Quinn twisted the focus on his goggles. A tree, twisted and shattered by some powerful force, was leaning to the right. Perhaps artillery or an air strike, Quinn guessed. He wondered about that. According to the map, the nearest village was about seven or eight kilometers away.
Bentley checked the GPR one more time. “Wait here for me,” Bentley said, his hand straying up to the night vision goggles perched on his head. The straps weren’t adjusted correctly and they kept slipping down. Quinn wasn’t in the mood to help him with it.
“We should go with you to the top of the ridge,” Quinn said. “If there’s someone—”
“I said, wait here,” Bentley said. He picked up the third case and took it with him.
Quinn gestured and the other three men went to earth, facing out in the other three cardinal directions, weapons at the ready. Quinn watched as Bentley walked up the ridge and past the broken tree. As soon as the man was out of sight, Quinn followed.
As he came up to the tree, Quinn crouched low. He slowly peeked over a broken bough. The terrain dropped off on the other side, but Quinn’s attention was focused on the gouge in the grassy slope. Starting from the tree and going downslope, the dirt was torn as if a tank had ripped through. Bentley was at a large piece of crumpled metal at the end of the gouge, opening the third case.
Quinn heard the screech of metal as Bentley leaned into the wreckage. A downed aircraft? Quinn wondered. Perhaps Bentley was here for its black box, or maybe classified equipment or something else that had been on board.
Quinn turned and worked his way back down the slope, considering the possibilities.
“What’s happening?” Trent asked.
“There’s a plane or chopper crashed on the other side of the ridge,” Quinn said, his mind working. “It must have been carrying diamonds. Maybe the U.S. got it enforcing the no-fly rule, or maybe it had a bomb on board in some scheme Skeleton thought up. Regardless, Skeleton had had a homing device placed on board and Bentley is getting the diamonds.”
“Must be quite a few to be worth this much,” Trent said.
“You and I know Bentley could carry enough diamonds in his backpack to be worth tens of millions,” Quinn said.
“What are we going to do?” Trent asked.
“I don’t know.” Quinn looked upslope. Bentley had appeared, moving quickly toward them.
“Let’s get moving,” Bentley said.
“Change in plans,” Quinn said. “Last message I got from Skeleton said to call in for air evacuation as soon as you recovered what you were supposed to.”
“Well, I got it,” Bentley said. “So call.”
Quinn’s head snapped up like a bird dog on the scent. “Hear that?”
Trent’s head swiveled on his thick neck. “Yeah. Helicopter.”
Quinn stuck the muzzle of his Sterling in Bentley’s stomach. “Maybe you already called and we’re getting double-crossed here?”
“I couldn’t—I don’t have a radio!” Bentley protested.
“You have that SATCOM thing you used to get this position,” Quinn said.
“I left it here,” Bentley pointed out. “I swear I didn’t call anyone.”
“Then who’s on the helicopter?” Quinn asked.
“I don’t know!”
“It’s setting down to the south of here,” Trent noted. “Where we were camped.”
Quinn removed the gun from Bentley’s stomach. “Someone picked up our satellite transmission.”
“How can they do that?” Trent asked.
“I don’t know how,” Quinn said, “but it’s the only thing that makes sense.” He took a deep breath and cleared his head. “All right. Here’s the plan. We call on the SATCOM. If someone’s intercepting, that means they get a fix on us here, but we start moving right away. In the message we designate a linkup point.” Quinn studied his map. “Here. Eight clicks north.” He knew the spot well. It was an abandoned dirt strip that was used occasionally by diamond smugglers. Quinn had run an assault on the airstrip a year and a half ago.
“What if they decode the message?” Trent asked.
“I don’t think anyone can break a one-time pad,” Quinn said, not even really aware of where he was for the moment as his brain worked. “No, I think our signal’s been intercepted. Get the rig set up.”
Quinn blinked as Trent threw his ruck down and scrambled to pull out the radio. He focused on Bentley. “What did you get out of that aircraft?”
Bentley was adjusting his pack straps. “What are you talking about?”
“What did you just get? What did we come here for?”
“That’s not—”
Quinn drew his knife and slashed, the blade cutting across Bentley’s right cheek, a thin line of blood following the slit.
“What did you do?” Bentley screamed, scrambling backward and falling down.
Quinn stepped forward and slammed a knee into Bentley’s chest, pinning him to the ground. He pressed the point into the skin under Bentley’s right eye. “What crashed over there?”
“I can’t—”
The point of the knife edged forward until it was a scant millimeter from Bentley’s eye. “I’ll take one eye, then the other. Nothing in Skeleton’s orders about you keeping your eyes,” Quinn said. “Just get you and your cargo back. What crashed?”
“It was a satellite. Well, sort of a satellite,” Bentley said.
“A satellite?” Quinn frowned. “What did you get out of it?”
“Film,” Bentley said.
“Film of what?”
“The mine areas,” Bentley said. “The satellite wasn’t supposed to come down so soon.”
“That’s worth four million?” Quinn didn’t wait for an answer. “Bullshit. Skeleton could get photos of the mines anytime he wants.”
“Not this type of photo.” Bentley spoke quickly, eye still focused on the knife so close by. The camera used special imaging. The Angolan mines were never fully exploited. With thermal and spectral imaging, the specialists can determine areas that haven’t been dug up yet that have a high likelihood of holding diamonds, particularly alluvial flood areas.”
“Why the fuck does Skeleton care? He’s going to take over anything he wants once UNITA is destroyed.”
Bentley started to shake his head, then thought better of it. “No. Not with the Americans there. And the UN charter calls for the mines to be privatized and turned over to Angolans. Well, Skeleton’s got enough Angolan natives on his payroll prepared to take over, but he has to have them come in quick and stake claims. This way he can prevent what happened in Canada.”
Quinn slowly pulled the knife away. He knew about the fiasco in Canada three years ago. A prospector had discovered a rich field of diamonds. The rush had been on, and as usual, the Van Wyks cartel had rumbled in with the best equipment and a big bankroll determined to keep their monopoly. Unfortunately, the prospector had joined forces with a local company, and they’d staked claims using the same type of imaging Bentley had just talked about, while Van Wyks had relied on its tried-and-true but slower methods. The result: forty percent of the diamonds mined in Canada now came out of non-Van Wyks mines.
“It’s set,” Trent reported.
Quinn sheathed his knife and pulled out his one-time pad. He quickly began transcribing. He finished the message and punched it into the SATCOM and burst it out.
“Where did you say for the transportation to meet us?” Bentley asked.
Quinn laughed. “I don’t think that’s information you need. You just stick with us. We’ll get you there.”
* * *
Five thousand meters to the south, Riley looked around, weapon at the ready. The Black Hawk was sitting a short distance away, blades slowly turning.
“What do you think?” Lome asked, looking about in the dark at the rolling terrain around them.
“They were here,” Riley said, pointing at where the grass was pressed down. “Someone slept here. Maybe three, four men.”
“So where’d they go?” Lome asked.
“I’m not a fucking Indian,” Riley snapped. “They could have gone in any direction. We need help. Let’s get back on the bird.”
National Security Agency, Fort Meade, Maryland, 17 June
“Okay, Okay,” Waker said as he read the intelligence request. He was pumped. He was hooked in to his electronic network, everything coming in and dancing in front of his eyes in letters and symbols his brain automatically translated.
“Perfect timing,” Waker muttered. The KH-12 had picked up the SATCOM transmission as it was being made. Within thirty seconds it had come up on Waker’s screen. And now, three minutes later, someone on the ground in Angola wanted the location of the transmitter.
This time, though, he was talking direct back to the man in the field, and that gave Waker a rush. It was as close as he was ever going to get.
He typed, each finger slamming down on the key with authority.
TO: EAGLE
FROM: NSA ANGOLA ALPHA ONE ONE
TRANSMISSION SENT DTG 17JUNE0307ZULU BY SAME
SATCOM LOCATION UTM GRID 29583578
Waker looked at the message, his finger poised above the send key, then made a decision. He typed a couple of extra lines.
TERMINUS OF TRANSMISSION LOCATED ALONG
SKELETON COAST, VICINITY LUDERITZ
END OF MESSAGE
Waker hit the send.
Northeast Angola, 17 June
In the front of the helicopter, Lieutenant Vickers’s voice was in Riley’s ears as soon as he put the headset on. “We’ve got something coming from the AWACS.”
Riley put his hands over the headset and listened in.
“Army helicopter, this is Eagle. Over.”
Vickers replied. “Eagle, this is army helicopter. Go ahead. Over.”
Circling two hundred miles to the southwest, Colonel Harris frowned. The woman’s voice sounded familiar. Since the quarantine rule his and his crew’s job had been simply one of making sure that no one tried to get out of Angola by air.
So far there had been only one incident. In the first hour of the quarantine, a Marine helicopter had tried to fly back out to its assault vessel offshore. Harris still wasn’t sure whether the pilot had not received the order or had tried to bolt. Regardless, the aircraft had turned around when he’d ordered it.
Harris checked the message he’d just received from the NSA. “I’ve got new coordinates for you.”
The point man stumbled and fell. Trent was quickly at his side. The man reached up, grabbing Trent’s arm.
Quinn came up and looked at the man. He was a mercenary who had served with Quinn for the last two years. “Can you go on?”
The man groaned and rolled on the ground. Trent stood, flicking his arm to shake off the black vomit.
Quinn rubbed his forehead. He brought up the Sterling. The man raised an arm weakly. Quinn fired twice, then let his arms slump to his sides, the Sterling hanging by its sling.
“Let’s go,” Bentley said.
Quinn thought of the two dead rebels in their poncho stretchers. A million dollars. Would he make it out of here in time to buy help? “Let’s move.” As they went forward in the darkness, he noted that for the first time Trent had not added up their suddenly higher shares.
“Lock and load,” Lome yelled. The Black Hawk came in fast, the pilot flaring them at the last minute to prevent a crash. They jumped off, weapons at the ready, fanning across the open ground. The aircraft lifted and hovered overhead.
“They’re gone again!” Lome said as he looked around in all directions. He kicked dirt in frustration.
“What’s up there?” Conner asked, looking up the ridge at a twisted tree. They ran up the slope and crested it. A pile of twisted metal lay at the end of a trail of torn-up earth.
“What’s that?” Comsky asked as the party gathered around the wreckage.
“Helicopter?” Conner guessed.
“I don’t see any rotor blades,” Riley noted.
“It’s burned, whatever it is,” Conner said, touching the metal.
“There’s Cyrillic writing here,” Riley said, peering at a flat piece.
“Cyrillic?” Comsky asked.
“Russian,” Riley said.
“They’re gone,” Lome repeated. “That’s the important thing. I don’t even know what we’re doing here, chasing after ghosts in the dark. What does it have to do with this thing we’ve got? We’re fucking dying here!”
“You got a better idea?” Conner demanded. The scene was lit by a bolt of lightning. Thunder rumbled a few seconds later.
“We get somewhere where we can find medical help,” Lome said. “Go back to the AOB.”
“Go back and wait to die, you mean,” Comsky said. “Top,” he added, touching Lome on the arm, “there isn’t any medical help for this other than killing the pain in the later stages.”
“Ah, fuck,” Lome muttered, and walked off toward the top of the ridge, back toward the helicopter.
“This thing,” Riley said, plunking the burnt metal with his finger. “It came from out of the sky. We know that. If it’s an aircraft, we can get the AWACS to check records. Whoever sent that SATCOM message was here. This was what they were after. Let’s find out what we can about it.” He looked about. “And we know they were here less than an hour ago. We need help looking.”
* * *
Colonel Harris considered the dual requests. The first he gave to one of his analysts with the order to check the AWACS records and also relay it back to the NSA. The second he had to ponder for a few moments, before he came up with a solution.
Quinn had heard the helicopter set down to their rear. That confirmed to him that the SATCOM transmissions were being picked up. He checked out the sky. He’d seen this before. Heat lightning, soon to be followed by a torrential rain. Perfect. There was no way they would be found, no matter how close their pursuers were.
“Here!” Comsky called out.
Riley ran over, the others following. A body lay in the grass. Comsky shone a light down and they immediately saw the blood splattered all about and the bullet holes. But there was also the sign of the disease. A red welt across the man’s neck.
Riley looked out into the dark. The wind was picking up and he could feel dampness being carried with it. “Weather’s changing,” he called out. “Back to the chopper.”
Tshibomba, Zaire, 17 June
The pilot checked his map one last time, then carefully folded it so that the portion he needed was face up. He used a band of elastic to attach it to his kneeboard. He had no electronic devices on board other than the engine, windshield wipers, and the rudimentary instrument panel, so this truly was going to be a seat-of-the-pants navigation job. He did have a small FM radio to be used to contact the people on the ground when he got close. The pilot was used to such missions and felt confident he could find the target runway.
He’d been waiting here for five days, the aircraft—a specially designed, top secret prototype named the Gull—under camouflage nets, the entire area guarded by a platoon of Skeleton’s men. A generous payoff to certain officials in the Zairean army ensured they would not be bothered by any officials.
He flicked the on switch and the engine coughed once, then smoothly started. It was a specially designed rotary engine; quieter than a conventional piston engine and mounted directly behind the cockpit in a large bubble. The propeller shaft extended forward from the engine, over the pilot’s head to the high-mounted propeller, supported by a four-foot pylon mounted on the nose. The long shaft allowed a high reduction ratio for the prop, and the very large blades—over eight feet long—turned very slowly. The resulting sound was no louder than a moderate wind blowing through the trees.
The Gull was made by a South African company, from designs stolen from Lockheed’s Q-Star (Quiet Star) program. The entire aircraft was designed with two factors in mind: reduced noise and radar signature. It wasn’t built for speed or endurance, but with the target only eighty miles away across the border, the pilot knew he would be there in less than forty minutes.
The runway was dirt and the rain had further complicated what was going to be a difficult takeoff with no lights. The pilot released the brakes and the plane began rolling. Peering through the Plexiglas with his night vision goggles, the pilot ignored the sweep of the wipers and concentrated on staying straight. In two hundred feet he had sufficient speed and pulled back on the yoke, lifting off. As soon as he cleared the trees, he turned due west and headed for Angola.
Northeast Angola, 17 June
Colonel Harris had moved the AWACS until it was now centered over Cacolo. The Black Hawk was waiting on the ground at the last site they had gone to. The only other aircraft on his screens was moving in this direction because he had ordered it to.
He keyed his mike. “Spectre One One, this is Eagle. Over.”
“This is One One. Over.”
Harris quickly relayed to the pilot of the Spectre gunship what he wanted. The AC-130 didn’t look like a bloodhound, but it was the best Harris could come up with in the inventory. Using its LLTV, Harris wanted the Spectre to head to the Black Hawk’s location, then begin a circular search pattern, literally looking for the people they were after.
“Roger that,” the pilot of the Spectre acknowledged when Harris was done with his instructions. “ETA at target site, fifteen minutes. Out.”
On the ground waiting, Riley was thinking about the last message they had received giving them this location. The second part—about the other end of the SATCOM communications—was what interested him.
“What’s the Skeleton Coast?” he asked Conner.
The helicopter’s engine was still on, producing a low whine, but the blades were disengaged so they could talk without the intercom.
“The Van Wyks,” Conner answered. “Actually, the Skeleton Coast stretches almost fifteen hundred miles. Pretty much the entire coastline of Namibia with the south Atlantic. It was named during the sailing days because there was no place along that stretch that ships could stop and get water. If a ship didn’t make good time down to the Cape of Good Hope, it could get stranded—and all that was there was desert and rock right up to the water.”
“So why are the Van Wyks there?” Riley asked.
“Diamonds. That’s where the diamond fields are,” Conner said. “They own a large section of southwest Namibia that is totally restricted. It’s the Van Wyks’ own private country. They have a security force to control the workers. One of the articles I read said that they even rigged the barracks of workers with video cameras and remote-controlled tear-gas-canister dispensers.” Conner paused and wiped her forehead with a rag.
“So we know for sure now that these people are connected to the Van Wyks,” Riley said.
“Yes. And I think I’m beginning to see a bigger picture here,” Conner said.
“Which is?”
“Right-wingers in South Africa have been proposing a new homeland for whites, and Namibia is high on their list of choices.”
“What’s that got to do with this?” Riley asked.
“I’m not sure,” Conner said, “but if there’s a connection between Van Wyks and this disease, then there might be a connection between Van Wyks and the right-wingers.”
“You’re reaching,” Riley said.
“I know, but it’s my job.” Conner said, leaning back against the seat back.
“You all right?” Riley asked,
“Stupid question, Dave.” Conner tried to smile, but she suddenly had to lean forward and throw up.
“Another kilometer,” Quinn said. He pulled his canteen out and drank deeply while still walking, trying to replace some of the fluid he was losing and keep his temperature down.
He looked over. Trent and the other man weren’t doing too well, either, but Bentley seemed all right. Of course, Bentley hadn’t been with them at the ambush.
He had not heard the rev of power indicating the chopper behind them had lifted. What was it waiting for?
National Security Agency, Fort Meade, Maryland, 17 June
Running through the computer records forwarded to him from the AWACS and the records already in the computer, Waker had come up with a big fat zero as to the identity of the wreckage that had been found in northeast Angola. There was no sign of any aircraft flying over—or crashing in—that exact spot. The Cyrillic writing didn’t mean much, because much of the equipment both sides used in Angola had been supplied by the Russians.
Waker sipped his tea and thought about it. Wreckage from the sky? He put the tea down and began typing. Two thousand miles to the west another large computer began scanning, and within thirty seconds, he had an answer. On the twenty-first of May, at 0959 Greenwich Mean Time, a piece of space debris had come down with a plotted impact within five kilometers of the indicated place.
“Give me more,” Waker whispered as the screen cleared and new letters and numbers appeared, outlining the object that had come down.
RG14: Proton final stage booster. Orbit: Free, plotted, and logged. Launch: 18 May 1997 Launch Site: Kazakhstan
Comments: Final stage booster for Proton launch of communications satellite contracted out to SINCOM, European Communications. Payload is listed as EG36.
A booster? Waker frowned. He could understand if they had the payload, but just the booster? Shaking his head, he forwarded the information to the Pentagon with a copy for the AWACS in Angola.
Pentagon, 17 June
It was good news. Or at least a lighter lining to a very dark cloud, General Cummings thought. Z seemed confined to the eastern part of the country. Two companies at remote bases reported men sick. Otherwise the division seemed safe, for the time being. Perhaps they had enforced the quarantine in time, Cummings hoped.
But this other stuff that his G-2—intelligence officer—had put together. Add it all up and it didn’t make any sense. The message to the Pan-African forces ordering General Nystroom to halt prior to Cummings’s own halt. The follow-on plan to seize the diamond areas.
And now this information on a Russian booster rocket coming down in Angola back in May, connected with SATCOM traffic in the same place now.
“All right.” Cummings raised his voice and everyone in the War Room ceased his or her activity. “I need a total reevaluation on the situation in Angola. Drop your preconceptions about the strategic scenario. Look at all this new information and give me some possibilities. If this disease is man-made I want to know who made it. Who stands to gain by it. And I want options to bring some hurt down on the heads of the sons of bitches if we can pinpoint them!”
Northeast Angola, 17 June
Raindrops pelted Quinn. He had quit using his night vision goggles because nothing could help a person see in this. He was back to the basics he’d learned as a young lieutenant in the Canadian army: compass direction and pace count. He looked down, then knelt and felt with his hand. Dirt, no grass. He squinted into the dark. It appeared that the runway ran perpendicular to their path.
“We’re here!” he yelled, reaching out and grabbing the back of Trent’s backpack. The signal was passed and the four men gathered in close.
“How will we know when the aircraft lands?” Bentley asked.
Quinn was shivering now—a down spike in his fever—as water rolled down his body. “If I knew what type of aircraft, that would help. We might have to wait until this thunderstorm passes and the pilot gets an opening. When it lands,” he pointed, “we’ll see it. Don’t worry. Let’s just hope it gets here.”
He hadn’t told Bentley about the FM frequency. Quinn had his survival radio in an ammo pocket on his vest. He was using the same earplug that he did for listening to SNN. So far nothing. His stomach twitched and he leaned over as he vomited into the mud.
The pilot of the Gull was circling on the edge of the thunderstorm, just above stall speed, creeping east with this part of the storm. There was another thunderstorm behind him and he estimated he’d have about a five-minute window to hit the landing strip, make the pickup, and get back in the air.
Eight kilometers to the east, Riley and the others in the helicopter listened to Colonel Harris relay the information from the NSA about the rocket booster.
“Could this thing be some sort of space bug?” Conner immediately asked. They all turned and looked at Dr. Kieling.
“Any bug would have burned up coming down,” Kieling said. “Besides, the space program has never.. .” He paused as a thought struck him. “Zero g.”
“What?”
“Zero g,” Kieling repeated. “Things work differently under zero gravity. Biology—physics—at the molecular level the rules change.” He was tapping his forehead. “I read a paper—I’m trying to remember who wrote it. It was about manipulation of the RNA.
“There’s a thing called ‘transduction.’ A virus infects a bacterial cell that has a toxin...” Kieling shook his head. “Forget about all that, it’s not important right now. But this is starting to make some sense. The blisters on the red rashes. I think that’s the way the virus moves—the blister explodes, the virus goes into the air. And Z is different than, say, Ebola because it lasts in the air. It holds together under ultraviolet light longer. And zero g would be the only way to manipulate the virus to get that effect. You could...” Kieling came to another halt. “Yeah. It all fits. I see it now. I see it.”
“Does that mean you can cure it?” Sergeant Lome asked, caught up in Kieling’s excitement.
“Uh, well, no. But—”
“But shit!” Lome yelled. “What the fuck are we doing, then?”
“Shut up,” Riley said.
“Fuck you!” Lome stood, as well as he could in the cramped space of the helicopter. He leaned over Riley. “Fuck you. Fuck all you assholes. We’re dying! Don’t you understand that?”
“We don’t have time for this,” Riley said.
“I don’t care—” Lome began. The anger on his face changed to surprise as Riley uncoiled from his seat, left palm leading in a strike right into Lome’s solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him.
Riley didn’t pause, following that with another similar blow with his right palm, causing Lome to double over. Riley then smashed his left elbow into Lome’s right temple and the team sergeant was out cold.
“Strap him in,” he ordered. He put his headset back on. “Anything from the Spectre?” he asked Lieutenant Vickers.
“Negative.”
“Keep the engine running.”
In the Spectre gunship the storm didn’t matter in the slightest. The four powerful turboprop engines cut through the wind and rain and the men in the inside were on task, particularly the targeting officer, watching his TV set. The thermal imaging also wasn’t affected by the weather. He could see as clearly as if it were broad daylight.
They were flying low, doing shallow S-turns. They’d started at the Black Hawk and were ranging out in a cloverleaf pattern, always coming back and then back out at a slightly different angle.
In the back of the AWACS, a young technician stared at her screen. She played with her computer for a little while, then she reached up to the rack above it and pulled down a three-ring binder. She flipped through, searching. Finding what she was looking for, she tapped the man next to her. “Hey, Parker, align with me.”
Parker switched to the same radar frequency. “What do you have, Cordelli?”
“Just watch.”
They waited. “What am I looking for?” Parker asked after a minute.
“There! See it?”
“A shadow,” Parker said. “There’s a thunderstorm outside, in case you didn’t notice.”
Cordelli ignored him. “Look what happens when I let the computer project a cross-section based on the shadow.”
“What the hell is that?” Parker asked.
Cordelli handed him the binder. “You haven’t been doing your homework. Colonel Harris wouldn’t be pleased.”
Parker read. “The Lockheed Q-Star. It says here that it’s an experimental aircraft, and not in production. Hell, it says this thing was tested back in the early seventies.”
“That doesn’t mean someone couldn’t copy it and make their own,” Cordelli said. “And they didn’t have the radar technology and computer systems we have on this plane back in the seventies. It would be invisible back then. But it isn’t now.”
Parker handed back the binder. “Your find, you do the honors with the colonel.”