Skyhook

by John J. Nance

  Ben en held back as the rest of the assembled team headed for the doors, and Mac MacAdams noticed. A very nervous Joe Davis was pumping Mac’s hand in an obsequious display of appreciation, but the general finally sent him on his way. Once the room was empty of everyone else, Mac moved to where Ben was sitting and straddled a chair backward, his arms folded along the back as he studied the chief software engineer.

  “Anything wrong, General?” Ben asked, squirming under the unspoken scrutiny.

  “No.” Mac smiled. “But I have an important question for you.”

  “Yes, sir. Go ahead.”

  Mac glanced around to verify the room was empty of other ears. “Ben, you know we’ll have a lot of lives at stake, both in Air Force aircraft and on the ground, when this system gets installed and turned on.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m well aware of that.”

  “You’re also aware, are you not, that once Boomerang is deployed, any mistakes in the basic program will be much more difficult to fix without compromising safety.”

  “Of course.”

  “I know you’ve been working your tail off in the last few days to fix the program, even though we now know it didn’t need fixing. I want you to know that I’m very appreciative of your efforts and your dedication.”

  “Thank you, General, I …”

  Mac waved him down. “This isn’t an awards presentation, Ben.” He sighed, his eyes darting around the room once more, well aware he should wait until Dan Jerrod could be located and brought in with his anti-bugging equipment.

  Never enough time, he thought.

  “Ben, I know all about your visit to Dan Jerrod’s office. I know precisely what you told him and what he told you. You probably didn’t realize that he only pretends to work for Uniwave. In fact, he reports directly to me and no one else.”

  “I … didn’t know that, sir.”

  “And you still don’t. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And we will not speak of details discussed in that meeting. But here’s what I need to know, and bear with me because I’m shooting from the hip right now and thinking out loud. I know the system tested okay, and I accept that. But I know what you were worried about. Did any portion of that problem—that extra stuff that you found that worried you—show itself tonight?”

  “No, sir.”

  “But you’re still worried?”

  “Of course, General. I can’t explain what it was … why it was there, you know? It’s eating at me. There’s no way that extraneous code should have been inside the program at any time. I have to view it as potentially hostile.”

  Mac was nodding, his mind racing to choose the right words.

  “Very well. Ben, there are many things that you have no need to know, and therefore I cannot discuss with you. I can assure you, though, that thanks to your speaking up and coming to Dan, we’ve solved the riddle and uncovered and neutralized the source. In other words, we’ve terminated the problem. The unfortunate part is, I simply can’t tell you the details.”

  “It was … I mean, it’s all taken care of?”

  “Yes, Ben.”

  “There was a threat, but it’s completely defused? I was afraid that I’d merely interfered with them, and they’d try something else. Whoever ‘they’ is.”

  “I understand. I wish to hell I could give you the details, but I can’t.”

  “That’s okay. I understand, sir. I’m very relieved to hear this.”

  “You’re a very diligent fellow, Ben. I knew you wouldn’t stop thinking this problem through and searching for a conclusion unless I told you personally it wasn’t necessary.”

  Ben smiled. “Yes sir, you’re right. It’s been eating at me very actively, to the point that I’d begun to suspect everyone.”

  “That includes me as well, I assume?”

  Ben smiled sheepishly. “Really hadn’t gotten around to you yet, General. But I was becoming suspicious of friends and even my cat. Or his collar, at least.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Ben laughed and waved it off. “Not important. Just something Dan Jerrod said.”

  “Okay. Well, you can cut out the worry now. The responsible parties are contained.”

  “Great.”

  Mac got to his feet carefully and pushed the flimsy gray chair out of the way.

  “Go on home, Ben. Get some well-deserved rest. Oh, and if no one’s told you, the start of the post-development program for Boomerang to maintain the system will be announced next week, and we very much want you to stay on for at least another year.”

  “That’s good to hear, sir.”

  Mac shook Ben Cole’s hand and walked him to the door of the hangar office, holding it open. He watched him go, before turning back into the room to get his coat. He would need to call Jerrod immediately to let him know what had been said. The security chief would be nervous, of course. Saying anything to Cole and keeping him on was a calculated risk, but it had apparently worked. Ben Cole was more than likely neutralized.

  At least, for his sake, Mac thought, I certainly hope so.

  He tried Dan Jerrod’s cell phone and home numbers with no luck. The office extension rang uselessly as well. Mac sighed and punched in another number, assigning to Jon Anderson the task of tracking Jerrod down.

  Mac focused on the door, well aware there was work to do, but the lure of the beautifully designed Gulfstream sitting like a crouching tiger on the hangar floor a few dozen yards away was too powerful for a lifelong pilot to ignore. He turned away from the outside door and entered the hangar, intent on strolling around the Gulfstream for a few minutes, contemplating her sleek shape and how she looked suspended in flight.

  There was no one else in sight as Mac shoved his hands in his pockets and forced himself to relax, breathing deeply, his nose catching a hint of kerosene and other aviation solvents, aromas that painted an olfactory picture of the hangar’s interior.

  The absence of anyone else in the hangar was comforting. A general officer poking around was, by definition, suspicious, his mere presence threatening to spark an alert among subordinates, who would instantly assume that the big man was searching for something to criticize. It helped to be anonymous every now and then, escaping the inevitable bow wave of recognition that the stars on his shoulders brought.

  Mac stopped thirty feet in front of the nose of the Gulfstream, admiring its lithe appearance. Gulfstreams were the gold standard for executive jets, a $43-million luxury liner. He chuckled at having the audacity even to daydream what it would be like to own one on a general’s salary.

  Not yet, at least, Mac thought, his mind poking into fantasy images of his post-military life to come.

  He began at the nose and walked beneath the fuselage to the tail, reaching up to touch the aircraft every twenty feet or so, letting his fingertips merely brush the cool metal as he passed. There was something mystical about an aircraft in a quiet hangar at night, Mac thought. Air museums had always intrigued him as a result. Walking around a silent, powerful airplane inside a huge building always inspired feelings of awe, which contrasted with his technical knowledge the way that logic and emotion always clash. “I could put you to sleep explaining how a 747 flies,” he’d told a high-school class as a career-day speaker once, many years back, “but I will be forever emotionally mystified at the fact that so much metal can be supported by the wind and actually fly as a thing of beauty.” Airplanes were merely collections of man-made parts capable of using wing shape and power to suck themselves into the air, and yet they could stir the heart of even the most jaded pilot. Every time he’d visited the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio, or the Air and Space Museum in Washington, a planned hour had become an afternoon with the doors closing behind him.

  He stopped for a second beneath the Gulfstream’s tail and then walked to the right wingtip, enjoying the changing perspective of the jet as he moved. The wings were turned up at the end in an appendage known as a winglet. He stopped for a second to adm
ire the right one, the bold rake of its shape shifting the horizontal wing to a vertical fin, a design that lessened the aerodynamic drag of the aircraft and made it more fuel efficient. The winglet was painted blue to match part of the body paint, but there was a patch at the very front of the winglet, on its leading edge, that seemed darker.

  Why is it that way?

  Aircraft as big and expensive as a Gulfstream were painted or repainted all at once in special facilities. Yet, in the orangish light of the hangar’s sodium-vapor lamps, a foot-long expanse of the winglet’s leading edge appeared darker.

  Must have been a bird strike or some other repair, Mac thought casually as he began walking away. But he stopped suddenly and walked back under the winglet, studying it intently, though unable to touch it because of the height.

  There was a stepladder in one recess of the hangar and Mac retrieved it to climb up for a closer look. The difference in the paint shade was very subtle. It was no wonder they’d missed it when they’d looked at the aircraft for damage a few days earlier. But whether it was the telltale aftereffects of a repair, or just an inconsistency in the original paint, he couldn’t be sure.

  Mac ran his fingertips lightly over the area, feeling for a sharp edge where someone might have masked off a section before repainting. He could feel nothing unusual, but his eyes detected a small irregularity, as if a dent had been repaired imperfectly.

  He looked around, relieved that apparently no one had been watching him, and returned the ladder to the spot it had occupied.

  Suppose they’d come back Monday evening with damage from hitting that Albatross. Is it possible they could have repaired it secretly and said nothing? Our contract requires a report. Mac climbed inside the Gulfstream and searched the maintenance log, but there were no indications of a wingtip repair.

  He thought about the Uniwave manager who ran the test aircraft program. He was, Mac concluded, perfectly capable of trying to cover up something that would have seemed insignificant, in order to avoid the paperwork that even a bird strike would trigger, especially if the discovery had been made after news of the Albatross crash reached his ears.

  But we didn’t even suspect the possibility of a collision ourselves until we looked at the radar tapes, Mac reminded himself. Why would he? No, he concluded. If a damaged winglet had been discovered, they might or might not have asked the pilots about it, but afterward the aircraft would have been quietly repaired and the damage marked off to impact with an unseen object.

  Mac left the Gulfstream cockpit and stood again on the hangar floor, studying the aircraft. He winced at the memories of his own involvement as a young officer in helping commanders minimize and hide major aircraft damage. It didn’t matter that cover-ups were a widespread practice carried out in order to avoid hurting the Air Force safety record or embarrassing a particular command; he’d always known it was wrong—if not criminal. Sometimes it was nothing more sinister than the maintenance staff working a few nights to repair a small dent in a wingtip rather than formally reporting it, but at other times an entire squadron would labor in secret for months to keep the cost of an accident from exceeding a million dollars and becoming a so-called “Class A,” which was the most embarrassing level. The possibility that Uniwave might have done the same thing to avoid contract problems chilled him. Even worse was the thought that the beautiful twin jet sitting before him might have caused the loss of a civilian amphibian, and not even he was being told the truth.

  Two miles away Ben Cole parked his car in front of his favorite Mexican restaurant on Spenard and got out, locking the door as a black van he’d noticed before pulled into the same lot and parked several stalls down. He felt a small chill as he realized he’d seen the same vehicle in his rearview mirror since leaving the base.

  The doors were still closed, the windows darkened.

  Ben began walking toward the front door of the restaurant, his mind searching for another explanation. He stopped in the doorway and looked back, waiting to see movement around the van.

  A young couple pushed through the doors to the street, almost knocking him down, the woman sidestepping in her high heels to miss him.

  “Whoa! Sorry, fella,” she said. A small cloud of Giorgio’s Red wafted by, a fragrance he loved, but neither that nor the black leather pants she was wearing distracted him. Ben nodded absently as he caught the door and held it open, his eyes focused on nothing.

  No one’s getting out. Why?

  “You coming in, sir, or just practicing?” a woman asked from just inside.

  “Sorry?”

  “Welcome to La Mex, sir, where we actually have the ability to close the front door and keep the cold out.”

  “Oh. Sorry,” Ben said, moving inside.

  “Table for one?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right this way.”

  He followed, forcing enough cognitive brainpower to the task of walking behind her without stumbling.

  I was followed. Oh my God, that means I’m under surveillance. Could it be Dan Jerrod’s people? Or MacAdams’s? After all, I just came from MacAdams.

  A memory of himself in the lab transmitting classified data over a non-secure cell phone flashed in his mind. Had they seen that, too?

  An extremely deep male voice coming from one of the television monitors was echoing through the bar as he walked by.

  … This … is CNN!

  “Here you are, sir. Your waitress will be with you in a minute.”

  “Thanks,” he replied, barely acknowledging her as he took the menu, ignoring the teaser for the Larry King show in the background, which faded to the voice of Aaron Brown in his New York studio.

  “Would you like something from the bar first, sir?” the waitress asked. He looked up at her large brown eyes framed by short blonde hair, as she poised to write. He tried to smile but his face was frozen, and the thought of drinking anything suddenly became nauseating.

  She stepped back as Ben got clumsily to his feet.

  “I … ah, I’m sorry … I suddenly realized I’ve got to, you know, be somewhere.”

  “You’re leaving, sir?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.” He yanked a small wad of bills from his pants pocket and laid one on the table.

  Ben made his way back to the parking lot and climbed in his car. The black van was still there, still unopened. Ben pulled Jerrod’s business card from his shirt pocket and punched in the cell phone number. He pressed the transmit button, then canceled the call, then pressed it again, only to cancel it once more before the number could ring. His mind was a whirl of horrific possibilities.

  Gotta think straight, here, Ben lectured himself.

  There was a gentle buzz from the phone and he jumped slightly before reading the screen to find a message waiting. He punched in the appropriate codes and Nelson’s voice coursed from the earpiece.

  “Ben, I’ve been looking for you. You’re not at home, of course, and all I can do is leave one of the messages, which you know I hate. But here goes. I’m at Chilkoot’s again and wish you’d come down here and drink with me. You’ve been acting really strange lately. Call me. This is Nelson. Bye.”

  Ben’s eyes shifted toward the big, rustic sign over the entrance to Chilkoot Charlie’s right across the street. He’d forgotten Chilkoot’s was located across from La Mex. The fact hung there like the hint of a distant image through fog.

  Suddenly the reason for trying to call Dan Jerrod seemed obscure and silly, and yet compulsive. He needed the reassurance that he wasn’t in trouble, and that was the fastest way. Talk to the source.

  He saw the doors of the bar across the street open and Nelson himself pushed through onto the sidewalk, looking around and stretching, his big smile flashing at no one in particular. Ben felt a flash of pleasurable recognition as he fought the urge to get out of the car and yell to him. It was far more comfortable to think of sharing a beer with the jovial Alaskan than to sit there worrying himself silly about his career and his freedom, and w
hether he was already in serious trouble. If he was being watched right there right then, going across the street to share a few drinks with his friend could raise alarm bells. After all, it was Nelson he’d said too much to in the boat, and that entire conversation could have been monitored from the shore.

  Ben felt a wave of loneliness. Nelson was always so much fun to be around, his outlook on life always positive, his sense of humor ranging from rollicking to subtle.

  But tonight wasn’t the right time.

  He hunkered down behind the wheel and put the car in gear, turning away quickly into traffic with the odd sense that he was betraying a friend.

  There was something else MacAdams had said that had been scratching at his mind and triggering alarm bells. A half mile from downtown, Ben pulled to the right lane and stopped long enough to reach into his briefcase and pull out a copy of The New York Times. The article he’d remembered seeing was on page one but below the fold, a small item quoting an unnamed source in the Transportation Department warning of a new threat to civil aviation from sophisticated terrorists trying to find ways of manipulating the largely unguarded electronic control systems on modern jetliners. There were references to engine control computers and autopilots and refusals by industry spokesmen to comment, the words sounding too familiar.

  Ben placed the paper on the right seat and accelerated back into traffic, pulling off the main road several blocks away and parking at the curb to think. General MacAdams’s reassurance that the airline-related listings he’d found embedded in the renegade code were no longer a threat replayed. “You can cut out the worry now,” MacAdams had said. “The responsible parties are contained.”