Price of Duty

FOURTEEN

The evening sun sent long shadows slanting across McLanahan Airport’s runway and hangars. It was setting fast, sinking toward the steep, rugged hills and peaks lining the horizon about thirteen miles beyond the Sky Masters field’s fenced-in perimeter.

“Masters Three-Zero, McLanahan Tower,” said the tower controller seated in front of six large high-definition monitors forming a panoramic video arc of the airfield. “Winds two-four zero at twelve gusting to eighteen, runway two-five, cleared for takeoff.”

“McLanahan Tower, Three-Zero cleared for takeoff, runway two-five,” replied the pilot.

“Masters Six-Two, taxi to and hold short of runway two-five via Alpha and Alpha One.”

“Taxi to and hold short of two-five via Alpha and Alpha One, Masters Six-Two,” came the reply from a second aircraft.

Hunter “Boomer” Noble stood in the center of the airport operations room, behind the two controllers on duty. McLanahan Industrial Airport did not have a control tower, but used a network of remotely operated cameras and sensors to give air-traffic controllers a precise and real-time view of not just the airfield but all of the surrounding Class-C airspace for thirty miles in all directions. The controller did not use a normal radar display. Instead, aircraft icons floated across the screens along with their call signs, altitude, airspeed, and route of flight. As the C-130 Hercules started its takeoff roll, Boomer could see its route-of-flight line extend off into the distance, first to the southwest and then to the south.

“Our friendly local G-man is on the way, Boomer,” the shift supervisor told him as he clicked off from speaking with the facility’s security watch commander.

Boomer nodded. He checked his watch. As promised, FBI special agent Raymond Sattler was right on time. It sure was nice to know that you could count on some things in this crazy world, he thought — especially from a government employee.

Ray Sattler and his team of dozens of agents were ever-present fixtures at McLanahan Industrial Airport, Sky Masters Aerospace, and even in the town of Battle Mountain. Plus, Sattler had many more agents stationed at Sky Masters’ facilities all over the country. When the Barbeau administration tried to close down Sky Masters because of its suspected support of Scion in Poland and Ukraine, Jason Richter and Helen Kaddiri hired the best law firms, lobbyists, and political operatives to challenge the government’s sanctions. The government finally made a deal with Sky Masters: allow the Justice, Defense, State, Commerce, and Treasury Departments to closely monitor every aspect of Sky Masters Aerospace’s operations, and the company could stay open. The government gave the job to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And the FBI immediately sicced dozens of investigators, lawyers, and accountants onto the task of scouring every possible aspect of the company’s operations. Sometimes it seemed like each and every Sky Masters office, hangar, workbench, and break room in dozens of locations had an FBI agent assigned to it 24/7. It was as if anytime an airplane, hangar door, or wrench belonging to Sky Masters moved, an FBI agent was there to monitor it.

The electronic lock on the door behind him clicked. Boomer glanced at the man behind a separate console. “Here we go, Ned,” he said.

“Ready to rock-and-roll, boss,” the operator responded. Boomer nodded. It was time to raise the curtain.

“Was that what you wanted me to see, Dr. Noble?” Sattler asked, nodding toward the monitor showing the big four-propeller cargo plane taxiing onto the runway. Sure, Sattler was a nice guy and very thorough, Boomer thought, but he was so damned quiet and too darned fast. Which made him scary as well. Boomer turned around. Everything about the FBI agent, from his perfectly knotted red silk tie and dark blue suit coat to his neatly creased slacks and polished black wing tips, practically shouted “rising Bureau star slated for a headquarters job at the Hoover Building in D.C. any moment now.”

“That old Four Fan Trash Can?” Boomer said, using the common Air Force slang term for the C-130 Hercules cargo plane. He laughed. “No way. She’s just on the daily milk run, carrying some spare parts to one of our production facilities out in California.” He waved the other man forward to the screens at his left side. He pointed down toward the sleek, jet-black, batwinged XCV-62 slowly taxiing out of Hangar Five. “No, that’s the baby I knew you’d be interested in.” He shrugged. “In this case, I figured it made more sense to clue you in up front, instead of writing endless reports explaining why this test hop was no big deal later.”

“Your zealous cooperation with my surveillance team is always greatly appreciated, Dr. Noble,” Sattler said.

“Just doing my bit as a loyal citizen,” Boomer said virtuously. Sattler snorted, accustomed to hearing it but never really sure if Noble believed his own patter. “Okay, I guess that was a little over-the-top,” Boomer allowed.

“Maybe a little,” the FBI man said, smiling now. He nodded at the futuristic-looking aircraft as it swung toward the runway. “So what kind of plane is that? Some kind of new prototype stealth bomber?”

“The XCV-62 Ranger?” Boomer shook his head. “She’s one of our old experimental aircraft, originally designed as a stealthy tactical airlifter. We lost that contract a few years back, and since then the Ranger’s been in storage. So we’re sending her up for a short checkout flight.”

“And just why would you want to do that, Dr. Noble?” Sattler asked, sounding a little suspicious suddenly. “Why send an old aircraft like that up at this point?”

“It’s no big mystery,” Boomer assured him. “My bosses have heard rumors that the next defense appropriations bill may include money for a new stealth-cargo and airlift program. If the rumors pan out, they’d like to get a jump on the competition by being able to show we’ve already got a flyable contender. Hence my orders to make sure that’s the case.” Seeing the embarrassed look on Sattler’s face, Boomer shrugged. “Okay, yeah, I know. You don’t have to spell it out. Sky Masters is totally screwed right now as far as securing new government contracts is concerned. And I’m pretty sure the suits in corporate are fully aware of that, but they wanted it done anyway. My best guess is this is mostly a PR exercise to keep our shareholders happy.”

The FBI agent nodded sympathetically. “The same kind of thing happens in the Bureau whenever Congress starts asking awkward questions about the size of our budget. We get frantic orders from on high to make some high-profile arrests, and pronto.” He looked pained. “Lots of otherwise solid criminal cases go south when that happens.” Sattler pointed toward the batwinged stealth plane as it made its final turn onto the main runway. “So who drew the short straw and gets to fly that crate? Seems like that could be kind of dangerous if it’s been sitting cold in a hangar for so long.”

“You’ve heard the saying that there are old pilots and there are bold pilots?” Boomer said with grin.

“But there are no old, bold pilots,” Sattler said, unable to conceal his pained expression. “Yeah, I’ve heard it before. Like about a thousand times since my team and I set up shop here. So?”

“Well, the old fart who’s going to take the Ranger up this evening is a guy named Tom Rogers,” Boomer said. “And he’s sitting right over there.”

Surprised, the FBI agent swung around. Rogers was seated at a console equipped with a joystick, throttles, and several large MFDs, multifunction displays. The gray-haired Sky Masters pilot wore a headset and was dressed in worn blue jeans, sandals, and a Tommy Bahama tropical shirt with World War II airplanes on it. Hearing his name, he looked up from his controls and sketched a mock left-handed salute.

“The XCV-62 can be configured for remote piloting,” Boomer explained. “That’s a Sky Masters specialty and it’s one of our advantages when it comes to competing against some of the bigger defense contractors.” His cell phone vibrated gently. He checked the message it displayed: DCMP. The text was from the crew of the C-130 that had taken off only minutes before, reporting that they’d completed their drop. He punched in a quick acknowledgment.

“Anything important?” Sattler asked.

Boomer donned an abashed grin. “Depends on how you look at it. I had to cancel a hot date tonight when this test flight came up. It seems the woman I’d asked out is kind of upset about that. As in ‘see you later, jackass’ upset. Probably because this is the third or fourth time lately I’ve had to stand her up for something work-related.”

The FBI agent winced in commiseration. “It goes with the job, I guess.”

“Seems to,” Boomer agreed. Shrugging, he swung round toward Rogers. “How’s she looking, Tom?”

The remote pilot glanced up from his displays. “Pretty good, Boomer,” he said. “No problems so far.”

“Then feel free to take her up anytime you’re ready.”

“Just running through my final checklist now,” Rogers said. “Number two was a little slow coming up on taxi power, but it looks okay now.” He was busy tapping his multifunction displays to set various controls and check different aircraft systems. When he was finished, he radioed, “McLanahan Tower, Masters Six-Two, number one, runway two-five, ready for takeoff.”

“Six-Two, McLanahan Tower, winds two-two-zero at twelve gusting to eighteen, cleared for takeoff runway two-five. Have a good one.”

“Six-Two cleared for takeoff two-five.” The XCV-62 began taxiing onto the runway.

With the FBI agent at his side, Boomer moved closer to the wall-size displays. “Below” them, the stealth aircraft finished lining up for takeoff. The aircraft stopped on the runway centerline. Slowly, with a steadily rising roar, the Ranger’s four jet engines ran up to full military power.

“Compressors look good, temps look good, takeoff mode selected,” Rogers muttered. “Heading, instruments, temps, safety check…” Below them, the XCV-62 roared down the runway, picking up speed fast. “Engines in the green, airspeed alive,” Rogers intoned in a half voice, not on the radio. “Engines to idle, antiskid warning light out, engines to idle, stop straight ahead…”

“Who’s he talking to?” Settler asked. “He doesn’t have a copilot.”

“He’s talking to himself,” Boomer replied. “He’s running through a series of what-if scenarios in his head, already planning on what he will do in case this or that happens, and those readouts cue him in for the next what-if.”

Just a thousand feet or so down the runway, Rogers muttered, “Vr… now. Rotating.” The batwinged aircraft nosed up slightly and a few short seconds later it leaped off the tarmac and into the night desert sky. “Gear down, go down. Land straight ahead.”

Boomer heard the FBI man mutter “whoa” and grinned to himself. He glanced at the other man. “That’s why we call the Ranger a short-takeoff-and-landing plane,” he said, pointing at the black aircraft as it soared skyward after using barely one-seventh of the available runway. “She’s designed to get in and out of small, improvised fields pretty much anywhere in the world.”

Outside, the XCV-62 banked right, turning west toward the nearby range of hills and mountains. “Gear up. Engines look good. Flight controls responding well,” Rogers intoned behind them. His hands danced across the controls, making small adjustments with his joystick and throttles. “All other systems nominal.”

“So what’s your plan for this flight, Dr. Noble?” Sattler asked.

“Nothing complicated. Or long,” Boomer assured him. His gaze was still fixed on the departing aircraft. By now, the Ranger was a small black dot, barely visible against the rapidly darkening sky and steep, brush-strewn ridgelines, highlighted by its computer-generated data block. “If all stays well, we’re going to take her up to fifteen thousand feet or so, put her through a few basic maneuvers, and then come back around for some landings.”

“But why fly this test when it’s getting dark so fast?” the FBI agent asked, more out of curiosity than suspicion. “Won’t that make your landing more difficult — even with instruments and sensors?”

“It’s our standard procedure when flying new-type stealth aircraft,” Boomer told him distractedly, still watching the XCV-62 as it cleared the first ridge by a few hundred feet. “Makes it a bit harder for outsiders, whether they’re amateur aviation enthusiasts, corporate competitors, or Russian or Chinese spies, to get a really good look at stuff we’d rather not show off just yet.”

Thoughtfully, the FBI man nodded to himself.

“Trouble on the number one engine, Boomer,” Rogers said abruptly. Both men swung toward him. “I’ve got a shutdown indicator,” the gray-haired remote pilot reported. His voice was remarkably relaxed. His fingers flew across his displays and controls. “Boosting power on number two and cutting back on three and four. I’m going for an emergency engine restart.”

“Christ,” Boomer muttered. He turned around again, staring out the control-tower window. There, far off in the distance, the XCV-62, now wobbling visibly, disappeared behind another jagged ridge. The numbers on the electronic data block were unwinding at a rapid pace. He glanced back at Rogers. “You’d better abort, Tom,” he said worriedly. “Get some altitude and then bring her straight back to the barn.”

“Roger, Boomer,” Rogers told him. His eyes were narrowed, quickly flicking back and forth between his displays, but his voice was calm and measured. “Number two’s gone now,” he said a few moments later, as matter-of-fact as if he was telling his wife that her toast had just popped out of the toaster. “Fuel pressure dropping. I’ve got failure readings on both the primary and secondary port-wing fuel pumps. My airspeed and altitude are both dropping fast.” There was a moment of strained silence. Boomer and Sattler watched in horror as more and more red indicators started to blink, and then they heard computerized terrain warnings… but only for a few seconds, and then Rogers breathed, “Oh, shit.”

A bright flash erupted from behind a ridge off to the west, lighting up the rapidly dimming sky for a brief moment. Low-light TV sensors automatically zoomed in to the area.

The remote pilot looked up from his console with a sour expression. “LOS, Boomer. Sorry.”

“LOS?” Sattler asked. “What’s that?”

“Loss of signal,” Boomer said tiredly. “Tom, dump the telemetry to the secure server, then get up, take a break, and start making notes about your session. Not your fault, dude.”

“What ‘secure server,’ Doc?” Sattler interjected. “You can’t withhold anything from us, Boomer.”

“Relax, Sattler,” Boomer spat, obviously upset. “I’m not withholding shit from you. The standard procedure is to collect all of our telemetry data and store it. The storage is secure, but it doesn’t mean it’s restricted. I can grant access to anyone.”

“I want access as soon as it’s uploaded, Boomer,” Sattler said. “I want immediate access.”

“I need to make sure I have the data first, Sattler,” Boomer said. “Then I’ll pass it out. But I need to know I have it all first.”

“That’s not how it works, Boomer,” Sattler said. “When you get it, I get it. That’s the deal. You know it; I know it. Do it. What you have, I have, all of it, right now. Clear?”

He nodded toward the pillar of black smoke now curling up from behind the distant ridge on the monitors. “I just crashed a hundred-million-dollar prototype, Sattler,” Boomer said, his voice breaking and his eyes distant. “I just lost a hundred mil. You want to share some of that loss? Be my friggin’ guest.”

FBI special agent Raymond Sattler swallowed hard as the twin-engine Bell 412 helicopter tilted sharply, circling low over the floodlit crash site. Always uneasy in the air, he found this hurried flight high into the craggy, pitch-black foothills west of Battle Mountain nerve-racking. Seeing Hunter Noble’s grim features did nothing to calm his fears. Even knowing the Sky Masters aerospace-engineering chief was probably more worried about losing his job than he was about dying in a helicopter wreck wasn’t much comfort.

A pattern of five small green beacons appeared ahead through the cockpit windscreen.

Sattler heard their pilot though the headphones he’d been given before takeoff. “I have the LZ in sight. Hang tight, guys. This may be a little bumpy.”

Oh, swell, the FBI agent thought.

Slowing fast, the Bell helicopter flared in and landed on a rutted dirt track that ran along the ridge, close to where the Sky Masters stealth aircraft had crashed. It bounced once on its skids and then settled. Up front, in the cockpit, the pilot flicked a few switches. Immediately both engines began whining down.

Following Noble, Sattler climbed out of the helicopter and moved off into the darkness, climbing uphill toward an array of dazzling lights marking the downed aircraft. A chill wind out of the northwest seemed to cut right through the jacket he’d borrowed. Clouds were rolling in, gradually blotting out the stars.

The portable lights rigged up by Sky Masters emergency crews revealed a tangle of blackened, smoldering wreckage strewn across the slope. Men and women in silvery fire proximity suits moved through the debris field, using handheld extinguishers to put out small blazes or taking pictures and making notes.

To the FBI agent’s untrained eye, it looked as though the batwinged stealth plane had slammed nose first into the ground and then exploded. He turned toward Hunter Noble. “Shouldn’t your guys wait to start checking things out until one of the NTSB’s investigative teams gets here?” The National Transportation Safety Board’s “Go Teams” were groups of specialists charged with investigating major aviation accidents. Members on the duty rotation were expected to be reachable twenty-four hours a day, ready to head to any crash site as fast as possible.

Noble shook his head. “The NTSB won’t be investigating this crash.”

Sattler frowned. “Why not?”

“Because its investigators don’t have the necessary security clearances, Agent Sattler,” the other man said, with a sigh. He nodded toward the wreckage. “We built that XCV-62 with advanced stealth materials and dozens of other top-secret components. There’s no possible way DoD could vet the NTSB guys in time.”

The FBI agent nodded slowly, knowing he was right. Obtaining Top Secret security clearances could take between four and eight months. “Okay, then why not call in an accident team from the Defense Department? They must have specialists with the right clearances.”

“I’m sure they do,” Hunter Noble agreed. He shrugged his shoulders gloomily. “But the Ranger wasn’t flying as part of an active military procurement program or competition.”

“Which means what exactly?”

“It means the Pentagon won’t waste a dime figuring out why the XCV-62 augured in,” Noble said. “As far as they’re concerned, we just lost an aircraft they never asked us for anyway. All they’ll care about is that we secured the site and recovered every piece of our stealth materials and technology.”

“What about your corporate insurer?” Sattler asked. “They’ll demand an impartial investigation, won’t they?”

The other man smiled wryly. “Nobody insures experimental prototypes, Agent Sattler. Not at prices anyone wants to pay. Even Lloyd’s of London laughs in our face, and they insure dancer’s knees and opera singer’s vocal cords.” Moodily, he scuffed at the ground with his boots. “Nope. Nobody else is going to want a piece of this action. Not even the Lander County Sheriff’s Office.”

“Why not?” Sattler asked, confused.

“Because the Ranger was unmanned, so nobody was hurt or killed in the wreck. On top of that, this is all Sky Masters — owned land,” Noble explained. He winced. “No, this was a bet we made all on our own. So now we get to try figuring out what went wrong… using our own money. Which is going to make the board of directors really, really unhappy.”