall to the position where it had bashed Palmer, her gaze narrowed and she sat up straight.
After a moment, she got up and went to touch the door, then push it gently back against the wall. When she stepped back from it, I pushed it toward her. Dalton stepped back farther and I eased the door all the way closed.
"Huh,” she muttered, “The building must be settling."
Good. She didn't seem inclined toward superstition. As she reached for the door handle, I sent her theta waves to help her stay calm and asked softly, “Can you spare a minute, LT?"
She froze, then turned to look directly at me, although I was still in my three suit. Good ears, lady. Her gaze found nothing and moved on after a moment.
"No,” I said, “You were right the first time. By the window."
Her eyes snapped back to lock on my direction again.
"Why can't I see you?"
"Well, duh, lady. I'm kind of invisible right now."
Dalton's next move wasn't too subtle. Her right hand had been hovering above her holster as she'd turned to face my voice. With smooth speed that would have made a Hollywood gunfighter proud, she drew her sidearm and racked the slide to load a round in something like half a second.
The muzzle ended up pointing directly at my chair, but I was already on my feet and well to her left.
Stepping forward,
I reached to flick the gun's safety and ducked backward as I said, “Relax, please. I'm here to talk."
The moment my hand touched her weapon, her other hand moved to try to latch onto mine, but mine wasn't there. Dalton instantly swept the air hard to her left with the gun, but I was well out of range of her swing.
Stepping back farther, I asked, “Would you knock that shit off, LT? I just want to talk to you."
Hurrying to the door, she surprised me again. Instead of yanking it open and running out, she put her back to it and held the gun closely in front of her in a two-handed grip as she flicked the safety off.
"I may not be able to see you,” she growled, “But I can damned well put a round in my desk and have a dozen people in here in two seconds. Show yourself now!"
I said, “By God, you've got guts, LT. I really respect that,” then I stunned her cold, stepped over to take the damned gun out of her hands, and helped her gently to the floor as her knees buckled and she slid down the door.
Sitting down next to her, I patted her face to wake her up. She came to quickly, glancing first at her empty hands, then scanning sharply around the room.
Feeding her theta waves to keep her quiet, I said, “I'm right here beside you, ma'am. If you'll promise to give me a few minutes of your time, I'll give you your gun back."
"Wha ... what did you do to me?"
"I just stunned you. It's harmless. How about that talk?"
"Ah...” she nodded. “Yeah. Okay. A talk. When do I get my gun back?"
"When I'm reasonably sure you won't just pull the trigger the moment you get your hands on it. Here, I'll help you up."
I took her elbow, but she shrugged my hand off and crossed her booted feet, then powered herself upright. Another good move, and smoothly done.
She stood about five-ten and had ice-grey eyes that quickly scanned the room in small chunks as she listened hard. Her face wasn't that of a movie star, but she was definitely attractive.
Walking away from her, I put her gun in a desk drawer, then closed the drawer and whispered, “Three suit off."
Dalton's gaze locked on me as I appeared. I held up a hand and said, “LT, I'm going to use your fax machine to show you something. Just stand by for a few until you see what comes out of it, okay?"
3rd World Products, Inc. Book 7 Page 2
