A Time for Patriots

“I do, but if I don’t have a need to know, I’m not entitled to a briefing,” Patrick said.

“That’s Air Force and Department of Defense policy,” Boomer said. “I’m talking about company policy.”

“I don’t work for Sky Masters,” Patrick said. “Besides, what’s the difference? Sky Masters is a major defense contractor. They should follow DoD guidelines for operational security.”

“For DoD programs, yes, sir,” Boomer said. “But what if it wasn’t a DoD program?”

“I’m not following you, Boomer.”

Boomer thought for a moment, then nodded toward the cargo bay. “Let’s go up and take a look, sir.”

“Am I cleared?”

“As far as I’m concerned you are,” Boomer said. “Heck, after all, it was your idea — Jon just took all the credit for it, of course.”

Boomer ascended the boarding ladder, and Patrick followed. The Midnight’s cargo-bay doors atop the fuselage had been opened to help ventilate residual heat from reentry. Boomer climbed up onto the fuselage and motioned inside the cargo bay. “It was meant as a subscale test article for a nonreusable booster, but it’s been working so well that Jon told me to rewrite the entire proposal and submit it for spaceplane use. Remember the ‘Serviceman’ idea you developed?”

“What?” Patrick remarked, peering inside the cargo bay in surprise. What he saw resembled a large silver propane tank, with thruster nozzles on each end and two visible grappling arms on top. “That’s ‘Serviceman’?”

“That, sir, is a one-hundred-and-ten-million-dollar Navy — not Air Force, not Space Defense Force — contract to build three demonstration units of an autonomous, reusable satellite refueling, rearming, and space-debris cleanup system — the very one you proposed when you were still working for Sky Masters,” Boomer said stonily.

“I knew nothing about it,” Patrick said.

“Jon got the contract less than six months after you left the company,” Boomer said. “I think it became a Navy project because of Joseph Gardner… and because if it was Air Force, you might find out about it sooner.”

“Me?”

Boomer nodded solemnly. “Yeah… or about the two-point-seven-five-million-dollar bonus that belongs to the design team — in this case, you .” Patrick looked up at Boomer, who was looking back at him with a deathly serious expression. “Nowhere in the project proposals or design specs does it mention your name, but we both know you came up with the idea. I don’t know where the money is, but I don’t think you have any of it, do you?” Patrick said nothing — which was all the response Boomer needed. “If this goes to full deployment, I estimate it’ll be a two-billion-dollar contract over five years. That’s an additional fifty million dollars, if I’m not mistaken… and I’m not . And if the government doesn’t buy the system and we decide to set up our own service and space- debris cleanup system for other countries or companies, it could be worth hundreds of times more than that.”

“That’s not cash money, Boomer — that’s usually put right back into the company,” Patrick said.

“True, sir,” Boomer said. “Most of us take a small portion of it, pay the taxes, and then take stock or stock options on the rest and hope the capital-gains taxes remain at zero like they are now. Did Jon offer any of that to you?” Patrick said nothing. “I didn’t think so. Sir—”

“Enough,” Patrick said, holding up a hand. “Jon and I are friends. We go back a lot of years. He’s been bugging me for years to go back to Sky Masters — maybe he was going to bring it up then. Maybe he invested the money back into the company, knowing that’s what I’d do, or thought it would be better not to have it while I was going through the legal issues with the government.” Boomer lowered his head and nodded, not wanting to argue. Patrick took another look at the device in the Midnight’s cargo bay, then stepped toward the ladder. “Secure that cargo bay, Boomer,” he said as he headed down, “and let’s go find out what in hell’s happening topside.”

That same time

“Jesus, Masters, I thought you said we’d have this thing airborne this morning!” FBI special agent Chastain shouted as he strode into the hangar. “What’s the holdup this time?”

“No holdup — we’re ready to go,” Jon replied anxiously, clearly agitated that this first flight was way behind schedule. He waved to his ground crew, and one of them hit the switch to open the hangar doors. Inside the hangar was an unusual-looking vehicle on spindly landing gear. As the hangar doors opened, Jon gave another signal, and ground-crew members began to tow the vehicle out of the hangar.

As they pulled it forward, the vehicle started to transform itself: wings began to unfold from each side of the fuselage; from within each wing a turboprop engine unstowed itself; and from around each engine, propeller blades unfolded as the wings extended their full length. In less than two minutes, the ungainly vehicle had become a tilt- rotor aircraft. But unlike other tilt-rotor aircraft that had their engines on the wingtips, the turbo-diesel engines on the RQ-15 Sparrowhawk were mounted on swiveling mounts that connected the inner and outer portion of the wings, which gave the Sparrowhawk a much longer wingspan. The engines remained tilted at a forty-five-degree angle, allowing the propeller blades to clear the pavement.

“It’s about time,” Chastain said. “It’s finally looking like a real damned airplane.”

“It has twice the endurance and twice the payload of a Predator or Reaper, with the same airspeed,” Jon said. “If necessary, it can hover — that’s something the first-generation UAVs can’t do. Plus, you don’t have to disassemble them to transport them in a cargo—”

“You just can’t stop the snake-oil-salesman pitch, can you, Masters?” Chastain said. “Just get the damned thing airborne, will you?”

“Let’s go to the control room,” Jon said. He and Chastain went to the “control room”—a desk set up with three large-screen laptops, surrounded by partitions to block out ambient light. “Everything is done with the touch- screen laptops,” Jon said. “The Sparrowhawk has already been programmed with the airfield’s runways and taxiways, so it will steer itself to the proper runway for takeoff. After climb-out, you just touch the map on the laptop screen to tell it where to go — no need for a pilot or flight plan. If you see a target you want to look at closer, you just tell it to orbit or hover by touching the image on the screen.”

“So get it going already,” Chastain said irritably. “I want plenty of imagery on the Knights to see if we can link them to this new attack.” Jon nodded to his technicians, and moments later the turbo-diesel engines started up and the Sparrowhawk taxied away. As it started down the long taxiway to the active runway, Chastain shook his head. “Why in hell do you need to drive that thing all the way to the end of the runway? If you say it can hover, why not just take off right now?”

“Because it’s been programmed for all of the taxiways and…” But he looked at Chastain’s impatient face, then said to his technician, “You have enough taxiway there, Jeff?”

“I think so, Jon.”

Jon checked the engine readouts to make sure the engines were at operating temperature, then said, “Launch it from the taxiway, Jeff, and let’s get this mission under way.” The technician stopped the Sparrowhawk and entered commands into the center laptop’s keyboard. A few moments later they could see the taxiway rushing out of view, and the Sparrowhawk was airborne. It took a bit more taxiway than anticipated — they caught a glimpse of the blue taxiway lights missing the nose gear by just a few feet.

At the Civil Air Patrol Hangar

That same time

Michael Fitzgerald was testing the radios in the rear of the Civil Air Patrol’s communications trailer parked beside the hangar when he heard a booming voice say, “Well, well, look at all this fancy gear.” He turned to find none other than Judah Andorsen, dressed as he was the first time they met — leather flying jacket, work gloves, boots, and cowboy hat.

“Mr. Andorsen,” Fitzgerald said, surprised. He got out of the trailer and they shook hands. “How are you today, sir?”

“I’m doin’ just fine… uh, the name’s Fitzgerald, right?”

“Yes, sir. Michael Fitzgerald. What brings you out here?”

“I just got done with another chat with the Homeland Security folks, including a hot and sassy agent who I’d let frisk me all day long, if you get my meanin’.”

“Cassandra Renaldo. She didn’t give me the time of day.”

“Renaldo. That’s the one.”

“I told her and her FBI pals to kiss my hairy ass until I got a lawyer,” Fitzgerald said.