Threat Level Black

He put Fisher’s card back in his pocket. He really didn’t feel like talking to any more FBI agents today, not even Fisher. Howe glanced at the small notebook where he’d written the number of the journalist. The paper was a small weekly that occasionally ran man-in-the-news features on its front page. He wasn’t much interested in being the subject of a story, but it was only fair that he call the guy back and tell him so.

He punched in the number and got a message that it had been disconnected. Thinking the hotel clerk had made a mistake, he called information and got the newspaper’s number; it was nothing like the one that had been left.

The reporter who’d left the message didn’t exist.

Confused, Howe considered calling his mother to see if she knew anything about the story, but then decided not to bother her. It was nearly three o’clock. He could fit in a few calls to the NADT backers before it was time to hook up with Alice.

Chapter 11

Daylight made a big difference.

In the dark, viewed through the night goggles and even in the starlight, Pong Yan had seemed about half the size of a small rural airport in America. In the early-morning light, as Tyler approached the strip where Howe’s Berkut had landed and taken off, it looked more like a beat-up gas station with two sheds at the far side.

Tyler had found a team of Army Rangers as escorts, along with an Air Force officer he’d pressed into duty as a UAV expert. The man was actually a maintenance officer with a helicopter squadron who had only a passing knowledge of UAVs, but, as Tyler told him, just the fact that he could pick a UAV out of a lineup meant he had more experience than Tyler did. Tyler had also taken Somers along as a kind of all-around consultant; the old guy didn’t know much about UAVs, but Tyler liked him and thought he might come in handy. Their job was pretty straightforward: go to the field, inspect the hangar, find the UAVs. If they existed, Tyler was to have them shipped back to the States for study. This mission took priority over the situation report, which Moore could handle without them in any event.

The two Air Force Pave Lows carrying the team circled the area once, the pilots and crewmen getting a feel for the situation. The helicopters were big green brutes armed with machine guns and able to lift vehicles a decent distance; they’d brought gear to attach to the UAVs with the idea that they would carry them sling-style to a large airstrip about seventy-five miles south, where a C-17 could be brought in to ferry them away.

Tyler leaned over the door gunner as the helicopter took a turn. The mountains had a dusty haze over them, a dull shimmer of dirt as if the despair that had settled over North Korea under its Communist rulers was finally being shaken off. The landscape itself was beautiful; from the air the hills and mountains beyond gave no hint of the hardship the people here had withstood for decades.

The helicopters settled down and Tyler climbed out, choking back the dust. The Rangers moved out quickly, fanning across the field to take positions. Tyler walked toward the hangars, then remembered Somers, turned back, and waited for the historian. For the first time since they’d met, he realized that Somers was actually quite short, perhaps five feet six or seven. Something in the older man’s manner gave him a taller presence somehow-made him seem psychologically more commanding.

“That’s what we’re looking for?” asked Somers.

Two oddly shaped aircraft sat wingtip to wingtip in the open-faced hangar. The planes looked like something out of a sci-fi movie. Small-they were about the length of a pickup truck, and not all that much wider-they had no cockpits and short wings that angled up, almost as if they were origami gulls. Unpainted, their metal fuselages had sharp angles in the front, which melted into gradual curves about where the cockpit would normally be. Large, thick pipes sat at one side of the hangar, along with an array of what looked like large cans and tubing.

“That’s it,” said Tyler.

“These things fly?”

Their Air Force expert was bent over, trying to get a piece of dust from his eye. Somers took a step toward the hangar but Tyler stopped him.

“Might be booby-trapped,” he told him.

“Nah.”

“Let’s get the experts to check it out,” said Tyler, calling over to the Rangers’ captain.

The planes had not been booby-trapped. According to the Air Force officer-who punctuated everything he said with a disclaimer that he was by no means an expert-the aircraft were surely robots but were missing key parts, starting with their engines. In fact, he wasn’t entirely sure what sort of power plants they would have. Probably a jet, he thought, but the configuration at the rear might be able to fit a turboprop.

“Like I say, I’m no expert.”