Unmanned

CHAPTER NINETEEN

COLE PULLED INTO the McDonald’s parking lot fifteen minutes before the appointed hour. He took a space in the back and waited, searching in vain for Sharpe’s bony, bald head behind the wheel of each arrival. He’d allowed two hours for the trip down. It was partly to be punctual, partly to escape the turmoil of the little house on Wilson Point Road. An argument from the night before about the move to the Eastern Shore had spilled over into breakfast.

Steve was against it. “It’s the middle of fucking nowhere.”

Barb was for it. “Nowhere? It’s practically next door to IntelPro.”

“Great, so we can spook them into clamming up.”

“You said your source would arrange face-to-face access to the ex-Agency guys. He even offered us a tour. That doesn’t sound spooked to me. And you’ve seen the numbers. The rent, the utilities, everything’s paid for over there. It’s a helluva lot cheaper for us. So what’s a little extra driving if we can buy another four months, maybe more?”

Steve sighed, shook his head. “It’s too vulnerable.”

“Vulnerable to what?”

That’s when he told them about the Source’s warning, and how IntelPro had already known about their visit with Bickell in New Hampshire. Cole was shocked. Barb was unmoved.

“Is that really so surprising? All these guys talk to each other. Maybe it’s a good thing. If they’re all leaking to each other about us, maybe they’ll start leaking to us about each other.”

“It’s vulnerable. It’s fucking wide-open spaces over there. How many acres did you say, Keira?”

“Two hundred.”

“And backed up against the water. Nowhere to run but up a single dirt driveway.”

“You think we’re any safer here?” Barb said. “They could come up the creek, or straight down the road. Nobody would know a thing. If they want us that bad, location won’t mean a damn thing.”

“But why make it easier for them?”

“Don’t you know a bluff when you see one? He’s scaring us to keep us on the straight and narrow. As if he’d lift a finger to protect us. Besides, Keira’s got sources out there, too.”

“Since when?”

“Since always. She told me the other day.”

“Barb’s right,” Keira said. “Not that she was supposed to spread it around. But, yeah, a government type who lives down there.”

“Doesn’t your agent also have a place down there, Keira? Sure would make a book deal easier to come by if you ever kick us out.”

Barb turned toward Keira. “Your agent lives out there? You never mentioned that.”

“What’s to mention?” Keira said. “It’s her vacation house, way over in Dorchester County. If it makes you feel better, Steve, there’s a gate to the driveway. We’ll lock it at night. Anyone who wants us will have to come a mile on foot, and anybody that determined is going to get us no matter where we sleep. Okay?”

“Says the woman who already got one man killed,” Steve said.

Keira reacted as if he had slapped her, and Steve already looked as if he wished he could take it back. Cole wondered what the details behind the remark must be. Barb looked away and shook her head.

“Why are you shaking your head?” Steve said. “You’re the one who put the idea in my head.”

“Fuck off, Steve.”

He was blushing even before the rebuke, the peacemaker caught red-handed being warlike.

“Sorry. Heat of battle. A stupid thing to say.”

Keira said nothing, her lips drawn tight. That ended the wrangling, at least until morning, when they rehashed the same arguments in gentler and more civil terms. When it came time to vote, Barb sided with Keira. Cole didn’t raise his hand for either option, and no one seemed to expect him to. Steve accepted defeat with a measure of grace, as if already preparing to make the best of it.

Keira departed just before Cole, having packed her bags the night before. She was on her way to the Eastern Shore to open up the house, air out the rooms, clean the linens, turn on the heat, and otherwise prepare for their arrival. She left behind directions and a spare key. The cat leaped into Keira’s car just before the door closed, and Barb glared as if Cheryl had committed the ultimate betrayal. The plan was for the rest of them to head across the Bay Bridge that evening.

Steve then handed Cole the keys to his Honda and, when Barb wasn’t looking, a pair of twenties.

“Gas it up if you need to, and get yourself something to eat. You’re still looking a little worn around the edges.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, and that Van Morrison CD you like. It’s still in the player. Good luck, and keep us posted.”

On the way to Northern Virginia, Cole bought a disposable cell phone, paying with some of his own cash. He’d already texted his number to the others in case of emergency.

It was now five minutes before the scheduled time for the rendezvous. Cars continued to come and go from the McDonald’s, but none was carrying anyone who looked like Nelson Hayley Sharpe. Cole waited, listening to Steve’s CD for the second time through. A song came and went and he again checked his watch. It was a minute before eight. He started the Honda and eased into the line for the drive-through window, feeling a bit ridiculous about the whole arrangement. Cole wasn’t sure which prospect worried him more: being stood up, or actually having Sharpe arrive.

During his appearance at Creech, Sharpe had come across as a strong but manageable personality, although Barb’s online research had turned up further info that, if anything, had made the man seem potentially unstable.

Sharpe had risen rapidly through the ranks of civilian designers while working with some of the pioneers of his trade, such as a personal hero of Cole’s, John Boyd, the peerless fighter pilot who helped design the F-16, and his civilian sidekick, Pierre Sprey, another brilliant maverick who helped revolutionize the way combat aircraft were designed and tested. Along with Sprey and others, Sharpe also made noise as part of the Pentagon reform movement in the 1970s and ’80s, attacking the defense department for the needless complexity of its weapons systems and its bloated costs, such as the outrage of the “$300 hammer.”

None of this endeared him to the brass, and they probably would have gotten rid of him far sooner if his design work, particularly with the Predator program, hadn’t made him indispensable. But in recent years critics, as well as a few friends, had expressed worries that he was becoming too headstrong, too outspoken. There were even mutterings that, for all his brilliance, he’d become vulnerable to conspiracy theories and had strayed too far toward the fringe. Others said that kind of talk was nonsense, the smear tactic of generals and contractors who were fed up with his griping.

At exactly eight a.m. Cole rolled up to the speaker by the red and yellow menu board. He half expected Sharpe to step out from behind it like a magician, or to announce his presence over the squawk box.

Instead, the voice of a teenage girl crackled, “Welcome to McDonald’s, may I take your order?”

“Sausage biscuit and a small coffee, black.”

“You want juice or hash browns with that?”

“No.”

“Your total is two ninety. Please drive forward.”

He rolled around the bend toward the pay window, glancing to either side and at both mirrors. Nothing. The only people getting out of their cars were members of an overweight family of four, spilling from a massive SUV with Ohio tags. Cole pulled up the hand brake and reached awkwardly for his wallet as the window slid open. He paid the girl, who handed over a warm bag and counted out his change. The moment he rolled up the window, the Honda’s passenger door swung open, startling Cole so much that he dropped the coins. A big man with a shaved head slid onto the seat.

“Drive,” Sharpe said, nodding and looking straight ahead.

Cole glanced back at the pay window, but the girl was already speaking into the mike, oblivious.

“Did you—?”

“Don’t talk. Drive. Take a right out of the lot and do as I tell you.”

Cole put the car in gear. The bag sat in his lap and the loose change rolled onto the floor. He turned right as directed, while wondering if Sharpe had come by car, by bus, or on foot. Was he accompanied? Cole checked the mirrors and nearly ran a red light.

“Are you armed?” he asked.

“This isn’t a kidnapping, for God’s sake. But how ’bout we go a while longer before we talk.”

“Sure.”

The light turned green. Glancing to his right, he saw that Sharpe’s hands were folded in his lap. No weapon, unless it was in his pocket. Cole relaxed a bit and eased into the flow of traffic.

“Up ahead, the turnoff to the right. Take it.”

It was a two-lane road, practically empty, and it ran through farm fields with widely scattered houses. They were at the outer reaches of D.C. suburbia, and this road headed straight into open country. Cole wasn’t sure he liked that. Checking the mirrors again he saw that no one was behind them, which began to feel like a mixed blessing.

Sharpe glanced backward, also checking the road.

“Good,” he said, seeming pleased. Then he lapsed into silence.

They crested a hill, corn stubble in a red clay field to their left. To the right, a weathered empty barn, no doors.

“There’s a turnout up ahead on the right, another two hundred yards. Pull over.”

Cole bumped off the pavement, braking to a stop on gravel. He put the Honda into neutral and pulled up the handbrake, then put his hand on the keys before glancing at Sharpe, who nodded. He shut off the engine. Not a sound, then, except the wind against the windows, whistling at the seams.

“Let’s take a walk up the lane here.”

A narrow gravel road led away from the road at a ninety-degree angle. There was a row of old mailboxes tilted at various angles.

“Okay.”

Cole pocketed the keys and got out. They slammed their doors shut—the only noise for miles, or so it seemed. The icy wind stung his cheeks where he’d shaved that morning. Sharpe gestured up the lane.

“Shall we?”

“Sure.”

They walked, crunching gravel. Sharpe wore rubber-soled black leather shoes, that ugly brand with sunken heels and a fat instep that was supposed to be good for your leg muscles. He needed a shave. His coat, unbuttoned, was a knee-length duster of waxed canvas with a leather collar, as if he was dressed to herd cattle. The bumps on his skull were pronounced in the low-angle sunlight. His mouth was creased into a scowl, but his deep-socketed eyes were in shadow, making it impossible to read his mood with any certainty. He might have been angry, he might have been deep in thought.

Cole, figuring that Sharpe would get down to business when he was good and ready, said nothing. After they’d covered maybe twenty yards, Sharpe stopped and pivoted so they were face-to-face, only a few feet apart. Anyone driving past might have guessed they were either old friends or old adversaries, but they definitely looked like two men with a history.

“Apologies for the dramatics,” Sharpe said gruffly. “The car could be miked, for all I know.”

He reached into a big pocket of his overcoat and drew out one of those metal detector wands like the ones at airport security checkpoints.

“This will only take a second. Arms up.”

Cole, figuring what the hell, obliged him as the wand whooped and wailed, making zipper sounds as it passed up and down his arms, legs, and crotch.

“Turn around.”

Cole did.

“Excellent.”

He dropped the wand back into the pocket.

“You do this to everyone you meet?”

“Can’t be too careful. Not in my shoes.”

“Or in mine.”

“Duly acknowledged.”

He paused, as if to allow Cole a chance for further comment. Then he proceeded.

“So, what does a court-martialed fighter jock want with a pariah like me? More to the point, what reason could I possibly have for wanting to talk to you, other than to suit my own spiteful urge to bite the hand that feeds me? I suppose that’s the only reason I showed up. Your email was perfectly timed, catching me as it did at a moment of absolute pique.”

“Pique?” He’d get along great with Barb.

“Vexation. Animosity. The Pentagon has decided that my days as a productive citizen are over, so they’ve gone about industriously obstructing my ability to make a living. What is it you’re up to, exactly?”

“I’m collaborating with some journalists. Three of them. We’re all in the same house, literally, working a story on Wade Castle.”

“Collaborating with journalists. Now there’s a certain path to mutually assured destruction.”

“It’s pretty much the only path I had.”

“And you’ve concluded that somehow I can be of assistance?”

“Castle was the Agency’s top drone guy. You must have worked with him at some point.”

“Oh, he was much more than ‘a drone guy.’ He was their guru at large for all things technical.”

“See, that’s the kind of information we need.”

“ ‘We.’ That’s your first mistake. Thinking you’re one of them.”

“You sure seemed to like the press back in the days of the three-hundred-dollar hammer.”

“I liked using them, that’s true. It’s half their problem. They’re too easily managed and manipulated. Who do you think led us into Iraq? They rise up in dissent when it humors them, but mostly they’re just another tool of the system.”

“These guys seem different.”

“Stockholm syndrome. You’ve been around them awhile and you’ve already bought into their myth—a crusade for the truth with a capital T.”

Cole had to smile, since he’d already been thinking the same thing.

Sharpe eyed him closely.

“You were in on that fuckup at Sandar Khosh, weren’t you? That’s your beef with Wade.”

“If you know that, you probably know other stuff that could help.”

Sharpe looked down at his feet. His right toe scraped a furrow in the dirt, then crossed it, an X to mark the spot.

“Let me tell you what I’d like out of this arrangement. Assuming there is one.”

“Okay.”

Sharpe resumed walking, heading further down the lane, so Cole kept pace. Out on the paved road, a car rushed by. Cole glanced back, but Sharpe seemed lost in thought.

“I will become a party to this only if I can hit those bastards where it hurts. Only if I can create a little anarchy in their ranks. Inside that whole public-private nexus—or axis, that’s a far better word for it. What Ike used to call the military-industrial complex.”

“We’re kind of focusing on just Castle for now. Him and his fieldwork.”

“But he’s their creation, don’t you see? Wade wasn’t just the Agency point man on drones, or technology. He was at the center of the frame—still is, as far as I know—for all the sharing and distribution of data, of specs, of, hell, you name it. He was involved with my work, the Air Force’s work, everybody’s damn work, from R and D to application. And no doubt he saw what I saw—that everybody’s stuff, from the absolute shit to the absolute gold, was running in one great big pipeline to all the customers. Or at least to every customer with enough juice to tap in.”

“Contractors?”

“In Afghanistan, Iraq. Those aren’t just theaters of war for these people. They’re glorified test labs, proving grounds, marketplaces for the barter of influence and, most important of all, for state-of-the-art technology. Those women and children at Sandar Khosh were guinea pigs in somebody’s ill-advised experiment, and Castle was at Ground Zero for all of it.”

“What kind of experiment?”

“Ask Wade. If you can find him.”

“He’s on the lam. Somewhere not far from here, we’re told.”

Sharpe looked up abruptly. It was clear the revelation had caught him off guard. He wrinkled his brow, then again looked down at his feet.

“Is he back at Langley?”

“Apparently not. He’s at large. Operating on his own. Possibly no longer officially.”

Sharpe thought about this for several seconds. “That’s hard to process. Hard to say what it means.”

“Join the club.”

“Maybe I will. If only so I can shout it from the rooftops once you find the answer.”

“So you’ll help us?”

“I’ll help you. If you choose to share with the infidels, so be it. You say you’re living with these people now?” Sharpe made it sound as if Cole had moved into a colony of religious cultists.

“In Middle River, outside Baltimore, but we’re about to move to the Maryland Eastern Shore. One of them has a summer home, some family estate.”

Sharpe’s eyes lit up.

“How many acres?”

“Two hundred.”

He smiled, mulling it over. “Give me a day to do some thinking, some planning. I’ll be back in touch. When are you moving?”

“Later today. Soon as I get back.”

Sharpe smiled again. “Even better.”

He said nothing more as they walked back to where the car was parked. Cole popped the locks but Sharpe made no move to get in.

“Ready to roll?”

Sharpe shook his head. “Go ahead. I’ve made arrangements.”

“Way out here?”

Sharpe waved dismissively, as if the details were of no importance.

Cole had half a mind to stick around long enough to find out if Sharpe was just blowing smoke. But he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d see much humor in that, so Cole climbed into the car and started the engine. He was about to pull out when Sharpe knocked on the window. Cole rolled it down.

“How ’bout we take a little field trip tomorrow, just you and me on the far side of the Bay?”

“Doing what?”

“There’s something I want to show you. It’s not for the others to see. Not yet, anyway. Where’s this farm where you’re staying?”

“Talbot County. Near Oxford.”

He nodded, seemingly pleased. “The place I’ve got in mind is about forty clicks away. We’ll meet halfway, just past Easton on Route 50. Let’s say morning, nine thirty. We’ll make a day of it. Box lunch and a blanket, if you want. Sit down and watch some geeks take this shit to the next level. And with the government’s blessing, my friend. Its complete and benevolent blessing. Then you’ll see how this battle has to be fought. Not with notebooks and quotation marks, the way the scribblers do it.”

“Okay. But what’s—?”

“Great. I’ll email you the rendezvous point. Nine thirty it is.”

He slapped the roof of the Honda and began walking away. Cole wondered what sort of weirdness he’d just committed to, but Sharpe had already reached the shoulder and was headed in the opposite direction from the way they’d come.

Cole eased the car onto the pavement. Checking the mirror, he saw Sharpe raise a hand in farewell without turning around. As he accelerated, Sharpe grew smaller in the mirror. He looked like a hitchhiker on a lonely road, a drifter with no destination.

He looked like trouble.