Charlie nodded, then lowered his voice and turned to Fisher. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Fisher nodded and Charlie rose, leading him out of the command center, down a narrow hall, and toward the living quarters. He opened a small hatch and invited Fisher into his tiny room, replete with narrow bed, notebook computers, and a few posters for alternative rock bands that Fisher had never heard of. Charlie shut the hatch and quickly said, “If you want to find this guy, you gotta cut me loose. I can’t work with her breathing down my neck.”
“She’s not breathing down your neck.”
“Are you deaf?”
“Look, you know where she’s coming from.”
He rolled his eyes. “It was hard enough taking the job in the first place, knowing she’d be here.”
“I thought you guys were getting along.”
“It’s nothing that interferes with the job, but—”
“But you have a problem with authority figures. I get that. So do I.”
At twenty-five, young Charlie Cole was still grappling with remaining calm under fire—especially when the incoming came from Grim. During the time he and Fisher worked together at Vic’s old agency, Fisher had learned a lot about the kid, learned why he had the attitude and why he’d become a hacker. Charlie had lost his father when he was just eleven, and his mother remarried a man who ruled with an iron fist and had ridiculous expectations for him. He buried himself in his room and retreated into computers. While his mother supported his interest, by the time he was fourteen, his stepfather had shipped him off to Choate Rosemary Hall, the prestigious boarding school in Connecticut, where he’d terrorized administrators with his hacking exploits. They forced him through the program because it was easier than kicking him out. He was a classic genius underachiever. He went on to the Rochester Institute of Technology because his grades wouldn’t get him into MIT like the rest of his friends, and after that, some of his online exploits had caught the attention of the NSA and he was quickly rolled into Grim’s R&D group at Third Echelon.
He didn’t last long. He was immature, had an uncompromising vision for what the SMI should be, and Grim summarily fired him. That he’d flipped her a double bird on the way out didn’t help. He’d tried a few scrub jobs, even moonlighted for two weeks as an IT temp under false credentials, until some of the people he’d hacked in the past came looking for him, including members of a Mexican drug cartel he’d once helped expose, or “dox,” by revealing all of their personal information online.
Vic’s private security firm had rescued him from all that, literally saving him when the Mexicans had sent two hit men to teach him a final lesson. Vic took him under his wing, and Charlie helped support some deftly executed operations for private clients. Despite his youth, his defiance of authority, and his often brash and animated demeanor, Charlie possessed a rare combination of go-with-your-gut instincts coupled with a cunning and always up-to-date knowledge of complex computer systems and code.
And if you wanted to get deeply psychological about it, you could say that he’d become all of these things because he was searching for his lost father, wanting answers for why the man had left him so long ago.
Charlie rubbed the corners of his eyes and nodded. “Grim’s intense. I get that. But sometimes she’s gotta back off. I’m afraid to say anything—because I know you’ll take the heat for it.”
“You just do your job. She’ll keep you honest.”
“I got the feeling that when you first came on board, you didn’t want her around.”
“This was her initiative, nonnegotiable with the president.”
“So why didn’t you walk away?”
Fisher steeled his voice. “Because they need us. The country needs us. Remember that.”
“Hey, Sam?” came Briggs’s voice from the hallway. “Got something else here. Apparently, the Russian government just pulled Kasperov’s license. His company is officially shut down. At least for now.”
Fisher met up with Briggs and followed him back to the command center with Charlie in tow.
“Sam, we’re still analyzing all the flights out of every airport around Moscow at the time Kasperov might’ve bolted,” said Grim. “The radar distortion has made that tough.”
“So did any of Kasperov’s jets take off?”
“Well, not according to the flight plans, but I’m sure he didn’t file one. And he probably didn’t take his own plane. Maybe a friend’s with falsified docs.”
An alert screen flashed in the upper right corner of the SMI’s main screen. Grim dragged and dropped a new data window into the center of the display then opened it. “Well, it can’t be this easy, can it? We’ve just confirmed that one of Kasperov’s private jets did take off from Vnukovo Airport, actually just after the radar interruption. Flight plan indicates that the jet’s bound for Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. Says there’s three passengers on board, along with two crew members.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Charlie. “Again, he wouldn’t use his own plane and wouldn’t file a flight plan.”
“I agree,” Grim answered.
“Decoy?” asked Fisher.
“Hard to say. Maybe a decoy to buy him time? Divert forces away from him?”
“Yeah, he’s a smart bastard, because he knows that jet’s a decoy we can’t ignore. No matter what, we have to check it out.”
“I’ll see what assets we have in Georgia, get some people to Tbilisi before that plane arrives.”
“I’ve got the rest of the flight plans for that bird,” said Charlie. “Looks like his daughter, Nadia, was on board, flew back home from school in Zurich a few days ago.”
“Maybe that’s not his escape route but hers?” asked Fisher.
“Why wouldn’t he cover her exit as well as he covered his own?” asked Grim.
“I don’t know.”
“We’ll have to follow that plane.”
Fisher nodded, then crossed over to Briggs. “You dig up anything else?”
“His girlfriend was born and raised in Orlando. She attended the University of Central Florida. She’s got parents and a brother still living near there in a place called Winter Springs. We’ve got eyes on the house, and the NSA’s got the comms covered.”
“Any other possibilities?”
“In one of his gazillion magazine interviews, he spoke very highly of one of his old teachers from encryption school, a Professor Halitov. He retired in a little town called Peski, southeast of Moscow.”
“So if he went there, he’s hiding right under their noses.”
“Yeah, but you know if we found it this easily, so did they. We’ll keep an eye on it, though.”
“Hey, Sam?”
Fisher ventured back to the SMI table and stood opposite Grim. “What do you got?”
“A crazy thought. What if this whole thing’s a hoax? What if Kasperov staged this event with the government’s help? They’re in on this together.”
“For what purpose?”
“The company’s in bed with the FSB. Maybe there was a breach, and they staged this to contain it.”
“Well, if that’s the case, we’re taking the bait.”
“Or maybe there is a Mayak connection and this is their first stage in dealing with it.”
“Hey, excuse me, but Nadia Kasperov has a VK account,” Charlie said. “I hacked it and her last post was her saying good-bye to Moscow.”
Fisher cocked a brow. “So she bolted, too. If we find her, maybe we’ll find him.”
“Holy shit.”
That expletive had come from the SMI table, where Grim was bringing up Keyhole satellite surveillance footage, along with imagery captured by the U.S. Army’s latest Vertical Take-Off and Landing Unmanned Aerial System dubbed the “Hummingbird.”
; Fisher reached the table and scanned the schematics of the drone, displayed on a data bar to his right.
Equipped with the ARGUS array composed of several cameras and a host of other sensor systems, the Hummingbird and her systems were capable of capturing 1.8 gigapixel high-resolution mosaic images and video, making it one of the most capable surveillance drones on the planet.
At the moment, the UAV had her cameras and sensors directed at a rugged, snowcapped mountainside with a long pennon of black smoke rising from it.
“What?” asked Fisher.
“That’s Dykh-Tau,” said Grim. “It means ‘jagged mount’ in Russian. It’s about five klicks north of the Georgia border, and it’s the second-highest peak in the Caucasus Mountains.”
“That’s a pretty big fire down there.”
“That’s not just a fire. Kasperov’s plane just crashed.”
“Was it shot down?” asked Briggs.
“Don’t know,” answered Grim. “No reports of aircraft scrambled, nothing on radar.”
“What’s our ETA over that site?” asked Fisher.
Grim brought up the maps, worked furiously on the touchscreen, and then the SMI drew the line and displayed the data bars. “If we divert from Incirlik right now, it’ll be eighteen minutes at top speed.”
“The Russians will send in some S&R crews. Think we can beat ’em?”
Grim consulted the SMI and pinpointed the locations of the nearest military bases and local authorities equipped with air power. “That location’s pretty remote. You’ve got a shot. But the sun doesn’t set for another two hours, and if you HALO jump right in there, they’ll spot your descent.”
“I know. I’ve got a work-around.”
“What about getting out?”
“That part always gives me a headache. You mind calling us a cab or something?”
Grim rolled her eyes. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Fisher hustled away from the table. “Briggs? Come with me. We’ve got a lot of prep and no time.”
The man rose from his station. “Sam, you mind if we make sure our extraction plan’s in place before we . . .” The young man drifted off, and wisely so, because Fisher was already ignoring him—
But he did turn back and fix Briggs with a hard look. “Is there a problem?”
“Uh, no.”
“Good. Because the jump alone might kill you. Let’s go.”
6
PALADIN’S cargo bay had been sealed off from the rest of the pressurized aircraft so that the side door and rear loading ramp could be opened to take on cargo or make hasty departures. The bay was still large enough to stow a small helicopter with the rotors removed but significantly smaller than an unmodified C-17 capable of carrying more than 100 paratroopers and 170,000 pounds of cargo.
Fisher stood near the door, double-checking Briggs’s gear while Briggs did likewise for Fisher. The loadout was always the same, each item meticulously chosen and inspected by Fisher before it was ever stowed on board the plane. They each wore an HGU-55/P ballistic helmet, tactical goggles, an MBU-12/P oxygen mask, Airox VIII O2 regulator, Twin 53 bailout bottle assemblies, tac-suits, gloves, and high-altitude altimeters.
The final piece of gear was, of course, the topic of conversation:
“How do you like that squirrel suit?” Fisher asked Briggs over the radio.
The man extended his arms to reveal the black wings. “I’m proud to wear it.”
“You look like a dork.”
Briggs raised his brows. “That makes two of us.”
Fisher repressed his grin. “Your record says you’ve made a few jumps.”
“A few.”
Fisher nodded. “So . . . two hundred twenty-six miles per hour . . .”
“What’s that?”
“That’s the world record speed for the fastest wingsuit jump. I think we can beat it.”
Briggs’s eyes widened from behind his mask. “Do you mind if we don’t?”
Fisher spun the man around, giving his MC-5 parachute rig a final inspection. The chute added considerable bulk and cut down on aerodynamics but tended to come in handy if they chose to actually survive their HALO—high altitude low opening—jump. Briggs checked Fisher’s suit and flashed him a thumbs-up.
“All right, gentlemen, stand by,” said Grim. “Thirty seconds.”
Fisher levered open the side door, then slid it over until it locked in place. The icy wind whooshed inside and nearly knocked him off his feet. He immediately joined Briggs on one knee to clutch metal rungs attached to the deck. Leaving the aircraft even a few seconds too soon or too late would severely affect their infiltration. Grim was using the SMI to calculate their entire jump, from the second they left the plane until the second they should, in theory, touch down on the surface within a quarter kilometer of the crash site—if not closer. The SMI factored in all the data such as the “forward throw” while exiting the aircraft; the “relative wind”; the air temperature, wind speed, and direction; the barometric pressure; and how much pizza Fisher had eaten for lunch—well, perhaps not that last part.
Out beyond the door, the clouds were backlit in deep orange and red, and the setting sun coruscated off the wing tip. Fisher cleared his mind of the clutter, the past, the pain, the torn loyalties, the nightmares he’d had over that time Grim had shot him in the shoulder, which had been part of her plan to undermine Tom Reed.
On cold days like this the shoulder still ached. But that was okay. He’d told her to do what she had to do. And he was still here, ready to show Briggs the ride of a lifetime.
“Okay, stand by,” said Grim. “Remember, radio blackout once you pop chutes. In five, four, three, two . . .”
The flashing red light above the door turned green.
Without hesitation, Briggs vanished into the ether.
Fisher shivered through a breath, the adrenaline coursing through his chest. No matter how many times you did it, every step into oblivion was a tremendous rush.
The loadmaster was there to shut the door behind him. He gave the young airman first class a curt nod, which she returned, then he threw himself out of the aircraft.
The wind struck a massive blow to his body, wrenching him far and fast. The disorientation was normal and no reason to panic. Reflexes and training took over, muscle memory causing him to extend his arms and legs so the wingsuit would catch air. The roar of the wind deepened as he straightened his spine and pushed his shoulders forward. Since his entire body was now acting as an airfoil, he need only adjust his arms, legs, and head to maneuver deftly through the air.
Briggs was down below, appearing as a black hourglass against a mottled backdrop of snowcapped mountains and an almost imperceptible thin line of smoke. He, too, knew they needed to cover a great distance, so like Fisher, he was now lowering his chin against his neck, rolling his shoulders even farther forward, and pushing the wingsuit into a head-low position downwind while narrowing his arms. Decreasing the amount of drag always increased velocity, and you always sacrificed altitude in order to gain speed. Indeed, HALO jumps were dangerous enough, but a wingsuit insertion from nearly thirty thousand feet opened a whole new world of hazards, including unrecoverable spins that led to blackouts and unhappy endings. Moreover, they hadn’t had much time to pre-breathe 100 percent oxygen beforehand, so the possibility of getting the sort of “bends” that sometimes accompanied scuba diving was still there.
Briggs banked to the left, aiming for the smoke and mountains, and Fisher began twisting his arms and legs in small but appreciable movements to drop in behind the man. The key was to make gradual changes, no sharp or chaotic moves that could result in a loss of control. As a former SEAL, Fisher likened the maneuvering to swimming underwater and shifting one’s body to change direction. Flight was simply the relationship of four opposing for
ces: weight, lift, thrust, and drag, and as expected, Grim adroitly reminded him of those facts:
“Sixteen thousand feet and falling. Airspeed 191. Your glide ratio looks excellent. On target.”
They might be on course, but that airspeed was too slow for Fisher. “Tighten it up, Briggs. Let’s get in there a little faster.”
“Roger that.”
Briggs narrowed his position even further and dropped like a missile, picking up so much speed that Fisher found it difficult to follow his lead.
“Airspeed 210,” reported Grim. “Take it easy, Briggs.”
“I’m good. I’m good.”
“Sam, you’re up to 215. Slow down! You can’t afford to get sick.”
Fisher rolled his wrist slightly inward to check his altimeter and airspeed, verifying it against Grim’s report. He shifted his arms a little wider. No, he wasn’t going to break any records today. They’d never get reported anyway. And who knew if that speed record still held? He’d read that report a few months prior. Better to just take a deep breath and enjoy the ride.
He soared in behind Briggs, and they swooped down like a pair of vultures, tiny against the mountains, impossible to see by most distant aircraft whose radar systems would filter out slower moving blips like themselves, mistaking them for birds.
His breathing grew even as they approached the mountainside and the long rings of talus and scree scattered like broken necklaces across the valley. The peaks thrust up in crystalline white arches that made him feel insignificant. These were the Caucasus Mountains, a broad range considered the dividing line between Asia and Europe, with the northern section in Europe and the southern in Asia. The region was split between Russia, Turkey, Iran, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, and it was bounded on the west by the Black Sea and on the east by the Caspian Sea. This was a land of rugged people and even more rugged terrain.
Briggs turned again, coming in for their final approach, but the wind was suddenly gusting. He adjusted quickly, once more pulling away from Fisher. It seemed the younger man was schooling Fisher in wingsuit drops, and it took everything Fisher had to stay with the man.