Unmanned

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

ANY CHANCES FOR an awkward scene at the breakfast table evaporated with the sudden arrival of Nelson Hayley Sharpe, who awakened the entire household at first light by knocking loudly at the door.

Cole, hearing the commotion from the pool house, threw on some clothes just in time to witness the initial exchange of pleasantries.

“Who the fuck are you?” a bleary-eyed Steve asked from the open doorway.

“Nelson Hayley Sharpe, and I’m here to save your bacon.”

Steve seemed on the verge of either laughing or hitting him, then opted to simply shake his head and step back, gesturing like a doorman for Sharpe to enter. Cole got there before the door closed behind him, and Steve gave him a wry look.

“Get a handle on this guy before I wring his neck, how ’bout it. And maybe make some coffee while you’re at it.” Then a slight pause, followed by: “Lover boy.” He didn’t say it whimsically.

Barb was already up. Keira was presumably still in bed. Cole could hardly believe that she’d been in his own bed the night before. Now he wished he’d showered. His scent alone was probably damning. He slunk off toward the kitchen to brew a pot, deciding he’d better just follow orders for a while. Wait for the storm to pass. Same way they handled these things in the Air Force. He heard Sharpe’s voice over the gurgle of the water as it filled the pot.

“If you’ll lend me a hand, I’ll start unloading my gear.”

“Gear?” Steve said. “Who says you’re staying?”

“You’ll be saying it once you’ve seen what I’ve got to offer.”

“Does Cole know you were planning this?”

“I asked him to let me reveal it. He’ll assist me. We need a third pair of hands for the setup, but first I’ll need a look at the lay of the land.”

Cole heard the door slam just as the pot finished brewing. He carried full mugs out to the living room to Steve and Barb, who were still marveling at Sharpe’s little floor show.

“What the hell’s he up to?” Steve asked.

“Did you just invite him down here without asking?” Barb asked. “Tell him he could do whatever he wants?”

“You should’ve at least cleared it with Keira,” Steve said. “Or maybe you did. Not that she’d say no to you.”

“And why would I want to?”

Keira, coming down the stairs. Same sweet tone as ever, but a set expression on her face. She was showered and fresh, which made Cole feel even staler and crustier.

“I need coffee,” Cole said. “Then I’ll go see what he’s up to.”

He retreated to the kitchen. He considered pouring a mug for Keira, then decided he didn’t want everyone watching him hand it to her. Their voices were rising in anger as he returned. Fine. Let them tear each other to shreds. It was Keira’s house. If she wanted Sharpe gone, then Cole would ask him to leave, but only then. At this hour of the day he had no stomach for the sniping, the jealousy, so he headed straight outdoors, away from Sharpe and toward the water.

Steve surprised him by joining him a minute or so later. They gazed out at the Bay for a few seconds. The sun was just coming up. They walked around to the sheltered side of the house without speaking a word, and spotted Sharpe a few hundred yards up the driveway. He was down on one knee at the edge of the cornfield. He stood and looked up at the sky, moving his hands as if plotting vectors and angles, an engineer with some grand calculation playing out in his head.

“He’s a piece of work,” Steve said.

“He’s that.”

“Any idea what he’s up to?”

“I’ll let him explain. He’s right, though. You’ll like it.”

A pause. A swallow of coffee. Then, without turning to face him, Steve said, “About Keira and you. I’m not going to judge. Hell, I’d have probably done the same thing, given the opportunity. But I won’t let you fuck up this arrangement. We’ve been working together for months, a nice balance among the three of us. If you start wrecking things then you’re gone.”

“It’s her house. Maybe she can decide what works and what doesn’t.”

Steve exhaled through his nostrils, blowing steam into the cold like a cartoon bull.

“Fine. Explain that to Barb while you’re at it. She’s already worried enough about Keira’s loyalty and motivations.” Steve turned toward Sharpe. “I’m gonna go see what this wild-ass is up to. Look at him. Like he owns the place.”

Cole held his tongue. Most of the man’s anger was probably envy, a guy thing. Barb, on the other hand—well, maybe she was just in the habit of begrudging other people’s happiness. Cole sipped his coffee, letting the caffeine kick him up a notch as he braced against the morning chill. The air smelled good. So did the pines, swaying in the fresh breeze off the water.

It looked like Steve was asking questions. Sharpe seemed to be responding with reasonable civility. Based on their body language—upright, face-to-face, maybe five yards apart, arms akimbo—they were feeling each other out. Cole walked out to see what was up, arriving within earshot just as things began to heat up.

“You’re going to build a fucking drone? Here?”

“For the use and benefit of your reporting. And it’s already built. Fully engineered. Some assembly is required, that’s all. Like your dad on Christmas morning, batteries not included. A few hours of careful labor, most of it mine, and it will be operational.”

“And if we don’t particularly want a drone, or have any need for one?”

“That’s a discussion that should wait until you’ve seen its capabilities. Captain Cole will help me demonstrate. If a greater ability to gather information isn’t to your liking, then I’ll pack up and go. But until then…” He shrugged and tilted his head, a magician waiting for his audience to give the go-ahead for the next bag of tricks.

“Is this how you always operate? Just show up with your stuff and expect everybody to go along with it?”

“I’m not orthodox, Mr. Merritt.”

“Steve.”

“Steve, then. I can be a little gonzo. And I don’t like arguing if that means losing ground to an inferior position. I’m a stubborn man for good reason, namely, that I never fight for a point of view until I’m assured that I’m right. So if I say I’m going to do things a certain way, then you may register your dissent, but it won’t have the least bearing on my behavior. Understood?”

“Your way or the highway, in other words.”

“Those are the very words.”

“I see why they fired you.”

“No. You see why I quit. Too many years of bucking the idiocy of people on the take, of generals preoccupied with inflating their budgets, of so-called engineers too worried about how many bells and whistles they could cram into every single project until it was too fucked up to succeed for anyone except the contractors who built the bells and whistles. You’re no general, so if you fuck around with me then I’ll just go my own way. But I do know how to function as part of a team. We never could have accomplished what we did any other way. I was just fortunate enough to be surrounded, at least for a while, by the most competent people in the field.”

Steve smiled, seemingly impressed, if only by Sharpe’s chutzpah. He waved toward the stubbly cornfield.

“Have at it, then.” He passed Cole on his way back to the house, “Quite a colony of eccentrics we’re building here.”

He had that right. Cole kept walking, out to where Sharpe had dropped back down to his hands and knees. Sharpe dug a hand into the frosty soil at the edge of the driveway and crumbled the earth in his fingers. He nodded approvingly.

“With a little raking it should be fine.”

“As a runway?”

“Yes.” Sharpe stood and wiped the dirt from his hands. “Who knows you’re out here, besides the three of them?”

“Some of their colleagues and friends, maybe. Keira’s parents. But they’re in Europe or something.”

“Then I hope your pals won’t mind if I crash here while I get everything up and running.”

“They might. But the final say will be up to Keira.”

He looked closely at Cole, studying his face.

“Fucking her?”

Cole flushed and looked down at his feet. It was all the answer Sharpe needed.

“So that explains the weird dynamic. The tension. Except in your case. You look rejuvenated. A couch will do for me, as long as it’s not someplace where I’ll have to hear your bedsprings creaking all night.”

“Finished?”

“Oh, I’m just getting started.” Sharpe grinned wolfishly. “Relax. The setup is perfect for our needs. And the beauty of it is that no one knows I’m here. I haven’t enjoyed an advantage like this in quite a while. Okay, then.” He slapped his hands on his thighs. “Let’s start putting this thing together.”

Sharpe had arrived in a white panel van with Pennsylvania tags. Painted on the side was a big blue monkey wrench with the name “Anderson Plumbing,” along with a phone number with a 215 area code.

“So now you’re a plumber from Philly?”

“A contribution from a concerned friend. There are more of us than you’d think.”

He opened up the back and began unloading crates and boxes, which presumably contained the pieces of the contraption he was about to assemble. He also got out two toolboxes. One last box, a Styrofoam cube with sides roughly four feet long, remained in the back of the van. Sharpe left it there and locked the rear door.

“What’s in the white box?” Cole asked.

Sharpe grinned.

“The fear of God. Use only if necessary.”

Cole wasn’t sure he wanted to know anything more. Besides, as Sharpe began prying open the various boxes and crates it soon became clear that there was plenty of work to be done.

However uneasy the journalists were about this venture, the noise and spectacle of Sharpe’s project soon got the better of their curiosity. Within an hour all three reporters were pitching in. Steve and Cole uncrated the wings and fuselage. Sharpe wouldn’t let them near the smaller parts, like the chip packages, or the cameras.

Barb and Keira handed him tools as he worked, standing to either side like nurses flanking a surgeon.

“Socket wrench, six millimeter.”

“Epoxy.”

“Allen wrench, that L-shaped thing over there.”

It was nearly four o’clock by the time the drone finally looked like an honest-to-goodness aircraft. Keira glanced at her watch and gasped.

“I’m late,” she said. “Sorry, but I have to leave for an appointment.”

Barb and Steve exchanged knowing glances.

“Your super-secret government source who lives out here?” Barb asked.

“Yes, if you really have to know.”

“You’ll miss the test flight,” Sharpe said, his first attempt at actual conversation for more than an hour.

“It’s ready?” Steve asked. He looked excited. Christmas morning indeed, now that the toy was assembled.

“As soon as I tighten the landing gear, make another adjustment or two. We should have enough light left for a shakedown cruise. But let’s let Keira clear the area first. We don’t want to risk flying through her windshield as she heads up the drive.”

Sharpe continued to work while the others watched Keira depart. The dust from her Nissan trailed off into the woods as the sound of her engine faded into the distance. A few minutes later, Sharpe was done. He tested the wind, then Cole and he positioned the plane for takeoff. Cole stepped back, and Sharpe started the engine by punching commands onto his iPad. Cole put on the headset. The image was even clearer than on Bert’s, and with a better configuration of controls and commands. There was also a stick-and-rudder contraption for him to use, a pretty admirable setup. The headset and goggles were even comfortable, as if they’d been built just for him.

“I was guessing at your head size when I fitted them up last night,” Sharpe said, a hint of pride in his voice.

“They’re perfect.”

The old excitement again, creeping into his veins like before a Viper mission, and even sometimes during Predator flights, if the assignment was interesting enough. He had the cockpit view now, peering down the barrel of the driveway, which Sharpe had already raked and swept. The wind was right, and Sharpe was ready.

“Okay,” he said to Sharpe. “Take her up.”

A whirring noise as the engine amped up, surprisingly quiet for all its oomph. No louder than, say, a weed whacker with an electric motor. Sharpe had built quite a machine, fast and stealthy, and with an intrusive set of eyes. Cole watched from his virtual cockpit as Sharpe handled the takeoff by autopilot, and he got that familiar flutter in his stomach as it lifted off, gained altitude, and then turned gracefully up and across the cornfield. The tree line loomed a few hundred yards away, but they would clear it with ease.

“Okay,” Sharpe said. “Switching her to your control on three. Take her wherever you feel like. Maybe up to seven, eight hundred feet before you try anything fancy.”

“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Barb said. “Sort of a test mission.”

“Let’s hear it,” Cole said, “I’m open to anything.” And he meant it. This felt good, even this faux brand of flying with two feet on the ground and people’s voices in his ear.

“Find Keira. Get a bead on her car.”

Steve laughed nervously.

“Well, it would give you some practice in tracking a moving object,” he said, warming to the idea.

Then Barb.

“Absolutely. And if Captain Cole’s half the pilot I think he is, he’ll track her down in seconds flat.”

“So there you go,” Steve said, like they were a tag team now.

“Then we’ll find out who she’s really meeting with.”

Cole’s heart sank. Exactly the kind of mission he didn’t want. Not something for the cause, just a random act of intrusion. Give them the power, and right away they abused it. Or maybe he was reacting on Keira’s behalf. Would he have felt the same way yesterday, before last night? Had Keira counted that into the equation, perhaps, seeking his loyalty? Now he was the one being calculating. Leave the pettiness and scheming to them. But of course Barb and Steve would now be expecting him to resist, and that made him want to just go ahead and do it, let them see that it was no big deal. He would prove Keira innocent of their brand of duplicity. Clear the air and actually make things better.

“Okay,” he said, “if that’s what you want. This bird’s certainly got the speed for it, so we’ll do it. We’ll go spy on your friend and colleague.” He was wearing the goggles, watching the treetops zip past below him, so he couldn’t see their expressions. But they didn’t answer, so maybe at least he’d shamed them a little.

Cole easily found her car, heading north on the road toward Easton.

“Are you too low?” Barb asked. “Won’t she see you?”

“Wouldn’t that make it more fun for you?”

“C’mon, Cole,” Steve said. “If you’re going to do this, do it right.”

“If we’re going to do this, you mean. Relax, I’m at eight hundred feet. As quiet as this thing is she’d have to be looking for it, and we’re directly overhead now. It’s a six-foot wingspan, painted white against an overcast sky, a nonreflective finish so it won’t even shine too much if the sun comes out.”

Cole slowed down, keeping pace. Keira was doing about fifty-five. It was flat country, wide open, and there was barely a breath of wind, which made the flying ridiculously easy. This thing handled like a dream. Cole heard footsteps shuffling toward him on the driveway. Sharpe, probably.

“Kick out the stops, man!” Sharpe said. “See what she’ll do!”

“Later. Aren’t you watching my monitor? They’ve got me following Keira.”

“Oh, for Chrissakes!”

“All hope’s not lost. Show them what your other eye can do. The main spycam. I’ll take her up a little and start circling the target as it moves. I’m a little worried about airspace, though. We’re closing in on the Easton Airport. Just a bunch of little private aircraft, but still.”

“I’ve checked the charts,” Sharpe said, still sounding grumpy. “We’re fine.”

“The noise suppression’s pretty impressive. How much did that set you back?”

“Let me worry about the budget.”

It made him wonder how Sharpe had managed to bankroll all this. Maybe Castle wasn’t the only one working for someone other than who he was supposed to be. He wished he could take off these goggles and look him in the eye. Or maybe mistrust was contagious, and he’d picked up the bug from Steve and Barb. The whole idea made him weary, a little depressed. You got the power, you abused it. Human nature. And he certainly wasn’t immune.

Keira had turned onto the Easton bypass and moved through a few stoplights as she negotiated a stretch of road through a series of stripmall developments—fast food joints and big box stores. Cole did a barrel roll and even a loop, half to try it out and half to test their patience, but no one complained, which made him figure Sharpe was doing an okay job of keeping the second camera trained on their quarry.

“I’m putting her into a circling pattern at eight hundred feet and switching back to auto,” Cole announced.

“Fine,” Sharpe said. He sounded preoccupied. “That’ll be another nice test, see how well she holds her patterns. I’m locked in on, uh, the subject.”

He sure was. When Cole took off the headset he saw Keira’s car in startling clarity as it pulled in to a small parking lot outside a red clapboard café, on the bypass near Route 50. Steve and Barb were practically draped over his back, enraptured by the view on his iPad. Sharpe glanced back at him, eyes dark with suppressed fury.

“There, she’s getting out,” Steve said.

“Look,” Barb said. “Someone’s getting out of that other car. The BMW. They’re waving. A woman.”

“Must have been waiting on her.”

Keira met the woman in front of the café entrance, where they hugged briefly before heading inside.

“Seems to know her well. Can you zoom on the tags of the BMW?” Barb asked. “Do we still have enough light? Do you think we can get a number?”

“Easily,” Sharpe said, downcast.

And there it was, clear as life despite the low angle of the setting sun, Barb with her notebook out, writing it down. She fairly sprinted into the house for her laptop and was back in a flash, already with the right webpage up, searching the numbers.

“I knew it,” she said. “Knew it. It’s Felicity Barrow, her agent. That’s her ‘government source.’ Her fucking agent.”

“How long have we been airborne?” Cole asked, wanting to talk about anything but what they were watching.

“Almost twenty minutes,” Sharpe said.

“How’s the fuel holding up?”

“Plenty left. Not an issue.” A monotone. Going through the motions but nothing more.

Cole looked at Steve, who seemed a little torn. A glint of triumph, perhaps, having proved his worst suspicions, but there was gloom, too.

The women emerged from the café after only twenty minutes. No more than coffee and a snack, perhaps. And if they’d talked business, then the chat must have been decisive, straight to the point. There was a brief exchange of papers in the parking lot, Keira taking a small pile of them from Felicity and then getting into her car.

“Omigod!” Barb exclaimed. “Ten to one it’s a contract.”

“A book deal?” Steve said.

“A book, a film, maybe both. Looked like enough for anything and everything. Oh. My. God.” She sounded giddy. Cole couldn’t bear to look at her, so he kept watching the screen.

For a moment Keira seemed to glance upward, and Cole flinched, wondering if she’d spotted their drone, their eye, gazing back at her. But she was just tossing hair out of her eyes. She hadn’t seen a thing. She climbed back into her car. Her agent’s BMW was already pulling out of the lot.

“I better take over if we want to have her landed by the time she gets back,” Cole said. He slipped the goggles back on.

“Okay,” Sharpe said. “Back under your power now. Are we done with surveillance for the moment?”

“Yes,” Cole said, answering for Barb and Steve, who were now muttering to each other, walking back toward the house. Hatching a plot, no doubt. Dreaming up the best and most dramatic way to confront her when she returned. And why not? he supposed. It certainly looked bad, even to him. And it threw everything into a new light, including all of last night.

Cole landed the plane with ease. Sharpe thanked him and went immediately to his plane to inspect it for damage. Cole joined him as he was crouched on one knee. It was a relief to be away from the others, although he was already dreading the moment when Keira would come wheeling around the curve from the trees.

“Now you see exactly what I was talking about. The hazards of getting involved with journalists,” Sharpe said, still looking at his plane and not at Cole.

“This isn’t about journalism. This is about them. And about this thing you brought us.”

Sharpe shook his head.

“Goddamn idiots. They’ll carve each other to pieces before they ever get the story.”

“Your bird look okay?”

“She looks fine. You did well. I did well. But what exactly have we accomplished here, other than fuck things up in this group of yours?”

“Like you said. The genie’s out of the bottle.”

“They don’t know the half of it,” Sharpe said, scowling toward Barb and Steve. “But they’ll learn soon enough. I can at least see to that.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Whatever I want it to.”

He walked away, still in a sulk, then checked the rear door on his trailer, making sure it was locked. He turned and grinned at Cole as if daring him to figure it all out. More dramatics, the last thing he wanted now, so he walked away without a further word. He went into the house for water, maybe a snack. He expected to find Barb and Steve in a celebratory mood, perhaps cocktails, the clinking of glasses. Instead they were drinking coffee, seated at the kitchen table with somber expressions.

“Unbelievable,” Barb said. “You were absolutely right.”

“I’m not so sure.” For the first time Steve sounded uncertain.

“What do you mean, not sure? She said it was her source, and look who it was. It has to be some kind of side deal.”

“We don’t know what those papers were.”

“A contract, like you said. A deal that cuts us out.”

“We don’t know that. There might be a perfectly good explanation.”

“C’mon, Steve.”

“You c’mon. We’ve all worked on stories where we thought we had the goods, everyone dead to rights, then it turned out we had it wrong, or had misinterpreted something. And Keira’s a good person at heart. The more I think about it, the less I think she’d do something like this.”

Barb stared in disbelief.

“We just saw her do it.”

“I don’t like what I saw, either. I’m just not convinced she’d do it that way.”

“Well, she’s done it. And this is professional. It has nothing to do with her personal side.”

“It has everything to do with it. And with what we just did, too, spying on her. Maybe you can separate the two, but I don’t think she does, and I know I don’t.”

Barb held her hands out in abeyance.

“Easy. I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Then how did you mean it?”

She sighed.

“Okay. We’ll wait to hear her side. It’s not like we can kick her off the property. But if she’s making an outside deal, she has to cut us in on it. And if she won’t, then that’s the last she gets from us.”

“I’m on board with that. But then what? What if she says no?”

“We go back to my house and double down on our own sources, starting Monday. We go our way and she goes hers.”

“What about me?” Cole said. “And Sharpe, with his drone?”

Barb turned around. It was obvious by her reaction that she hadn’t heard him enter. Her expression looked more sad than disapproving.

“We’d be happy for any help you can still give us,” Barb said.

“He’s chosen sides,” Steve said. “Or have you forgotten?”

“That’s personal, too,” Barb said, “and probably none of our damn business.”

“But you said—”

“I know what I said. I don’t have to like it, and neither do you. But I’m not going to start telling people who they can sleep with.”

“Relax,” Cole said. “I doubt anyone would willingly sleep with anybody who just followed her down six miles of highway with a spycam. Don’t you think?” He looked at Steve. “Or had that already occurred to you?”

Steve shook his head but said nothing.

It was dark now. They expected Keira to come wheeling up the drive any minute. But half an hour passed, then an hour. Had she seen the drone after all? If so, maybe she had pointed her car west and kept on going, leaving them behind for good. But this was her family’s place. She would at least come back long enough to pack her things and kick them out.

A second hour passed, then a third. They scraped together some pasta, a wilted salad, and the dregs of a cheap Cabernet and ate together in silence. Steve was the first of them to express concern.

“You think she’s okay?”

“Call her cell if you’re suddenly so damn worried,” Barb said.

No one made a move, although Steve did check online updates from the county and state police. Cole went outside and found Sharpe tinkering with the engine by the glare of a flashlight, fine-tuning the settings. He asked if he could help. Sharpe put down his screwdriver and looked up at the sky.

“What I’d really hoped to do today was make an initial run over toward IntelPro. Start getting the lay of the land. But I guess the True Confessions crowd had other ideas.”

“Couldn’t we go in the dark? Don’t you have infrared?”

“Yes. But not for our maiden over there. We need a wider margin for error until we get a better feel for the place, don’t you think?”

“Maybe so.”

They heard a car engine in the distance, which made them look up. A few seconds later, Keira’s Nissan emerged into the clearing.

“Well, this should be interesting,” Sharpe said.

“I better go see how it goes.”

Sharpe said nothing. He nodded and went back to work on his drone.