Fallout (18 page)

“You’re working yourself into the ground,” Katherine said as she walked outside behind Luke.

He had changed into his jeans and his usual gray fleece pullover. “No harder than you used to work in your law firm.”

She couldn’t argue with that. “And I was working myself into the ground . . .”

They walked across the sandy area that passed for a backyard behind their sprawling ranch house toward the well-used Bobcat. Luke climbed up into the cab and sat on the cushioned seat. “I can’t take three months to build the runway. I only rented this Bobcat for two weeks. I’ve got to get it done.”

“Do you think maybe you’re thinking about too many things at once?”

There weren’t many hours of daylight left. Luke had his hand on the starter lever but resisted the temptation to start the engine. “Like what?”

“Think about what you’re doing—starting a new company, leasing a fleet of fighters and one of the world’s best airfields, borrowing a hundred million dollars . . .”

“He
invested
. I didn’t borrow anything.”

“You know what I mean. Plus buying a new house, building your own private airfield, trying to buy an airplane. Don’t you think you’re taking a little too much on your shoulders? Oh, and starting a family.”

“I feel more in control of my life than ever. Nobody’s going to tell me to leave my family to go to sea. Nobody’s going to move me across the country for the needs of the Navy. We’re finally where we can decide exactly what we want to do. And I happen to have the best job in the world. It’s going to take a lot of work to get through the first year. We both know that. But it’s worth it to me. The runway,” he said, looking at his half-done strip for his nonexistent airplane, “is a dream. You know me. I’ve always got some project going. Keeps me from watching television.”

“How is that Pakistani student?”

“Khan?”

“Yeah. You had a lot of questions about him after the first two days.”

Luke got quiet. “I still do.”

“Serious questions?”

“I don’t trust him at all. I don’t know what the hell he’s up to, but his goal in life sure isn’t trying to be the best student in the school. He’s got something else in mind.”

“Need me to do anything?”

“Brian is working the problem. He
really
doesn’t trust the guy. And he’s got his brother at the CIA looking into it.”

“The CIA?” She thought about the implications. “Should we call the Undersecretary and ask him about Khan?”

“He’s the one who sent him here. I don’t think that would do much good.” Luke pushed the starter. The Bobcat’s diesel engine rumbled to life. “I’ve got to get working before the sun sets.”

“I still say you’re taking on too much.”

He put the Bobcat into gear. “You have any problem with me buying an airplane?”

“With whose money?”

“Ours.”

“We don’t have any.”

“I could get a loan.”

“I quit my job to move here, Luke. We don’t have enough money to buy an airplane.”

“Sluf just bought an airplane. He moved to Vegas. He’s going to start commuting from there every day.”

She frowned. “What did he buy?”

“Just a little Cessna. Used. Paid about thirty K for it.” He paused. “What if the company bought it?”

Katherine pulled her hair off her face, where the wind had blown it. She glanced at the sun heading for the western mountains. “Are you asking me as the general counsel or as your wife?”

“Both.”

“You can’t use company money to satisfy your personal hobby desires. The company certainly does
not
need an acrobatic biplane. The company has lots of airplanes. I don’t see a biplane fitting into the mix.”

“Then maybe I’ll buy a MiG-17, like Stamp.”

“I don’t think so. And you’re sure not landing a jet here and starting it at six in the morning with a cup holder for your commuter mug.”

He smiled at the image. “Maybe I can find a fixer-upper.”

“Now,
that’s
comforting.”

“Just kidding. I’ll save, I’ll scrimp, I’ll borrow, I’ll do it all. But I
will
have my Pitts Special before the year’s out.”

“We shall see.”

Luke looked at the sky. “I need to get working.”

Katherine stood back and gestured to his beloved runway.

Kevin Hayes pulled the sandwich out of the bag sitting on his desk in his cubicle. He studied the bacon sitting on top of the turkey and wondered how long ago it had been cooked and whether trichinosis can resurrect itself in cooked bacon if it sits in a cold pan for long enough. The dark red, almost black meat was entirely limp and now held tomato seeds in its valleys. He decided to pull the tomatoes and microwave it. He pushed his chair back and stood up when Theresa Crane walked around the side of the cubicle and stood looking at him. He rose and faced her, trying to hide the concern he felt. She’d
never
been to his cubicle, even though he’d worked for her for two years. “Hello,” he said casually.

“What section are you in?” she asked.

He looked at her with a puzzled expression. “Excuse me?”

She folded her arms. “What section are you in?”

Hayes was really confused. “
Your
section. Africa.”

“That’s what I
thought
,” she said sarcastically.

“What am I missing?” he asked, putting the sandwich back in the bag, ready to carry it to the lunchroom.

“You want to explain to me what you’re doing making inquiries in Pakistan?”

Here we go, he thought. “Checking on Major Riaz Khan of the Pakistani Air Force. He’s attending a school in Nevada. The Nevada Fighter Weapons School, where he’s flying F-16s against American adversary pilots.”

Crane looked at him suspiciously. “Is Pakistan in Africa?”

He was able to hold his tongue, but not his sarcastic tone. “Uh, no.”

“Is Nevada?”

He sighed. “No.”

Her eyes narrowed.

He answered her unasked question. “Some people have some . . . concerns.”

“What people?” she asked as she continued to stare. Her mind was spinning quickly. Finally her face showed recognition. “Your brother.”

He nodded slowly, knowing what was coming.

Now she was truly angry. “You’re doing private intelligence consulting on the side? Using United States government
assets
?”

“Where’d you hear about this?”

“That doesn’t matter. You’ve got no business working for your brother. Not from here.”

“I’m not working for my
brother
. I’m working for the United States. Our job is to protect the United States. I admit it’s a little unorthodox. I figured if somebody needed to follow up, I’d pass it on.”

“No. You’re not passing on anything. You do the work I’ve given you. If you have extra
time
on your hands, you let me know.”

Hayes didn’t respond. Nothing like a lecture from a parasite bureaucrat who’d violated the Peter Principle three jobs ago.

She looked at him, waiting for a response, then realized he wasn’t going to respond. “I’m serious.”

“Why do you care?” Hayes replied. “You ever make calls from work that may benefit the country that aren’t
directly
related to work on Africa?”

“No. And you shouldn’t either.”

“Whatever.”

“Don’t start that tone with me, Kevin. I won’t put up with it.”

“Yes ma’am.”

She waited for him to say one more thing, something that she could really jump on. He didn’t. She walked quickly out of his corner cubicle.

“Bitch,” he said to her back after she left.

Sluf closed the door on his Cessna and leaned down to walk out from under the wing. He stood straight up and looked at the sun just rising in the east. He smiled. He had never been more content in his life. He’d found a new condo in Las Vegas near both the Strip and the airport where he kept his “new” Cessna. He commuted every day from Las Vegas to Tonopah, arriving early and leaving early.

He checked his watch. It was an hour before he had to be at his first brief. He saw the auxiliary hangar out of the corner of his eye and immediately felt guilty. Luke had been serious about his being the “facilities officer.” He was supposed to check out the entire air base and make sure nothing was about to blow up or burn down or fall in on someone. He was to see what needed to be painted and when. He sighed. He hadn’t done one thing since Luke had asked him.

He glanced at the Area 51 Café and felt the pull of his first cup of coffee. He had it there every morning. It could wait. He walked to the auxiliary hangar, a good eight hundred yards from his airplane, away from the activity of the base. The hangar wasn’t being used for anything. He figured it would take him thirteen seconds to make sure it wasn’t going to collapse, and then he could get his coffee.

He walked quickly to the hangar and looked for the entrance. He saw a door on the side and decided to try it. It was solid steel and rusted at the corners. There was no lock, and the door was slightly ajar. He pulled on the edge of the door, and it swung open easily. Great, he thought. Perfect place for a bunch of coyotes and snakes to be lurking. He stepped through the door, and it swung closed behind him. It was nearly dark in the hangar. There were windows in the back of the building, opposite the huge sliding doors, but not enough to cast anything but the dimmest light onto the floor. He shuffled his feet forward carefully, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

He frowned as he heard the faint sound of metal on metal. He squinted to see where the sound had come from—somewhere in the back corner of the cavernous hangar, to his left. He moved slowly toward it. It suddenly stopped.

He stopped. His breath came more quickly. He listened carefully but heard nothing. The far walls were now coming into focus, and the hazy windows to his left, high off the concrete, grew brighter in the morning light.

He walked farther and was thirty feet into the hangar when he suddenly realized he wasn’t alone. He saw someone in the far corner. He squinted. Whoever it was wasn’t moving; he was standing there, staring at Sluf.

Sluf began walking more quickly toward the person. He could now make him out fairly clearly but then was startled to realize that the man wasn’t alone. There were at least eight others with him. Sluf stopped dead in his tracks. He recognized the man just before he spoke.

“Mr. Sluf,” Khan said.

Sluf was too shocked to say anything. They were all Pakistanis, all four pilots and several maintenance men, gathered around a small crane and a bomb dolly, with charts and diagrams all over the floor. Sluf looked around the rest of the hangar but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “What the hell are you doing in here?” he finally asked.

Khan and the others began walking toward him. “I could ask you the same thing,” he replied.

“Except that I have a reason to be here and you don’t.”

“Of course we do. We are doing training.”

“With a crane and a bomb dolly?” Sluf said skeptically.

“Yes. It is part of what we do. We must always train. We needed a quiet place away from the rest of the people.”

“You never got permission.”

“On the contrary. Mr. Luke gave us permission to use this hangar whenever we wanted.”

“That’s bullshit, Khan. He put me in charge of facilities. No one is to use this hangar. It isn’t available. And you sure as hell never told us you were going to practice bomb loading. Where the hell did you get that crane anyway?”

“We brought it with us,” Khan said as he reached Sluf and stood directly in front of him.

Sluf shifted uneasily as two of the Pakistanis moved around to either side of him. “Why would you bring a crane with you?”

“For these practices. All of our men must practice all the time. We must always be ready for war with India.”

Sluf wasn’t buying it. “At six in the morning?”

“Yes. Before our other obligations begin.” Khan studied Sluf’s face. He glanced at the two men flanking Sluf and nodded very subtly.

“I want you guys out of here. Just leave the crane, and we’ll see about getting you some space to—”

Sluf stopped as the man to his right suddenly gasped and bent over in pain. Sluf was completely confused by what might have happened to the man but realized too late it was just to cause him to turn his head. The Pakistani now directly behind Sluf grabbed him in a choke hold and pulled back hard on his neck with his forearm.

Sluf fell backward into the man as he fought the pressure on his throat. He pulled on the man’s arm and tried to scream out. He had no air. He knew he had only seconds to get out of the hold or he would be dead. He tried to get his feet under him so he could lift up against the shorter man, but the man kept shifting to keep Sluf off balance.

Khan stepped forward with lightning speed and drove his fist into Sluf’s solar plexus, driving out the remaining air in his lungs. Sluf began to see stars. He flailed at the man behind him with his fists but couldn’t land a punch. He tried to kick but realized his kicks were going in directions he couldn’t control.

Then his vision started to go, as if he were pulling too many Gs. Sluf’s gelled hair fell into his face as he expired in the arms of the Pakistani, who waited until there was no movement. He lowered Sluf slowly to the hangar floor.

Khan knelt down and felt for a pulse in Sluf’s throat. There was none. “He is finished.” He stood and looked around, then at the man who had killed Sluf. “Put him in that tool locker. Tonight you will go to Reno to buy those GPS receivers we have told them we need. On the way you will find a bridge or a cave and take care of this,” he said, looking at Sluf. “They will never find him in time to stop us now.”

“Morning,” Luke said to Glenda as she stood behind the counter.

“Well, the big boss. I’m surprised to see you here. I don’t think you’ve had breakfast here before,” Glenda replied, smiling. She was a kind-faced woman in her mid-fifties who exuded humility.

Luke looked around, surprised, at the crowd. There were ten students eating breakfast and five instructors. Other staff members were spread throughout the café, and Stamp sat at a table by the door. He had arrived early in his MiG-17 and walked straight to the Area 51 Café.