“He was doing his job,” Chastain said flatly. He stepped toward Patrick, looking at him carefully. “I’m sure you know already,” he said, “but the U.S. attorney has decided not to charge you.”
“Yes, I heard.”
“But I still don’t get you, General,” Chastain said. “I spoke with the Pentagon. They say you are retired, period. You still have a security clearance, but it’s ‘confidential’ only, like most retired flag-rank officers. You are permitted virtual unfettered access to the base, not because you have any official duties but because of your rank and because you were once the commander here. Along with your retiree benefits you receive temporary base housing in lieu of cost-of-living adjustments and not because you’re part of the staff. Yet you keep on telling me and everyone that you work for the Space Defense Force as some sort of liaison or facility manager.”
Patrick shrugged. “I guess I feel deep down that I do have a role here,” he said. “Frankly, being retired is the pits. I don’t recommend it. It’s a way I can keep involved with the Air Force and space operations, and at the same time I have time to spend with my son.”
“Like the Civil Air Patrol thing,” Chastain said.
“Exactly,” Patrick said. “I get to fly, contribute my skills, and wear a green bag, just like the old days. I’m with a great bunch of locals and we like to tell stories and teach the cadets about the military and service to the community and the country.” Chastain just nodded — Patrick thought he was just plain uninterested. “Again, I’m sorry about your men.” They shook hands, and Patrick drove off.
Inside the hangar, Chastain found Brady and Renaldo around the Sparrowhawk control table, going over the video they recorded from the reconnaissance flights, along with photos of the compound obtained by agents using telescopic high-resolution digital cameras. “What do you have?” he asked.
“The Knights are really getting cocky, the sons of bitches,” Brady said. “They’re out in the open, still celebrating, still going in front of the media telling the world how evil the FBI and U.S. military are, setting up defenses, and doing target practice with automatic weapons. They must have a shitload of weapons and ammo out there, because dozens of them have been doing target practice for hours, with a whole range of weapons. We’re identifying about a half-dozen new residents an hour.” He looked at Chastain’s distracted expression. “What’s up?”
“I just spoke with McLanahan.”
“You did?” Cassandra Renaldo asked. “You mean he actually
“Condolences for Savoy and Eberle,” Chastain said, “but he was unusually chatty after that. I told him that I checked him out and found out he’s really not the manager of anything around here, and he didn’t seem to care. He seemed to be… feeling pretty relaxed, considering the shit that happened here last night.”
“That’s weird,” Brady said. He nodded toward the images on the laptop screens. “Kinda like these jerk-offs here, celebrating the fact that they killed five fellow Americans, shot down three aircraft, and are flaunting their illegal automatic weapons in front of federal and state authorities.”
Chastain looked at the pictures, and his eyes flared. “Are you putting together files on these people?”
“Of course.”
“How many of them belong to the Civil Air Patrol?” Chastain asked.
“I haven’t drilled down to nonpolitical affiliations yet,” Brady said. “The support staff is doing basic background, aliases, employment, criminal history, and military experience on about a hundred and forty individuals and counting.”
“Start looking into Civil Air Patrol membership,” Chastain said. “I had a bad feeling about McLanahan the moment he refused to talk, but I couldn’t figure out why a guy like him would be involved with domestic terrorists. The Civil Air Patrol could be the common thread. A lot of ex-military, a lot of patriotic wave-the-flag rhetoric, a lot of old guys wearing military-style uniforms…”
“I’m on it,” Brady said excitedly.
“I’m still not so sure,” Renaldo chimed in. “I don’t get that feeling about him. Now, a couple of the guys I’ve interviewed in this CAP unit like Fitzgerald, Slotnick, and de Carteret, yes, they could be extremists; McLanahan, no.”
“I want to keep searching,” Chastain said. “My radar is buzzing, and it’s still aimed right at McLanahan and now this Civil Air Patrol unit. What about the son?”
“He’s ready to pop — literally, if I do say so myself — any day now,” Renaldo said with a smile. Brady gave her a leer and a wink. “He’ll call me soon, don’t worry.”
Seven
The strongest of all warriors are these two
“Remember, you’re not looking for anything in particular, Brad,” John de Carteret said. He was in the right front seat of the Civil Air Patrol Cessna 182 as mission observer, with Brad McLanahan in the left rear seat as mission-scanner trainee and his father, Patrick, as mission pilot. “Camps are probably the hardest to find, especially from one thousand feet above ground.”
“It all looks the same,” Brad said. He was using scan techniques, shifting his vision and locking briefly on a spot before shifting and relocking again, and scanning from top to bottom out to the sight line, but it didn’t seem to help. To make matters worse, his stomach wasn’t feeling quite right. “I mean, it’s like I see everything and nothing at the same time.”
“The best thing to look for when looking for camps is how the campers get to the site, not necessarily the site itself,” John said. “Tire tracks, new trails, disturbed ground, open gates, broken fences — those are easier to see from the air.” Brad shifted his attention to those things, but there didn’t seem to be anything like them anywhere.
“Need to take a break, Brad?” Patrick asked. “I can reverse the turn and contour-search the mountain from the other direction to let John do some scanning.” They had been assigned to search North Peak, west-northwest of Battle Mountain, for signs of a missile launch site — the FBI investigators definitely discovered that the first Sparrowhawk had been hit by a Stinger-like missile. Because this was an Air Force — assigned mission, Brad was getting his first of two required actual missions before being able to move up to mission observer. A ground team, led by Michael Fitzgerald with Ron Spivey as the cadet leader, was in the area below searching as well.
“No, I’m good, Dad,” although his stomach sure wasn’t liking these orbits around the mountain. A contour search started a thousand feet above the highest point of a peak, then two left-turn orbits. Then they would descend five hundred feet and do two more orbits, staying about a half mile away from the mountain’s face. After that, they would descend another five hundred feet and do it again.
Working around mountains and ridges always meant turbulence and squirrelly winds, especially in summer, and each bump didn’t help Brad’s stomach. Now he wished he’d eaten something before this mission, and wished he brought a barf bag — the only container he could see within reach was his brand-new flight-gear bag and the case for the digital camera, and he didn’t want to throw up in either one.
“I’m really glad Colonel Spara let us fly together, Brad,” Patrick said.
“Me too,” Brad said uneasily. He took a sip of water, but it didn’t help his stomach much.
“I think it’s because there’s a whole lot less guys hanging around the squadron these days, after the attack on the FBI guys,” John said. “It’s getting harder every day to put a crew together. Leo is busier than ever with the Highway Patrol. I think there’s just one other pilot I’ve seen around, other than Rob and you.”
Just as they were circling the northeast side of North Peak, Brad saw it — two black circles, one small, like a campfire area, and the other much larger. “Dad, I think I see something, nine o’clock.”
“Pick out things around it that will help steer your eyes back to it,” Patrick said. “What do you see?”
“A couple black spots on the ground, right beside a trail,” Brad said. He had to look farther down and back to keep it in sight, and that was even more disorientating.
