Deep Black (14 page)

23

By the time Rubens got to the Art Room, the helicopter had disappeared from the screen. Telach hunched over Jeff Rock-man,
hitting different feeds; they had an image from a Space Command satellite on the main screen at the front of the room, but
it was blurry and full of clouds.

“Did you lose them?” Rubens asked.

“They were flying at the edge of our broadcast circle and the Russians started to jam. It’s one of their new systems,” said
Telach.

The com system satellites had very restricted broadcast ranges, sometimes called shadows or arcs, to make them more difficult
to intercept. Telach looked distressed, even worse than when the Wave Three aircraft had gone down. Rubens told himself he’d
order her to go on a vacation as soon as this assignment was over.

“Were they shot down?” Rubens asked Rockman, the runner.

“We’re looking at radio intercepts,” said Rockman. “The MiG wasn’t targeting them. Probably the satellite can’t get them with
the jamming. They might also have turned everything off because of the MiG.”

“Not the locators,” said Telach.

“We were having trouble with them earlier,” said Rock-man.

The locators were essentially small pieces of very slightly radioactive iodine, whose isotope could be detected by a specialized
system of detectors, including some mounted in a satellite system. While the system worked fine under perfect circumstances,
the thinner the satellite coverage the less reliable the detection. The area where the team was now was actually covered by
a satellite focused on China. Even a good-sized cloud bank could interfere with the reception, and so it was not surprising
that they were off the grid.

“Where’s the MiG?” asked Rubens.

“They shot down another plane and took off,” said Rock-man. “We think it’s the same unit, but it’s going to take a lot of
work to make sure.”

“Who was shot down?”

“A civilian flight,” said Telach.

Rubens went to the empty station next to Rockman and pulled the infrared and imaging radar images up. Unfortunately, the imaging
process took time; the data was more than five minutes old.

“That may be them,” Telach said, pointing to a tear-shaped blur in the middle of her screen.

“Let’s not worry about them for a second,” said Rubens. He agreed with Rockman’s assessment that they must be alive but still
hiding from the MiG. “Instead, let us consider why the MiG shot down the plane. They’ll show up, Marie,” Rubens added. His
assurance didn’t soften her glare. “The plane’s course. Can we compare it to ours?”

“To the Hind’s or the Wave Three aircraft?” she said. Her bottom lip quivered slightly, but she reached down for the keyboard.

“Wave Three.”

“OK. Hang on.” The aircraft had taken off from the same airport and their courses had about an 80 percent overlap—not a coincidence,
since the Wave Three mission had been purposely laid out to look like one of the common flights through the area.

“They must have thought it was one of ours,” said Telach. “They must have incomplete information, half-rumor, half-guess.”

Rubens harrumphed. It was possible.

The ELF transmissions from the Wave Three plane were detectable, though the equipment needed to measure them was extremely
sophisticated. The working theory on the shootdown as a premeditated, targeted attack on the spy plane was that the transmissions
had been detected with the use of that equipment. This wouldn’t fit that theory. On the contrary, it validated the random,
renegade attack profile.

Which was exactly the finding Rubens most desired, since it meant that his program hadn’t been compromised. He had to, therefore,
reject it out of hand.

“New flight company,” said Rockman, pulling up data on the civilian that had been shot down. “Maybe they just didn’t pay the
grift,” he suggested.

“Maybe,” said Rubens. “Or maybe the Russians are trying to convince us that they didn’t actually target our plane.”

“Heck of a way to confuse us. There must’ve been over a hundred people aboard.”

“Could be an acceptable price.”

He could order up an F-47C mission, have transponders on a kite or mini–remote plane, see if the MiG came out. They could
study the response, pinpoint the detection system.

Why would the Russians go to such lengths to protect information about the lasers? Hitting the U.S. plane was one thing, but
their own?

When operational, the lasers had the potential for changing the balance of power between the U.S. and Russia by blinding U.S.
ABM satellite monitors. Of course, a preemptive strike would certainly initiate a war or at least serious retaliation.

What would the circumstances have to be to prevent that?

None. Hitting the U.S. satellites would trigger a violent, immediate response. No one would plan such a thing.

Of course, in the context of the American response, a hundred or so lives would be nothing.

“Boss?” asked Telach, bringing Rubens back to the present.

“What’s been the military response?” he asked.

“None.” Rockman brought up the SpyNet page on the PVO administrative unit responsible for the area. The page, which summarized
decoded intercepts from the unit over the past twenty-four hours, showed only routine communications, most of which were weather
reports. The self-defense squadron had six planes, all ancient MiG-25s, assigned to the Surgut area, a good distance away
from the shootdown. There were several encrypted intercepts on the docket for automatic translation, but the times did not
correspond to the shootdown and Rubens saw no need to push them out of the normal queue.

“Do we have radar intercepts available?” he asked.

“Too deep,” said Rockman. The area self-defense radar was too far from the country’s borders to be monitored directly by the
standing NSA programs, though of course it could be specifically targeted for a mission. Communications intercepts ordinarily
provided more than sufficient information about their operation.

“News media?” Rubens asked.

“Plane’s not due yet,” said Rockman. “Far as we can tell, there hasn’t been an alert. We know from the Third Wave missions
that this area isn’t under direct civilian radar and has only spotty PVO coverage.”

Rubens closed his eyes and saw the list of bases Johnny Bib had given him. None were along the flight path.

“We’ll want a passenger list,” he told Telach. “And a cargo manifest.”

“Yes.”

“CIA is on this?”

“As of ten minutes ago. We alerted them.”

Protocol called for an interagency team to be assembled to report on the shootdown. Rubens would want his own person on the
team.

“Maybe you’re right,” said Telach. “Maybe they are OK. Karr’s pretty capable.”

“He is,” said Rockman.

Reports on fuel reserves. Bulky encryptions. Random shootdowns. Wave Three. Laser program.

Hard to find a common thread.

Assume they weren’t random. Assume the laser program wasn’t related to this.

Why would they shoot the planes down?

Protect other data at the lab.

What would that have to do with a coup?

Niente.

Skip the coup. Assume the laser was ready to be used.

Still nothing.

Rubens turned and began walking toward the door.

“Boss?” said Telach behind him. “What do you want us to do?”

“When Karr reestablishes contact, see if he can observe the crash site. We’re going to want information on who goes there,
everything we can get on the reaction, who was on the plane, everything.”

“They have the Third Wave wreckage aboard the helicopter.”

“Surely they can deal with that,” said Rubens.

“But—”

He didn’t wait to hear the rest of her objection.

24

Dean followed Karr through the marshy tundra for nearly three miles, once or twice losing sight of him. Water from the boggy
soil soaked through his boots and well up his pant legs. The dampness and fatigue began to tighten his muscles, and he felt
a massive knot forming between his shoulder blades.

They walked parallel to the highway, for the most part along what looked like an abandoned farm path or perhaps the original
road before it was improved and paved. No vehicles passed; Dean realized the area was about as desolate as any he’d ever been
in and wondered how much emptier the extremely cold northern stretches of Siberia must be.

Karr finally began angling toward the road, and Dean saw that the terrain rose toward a knoll that would give them a fair
vantage point. Sure enough, Lia was already there, watching the wreckage and the Russians who had come to inspect it.

“They’re not helping the survivors,” she said.

“Why not?” said Dean.

Lia ignored him, talking directly to Karr. “They went into the cabin. I haven’t seen them come out. Two men.”

“What kind of chopper?”

“Helix, I think. I can’t tell if it has a star on the tail or not. Could be civilian.”

“Out here?”

“One man in the cockpit. If it was military, there’d be more. Besides, Helixes are normally assigned to the Navy.”

“No way it’s a civilian. Gotta be Army or something.”

“Or something.”

Karr took out a PRC radio to communicate with the Hind. The discreet-burst unit was similar to those used by Spec Ops and
downed airmen. Dean went over to Lia and asked for the binoculars she was using.

“It’s polite to share,” he told her.

Somewhat to his surprise, she passed the binoculars to him. “You don’t sound like you’re from Missouri.”

Dean tended to be defensive about his home state; in his experience, most people who brought it up did so only to put it down.
But he simply grunted, trying to arrange the binoculars in front of the night gear and get them to focus.

“Hold them directly on the lens, at the exact center of the eyepiece. It’s calibrated to focus.” She pushed them onto the
glass. “It takes a second.”

It felt awkward, but it worked well enough for him to see something coming out of the plane.

“Got a bag,” said Dean.

Lia grabbed the binoculars back, taking a step forward on the knoll. “He went in with that.”

“What are they doing?” he said.

“Going back to the helicopter.”

“There’s a kid in the field on the other side of the plane,” Dean told her. “He’s alive.”

“Really?” Her voice was sincere and surprised.

“Little kid.”

“Blades are turning. They’re taking off.”

Dean put his hands on the sides of the glasses, steadying them, as if that would help him see farther. But the helicopter
was nearly three miles away, and all its running lights had been extinguished.

“They’re leaving them to die?” he asked.

“They’re probably the ones who killed them,” said Karr. “We’ll follow them once Fashona picks us up.”

“What about the kid?” said Dean.

“What kid?”

“Dean wants to play Florence Nightingale,” said Lia.

“Oh,
that
kid,” said Karr. “Yeah, Dean, just one fly, OK? You used like four on him.”

“How do you know?”

Karr took his handheld and showed it to him. There were pinpoints of light on a grid—the locations of the small bugs.

“They took the flight recorder,” added Karr. “That’s what they went in there for. To make sure there was no indication who
shot down the plane. Probably unnecessary, but they didn’t want to take any chances.”

“We going to help those people or what?” demanded Dean.

Karr ignored him. “Who do you think they were?” he asked Lia. “PVO?”

She shrugged.

“Probably not the GAI or
militsiya,
” said Karr, referring to police agencies. “They wouldn’t have come by helicopter.”

“Probably not.”

Dean was about ready to punch both of them.

“Closest town is fifteen miles away,” said Karr. “And it’s not much of a town. But maybe that’s our best bet.”

“Well, let’s just do it.” Lia took her satellite phone out from inside her vest.

Dean finally realized that they were discussing how to get help. “You have the number memorized?” he asked.

Lia scowled. The Hind was approaching from the south, its throaty TV3s considerably louder than the engines that had powered
the other helicopter.

“She’s calling home,” explained Karr. “They’ll handle the details.”

“We have to help that kid,” said Dean.

“Charlie, we’re going to have to take our chances on that one.”

“It’s his chance, not ours.”

Karr slapped his back and nodded grimly, but he’d made up his mind.

. . .

They lost the helicopter somewhere near Sym, a city that passed for large in the central area of Siberia on a tributary to
the Jenisej. Running low on fuel, they finally set down about a mile from a hamlet called Sitjla, a good hundred or so miles
due north of Tomsk.

“Run the engines dry,” Karr told Fashona.

“No way, man,” he replied. “We’ll never get them started again.”

“I don’t want the helicopter stolen if we have to leave it.”

“Who the hell’s going to steal it?”

“It’s worth more than the whole damn village.”

“Shit, they won’t fly it. They’ll take it apart and sell it for scrap.”

Fashona finally convinced him that leaving only three or four minutes of fuel in the tanks was good enough. He killed the
engines the second the gear plopped onto the ground. It was still night, and Karr decided they’d take shifts standing guard
and napping until morning. He left Dean conspicuously out of the rotation. Dean said he’d take a spot, but Karr told him not
to worry.

“Age before beauty,” Karr told him. “Just sleep.”

Dean, angered by the reference to his age, told Karr to screw himself. He just laughed his usual laugh.

“Don’t be stubborn,” said Lia a while later when she saw Dean wasn’t sleeping. “You’re going to be sorry later.”

“Right,” he snapped, but he did bed down and fell asleep for a few hours.

The next thing he knew, Fashona was tugging at his feet. “Time to hit the road,” said the pilot. “Let’s go check out the big
city.”

Dean, his muscles knotted and stiff, followed Fashona unsteadily. The sun poked through some of the mist rising from the ground,
shafts of yellow swirling in the humid air.

Karr and Lia had just finished stowing the team’s gear away from the helicopter, hiding the A-2 guns and some of the high-tech
equipment in the nearby field. They took a GPS reading, then returned to the aircraft. The first order of business, Karr told
the others, was to find some food. They were no longer using the com system to communicate with the Art Room, relying on the
sat phones instead for periodic updates.

“Hey, Charlie,” said Karr as they started to walk. “Your kid’s in a hospital. Fair condition.”

“Good,” grunted Dean.

“Don’t sound so enthused, tough guy.” Karr laughed. As they continued to walk toward town, he told them that the Art Room
had changed their mission priorities.

“They want to know about the Helix,” he told the others. “So that’s our gig.”

“What about the trash in the chopper?” asked Fashona.

Karr shrugged. “They want it eventually, just not right away.”

“What about him?” Lia jabbed her thumb toward Dean.

“I think they forgot about you, Charlie,” said Karr. “Didn’t even mention you.”

“Then I’ll just walk home.”

“Go for it,” said Lia.

“So how come with all their satellites and other gadgets they lost track of the Helix helicopter?” said Dean. “How come they
can’t just push a button and find out about it?”

“Man, you’ve been hanging around Princess too long,” said Karr.

“Don’t blame him on me,” said Lia. “He was whining when I found him.”

“Truck,” said Fashona.

It made no sense to hide—the helicopter was clearly visible, and in a place like this, the fact that it had landed would undoubtedly
soon be common knowledge. So Karr turned and waved.

The truck looked like it had been made in the 1950s or even earlier. The driver stopped; it took less than a minute for Karr
to talk him into giving them a ride into town. It wasn’t particularly hard, the op explained as they climbed into the back;
the fifty rubles he offered the driver amounted to more money than the man would make that week and perhaps that month.

Downtown Sitjla consisted of a dirt road bordered by a trio of sheds, a few piles of bricks that had possibly once been houses,
and a two-story building covered by the large asbestos tiles common in the States during the 1950s. The building’s facade,
off at a slight angle to the street, had a wooden door and no windows. It proved to be a combination restaurant, inn, and
meeting place for the local inhabitants. A collection of trailers sat about a half-mile farther down the road, but there were
no oil derricks or factories or anything else nearby that showed why anyone would live here.

A large woman in her early twenties met them inside the open hallway of the cement building. It was difficult to tell from
her appearance whether she was the manager or a cleaning lady. She wore a thick polyester dress that didn’t quite reach her
bulging knees, but her hands were covered by rubber gloves and her hair pulled back in a scarf that looked like a dust rag.
Karr did the talking for the group, explaining in Russian that they were Westerners working for an oil company whose helicopter
had broken down and would need repair. The woman smiled, frowned, shook her head, and finally said something about providing
food, impressed by either Karr’s patter or, more likely, the wad of rubles he produced from his shirt pocket. Within a half
hour, they were sitting at a tin folding table in a whitewashed room sipping a very hot and very bland red-tinted water that
may or may not have been vegetable soup. Dean was so hungry he asked for a second bowl, which seemed to make the woman think
he was flirting with her. About midway through the meal, Karr excused himself to go to the rest room.

“Olive says there’s a bus due soon,” he told them when he got back. “Fashona and I are going to take it to Tomsk. We should
be able to buy fuel for the helicopter there. If not, we’ll be able to make other arrangements.”

“How long’s that going to take?” Dean asked.

Karr shrugged. “The bus was supposed to be here this morning. Sometimes it’s a whole day late. They stop a few more times
along the way south. In theory it’s a four-hour trip. My guess is we’ll be back by tomorrow night.”

“We can get some sleep, at least,” said Dean.

“Actually, no,” said Karr. “Desk Three wants you two to find that helicopter ASAP. I was talking to them in the men’s room.
They have some leads.”

“What?” snapped Lia.

“Olive says we can rent a pickup from her brother-in-law. There’s only three places the helicopter can be, according to the
Art Room,” he added.

“What’s my cover?” asked Lia.

Karr shrugged. “Whatever you feel like, Princess. Far as I’m concerned, you can use the traveling prostitute bit. Dean can
be your pimp.”

“Screw yourself, Tommy. Just screw yourself.”

Fashona was suppressing a smile. Olive—her actual name was something like Olenka, which would be Olga in English—returned,
offering tea. This proved to be a green liquid that tasted as if it had been made from moss. Fashona and Karr downed theirs,
but Dean tried only half a sip.

“Look, if you have a better idea, talk to them,” Karr told Lia when Olive had retreated. “You know the number.”

“Hardy-har.”

“She can’t just hear them talking in her ear?” said Dean derisively.

“Not too well. The Russians are picking up their jamming. They’re really getting obnoxious,” said Karr.

The communications system had high-orbit stationary satellites that provided coverage in important areas. The rest was supplied
with low-earth, purpose-launched satellites that tied into the system. Partly for security purposes and partly to keep them
small and disposable, their range was fairly limited. Jamming by the Russians made things even more problematic.

“How do you know the Russians aren’t listening in?” asked Dean. It was a serious question, not like his earlier sarcastic
remark.

“Yeah, exactly,” said Karr. “That’s why we don’t want to overuse the system. Although it’s pretty good. I mean, anything can
be broken,” said Karr. “But this one is very hard in real time. Besides the encryption, the frequency skips during the transmission.
There are two different noise streams mixed in. In other words, if you’re intercepting it, you get three different conversations,
and you have to figure out which one is real.”

“They’re
I Love Lucy
reruns,” said Lia.

Fashona laughed.

“They’re actual conversations,” said Karr.

“Having Washington talk in your ear isn’t a pain in the ass?” asked Dean.

Karr shrugged. “It’s not Washington.” He rose. “Supposed to be able to buy smokes down the road. OK, Princess, go find Olive’s
brother-in-law. We’ll see you probably the day after tomorrow.”

“They give me a map?”

“They promise to download. Didn’t say when, though.”

“You know, screw them. Screw Rubens.”

“I hear he’s got a monster wad,” said Karr.