Gryphon, page 6
Miranda continued speaking to her dog. “It is a reasonable addition to the hypothetical Conjectural Sphere of Causality that the aircraft was deliberately crashed. An intentional CFIT, controlled flight into terrain.”
“But…” Rolm ignored the sphere thing but understood the message, “…why would someone do that?”
“That,” she primly addressed her four-legged audience of one, “is outside the scope of our investigation. We’re only interested in why the aircraft physically came down.” She turned away and set the dog on its feet. “Jeremy, next we’ll recover the data recorders. We need to map the control inputs from the cockpit to verify the conjecture that it was an intentional controlled flight into terrain.”
“Take Tad for muscle instead,” the Australian waved at the big black man who’d been last to arrive. “I need Jeremy for a moment.”
“Least I’m good for something,” the black man muttered. “None of this makes any damn sense.”
Rolm wouldn’t have heard him if they hadn’t stood side-by-side.
Rolm wanted to strike out at the Miranda woman. Strike out for the dead plane, for the lovely Alva, for…himself. So that he wouldn’t have to face the pain.
All other releases denied, Rolm fell to his knees in the snow and screamed at the dark night. Then puked up the entire sausage sandwich he’d eaten on the drive up. Sick until any meals behind that one lay on the snow before him as well.
Rolm pitied his wife, Gertrude. Not for the affair. She was the one who’d announced herself done with sex.
But he pitied her nonetheless. Perhaps it was very Swedish of him; he didn’t know or care. After all her years of patience and support, from this moment on she would only have a hollow shell pretending to be a husband—all that remained of him.
His airline, his life’s work, instead of reaching its culmination in eight days, had been shredded by a suicide.
“By the way, mate,” the blonde Australian spoke softly.
The strange woman and her dog had moved on.
“He may have an Italian name, but look at his face. Looks more like a Russian prizefighter to me.” For some reason she knelt and unzipped the bag again to his waist. She slid up Marco’s sleeves, but he saw no markings on either of his forearms.
The young Asian man snapped several photos of Marco’s face. He also pulled out a small device that imaged Marco’s thumb and fingerprints. The blonde held out a blood-stained wallet. He photographed the contents.
Rolm stared at Marco’s bloody uniform and broken body. Too numb and sick at heart to look away.
“I’ll send these to a friend of mine and see what she thinks.” Then the Asian walked away while tapping on his phone.
The Australian tossed the wallet on Marco’s bloody chest and zipped up both bags, shed her blue gloves, and followed the others toward the plane.
She’d been right, he didn’t look very Italian. But Russian?
LuftSvenska might have been attacked by Russia?
11
Heidi Geller returned from her afternoon run ready to die.
The Imagine Dragons track “Enemy” pounded over her earbuds, as if she needed a reminder that everyone was the enemy. Today the London weather definitely ranked as Enemy Number One.
She ran in DC all the time; why was London so freaking cold by comparison? Two degrees above freezing, but wrapped in a thick, chill mist that soaked everything it came in contact with. Her Outdoor Research jacket’s Pertex waterproof had utterly failed. Not because the water went through it, but because the chill London fog slid in via every tiny opening worse than a desert dust storm.
And she’d thought she’d been so smart by skipping a run in this morning’s freezing sleet so she didn’t actually pitch under a London bus—coming from some drastically un-American direction. Sleet, at least, might have frozen on her like a shell, offering its own layer of insulation.
She went straight into her hotel room’s shower fully clothed. Of course, the jacket worked great against a mere inundation, sluicing the water off her body before it warmed her in the slightest.
Heidi forced her frozen fingers—frozen right through her sixty-dollar winter running gloves, thank you so very much—to peel off layer by layer. Though the temperature looked to be set to lukewarm, her nervous system rang fiery-intruder alerts as loudly as possible about the comparatively scalding water blasting her skin.
Twenty minutes. That’s all she had.
In twenty minutes, warm or not, she had to be downstairs ready to present her keynote address. Her hair could stay wet, it always curled enough to avoid a drowned rat look. Besides, she was a woman at a hacker conference. She could mesmerize most of the guys by reading the terms and conditions for an iPhone’s operating system.
Her job took care of the rest of the doubters. As head of the CIA’s cyberattack division (which of course didn’t technically exist), her keynote, New Cyberdefense Tactics and Methodologies, would rivet them to their seats. If she said even a serious percentage of what she knew? Their brains would melt down—and she’d spend the rest of her life in solitary confinement in Leavenworth prison.
Damn Harry for tearing out that tendon in his ankle and sticking her with this on her own. He’s the one who headed up Cyberdefense, though he wasn’t as good at dancing along the edges of the secrecy directives surrounding their jobs, even without the injury. Now, he’d had the tear repaired but was on his back for the next two weeks—foot must remain elevated to “toes above nose” for eighty percent of the time. No plane flights from DC to London. No long days at the Black Hat Europe conference.
At least he could crutch around and feed himself during the other twenty percent. And he’d appeared clearheaded enough already for her to go on her own, as she was one of the keynote speakers.
They had rigged a lie-down console setup for him, both at home and the office, but she hadn’t thought to make him video-in for the talk. It might have been fun as he was still loopy on the opioid painkillers. Probably not the best choice for a public presentation—who knew what would slip out. Be fun to watch though.
Heidi, finally naked, kicked her clothes to the corner of the shower and began edging up the hot water, trying to raise her core temperature. Or at least stop the shivers shaking her like a failing hard drive.
Black Hat Europe was always fun. Whatever idiot scheduled Black Hat USA during August in Las Vegas was clearly a punk hacker, probably never left Mom’s air-conditioned basement except for the conference. Certainly never considered how deeply stupid it was to travel to a city at a time of year ideal for frying eggs on the sidewalk.
USA also took themselves far too seriously. All the heavy security geeks were there, from the NSA and DIA on down. Mixed in with all the beginner wannabes who’d read too many William Gibson novels, it was a mess. Here, her far-more-rational NATO-member counterparts predominated.
A loud buzz cut off the follow-on to “Enemy”, Lady Gaga belting out “Hold My Hand.” Heidi had left in her earbuds. Her hands were still shaking when she reached up to squeeze the earbud’s stem to accept the call.
“This is me.”
“You in a rainstorm?”
“Shower.” Then she recognized the voice. She’d been expecting Harry, not Jeremy.
“Uh…”
She imagined the bright blush racing up his face.
“…should I call back?”
“Why?” Heidi couldn’t resist the tease. Jeremy had been Harry’s best man at their wedding. She’d discovered that he was embarrassed by the strangest things. Harry was sweet, for a vicious hacker, but Jeremy was simply too cute.
“Because you’re…”
She wondered if he’d manage to say the word naked.
“Is Harry around?” Nope, no naked with Jeremy.
“He’s still in DC with his foot up in the air. I’m at Black Hat.”
“Oh. Uh, that’s great. Good program this year, but I didn’t sign up. You know, with Taz giving birth just a few months ago I didn’t want to leave her alone, except I did go to the Air Safety Investigators conference at the last minute with Miranda—Taz accused me of hovering too much and getting on her nerves. Wait until you and Harry have a kid; it does crazy things to how you think about stuff. When is that anyway?”
“When is what?” She played stupid to buy a second, at least long enough to not swallow her tongue. How had he started discussing Black Hat and finished by scaring the shit out of her?
“Having a baby. You two. You’ll love it.”
She laid a hand on her belly. Her belly was warm, the only part of her that was, but her fingers felt as if they were far colder than the run had made them. The chill claw of doom threatening to invade her womb. She really wasn’t ready to think about going down that path. “Sure, why don’t you carry a growing alien lifeform inside your body for nine months and see how you like it?”
Jeremy laughed. “That’s what Taz kept saying.”
Which, Heidi realized, was where she’d heard the phrase. In the birth room no less, as if witnessing the event had been insufficient verifiable proof. The shivers were back. She nudged the temperature up another notch.
Jeremy and Taz had reproduced almost right away, and fatherhood looked good on him. Herself and Harry? “We haven’t really talked about it yet. There’s plenty of time.” The two of them were older than Jeremy, but they were younger than Taz.
“Well, you should talk about it. I’ll text Harry. Hang on…”
“No, wait, Jeremy.” He would too—she needed to run interference. “Why did you call?” She turned her back to the spray and the burning sensation shot to life again.
“Oh right. We’ve got a corpse that probably isn’t who he said he was. I’ve sent you photos, fingerprints, and a copy of his pilot’s and driver’s license.”
“Pilot’s?” Of course, with Jeremy being part of the NTSB that made sense.
“Copilot for LuftSvenska. Or he was until he snapped his captain’s neck and then crashed the plane.”
“Any other fatalities?”
“A hundred and forty-three with cabin crew and both pilots.” And there was the weird contrast of Jeremy. He could stare at a battered corpse and start modeling the necessary kinetic forces and external trauma to do to them whatever had been done to them. But he wouldn’t be able to speak to her hundreds of kilometers away if she reminded him that she was naked in a shower except for a pair of earbuds.
“Um, I’m on as a keynote speaker in a couple minutes. Send it all to Harry but remember, if it’s a truly deep cover, it can take a while to run. And Jeremy?”
“Yeah.”
“Please don’t bug him about having a baby. I’d rather have that conversation myself.”
“Oh, right. Enjoy your, uh…”
“Naked shower?”
“Yeah. That.” And Jeremy was gone. She clearly heard his blush long distance.
Sometimes all it took was a good friend to make you feel warm—at least on the inside.
12
“Is it down?”
“It is.” He sat in his cubical and wished he was sitting ten thousand miles away, like the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
“Good. Cleared to Phase Two.”
“Yes, Chief.” He hung up the phone carefully. He’d created the plan—or at least the idea—ten months ago.
That had been his first mistake.
It was a drunken night in the Bunker Bar and he’d been slamming back Lebowskis like the White Russians were straight cream. The Bunker, an ideal place to feel miserable after a breakup. They’d remodeled a World War II brick bomb shelter into a long series of arched chambers: the dance room with a tiny stage jammed at the far end, next the bar room for serious fuel mixed with close-body mingling, and a tiny kitchen at the other end for pumping out a steady stream of Western-style appetizers, burgers, and quesadillas. The Bunker’s website was hosted on the high-security Telegram app and the menu bore the stamp Classified.
A lot of intelligence service folks came here, drank hard, and rarely met each other’s eyes. Talking to each other outside the walls of headquarters wasn’t safe—on even the most innocuous topic. Even here. Despite the roar of the band. Yet, here they gathered together with enough general populous that they could avoid each other.
That night’s country-western cover band, mangling surprisingly few of the lyrics, had kicked out rhythmic blasts worthy of being in an underground bunker. The dance floor was jammed to the limits with plenty of likely young ladies in the mix and overflowing into the bar as usual. But the scars from Elene Burduli had still smarted. He’d gone down there with his ears drooped like a sad dog to bury his sorrows in the old shelter, not create new ones.
He'd had vague notions, which had become foggier as the night dragged on, that it had been his bar before she’d come along, and it would damn well be his afterward.
He’d turned to tell her so—
And for the hundredth time that night, she hadn’t been at her usual spot on the next stool over.
He’d sat at the bar, barely bothering Max, the bearded owner/bartender. And not quite watching the hockey game on the big screen above the lines of bottles. They slapped the puck back and forth like they were slapping him upside the head, like the band beating the time with a sledgehammer, like Elene Burduli—
Yep, his thoughts had plunged once more down the same snake hole they’d been traveling all that night.
Wouldn’t it be nice, he’d thought at the time, if they were all beating on someone else other than him?
Which gave him the idea. What if they were?
His second mistake had been making his way up out of The Bunker and not going home to sleep off the idea in a drunken stupor that guaranteed a hangover able to eradicate all memories—except Elene dumping him, of course.
She hadn’t merely thrown the ring back at him, she’d laughed in his face on top of it. Marry you? She’d laughed harder, until he tossed her out of the apartment wearing only her sheer suggestion of a nightgown. He’d ducked out the back door through the chill February rain—nothing worse than a cold night’s rain in February—to avoid the new tone of the howls. Not a court in the land would convict him on that one.
Nope, he didn’t want to be anywhere around his apartment that night. The only surprise when he finally did return home was that she hadn’t fire-bombed the place.
Instead, after he’d crawled out of The Bunker—since her memory hadn’t left him alone there either—he’d gone to the office and typed up his idea. Dumping it in an Eyes Only envelope and shoving it into his boss’ secure drop constituted his last functional, if not coherent, act. Then he’d passed out face down on his desk, effectively erasing the memo from his memory.
For two months, it had stayed that way.
Then he’d been called into the service chief’s office, without his boss or either of the managers two tiers above him. He’d been utterly mystified about what the hell he’d done so wrong to be pulled up on the top carpet in the entire operation. Pavle was an analyst. He’d never had a private meeting with the chief since his six-minute welcome aboard five years ago.
We’ve vetted your plan at the highest levels. You’re no longer in the Analytical Directorate; you now report directly to me. I have a few suggestions on how we can get the assets in place.
He’d had no idea what the chief was going on about until he spotted his original memo in the open folder on the desk. His only coherent thought at the time was being impressed that he’d been sober enough to write it in the first place.
Even now, eight months after that first meeting and cleared to launch Phase Two, he wished he knew if he’d fallen into good fate or obliviously buried his head in the sand—like when he’d thrown Elene out into the February rain…or like when he’d taken her back a week later.
13
Major Ingrid Eklund of the Swedish Air Force waggled her wings in greeting as she pulled alongside the Finnish F/A-18C Hornet jet.
Kapten Liisa Salo waggled back.
In the early morning and this close to the Artic Circle, they saw each other only by their nav lights and the shine of the half-moon scraping the horizon.
They’d never met in the flesh, but Liisa had been damn cute in the pre-mission video briefing. The Finn possessed more prominent cheekbones than a typical Swedish woman, the amber eyes accented by the extra-dark-chocolate hair so different from her own true blonde. They both wore it long and had shared the easy smile of fighter pilots knowing exactly who ruled the skies. Unless Ingrid had misread the subtext, the more personal interest was also mutual.
After today’s patrol she had two days off. If all went well, maybe she’d take a Grisslehamn ferry across the Gulf of Bothnia and see what happened.
For now, they had a mission to fly.
She felt a little sorry for Liisa. The American-built F/A-18C Hornet was a nice enough jet, but dated.
And it couldn’t touch her Saab JAS 39E Gripen.
The Saab Gripen—Gryphon in English, named for the mythical beast of a lion’s hindquarters and an eagle’s head, wings, and talons—was sometimes called the first sixth-generation fighter. She wasn’t stealth. She didn’t have massive payload capabilities. The pilot wasn’t wired into her plane with a half-million-dollar helmet like the American’s fifth-generation F-35 Lightning II.
However, her Gripen had been designed elegantly with one sole purpose in mind—killing Russians. And if the time ever came to test that, Ingrid had every confidence in her mythical creature’s speed and firepower.
Her baby boasted the lowest operating cost of any fighter jet aloft by almost a factor of two. The Gripen’s entire system was based on a single suite of software so that she was easily maintained at the very leading edge of technology. Most nations’ fighter jets required years of lag-and-leap between system upgrades due to conflicting software systems from multiple manufacturers unwilling to share proprietary architecture.
