They had a procedure in place. Quinn was supposed to count out thirty seconds. If the system hadn’t started reeling him in by that time, he was to cut away on his own. It had easily been two minutes. By now, Quinn should have responded on the radio, confirming that he had separated and that his chute had deployed. He should be descending gently into the water. But the radio remained silent. Chances were that he was unconscious back there, getting bounced around by the jet wash or whirled in circles by the wing vortices.
The Maryland coast was approaching fast. If the kid was still attached, releasing the cable might kill him, even if he was conscious. But if Nick waited any longer, he would drop both Quinn and the cable into downtown Ocean City.
His finger hovered over the button.
Dear God, let the kid survive.
“I’m releasing the line in three, two, one . . . now.” He opened the catch, letting the cable fall free. “Turn back toward the boat,” he ordered Drake. “One way or the other, Quinn is well clear now.”
Nick and Drake waited in silence for another full minute, neither willing to accept the gruesome reality. Then the radio crackled to life.
“Woohoo! What a ride! Oh man, you guys have got to try that!”
Nick let out a relieved sigh. “Dagger, say your status.”
“I’m under canopy. My parachute deployed beautifully after you released me. I’m activating my GPS beacon. I should hit the water in about thirty seconds. Tell Molly to come pick me up.”
“Released me?” Nick repeated, raising an eyebrow at Drake. He keyed the radio again. “Dagger, did you hear my command to cut away?”
“Affirmative, Wraith,” Quinn replied, “but when am I gonna get another chance to bodysurf the air behind a stealth plane? I cut the cable after you dropped me and the fun was over. The line fell away clean.”
Nick dropped his oxygen mask and frowned at Drake. “I’m going to kill him.”
CHAPTER 25
Nick waited until Drake lifted the large dark chocolate mocha to his lips. “I saw what you ordered,” he said. “I told you that New Year’s resolution couldn’t last.”
Drake coughed and sputtered. “Don’t tell Amanda,” he pleaded, wiping a drop of sugary coffee from his chin. “She’ll never let me live it down.”
The two sat on tall stools at a small table in Charla’s, the base coffee shop. Next to them, backlit by the midmorning sun, a window painting of a life-sized Spanish friar smiled, as if the steaming cup of coffee in his hand were a blessing from heaven. Nick squinted in the sunlight and yawned.
“Still not sleeping?” asked Drake.
A waitress appeared with Nick’s order. “Here’s your extra-tall Redeye,” she said, handing him the supersized mix of espresso and black coffee.
“I retract the question,” said Drake flatly. “How long has it been? Five weeks? Six?”
Nick took a long hit from his Redeye and firmly set it down on the table. “Don’t worry about me. You forget. I went to the Air Force Academy. I didn’t sleep for four straight years.”
“You should have gone to a real college.” Drake gave him a sly grin. “I didn’t sleep at Notre Dame either, but for entirely different reasons.”
Nick stared out the window. In the distance, he saw a young man pounding up the pavement in a black jogging suit and stocking cap. “Uh-oh, speaking of irresponsible behavior.”
Drake turned in his seat to follow Nick’s gaze. After a moment’s pause, he said, “Hey, isn’t that—”
“The new kid,” finished Nick. “It’s Quinn.”
“You know,” said Drake reflectively, “he runs a lot like you.”
“You mean faster than you.”
“No, I mean with a look on his face that says he’s trying to punish the road for something. Or maybe trying to punish himself.”
* * *
Quinn’s breath came in easy, measured rhythm despite his quick pace. Two years in the Special Tactics pipeline had brought his cardio up to an Olympic level. He could have stepped up the pace even more, but he wasn’t out here to set any records. He was out here to sweat, and think.
Last night’s mission had revived him. He felt alive for the first time since his final test at Mission Qual. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the colonel had sent that cute tech Molly with him, but mostly it was the thrill of being out there, doing something different, something dangerous.
Maybe that’s why he ignored the order to cut away. Even when the Skyhook system failed, even knowing the history, he didn’t feel the risk of death. He just felt alive, and he wanted that feeling to last as long as possible.
Then Walker and Baron had freaked out. The major acted like he had just crashed the Wraith or something. It took him hours to get back to the base, but when he walked into Romeo Seven, the colonel and Baron were still in Walker’s office, surely discussing his fate. They didn’t tell him what they’d decided. He didn’t even know if he still had a job.
Quinn stepped up his pace, leaving the sidewalk to cross the short grass field next to the airman dorms. His room was on the fourth floor, but he wasn’t planning on using the stairs. Not in the normal sense anyway.
He approached the external stairwell from the side, stutter-stepped across the gravel border, and then leapt up to grab the first landing. Using the strength of his arms alone, he launched himself upward, grabbed the powder-coated aluminum handrail, and pulled his feet up to the concrete edge of the landing. Then, without pausing to rest, he leapt up and grabbed the next landing and launched himself up to the next rail. He repeated the process with rhythmic cadence until he clambered over the final rail on the fourth level.
As Quinn pulled off his sweat-soaked shirt and tossed it on his bed, he noticed the message light blinking on his phone. He turned on the speaker and then hit the lit button. Walker’s stern voice filled the room. The message was short.
“Quinn, report to my office immediately.”
* * *
Renovations to the Romeo Seven bunker had included a new office for Walker. The contractors installed the glass-enclosed room twelve feet above the floor in the southwest corner of the command center, giving the colonel a bird’s-eye view of the entire operation. The team called it the Ivory Tower.
Nick and Drake waited at the base of the wrought-iron stairs like kids waiting outside the principal’s office. Nick had received a text that interrupted their coffee, demanding that they report to Romeo Seven at once.
“Is this about last night?” asked Drake.
Nick shrugged. “What else could it be? Walker and I discussed the kid at length after his stunt with the Skyhook system. The colonel is still holding out hope that we can fix him.” He frowned. “I’m not so optimistic. The colonel is letting me put Quinn on desk probation: paper pushing only, no field ops until he proves that he can follow orders. He was going to let me administer the browbeating as well, but maybe he changed his mind. He does enjoy that sort of thing. It’s the closest thing he has to a hobby.”
Walker emerged from his office just as Quinn stepped off the elevator. He walked a few steps down the stairs before pointing at Quinn and then the two majors. “You three, get in here.”
Nick and Drake waited for Quinn to join them before going up. “Just remember, kid,” said Drake, “this is going to hurt him more than it hurts you.” The corners of his mouth curled up into a smirk. “Oh, wait. Maybe not.”
A moment later, Walker poked his head out of his door again. “Hurry up. I don’t have all day.”
Drake slapped Quinn on the back. “At least he’s in a good mood.”
The three of them piled into Walker’s office. “Shut the door,” he commanded. The colonel stood in front of his desk, his usual scowl burning a hole in the floor, a foam cup of coffee in his right hand.
Nick stepped forward. “Sir, about the Skyhook test—”
“Tha
t’s not what this is about,” Walker interrupted. He looked up, and Nick could see that he wore his business scowl as opposed to his angry one. “We have a more pressing issue to deal with.”
Walker stepped to the side. For the first time, Nick saw that there was another person in the room. A young, red-haired sergeant sat at the colonel’s desk, his nose buried in a laptop computer. Nick’s eyes widened. “Will?”
Will McBride looked up from his work and waved. “Major Baron, Major Merigold,” he said simply.
“It’s been more than a year since we’ve seen you,” said Drake. “What brings you to our secret underground lair this time?”
McBride wasted no time with pleasantries. “A mystery. One that we are already behind in solving because I very stupidly chose to ignore it until I got a tip from the CIA.”
“McBride works for a Global Hawk high-altitude reconnaissance unit now,” said Walker. “Go ahead and show them what you’ve got, Sergeant.” He nodded at Nick. “Baron, get the walls.”
Nick slapped a wide black button that was set into a steel panel just inside the door. The smart glass walls immediately became opaque, changing to a dull pearl. Then McBride punched a few keys on the laptop, and a media player appeared on the wall that ran along the command center side of the office. The video frame showed a black– and-white image of uniformed men in a fenced-in compound.
“This is Detention Center Twenty-six in Fujian Province, China,” said McBride. “These are successive stills taken by a Global Hawk’s synthetic aperture radar.” He pressed Play and the images progressed, showing the men running in various directions about the compound. Some were moving into the woods and drawing weapons. Suddenly the pictures shifted into the trees and the progression froze. “That was everything I got before the Hawk continued its scan,” said McBride. “The crew refused to sacrifice their mission coverage to stay on this target. I didn’t argue.”
“That’s not much,” said Drake. “What are we supposed to make of it?”
McBride held up a finger. “Good point.” He turned back to the laptop and opened another folder. “The next day, I received an audio file from the CIA relating to our mission. That’s not an uncommon occurrence. Langley processes radio frequency intercepts that they receive from the Global Hawk. It has to be done after the mission because the receiver captures so many frequencies simultaneously. It sounds like garbage until their computers filter through it.”
An audio file sprang open in the media player. Waveform lines jittered and danced to the sound of Chinese voices and twangy music drowning in a sea of static. Then another voice joined the confusion, a western voice. Nick strained to understand, but he couldn’t make out the words.
McBride stopped the playback. “That’s what it sounds like before the filtering,” he said. “But after you isolate the target waveform and filter out the rest, it sounds like this.” He opened another file and hit Play.
Without the noise, the western voice came through, rasping and weak, but clear and unmistakably American: “Red Dragon, this is Jade Zero One. I am alive. I repeat, this is Jade Zero One. I am alive and requesting immediate evac.”
CHAPTER 26
Nick folded his arms and lifted one hand to rub the roughly shaven stubble on his chin. “So you’re postulating that a US citizen has just escaped from a defunct prison camp in southern China?”
“Not just me,” said Walker, setting his coffee down on the desk. “The Joint Chiefs too. But the chairman isn’t ready to bring in the State Department. With the current administration’s weak Asia policy and Task Force 77 out of the strait, our political footing in China is delicate. A formal inquiry could be disastrous. Instead, the chairman has asked the Triple Seven Chase to look into it. Discreetly.”
“The trouble is,” interjected McBride, “that none of the services has lost anyone recently in China.”
“What about those P-3 guys back in ’01?” asked Quinn.
“They all came home,” said Nick. “Will, have you talked to Langley?”
“That’s part of the mystery.” McBride gestured to the digital media player, still open on Walker’s smart glass wall. “That file came to me from a generic address in their audio analysis section. I called over there to compare notes, but no one could tell me who sent it. When I asked if they were missing any operatives in China, I got stonewalled. Later, I received a formal e-mail from the China division chief that said they could neither confirm nor deny.”
“That means they don’t know,” said Nick.
“I thought that meant that they were lying,” said Quinn.
“No, if they actually give you an answer, that means they’re lying,” said Drake.
“Enough,” interrupted Walker. “Please don’t say things like that when you go over there. Our two operations have such a tenuous relationship.”
Nick shook his head. “Don’t worry, sir. We don’t even know if the spooks are involved. We have no intention of going over to Langley.”
“On the contrary. You’re going over there right now. This thing has CIA written all over it. I’ve already made arrangements with Joe Tarpin.” Walker patted McBride on the back. “I’ve muscled the sergeant away from his unit. While you’re gone, he can oversee our intelligence team and dig from here.”
“I guess that’s settled then,” said Nick, turning to Drake. “We’d better get moving.”
“Ahem.” Walker coughed and nodded toward Quinn. “Baron,” he said, his scowl sharpening, “don’t forget about the new kid.”
* * *
Nick gathered Drake, Quinn, and McBride in his office. “We’ll take the Mustang,” he said, handing his keys to Drake. “I’ll meet you up there in a few minutes.”
As Drake stepped out the door, Quinn got up from the couch and started to follow.
Nick blocked his path. “Who said anything about you coming along?”
“Colonel Walker did,” argued Quinn. “He just told you not to forget me.”
“No, he told me not to forget about you. And believe me, I haven’t.” He searched Quinn’s face, still trying to figure out what made him tick, wondering what sort of crossed wiring drove him to blow off something as critical as a cutaway command. The last thing he needed was another operative who couldn’t follow orders. His eyes settled on Quinn’s, matching the kid’s angry glare. “Until I say otherwise, you’re on desk probation. Go find Molly and ask her to show you how to run a Defense Intelligence Agency search for ‘Red Dragon.’ The pile will build fast. When it does, your job is to start reading and filtering out the slag. It isn’t peeling potatoes, but it’s close.”
The young operative glowered back in protest for a few more seconds. Then, without so much as a “Yes, sir,” he stood and walked out of the room.
McBride gave a low whistle. “Wow. That was awkward. How dysfunctional is that kid, right?”
Nick sighed. “Until Walker sees reason, I’m stuck with him.” He motioned for McBride to sit down at his computer. “I need your help with something, something that isn’t really part of this Red Dragon thing.”
“But the colonel wanted me to watch over your analysts.”
Nick shook his head. “They can handle themselves. I need you to work on something else.” He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a red thumb drive. “I need you to process the video on this drive. The password is Warthog one seven.”
“What’s in the video?”
“A fish who nibbled at some bait we left at the Kuwait City morgue. Someone knew about our last op, and I need to know who they are and how they got their information.” Nick held up the drive. “This guy is our only lead.” He started to hand it to McBride but then pulled it back. “Oh, and I’d like you to keep this under Walker’s radar.”
The young sergeant took the drive out of Nick’s hand and shoved it into the computer tower. “Running an op behind the colonel’s back, huh? No
w who’s the dysfunctional one?”
* * *
Crossing the infamous seal just inside the CIA’s front door always struck a wary chord in Nick’s gut. The enigmatic star and eagle crest seemed to radiate its own energy, like an etching in the stone floor of an ancient temple. It was hallowed ground, or perhaps something quite the opposite.
“My two favorite teammates,” said Joe Tarpin, waving from the security desk. “What a pleasure.”
Nick shook Tarpin’s hand. “I take it that Colonel Walker apprised you of our situation?”
“He did. In fact, I did a little digging this morning, and I’ve already made some progress.”
Nick and Drake followed Tarpin through security, flashing their Defense Intelligence Agency badges. The Triple Seven Chase had no parent agency, but badges were needed to open doors wherever you went in Washington, DC, and DIA badges could open the most. Walker had the necessary contacts.
Just past the X-ray machine, Tarpin turned and started climbing a flight of stairs.
“I’m surprised we’re going up,” said Drake. “I expected to find the records for top-secret CIA projects in the basement.”
“We’re not as arcane as that,” replied Tarpin, glancing over his shoulder as he climbed the steps. “As part of our efforts to pretend respectability, we maintain our archives in the same place as any venerable old institution.” He rounded a corner at the top of the stairs and stopped in front of a pair of frosted glass doors. A polished nickel plate set into the wall read LIBRARY.
“I guess there’s no better place to do research,” said Nick.