Threat Level Black

McIntyre spoke as if he were a junior officer, though during McIntyre’s time in the government-which was only a few months ago, after all-he’d been the one with more authority. He would be absolutely loyal if he took the job. But Howe couldn’t offer him the post; the poor guy would feel obligated to take it, and then he’d fall apart.

Still, Howe could pick his brain.

“Maybe you could give me some background,” said Howe. “Informally.”

“You bet. When? Now? This afternoon?”

“I’m kind of tied up today. How about tomorrow-lunch, maybe?”

“You got it, sir. You got it.”

They made an appointment for noon at an out-of-the-way Italian restaurant near McIntyre’s condo.

“What do you think of this Korea thing?” asked McIntyre.

“You’re following it?” asked Howe.

“Oh, yeah.” He laughed again. “I get a kick out of some of these commentators. CNN even called me.”

“You went on TV?”

McIntyre’s laughter roiled into something almost vicious. “No way.”

“Let me ask you something,” said Howe. “Do the North Koreans have UAVs?”

“UAVS? I don’t think so. I mean…well, in theory you can use just about anything as a UAV. Crop duster even. I forget the last assessments. You talk to Thompson over at the CIA?”

“Actually, no.”

“They have the last force estimate. He’d know because he would’ve worked on it. He’s the guy to ask. Why?”

“Just curious.”

“ Dalton would have a handle on the technology if you’re looking to get up-to-date on UAVs in general,” said McIntyre. He was referring to the head of NADT’s technical aviation section, Mark Dalton. “I’d talk to him.”

“You sure they were robot planes?” the scientist asked when Howe described what he’d seen. “In North Korea?”

“Pretty sure. There were no cockpits, and the fuselages were fairly narrow.”

Howe took the small pad of Post-it notes from the top of Dalton ’s computer screen and sketched out the craft. It had gull wings that extended well to the rear.

Dalton shook his head. “You sure?”

“Yup.”

“Like that or like this?” He took the pen and modified the wings, making them droop more in the rear.

“Might have been like that, yeah. That’s what attracted my attention.”

Dalton went online and pulled up some schematics of American projects. Howe thought he saw some similarities with a Boeing project dubbed Bird of Prey that had flown in the mid-1990s. It was a manned, jet-propelled craft that tested a variety of capabilities.

“But not an exact match,” said Dalton.

“No.”

“How big were they?”

“I don’t know.” Howe didn’t feel he could tell Dalton everything-like the fact that he’d been in an airplane when he’d seen them.

“Well, let’s think about this. You saw two abreast in a hangar. How big was the hangar?”

“It was small, designed for a small plane, maybe an early-generation MiG. There was some space on either side and between the planes.”

Dalton estimated that the aircraft might have a wingspan from ten to fifteen feet; by contrast a MiG-21, itself relatively small, would span about twenty-three and a half feet. Payload, range, speed, and other capabilities would depend on any number of factors, but Dalton envisioned a several-hundred-mile range with good endurance.

“Low radar profile,” said Dalton, explaining that between the plane’s small size and angles, it would probably produce a radar cross section down toward 6- or 7/10,000 of a square inch. That was not quite as good as the best American stealthy designs, but it was extremely small, and a good deal smaller than the early F-117A, which had a cross section of approximately 8/10 of a square inch on normal radar, about that of a very small bird.

“Pretty capable aircraft, if they have them. No match for a manned fighter,” said Dalton, “but potentially capable.”

“What would you use it for?”

“Reconnaissance. Stealthy attack. Hell, put a bomb in it and you have a long-range cruise missile.”

“Thanks,” Howe told the scientist.

Chapter 11

The credit card Fisher had found had been used for cash advances from several ATMs in Queens, running through the daily limit of five hundred dollars with a series of small withdrawals. With no other leads, Fisher spent nearly an entire day looking at where they were, trying to find a common link. He decided that they were all within six or seven blocks of R train stops, though what that meant if anything was difficult to say.

On the other hand, there was a significant correlation with decent coffee places; while such a fact could not be undervalued in terms of its contributions toward solving a crime, it was not, in Fisher’s experience, of much use in the courtroom.