Nighthawk

  “According to the television network, it was taken by a Peruvian archaeologist named Urco. He’s currently working in the Andes on a dig connected to the Chachapoya, the Cloud People of Peru.”

  “Is there any way to authenticate it?” Kurt asked.

  “No,” Priya said. “It was shown a few hours ago. But it was allegedly filmed just before dawn on the morning of the Nighthawk’s disappearance. We’ve double-checked. The time frame is right and the location is within the Nighthawk’s newly extended glide path.”

  Rudi spoke next. “Any chance the video is a hoax?”

  “A hoax of what?” Emma said. “No one in the outside world knows the plane is missing.”

  Priya added to that thought. “If you notice, the man in the video doesn’t claim he’s seen a spacecraft. The text accompanying the video calls it a meteor sighting.”

  “Can you calculate altitude and speed from the video?” Kurt asked.

  “Not without more information,” Hiram said. “Even if we could get a rough estimate, it wouldn’t do any good without a precise direction.”

  Joe chimed in. “If we knew where he was standing and the exact location of that cliff dwelling behind him, we could get an accurate directional fix.”

  Kurt nodded, glanced around the room and then asked the question on everyone’s mind: “Do we have any other leads?”

  Both rooms held silent.

  “Then it’s agreed,” Kurt said. “Let the Russians and Chinese search the Pacific. We’ll go inland and see if this archaeologist can point us in the right direction.”

  “I say we move with all possible speed,” Emma added. “We’re not the only ones with access to Peruvian TV.”

  22

  Chinese spy trawler

  Off the coast of Ecuador

  Daiyu stood in the control room of the Chinese trawler. The swells had vanished and the sea was as dark as pitch. Everything quiet and still. Too quiet for her. Unnerving.

  For three days, they’d kept the American vessel Catalina under surveillance. Over the last twenty-four hours, it appeared as if the crew of that ship had begun search-and-recovery operations. Daiyu had been planning an underwater reconnaissance mission to see what they’d found when the Ministry called it off.

  General Zhang appeared on a video screen. “The recovery effort of NUMA vessel Catalina has been determined to be a diversion.”

  “So we’ve been wasting our time,” Daiyu said. There was an edge to her voice; it was always there, even speaking to a superior like Zhang. It was half the reason she’d been posted to such a backwater place.

  “So it would appear,” Zhang replied. “But that’s not the only news. We have new information that suggests the Nighthawk escaped capture by the Russian bomber and did not come down at sea. A possible sighting has been reported over the mountains of Peru.”

  “So our Russian friends failed to do their part,” she replied. “I’m not surprised. You cannot trust a bear to dance with a sparrow.”

  “Nor can you trust it to share its meal with you,” Zhang added. “This is a blessing in disguise. Had the Russians succeeded, they would have taken the American aircraft home with them and given us as little as possible. Now we have a chance to take it all.”

  Daiyu nodded. “As it should have been from the start.”

  She well knew that General Zhang felt the same way, though he would never say it. A slight curl of his lip was all she received. “A helicopter is being sent,” he said. “It’ll be on deck within an hour. Be ready.”

  “We shall,” she replied.

  “Do not fail your country,” Zhang said and signed off.

  Jian stood at her side. Where Daiyu was excited, he appeared solemn, apprehensive. “Is something wrong?”

  “The Americans will not be easy to eliminate,” he said. “Our men had the advantage of surprise in Guayaquil, but they still failed. By the time we make contact, the Americans will be on guard.”

  “There are methods beyond brute force,” she said. “If we can’t take them by direct action, we’ll set a trap. All targets are susceptible to one form or another. If they’re ready to run at the slightest sign of us, then we’ll let them run headlong into disaster.”

  23

  Guided missile cruiser Varyag

  The storm had passed. Or, rather, the Russian Cruiser Varyag and salvage vessels accompanying it had passed through the worst of the weather. No one was happier about the sea change than Constantin Davidov. For the first time in days, he was sitting to a full breakfast without worrying that it would come back up.

  Rear Admiral Borozdin sat across from him, his eggs smothered in hollandaise sauce. It kept the powdered taste down and passed for a delicacy in the Soviet Navy.

  “You look different today,” Borozdin said between forkfuls of egg. “I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

  “Yes you can,” Davidov said. “I’m not three shades of green.”

  Borozdin laughed. “Yes, of course, that’s it.”

  A knock at the Admiral’s door brought a courier. “Captain Tovarich reporting on the satellite link,” the courier said.

  “Have it patched through to us in here,” Davidov suggested.

  Borozdin nodded to the courier and moments later they were listening to Tovarich.

  Though his voice sounded tinny and distant, the signal was clear enough to reveal disappointment. “Recovery operations are complete,” Tovarich explained. “We’ve pumped out the cargo bay and combed through the wreckage. Unfortunately, there’s no sign of the American craft.”

  “How can that be?” Davidov asked. “Blackjack 1 reported the Nighthawk as captured and locked in long before the emergency.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Tovarich said. “But a preliminary examination of the wreckage reveals that the lockdown bolts have been sheared clean through. The Nighthawk must have broken free as the bomber lost control.”

  Davidov sat back in frustration. Things were not going according to plan. When he’d dissolved the partnership with China and left Beijing, he’d done it thinking he had a bird in hand. At that moment, he’d been certain that Russia—and Russia alone—knew the whereabouts of the American craft because only Russia knew where the bomber had gone down.

  “I’m afraid there’s something else,” Tovarich added.

  Davidov looked up. “More bad news?”

  “Of a sort,” Tovarich said. “During the recovery operation, we encountered an American NUMA team in a small submersible. They seem to have arrived and surveyed the site just before we did. Their presence not only compromised the secrecy of this vessel but the airborne mission itself.”

  “How so?”

  “We have reason to believe they took Blackjack 1’s flight data recorder. We’ve searched the wreckage and the surrounding area. Despite detecting a signal when we first arrived, it’s nowhere to be found. The only logical explanation is that the Americans have it.”

  “NUMA,” Davidov grumbled. This wasn’t the first time the American nautical organization had thwarted a Russian effort.

  Across from him, Admiral Borozdin grew tense. “If the Americans have the black box, they won’t have any problem piecing together the entire mission. They’ll know we tried to hijack their craft out of midair.”

  Davidov waved off the concern. “It’s of little consequence. They can’t reveal or complain about our actions without exposing their own secrets. The bigger issue—the only issue—is what happened to the spacecraft.”

  The submarine captain assumed the question was for him. “I have no answers, at this point.”

  “Continue the search,” Davidov ordered. “Follow the last-known course. I want updates every hour.”

  Tovarich signed off, and Davidov found he’d lost his appetite. His silver fork rattled against the Admiral’s fine china as he put it down. “We had
it,” he said. “We had it in our hands.”

  Borozdin put his own knife and fork down and took a drink of water. “Even if the Nighthawk broke free, it should have come down nearby.”

  “Not necessarily,” Davidov said. “Considering the speed and altitude at which they were traveling, it could literally be anywhere.”

  Borozdin nodded. “What orders did Blackjack 2 have?”

  “Its primary job was to override the signal from Vandenberg,” Davidov said.

  “And in the event something went wrong?”

  “To track the Nighthawk as long as possible and report final course, altitude and speed.”

  “Do you have any reason to think they did otherwise?”

  Davidov bristled. “I have no reason to think anything, Sergei. We never heard from them again.”

  “They were Russian officers,” Borozdin said. “Highly trained. No doubt handpicked for their proficiency, loyalty and bravery. Unless you sent cadets up on your most secret of missions, I think we can assume they followed orders as long as possible. Right to the end.”

  Davidov settled back. “Fine. I agree. What good does it do us? We still don’t know where they are.”

  “We know where they aren’t,” Borozdin noted. “They’re not in the sea.”

  Davidov froze. For the first time, he realized Borozdin was not just toying with him. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because the Americans would be pulling them out of the water already.”

  “I think you overestimate—”

  This time, Borozdin cut him off. “We are loath to admit it, but their technology is far superior to ours.”

  “Sergei, it doesn’t help—”

  Borozdin would not be interrupted. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while,” he continued. “I don’t know how the Americans found Blackjack 1 so quickly, but they did. They heard it, or saw it, or found it with a drone or with remote sonar or some other method we know nothing about. Whatever the case, they were on-site and picking the bones of our dead before we could get there, and we knew exactly where the plane had gone down. But now they’re searching grids again. Back and forth, east and west. If Blackjack 2 hit the water, they would have found it just as easily as they found Blackjack 1. But they haven’t found it, which tells me it didn’t come down in the ocean.”

  Davidov considered this. “So you think it made landfall. How does that help us?”

  “If Blackjack 2 was following the Nighthawk as ordered and then crashed on dry land, it stands to reason that the Nighthawk made landfall.”

  It was a leap, but there was logic to it.

  “And if we can find the wreckage of Blackjack 2,” Borozdin continued, “even if it’s burned to a cinder in the jungle somewhere, it will still be an arrow pointing us in the direction of the Nighthawk.”

  Davidov warmed to the idea, in part because it was all they had. “We need satellite data and we need it immediately.”

  24

  Somewhere in the mountains of Peru

  A long, pointed cone stuck out horizontally from beneath a tarp. It stood a dozen feet off the ground and was unmistakably the nose of a high-speed aircraft. Streaks of blackened oxidation swept back from the tip that suggested it had been through a fire, but the soot-colored stripes were caused by friction with the air and the heat of traveling at five times the speed of sound.

  Several men with reddish brown skin hauled lines connected to the tarp and pulled it forward until it covered the entire aircraft.

  “Stake that down,” someone yelled. “I’ll not have another windstorm pulling it free.”

  While the first group of workers pulled the tarp taut, a second group moved into place with sledgehammers. With repeated blows, they pounded long spikes deep into the ground. When they’d finished, the tie-down rings at the edge of the tarp were hooked to the spikes and locked down.

  As the men worked in the chilled mountain air, white vapors streamed from their mouths and noses. They wore colorful coats of alpaca wool, while the man who supervised them was dressed in modern black garb and wore a balaclava over his face.

  “Two more spikes here,” he said.

  As the section he’d pointed to was secured, another man came up to him. He had his long sleeves pushed up to the elbows, exposing an old scar that ran the length of his forearm. “We’ve doubled the number of stakes,” he said. “And the men are cutting more branches to lay across it.”

  “Have them cut slits in the tarp as well,” the man wearing the balaclava said. “Up high.”

  “But won’t that expose—”

  “It will keep the tarp from lifting. Aerodynamics. Trust me, my friend. This is my business.”

  The second man nodded. “Do you think we’ve been noticed?”

  “I checked the satellite tables,” the man in the balaclava said. “Fortunately, we’re in a remote part of the mountains. No one is flying spy satellites over this area. Not yet, at least. But, we can expect that to change soon. Another exposure could ruin everything.”

  “But you want them to find the bomber?” the second man said, unsure and trying to follow his master’s lead.

  “Oh, yes. But on our schedule, not theirs.”

  The man with the scar on his arm nodded and turned away, walking toward the forest. He made a whirling motion with his hand and chain saws roared as the men began cutting down branches and felling entire trees, all of which would be dragged forward and used to disguise the landed treasure.

  The man in the balaclava was pleased. With the aircraft covered again and the camouflage work progressing, he ducked under the edge of the tarp and walked beneath the bomber’s sharply swept wing. He passed the squared-off engine pods and continued forward beneath the fuselage, careful not to bump any of the antennas or aerodynamic probes that stuck out beneath the plane. With its sharp edges and armored exterior, the aircraft seemed to him like a sleeping dragon. One that would wake and breathe fire soon enough.

  He arrived at a ladder that dropped from the center of the fuselage just behind the nose gear. He climbed it slowly, arriving in the darkened crew compartment. Another of his men was inside. He wore fur-lined boots and a colorful poncho over his shoulders.

  “What about them?” the man asked in his native tongue. “Another night like the last and they’ll freeze to death.”

  He was referring to the Russian pilots, bound and gagged and sitting on the floor of the aircraft. Three nights in the frigid plane without food or much to drink had taken most of the fight out of them. A swath of dried and frozen blood beside them where another crewman’s throat had been cut served as a warning not to argue.

  “They bring disease,” the man wearing the balaclava said. “But we’ll need them when the time comes. Take them to the cave.”

  The man in the poncho whistled down to several others and the prisoners were soon being taken down the ladder and hauled away.

  With the tarp covering the aircraft, it was dark in the cockpit, but it would be darker for the prisoners in their cave. And darker still for the world to come.

  “Keep everyone on alert,” the man in the balaclava replied. “Things will happen at a rapid pace now. The lure has been set. The trap will not remain empty for long.”

  25

  Ecuador

  They parted ways at the airport—Rudi boarding a flight for Washington to put out a growing series of political brush fires, Kurt and Emma boarding the NUMA Gulfstream for a ninety-minute flight to Cajamarca, Peru, where they would meet up with Paul and Gamay.

  Joe would follow in the Erickson Air-Crane, but the helicopter’s lumbering pace and the need to stop for fuel along the way meant it would be nine hours before the Air-Crane reached Cajamarca. It was a long delay, but if they were lucky enough to find the Nighthawk—or major pieces of it—they’d need some way to haul it out of the jungle or off the moun
tains.

  Shortly after takeoff, Emma used the encrypted satellite linkup to contact Steve Gowdy and give him a status update.

  The NSA chief was blunt from the word go. “So, what was all that business with the fruit bowl?”

  “Complimentary gift,” Kurt said. “We send one out to all the VIPs.”

  “You’re not helping,” Emma said.

  Kurt put up a hand and remained quiet for the rest of the call while Emma explained their new theory and vouched for Kurt’s belief that the NSA had a leak.

  On-screen, Gowdy’s eyes narrowed, but instead of anger or defensive bluster, he said simply, “Falconer. I thought we’d determined that to be an unfounded rumor.”

  “Listen to the tapes,” Emma suggested. “As they say, dead men tell no lies.”

  Gowdy nodded. “I’ll start an immediate investigation. But if there is a mole in here somewhere, then you’d better be careful. Your move to Cajamarca might be front-page news already.”

  “We haven’t reported it to anyone but you,” Emma replied. “But we’ll keep our eyes open.”

  “You’re going to need more than that. I’m sending Hurns and Rodriguez back down to help you out. Don’t brush them off this time.”

  Emma shook her head. “No deal,” she said. “If the Falconer is real and has a contact inside the NSA, it could be anyone. Even one of them, for all we know.”

  “They’re field agents,” Gowdy said. “They have no access to Vandenberg. They weren’t even on the project until after the Nighthawk went missing. They’re clean, I promise you.”

  Emma sighed and looked at Kurt. He shrugged. With a little luck, they’d have the Nighthawk in hand by the time the two agents arrived.

  “I still don’t like it,” Emma said.

  “And I don’t care,” Gowdy said. “They can stand by in Cajamarca in case you need them, but I’m sending them.”