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.”
Tyler had brought along a digital camera and started snapping pictures. Meanwhile the helicopter crew sized up the aircraft for transport. They debated whether by removing their wings the aircraft would fit within the oversize helicopters, but that idea was soon vetoed; while they had equipment with them to cut off the wings, Tyler interpreted his orders to mean the UAVs should be returned intact if possible. The helicopter could lift 20,000 pounds, or roughly the equivalent of an empty F-16; the Korean UAV looked to be well within the parameters, though ultimately the only way to find out was to try it. Tyler decided they’d take a shot with only one of the craft; not only would that make transport safer and easier but it would leave another here in case something went wrong.
The Air Force crewmen, with help from the Rangers, pulled the UAV from the hangar, rolling it on its thin, tubular gear. The specialists trussed it with thick belts, arranging the sling to get the balance right. This took considerable time, and they knocked off for a bit, breaking with some MREs and some assorted candy bars before the helicopter pilots lifted the Pave Low up and hovered into position to hook up its cargo. Standing well off to the side as the specialists did their thing, Tyler thought the sixbladed helicopter was actually straining to stay down; her tail twisted upward slightly, as if she wanted to tell the men fussing below her to get out of the way and let her do her job.
And then the tail began rotating oddly, and the helicopter pushed hard right. Tyler stared at the big green bug, which looked as if it had been caught in a bizarre wind. He heard something crack: It was as if the sky above him was a large sheet of ice and snapped in two.
The helicopter fell off sideways, flames shooting from the area below the back of the engine, and he heard the explosion of a rocket-propelled grenade landing nearby.
“Take cover!” someone yelled, and he hit the dirt.
Chapter 12
Howe was sitting in Alice ’s office when his cell phone rang. Thinking she was calling him, he answered, only to find Fisher on the line.
“Half the FBI’s looking for you,” Fisher told him. “Where the hell are you?”
“I’m sitting in a real estate office, waiting for someone to show me some houses,” said Howe. “She’s late.”
“Somebody’s trying to kill you. They blew up my car at the diner.”
“They’re trying to kill me and they blew up your car?”
“I didn’t say they were smart,” answered Fisher. “Who’s this girl you’re supposed to meet? You know her?”
“She showed me some houses yesterday. And we had dinner.”
“Give me her address,” said Fisher.
“Why? You think she’s been kidnapped?”
“I don’t think anything. Just give me her address and the one where you are.”
“You think they took her because they want me?” said Howe.
“I try not to think. It gets me in trouble,” said Fisher. “Now give me the addresses.”
Howe did.
“You stay where you are,” Fisher told him.
“I want to wait in my car,” said Howe. If someone was coming after him, he didn’t want innocent people hurt. “If they really did kidnap her, what’s going to happen?”
“They’ll let you know they have her,” Fisher said. “Look, you mind if I bring the FBI in on this? Kidnapping is kind of their area.”
“You are the FBI.”
“Yeah, but these guys are the real FBI agents. You’ll see: fifties haircuts, Sears suits, whole deal. Listen, when you get called, the caller’s going to tell you not to call the police, right? You don’t pay any attention to that part. Okay?”
“I’m not stupid.”
“That’s good to know.”
Howe sat in his car outside the real estate office, worried now and wondering what was going on. He thought of calling Fisher back for an explanation, and even brought the last-call menu up, but then didn’t hit the Send button.
Most likely this was all going to turn out to be a product of overworked imaginations, of people getting tense when the best approach was just to lie back and see what happened.
