Jack Coughlin - Kill Zone

“Just here in the office?”

“No. I don’t think she’s coming back,” said Buchanan, making a guess, then a decision. “Do the full package. FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, and the National Intelligence Center. Pull her Secret Service background check. Yank the computer hard drive from her office and have the NSA crack it. Wiretaps, computer scans, the full audio-video surveillance package, pictures, financial information, the whole nine yards, including interviews with people who know her. I want to know everything she does, everybody she knows, where she buys her damned groceries, who she is screwing, and the name of her third-grade teacher’s pet canary. Everything!”

“Warrants?”

The National Security Advisor leaned back and dodged the question. It had been proven too many times that White House walls have ears. “Sam, as I recall, isn’t Lieutenant Commander Towne of Middle Eastern extraction?”

“Her mother is Jordanian, father was an American diplomat. He died in a plane crash when she was a child.”

“An Arab, then. So considering the seriousness of her withholding vital security information during an international crisis, I must direct that Lieutenant Commander Towne be considered a terrorist mole who somehow infiltrated the White House. She may be aiding our enemies.”

Shafer broke into a big grin. Buchanan amazed him. Nothing was beyond the man. “Yes, sir. A possible al Qaeda connection would be a very serious matter. I’ll get the file.”

‘And Sam?”

“Sir?”

“Have Towne in custody before dawn.”

COLONEL RALPH SIMS DEPLANEDfrom the luxurious C-20 executive jet at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland with some reluctance. He was freshly shaved, in a pressed uniform with shined shoes, and although somewhat tired from the long journey, he felt like a million bucks. Staff Sergeant Foster, Marcia L., who had turned the routine puddle-jump flight into a cruise among the stars for him, stood at attention at the foot of the small stairs, saluting smartly as Sims stepped to the ground.

“Call me,” she said with a wink, passing a card with her telephone number to him. She hurried back into the plane, pulled up the stairs, and closed the door, and the sleek C-20 followed a Jeep with a rack of lights down a long, empty approach runway.

Sims had expected to be deposited in front of a terminal, with another C-20 waiting for him, but instead there was nothing around but darkness. A tall cyclone fence was set back at the edge of the field, and no blue lights marking the runway reached into this far corner. Low bushes and scrubland fell away from the tarmac and into the field bordering the fence, and he could barely make out the big control tower outlined by lights several miles away. A breeze carried the salty scent of the Chesapeake Bay, and he could hear the hum of distant traffic. It seemed that he had been dropped off in the middle of nowhere.

“Where the hell is everybody?” he said into the emptiness.

“Right here, sir.” One of the bushes stood up, a Marine in a full ghillie suit with a long rifle in his hands. “Staff Sergeant Gonzales, USMC scout sniper, sir. May I see your identification, please?”

Sims was aware that several other bushes were also moving around behind him as he handed over his laminated military identification card. The staff sergeant checked it in the briefly seen red beam of a flashlight. “Right. Thank you, sir.” He turned and called into the darkness, “Mr. Dillon, you may come forward.”

Footsteps in the darkness on the far side of the runway came closer and Sims made out the shape of a small man who extended his hand. “Billy Dillon, colonel, United States Air Force, retired. Glad to meet you.” Sims’s eyes had adjusted to the night surroundings, and he saw that Dillon was dressed in a ribbed and pressurized black flight suit.

“What’s going on, Staff Sergeant? Why is your team out here, and what is Mr. Dillon, a civilian, doing in a restricted area?”

Dillon handed Sims a flight suit like the one he wore. “We will explain while you get dressed. You can’t fly with me without it. The boys will tuck your uniform into the Val Pak and we’ll carry it in a storage space. Hurry, please, Colonel. Time is of the essence.”

Staff Sergeant Gonzales made some hand motions and his men went prone again, facing outward. “We’re a Force Recon team, Colonel, out of Camp Lejeune. We’re just doing a routine drill here tonight,” Gonzales said with a grin of white teeth against his grease-darkened face. “I will say that a couple of unexpected telephone calls had something to do with this assignment. In fact, my Top threatened to feed my ass to the buzzards if I didn’t move fast enough to get here before you did.”

Sims stripped to his underwear and was struggling into the tight flight suit, which looked like the skin of some prehistoric alligator. “I got a call, too,” said Dillon. “Bit of personal history first. I was flying an Air Force F-16 several years ago somewhere that we weren’t supposed to be and the bad guys got lucky with a missile. My radar intercept officer was killed, but I got out with just some broken bones. A Marine Special Ops team came and fetched me home, along with the body of my RIO.” He helped Sims zip up. “After rehab, I couldn’t fly military anymore, so I got another gig. I owe the Force Recon boys big-time, and I always pay my debts.”

Gonzales was no longer smiling, and his eyes burned with anger. “All we really know, sir, is that you have something to do with settling the score for what happened over there in Syria. We’re here to help. Those were our brothers.”

“Let’s go,” said Dillon, handing Sims a black flight helmet.

“Go where? There’s a plane here?”

“Right there. A hundred yards straight in front of us.” He started walking and Sims followed.

As they closed in on the spot, Sims saw a ground crew dressed in black working on a shape beneath a big camouflage net. At a signal from Dillon, they pulled it away.

“And just what the fuck is this, Mr. Dillon?” The plane was almost invisible, with flat black paint, no sharp surfaces, and standing high on a tripod of wheels. He touched the surface, which was as smooth as a mirror.

“Call me Billy, please, Colonel.” He led Sims around the strange aircraft and pointed to the small white acronym lettering the tail fin. “Meet the X43-D scramjet, the latest in the Hyper-X series. We’re trying to make a reusable space vehicle. You’re flying courtesy of NASA tonight, Colonel. I have to get this bird out to Edwards Air Force Base in California before dawn, so we arranged a little side trip to Alaska for you. It will get both of us where we need to be in plenty of time. Up you go into the rear seat.” He patted a footstep in the hull.

“You’re going to make it from Washington to Alaska and back to southern California in a couple of hours?”

“Yep. The old SR-71 Blackbird used to be the fastest thing in the sky and it only did Mach three, three times the speed of sound. Tonight, you and I are going to climb about sixty miles up, just under the edge of space, and you’ll be able to see stars like you cannot believe. There will be some weightlessness. Then I level off, kick her into high gear, and peg the speedometer at about Mach eight. When we start the descent, we’ll be going like a bat out of hell. A ceramic covering more advanced than that on the space shuttle will protect us against the heat of reentry.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. It will be the ride of your life. Now let’s buckle you in.”

“Colonel?”

Sims looked over his shoulder. Gonzales was still standing there. “You have something to say, Staff Sergeant?”