Redhawk beamed as he swept his hand across to indicate the open cases. Now Austen saw that each bronze-colored object was a disk about the size of a small plate. Rotors and camera lenses had been cleverly stowed in retractable pods along the edges.
“These are my seven desperadoes,” he said proudly. “The Red Hawk’s range, camera equipment, and maneuverability are better than anything civvies can buy. The mil-spec folks have some slightly better things up their sleeve, but they’re missing one thing that I’ve got.”
“What’s that?”
“A self-correcting AI algorithm. There’s no way I can keep a whole bunch of drones in the air at the same time without more operators. But these guys are smart enough to patrol an area once I program it in.”
Austen squinted at the top of the nearest drone. The word GRUMPY had been etched into the carbon fiber plate. She chuckled in spite of herself.
“Someone’s a fan of Snow White, I take it?”
“Sort of,” he admitted. “I named each of the seven drones after how they tend to act when I let ‘em loose. We’ve got Grumpy, Happy, Tipsy, Dopey, Wheezy, Sleazy, and Awful.”
She gave Redhawk a look. “Sleazy?”
“Well, that one’s got the best camera of the bunch. We used it to catch some interesting footage through a crack in a set of apartment curtains. Nick and I found one of the brass at NATO HQ banging a good-looking woman he had on the side. Since then, the name ‘Sleazy’ sort of stuck.”
Austen considered. It seemed that these men had worked together for a while. Once again, she felt nothing but trust between them. She decided to pose a question that had been nagging her.
“I only met Navarro yesterday,” she said, “and I haven’t had a chance to look through his dossier from M&B yet. Do either of you know how he got that…scar?”
October let out a belly laugh. “He told me he got scar from shaving cut.”
“And he told me that it was etched by acid blood,” Redhawk put in. “From when he was fighting xenomorphs alongside Sigourney Weaver in Aliens.”
“Are you two serious?” she asked.
“‘Fraid so,” Redhawk admitted. “The answer’s not in his personnel file. We’ve got a pool going on at M&B for whoever can make him spill the beans.”
“What’s it up to?”
“Six cases of beer.”
Austen considered. “Well, I don’t really drink. But if I get lucky enough to find out, I’ll split the winnings with the two of you, what do you say?”
October looked at her in awe. “Nicholas is right. You are good woman.”
The cargo tug sped off into the darkening evening as Navarro rejoined them.
“That was the final manifest,” he said, before gesturing to the cargo plane across the way. “The boys there are just about ready to zip up. How are we coming along, gentlemen?”
“My drones are the last things to go,” Redhawk reported. “Should take me twenty minutes to get ‘em on board. Ten minutes if October helps me.”
“Now you act like comedian too!” the big man complained, though good-naturedly. “Of course I will help.”
“Good,” Nick said. “I’ll show Leigh the front side of the cabin, then.”
Austen and Navarro left the two men to complete the loading procedure. They climbed a set of wheeled aircraft steps into the front portion of the passenger cabin. The scents of leather, plastic, and pipe tobacco filled her nose as they made it inside.
Quartets of wide-bodied seats, each set around a pair of windows and beveled drink tables, made up the first third of the interior. The remainder, from the wings on, was filled with crates and cases. It made the rear of the corporate jet resemble the back of a moving van.
Navarro took a seat just inside the door and motioned for Austen to join him. She sat down across from him and stretched out her legs.
“Aside from the seats, we’re going to be a little cramped in here,” he warned. “We’re bringing in a lot of the electronic equipment with us.”
“If you call this cramped, you haven’t flown commercial in a while,” she said. “I guess M&B splurges for their ‘officers’.”
Navarro stared at her for a second. “You must be joking! This aircraft came from Ian Blaine’s people.”
“Now that’s unusual. The CDC’s one of the worst penny pinchers in Washington. And the WHO’s an international organization, but even they don’t have the budget for corporate jets.”
A shrug. “So long as my people are being paid.”
She gave him a look. “Is that what really matters?”
“On one level, yes.” He spread his hands. “Most of us at M&B are ex-military. The USMC for me and Redhawk, for example. The Army of the Russian Federation for October, that sort of thing. We take the risks in a job like this for better pay, not because we like putting our butts in the line of fire.”
“You said on one level, it’s what matters. What’s the other?”
“On another level…it’s being true to what you are.” Navarro’s lips twitched up, dangerously close to a smile. “Not everyone is cut out for a nine-to-five job, chained to a desk.”
“Or a microscope?” she asked.
“Well…if that’s what really matters to someone – and what she did with that microscope helped fix the world – then that’s what she’s meant to do.”
Leigh considered Navarro anew. “You’re a deeper kind of man than you first appear.”
He cleared his throat. “Maybe. Maybe not. But that’s neither here nor there right now. I brought you up here because I want to tell you what the first part of that message of yours meant. Because that’s the part that worries me.”
Chapter Ten
Austen took the paper out of her jacket pocket and unfolded it on the table between their seats. Navarro leaned forward to take a second look at it. He jabbed a finger at the beginning of the message as he spoke.
“Believe Ian Blaine only to the 49th degree and a tenth of a tenth. Any longer and you should 86 him before he pleads the 5th,” he recited. “The first two numbers are the tipoff. The first is a degree, and the second – a ‘tenth of a tenth’ is a way to express a decimal. Whoever wrote this sent you a set of GPS coordinates using the degree decimal system.”
She sat back, impressed. “I’d figured you for a secret classics reader. I didn’t know you were a puzzle solver as well.”
“I, ah, don’t know what you mean about classics–”
“Don’t you? You’re not the only one who can ‘read’ people,” Austen said, enjoying the man’s surprise. “Back at Whitespire, when I talked about sitting down to a ‘banquet of consequences’, you knew the words came from Robert Louis Stevenson. Then you quoted him back to me!”
Navarro coughed into his hand. “Maybe I read Treasure Island as a kid.”
“Don’t worry,” she reassured him. “It’s nice to know I’m not the only one. Now, what about those GPS coordinates?”
“Well, I don’t think I’d have tumbled to it so quickly, except I recognized the numbers on the page. If you take them out of the message, you get 49.01 and 86.5. And those are the exact coordinates for our destination.”
“Then I don’t see why it bothers you. The destination is listed in the WHO folder you two left for me.”
He shook his head. “That lists the destination as the eastern Kazakh province of Ozrabek. Besides me, only Blaine and a couple people much higher up in the Intelligence community food chain know exactly where we’re going.”
Austen felt a chill. “And where is that?”
“Your message lists the exact GPS coordinates for the Karakul. That’s an open-pit mine – and it’s not just the biggest in Ozrabek – it’s the biggest on the Asian continent. If that’s a coincidence, then I’m going to buy a lottery ticket when I get back home.”
“I’m starting to see why you’re concerned, Nick.”
“If our destination’s been leaked beyond our intel community, then it could be known to people hos
tile to Westerners. They could anticipate our flight path. And shoot us down.” Navarro began to stand up. “I’m going to speak with Blaine. We’re going to have to re-think this trip.”
“No, we don’t,” Austen said quickly. “This message…I think it’s from the intelligence community. If it’s a leak, it’s only to me. We should be safe.”
He gave her a hard look. “If you really want to reassure me, then you’d better tell me who sent you this information. And why it’s written like a bunch of fortune-cookie messages.”
“It’s from DiCaprio. I don’t know who he is. Or even if he’s a ‘he’ or a ‘she’. As for the writing style, it’s always been that way.”
“Okay,” Navarro sat back in his seat. “That’s as clear as mud ‘round the watering hole.”
This time it was Austen who got up. Navarro didn’t stop her. She began to pace nervously up and down as she spoke.
“This…it all just sounds so silly when said out loud. So cloak-and-dagger. I’ve never told anyone about DiCaprio. I don’t even know if you’ll believe me.”
“I believe this,” Navarro said, tapping the message with a finger. “There’s no way that’s not real. Whatever you tell me, I’m going to give it one hell of a benefit of the doubt.”
Austen flashed him a grateful smile. “Okay, then. Ever heard of a man named Wallace Bainbridge? He’s a fixture in Virginia politics.”
“Matter of fact, he’s been the senior senator of your home state for a while. And the ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.” He held up a hand as she looked at him in surprise. “In my line of work, you quickly learn which politicians are in positions that affect how your company operates.”
“Well, I’m not just a voter from his state. I’m also his favorite niece. When he heard that I’d be heading overseas as a field epidemiologist, it worried him. He pulled some strings for me and gave me a very strange, very useful birthday gift.”
Navarro rubbed his chin in thought. “So this message came from that ‘gift’.”
“He gave me the Internet Protocol address for what he called a ‘backchannel’. If I use a special secure server to navigate there, I get a simple text interface to ask questions.
“Questions on what? Missions like this?”
“Yes, and anything else that I wouldn’t use a search engine for. Whether I should take a job or not. Whether I should make a specific investment. That sort of thing. The first question I asked was whether or not I could call the backchannel ‘DiCaprio’, and ‘he’ said that it would be okay.”
“Why DiCaprio?”
Austen stopped her pacing to pick up and put away the note. She brushed back her auburn locks and looked more than a little embarrassed. “I was a huge fan of the film Titanic at the time. Had a crush on Leo as well. Yeah, big time.”
Navarro managed to keep a straight face. “So, who do you think DiCaprio really is?”
“My guess is that he’s someone who works in a Gray Zone. One of those areas where the intelligence services are snooping around places they don’t want the average person to know about. But I can tell you three things about him.”
“What’re those?”
“He always replies within twenty-four hours of my questions. He always answers cryptically. And finally, he’s always been right. Always.”
Navarro perked up at the tone he heard in Austen’s voice. “Always, hm? That sounded a bit…”
“Angry, yes. Not at him. Angry at myself. I ignored his advice only once. And boy, did it bite me in the ass.”
“Now you have me curious. What was that one piece of advice you ignored?”
The sound of an approaching automobile interrupted them. Xenon headlamps cast a glare through the open cabin door. Austen stepped forward, squinting against the light. She watched as the CLS-class Mercedes pulled up at the foot of the aircraft steps. A familiar well-dressed figure carrying his black attaché case got out of the car.
“DiCaprio told me not to put my trust in Ian Blaine,” she said quickly. “And now it looks like I’m going along with him a second time. Which makes me a slow learner, I guess.”
Navarro chuckled. “Then we have something else in common besides reading habits.”
A clatter of shoes on metal steps, and Blaine entered the cabin door. His perfectly coiffed hair had been artfully tousled by the wind outside. He looked around for a moment before deeming the plane satisfactory with a curt nod.
“Looks like we’re just about ready,” he announced brightly. “That’s good. I want us in the air as soon as possible.”
Three crew members arrived, dressed in uniforms spangled with golden stripes to match the jet’s paint job. They came aboard and two immediately went to work in the cockpit. The third waited until Redhawk and October lumbered aboard to close the doors and complete the final pre-flight checks.
Blaine took the most sumptuous passenger seat to stretch out in while looking out one of the windows. Dusk had finally fallen. Frankfurt’s city lights twinkled on the northern horizon.
“Pity that we didn’t get the plane’s wet bar as part of the package,” he lamented, in a playful tone. “But that’s going to be the least of our worries. Onward, into the breach and all that!”
The cabin interior filled with the grumble of the tri-jet’s engines as the aircraft completed its taxi. It roared down the runway at full throttle and took off into the approaching night.
Chapter Eleven
Leigh woke to the background thrum of the Falcon’s engines. She opened her eyes a bit and immediately winced. A bright wedge of light lanced its way through the edge of the window cover, and she moved her head out of its trajectory.
A mutter of muffled speech nearby filtered into her consciousness. Still half-asleep, she nudged one of the earmuffs on her noise-cancelling headset to one side.
“…it’s just that, without that cargo hauler flying in our wake, we could have been here hours earlier.” Blaine was saying.
“Is not ‘hauler’,” October corrected him. “Is Antonov An-74. Not fast, but has good bones. Very strong.”
“Good bones, right. Where did M&B get that thing, anyway?”
She could hear the shrug in October’s voice. “From my cousin. Was very good deal.”
Austen stretched and let out a yawn.
“Ah, you’re up!” Blaine said, switching tables from October’s to hers.
“Had to take some motion-sickness pills, they knocked me out for the night,” Austen said, as she looked around, blinking. “Where’s Navarro?”
“He’s doing some electronics troubleshooting in the back with Redhawk. But since we’re finally drawing close to our destination, I can finally share some top-secret news with you.”
With that, he placed a paper on the table between them. What Austen saw finally woke her up completely. It was a map, but to her eyes, a very odd one. The map’s center resembled a big brown scar or bruise more than anything else.
“We’re heading to a very specific place in Ozrabek,” he explained. “It’s called the Karakul, which is an open-pit mine. It’s been partially closed for a while, so Kazakhstan’s converted part of the mining center into a military outpost. That means we’ll have government troops keeping us safe as well as M&B.”
“What about those ruined villages you showed me? Will they be accessible from this location?”
“They should be, so long as the local commander okays a field trip.”
Austen considered. It was unlikely that any unknown pathogen could emerge from a place so barren and lifeless as a mine. But it could be the epicenter of a newly released industrial toxin.
October got up and lumbered over. He gave a grunt of greeting to her before looking at the map. His next words were casually spoken.
But they caused her to sit straight up at attention.
“Hmph. Black sheep.”
“What did you say?” she asked quickly.
He gestured to the brown smear in the center
of the paper. “Karakul. Is meaning ‘black sheep’. I have cousin who raise them for wool. Make good stockings.”
“The ‘Black Sheep Mine’,” Blaine mused, as October left. “Interesting bit of trivia there.”
It wasn’t trivia to Austen. The next two sentences in DiCaprio’s message made sense now. She went over it inside her head.
The problem’s buried deep. It’s the black sheep of the family.
DiCaprio had already told her the location of the Karakul via GPS coordinates. So why add those sentences? She suppressed a shiver as the answer popped into her head.
If DiCaprio added that information, he’s trying to tell you something else, her mind said. He’s trying to tell you that the problem comes from the mine itself. Either it’s a toxin…or something even worse.
Just the thought of it made her heartbeat start to accelerate. She closed her eyes and envisioned herself doing slow, graceful movements in her tai chi class. It helped.
A chime sounded in the cabin and the pilot’s voice came from the overhead speakers.
“Guten morgen, this is your captain speaking. We are forty minutes from our destination and in a temporary holding pattern. Herr Blaine’s presence is requested.”
Blaine didn’t seem the least bit surprised.
“It looks like I’m needed again,” he said, as he stood up. He paused to grab his attaché case. “Security’s an issue at the mine’s airstrip. I was told that they might need special transit codes.”
Austen waited until he’d left before heading to the back of the plane on her own. October had somehow squeezed his bulk between the stacks of crates and was helping Redhawk inspect one of the bronze-colored drones. Navarro sat at the rearmost seat, hunched over a laptop and tapping away at the keys.
“Good timing,” he said, as she joined him. “I just finished the last of the pre-mission paperwork. Normally I get it done before takeoff, but the WHO’s request caught a lot of people on the back foot.”
“Outbreaks can do that,” she agreed. Austen then filled him in on the revelation about the Karakul and its relation to DiCaprio’s message.
The Devil’s Noose Page 5
